wuthering dickheads

I spent the week reading the latest Virginie Despentes in translation, Dear Dickhead. I thought I’d have a good post about it once I was finished.

It was pretty good. Some parts were great.

Adam wrote about it in a post that includes Houllebecq, whom I’ve never read. Most of what I know about Houllebecq is from Adam. Some authors are like that. Secondhand.

I’ve also been reading Matthew Walsh’s second poetry collection, Terrarium. I could post about that too. It’s great. It’s vulnerable and funny and moving. Observations on Toronto, California, donkey statues, having a body. That kind of thing. From “The Artists”:

I’m always mesmerized by graffiti art
and the artists themselves
who are never seen but leave their publicity
like they live in an invisible world

I’m also reading Jane Alison’s Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative. It’s great. Matt Bell mentions it in Refuse to Be Done. Where Bell’s book gets into the very concrete actions of writing, Alison pulls stories apart to see what makes them work. I’d like to read every book, every story Alison mentions. Some of them I have, but most of them, I have to make like Lindsay Buckingham, and settle for secondhand news.

I’ve gotta run and watch Hell’s Kitchen Season One.

Talk later.