I'm trapped in a world of non-fiction and I can't get out. I hunger for the emotional ups and downs and sideways of a fine novel, but I'm drawn instead to biographies of Napoleon.

Sinclair Lewis once told Barnaby Conrad, "People read fiction for emotion -- not information." I read non-fiction for information, not emotion. What is wrong with me?

I've tried novels, yes indeed, but I often bog. Novels rich in nuance and embossed with character make me long for tales of shipwrecks and the men who dive for treasure. I prefer World War I aeroplanes crash-landed in a circle of moonlight behind enemy lines to affairs of the heart. I wish I were more sophisticated.

Two good readers I know separately and enthusiastically recommend I read C. S. Godshalk's new novel, Kalimantaan. Today I tried, diligently and desperately, but each page threw me back to the Sunday paper, where columnists bare their hearts in just 300 words, and NATO bombs Kosovo in order to save it.

Here's what I mean, from the first page of Kalimantaan: "Half the face sags as if something has pulled down on it, the shoulder sloping oddly from the chair. She circles him, then slowly folds herself to the floor and takes the wrist in both her hands. Sunlight slides across the wood and climbs her knees. Her thigh bones ache as they ached in her first pregnancy, but she does not move. It is the first time in forty years that she has sat alone in this room with this man without some strain," and so on.

The brain glazes: "Sunlight slides across the wood and climbs her knees." C. J. may have worked a year on that sentence alone. It's like the first half of Ondaatje's The English Patient. His novel is a dense mystery. It's beautiful, it's peopled with troubled characters, including one who never speaks, and at first you have no idea what it's all about. Some people saw the movie just to figure out the novel.

I enthusiastically recommend The English Patient to potential readers. I may explain it's aptly named -- you'll need patience with it. Read on, and gradually it makes sense. The incidents in The English Patient resonate until suddenly you understand where you are (post-war Italy) and what is happening (it's a love story and an anti-war story). Eventually you arrive at the rare moment of pleasure when you realize you love the book.

Charles Dickens learned how to capture his audience from the first sentence. He had to learn this, as many of his books, both early and late, appeared as serials in magazines.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." You don't know where you are, but you understand that you are about to be told. "It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity..." Yes! Tell me more, Charles!

I've been reading about the 17th Century spice trade in two superlative non-fiction books, Nathaniel's Nutmeg and The Scents of Eden. I've said here they read like good novels. I must clarify ­ they are as entertaining as novels, heavy on incident, light on emotion.

Some people read ONLY novels. I admire these people. They are the graduate students of literature and I am in sixth grade remedial. I also know people who read not only single poems but entire BOOKS of poetry, with great apparent pleasure. These readers are like gods to me.

I worship in the Temple of Books but I am drawn to the easy-going Vestal Virgins of literature. I read books like Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea (just out in paperback). I don't pick up books that read like gods gargling grapes.

In the second paragraph of Kalimantaan Godshalk has her narrator say, "No one can tell this story..." However, Godshalk is going to try for another 467 pages, plus Glossary, Acknowledgments and Author's Note.

I plan to read all the way to the end of Kalimantaan. I will be experiencing new shades of meaning. My friends will notice a quivering new emotional sensitivity, a je ne sais quoit of the spirit.

I'll let you know. Right now the phone is ringing, the cats are hungry, there are bills to pay and the newspaper beckons. Kalimantaan calls but the Giants are on TV and they need me.

Aired Thursday May 20, 1999 at 9:30 am and Sunday May 23, 1999 at 10:55 am