Although I have spent my life reading and writing stories, I now and then question why I do it. On rare days it seems such a so-what way to consume hours and hours. Unlike nurses, I am not healing anyone. Unlike plumbers, I'm not fixing anything. At best I might be providing temporary distraction/entertainment for the people who read my books, just as the authors of books that I read provide temporary distraction/entertainment for me. But also more. Because I am a writer I read as a writer and the books that stick with me are ones that teach by example, by their brilliance of conception and craft. I think it was George Saunders, in his oddly titled A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, who said that to read, to write is to say that we believe in at least the possibility of connection. When reading or writing, we feel connection happening, or not. That's the essence of these activities. And by connecting, we make the world a better place, wrote the author of the brilliant Lincoln in the Bardo, and countless other works. Did he also say that fiction is essential? I hope so. Someone did, and, despite my occasional doubts, it has been for me. What I think fiction does is to organize life in the direction of meaning, even if only as a posed question.
So I read and write every day and talk about books with friends and exchange books with them, which is how I came to know three books of the Polish Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk that have been translated into English. My longtime friend and colleague, the poet David Zieroth, reads and (possibly) writes more than I do. He even publishes a chapbook series (Alfred Gustav Press). He also haunts used bookstores. Was it there he discovered Olga's mysterious Flights? It is a unique exploration of journeys, fragmentation and the human body, and I must read it again because it defies expectations and demands close attention. Partially because of its fragmented style, it is not an easy read. The next book of hers that I read, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, is not only original, it's also funny, a sort of thriller, a page turner in a way that Flights was not.
Continue reading at https://burnsmar.blogspot.com/2022/02/book-report.html