FALLOW

FALLOW   

formal visceral viral philosophical comical botanical  

A READER'S GUIDE

There's a point where reading is no different from writing; there is more reading than writing when you are writing.  I have been reading/writing on the subject of fallow for the last few months. The writing is even sparser than usual, as befits a fallow field. The reading is broadcast across the floor of my room, with concentration around the stove. Salinger, Anne Carson, New Yorker, NYRB. Cabin notes, on my desk, to be reprinted. When I was twelve I was instructed, in the interests of better sight without glasses, to rest my head in my hands and think about nothing. This was the beginning of my acquaintance with nothing. This is why I am adept at walking, reading, writing fallow fields for weeks on end, around dusk.

For Esmé With Love And Squalor

When I was about thirteen this title on my parents' bookshelves, with a lurid Pan cover — completely off the mark — For Esmé with Love and Squalor by J.D.Salinger, caught my eye. I read it the way you read when you need to be reading, for and against the future. At thirteen, Esmé's own age, you use what you have learned so far, in anticipation of more. Esmé is precociously articulate, aware of what fabric this is, this language she can't help performing on a wet afternoon in a café after choir practice. And yet, for all that, there's an honesty, a straightforwardness. She is waiting for her hair to dry to show that it is actually wavy hair. She is looking after her younger brother Charles who chokes over the punchline of his only riddle. What did one wall say to the other? Meetcha at the corner. She wants this American soldier/story writer to write a story for her. Not just for her, she amends, but for her.