the diary of antoine roquentin

I’m hanging on your words.
Living on your breath
Feeling with your skin
Will I always be here?

It’s far too late. 3 a.m. I’ve destroyed tomorrow by staying up this late. It’s my own fault.

I can’t even get excited about the idea of watching porn. I was listening to Depeche Mode while surfing Fleshbot, and as I was about to play a video, the beginning line of “Personal Jesus” came on: “reach out and touch faith.” I chuckled.

I didn’t do much today other than work. Met Abishek for dinner at Tiffin Wallah, which he didn’t remember recommending last time we met. I remember there was snow on the ground as I walked up Lexington because he was late, carrying my big tall canvas I’d bought at Utrecht that day. The Utrecht I was in when Jove’s friend called him telling him that he’d just tested positive for HIV. Manhattan is becoming a locus for memories, but not all of them are good.

Was late to Pianos to see Deluka with Matt, but we got some munchies and he came with me to do some shopping at Whole Foods before I went home.

Briefly noted:
Antoine Roquentin—who burst onto the arts scene at 26, earning the Prix Goncourt for his first novel Your Favorite Mirror — returns for the second volume of his yet-unnamed series, entitled Your Favorite Consciousness (Harper, $26.99). This series of novels, which seem, at this point, to be the beginning of a work epic in scope, follow Benoît, the young protagonist through his young adulthood. While based on Roquentin’s early life in Alsace and Strasbourg, a more deviant vein runs through the novel than ever existed in reality: indecent liasons on the EuroStar, a stint as an erotic slave with a wealthy Parisian businessman, an extended rape on the banks of the Seine. The reader gets the sense that what is happening, as often is the case, is less important than Roquentin’s precise, flowing torrents of prose. A black eye “gleams, glossy and fluent” the events of the rape “slid by, drowsy as smoked bees.” The sequence of events seems calculated to shock, but the narrator, Benoît, is aware of his own fate as a character bound by words.

As I moved down the aisle of the train, I could feel the still-yet-undreamt glow of a raucous, depraved sex act approaching. Not dissimilar to the satisfying feeling of sliding your finger down the length of the soft, creamy paper of a novel, I had to feel the sinuous curves of the Moor. It’s almost as if the paper in your hand were warm, soft, breathing, alive—responding, each paragraph, to your touch. A novel, writing itself to please you more and more, waves upon waves of sensuous letters and their seductive curves distorting your entire field of vision.

One of the novel’s biggest drawbacks is its episodic structure. While the novel does have an overarching plot—that of every bildungsroman—each of Benoît’s antics, such as the indecent train ride, the escape from the gang in the 20th Arrondissement, often seem hollow and staged. What sizzles is seeing the world through Benoît’s eyes. Perhaps he’s right about the world, that “c’est une blague vaseuse,” but he still must saunter on.

Now it’s 4 a.m.

I’m not sure what I’ve accomplished, but it feels like it’s time for bed. Nobody is ever on AIM any more. I don’t know why I bother.

I’ve been having problems logging in and such—I’m not thrilled with this new host but certainly don’t have the time or patience to switch everything again. I need to look through the Apache settings again.

Abishek was talking about writing programs to find out patterns in gene expression. It’s an incredible thing to do. Sometimes I feel like I’d have better prospects of getting hired if my bachelor’s was in engineering rather than writing.

But then I think that many of the engineers I’ve met are philistine bores.

My whole life revolves around whether I get into a grad school now. It’s just too much stress. I need to be a better writer. I need to know when to use “whom.” I’m getting better at my subject/object pronouns, or so I think.

Kelly invited me to a party at her house this weekend. I think I’m going to go. I need to cancel with Jorge. Now I’m being flaky, but he did cancel on me more than once. Now it’s 4 a.m. and I’m officially on a Bad Sleep Schedule. Well, now that I’m there, might as well enjoy it. I’m going to lay down and try to get some sleep.