I finished Roberto Calasso's Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony last night at about this time. I started reading it in late December or early January; for most of this year, then, I thought that I'd already finished it. I remember liking it a great deal, enough for it to nudge its way onto my "favorite books list", during the heaviest reading of my adult life, so I had this vague wistful feeling, when I thought about it, that I should read it again, soon, but (thrift, Horatio!) perhaps I should wait, read a few other books, before I give it the rare privilege of a second read-through.
Imagine my suprise, then, when I found a bookmarker about eight-ninths of the way back, patiently waiting for me to get back to it and read those all-important last chapters. I nearly cried. I was feeling maudlin, of course, so I can be excused for that lapse in sangfroid, but I also suffered a huge, sparkling blue wave of optimism, as rich as a dream in which you find a magic door you never knew existed, right there where the gods left it on the far wall of your bedroom.
So last night (well, actually, during the worst hours of yesterday morning) I finished it. Perhaps I feel fractionally let down by having finally read the ending -- perhaps some of the spice of the book had come from the possibilities still emanating from it; it was still living, in a way. You should read it, gn�dige Leser, and sleep with it under your pillow. His new one, which came out this summer, also looks good, but I haven't got around to buying it or getting it from the library (I'm still in reading backlog from a particularly deadly second-hand shopping trip near the end of my PK experience). Soon. All in good time, I tell myself, when the lentils are boiling and I'm spoilt for choice of what to do with my afternoon. There are letters to write on crisp ivory paper, damn it, and Froberger canzone to learn, and crosswords to do...
Current musick: James: One of the three (wretched internet radio!)
Current b�te noire: My self-sabotage
Most Recent Movie: Watched Stealing Beauty tonight, the whole thing, because SLB loves it. It proved a better film this time because of that. She kept whispering things into my ear -- the wind in from C*l*f*rn** is brisk tonight. But I still fell half-asleep.
Current favorite person: It's a draw between HRW and KG.
Could someone clarify why there's no structured narrative?
No neat story-line to explain?
Wish on everything.
Pray that she remains
Proud and strange and so hopelessly hopeful.
(Wishes and prayers are the way that we leave
The lonely alone and push the wounded away.)
gloomy sod, ain't I, if you catch me at the wrong moment?