Reading Paul Auster

I'm trying to read but current circumstances aren't conducive to the mental state required by the process. That said, I'm making my way lazily through a few books.

Abott's A History of Mistresses (the history of celebacy was decent), Guibert's to the friend who did not save my life, and Paul Auster's "glass city" from his trilogy.

Strangely, reading Auster has given me the most satisfaction and I've managed to keep reading. It's my second attempt to read, what has been introduced to me as, a 'typically male' text. This description is bizarre to me and brings to mind all the fallacies of definition. Ondaatje isn't male? Coleman sees it as male. Although to them, it's less about the penis and more about masculinity. Less trance-like - like Quinn's description of making his own appointment as Auster - and a more deliberate observation or experiment.

Contemporary male texts that are very aware of the 'penis' are new to me and generally make me laugh. I'm aware I am missing some of the experience intended by the author in the same way that I don't let out a sympathetic groan when a man gets kicked in the groin. I don't really understand the literary or experiential purpose of describing a moment of fear by a "penis gone limp." In the same way, I don't understand the comfort of big boobs for the narrator of the postal service. That said, I do enjoy it and will continue.

I can feel a comparison between these so very American texts and, for example, my favourite postcolonial, Ondaatje's, Canadian (Coleman's Masculine Migrations) books coming on. A comparison between Auster and Hawthorne seem to keep happening in my mind as well.

to be continued.