Rereading

I’ve been rereading my blog entries from 2003 and 2004 (what a twerp I was!) (but I certainly believed in myself) (my Xanga is nearly 10 years old !!!).

Who prompted this rereading? Some unknown persons who’ve been paging through my blog chronologically. Whoever you are, I’m flattered. But when you decide to quit reading, I won’t be offended.

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I’ve been rereading “Eliminating Material Proper Parts” (2005), the essay which secured my admittance to Cornell. I barely recognize myself. The author is a stranger. But he really does have a knack for philosophizing, and he’s hilarious; stylistically, he’s a parodist of Trenton Merricks (but with more flair, because he cuts more corners, because he doesn’t know not to). Argumentatively, he’s pretty bold (though only because of not knowing enough of the literature).

So it was naïve, reckless overreaching that produced the writing that charmed my admitters. And that is a tendency which I continue to see in myself.

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For the fourth time, I finished reading Youth by J.M. Coetzee. I recommended it to Stephen, but he didn’t like it as well as I did. Youth is wasted on the young.