well, as zero hour approaches and the rat of death spins on the knife, I have bought myself 3 books today to read in there if read I am able—Camus: Resistance, Rebellion and Death; The Fall & Exile and the Kingdom; Notebooks 1935-1942, and now my radio gives me Brahms’ First—apropos, for I was listening to this one when the F.B.I. walked in on me in Philly and threw me on in. I have told Frances I am feeling better but I am really not feeling so good, but shit. shit, yes. saw Marina almost all day today, she’s a joy doll and when I leave them at their place and go to leave she screams, “no! no! no!” and I hear her crying as I get into what’s left of the car, as what is left of me gets into what is left of the car. hell of a life. got to take castor oil Tuesday night and then get up at 7 a.m. and give myself enemas—shit is right—so he can probe through the tunnels for rot at 10 a.m., then I enter hospital at 3 p.m. that afternoon. god damn fuckers. started reading Camus tonight, a chapter called “Create Dangerously” but I had read no more than 2 pages and he pissed me off, had me pissed off and disgusted. I too have been guilty of throwing statements around with abandon—whatever pleased my mind—whatever sounded right and strong and entertaining, but I hate to see a man like this building such cases, and then giving it at a lecture—University of Uppsala, Dec. 1957. [* * *]

in a sense, I feel it will be too bad if they cut my candle now. I have never told you but I always thought that my best writing would come after the age of 50. I have felt this slow fattening inside of me, the gradual thing, so gradual, a strange warm presence…well, shit, fuck the dramatics. [* * *]

About Henry Miller—print him if it will keep you afloat; he wants the wondrous Loujon format and you can’t blame him. you’d like it yourself, for yourself, wouldn’t you? Of course, Henry has slipped a few steps down, but he’s still a good name and doubt he can ever forget how to write unless they kill him with a bomb or a stone or a hammer. Odd that I’ve read so little of him. in a bus station once in Texas, I think, and he too, like Camus, pissed me off. yet I realize that they both think, and write well, with force, I mean, there is just something in my brain that will hardly let me enjoy anything at all. I don’t mean that I am an automatic crank or that I am bitter with the success of a Miller or a Camus; it’s just that I’d rather not read. looking at the sun or a woman’s legs or a horse race, this fills me; reading just fidgets and burns and flops across me…dead grease, print, the coffin-lid down. [* * *]