I’m usually reading a novel and a non-fiction book at the same time (as well as, of course, comic books), but right now I’m between novels.

I finished “Nora Webster” by Colm Toibin (which I completely recommend; it’s one of the most deeply felt and deeply moving novels I’ve read, on a par with “Anna Karenina” by that Tolstoy guy), and then, unfortunately, read “Freedom” by Jonathan Franzen, which seemed both shallow and false (and occasionally badly written).

After reading two novels newly bought while ignoring the stacks towering alongside my bed and overfilling the bookcase next to it, I had the idea that perhaps I should pick a book out of there and read it. Because, y’know, they are stacked and placed there to be read.

Except a closer examination revealed that I had already read almost all of them. Except, that is, for “The Nightclerk.”

“The Nightclerk” is a “cult classic” from 1965 that seems to promise, judging by the cover image and the jacket copy, to be a forerunner of “A Confederacy of Dunces.” To wit:

“J. Spenser Blight — ‘the fattest man in American literature’ — whiles away the long night hours with a number of passionate pursuits: reading twenty-five-cent paperback erotic epics; cutting up old magazines; and, above all, reminiscing about his impossibly beautiful and equally corrupt wife Katy. Blight dreams of his long-lost travels with Katy around the world to exotic erotic climes, recalls how he rescued her from the clutches of a Hollywood bogus mogul, and dwells fondly and at length on Katy’s subsequent career as a caterer to the sex-fantasies — the comic-trip erotic desires — of customers Blight brings home to her. …”

Read closely, and you’ll find the problem I had fully identified by page 21: no forward motion. Even in the synopsis, Blight is “whiling away time” while dreaming and reminiscing. If I’m going to read a book that involves dreaming and reminiscing, its author should be named Proust. That, plus the tiresome writing style — acid-induced late-60’s quasi-hipness — sent me back in search of a novel.

So now I believe I’m going to try again, for the third time in recent years, to read the expanded version of “Creation” by Gore Vidal. I read the original, Herculean-length version, when I was 19; the Atlas-sized version has thus far daunted me. That, plus with 30-odd additional years of reading wisdom behind me, I now see that Vidal doesn’t know how to set a scene well or give dimension to his characters.

So, perhaps I won’t be reading that. Which means, I’m open to input. Because I believe I’ve read every other novel in the house. At least every one that doesn’t have dragons in it. (Those belong to other tenants.)

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2015 at 11:01 pm and is filed under On reading, Thoughts, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.