Firstly, my apologies for having not posted a reading journal entry for yesterday. The heat finally took its toll on me and left me a gibbering heap, unable to even think about picking up a book, let alone scribing my thoughts on it. Lessons are always learned though and I will not allow myself to get into such a heat exhausted state again. In fact as I type a fan is blasting me from about 18 inches away. It’s actually quite pleasant. Aside from the cooling, the fan is giving me a ‘white noise’ effect, canceling out all ambient noise and distractions – very welcome!
So back to the reading journal and we’ll cancel out yesterday as some kind of bad dream (which is pretty much how it felt), and we’ll start afresh.
07:00 – I went Maupassant daft this morning and read three of the four stories I still had to read in the Capuchin Classic’s collection On Horseback and Other Stories – The Necklace, which I adored [edit: afterthoughts on The Necklace]. That Pig of a Morin, which was OK [edit: afterthoughts on That Pig of a Morin], and Two Little Soldiers, which aside from the odd moment (i.e. the awkward conversation between two soldiers and a milk-maid), I didn’t really like that much at all. WHAT!?! Rob not liking a Guy de Maupassant story! Has he gone insane? Ha, well the fact is I didn’t find it particularly bad, both in terms of story and Maupassant’s prose, I just didn’t engage with it as I would normally do. I guess there’s going to be some I don’t like, and Two Little Soldiers came close to that today [edit: afterthoughts on Two Little Soldiers ].
18:00 – As I’ve started talking about the Ox-Tales collection from Profile Books, I thought I’d better start making moves towards reading them for review. So I’m scheduling in one story per day until I get to the end of each volume, before reviewing it and moving on to the next. So I started that by reading the first story in the first volume (Ox-Tales: Earth) – The Jester of Astapovo by Rose Tremain. What a fantastic start! I absolutely loved the story. It’s based on a certain Russian writer, for whom the place Astapovo is really significant, and I adored every word of its 42 pages, which I’m sure any fan of this certain Russian writer would. [Edit: The good news is you can read this story for FREE courtesy of Guardian: Books].
23:00 – Ok I admit it, I’m weak! As with the last novel I read – Song for Night by Chris Abani (Telegram Books), I couldn’t get a certain book out of my head, and I couldn’t settle myself down until I read it. I’m sure some of you may have guessed what that book is? Yep you’re right it’s Shusaku Endo’s Silence (Peter Owen), and once I started talking about it, I couldn’t stop. So I need to get this read, reviewed and out of the way so that I can get back on to schedule.
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