Winnowing

I am paring down the number of books I own. I am trying to read as much of each as I can before their purge. Some have proven instantly unlikable.  I am at peace with getting rid of the Wapshots, but I have given the Forsytes a week to ingratiate themselves with me. Goodbye, unread Kobo Abe. Adios Amos Oz. Bye-bye Scott Bradfield. Go, Timothy Mo. You've worn out your welcome, Fay Weldon. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Joe Keenan, Nino Ricci, Greg MacGuire, John Fowles: after the first dozen to the first hundred pages- they are all on notice. The first editions I have are not really worth listing for sale: Toni Morrison & John Irving have all signed limited run editions that predate my trade 1sts and wholly devalue them.

I am burning stacks of old New York Reviews after tearing out articles that I might find informative later, but again I must only keep what is practical and light the rest in the fireplace because the furnace is not working. I must admit that I will never read long pieces on Marianne Moore or Rabindarath Tagore, Pynchon, or Roth, because I will never ever read Moore, nor Tagore, nor Pynchon, nor Roth. 

I can't settle now on anything absorbing to read for pleasure- I have begun Rites of Spring on Stravinsky, Modernism and War, Martin Amis' House of Meetings, (which opens unpromisingly with an often used subversion of the medium by commenting on the failings of that medium. "If this were fiction, it could never convey... sort of thing. Such a cliche, but who has the strength to avoid it? Amis, one would think-but we get something like: 'after all, what are words on a page? A collection of black marks...') I've begun an enjoyable book on the Victorian medium Daniel Home, & the 3rd volume of the Graham Greene bio by Sherry, whose 1st 2 volumes I believe I own- though they may be buried in trunks in the garage, somewhere I assume near Greene's books themselves, handsome, discreet little cloth-bound hardcovers in uniform editions from Viking. All I can find inside is A Burnt-Out Case.