... And continuing from the last post, since I have a few minutes free. Exposure ... open on all sides. I've wanted to write about my unease with Mark Kozelek's voice. Unease - at The Finally, but above all with April. April - so massive, so one-paced (that is not a criticism).
April like a massif central, a plateau high above everything. The Finally's only in the foothills, but April - April ... it's impossible, it's too much to be out in the open like that. Open on all sides, light streaming through you. But April nonetheless. I can't listen to it. I haven't been able to in a while. But go on - listen to it.
'Lost Verses' - it's there right away, isn't it? There: the plateau, the plain below the sky. Mark Kozelek's in no hurry. The song's as long as he wants it to be. It's long - he's taking his time, and mine is stretching out. Mine is stretched out taut to the corners of the earth ...
April's too much. Song after sprawling song. These massive one-placed songs ... I've turned it off. Stone Breath instead. Folk. Folk for the office now it's all quiet ...
The Loop on the bookshelf. The Loop, Roubaud's Loop - should I have begun it by now? How long have I had it? It was a pre-release copy. I had it as early as anyone. Why not begin it, then? Because I opened the page and thought ... I'm not up to this; I'm not worthy of it. Read something else first. Read a few other things, build up to it.
Because you'll need a kind of training for Roubaud's Loop, Le Boucle. The Loop, The Buckle ... some of it in bold, some of it in normal font. There's a good reason for that, I found it, I searched on the net. I thought: now that's interesting. And thought, I really ought to begin. And thought: I really can't begin.
In truth, I did everything but begin ... it was too much! I could have taken it on holiday, but didn't. Could have squeezed in it easily enough, but wouldn't it have been too much. The Loop, on the bedside table. The Loop on the window sill. The Loop on the bed, just as, over Christmas, 2666 had been on the bed.
How did I get through The Part With All The Murders? What horrors! What boredoms! I wailed and moaned, I bored everyone ... but what about The Loop? Where is it? Did I bring it with me? No! I left it at home. I left it in the office, on top of the other books. The Loop, stranded ... The Loop, a pre-release copy, left beached in the office ...!
Three big books this year, I tell myself. Three of them, and you got through the first: 2666. You read that, you came through it, I tell myself, and you read a whole pile of other Bolanos, as should be done. You made yourself a ramp of smaller Bolanos and then revved up for the big one. And over you went, over the five parts like five buses parked lengthwise. And you were the Evel Knievel of reading ...
Three big books, the second The Loop and the third The Kindly Ones. Unless it was the other way around for the last two. I think it was. I think I'd meant to read The Kindly Ones first. I think that was top of my list of excuses: I should read The Kindly Ones before The Loop. And at least I'd read 2666! At least I'd got through that and, before it, The Savage Detectives! That was already something! It was already a great deal!
But The Loop, my accuser, says nothing.