07:00 – With only four stories left to read before I not only finish Ox-Tales: Water, but the series as a whole, I’m wondering how on earth I’m going to do with my reading time over breakfast (no really I have something else lined up). This morning was the turn of Michel Faber and an extract entitled Walking After Midnight, which is from his upcoming novel, The Book of Strange New Things.
Walking After Midnight is without a doubt an odd story (probably made more so because it’s an extract), one about a Christian missionary waking up for the first time in a new place, a complex known as Oasis. Not a lot happens in the story but it still makes for compelling reading. Faber writes well. He’s descriptively elegant, and water as a theme features greatly, in a very poetic kind of way. I can see a lot of promise for the novel as a whole, but as an extract, although it reads well, it’s maybe not as good as it’s going to be in its final form. Perhaps it’s best then to describe Walking After Midnight as a nice little horse d’oeuvre before the main meal.
10:00 – Did you know I’ve not read any Chekhov shorts since June? That’s shocking isn’t it? Abhorred at such a shortfall I set about reading a couple this morning. The first – Oh! The Public is about a train ticket collector, who having resolved to stay away from the bottle, sets about his passengers to ensure they have valid tickets. A story from Chekhov about a struggling alcoholic has to be funny right? Yet bet! Nobody does it like Chekhov and this story is a rib-tickler from start to finish (you can read my final ‘afterthoughts’ on the story here). The second story, Mari d’Elle also got the ribcage trembling. Opera star Natalya is at odds with her annoying husband, and it doesn’t help that he’s come clumping into her present during one of her rest periods – Oh dear! Funny stuff though, and again I’ve posted my official afterthoughts.
22:00 – You’re not going to believe that I never got back to Mark T. Sullivan’s Triple Cross last night, but the truth is I didn’t so I’m making sure I finish this journal entry as early as I can, so that I can get back to it. Don’t you just hate distraction?
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