Nick Grammos’s Reviews > Last Letter to a Reader > Status Update
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Nick Grammos
is on page 139 of 140
OK, I'm finished. But I'll leave it here until I can write something new. What an exhilarating read.
Now I'm stuck, having read Murnane's views on his books, which to read next. Emerald Blue. A Million Windows. Barley Patch. The Collected Shorter Fiction (as it's known of here in Oz.
— Jan 10, 2023 03:58AM
Now I'm stuck, having read Murnane's views on his books, which to read next. Emerald Blue. A Million Windows. Barley Patch. The Collected Shorter Fiction (as it's known of here in Oz.
Nick Grammos
is on page 102 of 140
After reading about emerald blue and a million windows I feel I’m in for a treat reading more of murnanes works
— Jan 10, 2023 01:57AM
Nick Grammos
is on page 72 of 140
I tend to gather books I want to read based on the authors I like. This means I seek books to read for some future event like a nuclear winter where I would have nothing else to do except read in a bunker. Here Murnane has re-read all his own books and write about them. So during each chapter, I check my shelves to see how many of his books I have. I'm near complete, only one more book left and the world can end.
— Jan 08, 2023 12:38AM
Nick Grammos
is on page 47 of 140
I have tried to explain already in this work that a work of fiction is for me a pattern of meaning that might need many years for its formation.
I'm not sure why, but my copy of the same edition has 126 pages, the edition notes refers to 140 pages, so have I have read 47 of 126 or 140? I feel lost as I often am in a Murnane landscape, brushing aside Murnane prose, wading through in Murnane voice.
— Jan 06, 2023 05:47PM
I'm not sure why, but my copy of the same edition has 126 pages, the edition notes refers to 140 pages, so have I have read 47 of 126 or 140? I feel lost as I often am in a Murnane landscape, brushing aside Murnane prose, wading through in Murnane voice.
Nick Grammos
is on page 20 of 140
Managed to read multiple pages without stopping often to doodle. Each essay on one of his own books is a retelling of the story of the story. On FR Leavis What little I understood repelled me. The rest made no sense.
The literary ideologue and 60s Svengali sounds little different today's ideological isms one has to learn that take us further from connecting with the ideas writers offer us. Scary then and now.
— Jan 03, 2023 02:52PM
The literary ideologue and 60s Svengali sounds little different today's ideological isms one has to learn that take us further from connecting with the ideas writers offer us. Scary then and now.
Nick Grammos
is on page 2 of 140
I stop after a page, this is inevitable with Murnane. A thought comes, not necessarily the one on the page and I pause to consider, or go off somewhere else in my thoughts. I use a pencil to underline, though I tend not to deface my books any more, preferring fluorescent yellow tags I purchase in packets and use in vast numbers. But I won't ever sell this book. Whoever reads it after me will put up with my commentary
— Jan 02, 2023 12:24PM
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Jan 08, 2023 12:41AM
Emerald Blue! I love that title because it creates a beautiful image in my mind, a green wash merging with an expanse of blue. The stories in the Emerald Blue collection are all in Stream System, by the way. But I've a sense too that to read about Murnane remembering the collection is enough. The stories themselves, and those in the other collections mentioned in this book, have all merged for me just like the green into the blue.
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You are in a poetic mood, Fi! This is a funny exercise reading and writing about all his books, pausing in a paragraph to go check his literary archive and coming back to complete his thought, counter his own argument with facts where memory wasn't good enough. Funny how that process actually starts to sound like another Gerald Murnane story. I'm giggling silently as I ponder the idea that this is yet another novel with another layer of subject matter that on the surface more closely derives from his own story of images and thoughts.
Funny how that process actually starts to sound like another Gerald Murnane storyYes! He can't help it. He just has to make fictions out of his memories of his writing just as the writings themselves were fictions out of his memories of his life!
Fionnuala wrote: "Funny how that process actually starts to sound like another Gerald Murnane storyYes! He can't help it. He just has to make fictions out of his memories of his writing just as the writings themse..."
That's it! It's a loop.
Just looking at my notes for a review of Barley Patch which I finished reading a few days ago and I see I already called Last Letter 'fiction' in them.We great minds…
Fionnuala wrote: "Just looking at my notes for a review of Barley Patch which I finished reading a few days ago and I see I already called Last Letter 'fiction' in them.We great minds…"
Gerald leads us to good places.
