don and nadine

i pushed my way through this delillo in 2 days, which is quite fast for me. i liked it, i suppose in spite of myself, because i was frequently confused about which character was which - i eventually read it as if differentiating the characters didn't matter, and everyone in it was a sort or everyman or everywoman, suffering aftereffects of the 9/11 attacks.

since then, i started reading this gordimer, someone i haven't read in several years. the conservationist has long been a favorite novel of mine, and it's one of hers. this newer one, about an ecologist with thyroid cancer, quarantined because he's emitting radioactivity after his radiation treatment, is so far very beautiful in its style and tone. it also seems more a novel of ideas than of character or story, but sometimes those sorts of books i like a lot.

this is why i like writers like nicholas mosley. intellectual rather than emotional novelists. curious, perhaps, because that's not the sort of writing i'm interested in attempting myself. yet it's a genre i admire greatly.

it's high time i throw myself back into the fray of writing. i don't quite know what it is i'm waiting for any more.