Facing up to a literary period

I have officially finished reading my first book for the year. (Admittedly, I started it in November 2006, I think). A brilliant travelogue/memoir by Jan Morris, Europe, which Anke gave to me in return for looking after her plants while she was stationed in Atlanta for 3 months with her work. I loved every moment I spent with that book (sometimes in Eindhoven, Amsterdam, London, sometimes in Duesseldorf or in between). Jan (interestingly, formerly 'James') travelled for 50 years around Europe. As could be expected from someone so experienced and who also happens to be quite well-versed, she has many stories and angles to tell these tales. But Ms Morris is not only erudite and pithy. She has moments of tendresse that I just don't want to forget. She describes this old lady from Douarnenez: "She ... had a shawl around her shoulder, her face was infinitely wrinkled, and her smile was so kind that it seemed to be coming to us from different times altogether - before the Fall perhaps. 'I want that lady,' my small daughter said."

I am now well into my first novel for the year. It's Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre - the winning title of the Man Booker Prize in 2003. Sort of weird, vivid and stimulating writing. Unusually, while there are frilly adjective-studded and arguably too-lively sentences, I've been really enjoying it (well, I had to mostly grin and bear Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things for exactly the same reasons.) For example, "She's slow, she's sweaty, her features huddle in the middle of her face", and "... the sheriff's lips tighten. He puts on his hat and creaks back out through the door. I don't know about where you live, but around here we teach life's hard lessons with our lips". It's been a complete change in context, content and pace when compared to Europe. I am halfway through Little after only a couple of days on it.

My current reading selection triumph took place after reading a two and a half pages of The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, translated by Lucia Graves. I was forced to put it down once I'd read: "A smallish man with vulturine features framed by thick grey hair opened the door. His impenetrable aquiline gaze rested on mine." Something suspect (dare I even say - Dan Brownish ... aieeeee/ewwww!) about that sort of writing. Perhaps it's a cheap translation? Anyway, it's neither the Garcia Marquez nor the Allende rip-off that I was expecting. Even so, it was a pristine copy that I bought from the Eindhoven Book Fair last November. Most devastatingly (or was it subconscious?), this morning I spilt hot tea all over the book, and now I cannot palm it off to some poor unsuspecting non-discriminating reader.

But I am thinking that there's been enough procrastinating for the start of the year. As the third month of 07 looms into the near distance, I think I should keep to my word and actually start writing some of my own. The second Hardjono (J. M) manuscript will be written before 2008 ticks over. What it'll be about, and what quality it may end up being is something the critics and significant others (often one and the same) will speculate over for months to come. And if there's anything with faces or facial features in it, I'll do my best to keep nasty pop-fiction specs out of it.

10.00pm, same day

Just finished reading Little. Incredibly gripping story and story-telling. Can't tell you how it made me feel - will give too much away. There was much gasping and rapid page-turning this afternoon. Read it!