i have come to Alabama: a fur piece

"Sitting beside the road, watching the wagon mount the hill toward her, Lena thinks 'I have come from Alabama: a fur piece. All the way from Alabama a-walking. A fur piece.' Thinking although I have not been quite a month on the road I am already in Mississippi, further from home than I have ever been before. I am now further from Doane's Mill than I have been since I was twelve years old"

from Light in August by William Faulkner[1]

I tried to read Light in August at least twice, and Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel at least twice. I'm halfway through Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard To Find and have been for a long time (I have to read O'Connor slowly savoring each story--recovering from each story--one at a time).

I've started two blogs previously, and now I'm starting a new one; this is my third blog and I probably should explain myself. If laziness and self-consciousness ended two web logs, what's the point in starting this new one? But moving to a new region seems like a good raison d'être for a blog. And moving to the South is a good excuse to read and re-read, find and finally finish, all those great classics of Southern American Fiction that I have hanging around on my shelves, so I thought I'd start this blog about moving to the South, living in the South, and reading the South.

Of course, ideas only arrive when they arrive, so I'll write about other things too. For instance, I occasionally have thoughts about Russian literature and history, particularly on cool crisp mornings like this one when I feel like once again rereading Anna Karenina, and for better or for worse and I suppose I'll have to post them here. Hopefully I'll keep posting here because it would be sad if this blog ended not with a bang, but with a whimper, like my first two blogs.

We'll see.


[1] Faulkner, William. Light in August. The Modern Library, New York, New York.