The Mumpsimus

Yesterday I delivered a rough draft of my master's thesis about Samuel Delany to the professors reading it for comment, and in my excitement at having a draft done I decided to pile most of the books I've been using for research on my couch and take a picture of them before returning some of them to the library and friends I borrowed them from:Together like that they don't feel as immense and encompassing as they did when I had them scattered all around me as I wrote...

As it exists right now, the thesis is about Delany's novels from The Jewels of Aptor through Dhalgren, plus some substantial bits about his early critical essays. I ended up emphasizing the importance of the pornographic novels Equinox and Hogg more than I thought I would when I began, but Equinox seemed to me a pivotal novel separating the pre- and post-Nova books, and Hogg I decided to compare to Dhalgren, because the two books were written almost simultaneously and share some elements; more important…

A few people have linked to this Guardian article about various famous writers' rooms. I looked at them all and thought, "Wow, those are clean! How do they work there?!"

I have trouble working in an uncluttered space. Chaos comforts me. I know that just about anything I need is probably buried in a pile somewhere around me. I'm good with piles. I understand their logic.

At least twice a year I make an effort to organize things. Or at least organize the chaos a bit more. It usually lasts a couple days, maybe a week. I enjoy the order, but am seldom productive in it. There's something threatening within such clarity.

Each to their own. My work room is particularly cluttered at the moment, so I took a couple pictures:




Perhaps the Guardian article will encourage other people to post pictures of where they write, and perhaps a few of those people will be as fond of clutter as I...

Here's a photo from Thanksgiving day in Yoncalla, Oregon. It has been suggested to me that this would make a fine publicity photo. I'm not sure for what sort of publicity. It certainly does seem appropriate, though, to the author of "Blood"...

(The item in my hand, by the way, is a leg crook used on sheep.)