I simply don't know where to go with poetry next and expect a long hiatus in that idiosyncratic discipline, if not an end to doing it completely.
So, I was surprised that one slightly old-fashioned phrase in Julian Barnes suggested a whole book, a collection of anecdotes by way of fragments of memoir. Heaven knows it would be vainglorious to think I was anywhere near worthy of an autobiography, even for its own sake and I wouldn't tell you all that, anyway, but, Red Herring is the title of the new book. That is the title of the first piece in it, too, which begins,
I
came across the phrase ‘red herring’ while reading Julian Barnes. It brought
back a swarm of memories that it wouldn’t have for others, not unless you were
in the same ‘O’ level Latin class as me. Which demonstrates how language
carries different associations for different readers and no text is going to
have quite the same meaning for everybody. Lesser writers would cite Proust for
the way it unlocked a stream of anecdote and fine detail but I wouldn’t sink to
that commonplace comparison.
We'll see. But at least an idea of a 'project', something to do, to enjoy doing, has presented itself. It's most welcome.
