I have chosen what will probably be the last really nice weekend of the year to completely sequester myself with books. I am laying siege to the shelves, attacking that which has lingered too long. Forget spring cleaning, this is an end-of-year purge. Since Friday evening I have cleared three books off the list (All Things Bright and Beautiful—delicious; The Best Creative Nonfiction, vol. 3—uneven but mostly good; and Whose Body?—Lord Peter Wimsey, need I say more?) And today I am back, en pleine forme, to tackle Miss Evelina Anville. Today will be the day, ladies and gentleman, I swear to it.
I am breaking up my siege into 10-book rounds, with permission to resupply only at those intervals. With two exceptions, of course. The December issue of Playboy will be mine as soon as I can find out the newsstand date*, and then, just a week from Tuesday now, The Original of Laura in its entirety.
Why the siege? Well, it’s not exactly to get rid of things, although I do plan to. Certainly some of these books do not need to be keepers. But everything is so disorganized. Oh, here’s something I found at a library sale, there are some remainders from Powell’s. All stuff I found interesting, but without a larger picture to place it in. My desires to be orderly in my reading are coming to the fore, starting at the beginning—of forms, of movements, of an author’s oevre. This is mostly ridiculous, but also not. It’s a byproduct of my themed reading, I’m sure, which is itself a byproduct of my natural state. But above all else a byproduct of the constant feeling that I know not of what I speak—und darüber muss ich schweigen, or, change my ways a bit at least.
Anyway, coming up for this week: a somewhat closer look at The Ayrshire Legatees and also a bit about The Provost. I’m thinking about doing some Ludwig Tieck for my Friday short story. And perhaps, depending on timing, Evelina. Then we’ll really have made some progress on the epistolary business.
*When, o Readers, will this be? Talk about an uninformative website.
Update: If this remains accurate, it’s November 10—that is to say, tomorrow!
Another update: Just found out via the Playboy Twitter feed (of course) that the December issue won’t hit newsstands until Friday. Sob.
I’m on the library list for the VN, so heaven knows when I’ll actually have it in my hands.
Yes, Tieck, please.