________________

Trying to decide a new novel to go with, I read the opening pages of Michael Innes's Hamlet, Revenge! (another English murder mystery packed with literary allusions), George Peleconos's Hard Revolution (DC-based noir), and Paul Auster's Oracle Night (more noir). Auster won, though I want to come back around to the others at some point. My only hesitation is having read Auster too often in the last couple years, or perhaps having read too much Blanchot in grad school, I balk at the prospect of yet another protagonist allegorized as textuality, as writing-equals-death, as singularity/totality, and so forth. This is never really the case with Auster, who quickly turns the theoretical scenario (or how I take it) inside out. But we'll see this time. Staight off the major investments are a sickly writer, a mysterious blue notebook, and another Brooklyn setting. Okay... maybe this is another way of saying I want to get another novel by Charlie Williams.