reading/listening

[Monte Davis]

Joe Varo:

> I can't say that _Ratner's_Star_ is impressing me all that
> much...seems to be a bit of a maze of strange characters.

Yup. It's not easy to say why for me, TRP nearly always hits while DeLillo mostly 
misses -- he's obviously smart, thoughtful, wide-ranging, knows and cares about 
the same kind of big subterranean connections in our world and in our souls that 
Pynchon does. But I've found myself working to finish most of his books; good as he 
is compared to 95% of what's published as serious fiction, there's just some sprite of 
delight drawing me on in Pynchon and Gaddis that isn't there for me in DeLillo.

Only fair to add that the last eight pages of _Great Jones Street_ are among the 
great virtuoso city riffs of our time, every bit as fine as the Victorian steel passages 
in GR.   

Reading lately: Bogmail, Patrick McGinley; Danube, Claudio Magris; The Collapse of 
British Power, Corelli Barnett

Listening: Loreena McKennit, They Might Be Giants, Benny Carter, Schumann, Gilbert & Sullivan 
(rediscovering via my young sons), and ever and always Steely Dan. At a concert 
(!) last summer, the latter said there might actually be a new album this spring  -- 
not Fagen, not Becker, but SD (!!!)

-Monte <we live in hope>