June 20, 2012

High summer holds the earth. All is healed. All is health.

The Falls of the Wyona is a finalist in James Jones Fellowship contest. They ask for the next 50 pages, and I am suddenly paralyzed to provide them.

Reading The Iliad at the café, a book or two until the cup runs dry or the stupid music comes on. It exceeds remembrance. Homer’s quality is the most piercing verisimilitude: one feels present at the scene. One feels that if one awoke thirty two centuries ago on the west coast of Asia, one would know how to conduct oneself. One could look out on the field of battle and be able to tell who was Odysseus, who was Diomedes. One would know Hector’s sword from the other swords; one would know the purple belt Aias gave Hector after their battle. Everything is palpable, visible; the references the characters make are instantly recognizable as part of the fabric of a complex culture. It is at once the best poem and the best novel. My Kindle reading at the gym is War and Peace, so between the two of them I’m having a majestic summer.