yen and i were pondering the comparative merits of being nobly upbeat and cheerful and of wallowing with abandonment when sick, (i love the word - thick and muddy with hippos) and whether, at such a time, reading morbid, depressing books can be good for you, or if all reading matter permitted bedside presence should be determinedly lightweight and capricious in content. so far, on this rest cure, i've been tripping the light fantastick over all the malory towers, 13 of 16 of the five findouters, quite a large number of pratchetts, the earthsea quartet, the hitchhiker books and any number of other equally flagrantly wonderful and frivolous books. (and yen came yesterday and brought me elizabeth peters and two of the riddle masters), but i'm also starting to read w.g. sebald again, who must be the most intensely unhappy person to read, at any time at all. graham greene can really break an already depressed and/or sickly person too, but greene leaves you heartwrenchingly wretched, and his prose is nimble and engaging. w.g. sebald's prose is not especially dense - unlike - say - saramago, for instance - and in the hulse translations he comes across with tautness and clarity, and yet it is a strain for me still - slow, distracted, amnesiac, pushing through coldness - i called him a "wormhole writer" sometime back, but that was a misjudgment - although of course he has that kind of breadth characteristic of one. i still find it a strain to read sebald, except that for the first time now i've found some of the stillness and unhappiness to read him.

appendix: salon reviews of the rings of saturn, vertigo, and austerlitz.