GOD, that last post was mopey. I am just exactly the kind of person you do not want at your social revolution ("No, no, I'm too depressed to help cast bullets, I'm just going to sit here in the corner and think about how awful everything is." "Ohhh-kay then....") (then again, there's that whacky evo-bio idea* that depression is actually some kind of survival skill, because if you're busy being flattened by feelings of horror and worthlessness in the back of the cave, you have much less chance of being speared by a mammoth tusk).
I was so bummed I just sat there and reread Going Postal, even though I'm worried about wearing it out for myself, like I did with Good Omens and Possession and the early Grafton books. On to Forster.
What did you just finish reading?
The new biography of Elliott Smith, Torment Saint, by William Todd Schultz (yes, this is the reason for all those Elliott Smith videos I posted recently). This was quite good -- very carefully researched, well-written, and its focus on Smith's songwriting genius pleased me; he was a great craftsman, not just a suffering soul (this was reminiscent of how Diane Wood Middlebrook wrote about Anne Sexton, in one of my favourite biographies ever). It's a bit like the Cobain Heavier than Heaven biography: obviously authorized, and heavily featuring the widow figure, but not any less good for all that. Pretty shattering in places, especially once addiction got its claws hooked into Elliott but good and his life was basically over, at least two years before his body died. What people don't understand about addiction is, it doesn't just kill you. It eats you alive, swallowing you whole, and then kills you. Very worthwhile.
I also finished a couple of Peter Lovesey books a dear friend gave me -- The Last Detective, The Summons, Bloodhounds, The Vault, and The House Sitter -- not realizing I read some out of sequence. Oh, dear. (Reading series books out of order is a real character flaw of mine -- I still haven't read the first couple of Discworld novels, and I started that series with Night Watch.) Those were pretty great -- I loved all the literary in-jokes, especially the cameo appearances of Jane Austen: not dippily reincarnated as a detective, or whatever, but present in the traces of her life in Bath. Mary Shelley appears, in the same way, too. Bloodhounds was probably my favourite, both for the locked-room setup and the mystery club members. I'm trying not to gulp them all down too fast, but it's hard not to!
What are you reading now?
A book that's been in my queue for ages -- Room with a View. I actually did read this, years and years ago (1986 probably) and I think I've reread it at least once since then, but bounced off it pretty heavily. It just seemed sort of shallow, and rejoicingly so. (The TV version sounds interesting, even if they did muff the ending....) First line, from Chapter I, "The Bertolini": "The Signora had no business to do it," said Miss Bartlett, "no business
at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead of
which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way
apart. Oh, Lucy!" I got a Penguin edition this time -- sometimes reading critical introductions can help me see new aspects of a book I haven't liked much.
What do you expect to read next?
I really want to reread some Alice Munro (Nobel Prize FUCK YEAH), but I also want to wait to do that until my brain's less fogged by menstrual miasma (now there's a phrase) and all the GoodReads drama.
*As opposed to all the other evo-bio ideas.
descensus Averno facilis est