Monday, April 10, 2006

It hasn't been light enough

round here recently, either as far as the reading itself goes or with regard to the posting (I'm referring to quality rather than quantity), I don't know what's wrong with me! Actually, it's probably a symptom of understimulation, I haven't been having enough intellectual conversations with people so it keeps busting out into the blog, which I feel is something of a breach of decorum. Lightness is now the object, I could use a good outbreak of frivolity, I am going to make every effort....

At any rate I had an extremely productive weekend, the review I had to write is sitting here just 'resting' overnight so that I can edit and cut three hundred words first thing in the morning and send it out, and in the necessary intervals of procrastination I did my evil, evil taxes (you know, I have been fantasizing about a lump sum forever, and then I got one, and it was lovely and I luxuriated in untold wealth although I was aware it was a bit of a buy-now-pay-later situation, and now all of the untold wealth that I haven't actually spent already is going straight back into the evil coffers of the wretched government, I think I will never have written such a large check in my life! and now only the untold horrors of quarterly payments against next year's taxes! ah well, easy come, easy go, what can you do....).

So I rewarded myself around 8pm this evening with an insane fit of reading and then around midnight it dawned on me, this was all good and would lead to an interesting post probably tomorrow evening about imaginary books and libraries and was very satisfying but rather than insanely reading demanding books till three in the morning what I needed now was a really enjoyable novel that was not particularly strenuous.

And miraculously it happened that I had the perfect thing, most of the books I've got from the library right now seem to be more serious but when I went the other day (and I was proud of myself for self-restraint, I left the stacks with only two very modest volumes which is practically unheard of, the guy who checked the books out to me looked very skeptical as he sees me often and asked if I was taking a vacation) I had obtained not only The Logogryph: A Bibliography of Imaginary Books (the object of my trip, a book I only first heard of when I saw someone link to the Impac Dublin Award shortlist recently but decided I must procure immediately since I have been obsessed recently with imaginary books and libraries, it sounded underdoggish but now that I've read it I could easily see it winning, it's a bit whimsical here and there but really a very beautiful and occasionally brilliant little book, about which more tomorrow) but also a book on a shelf nearby that caught my eye, Sean Stewart's Perfect Circle. (From which I deduce that Sean Stewart must be Canadian despite the Texas settings. Not a non sequitur. Just arcane.)

And I've just read it and it really is a great novel, he's got such a gift for voices and I love books with ghosts and baptisms that are also so funny and sad and realistic. Very good stuff.

(And here was me recently loving Stewart's novel Mockingbird.)

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