Holiday gone!

“Kafka on the Shore” by Haruki Murakami; “The Escape” by Robert Muchamore; “Young Sherlock Holmes – Red Leech” by Andrew Lane; “The Scorch Trials” by James Dashner; “Night Rise” by Anthony Horowitz

What a lazy writer I have been.  A weekend and two days of holiday and not a key has been hit by my fingertips – but I have been reading.  All of the above have been (with different degrees of greed) consumed by my good self.

Here are the opening sentences of the books in no particular order.

1.              She spoke to him before the world fell apart.

2.              As a baby Marc Kilgour had been abandoned between two stone flower pots on the platform at Beauvais station, sixty kilometres north of Paris.”

3.              “So you’re all set for money, then?” the boy named Crow asks in his characteristically sluggish voice.

4.              James Hillager thought he was hallucinating when he first saw the giant leech.

5.              The man in the black limousine had already circled the theatre once.

Some of the above read like responses to an exercise put forward by an uninspiring Creative Writing teacher.

However, the most surprising read was the one with the best title, “Kafka on the Shore” by Haruki Murakami, an International Best Seller and much recommended by a colleague who loaned it to me – though he was not sure about the ending.  I have long given up trying to understand what “International Bet Seller” means, but if this book is one then I have not idea whatsoever what appeals to the great General Public.

This novel is part fable, part historical mystery, part fantasy, part philosophy and lots of other parts that I can’t be bothered to list.  It seemed to me to be a self indulgent, over long mishmash of a few of short stories that the author thought would blend together nicely – well, they don’t.  The references to Culture (the capital is intentional and ironic) are irritating at best and embarrassing at worst.  Surely all writers know that you quote Yeats at your absolute peril!

“The Escape” by Robert Muchamore set in World War Two during the occupation of Paris was much more successful; it tried less but was confident about its narrative structure and it told a rattling good yarn.  It was undemanding and at times seemed like an updated version of the Famous Five with serious bits added.  Perhaps I liked it as there was a ship called The Cardiff Bay in it, but its mixture of war, spies and child courage is a sure fire page turner.

The recent BBC award winning series based on a youthful Sherlock Holmes has spawned other spin-offs and “Young Sherlock Holmes – Red Leech” by Andrew Lane seems to be one of them.  This is a workmanlike story where little history lessons are given along the way to back up a story which takes in the conceit of Lincoln’s assassin being alive and at the centre of a conspiracy of disgruntled Confederates.  There are some nice touches which try to fill in the back-story of elements in the real Sherlock Holmes stories but it is really a constant exercise in the willing suspension of disbelief as one impossible event is piled on top of another.  But all in the name of good clean fun!

“The Scorch Trials” by James Dashner was an exercise in poor taste, using a vague back-story of global catastrophe to justify graphic descriptions of children being killed, maimed and tortured by an organization crassly named WICKED.  But, wouldn’t you just know it, one character reaffirms that “WICKED is good” just as we get to the end of this volume which leads seamlessly into the next rip-off paperback.

Horowitz is a safe pair of hands and this fantasy novel, “Night Rise” is part of a series in which Good (five children) battle against the Old Ones (evil) who are trying to get back into the world through a Gate and so on.  A simple reading of “The Trial” and watching “The Cube” and any form of inexplicable, arbitrary violence is allowable in a moneymaking enterprise.  Readable but unpleasant.

The opening sentences were: “Kafka on the Shore” by Haruki Murakami (3); “The Escape” by Robert Muchamore (2); “Young Sherlock Holmes – Red Leech” by Andrew Lane (4); “The Scorch Trials” by James Dashner (1); “Night Rise” by Anthony Horowitz (5).

There have been two days of sunshine during this little holiday and I have turned a more acceptable shade of cream, but I am still way behind the dark brown that is always my goal!

On balance this has been a good break: plenty of reading; good meals; Family visit; moan with a friend; making a cake from my recipe book of St Jordi and, most important, my first dip in the pool.

I cannot pretend that the water was anything other than cold, but it was not the unbearable cold where you can feel your body shutting down in shock.  I did my usual stint of lengths and felt much better afterwards.

The club I joined on the understanding that their new pool would be open in a couple of weeks has still not opened but the last time I visited it I was assured that it would be open in days rather than weeks.  I of course believed them, though I could hear my colleagues voice in the background asking, in a world-weary way, just how long I had lived in Spain!  I live, as always, in hope.

As I am already a member of Castelldefels Municipal Pool you might be wondering just why I need to belong to another pool.  The answer lies in proximity.  I have to make a special effort to go to the Municipal pool but this “new” one is next to the British School of Barcelona and is therefore virtually on my doorstep.  It is virtually on my way home and I therefore have no justifiable excuse not to go to it.

I have also paid to use the Padel (sic) facilities of the place.  Padel is a mixture of tennis and squash played on a court boxed in with glass walls.  It looks interesting and I might well invest in some new kit and a racquet or bat or whatever it is that one uses to play the game.

I also intend to become a user of the Olympic Canal and get some rowing in.  I remember with pleasure my occasional forays into the lake in Roath Park and I would like to mess about on a boat again!

I am looking forward to Summer this year.

I am not looking forward to going back to school tomorrow though one must remember that Wednesday is the “tipping day” when one will be nearer to the weekend than the start of the week.  And we have had two of my worst days off: eleven periods and a lunch duty gone!

I will have to calculate exactly how many days are left before the end of the course and the departure of the kiddiewinks.

Keep ‘em rolling on!