The experiment

I finished reading the bio on Carson McCullers last night. It took me longer than expected. I read bios for information--not the way I read Herta Muller, who I read slowly because she's such an incredible writer and I don't want to miss a word. Even though I speed-read bios, I think it takes me so long because I don't want the subject to die.

Next in line on the stack of bios I keep on a special shelf was a bio on Soren Kirerkgaard by Joakim Garff. I picked it up this morning and read the Preface and the beginning of Part I (to p.11). The book's over 800 pgs.  

I read the bios in my blue robe. I bought it on sale last year at Brooks Brothers. The blue robe relaxes me, says in so many words that it's ok to read, ok to take time reading, that reading is anything but a waste of time.

The next bio, the bio after Kirerkgaard, is the life of Socrates by I.F. Stone. I started reading the book five years ago, before I bought the blue robe, and gave it up long before the end. After Socrates, there's Napoleon, Josephson's bio on Stendahl, the Keith Richards' auto-bio which I bought used on Clement St., and Charles Olson's bio by Tom Clark.

Reading bios in the morning and late at night, dressed in my blue robe. It's all part of the experiment.