The sickbed serves to distract attention, but it is unsafe to
assume as a corollary that such distraction is enjoyable or even
productive. It may have lessened, for a few days, preoccupation
with street warfare in Baghdad, but beware the seductions of
innocent diversion. But hang on, because there is a happy ending
here, only a few paragraphs away.
Many years ago, just graduated from college, just married, I
purchased a shelf-load of newly printed "classics" -- to be read
sometime, somewhere, or left to grandchildren to read. Such books
rest, of course, in the uppermost reach of one's library, but I
tipped one out en route to the hospital last month and found
myself reading "The American" by Henry James.
It is 488 pages long, and it may be the single most boring
book ever published. It is at least the single most venerated bad
book ever published. The Internet will give you not only reviews
of the book, but also the entire novel, chapter after chapter,
word for word.
Now Henry James (1843-1916), novelist, essayist, critic, is
captivating when describing people and situations. I wrote about
his travel books, a dozen years ago, that "you can close your
eyes and open either volume at any page and find yourself reading
prose so resplendent it will sweep you off your feet. Yet after a
while, after a long while, you will recognize that you do,
really, have to come down to earth because there are so many
other things to do. And besides, if you stay with him for too
long, in that engrossing, scented, colored, brilliant, absorbing
world, you feel strung out, feel something like hanging
moss."
On the matter of writing, and how to get it done, Richard
Powers in The New York Times Book Review last week wrote an
exalted essay in praise of dictation, made economically feasible
in the modern world by speech-recognition devices. "I write these
words from bed," Powers tells us, "under the covers with my knees
up, my head propped and my three-pound tablet PC -- just a shade
heavier than a hardcover -- resting in my lap, almost
forgettable. I speak untethered, without a headset, into the
slate's microphone array. The words appear as fast as I can
speak."