The Sheila Variations

I just started reading something by Amy Hempel. She's kicking my ass. I've been reading it just a little bit at a time because I don't ever want it to end. I read The Body Artist, also by Don Delillo, awhile back. It's beautiful.

I don't want this book to end either. I'm already mourning it ... and I'm only on page 70.

Amy Hempel. Help me. Gimme a title ... I don't recognize her name??

The book I'm reading right now is called, "Reasons to Live." It's tiny. Too tiny.

amy hempel is a definite ass-kicker. i feel that way the most about roger angell. oh my god. he makes me loathe myself because i will never, ever, EVER write even one sentence as good as any one of his. i have to read him in tiny little bites because i get overstimulated after more than a few pages. so often reading him i have to kind of look up and stare off into space and just contemplate just how much better of a writer he is than i could ever dream of being.

Well see, Red, do what I do. Just don't finish them. They're good for years, that way. 8>

Speak of the Very Devil...

I'm halfway through Delillo's first novel, "Americana."

Yeah, as was the case with "White Noise", I'm a bit overwhelmed by his writing in general. It's almost oppressively GOOD and MODERN and DENSE, like a selection on an American Lit. II college reading list, chosen to represent "American Modern Fiction."

You want to hold it up and declare to no one in particular, "This is a MODERN novel."

...or maybe that's just me.

I used to get through Harlan Ellison with no more trouble than going to the dictionary every 15 seconds.

And i want to read me some Delillo. Underworld is on my list for some serious vacation time away from it all, but I'll probably start with something more book-sized (and less of a doorstop) like Great Jones Street.

I have been a nonfiction reader for so long I think it's ruined me...
now reading People's History of the United States, some books on Zen and others on movies and music.

And movies keep turning me on to great books as source material. I'd also like to get to "The Ghost at Noon," the basis for Godard's Le Mepris.

An Underworld exerpt on Amazon. Whew...every sentence is packed with being and thought. My recollection of a car trip across the desert: "I got in the car and droned East". DeLillo's is dense packed with thinking, being and observation. I think the library in Santa Monica opens in 7 hours. For Underworld, and Darkness at Noon...but maybe that's too much.