Just because this book can be read in one setting doesn't diminish its impact. It follows a man from his youth to death in the mountains of Austria. IJust because this book can be read in one setting doesn't diminish its impact. It follows a man from his youth to death in the mountains of Austria. I didn't like it quite as well as other powerful stories of small lives (such as Stoner) but it was still thoughtful and beautiful at times.
I kept thinking back to Rock Crystal, another slim novel by an Austrian that had many of the same components - avalanches, wilderness, small towns, and Christmas celebrations.
Thanks to the publisher for providing access through NetGalley....more
I thought this was a fun read that is a good reflection of why I join groups like the Sword and Laser. I never would have read it otherwise. I found iI thought this was a fun read that is a good reflection of why I join groups like the Sword and Laser. I never would have read it otherwise. I found it to be very readable, and I pictured all the little short stories as game episodes and that made it go very quickly. The monsters from eastern European mythology/folklore made it fun, although most of what I Googled took me to the wiki for The Witcher, so they must be pretty scarce elsewhere in literature.
I read this at the behest of the voracious reader, Jen von G, of Misfit Reader infamy. I was curious about the author but not sure what to expect. TheI read this at the behest of the voracious reader, Jen von G, of Misfit Reader infamy. I was curious about the author but not sure what to expect. The novel was short (just under 200 pages) with short chapters and short sentences, often fragments. The chapters move around in time and location, with a young man who seems always on the go. On one Greek island he meets a woman who shows up repeatedly, both in her letters and in his bed. She seems to have uncanny insight to the thoughts he is thinking rather than what he is saying, but I'm not sure he'd keep me involved with him. Certainly not after being thrown on the train tracks.
A few confusing points that kept it at three stars for me, and I'm wondering if they are only problems due to translation issues. First of all, the chapters alternate with chapters named after photographs... should the novel have been called The Seventh Photograph? What does the elephant MEAN and what are the tiny tails? SO many tiny tails. Do they bring us together or does he obsess over them because he feels he has one? What? What is that? Ha. And with the main guy, is he crazy? Psychopath? Was the train just a metaphor like the elephant? Why doesn't she ever get mad?
Some of the writing was worth noting, and Jen claims his other novels are even better, so I would read another at some point.
Examples: "He keeps it all inside....There are people who are pregnant in their soul."
"She often catches herself consciously removing him from his pedestal, including him as just one more piece in the mosaic of her experiences, one more piece of material to be processed; imagining him as a piece of time. Though of empty time. Those who think they've been through everything don't understand the meaning of empty time. Time again. And its emptiness. The deepest, continuous emptiness. Black, white and nothing. Emptiness is not nothing. Emptiness has components, it's made up of parts. Just as experience is a collection of minor events, so too emptiness is a collection of tiny refusals, of tiny buts and nos, which come and weave themselves as threads of negation to fashion the 'not now,' the elsewhere"
"Just like language, so the body too is unable to say everything, it can't speak the whole truth, it can't speak literally."...more
This was a quick, enjoyable read, set in the Senegal of the 1970s. Post-colonial, funny, a man marrying his third wife but then when he can't perform,This was a quick, enjoyable read, set in the Senegal of the 1970s. Post-colonial, funny, a man marrying his third wife but then when he can't perform, the entire community is there to offer an opinion or (less often) to help him undo the curse (the xala). It was interesting to see some concepts of Islam applied (the "I get up to four wives" idea) next to weddings where everyone gets drunk. His daughter rejects polygamy despite being Muslim, she is clearly a "modern" woman and is reprimanded accordingly.
As far as my African reading project goes, this was a good choice because it is a native author. It is translated from the French. ...more
This is absolutely the hardest book I have ever read. Cockroaches is a memoir from Scholastique Mukasonga, author of the award-winning novel Our Lady This is absolutely the hardest book I have ever read. Cockroaches is a memoir from Scholastique Mukasonga, author of the award-winning novel Our Lady of the Nile. This book actually came first in French, but is being translated second into English.
I have a vague awareness of the Rwandan genocide. I am shamefully aware of my lack of knowledge. What I didn't know is how far back the persecution of the Tutsi people began.
Mukasonga's memoir starts with her birth, where families of Tutsi background are already being forcibly removed from their homes and relocated. But this was back in the 1950s and 1960s, not the 1990s. As the decades go by, the increased violence and fear gets worse and worse. She was able to escape Rwanda to Burundi, and then by some miracle ended up in France to continue her social work career in 1992. 27 of her family members were killed in the genocide centered in Nyamata, but of course they are only 27 of the as many as 800,000 killed just that year. But Mukasonga makes it clear that this was only the culminating event. People were being killed all along. Even more of them had their spirits, educations, and hopes killed for decades before. And when she returned back to Rwanda ten years after the massacre, the people remaining, the neighbors she remembers from her childhood were most definitely parties to the killing in some way. Because they live on the land. Because they survived. Her home and land were unrecognizable, and her family had been effectively erased from existence. How does a person face such a thing?
One of the important things this book does, and one of the reasons I think it is so important to read it - it takes the time to name the names. Not only her family but the people in her village. The friends she had, the neighbors she knew, all destroyed.
I've already recommended this book to a friend who teaches conflict literature. It seems like maybe if you can read this and understand how far back the intentional marginalization of the Tutsi goes, how institutionalized and government-sanctioned it became, perhaps then a parallel can be drawn to other situations in the world. Those that aren't there yet, but are headed there. History repeats. We need to be paying attention.
Thanks to the publisher for providing early access to this title via Edelweiss. This is slated to be available in October 2016....more
None of my friends have read this book. I came across it by following a link to an independent publisher sale and was pulled in by the description of None of my friends have read this book. I came across it by following a link to an independent publisher sale and was pulled in by the description of this novel, promising passion and cooking in Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The novel is set in 1969, 1975, and 1985. In 1969, Shlomi is 7 years old and meets his new neighbor, Ella, who is transformative to his young life (and later on.) I love the storytelling technique in the novel, where sometimes events repeat as the point of view shifts to a different character, but always to fill in details the original character would not have known (and to my mind, not overly often.)
I haven't read many novels set in modern Israel, and felt like I learned a lot about the inner workings of groups of Jewish people that I hadn't known before, from the "kibbutzniks" to the recent immigrants post WWII, and how they are viewed by Jewish people who immigrated when the state was first established (because, of course, Israel is a very new country in some ways.)
While Shlomi is central, there is a lot of story surrounding each of his parents, his brother, and some of the neighbors living in the apartment building. From what I understand, not having watched it yet, the movie Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi has even more intertwining narratives with these stories, focusing on another woman living nearby who does get mentioned often. Now I really want to see the film, but Amazon made me click a button agreeing to see adult content even to see the description, for a reason not immediately obvious except that it is not rated.
This was a hard book to put down and I would read hundreds of pages without a break. I think that deserves the fifth star, don't you?...more
I bought this book in a weak moment because someone from my Misfit Readers group insisted I should read it, that everyone should read it. Once I finalI bought this book in a weak moment because someone from my Misfit Readers group insisted I should read it, that everyone should read it. Once I finally got around to reading it, I devoured it. Teffi was a well-known journalist, playwright, and poet in early 20th century Russia, and continued to write as the Bolshevik Revolution displaced and disappeared many of her colleagues. She moved from St. Petersburg to Moscow, but then had to leave Moscow. She thought she would be gone for a month but never in fact returned. This is the account of that journey.
Teffi is able to connect what seem like small details to far greater meaning. One very memorable section has to do with sealskin coats, where she is able to trace how far from Moscow or Russian "civilization" a woman has traveled by the state of her sealskin coat. Another element I found fascinating is her description of some of the Orthodox holy sites that she visits to say goodbye on her way through Russia and Ukraine. They would be transformed not long after, into Gulag sites, into government headquarters, into prisons. Her descriptions keep them alive.
Another book I had in my pile started in Moscow in 1922, A Gentleman in Moscow. I did read it immediately after the Teffi but it lacked the realism and insight that this older text provides.
Stay tuned for the upcoming episode of the Reading Envy podcast, where I discuss Teffi with Ruth....more
Last night, I finished this book, and had no idea what to say about it. Somehow it took me longer to read than I expected, because events unfold very Last night, I finished this book, and had no idea what to say about it. Somehow it took me longer to read than I expected, because events unfold very slowly while you just know everything points to a specific event that is mentioned in the prologue.
I kept hearing comparisons with this book and that kind of thing drives me crazy. Can anyone describe a book anymore without immediately saying it is like something else? The novel centers around the relationship between the female narrator who often feels unnamed (her name is Magda but she is addressed infrequently), although we know she is married, has no children, but has had enough success she needs to devote herself to writing full-time and therefore can't manage her own household* and this is where Emerence comes in. She does much of the domestic work required to run several households, but on her own damn time. Nobody tells her what to do; she tells others what to do. She prepares meals that you'd better like, she brings gifts that you'd better keep... are we really supposed to understand the connection underlying this behavior? I would kick someone to the curb who treated me this way. So it became difficult to understand how these two women at such odds had developed a trust relationship that would have an impact on later events.
Emerence is veiled in many ways - she never shows her hair despite not having any religious beliefs (in fact openly scoffing those who do, including Magda), nobody is allowed inside her house, and for the most part she does not talk about her past, which includes several periods in Hungary's tumultuous history. The stories she reveals made me wish she hadn't! I'll never see lightning the same way again. I know I'm supposed to be thinking about "can a person ever be known" and "what is betrayal" but I'm still stuck on "what is the bond bringing these characters together?"
This book is at least thirty years old in Hungary, and has been translated into English around ten, but this is the first time it was really known to me. Thanks to NYRB Classics for that.
*Somehow this hasn't been a good enough excuse for the state of my household ;)...more
I enjoyed reading and discussing The Vegetarian by Han Kang, so I went looking for her other novel that had been translated into English. This one is I enjoyed reading and discussing The Vegetarian by Han Kang, so I went looking for her other novel that had been translated into English. This one is of a completely different tone - following a handful of people during the events of the Gwangju Uprising (AKA Gwangju Massacre, depending on who is discussing it) in 1980, and its aftermath. Kang was born in Gwangju and moved away in 1979 (but she appears to live there now), so this book is inspired by the story surrounding her childhood, of people who she and her family knew.
Probably not surprisingly, I had never heard of this event, and had only recently heard of Gwangju because a former student worker moved there to teach English. But we had people from South Korea visiting us regularly, a minister who ran an orphanage in Seoul. Perhaps he like those living in the book considered Gwangju as irrelevant to Seoul, or he had other priorities, but I remember more about his stories of his Dad being killed by the Chinese than I ever heard stories like this.
The historical events of the Gwangju Uprising have been covered substantially in Korean film and literature. The introduction to this novel (by the translator) explains that Kang wanted to do something differently. No heroics, only corpses. It is indeed graphic in the sense of dead bodies, horrific in the sense that characters can do little to escape it. There is even a character that feels like foreshadowing of The Vegetarian, one who starts being sickened by meat and refuses to eat it. It made me wonder if the roots of that novel are found here; if the character of Yeong-hye has more than nightmares in her memory....
I was able to access a review copy of this book from the publisher through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review. The book actually came out in January in English, so they may just be promoting it after the success of The Vegetarian (which is on the shortlist for the Man Booker International Prize.)...more
In the now classic novel The Stranger by Albert Camus, an unnamed "Arab" is killed and left for dead on the beach in Algiers. In The Meursault InvestiIn the now classic novel The Stranger by Albert Camus, an unnamed "Arab" is killed and left for dead on the beach in Algiers. In The Meursault Investigation, Daoud sets out to explore that man's life through the eyes of his surviving brother.
In general this book disappointed me, I think because it reads like a response to a letter. What would have best proven an importance of the life of "the Arab" would have been a life that was rich and existed outside "the Stranger." And in the end, the characters seem to be discovering the same things Camus did about existence - that identity only matters to the self, that God isn't real, that nothing matters. And we are alone. We can all kill someone from outside our community and be left feeling nothing.
"There was a door And I could not open it. I could not touch the handle. Why could I not walk out of my prison? What is hell? Hell is oneself. Hell is alone, the other figures in it Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from And nothing to escape to. One is always alone."
Not the cheeriest conclusion, but interesting that both books come to the same conclusion, despite setting out with massively different intentions.
So why only 3 stars? Well, I feel like in general people are awarding this book for responding to a work of literature. I didn't enjoy the read, it felt much longer than 143 pages thanks to steady repetition and circular storytelling. I appreciate the impetus of not letting a person be just a nameless face....more
Agualusa has written a fictionalized account based on the true story of Ludovica Fernandes Mano, a Portuguese woman who barricaded herself in an AngolAgualusa has written a fictionalized account based on the true story of Ludovica Fernandes Mano, a Portuguese woman who barricaded herself in an Angolan apartment from 1975 (Angolan independence) to 2003 (Angolan civil war.) She is limited to what she has access to, starting with her own food stores and then the fruit from the terrace, pigeons, and burning books for fire. I was reading this for my Africa 2016 project, so was a bit disappointed that 1) the main character was Portuguese with very little connection to Angola and 2) so much of the novel took place inside the apartment. There are bits and pieces of what is going on in the outside, and the reader actually knows a bit more than Ludo does. Still, I enjoyed it. The story is interspersed with Ludo's writings, imagined of course, but it helps to see more of her internal view.
"Everything's always disappearing in this country! Perhaps the whole country is in the process of disappearing, a village here, a village there, by the time we notice there'll be nothing left at all."
This comes from Archipelago Press, who does important work in bringing translated works to English language readers. This is the fifth book I have read this year from them!
This novel was also shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker International Prize, which was awarded to The Vegetarian by Han Kang. Both highlight the lives of women who are living in isolation through intentional moves in their lives, but in one novel the life is physically solitary (Agualusa) and the other it is psychological (Kang.) An interesting parallel just the same.
In my year-long project of trying to finish reading a book from every country, I took the time to revisit Mozambique. I could not resist after a few fIn my year-long project of trying to finish reading a book from every country, I took the time to revisit Mozambique. I could not resist after a few friends rated this one so highly, and even moreso when I discovered that this is the FIRST female author to be published from Mozambique. Most of the time you see Mia Couto, who often has women as background only.
What a mistake not to feature the women, as Chiziane demonstrates! Rami, the titled First Wife, thought she was the ONLY wife of her husband Tony. She discovers a host of women he has been involved with, has had children with, and soon understands why he is frequently gone or too tired to be with her. Shenanigans follow, which really are a lot of fun.
But the point of the novel is much deeper than that. Chiziane shows women treating each other with physical violence and social isolation. She outlines how the family of the husband has the upper hand, backing up expectations that the woman serves the man ON HER KNEES and only eating his scraps. She demonstrates the cultural stereotypes of women from "the North" vs. "the South," much of it having to do with sexual education and different definitions of beauty. I laughed at how Chiziane referred to sex and sexual organs until I realized it was reflective of how the women in the culture are able to talk of them. There is the stomach, the brain, and you know, that other thing, maybe the most important thing.
Underlying all of this - the story and the well-crafted interplay of these social truths about Mozambique - is a severe critique of women being treated as property. It isn't polygamy itself that is the villain in this story, but a society that allows for one-sided polygamy as a result of the women-as-property assumption.
The style of writing in the novel feels like an oral tradition. There are repeated phrases, metaphors, similes - often in patterns. I could hear it in my mind the way a mother might pass on the words to her daughter, to prepare her, to warn her. Rami experiences this from her mother, sometimes too late.
"Whether a wife or a lover, a woman is a shirt that a man wears and then takes off. She's a paper handkerchief that gets torn and can't be mended. She's a shoe that comes unstuck and ends up in the trash."
"Polygamy is a fishing net that has been cast into the sea...Polygamy is a solitary howl under the full moon...."
"That's exactly what polygamous love is about. To have a man in your arms while he years for another. You wash the gentleman, darn his socks and underpants, polish the heels of his shoes, pamper him, make him smell nice, so that he can look good in front of other women. Loving a polygamist is to chew pain by way of nourishment, to fill your belly by swallowing your saliva. Loving a polygamist is an endless wait. Endless despair."
I am so excited about the new line of translated novels Archipelago Press is bringing into the world. I was happy to read this one. HOWEVER it really feels most like a call to solidarity, to action, to power for the women in Mozambique. Chiziane eloquently describes the strength of the women in her community. "I think all women should unite with each other against the tyranny of men."
Amen.
Thanks to the publisher who provided a review copy through NetGalley. I have already ordered other books in this recent cluster for my library!
This is a novel to read in a certain mood. It is very atmospheric, emotion-based, musings on death and love and loss. There is not a lot of plot, almoThis is a novel to read in a certain mood. It is very atmospheric, emotion-based, musings on death and love and loss. There is not a lot of plot, almost zero dialogue, but this is not a complaint for me. The novel is marketed as being about a woman dealing with her mother's cancer but I found that to be a background fact; most of the story and reflections are about her romantic relationship. I found my best strategy was to read this in between other books, and just linger over a few pages at a time, almost like poetry.
Here is an example of the writing (noting that I had a review copy so this may not be final version) "Natural disasters don't distinguish between what is foreign and what is not. Nothing stays as you left it. The return home is impossible, one must reconcile oneself with a face that is foreign.
The landscape doesn't miss you. The hills have not pined. To the hills, one person is no more or less foreign than another. All people are always both parts: there is always some recognition, something shred, and no one willing to be shunned in that way. Marginalized like foreign bodies, infants mixed up at birth, planets likewise confused...."
I received a review copy in exchange for an honest review from the publisher via Edelweiss....more
A wee little thriller with more sociopaths to count, easily readable in a sitting, set in France. Infidelity, aloof French grief, and the countryside.A wee little thriller with more sociopaths to count, easily readable in a sitting, set in France. Infidelity, aloof French grief, and the countryside. What's not to like?
Translated by a UK scholar (noticeable with the use of the word "whilst"), I imagine the language is well-captured. Fragmented sentences, short sections, some characters portrayed in their dialogue while others are only known through Fabien's internal thoughts.
If you have something you wish to teach to me, tell me the truth about your life.
Don't write a parable. Don't have an unlikeable all-knowing characteIf you have something you wish to teach to me, tell me the truth about your life.
Don't write a parable. Don't have an unlikeable all-knowing character with a big ego teach me a lesson.
I keep trying to see this novel in the context of the time it was written, to understand what it might have meant in 1922. Were people where Hesse lived not thinking for themselves? Were they going by what they were taught or told instead of experiencing anything on their own?
I need to think about it some more. Those who have read other books by Hesse, is this what to expect? More of the same?
This is one of my friend's favorite books and I hate that I don't love it. Maybe I will get more out of it by starting the conversation....more
Oh no, can I really be giving Alberto Manguel only three stars? I didn't realize this book would be so disconnected. The beginning few chapters are amOh no, can I really be giving Alberto Manguel only three stars? I didn't realize this book would be so disconnected. The beginning few chapters are amazing, about how reading forms a person, the relationship a reader has with books - his examples are personal and I marked a bunch of things to use in my reading class. But then the essays turn a bit obscure, and I didn't find much to interest me, sadly.
Some tidbits from the first few chapters:
“I learned at a very early age that unless you are reading for some purpose other than pleasure (as we all sometimes must for our sins), you can safely skim over difficult quagmires, cut your way through tangled jungles, skip the solemn and boring lowlands, and simply let yourself be carried by the vigorous stream of the tale.” (3)
“How are readers to be guided by these entrusted spirits to find their way in the ineffable reality of the wood?
Systematic reading is of little help. Following an official book list (of classics, of literary history, of censored or recommended reading, of library catalogues) may, by chance, throw up a useful name, as long as we bear in mind the motives behind the lists. But the best guides, I believe, are the reader’s whims – trust in pleasure and faith in haphazardness – which sometimes lead us into a makeshift state of grace, allowing us to spin gold out of flax.” (7-8)
“In the midst of uncertainty and many kinds of fear, threatened by loss, change, and the welling of pain within and without for which one can offer no comfort, readers know that at least there are, here and there, a few safe places, as real as paper and as bracing as ink, to grant us roof and board us passage through the dark and nameless wood.” (10)
“The possibilities offered by books are legion. The solitary relationship of a reader with his or her books breaks into dozens of further relationships: with friends upon whom we urge the books we like, with booksellers who suggest new titles, with strangers for whom we might compile an anthology. As we read and reread over the years, these activities multiply and echo one another. A book we loved in our youth is suddenly recalled by someone to whom it was long ago recommended, the reissue of a book we thought forgotten makes it again new to our eyes, a story read in one context becomes a different story under a different cover. Books enjoy this modest kind of immortality.” (16) ...more
Does a lover ever leave you, and do regrets/hurts ever heal? In this very slim novel, two former lovers end up seated next to one another on the trainDoes a lover ever leave you, and do regrets/hurts ever heal? In this very slim novel, two former lovers end up seated next to one another on the train, thirty years past their breakup. The short chapters alternate between the man and woman, with almost all of it the internal dialogue. Cécile and Philippe (hmm, is the author self-referencing here?) ruminate on their relationship's failure but also their current situations, how each of them ended up vs. where they were, and what happened in between. I was left feeling I learned a lot about each of them. The author could have left it at that, but he gives us brief moments of interaction between the two that are so awkward and painful that it really added to the internal agony each of them was feeling. Having just returned from my 20 year highschool reunion, I kind of know the pain.
My favorite movies of all time are the Ethan Hawke/Julia Dempfy "Before" movies - Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, Before Midnight. It isn't just the train element that is similar but this idea of two people who have so many decades between them, and the dialogue that occurs in an enclosed space. In the films, it happens in conversation. In this book, it happens internally, but the effect is very similar.
(Thanks to the publisher for sending this title my way! I'm so happy to be discovering more independent publishers doing great translation work, giving us access to titles like this one.)...more
Horror is not a genre I read often, and I most definitely won't watch horror films or television. But I am trying to read more in genres outside my coHorror is not a genre I read often, and I most definitely won't watch horror films or television. But I am trying to read more in genres outside my comfort zone, and I really liked a fantasy story I read by this author a few years ago, so I thought I'd give it a try.
Black Spring is a town in the northeastern United States, with a witch that has controlled the town since the 1600s. Even though the town lives in the 21st century, in some ways they are still following rules from Puritan days. If you speak of the witch outside of the town, you put everyone at risk. The witch moves around at will. The first time she is introduced in the novel she's in the living room while a family eats dinner, just.. standing. It took me a bit to understand. She can't be moved, she can't be bothered, and eventually she moves on.
Some boys in town are tired of being so limited, and when their rebellion starts involving the witch, bad things start to happen. It really does get quite horrific in the end, although some of the things that happen left me with some unanswered questions.
And since I am not a frequent horror reader, I have a few questions for other readers of the book: (view spoiler)[ -How much of my disbelief should I suspend? Could they really not have warned new families away from moving into the town? -If the witch can move through time and space at will, why couldn't she take off her eye and mouth stitches, or dissolve the chains? -And really, how in the world did anyone ever put those on her without being killed? -Did any outsiders ever see the boy's videos? That plot point seems to drop a bit. -So the father becomes the witch? Phew. (hide spoiler)]
The questions behind the spoiler are what lead me to four instead of five stars. This is the author's first full-length novel that has been translated into English, and I hope we will see more.
Thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy through Edelweiss. This book was discussed on Episode 065 of the Reading Envy Podcast, including a short interview with the author!...more
Quick reread before heading into The Meursault Investigation with one of my goodreads book groups! Still not thrilled with this book, because I don't Quick reread before heading into The Meursault Investigation with one of my goodreads book groups! Still not thrilled with this book, because I don't identify with the main character - he's pretty much the opposite of how I approach life. :)...more
A story of a Catholic girls school in the mountains of Rwanda, set apart from society but not protected from the racial tensions that lead up to the gA story of a Catholic girls school in the mountains of Rwanda, set apart from society but not protected from the racial tensions that lead up to the genocide. The conflicts between Tutsi and Hutu have always existed, and at the time this novel is set, the Belgian government has attempted to mandate mixing by requiring a certain percentage of Tutsi girls to be at the school. But they are not treated the same, at least not by the others.
Other issues are raised, such as the idealization of the Tutsi female by white men, confusing expectations of morality between men and women, and how far rising tensions go.
This novel is also a great example of the difference of a novel set in a country written about people living in that country by a person from that country. Thanks to Rima for the recommendation! Next for Rwanda I'm reading We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families, so I'm expecting it to only go downhill from here.
Jenny (Reading Envy)
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