I’ve been on page 9 of Ducks, Newburyport  for some days now.

Wading into the book innocently enough, it occurs to me fairly quickly (within nine pages) that

a) I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS BOOK, and

b) that reading it requires some clearing of the decks. Ducks in a row. ‘Planning’ in other words. This is not a book I want to read while alternating with other things, which is usually how I read, because I fear that such reading would mean missing the joy of total immersement.

 

Stream of consciousness requires consciousness.

Also, it is some merry trip being in this narrator’s head.

So on page nine of this essentially single sentence that continues for a thousand more pages, I stop reading, but only long enough to read what other drivel needs reading around here and to hide everything else, all those piles of magazines and papers and TBR stacks, until the house is now a more or less safe, no-distractions-from-Ducks zone.

♦

Okay… deep breath.

Plug in the popcorn maker and throw a few logs on the fire… I’m going in.

If I don’t report back by xmas, send out the hounds.