It’s been a week for reading. I get this way sometimes. Not enough really, but there are times I really love to just read. A few years back, I was on such a kick I read a book a day for over a week.
And I’m working on it this week too, but not nearly as quickly. If you’re keeping score, I’ve recently finished off Peter Benchley’s, The Deep and Jaws (for old-time’s sake), and then jumped to Trees on a Slope by Hwang Song-won. In an attempt to find new and unexpected reading, I’d developed a system – a “random book generator” – for the base library a few years back, and I used it a couple of times. By coming up with a 6-digit number, I was able to randomly select a book from anywhere in the library. I can’t remember the books I read using that system, other than one was a translation out of German and a bit bizarre.
Having given up on that, I’ve taken to strolling through the stacks on occasion and just picking up whatever catches my eye. Yesterday, while taking back Trees on a Slope, I decided to look for more by anyone named “Hwang.” Failing that, I turned around and a neat little book caught my eye – Nostromo by Joseph Conrad. I’d heard of Joseph Conrad. As a matter of fact, Heart of Darkness has been in my listening queue for quite a while.
But I was in the mood for the more tactile experience of a hardbound book, so I grabbed Nostromo (without a clue about its story), checked it out, and started reading as I was walking down the street. Apparently, it’s about an Italian sailor who has settled down in the (fictional) South American coastal nation of Costaguana. Hired as a kind of manager (and enforcer) of the docks for a steamship company, he’s well-known and respected by people from all walks of life within the seaboard town in which he lives, but I’m sure there’s a story there that’ll prove nefarious. I also suspect the typical South American treasure story out of it, but who knows? I’m only a few chapters in, but it’s interesting. The book was written in 1904, so the language still has a bit of the 19th century in it (which I kind of like). It’s also wonderfully illustrative, and I can picture the places Conrad describes quite vividly. It does what a book should do in that respect – it takes me there and holds my attention locally.
It’s of fair length, but was written serially for a publication of the time, so manageable. I can probably get through a chapter or two a day, but it will still take me a while. I’m still working my way through The Lord of the Rings (Listening through The Two Towers right now), and just picked up a rather weighty book (both physically and philosophically) in audio form called Infinite Jest on the recommendation (well, more like the interesting story in itself) of a friend. It’s a “novel,” but it’s got endnotes. Go figure.
Anyway, stay tuned…
I just finished Watergate a novel by Thomas Mallon. I loved it but have a hard time separating fact from fiction because so much of it is fact