Monday, June 27, 2005

So I'm now two-thirds of the way through Steve Erickson's Our Ecstatic Days and the fact that I can't stay up tonight to finish it causes me emotional and physical anguish. Though the physical portion of that anguish might be the result of having eaten one too many slices of pizza a couple hours ago. Urp.

I'm tempted to say this book is Cloud Atlas's step-cousin--the evil bad acid flashback funhouse mirror step-cousin, that is. That's not exactly right of course but this book and that book do have me or did have me exploring similar areas of head-space, the kind of areas where the floor has a tendency to tilt wickedly in one direction or the other without warning or obvious cause in the most fascinating and beautiful ways possible. And those times when the floor disappears altogether? Yeah. Let's talk about those times someday. Somday after I peel myself off the ceiling.

Suffice it to say, ye who run the streets looking for your late-night "experimental fiction" fix should--barring immediate collapse of the book's awesomeness in the final hundred pages--get thee hence to a bookstore or your local library. I know I for one will likely be diving backwards into The Sea Came In At Midnight shortly after finishing Our Ecstatic Days.