touring resorts

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The wealth of the literary market is too much to take in.

Today, I browsed the new book ads in the “Spring Books” special issue of the New York Review of Books. I’m a subscriber for decades, now having six unwandered back issues.

I’ll catch up now by one a day. (Also, I have six back issues of the London Revew of Books to wander.)

I’m nearly overwhelmed by the diversity of scholarly books which evidently have a market? How can so much specialist non-fiction (and fiction) find enough audience to be feasible for the publishers?

the lover

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When Terese gave me a copy of Duras’s The Lover to read ASAP, we were to soon “discuss” it at a café in the Castro (by her invitation) while her almost-husband Will was out of town (which his job required regularly, and Terese welcomed. They lived across the bay from S.F.: east of Berkeley).

I didn’t tell her I already owned a copy, though I hadn’t read it.

The sexual scenes are appealing, of course. But I flagged pages which were especially about the difficulties of Indochinese life. “You” hear about the sexuality of the book, but it’s really about a teen girl’s witness of colonial poverty exploited by wealthy colonialists.

That was fascinating. That’s what I wanted to praise and discuss: Duras’s writing. Duras was using the sexual story to bait awareness of colonial tragedy.