Tagged With: Reading
From back when I had time to read anything but school books
Dear David Foster Wallace: I’m trucking through Infinite Jest for the second time, even though it’s hard to read on the subway. My nearly-symmetrically-named friend Sean Keane has a theory that the jest the title refers to is that the book goes on and on with an all you can eat buffet of footnotes but … Continue reading
The true heroes are the ones who write the books about the true heroes
I just finished reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver which as you know takes place in Africa. Afterwards I was feeling really inspired by the way she writes about stuff that matters. I decided I, too, will become an inspirational and politically aware novelist. I spent some time considering the phrase “political unrest” and … Continue reading
Late, as usual.
January 3rd was Tolkein’s eleventy-first birthday. Why don’t I ever find this stuff out in time?
Suck eggs, Wallace, you conniving fucker.
You’ve probably seen this, most of you. Go see it again. If you plan on reading The Book, and I suggest you do read it, it’s probably best not to read the rest of this entry because I’m about to bitch about the ending. Okay? Okay. Okay, I finished it. (Finnished it.) And lo it … Continue reading
The End of an Era
It’s almost over. I pretty much knew when I started this that it wouldn’t last, because none of these relationships ever last. I jump into it, delighted, like (pardon me) a pig in shit, and wallow around for awhile until abruptly it just…ends. So it’s ending. The worst part about this is now I have … Continue reading
The Book
So I spent last night communing with The Book. The Book is cumbersome to haul about, but I do it. I read it standing up on the subway, even, flipping back and forth between the bookmark in the story and the bookmark at the back where the footnotes are. So far I am at the … Continue reading
The thought of Emma is all that keeps me going.
Last night’s suckity suck English class was spent profitably making rude jokes about our book with the Irishman who was in my group. He is a riot. Why? The accent. He got obsessed with the description of chickens with hormonally enhanced breast meat (trust me, it’s funnier in Irish) and that carried us through the … Continue reading
Languages incomprehensible to the Kahn
I’m reading Invisible Cities again. I know there’s more to it than all the pretty words, but the language is so dazzling that I get lost trying to find the unifying elements. “There is a sense of emptiness that comes over us in the evening, with the odor of the elephants after the rain…” That’s … Continue reading
1,2,3,4, We don’t want your – hey, the Gap’s having a sale!
Yesterday in my Government class, the prof handed back our papers and gave us some virtual head-patting for a while, which was satisfying. Then she wrote the following in HUGE LETTERS ON THE BOARD: ITS IT’S She made us identify which was the possessive and which the contraction. “Learn it, know it,” she said. “It’ll … Continue reading
Three Days to Lad
There were little white flecks in my coffee. The grad student in the office peered into my cup in a myopic kind of way and said “That’s disgusting. I can’t believe you would actually put that in your mouth and swallow it.” “Oh,” I said calmly, “I’ll swallow anything.” Pause. Big smile. The song I’m … Continue reading