Not my own, this time, but Lytton Strachey’s. My order from Daedalus was sitting on the doorstep when Dawn and I returned from lunch. I almost opened the box in front of her but our conversation was so rapid and jumpy that I forgot about the box as soon as I set it on the table. When she left I tore it open and here are the selected letters of Lytton Strachey with annotations. Finally I get to read the other side of Carrington’s conversation.

As a letter writer myself, I recognize some of Lytton’s ploys–the different voices he takes with different readers, describing people and scenes more to entertain rather than document–ploys which exaggerate the truth or make extravagant claims, using outrageousness to entertain. (I’ll craft this sentence more carefully in time).

Did I mention that the paper the book is printed on is very nice? I’m so glad I managed to snag it from Daedalus because I didn’t know that the letters had been published. I almost threw the catalog in the trash before I turned the page and saw the book. The introduction promises scandal.

My head is exploding with conversations. I go weeks, it seems, without any concourse and in the span of four days I have had so many conversations that I can barely begin mulling over one before the next one propels me into a different track. I wrote a letter to KAT with some of the details and now I don’t have the energy to sum it up in any other way.