Hi remember me? I’m Rob’ Reading Journal. Yeah I know I’ve not been around for a few days, but Rob has been insanely busy, even struggling to get the other posts up on RobAroundBooks that’s he managed to get up. Over to Rob:
Does that mean I’ve not been been reading? Absolutely not! Although my reading has been drastically reduced over past couple of days, it still goes on. The main focus is still Soothing Music for Stray Cats (Alcemi). I’m around two-thirds of the way through it now and I am absolutely loving it. Jayne Joso is an extraordinary writer of fiction. I’ll say it again – JAYNE JOSO IS AN EXTRAORDINARY WRITER OF FICTION.
The way Joso draws the reader into the story through the wholly unique and charismatic voice of her main character, Mark is nothing short of genius. It’s very rare I engage with a main character so empathetically but in Joso’s I’m so in touch with the man that I swear I can almost feel him breathing – no kidding! Can I indulge in a quote, just to demonstrate Mark’s voice and sublime way of thinking? I’m sure Joso won’t mind:
And the next day, the next day, we’d take the whole damn bleedin’ lot of ‘em, Nelson too, and we’d all go fishing. Think about it, the entire Philharmonic Orchestra fishin’, it makes full sense, they’d be the best, ‘cos no one understands silence the way the great musicians do, and no one would better understand or appreciate the ripples on the surface. And no one more than Nelson, knows why a man needs to be by the sea (‘cept for maybe that Ishmael bloke in Moby Dick)
OK, so I know you won’t have got any meaning from that extract (and thankfully no spoilers either) but I think it offers a good snapshot of Mark and his mindset. I’m really only scratching the surface here though guys, because thinking about it I could practically quote the entire book (well the two-thirds I’ve read so far), such is the depth of Mark’s thinking, and he is oh so observational. Except it isn’t Mark who’s the observational deep thinker is it? It’s really Joso, and how she can put herself so profoundly into the head of a member of the opposite sex is beyond me. The joyful reading continues (thankfully).
My other focus of reading has been Ingar Sletten Kolloen’s Hamsun biography – Knut Hamsun: Dreamer and Dissenter (Yale University Press), which I’m also still enjoying very much. And although I’m only just coming to the end of Part I, I’m feeling quite at home with Kolleon’s narrative; his way of telling the story of Hamsun by stringing together Kolleon’s interpretation and re-writes of original source material. This biography is definitely laying the foundation for my upcoming read of Hamsun’s novels.
That’s about all I have to say for now. No mention of any short stories read, or Richard Holloway’s Between the Monster and the Saint (Canongate) in this entry I know, but the truth is I haven’t been reading any of these since my last entry. The good news is my non-bookish workload is massively reduced again so my ‘decks’ are clearer, leaving the way forward for me to get my reading back on track from tomorrow. Thank heavens!
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