Reading Journal: Thursday 19th November 2009

Arthur Miller joined me for breakfast this morning, in what is most definitely becoming a routine for the week. Please Don’t Kill Anything is the third story from Presence: Collected Stories of Arthur Miller (Bloomsbury), and to be honest it is rather an odd little story.

Short in length, and apparently recalling an incident that Miller experienced while walking with his wife, Marilyn Monroe, on the beach one day, Please Don’t Kill Anything is about a married couple who happen on a couple of fisherman pulling nets out of the water. As the fisherman recall the nets they sort the catch – keeping the edible fish, and discarding the remainder (mainly sea robins and blowfish), onto the beach. Horrified that the discarded fish will die a lingering death, the un-named wife encourages her husband Sam, to begin throwing the discarded fish back into the ocean.

So what to make of this story? Well it certainly seems to have some kind of allegorical meaning. The woman certainly shows an elevated abhorrence towards death, to the point where her anxiety reveals itself rather quickly. Given that this story is linked to his wife, perhaps Miller is paying homage to her (Marilyn Monroe’s) tenderness. Whatever the reason, Please Don’t Let Them Die, although certainly readable, wasn’t quite up to the standard of the other Miller shorts I’ve read so far – Story Rating: .

****

Having ignored my Lorrie Moore vs. William Trevor reading challenge of late (a challenge to find out which of the two is the most Chekhovian), I was keen to pick it back up today. This of course meant reading a short story from each writer, but relieved of dog walking duties today by Mrs. Rob (nice one Mrs. Rob!), I managed to fit in a mid-morning reading of the two stories.

First up was William Trevor’s In at the Birth (which if you remember is from William Trevor: The Collected Stories by Penguin Books – as are all Trevor stories read for this challenge). The story concerns elderly spinster Miss Efoss, and a married couple – the Dutts, who are described, rather rudely perhaps, as ‘small and thin with faces like greyhounds.’ The Dutts contact Miss Efoss to ask if she would care to babysit for their only child Mickey. After a visit to meet the couple Miss Efoss agrees, and so begins an amicable relationship, where the only thing amiss is that Miss Efoss is never allowed to see the young Mickey, due to his apparent nervous disposition.

Every time I read one of Trevor’s literary creations I feel as though I’m soaking myself in unashamed luxuriousness, and reading this story was no different. It’s certainly one of the more bizarre story offerings that I read from the great wordsmith (is today turning into a day of bizarre story reading?), but it is, as is often the case with Trevor, ultimately satisfying. Some complain that Trevor, in a similar vein to Proust perhaps, is wordy and protracted. However, for me that is one of his endearing qualities, and definitely one of reasons I adore him so much. Story Rating:

For the Moore offering (the stories of which come from Faber’s Lorrie Moore: The Collected Stories) I read How, a very short story written in the form of instructions (a unique(?) story form that I’ve seen Moore use before), which explores the predictable and often fickle nature of relationships

What I’m admiring more and more about Moore (that last bit reads well doesn’t it? ), is that she’s a writer with her own unique style; incomparable to anyone else. I would admit that thus far she has failed to engage me to the same degree that Trevor has. But I think that this is more to do with her choice of themes rather than her writing. This is perhaps not surprising given that most of the Moore stories I’ve digested so far have come from her 1985 volume, Self Help, which is a collection of stories wholly centred on the theme of relationships; with, dare I say it, a pitch and resonance that is perhaps more attuned to the female reader. That said I did find How to be both clever and, despite it’s relatively short length, reasonably engaging. Story Rating:

****

And so as early evening bore down upon me I took myself off on my daily excursion to Berlin, courtesy of Oxygen Books and their newly published city-lit BERLIN. It will probably come as no surprise that the chapter I consumed today, entitled Ich bin Berliner, focuses on exploring the people of Berlin.

The opening extract from Philip Kerr I enjoyed, but probably more because it was the perfect precursor to what follows. In his extract Kerr offers a stereotypical portrait of the Berliner of the past – mustache-sporting (the men of course ), regimented, respectable in appearance and partial to cream in just about everything – including beer. Quite a contrast then to the unkempt ‘modern’ Berliner who wears ‘any old clothes they had pulled out of the wardrobe’, as painted by Jakob Hein in the extract that follows, which incidentally is my most favourite and entertaining extract of the chapter.

In the extract, which comes from his Gebrauchsanweisung fur Berlin (translated as Berlin: a user’s guide), Hein eloquently shows just how very wide in interpretation the Berliner’s definition of ‘normal’ is . If Hein were to be believed (and there’s no real reason why one shouldn’t believe him), then we can assume that modern-day Berlin is a city of whacked-out eccentrics intent on broadcasting their individuality. Book me a flight I’m going

The Ich bin Berliner chapter does however quickly move away from the more fantastical Berliner (after a brief wander along the stiletto-hobbling, handbag-swinging Oranienburger Strasse), to visit some of the more famous ones. My most favourite Berlin ‘celebrity’ is undoubtedly the over-achieving Detective Ernst Gennat, who, along with his crime-busting secretary, was responsible for solving close to 300 murder cases between 1918-39. The only thing bigger than Detective Gennat’s over-sized casebook, was his over-sized self, but we’re told that that only added to his aura of greatness. What a hero for the people, and even more so to me when I read that he ‘despised all forms of physical exertion’ .

The real icing on the cake to this chapter though (aside from a rundown on a few other interesting indigenous or quasi-Berliners), is Tobias Ruther’s extracted sketch of David Bowie, which focuses on his time spent as a resident Berliner.

Overall all then, the most triumphant chapter of city-lit BERLIN for me so far. Chapter Rating:

****

::Reading planned for tomorrow::

• My daily date with Arthur Miller, and a story called The Misfits
• Back to Berlin with city-lit BERLIN and a look at ‘Money, Money, Money …’
• Hopefully a couple of Guy de Maupassant shorts because I miss reading him desperately
• A definite dive back into Sang Pak’s Wait Until Twilight (Harper Collins) – because I missed out on doing so today

‘Reading Journal’ provides an unedited, on-the-fly record of the bookish highlights in Rob’s reading day.