Zhang Enli, The Wires (3), 2015In Los Angeles, gardenias. In the Bay, bougainvillea and hydrangeas. Summer in San Francisco feels like the center of the world. I associate June with drain flies, coconut-scented sunscreen, tan lines from my sports bra. War and Peace is a winter book; Bonjour Tristesse and The Ravishing of Lol Stein are summer books. I noticed recently that I don’t care about Freud anymore and I no longer obsessively reread Annie Ernaux, Graham Greene, Flaubert. For many years, I would chew through bildungsromans before bed; now I exclusively read shitty fantasy. How I expect books to help me has changed. I used to hope they would explain the vagaries of my emotional life, assure me my appetites were understandable if not typical. I no longer require the same reassurance. More and more I sense that ageing is a process of gradual simplification. I am no longer bothered by complexity, and more and more I’m barely intrigued by it. What interests me is nature, physicality,…
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