Two Years of Mostly About Stories

Mostly About Stories has been going for about two years now. I was tempted to give a little summary or whatever at the end of the year, but on balance doing it now makes sense. At the end of any year, and especially one such as that which has just passed, there’s so much to go over that the development of a little blog really has no claim to anyone’s attention.

But what is exciting is that this blog is no longer just a little blog at all.

I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. The blog has grown, massively, in relation to itself. As far as its relation to other book blogs goes, I have not the faintest idea of whether I’m doing well or badly here. Well, actually, I have the most recent version of the same survey that I mentioned when I posted one year ago. According to this, in some respects I’m doing quite well indeed.

One year ago, last January, I had 1078 views on the blog for that month, which worked out as 35 views a day. This month, still unfinished, sees me already at 2738 and with an average of 111 per day. This would put me in the top quartile by pageviews according to the survey. Last year, with the exception of a dip in February, every month was larger than the last. Things just built up, slowly but surely. As they should.

I shouldn’t worry about views, but I do enjoy thinking that people read my blog. Last year I had one follower – a friend. This year I have almost twenty, and almost all of them are unknown to me. The same is true of comments. I now have a few. Not a huge amount, but enough to be excited about. Engagement is what I’m after, really, with this blog. I want a place where people read and want to have their say.

Identity

But it is difficult, because the identity problems I mentioned last year are still present. What exactly is Mostly About Stories? I have long analyses, such as my pieces on Benjamin’s “The Storyteller” (still the most popular piece by far), short poems such as this one by Baratynsky, pieces focusing on a particular aspect of a novel like my thoughts on character in Nostromo, and more general pieces, like this one on Misotheism. It is perfectly reasonable for a blog to be varied in its contents. Just as Borges declared that Kafka created his own precursors, so too do I create my own readers. But that tension between a blog that’s a mess and a blog that’s held together by a unity – some stance, or perhaps my own character – is one that I’ve not resolved.

Even so, this year has been good for the blog’s “intellectual” development. I wrote some long pieces I had wanted to for a while, such as my thing on late Tolstoy, and some shorter more conversational pieces, like my thoughts on how many books to read. I wrote on books that I enjoyed, and on books that I studied, as usual. I do still struggle with knowing what to write. With a book that I’m studying, there’s always an element of teaching involved. I want my readers to learn something, and since the books can be obscure or not available in English, they perhaps do. But when it’s a book that everyone is familiar with, or a book that is long, I’m left flummoxed. Last year I read both War and Peace and Wuthering Heights and I had absolutely no idea what to say about them. Everything’s been said already.

This possibly reflects bad reading habits on my part. I’m not sure I quite “got” Wuthering Heights, though I did have stuff to say about it. But I think it also reflects an unwillingness to write shorter pieces. One thing that I’ve been somewhat adamant about in the past is that Mostly About Stories is for longer pieces, of around 1500 words or more. Yet sometimes I don’t have that much to say, or I want to focus on something small. I wanted to write about education in Wuthering Heights but didn’t know how to make it into a good enough size.

This is an idiotic stance to have. People’s attention drops off rapidly at about 1500 words anyway. Why force people to read more? Perhaps in the future I should aim for something like 1000-1500, but ensure the content is good and tight. Or perhaps I should just let each piece take its own length. All of these ideas have merit.

Reading

Last year, which I spent mostly in Russia with a little time in Cambridge at the end, was a good year for reading. John Williams’ Augustus and Butcher’s Crossing, Marilynne Robison’s Gilead, Joseph Roth’s Radetzky March and Job, Richard Holmes’ Footsteps – all of these are books that have left their mark on me, by authors who were mostly new to me. Then there was Sally Rooney, who is exciting even as I’m somewhat ambivalent towards her work.

This year promises more discoveries. My degree at Cambridge finishes in the summer, leaving me for the first time in a very long time completely free to read whatever I want. It is a great opportunity, as well as a great burden. I am confident I will find something to read. I already have a lot of things I want to. Much more befogged lies my future beyond this blog. Do I get a job, do I do a master’s degree, do I run away into the mountains and become a full-time writer? All of these are possible, as are some less pleasant variants. Only time will tell which fate has decided for me.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Come again.

Here’s a dreadful poem for your time:

I’d Rather (by Konstantin Balmont)

I wouldn't want to be a storm, 
There's too much thunder brewing there. 
I'd rather be the dew at dawn, 
Whose quiet peace knows no compare. 

I'd rather be a little flower, 
The kind whose bloom you barely see, 
The kind that spurns the thunder's power
To have its happiness, to be.