What Am I Actually Reading?

I did get through Of Mice and Men and Giono's The Open Road.  I wouldn't say either was completely enjoyable, but they were fairly short...  The deep foreboding (and foreshadowing) in Of Mice and Men kept the tension a bit too high.  I kept waiting for the worst to happen, and then when it did, I found it just a bit unlikely that Curley's wife would really let Lennie get that close to her in the first place.  The Open Road is a bit different in that I found the narrator's interior monologue somewhat annoying and the novel's dark turn toward the end really comes out of nowhere.  At any rate, I do understand why critics link the two, though it isn't clear if The Open Road truly is a homage to Steinbeck's novella.

I'm pressing on with a novel and a short story collection I am not really enjoying: Ballard's The Day of Creation and Lalonde's Glorious Frazzled Beings.  I should finish Lalonde today.  I know I said I would stop reading books I didn't enjoy, but it is a hard habit to break sometimes.  I did give up on Ballard's Concrete Island almost immediately, and I probably feel I owe him another chance...

I think I'll work through some non-fiction next, including MegaCity Saga and Smart Cities in Canada: Digital Dreams, Corporate Designs.  

I haven't thought too much beyond that.  Perhaps Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood which is short.  I intend to read Lamming's In the Castle of My Skin soon, but I only have an e-book, which doesn't work for the gym (now that I can start going again!).  Maybe I should borrow a copy from the library.

Probably around that time my replacement copy of Crime and Punishment will turn up.  This is the next major book I plan on reading.  And after that and Chesterton's The Man Who was Thursday, I think I'll tackle Arlt's The Seven Madmen.  That's really as far as I need to think ahead for the moment.

In between the novels, I'm still reading a ton of poetry.  This week I'm focusing on some Ottawa-based poets - Michael Dennis and Rob McLennan.  I do need to put up a few more reviews, but that will just have to wait.

Edit (2/5): Glorious Frazzled Beings ended with two more damp squibs of stories.  This collection wasn't to my taste at all, and I am debating whether to review it.  It's probably not worth it, as my overall impressions are so negative.  I only liked two ultra short stories: " My Five Week Course in Ikebana" and "At the Dentist."  This passage from "The Teeny Ghost People and Their Garments" bears repeating: "Sister desires are clearer.  Sisters want all their sisters nearby. They want their sisters to be happy, but not too happy, so their sisters' lives do not seem so much better in comparison to their own."  Otherwise I didn't like it and can't see what all the fuss was about...

Crime and Punishment turned up a week earlier than I expected it.  Maybe I'll hold off until I've read Lamming's In the Castle of My Skin and Selvon's An Island is a World, but it will probably be the next book after that.