Reading Journal: Remainder of Week 10 2010
March 15, 2010 by Rob
Filed under Reading Journal
So how did my reading for the remainder of last week go then? Well to be honest not awfully well. Distraction and procrastination seemed to rule supreme in what turned out to be a rather odd, and lightening quick end to the week. I really need to tighten the ropes, and pin down exactly why, in my first week back, I didn’t manage to complete my prescribed reading. I think fiddling around (still) with my blog isn’t helping much, as neither is the Internet in general (I’m spending way too much time Twittering for instance). So this week I’ve decided to unhook myself from the Net as much as possible, and get back to the proper business of distraction-free reading and writing. Hopefully by doing this the posting pipe at RobAroundBooks will unblock itself, and everything will begin to flow again more freely.
So anyway I’ll begin this week then as I mean to go on, and offer a brief rundown on the reading I did manage to get through last week. My previous journal entry was posted last Tuesday, and as is usual for this particular day of the week, my day began with a read through of two Chekhovian tales. I’m not going to dwell on either of them here, rather I’m going to send you to my afterthoughts post for the stories. A Nightmare afterthoughts can be found HERE, and my Grisha afterthoughts – which scored a maximum 5 out of 5 – can be found HERE.
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Next up in my prescribed reading list was the next essay in Chinua Achebe’s The Education of a British-Protected Child (Allen Lane). Me and my Dad is certainly a short one – probably defining a new ‘flash essay’ genre – but nonetheless it was still very readable. Focusing just as much on Achebe’s great-uncle Udoh as it does on Achebe’s dad, this essay gives a real slice of the personal life of Achebe, touching on his early motivations. What’s more is it closes out on a very poignant note; one which still presents itself as a septic wound to all black Africans. So not a long essay by any stretch of the imagination, but one which is more powerful than its size may first suggest.
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I also promised that I was going to make a start on Zombie: An Anthology of the Undead (Piatkus), with the opening story from John Connolly called Lazurus. I said at the time that the story’s title made it sound very biblical, and I wasn’t wrong. Lazurus is based on the biblical tale of Lazurus – the man whom Jesus raised from the dead – and this very inventive and wholly readable story relates to the rising, but from Lazurus’ perspective.
Never it let it be said dear reader that zombie tales cannot cross the boundaries of literary fiction, because Connolly has crafted an excellent story here, that is every bit as ‘literary’ as many I’ve read. Here’s a brief extract to illustrate:
Lazurus does not remember what happened after his eyes closed for the last time. He knows only that he has forgotten something, something very important and beautiful and terrible. It is as though a roomful of memories has been sealed up, and what was once known to him has now been forbidden. Or perhaps it is all merely an illusion, just as it seems to him that the world is obscured slightly by gauze, a consequence of the four days spent lying on the stone, for his eyes now have a milky cast to them and are no longer blue, but grey.
Beautifully worded I think, and the story as a whole offers some real hope that this anthology may be something a bit special. I certainly hope so. Story Rating: 
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The biggest success of my week must undoubtedly lay in my new-found discipline of ‘free reading’ at the weekend. Free to read as I wish – rather than following scheduled commitments – my time was primarily focused on my new best friend, Michel de Montaigne, or more particularly Sarah Bakewell’s biography on Montaigne, How to Live (Chatto & Windus). I posted a Daily Bookshot on Friday hailing this biography from Bakewell but admitted then that I had only dipped in and out of it so far. It got me thinking that I really wanted to connect with Montaigne over the weekend, and connect with him I certainly did.
Because I penned such copious notes during my reading, I’m only about halfway through Bakewell’s creation, but already it’s standing as a wonderful, wonderful biographical creation. Bakewell is borderline genius in promoting the merits and ‘greatness’ of the sixteenth-century writer, and I have been invigorated on so many levels. Just as Almásy’s constant companion in The English Patient is Herodotus’ The Histories, so I think Montaigne’s essay collection (the Everyman’s Library edition – supposedly the definitive version) may now become my traveling companion throughout life. Ever since first watching the movie adaptation I’ve often wondered what my definitive ‘companion book’ would be, and now I think I may have found it. I’ve certainly ordered a copy of Montaigne’s collected essays so we will see. But never let it be forgotten that my primary motivation for being drawn to the man in the first place, is due to the ringing reverence for Montaigne that blares out from the pages of Bakewell’s book. A full review on this book when I’m finished, but if anyone meantime comes to me looking for the most wonderful of introductions to Michel de Montaigne, then I’m certainly going to point them towards How to Live.
::Monday’s reading plans::
- Maupassant always comes to visit me on a Monday, and so I’ve two stories lined up. I’m once more returning to the Oxford University Press collection I’m working my way through, A Day in the Country and Other Stories. The first story up is called A Railway Story, and the second – Our Chum Patience.
- Having started and then stalled, I’m keen to get into the second story from the Zombie anthology, a story from David Liss called What Maisie Knew.
- You’ll notice that I didn’t make much reference to current read Neel Mukherjee’s A Life Apart (Constable & Robinson) in my entry above. I’m saying nothing on my progress with reading it, other than to declare that I need to get moving on finishing it.
‘Reading Journal’ provides an unedited, on-the-fly record of the bookish highlights in Rob’s reading day.
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Rob, a self-confessed bibliophile, is without any hope of rehabilitation. He gets unnaturally excited over anything book-shaped, and if book sniffing were a crime then he would have been locked up years ago (which wouldn't bother him in the slightest provided his cell were lined with books)
