Wide awake in the dark thinking about stuff. I’m staying in the spare room at my mother’s house, she has this machine that puts the light on a timer to “fool burglers”. It drives me batty not only because it is such a tremendous waste of electricity, but also because it shuts off promptly at 10:40 which means I can’t read anymore. I was on page 27 when the light shut down, but I didn’t get to sleep until well past midnight. The book has put me in a strange mood. I had absolutely no idea that I would love it like that. I actually thought I might love it but didn’t realise that I would relate to it. All these guys, Dave Eggers, Thomas Pynchon, Delillo, I’ve found them clever but never very warm (even Eggers’ supposedly heartbreaking work was cold to me). But here I am awake, feeling viscerally involved and affected by the book. Have become a very bitty fiction reader since starting the phd. But it feels like I’m actually reading a book right now, invested in it.
Also surprised by how not at all large it seems, and how not very dense and hard to read. I don’t think I’ve done the not really reading the page and having to backtrack thing once, which I do all the bloody time with books like W&P, C&P!
Had weird dreams, woke up feeling strange. I am going through such a huge amount of emotional bullshit right now, relating to my health and such, that reading a book this brimful of everyday madness is bound to bring me to the surface. I am quite nervous about that, actually. But also exhilarated. Dreamed I climbed aboard a semitrailer to exact revenge on my enemies. Maybe that’s what this book will be to me.
