Why the lapse?

Where have I been, lo these many days? Really I have no idea. But I have been reading some good books. I'm still working my way through Patti's Smith's memoir of Robert Mapplethorpe. (I'm actually reading it to my son at his bedtime. Smith writes with such dreamy language, that it's strangely appropriate.) As though the story of Smith and Mapplethorpe together during their early years isn't incredible enough, they move into the Chelsea Hotel and run into everyone, notably developing relationships with Harry Smith, Allen Ginsburg (Smith's first encounter with him has been one of the book's highlights), and William Burroughs.

Next up: Dubravka Ugresic's installment in Canongate's myth series. (Review forthcoming.) She's not for everyone, but I find her writing very clever. I particularly like her because she writes with a biting, agitated style that is missing from American and British literature. She's often angry or critical (as she is in this new book), and she lets it show, but it never detracts from her narrative. Rather, it feeds the story's success. Her style is indicative of a form of personal, introspective writing, more often found in Eastern European fiction, that is also politically engaged. I think, for instance, of Vedrana Rudan's Night, a novel that consists solely of one woman's rant about personal and political travails. Even with limited narrative expanses, books such as these manage to appeal to a wider frame of reference, a wider context, and their heroines—never passive—write their own stories. It's more daring than much of what is published in the US.

And: I'm also enjoying Elif Batuman's essays in The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. She's a gifted storyteller, with a great comic timing.