Reading over the vail

via City Lights Booksellers

I love the phrase this vail of tribulation and tears, probably because I find myself in one of late -- for some obvious reasons and some not-so. Reading novels is how I get through, to tell you the truth, and right now I'm reading three. John Irving's In One Person is a bit slow, a story of a small town and the mostly eccentric characters that live there. I don't know whether it's because I downloaded it onto my Kindle (I find it difficult to read novels on a Kindle) or whether I'm bored by Irving's contrivances, but I don't know if I'm going to finish it. I'm speed-reading through Leah Hager Cohen's The Grief of Others, a beautifully written story of a family grappling with tragedy, and have just started Michael Chabon's newest, Telegraph Avenue. I've also got Near to the Wild Heart by Clarice Lispector, sitting on my bedside table, an intriguing story by an equally intriguing writer that I read about somewhere -- where?

I've said a thousand times that reading might just be the only constant in my life.

Reader, how are you navigating the vail?

Afternoon After-Bloom and Irving

Muriel was good-looking -- a slender brunette, with an opera singer's noteworthy bosom and booming voice -- but she had an absolutely vacuous mind. Like my grandmother, Aunt Muriel managed to be both arrogant and judgmental without saying anything that was either verifiable or interesting; in this respect, both my grandmother and my aunt struck me as superior-sounding bores.

from John Irving's In One Person