I have been plowing forward through Angels, but Jack is still up on that mountain and I am not sure how much more I can take. I tried to get back into EIMI, but that wasn’t sticking either, which is a shame, because I really liked EIMI before I set it down before we went to Bali. It was too thick to drag along for the trip. For Whom the Bell Tolls is eyeing me curiously from the drawer. Can Hemingway hold my attention?
The last book I finished was called The Long Goodbye, by Raymond Chandler. I enjoyed it. My friend’s always going on about Chandler, and I know he influenced Haruki Murakami {and Kerouac influenced him, too, though such influences are not always apparent}. In a way, Murakami is spoofing Chandler. Their worlds and stories are so different. But the narrator’s voice in a lot of Murakami books {A Wild Sheep Chase comes to mind} reminds me a lot of Marlowe’s.
My own writing is pained. I’m not happy with what I am producing. I feel like it’s not important enough or significant enough. Then I think of how Kerouac filled a fat book called Desolation Angels with his unimportant, insignificant thoughts at the top of a mountain. Aha.
north! 