I have finished Lydia Davis’ Varieties of Disturbance, which is a quirky and unexpected collection of short stories, but one really can’t call them short stories but more individualized thoughts of the sort that normal people would not think to write down and turn into a book. It is so satisfying to read the really short ones and tedious to read the longer sections which go into such immense detail on mundane things. Lydia Davis is the translator of the Swann’s Way that I just completed. One of my favorite stories in this collection is the one where the narrator goes inside Kafka’s head as he prepares dinner. It’s pretty hilarious. I also like the one where she takes a walk with a colleague who dislikes her translation of Proust and an incident occurs that parallels the story and the man does not notice. I’ll most likely read the rest of Davis’ work because it is light and humorous and personal.
Varieties of boredom (because I’ve been reading ridiculous amounts lately) Thursday, Jan 10 2008
Reading 11:24 pm
post proust update Thursday, Jan 10 2008
Reading 5:57 am
An update on things as they stand for this semester, my last of the undergrad I will have earned come May. Bowling is AWESOME. Literally, all I have to do is show up and bowl and apparently I have a “professional spin.” That means that whatever I do, I spin the ball in the correct way even though I have no idea what I am doing. This is a good sign, and I will be proficient in bowling in a mere 3 months. I am convinced I will be admitted to a library school in the northeast and will take out any amount of loan to finance a top notch education and networking connections that will secure me a job. I am happy at my job for the first time in my working career. I feel like I have the temperament to deal with the quiet, the snoring homeless, the mindless recording of random numbers, and the hushed voices. I’m getting an average of 1 book read per 3 days and I still get to watch as much Family Guy as I want when I get home. I love my family so much it hurts.
On the book front, I am reading Lydia Davis’ Varieties of Disturbance and will probably start something more tomorrow. I am taking a break from Proust until I can receive the second Grieves translation from bookins. I think that is wise because I don’t want to rush through it. There is also more time until I can receive the last 3 books not yet released in the U. S. I CANNOT wait until I am in the Northeast where there are bookstores ALL over the place.
love (after a Agua Linda kinda night) 
the brooklyn public library.
