Wrapping Up

Stefan Themerson, The Mystery of the Sardine: A 'pataphysical excursus (upon its epigraph: Axioms are mortal, politics is mortal, poetry is mortal,—good manners are immortal.) along similar lines though differently directed than Tom Harris -- little to add to what I said about that, except that it rounds out recent reading nicely, being comparable to Gombrowicz as well. Though it is unsettling that, like Butor, it opens with the color of eyes (just as moles reappeared from Montano's Malady in Akutagawa's "Cogwheels"). I've exhausted Dalkey's reissuance of Themerson, but so much more remains out-of-print ...

But on to other stuff. I've been doing this thang as a reading diary (occasionally interspersed with other comment) for a couple of years now, primarily for my own benefit, as a discipline to think about what I've read, and to tease out bits that don't fall under the rubric of review, criticism, or scholarship, none of which capture what I'm after. It's time for me to take a different tack, though I'm not yet sure in what direction; besides, the reading awaiting on the shelf includes much longer works, so posting would be more infrequent anyway. Even while the obligatory enforcement of habit has sometimes led me to surprise myself, I'd rather pack it in than phone it in. I hope that this has been useful in bringing to attention writing more deserving of it. As to what follows, you'll know when I do.