Living in the country, the
sociable, the game, and the
primed and motivated qual-
ities which lend themselves
to fluent interactions are
not always in play, where
population, itself, is an
abstraction. The same cap-
abilities which bring them-
selves to an afternoon swim
are with us as we scan our
library shelves with an eye
for how to seize the day.
I don't suppose this is al-
ways understood by people as
they sit down to write our
books. I think the writers
who are the most attuned to
this, are our satirists.
They realise, their impro-
visation is a contraption
for deflecting this paradox.
If only those in less urban areas read as much as those who do. But sadly, from what I have read (ha!), this is not the case. That said, I've met a few city folk who's bookshelves are only for show. Happy reading!
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy your presentation of libraries, DJS, a revealing element in your recent entries in monochrome and in blue. I notice how the side tables tend to shrink in spaciousness in inverse proportion to the volume of possibilities in texts, prefiguring the churning vitality of a stack on the floor, the way readers live.
DeleteI enjoy the dichotomy between text and images here. As if the images don't exist or can only be seen with special glasses - not necessarily physical ones - somewhat like the mental images you see in real-life 'fluid interaction'.
ReplyDeleteLast night someone came to dinner who said it didn't matter what politicians did in their private life and it was just about policies and I found myself arguing that it was a question of integrity - if they could cheat on their wife/husband/partner/goldfish they could cheat on you.
When I thought about it today I realised we were both 'right' - just looking at it from a different perspective. Or mayby that's just my need to sum things up and not lose a friend? Keep up the good work!
Dinner is the crummiest and likeliest way to lose a friend. Eat first, then talk, they used to say. But dining on your readership behooves me not to say, that a politician whose rectitude extends to his conjugal life has deprived himself of one of the most salutary opportunities for second-guessing his convictions. :)
DeleteThank you for coming ~