Drown

I'm reading "Ferdydurke" with a Highlighter close by so I can keep track of the most outrageous passages by marking them in yellow.

I began "Ferdydurke" almost the moment I finished "Moby Dick", from which I copied in longhand more than one of Ahab's golden soliloquies in a black Leuchtturm notebook for my own posterity

There are two different ways to drown in literature--you can drown by "Ferdydurke" or by "Moby Dick."

One's thought of as funny and one's thought of as tragic, but the funny one is sadder than you were led to believe and the tragic one is much funnnier than you expected. If you read them with real attention you are certain to drown in each.

Think of the great difference between the act of drowning and of being drowned.  Both books operate in the space of that difference, where there's always a little hope but the whole project is essentially hopeless.

Of the two paintings in the basement, the painting by the late Arthur Schneider, in which the canvas looks like it's been attacked by so many colors it might just go under, tries to drown the smaller, monochromatic yellow gesture by Pauline Stella Sanchez, which holds its own very nicely.