Here's the view from where I'm sitting just now. I had to retreat from the great room downstairs because there's a little more conversation going on than I need right now. The intensity of travel and visiting the last few months has taken its toll on my social stamina.
I am ever so slightly reminded of Hans Castorp and his retreat to the solitude of his porch in the Magic Mountain, before descending into the endless conversations of the sanitorium dining room at Davos.
Right now I am reading a novel by David Lodge about an old British academic who goes deaf and retires before getting drawn into some sort of romantic near misadventure with some unbalanced American grad student. Right now Lodge is going deep into the realia of living as a deaf person (what's it like on the train, in the theater, watching TV...) which I guess sets up the protagonist to get sucked into this young woman's attractions. It also is more or less about Lodge staying limber as a writer, as he has a fine eye for observation and reflection. It gets a little old, I could stand to move on with the plot, but then who would I be to criticize someone for writing just because. That would be the pot calling the kettle black indeed.
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