Jonathan Lethem's essay collection made me want to read a novel by him, and by Philip K Dick as well, so I found one by each at the library. and I'm reading both now, as well as something by Rollo May on myths. Lethem's book is Fortress of Solitude, and it already shows some of the qualities I don't like in novels. for one, the title evokes something splendid to me, I don't mean as Superman's sanctuary. that image of Superman maundering around in his super igloo is strained to say the least. oh dear oh. the title just sounds phantastic to me, so that the obvious autobiography nature of the story seems a let down. his essays set the scene a little too well for the novel: growing up in Brooklyn, painter father, love of Jack Kirby, etc. the concerns of the essays are transplanted into the novel disappointingly. it feels too enclosed. I've read only a third of the book so maybe it will come around. as to PKD, it's an odd book. it concerns the drug culture and efforts to quash it. it's set in a contemporary world tho with some scifi scienceyness. it's rather gritty and compelling. the diappointment I'm already feeling with Lethem's book is that the obsessions he writes of in his essays are transmuted into something less interesting and more workmanlike. but, still reading. Dick aint adding that exta layer of thinking on, he's just riding the urge to write like a nut. it's a blizzardy day, so it'll be a groove just to zone out with the reading. I feel I may be turning toward different reading for a while, more fiction. get some new light.