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December 06, 2005
A Widow for One Year
A Widow for One Year by John Irving is another one Ludo lent me. This book was sitting on my night table for a very long time, probably because the cover and title somehow made me uncomfortable. Once I started reading, I finished the 668 pp. book in less than a week.
Must give up reading novels by good writers. Borges's short story on Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius finishes with the author revising "an uncertain Quevedian translation (which I do not intend to publish)" of a minor work by Sir Thomas Browne. I went back to man pages covering replica and replication agreement configuration.
Irving, as much as Kingsolver a couple weeks ago, shows me even his minor characters are more alive than I am. Then as if to rub it in, he's writing about writers writing about writers writing, demonstrating the difference between telling a story and recounting your own life. (In this sense his book, with it's infuriatingly well-placed parenthetical summaries of people's motives, things you should've figured out for yourself already, is even technical documentation, telling the reader how to write.) If only the same sick impulse that lets me run many miles a week could force a man to write!
Anyway, the book left me turning the pages, glad the train was delayed this morning so I had more time to read. Sorry, Ludo, for taking so long with it.
Posted by Mark at December 6, 2005 11:01 PM
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