ON READING




I was skulking around some used book store as I am wont to do and ran upon a copy of Tarzan the Ape Man. Immediately realizing that I have seen the movie in a thousand different ways, I have never read the book, so I made the purchase and took that bad boy home with me. All I'll say about it is...it was an experience--beautiful, exciting writing. I read it in the same vein that I read anything by H.P. Lovecraft. Sometimes absolute, stunning brilliance is tempered with 'other' things. It doesn't make the work any less amazing. It does, however, make me sad...no sadder, though, than the taking of unemployment checks and the casting of hardworking families into abject poverty, which was the state of the nation on the news the other night. [I guess they'll be opening up workhouses in this mofo soon enough, eh? And the Bumble will be selling children in the streets].



"Booy, for sale--!"



Anyway...



I have just learned to appreciate the beauty...to 'try' and understand what's ugly and to go back to the beauty again...Speaking of beauty...



At the same time, I purchased: The Prisoner of Zenda, because it had that Count of Monte Cristo, Man in the Iron Mask thing going on. This was beautiful. The main character was a pompous ass. But when he flinched, in the beginning, by being rebuffed for the color of his hair, I felt his soul and fell in love with him a little.



And Black Boy, which I read for school forever ago. I can admit that, although I loved the book, I didn't understand it then the way I understand it now. I saved this for last because it had the most profound affect, but I can put into words what that affect was. It was similar to that which I got from Tarzan, but different...In Black Boy, I felt an aching beauty that had little to do with the story of the writer, but had everything to do with the writer himself...I touched that person and was not rebuffed.



ON WRITING



The business of writing I have found is complex and intricate. The thieves in the forest of the business are legion. They have no shame and there is little justice.



Do not let your heart be broken. And do not sell your soul.