somuchrain

Well I've spent the last 24 hours finishing books and starting new ones. I read Padraic o Connaire's "Exile" and John Banville's "The Untouchable". Both were brilliant. Banville, despite everything I'd read about his 'high-modernist' Gothic style was beautiful writing and the story was touching, hilarious, and deeply thoughtful. He touches on aspects of identity through metaphors of migration and espionage that are kind of breathtaking. O Connaire is also wonderful, but I think I'd read too much about him before hand to really appreciate it. It's sort of the plague of early modernist Irish writers - they're all under the billowing cape of Joyce and I couldn't quite tear "Exile" therefrom. I did, however, remember a pub from some time before I should remember called "My Little Black Ass" which I found quite funny at the time. Now I realize why it was named such... I also finished some non-fiction and the first draft (third draft) of my first chapter. I've realized that I've got a particularly byzantine 'draft' system. I do drafts, and then corrections within each draft. So I end up with printouts labeled "first draft, fourth corrections" and whatnot. Anyway, I feel accomplished today because I did a bunch of little things. I need to constantly set up little events for myself so I wont ever feel utterly useless and unproductive.

I'm no closer to moving to the city. The father, desperate to get me out of the house, actually offered to put Nadja and I up in a hotel in the city until we could find a place to live more permanently. While that sounds like a good idea, and far more enjoyable than living here, it begs the question: what on earth is it about my staying in the basement and not making a sound until all are sleeping that they find so objectionable?