I finished Florida by Lauren Groff and I still didn’t like it. Groff is such a good writer I had to finish reading it but I was glad to be done with her this morning. (I read at breakfast.) Interesting though: I learned more about Guy de Maupassant (in her short story “YPort") than I have ever known. It reminded me again of the trend when I was at university, of studying the work and not the writer.

We never paid any attention to biographies. I didn’t know E.M. Forster was gay until years later. I remember doing a seminar presentation on him in a third year novel course and commenting on the male-female relationships that “their clothes didn’t come off” - that’s how I put it, little knowing. Hell, I was 17 years old and I had yet to read the brown-paper-wrapped parcel that my brother ordered for me in the mail to teach me about the birds and the bees.

Back to the inner dialogue; it really is a dialogue, not a monologue. I listen to parts of me argue or comment or make suggestions. I just listen, internally. None of us makes any noise.

More anon….