I am not reading this winter. I am rather enjoying the silence for thought,
broken only by gossiping on email lists.
I have moved away from the sort of fast critical/comprehensive reading taught
and expected in academia. When I read I want to lather myself in the book and
let it vibrate through me and across me. When I come out, shaking in orgasmic
delight, perhaps all I can ask is: was it as good for you as it was for me?
Not wishing to circumvent a voyeurs delight, here is some of my small fortune
in to be read (sometimes again and again) books stacked all over the place in
which I take a dip, even if only for a phrase or sentence.
The logic of sense, Gilles Deleuze (otherwise known as daiquiri and heavy
going so only short dips in this one for now. Love the Alice in wonderland
conceptual personae.) Also daiquiri and gonorrhea's A thousand plateaus, for
the past decade and more and still reading it and the rest.
Jean Genet, I think I have had most, if not all novels. One of the longest
surviving love affairs in my life, thus far. I often dip in for a quick rub.
Lost my virginity to Queerelle. (Haven't read the plays, but would like to,
very much.)
Nietzsche, a writer which vibrates through me. (A good fuck, this one. I have
some cheap paperbacks on order.)
Patrick White, he's a bit like the fellow above as a fiction writer.
Lorenz, The essence of chaos. (I must have foresight, having done uni level
differential calculus. . .????)
Hegel, The philosophy of history (you can't teach the old dog dogmatist new
tricks.)
James Baldwin, Just above my head. (He don't like being naked in front of
anyone.)
Petronius, The satyricon (old favorite to read again)
Dick, Do androids dream of electric sheep? (and Bladerunner film, yet again.
machines do not think, they bleed. idea of thinking machines is an error.
thought is a meat thing. says Mark Fisher in Gothic Materialism, btw
following on from Deckard's comment.)
Don DeLillo, Underworld, (Half way through. It blew me so good I hadda take a
break.)
Sam Delany, half way through The Mad Man novel and yet to read Nova (a new
edition in the SF masterworks)
Edmond White, can't remember title but just found old copy of Farewell
symphony, and want to read it again, too.
Vik Seth, Arion and the Dolphin (Libretto)
and poetry poetry poetry. . . (my old Norton is particularly useful, Milton,
Plath, Ginsberg, whatever is in there, and Shelley's collected poems, also a
darling little pocket size Oxford edition of John Keats and a Shakespeare
complete lives beside my keyboard.)
oh and I almost forgot I am having a love affair with the Faber second
edition of Auden's Orators.
and would like to take another look at gin squash, the writing mechanic.
(Gertie Stein, of course.)
Chris Jones.
(and I am getting guilty about not reading Bruce McClure's PhD thesis;
Between the Seen and the Said: Deleuze-Guattari's Pragmatics of the
Order-Word.)
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