Unreliable Reader

Thanks to a review by Tales from the Reading Room, I've started reading Nick Hornby's collection of essays entitled The Complete Polysyllabic Spree. Whilst I've enjoyed Hornby's novels, it's his essays that really strike a chord with me. He seems to be my kind of reader. I find myself in agreement with so much of what he says. Not, you understand, in that smug self-satisfied way but rather in agreement with a man who expresses so engagingly many of the thoughts I would have developed if I hadn't been browsing Pinterest or playing that maddeningly addictive Candy Crush. This is the fourth time I've deleted this utterly pointless game from my phone. Let's hope it's the last.

But back to Hornby. The Spree is a collection of pieces he wrote for the Believer magazine. It's quite a refreshing read, not over worthy or too serious, it's 'simply' an account of his reading month by month. One thing reassures me - his lists of 'Books bought' and 'Books read'. It's good to see that I'm not the only one who buys books in a flurry of excitement and then takes months to get round to reading them. Even more reassuring is his second monthly piece which records the month's reading 'unfinished, abandoned, abandoned, unfinished'. I'm glad I'm not the only one who fails to come up with a satisfactory report. This is my long winded way of owning up to my own rather desultory reading over the last few months.

I'm not sure if it is due to a genuine lack of free time or - more likely - that I've been too much of a fidget to apply myself to 'serious' reading. Either way, after such a promising start Les Miserables is back on the shelf where books are seen rather than read. I have redeemed myself slightly by reading Hangover Square from my classics list. I wasn't sure what to make of it at first, but in the end I was glad I'd read it. I'll post a proper review when I have more time.

Having enjoyed Helen Dunmore's The Siege several years ago, I thought I'd give 'Zennor in Darkness' a go. Set in Cornwall during the First World War, it tells the story of a young woman Clare, her cousin who comes home on leave and their friendship with D H Lawrence and his German wife Frieda. As with The Siege this was very readable and perceptive too.

I'm currently reading The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen. I can't say I'm enjoying this one yet. The prose is dense, with every statement and every observation seeming to be qualified. I am enjoying the descriptions of war-time London - it's more of a subtle sense of things than anything concrete - and I hope the effort of reading it will prove worthwhile in the end.

Our book group choice is Joanna Trollope's The Soldier's Wife. I've never read any Trollope, but for some reason I have this irrational feeling I'm not going to like it. Are there any books or authors that make you feel that way?

After the Easter break I'm back to my normal working hours and a more ordered house so I hope I'll be able to get down to some proper reviews.

In the meantime, what have you been reading?

Shakespeare and performance

I can't explain why I'm addicted to studying. It's certainly not because I have an excess of free time. Nor is it because I have any grand plans for my career. In fact, asking the question 'so what are you actually going to do with your qualification?' is guaranteed to make my blood boil. It must just be for the thrill of it, for those wonderful 'lightbulb' moments when the pieces suddenly fall into place. Of course, you don't need to commit to formal study in order to learn, but there's something about those relentless assignment deadlines and formal exams that motivate in a way that nothing else can.

If I thought that I'd satisfied my desire to study when I graduated last year, I was wrong. I've toyed with Italian and photography, but without a trip to Italy to put both into practice, my enthusisasm soon waned. So here I am again, this time in the thick of an Open University course entitled 'Shakespeare and performance'. I'd looked at this course a few years ago, but did I really want to spend a whole year studying nothing but Shakespeare?

So far so good. There's something quite satisfying about immersing yourself in a particular writer. Then there's the historical context, the performance history and the joy of being able to watch DVDs and swan off to the theatre and call it 'study'. When I was much younger and studying Shakespeare, watching film adaptations always seemed to be cheating - a soft option for those who hadn't actually read the play in the first place. This course positively embraces the performance aspects. I'm sure my sixth form teacher told me there was no 'definitive' way to read a play, but it was only when I saw David Suchet play Iago in the RSC's production of Othello that I truly understood what she meant.

If there is a disadvantage to studying, it's that leisure reading gets pushed to the edges of my days. Consequently, Les Miserables hasn't been opened for a month and even Hangover Square is proceeding at a snail's pace. Still, with an essay to write on Polanski's portrayal of evil in Macbeth, I have other things to keep me happy.



3000 pages of bedtime reading!