People and Books :: September 21st, 2002 ::
So, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that old English major’s dilemma of what makes good writing. I’ve been thinking about that because the last two books I’ve read have been mixed up with a larger-than-usual dose of current poetry. Those two books, which were easy to read and contained many words and ideas, dissipated quickly, to the point that if I waited even a couple of days before writing a review, the book felt like a ghost, and I felt like I wasn’t even sure if I read it or not. It’s a feeling similar to meeting someone at a party, then seeing that person later. For the time you are at the party, you may enjoy the person’s company while you drink on a stranger’s couch; but when you later see that same person on the street, in a different context, and after many, many different things have happened to you, they seem completely divorced from any reality you know, and you wonder if maybe you had a dream about talking to someone who looks similar to this person. When you awkwardly smile at each other, you figure it must have been real, though. It’s kind of a lonely feeling, but less so when it comes to books.
