'you encounter the characters in the wrong order, as in a bad dream...' - brandon taylor, is it even good? brandon taylor reads zola, LRB, 4th april 2024.
it's a tuesday afternoon (when he writes this) and horsemouth has to get on.
monday he was making progress. tuesday he has let his eye go off the ball.
ok he went for a walk (counterclockwise) round the common and walked a letter of his mum's down to the post box.
ok so he just got some removals firms to contact.
remind him to lock up the chickens (he forgot monday night).
yesterday (in 1852) thoreau goes over to fair haven pond. there are a lot of hawks there, 'what makes it such a day for hawks? there are eight or ten in sight from the cliffs.'
in his article for the LRB brandon taylor ponders over the order in which the rougon-macquart novels of zola should be read (modifying vizetelly's recommended order), he struggles with the dull ones (these, the sin of abbe mouret, the dream, are the rare ones, seldom seen in the penguin livery. these are ones that horsemouth hunted for high and low (and having started them they languish unread). if taylor takes against nana, he takes up l'assommoir, germinal, earth, la débâcle.
it is a grey rainy morning. horsemouth has unleashed the chickens and he has his coffee. he is trying not to get anxious about making the move and paying for it (as usual nothing is ever simple for him). he keeps on hoping it will all get magically sorted (or at least not go horrifically wrong).
as usual horsemouth always feels like he is in the wrong place to exert effort upon the problem.
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