Reading Journal: Sat 27th June 2009
June 27, 2009 by Rob
Filed under Reading Journal
Last night – Got around to reading that 1907 New York Times article on de Maupassant that I was talking about earlier in the day, the one that centred around Edouard de Maynial’s 1906 biography La vie et l’oeuvre de Guy de Maupassant [downloadable pdf available HERE]. Aside from a couple of paragraphs being virtually unreadable due to poor copy, this was an excellent piece and well worth reading, if only for gaining a more contemporary snapshot of the man and his life. The article not only spoke a lot about the phenomenal work ethic that Maupassant possessed, it also details the sad, final demise of the great French writer. Not exactly happy reading of course, but definitely essential reading.
Also identified in the article were a couple of stories, which along with The Horla are considered the final ones written by de Maupassant as he teetered on the fringes of his mental decline – Lui (The Terror) and Que Sait? (Who Knows?). Must make a point of reading these two sooner, rather than later.
08:00 – Saturday morning so an extra hour or so of ‘bed reading’ with coffee and croissants (yum!). Well aware that I’ve spent too much time with the classics over the past couple of days so made a point of reading something a little more contemporary. First, read the first three shorts from the Welsh writer Mary-Ann Constantine’s collection – The Breathing (Planet) [featured in previous Daily Bookshot]. I found the first two stories – The Breathing and The Fisherman in my Bed, to be fairly average (probably because their pitched more towards the female reader), although I must say I was impressed with Constantine’s beautifully eloquent prose. The third story however, Nettles was much better. A great story.
Emerging is a notion that Constantine starts off her stories with some kind of enigmatic statement or revelation, before gradually lifting the mist and making everything clear. Nice technique. We’ll see how it evolves as I gradually digest the rest of the collection.
Finished off the ‘bed reading’ session with a couple more chapters of Tsotsi (Canongate). I’m now at about the half-way point and the story’s chugging along nicely.
20:00 – Been too busy this afternoon to have any chance of picking up a book (arrgghh!), so with the exception of a bit of blogging, the rest of the evening is designated ‘reading time’ for me. Going to make a point of getting through this week’s Alex Burrett short story at Fifty-Two Stories (I’ll be reading it from the UK edition of My Goat Ate Its Own Legs from Burning House Books, however), and then it’s back on to Tsotsi.
‘Reading Journal’ provides an unedited, on-the-fly record of the bookish highlights in Rob’s reading day.
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Rob, a self-confessed bibliophile, is without any hope of rehabilitation. He gets unnaturally excited over anything book-shaped, and if book sniffing were a crime then he would have been locked up years ago (which wouldn't bother him in the slightest provided his cell were lined with books)
