November 1, 2006

Cat's Eye

Usually when I read marginalia from former academic selves of mine, it makes me want to gouge out my eyeballs. Particularly my high school self, which destroyed my Great Gatsby with banality, but my undergrad self was no treat either– the river, as I noted in The Diviners, “=life”. Now reading Cat’s Eye, which I’ve read a thousand other times. One of those times was 1998 for a course in my first year at university, and I highlighted all important passages in green highlighter. No idiot comments, fortunately, just the highlighter. It’s not so annoying actually, and this time, as I’ve made my own markings through it (which undoubtedly will make me want to kill myself in the future), I’ve become oddly conscious of some sort of dialogue with my former me. It’s sort of wonderful.