Charles Jensen | Writer

I’m reading Mary Gaitskill’s Veronica and loving it. I guess this is the year of fiction/prose for me: I’ve read more novels and essays this year than the past four years combined. Making up for lost time, etc. I like the dreamy quality of her writing, how she weaves seamlessly back and forth in time, how the narrator’s memory is suitably foggy and dazed…it makes the reading experience soothing.

I started reading Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead but I hated it and had to stop after 30 pages.

I used to be able to read anything, no matter what. Could tear right through it.

I read the new Court Green on Saturday and loved it. I was so happy to find your work there, so many people I admire. I always miss the deadline for that magazine. I need to make a note.

I wasn’t bowled over by the new Superman film. It was good in the way that Bryan Singer can’t make a bad film if he tried. It was a little long (do I have ADD?), but I thought that he did a good job of lining up his style with the feel of the original films, except that this one took itself seriously, was fully immersed in its own world.

I also watched Proof this weekend. Hope Davis turned in a career-making performance that nobody saw. Gwyneth Paltrow chewed the scenery. Is anyone else dying to see her in Running with Scissors? I love my Gwyneth most when she’s a misanthrope.