Time Flies When You’re Questioning Your Existence

I suppose I’m a victim of my diet.

After finishing Michel Houellebecq’s The Elementary Particles (review forthcoming) on the tails of Eugene Zamiatin’s We, having watched eight episodes of the television series Dexter, combined with a soul-gnawing worklife, I find myself walking around feeling detached from…well, pretty much everything and everyone.

Houellebecq’s novel, while having its flaws, reminded me of some of my own “society has gone fundamentally mad” musings (albeit in a much better package). The TV show, about a serial killer who manages to fit into society, has prodded yet more questions (and I must make mention of Michael C. Hall’s fantastic portrayal of the lead character). I will admit this: I allow my diet to affect me. I want to be affected, particularly when the opposite is the case with work. The film I’m currently attached to (symbiotically) is an ambitious, loud, genre-bending goth musical which seems to spiral into chaos every twenty minutes of the day. And I’m effectively in charge of it, which means that I can’t become creatively/emotionally attached, unless of course I was a masochist, which just takes too much commitment.

Soul on. Soul off. Soul on. Soul off.

The good news is that my wife and I just booked a week’s vacation in May. And after the vacation, I will have a few weeks off before the start of the next film, so I hope to have a splendidly idle period to complete my second novel (or at least a solid second draft thereof). If anyone can suggest any semi-profound “beach books”, I would appreciate it.