So thankfully I’m back into the full swing of reading again and I managed to keep up with everything I’d prescribed for myself yesterday – yay! With it being Monday the first reading assignment was getting through my Maupassant shorts, and first up was an exotic tale entitled Marroca. I’ve got to admit that this is a great tale and I really enjoyed it. The story primarily focuses on a love affair that the narrator had with a woman while staying in the Algerian coastal town of Bougie (now perhaps more widely known as Bgayet), and it’s really refreshing to read a story from Maupassant that isn’t set somewhere in the French interior. Furthermore, in writing Marroca, Maupassant shows some real potential for travel writing.
I actually read this story in the middle of the woods, sitting on a log, in the rain, with a jacket ‘tented’ over my head to keep the book dry (what a die-hard reader eh? 
). And while reading it I was wishing for the first time that I had more of a background on some of these Maupassant stories. Such is the richness of his description of the narrator’s love affair in Marroca that I can’t help thinking that Maupassant may be talking from personal experience. Given that Maupassant did of course travel extensively to Algeria in his lifetime, it’s not an unreasonable assumption to make. Anyway, my full afterthoughts on the story can be found HERE.
The second Maupassant tale – Country Living, I also enjoyed immensely, if not more so. It’s a fantastic tale about two families who live alongside one another in the middle of the country. Both families are extensive, with numerous children, and everyone gets along just fine. The relationship between the families changes however when a well-off lady from the city proposes that she and her husband adopts one of the sons in return for a generous reimbursement, and the promise that he will grow up to be fine, rich and successful.
Quite a proposal isn’t it and you can bet it puts both of the families into something of a quandary. I won’t tell you how the story turns out, but I will tell you that it is superbly engineered by Maupassant and the ending is brilliant. In fact I’d go as far as to say that any budding writer of short stories wouldn’t go far wrong than to study this one as the archetypal way in which a short story should be constructed. Is it really that good Rob? You’d better believe it dear reader! Official afterthoughts HERE.
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So yesterday was the turn of the second essay in Chinua Achebe’s recently published The Education of a British-Protected Child (Allen Lane), the eloquently titled The Sweet Aroma of Zik’s Kitchen: Growing Up in the Ambiance of a Legend. The title of the essay as Achebe explains is mainly allegorical, and the essay itself (another transcript of a lecture, this time given at Lincoln University in Pennsylvannia 1994) is in honour of Nigeria’s first President Nnamdi Azikiwe. In it Achebe describes his childhood memories of Azikiwe and the ‘aroma’ which he spread around colonial Nigeria. Achebe talks of him as some kind of mythical god, and I can see why. All-in-all rather a good essay, but heavily political, as one may expect.
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I managed to squeeze in a bit of Neel Mukherjee’s A Life Apart (Constable & Robinson) last night. I’m still enjoying it but I’ve two points of notes. Firstly, you remember me quoting a bit of Mukherjee’s prose in my journal yesterday and stating that what I’d read so far of the novel was just as powerful as the quote but not as graphic? Well I was really caught off-guard last night with a wholly explicit scene. It’s not a problem though, because I’m incredibly liberally-minded and far from being a prude. I just didn’t expect to read what I was reading. So full marks to Mukherjee for keeping me on my toes. I wonder what else he’s going to throw up in the coming pages
The second point of note is in relation to a storytelling device that Mukherjee is using, which as yet isn’t quite locking into place for me. Basically he’s interspersing two different storylines; one following the main character Ritwik as he adapts to his new life, while recalling incidents from his past, and another which follows English governess Miss Gilby around the British Raj. The second storyline is supposed to be one that Ritwik is writing as the novel progresses, but so far I seem to be missing the point. That said I can see great potential in this unique form of storytelling. Ritwik is trying to come to terms with an alien environment, and so is his character in the story. Is Mukherjee using Miss Gilby as a kind of mirror for Ritwik? Who knows. Too early to say. No doubt I’ll find out as the story further unfolds.
::Tuesday’s reading plans::
- Yay it’s Chekhov Tuesday! Two stories planned – A Joke and Agafya
- The march goes on through The Education of a British-Protected Child, and it’s the third essay in the collection, My Dad and Me.
- The shocks and surprises will no doubt continue in Neel Mukherjee’s A Life Apart.
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