Yay my reading journal has returned, and before I get back on to a daily footing with the recording of my reading, I should give a brief rundown on the reading I’ve been doing while the journal has been ‘off-air’.
So over the past few days I finished Shusaku Endo’s Silence (Peter Owen) towards the end of last week, and if there’s one thing I regret not sharing over these past few days, then it’s the closing out of my journey through Endo’s masterpiece. It’s unlikely that another novel is going to profoundly affect me as much as Silence has. The sheer power and energy that emits from the novel is indescribable, and I would have loved to have recorded that experience and shared it using the medium of the reading journal, which allows for a more on the spot and flowing record to be produced. Hopefully I project my passionate feelings for Silence strongly enough in my afterthoughts, which I invite you to have a read of.
Having ticked off Ox-Tales: Earth (afterthoughts can be found on this page, along with a useful and informative comment that’s been left by top man at Profile Books – Mark Ellingham), I also moved on to start reading through the next batch of stories to be found in volume II of the four book set, Ox-Tales: Air. Three stories ticked off to date. The first – Still Life by Alexander McCall Smith, was a delightful little tale. It’s about an Italian businessman who comes along in his seaplane, to stay at the remote estate of the woman who owns it. An endearing story but it did end rather abruptly making me ponder what the point of the story really was.
The second story, The Tipping Point by Helen Simpson, I’m actually still trying to work out. Nice writing but definitely not one that’s pitched at my lower intelligence. Consequently, this is not one I enjoyed.
The third story was a lot better. In fact it’s one to be truly celebrated. Suddenly Doctor Cox by DBC Pierre is a wonderful story. It’s plot revolves around a delightfully lovable character called David Cox, a homeless security guard who lives in the space to be found between the raised office building and actual ground. Can’t say more than that, other than to make sure you’re comfortable crying around other people. If not you may want to read this one alone.
So that concludes a very brief rundown on my reading activity over the past few days. Let’s get back to the daily account:
07:00 - Back to today then and my reading has more or less returned to a normal routine (thank goodness). I started this morning with the usual short story, the next one in sequence from Ox-Tales: Air (Profile Books), a quite bizarre story from Al Kennedy called Vanish. It’s about a guy called Paul whose been stood up for a date and ends up going to see some mysterious magician do his thing, accompanied (sort of) by a new ‘friend’ called Simon. Stacks of confusing (read: intelligent) inner dialogue going on and a bit of weirdness with the prose left me not really bonding with this one. I’ll admit it. It was too clever a story for me.
18:00 – I’ve been dipping in and out of Bryony Doran’s The China Bird (Hookline Books) throughout the day (initial forethoughts can be found HERE). I’m only up to Chapter 10 but already I’m beginning to really enjoy it. I’m loving Doran’s prose which is light and accessible, but also poetically sublime at times. Take this description of principal character Edward, who is cursed with the disabling and deforming affects of a twisted spine – “In his black overcoat Edward appears like a thorn tree in winter. His stick, one single stem, his legs another, and his head and back the nub where the branches have woven together to be moulded and shaped by a harsh wind.” Gasp! That’s something else isn’t it?
I’ve got to say that I’m also loving Doran’s development of her characters so far, especially chief protagonist(?) Angela who has been ‘built up’ the most up to this point.
22:00 - I may be done with Silence but I’m certainly not done with Shusaku Endo. A quick bath meant a quick ‘check off’ of one of the shorts in his collection The Final Martyrs (Peter Owen). This is the first time I’ve picked this collection up to read so being systematic I chose the first in the collection to read, the story from which the collection takes its name. Similar to the theme of Christian persection in Japan, The Final Martyrs is set in a slightly later period – the nineteenth-century, during the Meiji period. No less powerful in content this story is another phenomenal example of Endo’s incredible writing ability.
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