stack of books... more than one stack... on the table next to my chair... dares me... double dares me... top to bottom of the tallest stack:

of being numerous by george oppen
the unforeseen self in the works of wendell berry by janet goodrich
the best american poetry 2002 edited by robert creeley
the vintage book of contemporary world poetry
the last report on the miracle at little no horse by louise erdrich
the misanthrope by moliere (trans. by richard wilbur)
straw for the fire by theodore roethke
seeking awareness in american nature writing by scott slovic
the baron in the trees by italo calvino
dreaming by the book by elaine scarry
life: a user's manual by georges perec

this fact needs no profound analysis. these are books begun and not yet finished. or finished once... or more... and pulled out to be read again. the pile makes me kind of sad... but hopeful. none have been abandoned. hang on little book. i'm coming... but first

i'm reading the tempest with aplit... we discussed lear last week and are unfinished with it... you never finish lear... and now prospero... some periods zeroed in pretty well today... how does prospero strike you? what about ariel and caliban? other periods had a hard time... it's the day of the big game... some periods were kind of goofy...

i'm reading madame bovary with world honors.. or, in fact, today i was reading madame bovary to world honors... last period on the day of the big game... and they were attentive enough... but i couldn't tell if they were buying it... this old opening onto "charbovari's" first days of school... any kid should be able to get it... we'll see... it's the day of the big game... and in a week aplit will be discussing the same book...

i'm reading the things they carried... again... after a year or two off... actually, this is homework since i'm driving in to depaul u. tomorrow morning for a seminar (9-2) on it... tttc is chicago's current "one city one book" book... and that's... interesting... and gutsy... o'brien will be around sometime to read and talk about it... but it's unlikely that i'll be able to get within a hundred yards of the action... one recent correspondent said i should make the effort... and bring along a hard copy of aplit02's index of the novel... for him... right...

and it's in tttc... right near the end where tim is telling of his dreams of the dead girl linda... and he has asked her what it's like to be dead...

"Well, right now, she said, "I'm not dead. But when I am, it's like... I don't know, I guess it's like being inside a book that nobody's reading."

........

and now i'm typing here... waiting for news of the big game... it's so quiet here that i imagine it's also very quiet over at the field... and that would not be a good thing... wait a minute...

i just snuck across the hall and opened the window... listened for awhile... lots of cheering for the hilltoppers... kind of quiet on our side... but then i hear it's our ball... first and goal... then a bit of a roar and... "popovich makes the touchdown" and... did i hear correctly? "carmel 33... joliet 13"... did i hear that? i hope so... i hope that's why some folks are already straggling away from the field back to their cars...

"41 to 14 in favor of carmel"... still not over... but this is a very good thing...

and that's what the papers will say in the morning... way to go carmel...

Somewhere, everywhere, now hidden, now apparent in what ever is written down, is the form of a human being. If we seek to know him, are we idly occupied?

Virginia Woolf

 

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