Well what a frustrating week last week turned out to be, at least reading-wise. A former client phoned up on Wednesday night looking for their online catalogue to be updated, and so I spent the remainder of last week doing just that, together with to-ing and fro-ing to the client’s business premises. It’s all good though, it means extra book money in the bank so I’m not complaining 
. Of course all of this extra and unexpected work didn’t help my reading progress any, and I’ve barely got past the reading I’d scheduled in my last journal entry. But get past it I did, so let’s have a run down on this at least.
First up Chekhov, and I’d set myself two stories to read. The first story The Witch, I adored. It’s about retired church sexton Savély Gykin who decides to confront his wife Raïssa one stormy, wintry evening, with accusations of her being a witch. It seems that Savély has long harboured these thoughts about his wife, and his reasoning behind such a notion stems from the fact that every time there is a storm, his wife seems to lure young men to call at their isolated cottage seeking shelter.
So what did I like about The Witch? Well it’s got all of the great storytelling qualities that I love about Chekhov – superb characters, great scene description (the opening description of the storm which rages outside the cottage is superb) and a decent storyline. After reading a couple of Peaver & Volokhonsky translation of Chekhov stories recently I’m a little peeved at the idosyncracies in the Constance Garnett’s translations, but putting these aside this is still a very enjoyable story.
The second tale, A Story Without an End, was an entirely different affair, and I think I can say without fear of contradiction that this was the most dreadful Chekhov story I’ve read so far. I really didn’t enjoy it. It certainly sounds promising – a man (the narrator) is called to the lodgings of Vassilyev the actor, after being told of his botched suicide attempt – but in the end it just rambles on, and becomes somewhat confusing and hard to follow. Surprising for Chekhov and I wonder just how much of my dislike of this story is down to Garnett’s translation (hehehe..it looks like this journal entry is turning into a bit of a Garnett-bashing exercise Not at all because I do generally quite like her).
I know I sound somewhat vague in recounting this tale and my thoughts with regards to reading it, but to be honest with you around halfway through I just wanted A Story Without an End to literally come to an end (quite ironic given the story’s title ). And so I sped up my reading, not pausing to comprehend or to take any notes like I usually do, and that’s made it difficult for me to recall much of it now. That being the case I guess I could ultimately call this story forgettable, which is the first time I’ve ever said that about any Chekhov story. Oh dear!
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Well my reading of the first essay in Chinua Achebe’s newly published collection of essays, The Education of a British-Protected Child (Allen Lane) is complete, and with it is planted a landmark in my reading life. I mentioned in a recent Daily Bookshot that I was intending to use this book to scribble notes in the margin for the first time EVER, and scribble I did. I felt bad at first, as though I were defiling a holy relic or something, but then I was fighting against one of my fundamental principles wasn’t I? Thankfully once I got used to doing it (and getting used to the idea of doing it), I really began to enjoy my one-way conversation with Achebe. So much so that I can’t wait to join him in conversation for the next essay reading .
So what of this first essay itself, the titular The Education of a British-Protected Child? Well given it was a transcript of a lecture Achebe gave at Cambridge University in 1993, not too bad. In the essay/address Achebe gives an account of his time as a student from primary school right through to college, where he points out some of his most influential teachers. At the same time the reader also learns a little bit about village life, colonialism, religion and Igbo customs and beliefs. All-in-all an essay that’s rather jam-packed with information and I rather enjoyed it. As an opener it very much sets a tone for what I hope is going to be a very personal and private journey into the Nigerian writer’s life. I look forward to the second essay, and not just because of the opportunity to create more marginalia .
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I’m finally off and running with Neel Mukherjee’s A Life Apart (Constable & Robinson). I’m not too far in – page 38 – but so far so good. Although this is a debut novel from Mukherjee I have read his style of writing before. He’s written a number of book reviews, and as I said in my forethoughts post for the novel I’ve always found Mukherjee to be poetically eloquent in his prose. Well, as I’d hoped I’m happy to see that this poetic quality is reflected in his fictional prose too, and then some. There’s a real rawness, a real power in the way Mukherjee writes, and as an example here’s a superbly graphic extract in which Mukherjee describes the after effects of the monsoon in Calcutta:
Then there was the business of avoiding the bloated, floating carcasses of dogs and cows, the used sanitary towels, adrift, sometimes wrapping themselves around the legs with a bloody will of their own, the daily rubbish of human living which elsewhere got thrown in bins and taken away in garbage trucks but which in Calcutta sat around almost every street corner, accumulated into largish hillocks, rotted, and then got partially dispersed by the rain in the streets. Eggshells, vegetable matter, food scrapings, bread, fruit peel, paper, rags, bits and pieces of cloth, hair balls, dead rats, rancid food, floor sweepings, congealing vomit, a turd or two, blister packs, bottles, jars, plastic bags, containers. And disease, DISEASE, DISEASE … even thinking about it sent that familiar shudder down his [Ritwik's] spine.
Powerful stuff eh? And so far it’s all pretty much like this (although maybe not quite as graphic ). The reading continues…
::Monday’s reading plans::
- Today for me means Maupassant Monday so I’ve a couple of interesting stories lined up again from the Oxford University Press collection, A Day in the Country and Other Stories. The first story is Marroca, and the second is Country Living.
- Achebe essay #2 in The Education of a British-Protected Child, and it’s the rather lengthily titled The Sweet Aroma of Zik’s Kitchen: Growing Up in the Ambiance of a Legend. Not exactly a snappy title but one that sounds really interesting .
- I crack on with Neel Mukherjee’s A Life Apart and hopefully make some sterling progress.
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