I've been thinking alot about writing lately. And relatedly, what people want to read. (An extension being, what types of people read certain books.)

Extremely self-conscious about my position wrt text and preoccupied with thoughts about writing I have realized that all this thinking is my attempt to reconcile how to first represent my own style.

As an aside: I have forced myself to begin a book. It's called "to the friend who did not save my life" and was written by a French author and journalist, Herve Guibert (forgive the lack of accents, I haven't learned the strokes for it yet). You can find a blurb about it on most glbt websites.

Anyways, tired of staring at my books and not interested in testing this mood out on a less experimental book, I started it a couple of days ago and have managed 3 pages and 4 chapters.

Returning to style: Kara's posts and past conversations with Kim and Eileen - the few friends I have who continue to read outside of school - as well as my mental state of late and reading guibert's book has led me ask the question that has always preoccupied me: WHY DOES ONE READ?

I get the sense that kara is most comfortable reading work that she can relate to whether it be 'real' or via fantasy. I think she posted as much. Others read to gain new knowledge (a problem...). Some read for entertainment, some read for sexual thrill. And so on, to various degrees.

For me, there are no limits. I have themes that I'm interested in, genres, periods etc. yes but the element that does more than attracts, and draws me in, is style. Particularly poetic style. There is something about this demystifying language that has come to define the best literary work for me.

Guibert's style is disconcerning and I hate it. So far there is no poetry. But this I'll leave for another entry.

The point that started all these tangents, is my question to you. WHY DO YOU READ? Please write.

Michael Ondaatje is a great writer. I know this because everyone says so. I also know this because when I read The English Patient in school the essays I wrote were the easiest to write ever - easy to find complexities.

That said, I think there is always a sense of otherworldliness to his writing. I have this sense that the characters are very water color - complex, colorful but intangible. This became very clear to me when I was reading In The Skin of a Lion. There was something so unreal about it. The language is so beautiful, it's just not representative of the way I experience the world.

So, after 54 pages, I found I stopped reading it.


Now I'm reading Volkswagen Blues. Simple, clear, fun. The events are unlikely but real. I'm really enjoying it.

Who votes to go public?
(That means that others on the internet will be able to 'search' for this site.)

And who votes to stay private?
(Meaning this site does not show up on our profiles.)

I'd forgotten that I was supposed to post my opinion of my book club books on here. Luckily I remembered, just in time to avoid studying....Our last pick was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon, and I did not enjoy it. I read it because several people had recommended it. While I understand that the writing style is because the narrator is an autistic kid, I just didn't enjoy a book written that way - though it certainly made it a quick read. I also found that I was totally indifferent to the story until about 3/4 of the way through with all the drama about his mother. But then...just as I was starting to like it, it ended. Very abruptly in my opinion.The rest of the book club liked it for various reasons. One girl really liked it because a friend of her family has a kid that was just diagnosed with autism and she thought the book was revealing. But to be honest, the book is so simple that we really didn't have much discussion about it. (yeah, yeah Maxie...I know you told me so)Our next book is Middle sex (can't remember the author right now) recommended to me by my future sister-in-law, about a hermaphrodite....I'll let you knwo how that one is.