Nick Grammos’s Reviews > Last Letter to a Reader > Status Update
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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Nick’s Previous Updates
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.
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Matthew Ted
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Jan 03, 2023 12:41AM
I'm a pencil defacer, myself.
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I think I'll revert to it. Enough plastic!
Nick, I would love to read your book after you, with all its comments.
Banbury wrote: "Nick, I would love to read your book after you, with all its comments."haha! Maybe I'll try put them all here, Banbury.
I write in all my books—but only in pencil. If I haven't written in a book, it's because I didn't engage with it and I probably will donate it—so that's perfect!
I have now written all over my copy of Last Letter to a Reader. I feel liberated. In pencil, 2B to be exact. I have a large collection in my drawer. I don't know why I ever stopped. I now realise I have felt terribly constrained and unhappy about it.
Yay! Freedom! And now I remember something one of Murnane's narrators said in one or another (:-) of the pieces in Stream System: The Collected Short Fiction of Gerald Murnane: that he was keeping his huge collection of books for his children. But then he realised that they didn't care for books the way he did and would probably throw them all out after his death. Such may be the fate of all our books, written in or not written in, so it's much of a muchness.
Fionnuala wrote: "Yay! Freedom! And now I remember something one of Murnane's narrators said in one or another (:-) of the pieces in Stream System: The Collected Short Fiction of Gerald Murnane: tha..."
I'm going to take that as a guide. There's no point thinking that an ordinary paperback has any value past the reading of it and the interactive joy of writing all over it, when it engaged me, with a 2b pencil. The future looks good already.
