June 12, 2008

Forgetting to bring a camera

I’ve got a train journey coming up this weekend, and I can’t decide what novels to take. Of course I’ve got a mess of magazines waiting– this week Walrus, London Review of Books, and Canadian Notes and Queries all arrived in the post. I’ll also soon have my mitts upon the New Yorker Summer Fiction Issue. But still, I feel a train trip takes a novel, and that periodicals won’t suffice. Mostly because no journey is complete without a novel irrevocably linked to it.

To and from California in Feb. was Arlington Park and Anagrams. To and from Montreal in Sept. was A Short History of Tractors… and Atonement. The last time I went to Ottawa, I read Sweetness in the Belly. Town House en route to England last June, and Bliss on the way back. Etc. etc. You see what I mean?

It would be like forgetting to bring a camera.