I bought two novels by Ismail Kadare from Barnes & Noble over the weekend, they were impulse purchases, as most of my purchases tend to be, bought along with the current Saint Anne’s Review that’s got a story by the lady who moderates my workshop—but I am now thinking of returning them, not because I don’t enjoy them but because I can’t afford to keep them.
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M’s text, 12/14/05: You should read the ismail kadare story in the current Granta.
my reply text: Thanks, will get it now.
M’s text, 12/17/05: Good. His china reminds me of your china. Enjoy. I’m off to Taiwan tomorrow. Ciao!
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Why The Pyramid and The Three-Arched Bridge, and not The File on H. or The Successor? The former two are about creating impossible structures, and well, wouldn’t you know it, my work is both about and composed of impossible structures. Will I ever finish them?
(I must, of course, pick up The Concert. But when and how?)
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The first paragraph from The Three-Arched Bridge:
I, the monk Gjon, the sonne of Gjorg Ukcama, knowynge that ther is no thynge wryttene in owre tonge about the Brigge of the Ujana e Keqe, have decided to write its story, especially when legends, false tales, and rumors of every kind continue to be woven around it, now that its construction is finished and it has even twice been sprinkled with blood, at pier and parapet.
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And the first paragraph from The Pyramid:
When, one morning in late autumn, only a few months after he had ascended the throne of Egypt, Cheops, the new Pharaoh, let slip that he might perhaps not wish to have a pyramid erected for him, all who heard him—the palace astrologer, some of the most senior ministers, Cheops’s old counselor Userkaf, and the High Priest Hemiunu, who also held the post of architect-in-chief—furrowed their brows as if they had just heard news of a catastrophe.
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Gorgeous, both. Imagination is fired up. I might keep one novel. A friend is going to Egypt next year, and I want to read The Pyramid and think of her when she does, especially as I keep threatening to stow away in her little pocket, and especially, too, as I am in third-person mode these days. But I am also feeling the novel about the bridge. What to do? Should I call in sick and take my bike and the books to the promenade and read them in one sunny, humid day?
2 Comments
July 9, 2008 at 2:39 pm
Oh it’s such a bummer being broke. I’d get on my bike and go to the library and try to check them out, except these sound like the kind of thing that might not BE at the library, or would take two years to come up from the request list, and that would be even more of a bummer. All I can say is that at some point in this day there should be iced coffee of some kind, which has a way of taking the edge off being broke just a small amount, for reasons that are not clear to me.
July 9, 2008 at 3:00 pm
You know what, this weekend I’m going to head to all the New York Public Libraries within reach and see if I can’t find myself a comfortable spot to write and read and check out books. The idea of not owning books is sad to me, but it’s time—past time—to change some bad habits. Thanks for the inspiration, Lily (and for the iced coffee image, aaah).