A fictional week.....

After having read the door-stop of a novel, City on Fire, over the last few weeks I was in need of some bite-sized reads this week. Fortunately I had a couple of short story collections on my bookshelf that I'd received as gifts.

Marina Keegan's The Opposite of Loneliness is a collection of essays and stories from Keegan who tragically died aged 22 having graduated from Yale with a career ahead of her at the New Yorker. Whether Keegan would have achieved her ambition as a celebrated writer we'll never know but this collection demonstrates that she had a raw and unpolished talent.

The key essay in the collection, The Opposite of Loneliness, is the most memorable. "We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that's what I want in life" begins Keegan instantly grabbing the reader with an original and accessible voice. 

Keegan writes of her post graduate fears; "We're so young. We can't, we MUST not loose this sense of possibility because in the end, it's all we have". Her hopes and dreams are at the same time deeply personal whilst also speaking for a generation. The truthful prose is even more profound given that the work was published, in this format, post-humously. That said, the genius of the essay is that Keegan speaks for not only her generation but for anyone who has ever dreamed of the future.

Keegan's fiction is less ambitious but readable never the less which leads to the second read of the week.

Murakami's Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is a collection of 21 short stories previously published in magazines from Harpers Magazine to The New Yorker. As with most of Haruki Murakami's canon these stories are at times esoteric but always hugely original and imaginative best summed up by the writer himself; "I'm very realistic. But when I write, I write weird".

For me the stand out story is Chance Traveller which is, evidently, narrated by Mr Murakami himself and explores the idea of co-incidence. The piano player who meets a mysterious girl with a mole on her ear whilst reading Dicken's Bleak House is classic Murakami.

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman is more than a hand full of shorts, its 21 slices of life waiting to be discovered. The chances are you'll be captivated by any number and most likely moved by others. 

The pleasure of consuming 21 short stories in the same time as reading a single novel is extraordinary which is why I've decided that, next Christmas, short story collections will make the perfect gifts.