On Wednesdays we read for pleasure, and it is a fact that considering my profession I do not read enough new literature or theory, let alone do so for pleasure; it recently occurred to me, however, that reading randomly for pleasure is in fact research although it is too multidirectional to be called “work” in the way we customarily think of work. Yet it is the best way to work.
And this evening I discovered a book I want to read for my main project, a book I did not know about, by reading a Historiann‘s blog, where I had gone because I knew that there would be congregating Persons I could imagine might share my shock at our academic senate’s uneasiness about voting in favor of salary equity for women; and then I was alerted to Salman Rushdie’s Fire, a novel, by an Instant Messenger, and I was captivated by it, and I have been reading it ever since, and I recommend it.
And I was planning to work this evening but was captivated by this novel, I who am so rarely captivated by novels, and I could say I was slacking but I think it means I am happy and relaxed and animated, because I cannot be captivated by novels unless I am happy and relaxed and animated in the first place.
At the same time, I find, life is quite flat unless one adds to it the ever deepening dimension of being captivated by a novel, such that one goes about thinking of the novel as one walks instead of thinking about the various less imaginative and elevating things about which one can otherwise think. Therefore I am taking my captivation by this novel as a good sign, and as I say I am recommending it.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 