I finished Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood:
I really enjoyed almost every word of it. Capote’s sentences are beautifully crafted and deserve to be read at a leisurely pace. So I didn’t rush it and, in fact, I didn’t want it to end. This was the first of his works I’d ever read and he reminds me a bit of Faulkner, though he exhibits quite a bit more restraint. The cool, fairly objective tone is to be envied. I also enjoyed the way he weaves in first-hand documents into his narrative. Definitely something worth checking out, if you’ve never had the pleasure. Now I’d like to re-watch the film adaptation, which I liked quite a bit the first time around, in light of the book.
Now I’m starting two new things, the first being a nice little intro to philosophy through the lens of pragmatism: Martin Benjamin’s Philosophy and This Actual World:
The first chapter is a nice critique of Descartes by way of Wittgenstein and Rorty. It’s actually a very accessible book and is probably the one I needed years ago when I backed into all this stuff from the other end–by way of Rorty in particular. But, like most introductory texts (and most philosophy texts), it’s a competent but not inspiring read, so I felt I needed something a little more eloquent to keep my mind occupied. After an hour or so of purposeful bookstore browsing, I decided on Don DeLillo’s The Names:
I’ve read his White Noise, which I love very much and The Body Artist, which didn’t do much for me. So far, though, I’m enjoying this one quite a bit.