As I've said before, I cannot see Shadowtrain here in China, so I cannot see this stuff that's in the new issue -- and I quote:
Zoë Skoulding sandbags the reach of vision; Leonard Gontarek takes the bread and sets down the heart; Nicholas Manning speaks of the forgotten; Charles Freeland finds no footnotes in the neighbourhood though occasionally something needs an asterisk; Alan Baker shows us his cardiac diaries; Pauline Keith clicks the light on and sees a different place; and Rosmarie Waldrop's language curves get appreciated.
Shadowtrain is now inviting submissions for the next issue.....
There are times the internet here drives me around the bend. It’s primarily because I’m on the university’s network, and it’s overloaded and overcrowded and oversomethingelse but I can’t think of the word. What should take me a few minutes to put on here sometimes takes an hour or more; often it all breaks down in mid-thing; sometimes I just give up and have a drink.
The best times for me to do stuff on here are before everyone wakes up in the morning, or after the students’ internet access is closed down at midnight. Great. I really want to get up extra-early to do this, or stay up after my bedtime. If I don’t get enough sleep I turn into someone else.
I’ve just read, as if this has anything to do with anything, David Lodge’s three university novels – “Changing Places”, “Small World” and “Nice Work”. I realise this doesn’t put me at the cutting edge of contemporary fiction; it’s because I am running out of things to read here, and a teacher lent me this kind of omnibus 3-in-1 edition last year, and I’m getting quite near the bottom of the barrel, hence I finally read these things. And all I have to say about them is that the first one is pretty damn good, the second is okay but approaches tedium on occasion, and the third one is horrible. You may have noticed that my literary critical skills are still nicely honed.
But what I've really been doing is not reading a book that's been on my shelf for several months since I bought it in Guangzhou in a moment of unprecedented enthusiasm. It's something I've read large chunks of over the years but I've never done the whole thing; maybe this is the time. There's a bit in one of the David Lodge novels where people have to own up to not having read canonical works. Well, I have read some of this one, at least, but not all of it. But maybe this is the time. Anyway, when (and if) I finish "Paradise Lost" I'll let you know.
Don't hold your breath.
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