A Further Update

In summarising the reading I did back in KL the other day I forgot to mention The Faber Companion To Samuel Beckett, edited by C.J. Ackerley and S.E. Gontarski, a compendium of articles on all aspects of old Sam, arranged alphabetically. Initially I was just dipping into the rather grand tome as the fancy took me, but then decided to read it sequentially, basically just for the hell of it. I'm halfway through 'E', just past Endgame. Highly informative and a little bit loopy at times, much like the great man himself. Of course, as a result of my reading I now feel a burning need to read the trilogy, Murphy, Watt, etc.

And, although this is not strictly reading as such, I should mention that I listened to my CD set of Jim Norton reading Finnegans Wake from cover to cover, as it were. The editor reckons this covers a quarter of the actual text, which is pretty good going for a supposedly unreadable text. Whilst it may be unreadable it's far from unlistenable. Indeed, this is the medium in which I reckon it should be encountered as above all it reminds you, well me anyway, of what a delight the work is. Funny to think that the young Sam Beckett once sat taking Joyce's dictation on the Wake. Well not funny really. Illuminating.

What I didn't read in KL was Prof. Ricks's Keats and Embarrassment, though I started on it well before going up north. I mention this simply because I finished it this evening, having drawn out my reading just to slowly savour its insights. Apart from its many other virtues it contains long chunks of quite a number of Keats's letters, with attendant sympathetic readings, reminding me I don't have any edition of them for some reason I can't fathom. Ricks seems to think that many are as good as the poems, and he's right. The last one Keats ever wrote, to Charles Armitage Brown, is powerfully moving and Ricks leaves it until his particularly fine final chapter which in itself almost justifies the sorry business of lit. crit.

Note to self: Must get an edition of the letters and Andrew Motion's biography of Keats when I finally allow myself to buy some books again.