And so with great pleasure fellow reader, I return once more to scribing the virtual pages of my online reading journal. Adamant that I would not return to posting journal entries until I was completely happy with the format I was using for this feature, I realised the futility in having such a mindset; given that such a thing needs time and space and substance (the ‘clay on the potter’s wheel’) in order to evolve. So as this reading journal feature returns fellow reader, please consider it for now, an ongoing ‘work in progress’. If I give myself permission to be as unstructured and ‘free form’ as I want to be with this feature at the moment, then I’m sure a final format (one which I’m completely happy with) will emerge.
So, what of my reading of late? Well, if you’ve been following RobAroundBooks then you will know that I am in the middle of a project to read all six of the titles in this year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist. So far it’s all going well. With me having already read one of shortlist titles previously – Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou (Serpent’s Tail) – I’m only left with five to read. I may be a little behind in posting my afterthoughts for them but I’ve now finished two, Brodeck’s Report (MacLehose Press) by Philippe Cluadel and Pietro Grossi’s Fists (Pushkin Press). Both of these were incredible reads, and both have the potential to emerge as the overall winner of the Prize when it’s announced next Thursday. I move now to Julia Franck’s The Blind Side of the Heart (Harvil Secker), and as with the other titles in the shortlist I have great expectations of this one, not least because it’s translated by one of my absolute favourite translators, Anthea Bell.
You know, my journey through this year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist has been an absolute pleasure so far. Sure this extra and quickly arranged reading project has made my workload intense and relentless over the past couple of weeks, but I never feel more alive than when I’m completely submerged in my reading. And with the quality of translated fiction I’m reading right now I’ve barely ever felt the need to come up for breath. In fact, if anything it totally reaffirms to me that my decision to move towards concentrating almost exclusively of translated fiction was the right one to make.
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Moving on and Monday is of course my designated day for indulging in the works of Guy de Maupassant (read as part of my Devouring de Maupassant challenge). Today I journeyed through a couple of stories which couldn’t be more different from one other. The first tale, The Little Roque Girl, focuses on the gruesome murder of a twelve-year-old girl. And what begins as a tale of crime and investigation soon evolves into something different, as the focus turns to the murderer and the gnawing feeling of guilt that haunt him/her. You can catch up with my afterthoughts on the story HERE, so that’s all I’m saying about it.
The second Maupassant tale, Our Spot (you can find my afterthoughts on it HERE) is an entirely different kettle of fish (quite literally). Reading more like a modern-day comedy sketch than anything else, Our Spot shows just how versatile Maupassant can be in his storytelling. A true genius of the form? I should absolutely say so! 
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May also sees me having to work my way a couple of heavyweight short story anthologies. I began my journey my journey through them today, starting with the culturally rich anthology of Arab writing, Beirut39 (Bloomsbury)
Taken from the novel Bedouins on the Edge, this extract from Abdelaziz Errachidi – a Moroccon writer and journalist – is odd yet stylishly sophisticated in its prose. The story centres around an ‘elegant white car’ which has crashed into an electricity pole on the edge of a desert town. And with the car left abandoned with only a few random items left in the boot – a seed bag, an axe and an odd-shaped hoe – the primary occupation of the townspeople, soon becomes one of speculation as they try to work out what the car and its occupants were doing in the area, and why it may have crashed in the first place. The speculation is further fueled by an outsider – al-mahjub (the ‘covered one’), a desert gypsy – who has his own interpretation on the events.
As I said, I enjoyed the beauty of the prose but if I’m being completely honest, I couldn’t quite get my head around the meaning of this extract. It seems allegorical – a rumination on the danger of outsiders perhaps – but at the same time it also seems to play around with the concept of the traditional storyteller, and how he has the ability to be able to manipulate a story both for effect and personal advantage.
Am I missing the point with this one? I’m certain that I am, especially when the point is perhaps being made all the more obscure with this only being an extract. Regardless, there’s a real power and elegance in this taster and I enjoyed reading it immensely. Story Rating: 
The other anthology I’m working my way through in May is Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio’s upcoming, Stories (Headline Publishing), and I began today with the opening story, Blood by Roddy Doyle.
Blood follows the main character – a nondescript Dublin banker – as he copes with an increasing pull towards vampirism. Having apparently grown up in ‘Dracula’s City’, and having walked past Bram Stoker’s house every day on the way to school, it would seem that our main character had, at some point unbeknown to him, become a victim. Only now in his married adult life, is a vampiric yearning for blood beginning to reveal itself.
Coming with the rather lofty declaration that it is a ‘groundbreaking anthology that reinvigorates, expands, and redefines the limits of imaginative fiction, Stories has definitely set the bar high for itself, right from the outset. Thankfully, this slightly stomach-churning opening story manages to make it over that bar, without even clipping a heel. Imaginative Blood certainly is, and it’s a wholly entertaining tale too. Doyle shows real ingenuity in taking something as fantastical as vampirism and turning it into a suburban tale; making it appear like an everyday problem (almost) for an everyday kind of guy. And he does so with great success. A triumphant opener. Story Rating:
::Tuesday’s reading plans::
- Devoting my short story reading to Chekhov on Tuesdays, I have two tales from the Russian maestro lined up – Summer Villa and Panic Fears.
- My journey through the world of contemporary Arab literature continues with Beirut39, and it’s another extract from a novel. This one is the rather ominous sounding The Trip to the Slaughterhouse by Dutch-born Moroccan, Abdelkader Benali.
- It’s onwards with Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio’s Stories and a story from literary heavyweight Joyce Carol Oates called Fossil-Figures.
- Desperate to meet the deadline for reading all of the Foreign Fiction Prize shortlisters before next Thursday, I begin reading Julia Franck’s The Blind Side of the Heart.
- As packed as my reading schedule is today, I hope to fit in at least a little bit of Knut Hamsun’s Shallow Soil in order to keep my Totally Knut reading project progressing.
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