A change of coast

Since my last post, I have retrieved my computer, done a ton of research, packed up and gone to visit the opposite coast.

It is the cool of the evening in Kirkland Washington, just across the lake from Seattle. I am sitting on the back deck of my son's house after a delightful dinner. The sky is a brilliant blue and the sun's low angle highlights the leaves of the laurel, the horse-chestnut, and the Douglas fir in what Kipling might have called "more than oriental splendor." Speaking of which, my soundtrack for this post is a quiet shakuhachi rendition of "Depicting the Cranes in their Nest" (Sokaku Reibo).

My oldest granddaughter just quietly sneaked out here and, announcing that she was a ninja (not a contradiction to someone who is almost five-years-old) stole my pen. She also tried to steal a fast-food premium toy that my youngest granddaughter had carelessly forgotten in my pocket, but I was quick enough to move it out of harm's way.

I've made some progress. I have now written my way into the first part of Chapter 4 and Henry's first attempt at a major crime, I spent a good portion of the day, however, pondering the problem posed to me by the writing group I participate in.

The question has to do with the formatting of the book. The group seems split on whether my use of footnotes as an integral part of the structure will annoy or repel a significant portion of my potential readers. Half of the group seems convinced that there is a strong prejudice against footnoted text no matter how entertaining. The other half seems to think, as I do, that in this case, since the footnotes constitute a parallel narrative, people will get over it and read them anyway. I can't help but think that if people can deal with "House of Leaves" they can deal with a book that has footnotes.

On the other hand, I do want to be able to sell this book, and although HoL has a reputation as an experimental novel, the truth is that I have not seen it mentioned on many 10 best lists other than those by gleefully obscurantist hipsters.

So it looks as if I need to think about this.

My immediate reaction is to say "to hell with it ... leave it as it is." It was good enough for Sir Richard Burton's translation of "A Thousand Nights and a Night." But it isn't as if there weren't some viable alternatives, to wit:

• I could increase the size of the footnote typeface to that of the text.
• I could draw a line across the page with the text on the top and the commentary on the bottom.
• I could do side notes a la The Annotated Alice.
• I could place the paragraphs of commentary immediately after that which is being commented on and in a drastically different typeface.

I'm not quite sure how to solve this. It is a puzzlement.