(More items discovered on my floor having been taken up from the lounge which has become my workspace. I am now attempting to tidy my study, making it more welcoming so that I might not only spend more time in it, but also head straight for it, but also in the quixotic hope that less clutter will result in less distraction.)
William Godwin, Inquiry Concerning Political Justice. This somehow got pulled in to an introduction of Darren in Family Fortunes. Godwin’s beliefs about Free Will and his injunction to ‘blame the knife’ pulled me in and also impelled me to order a book, Demanding the Impossible by (I think) Peter Marshall, which I have been unable to find since coming back from Prague. From the conception of FF I have had a real problem trying to cut out autobiographical sections and editorialisings. At times I have seen them as relevant and even necessary, parallels to the authorial interjections in Kundera’s novels, but for most of the time I have seen them as excrescence all the more unwanted since the novel has already become so overwhelmingly all-embracing. A section I was trying to write today was associated with the gothic excrescence that came about during a morning break on a trip to Florence on which I was unable to adhere to my diet. The Marshall book, which I first read in part at university in my most fascinating course, got lost in the post. I must buy it sometime, but inevitably, I have moved on from that fascination for the time being.
Ivan Kraus, Reunions de famille/Roddinny sjezd another parallel text. This time Czech/French. I read this in part on a recent trip to The Cotswolds. I barely started it.
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and other Essays. I think this may have been referred to while writing the same unfinished introduction to Darren, which may have been began during the week I had off at the end of the summer.
Helen Gardner (ed), The New Oxford Book of English Verse. I forget what made me refer to this.
Numerous Guitar books. Yens for playing guitar come and go, interspersed with depressive episodes. I haven’t much mentioned these, but every flit from one thing to another is typically accompanied by one such episode which is concerned with the lack of progress made on the current project or the fact that it is a waste of time distracting from something else. Guitar work seems especially beset with problem since I never give enough time to it to make any progress with either learning scales or chord progressions, and time between sessions is such that I forget what progress I do make. Any attempts at singing and playing are hampered by the fact that I cannot hold a tune nor hold a rhythm while I attempt to do so.
Human Nutrition by Catherine Geissler and Hilary Powers. This was a project I threw myself into (in terms of purchases at least) after a staff appraisal in which I was encouraged in my interest in nutrition. This project is also associated with depression since it does seem like a monumental waste of time given that it is so dry and does not touch at all with my interest in nutrition as far as mental function is concerned.
These are the books I brought up. They give an indication of the way I am want to throw myself into one project after another, but really, as ever, ninety per cent of this phenomenon goes by unseen. I really must work on my ability to prioritise, though, and to that end I might go now and read my book on ADD-friendly ways to organise your life.