blogging is writing for people who can't write

I have just spent a very, very long time trying to write about the effects depression can have on your ability to read and write. It is, to me, indicative of my current state that I was unable to do this. So I deleted all that writing, and now I'm just going to state that over the last few months I've experienced the worst possible feelings in the world. I want to be able to write about it, but I can't. I need to be happy to write, which I think is different to most people who experience a link between unhappiness and creative endeavour (I just mistyped that slightly and the spellcheck came up with 'cretinous'....oh Freud, forgive me). In my experience, unhappiness leads to a total numbness of sensation, an absolute opacity that stops me thinking, feeling, reasoning, anything. And if you can't think, you can't write, not properly anyway. Because good thinking leads to good writing (and naff thinking to naff writing, similarly). That I am able to write all the above (which Lord - and I - knows is hardly the insight of genius) is at least, to me, ''a step in the right direction'' as the flyers at the doctor's say.

What I am able to do tonight is list the books I've read recently. 

In March I read A Disaffection by James Kelman, which is a brilliant novel about a disaffected philosophy teacher. It is marvellous. Undoubtedly a 'hard' book, it is worth the effort and trouble. The comparisons with Beckett and Zola are justified. I have since given my copy to a friend of mine, himself a disaffected philosophy teacher. I also read about 80% of The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin. It's not worth it - very smug, very Oxford. I don't mind a decent Oxford novel, but I do mind the inane trotting out of naff cliches with no intelligent alteration. You'd never guess that EC was a good friend of Larkin (or you might, depending on what you think about Larkin). I also read The Elephant's Journey by Saramago, which is a beautiful, playful, warm and wise novel: if your favourite character doesn't end up being the elephant, you are dead inside. I wholeheartedly recommend this book. It is a perfect blend of seriousness, coyness, intelligence and insight. Saramago's use of punctuation can be a little alienating at first (in short, he doesn't actually use much at all) but do persevere - like Trainspotting that little bit of effort in the opening pages will make all the difference. On the basis that it is a good colleague's favourite novel, I also read Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis. It is a cheap and silly and delightful novel about a New York socialite. Read it on Hampstead Heath in the unseasonably clement weather. I'm currently trying to finish The Ladies' Paradise by Zola - he says such interesting things about shopping, women, consumption, clothes - but he does so in such a laborious and long-winded way. Paid by the page - no surprises! In an attempt at rehabilitation (see first paragraph) I am also reading Cold Comfort Farm and trying to channel my inner Flora Poste. With reasonable success, so far.