Book Report.

Hi there. I hope you're good.

These days I've been communing with lonely souls in literature.

Just finished Catcher in the Rye. I think I mentioned in a previous entry that I had started this book before and couldn't finish, because Holden Caufield made me angry. I forgot my anger the second time around, and was able to feel so much sympathy this boy. For all the emotions he didn't have words for. For all the times he attempted to reach out to people who let him down, spiraling out of control, through surprising moments of honest and self-knowledge. The book left me speechless.

Perfume's Jean-Baptiste Grenouille's impulses got perverted due to a complete absence of love and care in his life. Even Ignatius J. Reilly (A Confederacy of Dunces), who covers his insecurity in overblown language and food, makes hilarious, sad sense to me.

I also read the Griffin and Sabine box set. This is a beautiful work. It's a series of letters between people who live on the opposite sides of the world. Actual letters and postcards. It's gorgeous.

But.

I found myself more than a little frustrated with the characters, specifically with the way they run from what they claim they want the most. My anger at their wasted opportunity forced me back into my own life, to my own focus on what I want the most.

And all the ways in which I run from it myself.

Next up: Jeanette Winterson's The Passion.

Bizarreness on the recording front: My drummer/producer broke his finger. Ack! He's recovering well though, and all should be on track for the mid February record date. This is getting surreal.

I am going to do February Album Writing Month, if only to counteract the surreality.

http://www.fawm.org

jules