JUDY KRAVIS

www.roadbooks.ie

Sunday 5 September 2021

What are you reading?

What are you reading?

D had his books on display when we went to visit. His reading schedule is exacting: two John Pilger, one Irish novel, an Italian novel for translation, maybe, and his mother's copy of Arabian Nights, mysteriously broken into phrases with a biro for the first twenty pages. I can't remember which book he read with first or second coffee, or tea, or breakfast or alongside a nap in the afternoon, as well as before going to sleep at night, but I appreciate the timetable, the need to calibrate each day with books.

On the strength of Brian Dillon's piece on Claire-Louise Bennett in Supposing a Sentence, I bought Pond, and took it to Castle Island but didn't open it. This was not the right place. The right place hasn't yet showed itself. In a waiting room, perhaps. 

The penultimate sentence Brian Dillon chooses, which I read last night, is by Anne Carson. Anne Carson is proof against nearly everything. I have had Autobiography of Red on the go all summer, to be taken up at any moment when a fine, sharp instrument of language is needed to remind me what matters. 



No comments :

Post a Comment