Impossible structures

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 Read Books”: The Final Meal

When J asked me the other day what I would consider to be the perfect final meal, I found it both a simple and a challenging question—simple in that I don’t require fireworks on the plate to be impressed, as one’s final meal should just be one’s favorite food cooked to perfection, but difficult in [...]

Graphic

Called a freelancer today to see if she could proofread a graphic novel for me. I usually use e-mail to correspond with freelancers, but for some reason this morning (probably due to cool sunshine after big rain last night) was feeling a little gregarious, so used phone. And as I was describing job, silence from her. So [...]

Late

I’ve got 100 pages to go on a proofreading job that was due last Friday—bad, w., very bad.
One of my freelancers once turned in a job two weeks late without explanation. I try not to hire him now unless I’m desperate.
So at work bright and early this morning, and my supervisor passed by my door with another jaunty greeting, [...]

Reading with disappointment

Had lent a favorite book to a friend in grad school and never asked for it back. She had not read this Chinese writer yet, who at the time had become popular in America with a grand and romantic novel about thwarted love. It is a good novel, but I always point people to his [...]

Dreamer

I haven’t had time to think of Don Quixote this week, let alone pick up the sadly neglected hardcover edition from my shelf to start reading, but my brain must be preparing me for the endeavor, eager to start, because I had a dream this morning about sighting what looked like windmills on the horizon of a [...]

Poet: Words, add together, make sense, not necessarily

My current proofreading job is 400+ pages of a poet’s collected long works, six of them, and I am befuddled to the max. I know tomorrow kicks off a month of celebrating poetry, but come on: Why are there nouns and verbs that normally have nothing to do with each other appearing in the same [...]

“There is too much noise in your poems,” said Franz Kafka

I have to turn in something for my writing group tomorrow, and I’ve been poring over Gustav Janouch’s Conversations with Kafka for inspiration; three possible stories have arisen. Whether Janouch’s memoir is true or not doesn’t matter to me at this point; in fact, the debate is part of the fun. I am certainly not reading it [...]

A reading room

Read Flaubert aloud with satisfaction.
—Franz Kafka, March 16, 1912, from Diaries: 1910–1923
Been wondering lately what a whole separate reading room in abode might look like. It would have bookshelves, of course, and sofa, as well as large window and rocking chair (or two or three). Plus turntable and crate of Bessie Smiths. Blank notebooks for jotting down inanities. And no laptop or phone, [...]

Feather

Found this feather in a book I pulled randomly off my shelf yesterday, and can’t remember having put it there or where it had come from. Memory lately (well, is for the past two years lately?) has been poor. It’s always been a little off with the way things read or heard are processed, but for a long time [...]

Minor encounters in reading

Today I peeked at the Literary Saloon, a luxury considering all the work I need to shuffle off my desk (though punk rock dude has been duly sent off and away like a bad little boy), and caught this piece about nobody liking to read a book anymore. What is read instead is Cosmo. I can’t remember [...]

My Shelf keeps growing

Well, actually my shelf hasn’t been growing for the last fifteen years, but at least I can add a little bit to my Shelf here. So, on to first sentences by François Cheng, Vladimir Makanin, Javier Marías, and Flann O’Brien, as well as more from Pierre Michon.
Have a warm, eventful weekend.

New sentences; writers’ desks; and how to read a book

First sentences from Witold Gombrowicz and Margeurite Yourcenar have been added to my Shelf, as well as a couple of pieces from Franz Kafka’s and Robert Walser’s collections of short prose writings.
My desk at home has been moved to another corner of the room and tidied up. The pile of books to the left are [...]

From 3:30 to 4:00 p.m.

It’s that time of day again when my body goes on standby, my brain hums towards hibernate mode, and my eyes want to roll all the way to the back of my head where a few dreams from this morning still linger. Sometimes I shut the door to my office to take a fifteen-minute nap, [...]

Catching up with Kafka

January 19, 1914: Anxiety alternating with self-assurance at the office. Otherwise more confident. Great antipathy to “Metamorphosis.” Unreadable ending. Imperfect almost to its very marrow. It would have turned out much better if I had not been interrupted at the time by the business trip.
—Franz Kafka, from Diaries: 1910–1923
“Interruption”
If only I could be left alone [...]