1avaland
If you have not read the information on the master thread regarding the intent of these regional threads, please do this first.
***22. Europe IV: Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, Bosnia & Herzebovinia, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro
***22. Europe IV: Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, Bosnia & Herzebovinia, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro
2avaland
The Country Where No One Ever Dies by Ornela Vorpsi (T 2009, Albanian)
More a collection of related vignettes or stories, than a novel, The Country Where No One Ever Dies pulls together stories, some perhaps autobiographical, about a young girl/woman growing up in the 1970s in Albania under the oppressive regime of Enver Hoxha. The tales are not chronological, and the girl/young woman's age varies, and she goes by varied but similar names, including the author's name, Ornela. One tale might be from a young girl's viewpoint, another might be told about the young girl in retrospect. One might think this would be confusing, and perhaps intellectually it could be, but I found it had an artful flow - like being caught in the current of a river.
The girl tells of visiting her father in prison, of swordfighting with some very ideal "sticks" which turned out to be her uncle's bones; of stealing the family jewelry piece by piece in trade for being able to read banned books, like Grimm's Fairy Tales. It's a rough life, a rough time; with anger and long-held fears, repressed sexuality, limitations and encultured oppression... and yet, Vorpsi adds a kind of undercurrent of hope because they survive.
A couple of books came to mind as I read this book. It's hard not to think of Herta Müller, although there is no similarity in writing styles. But here are two women authors who both lived under oppressive dictatorships and expressed their experiences artfully through writing. The other book which came to mind was Adania Shibli's Touch (no touchstone) which relates the impressions of a young girl living on the West Bank. Vorpsi has chosen to tell at least some of her story from the viewpoint of a child.
I thought for some time about why this author might have chosen to write her tale the way she did - darting back and forth in time, from different viewpoints, under different names and what came to me is that her book takes the form of remembering. When we remember, we do not remember chronologically, always with the earliest memory first; instead, our memories flit in and out in our consciousness somewhat randomly, and as we grow older we shape them a little differently each time we experience them. And so this is the way I've come to think of Vorpsi's tale.
I'm sure I am not doing this book justice. Not everyone would enjoy it, but I think it important to read for any number of reasons.
3avaland
Rien ne va Plus by Margarita Karapanou (1993, T 2009, Greek author)
An artful book, this novel tells the story of a relationship - the marriage of Alkiviadis ("Alkis") a veterinarian, and our narrator, a would-be writer, whose name, Louisa, we learn near the end of the book. The story is told twice; in the first version the relationship is destructive and emotionally cruel and Alkis reveals himself, on their wedding night, to be gay. In the second version there is a power shift, it is Louisa who taints the relationship with her flagrant infidelities and outright lies.
The book is strangely, or perhaps surprisingly, compelling, considering neither relationship is particularly endearing. But, as the back of the book notes, "Karapanou's devastating exploration of just what makes us want to read each {version}, just what makes each so tempting to write." There's a revelation towards the end of the book that brings the two versions together followed by a short final section where the story switches to third person. I think one of the epigrams says it best:
People interpret an action, and each interpretation is different. Because in the telling and the retelling, people reveal not the action, but themselves —Akira Kurosawa's Rashomom
Recommended for readers who like artful fiction; where the form of the fiction plays a certain part in the telling.
4AHS-Wolfy
Just put up my review for The Successor by Albanian author Ismail Kadare. Winner of the inaugural Man Booker International prize ahead of the likes of Gabriel García Márquez, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth (amongst others).
This is a fictionalised account of the events surrounding the death of Mahmet Shehu (the titular character) and how it affected those involved. His place as designated heir to the Albanian leadership under question and with an enquiry paused overnight where final pronouncement is due, the successor is found dead in his home with a gunshot wound to the head. A verdict of suicide is quickly announced and despite this, or perhaps because of the speed and lack of a thorough investigation, rumours appear of it being a murder instead.
This is a fictionalised account of the events surrounding the death of Mahmet Shehu (the titular character) and how it affected those involved. His place as designated heir to the Albanian leadership under question and with an enquiry paused overnight where final pronouncement is due, the successor is found dead in his home with a gunshot wound to the head. A verdict of suicide is quickly announced and despite this, or perhaps because of the speed and lack of a thorough investigation, rumours appear of it being a murder instead.
5wandering_star
The Bridge On The Drina by Ivo Andrić
The Bridge On The Drina is about ordinary life in a small town, over several centuries. However, while the people of Višegrad are like those in any small town, Višegrad itself is not ordinary. It is on the border of the Bosnian and Serb territories, and its bridge - built in the sixteenth century - is an important communications link for the Ottoman Empire.
Great historical forces lead to political upheavals, imperfectly understood in the town but with inevitable consequences.
Much of the book is focused on the bridge itself, including the terraced area midway across where the townspeople pass the time, and the caravansarai to one side. Serbian villagers try to disrupt the construction of the bridge and are made examples of. Refugees cross the bridge, driven out of their homes. After the shift from the Ottoman to the Austro-Hungarian empire, women start to take the air on the terrace, much to the disgust of the men who used to smoke their waterpipes there. Guards appear and question the people who are crossing.
As this shows, the book is interested in the way that the great political changes are experienced in daily life, and especially in the way that the town changed with each wave of new influence - whether that was in a new way of reckoning weights and measures at the market, or a different shape of horseshoe. And the influence goes both ways:
"Many of these officials, the fiery Magyar or the haughty Pole, crossed the bridge with reluctance and entered the town with disgust and, at first, were a world apart, like drops of oil in water. Yet a year or so later they could be found sitting for hours on the kapia {terrace}, smoking through thick amber cigarette-holders and, as if they had been born in the town, watching the smoke expand and vanish under the clear sky in the motionless air of dusk; or they would sit and wait for supper with the local notables on some green hillock, with plum brandy and snacks and a little bouquet of basil before them, conversing leisurely about trivialities or drinking slowly and occasionally munching a snack as the townsmen knew how to do so well."
This extract also shows the poetry of description which is another feature of the book.
I don't think I've ever read anything which looked at the sweep of history in such a human way. Highly recommended.
Sample: Watching all this, day after day, year after year, the townspeople began to lose count of time and of the real intentions of the builders. It seemed to them that the construction had not moved an inch forward... Men who do not work themselves and who undertake nothing in their lives easily lose patience and fall into error when judging the work of others. The Visegrad Turks again began to shrug their shoulders and wave their hands when they talked of the bridge. The Christians remained silent, but watched the building work with secret and hostile thoughts, wishing for its failure as for that of every Turkish undertaking.
Recommended for: anyone interested in the Balkans, but also for anyone who wants to think about the way that ordinary peoples' lives are thrown about by events set in train far away.
The Bridge On The Drina is about ordinary life in a small town, over several centuries. However, while the people of Višegrad are like those in any small town, Višegrad itself is not ordinary. It is on the border of the Bosnian and Serb territories, and its bridge - built in the sixteenth century - is an important communications link for the Ottoman Empire.
Great historical forces lead to political upheavals, imperfectly understood in the town but with inevitable consequences.
Much of the book is focused on the bridge itself, including the terraced area midway across where the townspeople pass the time, and the caravansarai to one side. Serbian villagers try to disrupt the construction of the bridge and are made examples of. Refugees cross the bridge, driven out of their homes. After the shift from the Ottoman to the Austro-Hungarian empire, women start to take the air on the terrace, much to the disgust of the men who used to smoke their waterpipes there. Guards appear and question the people who are crossing.
As this shows, the book is interested in the way that the great political changes are experienced in daily life, and especially in the way that the town changed with each wave of new influence - whether that was in a new way of reckoning weights and measures at the market, or a different shape of horseshoe. And the influence goes both ways:
"Many of these officials, the fiery Magyar or the haughty Pole, crossed the bridge with reluctance and entered the town with disgust and, at first, were a world apart, like drops of oil in water. Yet a year or so later they could be found sitting for hours on the kapia {terrace}, smoking through thick amber cigarette-holders and, as if they had been born in the town, watching the smoke expand and vanish under the clear sky in the motionless air of dusk; or they would sit and wait for supper with the local notables on some green hillock, with plum brandy and snacks and a little bouquet of basil before them, conversing leisurely about trivialities or drinking slowly and occasionally munching a snack as the townsmen knew how to do so well."
This extract also shows the poetry of description which is another feature of the book.
I don't think I've ever read anything which looked at the sweep of history in such a human way. Highly recommended.
Sample: Watching all this, day after day, year after year, the townspeople began to lose count of time and of the real intentions of the builders. It seemed to them that the construction had not moved an inch forward... Men who do not work themselves and who undertake nothing in their lives easily lose patience and fall into error when judging the work of others. The Visegrad Turks again began to shrug their shoulders and wave their hands when they talked of the bridge. The Christians remained silent, but watched the building work with secret and hostile thoughts, wishing for its failure as for that of every Turkish undertaking.
Recommended for: anyone interested in the Balkans, but also for anyone who wants to think about the way that ordinary peoples' lives are thrown about by events set in train far away.
6wandering_star
The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
This stunning novel interleaves the story of Lazarus Averbuch, a young Jewish immigrant, killed in Chicago in 1908 and framed as part of the "anarchist menace", with that of Vladimir Brik, an early-21st century writer, a Bosnian immigrant to the US (like Hemon himself) who becomes interested in the case and travels through the Balkans and Eastern Europe researching Lazarus' family history, hoping to get a novel out of it.
The 1908 section - the anti-anarchist panic, the callous framing of an innocent young man and the media response to Lazarus' supposed evil crime - is properly angry-making, although it does lose its way a little as the novel goes on. The sections set in the modern-day, desperate and gangster-ridden Eastern Europe are more depressing than angering. But the prose is incredible, and the book stirs up all sorts of ideas, about home, freedom, the old world and the new, and what it means to know someone else. The echoes between the events of both sections lead the reader to think about twenty-first century genocides and xenophobias, as well as the nineteenth- and twentieth-century ones which are directly explored. I had to keep forcing myself to slow down so that I could really get the most out of the writing itself and also the ideas behind it.
Sample: One morning in Chicago I had tiptoed to the kitchen with the intention of making some coffee. While customarily spilling coffee grounds all over the counter, I spotted a can in the corner whose red label read SADNESS. Was there so much of it they could can it and sell it? A bolt of pain went through my intestines before I realized that it was not SADNESS but SARDINES. It was too late for recovery, for sadness was now the dark matter in the universe of still objects around me: the salt and pepper shakers; the honey jar; the bag of sun-dried tomatoes; the blunt knife; a desiccated loaf of bread; the two coffee cups, waiting. My country's main exports are stolen cars and sadness.
Recommended for: anyone who loves to read high-quality writing, and/or those interested in thinking about migration, xenophobia or the chequered history of the late twentieth century.
This stunning novel interleaves the story of Lazarus Averbuch, a young Jewish immigrant, killed in Chicago in 1908 and framed as part of the "anarchist menace", with that of Vladimir Brik, an early-21st century writer, a Bosnian immigrant to the US (like Hemon himself) who becomes interested in the case and travels through the Balkans and Eastern Europe researching Lazarus' family history, hoping to get a novel out of it.
The 1908 section - the anti-anarchist panic, the callous framing of an innocent young man and the media response to Lazarus' supposed evil crime - is properly angry-making, although it does lose its way a little as the novel goes on. The sections set in the modern-day, desperate and gangster-ridden Eastern Europe are more depressing than angering. But the prose is incredible, and the book stirs up all sorts of ideas, about home, freedom, the old world and the new, and what it means to know someone else. The echoes between the events of both sections lead the reader to think about twenty-first century genocides and xenophobias, as well as the nineteenth- and twentieth-century ones which are directly explored. I had to keep forcing myself to slow down so that I could really get the most out of the writing itself and also the ideas behind it.
Sample: One morning in Chicago I had tiptoed to the kitchen with the intention of making some coffee. While customarily spilling coffee grounds all over the counter, I spotted a can in the corner whose red label read SADNESS. Was there so much of it they could can it and sell it? A bolt of pain went through my intestines before I realized that it was not SADNESS but SARDINES. It was too late for recovery, for sadness was now the dark matter in the universe of still objects around me: the salt and pepper shakers; the honey jar; the bag of sun-dried tomatoes; the blunt knife; a desiccated loaf of bread; the two coffee cups, waiting. My country's main exports are stolen cars and sadness.
Recommended for: anyone who loves to read high-quality writing, and/or those interested in thinking about migration, xenophobia or the chequered history of the late twentieth century.
7rebeccanyc
I loved The Bridge on the Drina too, and also Bosnian Chronicle by Andric. I'll look for the Hemon.
This was my review of Bosnian Chronicle:
"Set in a small town in Bosnia during the Napoleonic wars, this book seems to tell the story of the foreigners who live there: the Turkish ruler and two consuls, one from France and one from Austria, and their families. But it is really a portrait of the turbulent times and the people of a town that has gone back and forth between outside occupiers for centuries. Andrić has deep insights into character and into the impact of history on personal ambitions. Andrić wrote this book at the very end of World War II, so he had the benefit of seeing the role that the region played in the first part of the 20th century, but the picture he paints tells a lot about the region's role in our contemporary and recent history too. A slow read, but worth it."
This was my review of Bosnian Chronicle:
"Set in a small town in Bosnia during the Napoleonic wars, this book seems to tell the story of the foreigners who live there: the Turkish ruler and two consuls, one from France and one from Austria, and their families. But it is really a portrait of the turbulent times and the people of a town that has gone back and forth between outside occupiers for centuries. Andrić has deep insights into character and into the impact of history on personal ambitions. Andrić wrote this book at the very end of World War II, so he had the benefit of seeing the role that the region played in the first part of the 20th century, but the picture he paints tells a lot about the region's role in our contemporary and recent history too. A slow read, but worth it."
8berthirsch
I am reading SNOW by Orhan Pamuk and will post a review when i am finished.
1/4 through i am finding it quite interesting. Pamuk writes in an easy style that allows the reader to move quickly through the tale. the chapters are brief and serve as installments to the wider story.
this is a book that speaks to several issues: nationalism, emigrants, secular vs. religiuos models of governement and society, the place of the writer in a community, romance.
all very thought provoking and quite contemporary in today's world.
of great benefit and enjoyment to someone living in the USA is the insight it provides into the Turkish experience.
1/4 through i am finding it quite interesting. Pamuk writes in an easy style that allows the reader to move quickly through the tale. the chapters are brief and serve as installments to the wider story.
this is a book that speaks to several issues: nationalism, emigrants, secular vs. religiuos models of governement and society, the place of the writer in a community, romance.
all very thought provoking and quite contemporary in today's world.
of great benefit and enjoyment to someone living in the USA is the insight it provides into the Turkish experience.
9Trifolia
Albania: Het land waar je nooit sterft (The Country Where No One Ever Dies) by Ornela Vorpsi - 4 stars
For Albania, I also came across this book by Ornela Vorpsi. She's an Albanian writer and in this book, more of a novella, she writes down her impressions of what it was like to grow up in Albania, one of the strictest communist regimes in the world. I can't imagine what it must have been like then and there, but the way in which she tells the story, subdued and cynical, makes it all very visible and tangible. There's a certain distance in her writing and yet it's very confronting at the same time. It would be strange to say I liked this book because it's a very bitter story (rather a collection of memories and impressions) but I did like it, because to me it conveyed perfectly the feelings of despair and bitterness that surrounded Vorpsi when growing up as a young woman in this harsh, very male society. Recommended if you feel up to reading the more serious stuff.
Thanks to Lois for this suggestion.
For Albania, I also came across this book by Ornela Vorpsi. She's an Albanian writer and in this book, more of a novella, she writes down her impressions of what it was like to grow up in Albania, one of the strictest communist regimes in the world. I can't imagine what it must have been like then and there, but the way in which she tells the story, subdued and cynical, makes it all very visible and tangible. There's a certain distance in her writing and yet it's very confronting at the same time. It would be strange to say I liked this book because it's a very bitter story (rather a collection of memories and impressions) but I did like it, because to me it conveyed perfectly the feelings of despair and bitterness that surrounded Vorpsi when growing up as a young woman in this harsh, very male society. Recommended if you feel up to reading the more serious stuff.
Thanks to Lois for this suggestion.
10Trifolia
Bosnia: How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Saša Stanišic
This is a remarkable book. I had expected a somewhat conventional memoir but I was bowled over by a flood of fantasy, images, memories, flash-backs, personal histories and tragedies in which the Bosnian war plays a major role without being prominent. It's hard to describe the book, but it's very fresh and unusual and I recommend it to anyone who's not afraid to break away from conventional story-telling.
This is a remarkable book. I had expected a somewhat conventional memoir but I was bowled over by a flood of fantasy, images, memories, flash-backs, personal histories and tragedies in which the Bosnian war plays a major role without being prominent. It's hard to describe the book, but it's very fresh and unusual and I recommend it to anyone who's not afraid to break away from conventional story-telling.
11LolaWalser
#1
typo alert: NOT "Herzebovinia"; it's Herzegovina. Another typo on the group page: NOT "Herzegovinia", it's Herzegovina. Herzegovina meaning "Duchy" (same etymology as German Herzog, Duke). Stress on the first syllable: HERzegovina.
typo alert: NOT "Herzebovinia"; it's Herzegovina. Another typo on the group page: NOT "Herzegovinia", it's Herzegovina. Herzegovina meaning "Duchy" (same etymology as German Herzog, Duke). Stress on the first syllable: HERzegovina.
12rebeccanyc
GREECE
The Murderess by Alexandros Papadiamantis Originally published 1890s, translation 1981
At the beginning of this intense novella, Hadoula, a 60-ish woman living on a small Greek island in what appears to be the late 19th century, is watching her ailing infant granddaughter while her daughter sleeps. As she watches, she mentally reviews her life, and that of her parents and family, a life of hardship, especially for girls and women. Life has improved in some respects, in that the brigands and the Turks are gone and peace reigns on the island, but the men and women still have to scratch out a living from the rocky earth and the ever-present sea. Many of the young men have left for America, and parents are left to somehow find husbands and dowries for their daughters. Sons disappear, some go to jail, and daughters are a burden. And, as she muses and dozes, Hadoula unconsciously makes a fateful decision that sets into motion the rest of the book.
What stands out for me in this story is the vivid depiction of a time and a place in which the residents know every inch of ground, every risky path across the rocks, and every hidden cave on their remote island, and in which the past is still present in ruined castles and chapels, family is central, and nature is always at hand. As the translator notes in his introduction to the edition I read, at the time Papadiamantis was writing, in the 1890s, the Greek islands were 50 times further behind Athens than Athens was behind Paris and London. Despite some qualms about dialect the translator sometimes uses the somewhat melodramatic nature of the story, I couldn't put this book down, especially as it builds to its not unexpected conclusion.
The Murderess by Alexandros Papadiamantis Originally published 1890s, translation 1981
At the beginning of this intense novella, Hadoula, a 60-ish woman living on a small Greek island in what appears to be the late 19th century, is watching her ailing infant granddaughter while her daughter sleeps. As she watches, she mentally reviews her life, and that of her parents and family, a life of hardship, especially for girls and women. Life has improved in some respects, in that the brigands and the Turks are gone and peace reigns on the island, but the men and women still have to scratch out a living from the rocky earth and the ever-present sea. Many of the young men have left for America, and parents are left to somehow find husbands and dowries for their daughters. Sons disappear, some go to jail, and daughters are a burden. And, as she muses and dozes, Hadoula unconsciously makes a fateful decision that sets into motion the rest of the book.
What stands out for me in this story is the vivid depiction of a time and a place in which the residents know every inch of ground, every risky path across the rocks, and every hidden cave on their remote island, and in which the past is still present in ruined castles and chapels, family is central, and nature is always at hand. As the translator notes in his introduction to the edition I read, at the time Papadiamantis was writing, in the 1890s, the Greek islands were 50 times further behind Athens than Athens was behind Paris and London. Despite some qualms about dialect the translator sometimes uses the somewhat melodramatic nature of the story, I couldn't put this book down, especially as it builds to its not unexpected conclusion.
13StevenTX
CROATIA:
The Return of Philip Latinowicz by Miroslav Krleža
First published in Serbo-Croatian 1932
English translation by Zora Depolo 1959
Forty-year-old Philip Latinowicz, a painter and art critic, finding himself dispirited and void of inspiration, returns to the home he hasn't seen in 23 years. His memories of his past there are troubled. His mother, always cold and distant, refused to tell Philip who his father was. Yet when he returned home after a night of carousing, she condemned his immorality and refused to open the door to him, sending him out into the world alone while still a teenager.
The village of Kostanjevec to which he returns is in eastern Croatia. It is in a state of decay following the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Philip is at times dismayed by the squalor and ignorance of the common people, as well as by the haughty irrelevance of aristocrats living on memories of lost grandeur. At other times he is invigorated by the simple pleasures of rural life and the beauties of nature.
Ultimately Philip's solitary reverie is replaced by a tempestuous daily relationship with a circle of troubled people like himself, at the center of which is Xenia, a femme fatale who seems to keep around her the shattered remnants of the men she has ruined like the drained carcasses of flies in a spider's web. Much of the novel consists of dialog in which one of these men challenges Philip's romantic view of the world and the very nature and purpose of his art.
As a novel of ideas coming out of a society in decay and disillusionment, this is not a cheerful or optimistic book. The questions it raises, however, about art, morality, and civilization in general are still relevant.
The Return of Philip Latinowicz by Miroslav Krleža
First published in Serbo-Croatian 1932
English translation by Zora Depolo 1959
Forty-year-old Philip Latinowicz, a painter and art critic, finding himself dispirited and void of inspiration, returns to the home he hasn't seen in 23 years. His memories of his past there are troubled. His mother, always cold and distant, refused to tell Philip who his father was. Yet when he returned home after a night of carousing, she condemned his immorality and refused to open the door to him, sending him out into the world alone while still a teenager.
The village of Kostanjevec to which he returns is in eastern Croatia. It is in a state of decay following the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918. Philip is at times dismayed by the squalor and ignorance of the common people, as well as by the haughty irrelevance of aristocrats living on memories of lost grandeur. At other times he is invigorated by the simple pleasures of rural life and the beauties of nature.
Ultimately Philip's solitary reverie is replaced by a tempestuous daily relationship with a circle of troubled people like himself, at the center of which is Xenia, a femme fatale who seems to keep around her the shattered remnants of the men she has ruined like the drained carcasses of flies in a spider's web. Much of the novel consists of dialog in which one of these men challenges Philip's romantic view of the world and the very nature and purpose of his art.
As a novel of ideas coming out of a society in decay and disillusionment, this is not a cheerful or optimistic book. The questions it raises, however, about art, morality, and civilization in general are still relevant.
14Polaris-
#13 - Thank you for this review. I've had Krleza's book on my shelf unread for a long time and I'm thinking about reading it for the quarter read.
15noveltea
Bulgaria
Thrown Into Nature by Milen Ruskov
Originally published in 2008, translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel 2011
Set in 16th century Spain (and England), this is the story of (actual historical personage) Dr. Monardes, as told by his student/assistant. Monardes (at least this fictional version of him) is quite cynical in general, but he's perfectly sincere in at least this one respect: He believes that tobacco is a cure-all.
Except for a couple of chapter titles, Ruskov doesn't attempt to recreate 16th-century literary style. (I'm not complaining!) The narrator's voice is chatty and funny. ("Some say it is the ugliest large building in the world, while others argue the opposite, i.e. that it is the largest ugly building in the world.") But there's no plot here, there are simply episodes, some of them featuring cameos by Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Figaro (The Barber of Seville), Ben Jonson, a performance of Hamlet, the plague, and the kings of Spain and England.
I'd be interested to read other work by Ruskov, but I was underwhelmed by this one. In addition to the aforementioned absence of plot, the novel left me with the feeling that the closest thing to a significant character here wasn't the doctor or his assistant or any of their patients, but tobacco itself.
Thrown Into Nature by Milen Ruskov
Originally published in 2008, translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel 2011
Set in 16th century Spain (and England), this is the story of (actual historical personage) Dr. Monardes, as told by his student/assistant. Monardes (at least this fictional version of him) is quite cynical in general, but he's perfectly sincere in at least this one respect: He believes that tobacco is a cure-all.
Except for a couple of chapter titles, Ruskov doesn't attempt to recreate 16th-century literary style. (I'm not complaining!) The narrator's voice is chatty and funny. ("Some say it is the ugliest large building in the world, while others argue the opposite, i.e. that it is the largest ugly building in the world.") But there's no plot here, there are simply episodes, some of them featuring cameos by Lope de Vega, Cervantes, Figaro (The Barber of Seville), Ben Jonson, a performance of Hamlet, the plague, and the kings of Spain and England.
I'd be interested to read other work by Ruskov, but I was underwhelmed by this one. In addition to the aforementioned absence of plot, the novel left me with the feeling that the closest thing to a significant character here wasn't the doctor or his assistant or any of their patients, but tobacco itself.
16rebeccanyc
Yugoslavia/Croatia
The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugrešić
Originally published 2005, English translation 2006
In this thought-provoking novel, Ugrešić explores what it means not only to be an exile and not only to be an exile from a country that no longer exists, but also to be an exile from a country that has been shattered, by war and what we learned to call "ethnic cleansing," into multiple smaller nations. The protagonist, a native of Zagreb now living in Amsterdam, has been hired to teach a two-semester course in the literature of the former Yugoslavia at the University; her students come from all over the former Yugoslavia and have enrolled in the university largely because of the advantage of having a student visa. The title of the book comes from the nickname the students give the factory at which many of them work, a factory that makes S&M clothing and paraphernalia and which in turn is named after an S&M club. However, the "ministry of pain" is really a metaphor for the various kinds of pain the protagonist and the students experience, from "Yugonostalgia" to much deeper traumas.
The best parts of the book come early, as the protagonist engages with the students and delves into the meaning of exile, her feelings about "home," and the complexity of language. As she notes about Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian, which apparently differ mostly in a few words, the students "knew that "our" languages were backed by actual troops, that "our" languages were used to curse, humiliate, kill, rape, and expel. They were languages that had gone to war in the belief that they were incompatible, precisely because they were inseparable." In the second part, she goes home for a visit to her mother and her former parents-in-law, and that visit too is interesting. After she returns to Amsterdam, she begins to spiral downwards, changes the way she teaches the students, visits the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, loses her job, and moves into a new apartment. For me the book then became less compelling. I admire what Ugrešić is trying to do, but in an intellectual way, rather than being truly absorbed in the story. I do think this book makes brilliant use of language, and paints a stunning portrait of dislocation.
The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugrešić
Originally published 2005, English translation 2006
In this thought-provoking novel, Ugrešić explores what it means not only to be an exile and not only to be an exile from a country that no longer exists, but also to be an exile from a country that has been shattered, by war and what we learned to call "ethnic cleansing," into multiple smaller nations. The protagonist, a native of Zagreb now living in Amsterdam, has been hired to teach a two-semester course in the literature of the former Yugoslavia at the University; her students come from all over the former Yugoslavia and have enrolled in the university largely because of the advantage of having a student visa. The title of the book comes from the nickname the students give the factory at which many of them work, a factory that makes S&M clothing and paraphernalia and which in turn is named after an S&M club. However, the "ministry of pain" is really a metaphor for the various kinds of pain the protagonist and the students experience, from "Yugonostalgia" to much deeper traumas.
The best parts of the book come early, as the protagonist engages with the students and delves into the meaning of exile, her feelings about "home," and the complexity of language. As she notes about Croatian, Serbian, and Bosnian, which apparently differ mostly in a few words, the students "knew that "our" languages were backed by actual troops, that "our" languages were used to curse, humiliate, kill, rape, and expel. They were languages that had gone to war in the belief that they were incompatible, precisely because they were inseparable." In the second part, she goes home for a visit to her mother and her former parents-in-law, and that visit too is interesting. After she returns to Amsterdam, she begins to spiral downwards, changes the way she teaches the students, visits the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, loses her job, and moves into a new apartment. For me the book then became less compelling. I admire what Ugrešić is trying to do, but in an intellectual way, rather than being truly absorbed in the story. I do think this book makes brilliant use of language, and paints a stunning portrait of dislocation.
17noveltea
Albania
Elegy for Kosovo by Ismail Kadare
Originally published (in French) 1998; English translation from the Albanian by Peter Constantine, 2000
First of all, I want to object to the "Stories" that shows up in the touchstone for this book. This very short book is in fact one story presented in three sections. The first section is about the 1389 battle where the Ottoman army faced a Balkan coalition army on Kosovo's "Field of Blackbirds." On the eve of battle the leaders of the Serb and Albanian armies drink together and laugh at their minstrels' ancient songs:
"Rise, O Serbs! The Albanians are taking Kosovo from us!"
"Albanians, to arms! The pernicious Serb is seizing Kosovo!"
The minstrels can also see the humor in the traditional words. What they cannot do is stop singing them. Section two follows two minstrels (a Serb and an Albanian) and their fellow "fugitives" after the battle. 'The eleven peoples of the peninsula had to stumble along within a communal shell named Balkan, and it seemed that nobody gave them a second thought, unless to anathematize them: "You cursed wretches!"'
Section three returns for a few pages (and six hundred years) to the battlefield in Kosovo.
I'd been avoiding works about the sad and bloody history of the Balkan peninsula, but Kadare writes with such a light touch that I find myself describing this slim, thought-provoking and moving book about that bloody history as…truly a delight.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Elegy for Kosovo by Ismail Kadare
Originally published (in French) 1998; English translation from the Albanian by Peter Constantine, 2000
First of all, I want to object to the "Stories" that shows up in the touchstone for this book. This very short book is in fact one story presented in three sections. The first section is about the 1389 battle where the Ottoman army faced a Balkan coalition army on Kosovo's "Field of Blackbirds." On the eve of battle the leaders of the Serb and Albanian armies drink together and laugh at their minstrels' ancient songs:
"Rise, O Serbs! The Albanians are taking Kosovo from us!"
"Albanians, to arms! The pernicious Serb is seizing Kosovo!"
The minstrels can also see the humor in the traditional words. What they cannot do is stop singing them. Section two follows two minstrels (a Serb and an Albanian) and their fellow "fugitives" after the battle. 'The eleven peoples of the peninsula had to stumble along within a communal shell named Balkan, and it seemed that nobody gave them a second thought, unless to anathematize them: "You cursed wretches!"'
Section three returns for a few pages (and six hundred years) to the battlefield in Kosovo.
I'd been avoiding works about the sad and bloody history of the Balkan peninsula, but Kadare writes with such a light touch that I find myself describing this slim, thought-provoking and moving book about that bloody history as…truly a delight.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
18StevenTX
ALBANIA
Broken April by Ismail Kadare
First published in Albanian 1978
English edition 1990, translator not identified
For centuries the highlands of northern Albania have been under the rule of the "Kanun," a set of folk laws centered around rigid concepts of family honor that manifest themselves in endless blood feuds. The plateau...
Blood feuds dominate the culture, the architecture, and even the agricultural practices of the region. A man with a blood debt to collect must hunt and kill his designated victim, even though he knows he will, in his turn, be hunted and killed.
Broken April, which takes place in the 1930s, describes the Kanun from three persepective. Gjorg is a young villager who has just killed a man to avenge his brother's death. He must attend his victim's funeral, then sit down to dinner with the victim's family. He has a thirty days truce during which he enjoys immunity; then it will be his turn to be hunted for the rest of his life.
Bessian is a writer from the capital of Tirana who is so fascinated with the Kanun that he takes his young bride Diana up into the highlands for their honeymoon. Their bemused fascination for a barbaric culture gradually becomes something far more serious that threatens their relationship.
Mark Ukacierra is the steward of the castle which is the heart and protector of the Kanun. It is his duty to collect the blood-tax that men like Gjorg must pay without fail when they kill their man. He is the custodian of centuries of records, killing by killing, that help sustain the blood feuds when the will or memory of individuals lapse.
The novel neither condemns nor excuses the Kanun and its code of blood feuds, but shows instead how it is integral to the culture.
Broken April is a haunting and disturbing novel about the side of human nature that is drawn to violence and death.
Broken April by Ismail Kadare
First published in Albanian 1978
English edition 1990, translator not identified
For centuries the highlands of northern Albania have been under the rule of the "Kanun," a set of folk laws centered around rigid concepts of family honor that manifest themselves in endless blood feuds. The plateau...
...is the only region of Europe which--while being an integral part of a modern state...--has rejected the laws, the legal institutions, the police, the courts, in short, all the structures of the state... replacing them with other moral rules which are themselves just as adequate... and thus to put the High Plateau, let's say nearly half of the kingdom, quite beyond the control of the state.
Blood feuds dominate the culture, the architecture, and even the agricultural practices of the region. A man with a blood debt to collect must hunt and kill his designated victim, even though he knows he will, in his turn, be hunted and killed.
Broken April, which takes place in the 1930s, describes the Kanun from three persepective. Gjorg is a young villager who has just killed a man to avenge his brother's death. He must attend his victim's funeral, then sit down to dinner with the victim's family. He has a thirty days truce during which he enjoys immunity; then it will be his turn to be hunted for the rest of his life.
Bessian is a writer from the capital of Tirana who is so fascinated with the Kanun that he takes his young bride Diana up into the highlands for their honeymoon. Their bemused fascination for a barbaric culture gradually becomes something far more serious that threatens their relationship.
Mark Ukacierra is the steward of the castle which is the heart and protector of the Kanun. It is his duty to collect the blood-tax that men like Gjorg must pay without fail when they kill their man. He is the custodian of centuries of records, killing by killing, that help sustain the blood feuds when the will or memory of individuals lapse.
The novel neither condemns nor excuses the Kanun and its code of blood feuds, but shows instead how it is integral to the culture.
As weeks and months went by, Gjorg came to understand that the other part, which was concerned with everyday living and was not drenched with blood, was inextricably bound to the bloody part, so much so that no one could really tell where one part left off and the other began. The whole was so conceived that one begat the other, the stainless giving birth to the bloody, and the second to the first, and so on forever, from generation to generation.
Broken April is a haunting and disturbing novel about the side of human nature that is drawn to violence and death.
19marieke54
ALBANIA
Beautiful portraits of Albania’s burrnesha’s (sworn virgins):
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/12/26/portraits-of-albanian-women-who-have-lived-t...
The end of the article gives a link to an informative Wikipedia lemma.
Beautiful portraits of Albania’s burrnesha’s (sworn virgins):
http://www.petapixel.com/2012/12/26/portraits-of-albanian-women-who-have-lived-t...
The end of the article gives a link to an informative Wikipedia lemma.
20rocketjk
#6> I just finished The Lazarus Project and can wholly endorse your glowing review.
21rocketjk
BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
There are 172 reviews of this book on LT, so nobody needs another lengthy examination of it at this late date. It is the story of the siege of Sarajevo as seen through the eyes of four different characters (although, really, three). The writing is excellent, the scenes well drawn and affecting, the many horrors of the situation brought home . . . and yet somehow the rendering as a whole was all a bit too fast and strangely light compared to what I was expecting. It didn't help that two of the characters more or less ran together for me. I read back and realize that I'm dwelling on the negatives too much. This is a very good book. It just doesn't have the depth I was expecting. I gave it 3.5 stars.
The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
There are 172 reviews of this book on LT, so nobody needs another lengthy examination of it at this late date. It is the story of the siege of Sarajevo as seen through the eyes of four different characters (although, really, three). The writing is excellent, the scenes well drawn and affecting, the many horrors of the situation brought home . . . and yet somehow the rendering as a whole was all a bit too fast and strangely light compared to what I was expecting. It didn't help that two of the characters more or less ran together for me. I read back and realize that I'm dwelling on the negatives too much. This is a very good book. It just doesn't have the depth I was expecting. I gave it 3.5 stars.
22Artymedon
The Fall of the stone city of Ismail Kadare is a wonderful introduction to Albania. Its multiple references to the culture and the different perspectives are ironically presented when the Germans enter the city of Gjirokastër and start taking and then releasing hostages. I know no other Albanian writer and saw that his town was the birth place of Communist dictator Enver Hoxha.
23kidzdoc
CROATIA
The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna
Gost is a small Croatian town in the year 2007, whose apparent peacefulness belies deep seated animosities between its citizens that resulted from the Croatian War for Independence and its aftermath. Its people generally prefer to remain in the town in which their ancestors have resided for hundreds of years than move elsewhere, so they have little choice but to co-exist with each other and keep their feelings hidden, in the manner of a simmering pot of stew that is kept from boiling over by its cover.
The newly liberated country, with its temperate climate, well built homes in quaint towns, and low cost of living, proves attractive to well to do western Europeans, who visit Croatia in increasing numbers to take vacations and purchase houses for summer resorts.
Duro Kolak is a middle aged resident of Gost, a handyman who lives alone with his two hunting dogs on the edge of town. As he sits on a hillside one morning he is surprised to see a foreign make car drive on the road beneath him, which stops at a long abandoned but very familiar house. He watches closely as an attractive British woman emerges from the car, accompanied by her two teenage children. Intrigued, Duro introduces himself to the woman, named Laura, her taciturn son Matthew, and her shy but precocious daughter Grace. The "blue house" is sorely in need of repairs, and Duro offers his services to help Laura fix the house and to serve as a personal guide to Gost and the surrounding area. Laura's husband appears only briefly, so she comes to rely on Duro, as he becomes a friend to her and a father figure to Matthew and Grace.
The townspeople soon learn about their new visitors, who they view with a mixture of curiosity, disdain and hostility. Among those who are most critical of the newcomers are Duro's closest companions, Fabjan, a who runs a café in town, and Krešimir, who was Duro's closest childhood friend. Laura and Grace uncover and restore a glass mural, which corresponds to the opening of old wounds between the three men, as the reader learns about the past events that led to misunderstanding, animosity and tragedy. The past and present stories slowly unfold alongside each other, while merging into a rich tapestry and an increasingly compelling drama that kept this reader on edge until the final page.
The Hired Man is a brilliant tale about the effects of civil war on the psyches of its survivors, the ghosts that haunt them, and the difficulty they face in reestablishing a sense of normalcy towards each other and those who did not share their experience. The relationship between Duro and Laura and her children was equally well done, and these characters were lovingly portrayed by Forna. What is even more impressive is that Forna, whose mother is Scottish and father is from Sierra Leone, effectively and convincingly portrays a country that she has little familiarity with. The Hired Man is an excellent follow up to her outstanding novel Memory of Love, and it would be an excellent choice for this year's Booker Prize longlist.
The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna
Gost is a small Croatian town in the year 2007, whose apparent peacefulness belies deep seated animosities between its citizens that resulted from the Croatian War for Independence and its aftermath. Its people generally prefer to remain in the town in which their ancestors have resided for hundreds of years than move elsewhere, so they have little choice but to co-exist with each other and keep their feelings hidden, in the manner of a simmering pot of stew that is kept from boiling over by its cover.
The newly liberated country, with its temperate climate, well built homes in quaint towns, and low cost of living, proves attractive to well to do western Europeans, who visit Croatia in increasing numbers to take vacations and purchase houses for summer resorts.
Duro Kolak is a middle aged resident of Gost, a handyman who lives alone with his two hunting dogs on the edge of town. As he sits on a hillside one morning he is surprised to see a foreign make car drive on the road beneath him, which stops at a long abandoned but very familiar house. He watches closely as an attractive British woman emerges from the car, accompanied by her two teenage children. Intrigued, Duro introduces himself to the woman, named Laura, her taciturn son Matthew, and her shy but precocious daughter Grace. The "blue house" is sorely in need of repairs, and Duro offers his services to help Laura fix the house and to serve as a personal guide to Gost and the surrounding area. Laura's husband appears only briefly, so she comes to rely on Duro, as he becomes a friend to her and a father figure to Matthew and Grace.
The townspeople soon learn about their new visitors, who they view with a mixture of curiosity, disdain and hostility. Among those who are most critical of the newcomers are Duro's closest companions, Fabjan, a who runs a café in town, and Krešimir, who was Duro's closest childhood friend. Laura and Grace uncover and restore a glass mural, which corresponds to the opening of old wounds between the three men, as the reader learns about the past events that led to misunderstanding, animosity and tragedy. The past and present stories slowly unfold alongside each other, while merging into a rich tapestry and an increasingly compelling drama that kept this reader on edge until the final page.
The Hired Man is a brilliant tale about the effects of civil war on the psyches of its survivors, the ghosts that haunt them, and the difficulty they face in reestablishing a sense of normalcy towards each other and those who did not share their experience. The relationship between Duro and Laura and her children was equally well done, and these characters were lovingly portrayed by Forna. What is even more impressive is that Forna, whose mother is Scottish and father is from Sierra Leone, effectively and convincingly portrays a country that she has little familiarity with. The Hired Man is an excellent follow up to her outstanding novel Memory of Love, and it would be an excellent choice for this year's Booker Prize longlist.
24GlebtheDancer
How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Sasa Stanisic (Bosnia and Herzegovina/Germany)
This is a stunning semi-autobiographical novel. The narrator, Aleksandr (and the author), grows up in Yugolsavia in the 1980s in Visegrad, site of the famous bridge over the river Drina. The early part of the book is a darkly comic recreation of Bosnia in the 1980s, full of pop culture references and peopled by a fascinating cast of characters. As the early 1990s approaches, Aleksandr starts to see stirrings of ethnic tensions, and new hatreds that had not existed before. When the war gets too close, he moves to Essen in Germany, to start a new life. The latter part of the book is a beautiful, saddening, heartbreaking tale of Aleksandr trying to find the characters he knew from his Visegrad childhood, and discovering the effects of the way on them.
I can't praise this novel highly enough. It is translated by the brilliant Anthea Bell, and all of the pathos and tragicomic humour shine through. Though many of the characters are presented as being absurd, almost comically so, their fates and Aleksandr's hunt for them had me near to tears. It is tough, but I have never read anything with similar themes that has even come close. A very memorable book for me.
This is a stunning semi-autobiographical novel. The narrator, Aleksandr (and the author), grows up in Yugolsavia in the 1980s in Visegrad, site of the famous bridge over the river Drina. The early part of the book is a darkly comic recreation of Bosnia in the 1980s, full of pop culture references and peopled by a fascinating cast of characters. As the early 1990s approaches, Aleksandr starts to see stirrings of ethnic tensions, and new hatreds that had not existed before. When the war gets too close, he moves to Essen in Germany, to start a new life. The latter part of the book is a beautiful, saddening, heartbreaking tale of Aleksandr trying to find the characters he knew from his Visegrad childhood, and discovering the effects of the way on them.
I can't praise this novel highly enough. It is translated by the brilliant Anthea Bell, and all of the pathos and tragicomic humour shine through. Though many of the characters are presented as being absurd, almost comically so, their fates and Aleksandr's hunt for them had me near to tears. It is tough, but I have never read anything with similar themes that has even come close. A very memorable book for me.
25rocketjk
I know this is mostly a fiction group, but I must highly recommend the book I just completed, John Reed's The War in Eastern Europe. Reed traveled in Greece, Serbia, Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey in 1915 and wrote this book about the conditions he found there as World War One raged on. The book makes fascinating reading, bringing one back in time for on-the-spot observations about and descriptions of the wide variety of peoples and cultures living throughout the region at that troubled time. To be clear, there is almost no direct reporting about battles, as Reed, in his travels, kept missing the combat, although that's what he was looking for. So he wrote about what he saw, the ways in which the different people he came in contact with were coping with the death, disease, starvation and outrages that the invading and retreating armies had brought to them, and about the official incompetence and corruption to be found everywhere. There is also much to read about Jewish life in the Pale of Settlement during (what nobody knew then to be) the last decades of Eastern European Jewish culture. For example we read the following, in a later chapter entitled The Betrayal of the Jews . . .
. . .
I dined with a captain of Atamanski Cossacks at headquarters in a Bessarabian village near the front. He was telling of his regiment: "They are such impetuous fellows, the officers cannot always hold them; when they come into a village where there are Jews, for example. Ah, the rascals! When they get to killing Jews they cannot be halted!"
. . .
"You Americans, {an infantry captain across the table} said, "do not understand what we have to endure from these people. The Jews are all traitors to Russia."
I remarked that that was curious, because in Austria and Germany they were entirely loyal, and in fact had subscribed the greater part of the last two Austrian war loans.
"That is different," replied the colonel firmly. "In Germany and Austria the Jews have civil rights; therefore naturally they are patriotic. In Russia, however, the Jews have no civil rights. So they betray us. So we kill them."
He seemed perfectly satisfied with this explanation, and the others did, too.
. . .
I dined with a captain of Atamanski Cossacks at headquarters in a Bessarabian village near the front. He was telling of his regiment: "They are such impetuous fellows, the officers cannot always hold them; when they come into a village where there are Jews, for example. Ah, the rascals! When they get to killing Jews they cannot be halted!"
. . .
"You Americans, {an infantry captain across the table} said, "do not understand what we have to endure from these people. The Jews are all traitors to Russia."
I remarked that that was curious, because in Austria and Germany they were entirely loyal, and in fact had subscribed the greater part of the last two Austrian war loans.
"That is different," replied the colonel firmly. "In Germany and Austria the Jews have civil rights; therefore naturally they are patriotic. In Russia, however, the Jews have no civil rights. So they betray us. So we kill them."
He seemed perfectly satisfied with this explanation, and the others did, too.
26rocketjk
Greece
Back to Delphi by Ionna Karystiani
This novel about the ways in which the inner despair of one generation can imprint itself unwittingly but inexorably upon the next is beautifully and powerfully written, but in places it is very dark. We also get a close-up look of urban, lower-middle class life in Athens. This book is very good, but often hard to read due to the almost relentless unhappiness of its characters.
Back to Delphi by Ionna Karystiani
This novel about the ways in which the inner despair of one generation can imprint itself unwittingly but inexorably upon the next is beautifully and powerfully written, but in places it is very dark. We also get a close-up look of urban, lower-middle class life in Athens. This book is very good, but often hard to read due to the almost relentless unhappiness of its characters.
27Tess_W
The Judgment of Richard Richter is a riveting and haunting story of a man who finds that everything he thought was true about himself was not. Both plot and character are a slow build. This reminds me of some of the great reads of the 19th century. This is not a feel good book; it is depressing and fatalistic. The time period is the Bosnian War and "action" shifts between Vienna and Sarajevo. This book was translated into English from Croation. The author is originally from Bosnia from which his family fled during the Bosnian War. 300 pages 5 stars
28thorold
Seeing Nickelini’s recent posts reminded me again that these threads exist… Here's a quick catch-up list of relevant books from 2018:
Q1 (see also my Club Read thread http://www.librarything.com/topic/278102):
The Architect's Apprentice (2014) by Elif Şafak (Turkey, 1971- ) - gloriously kitsch elephant extravaganza in 16th century Istanbul
Madonna in a fur coat (1943) by Sabahattin Ali (Turkey, 1907-1948) - forgotten mildly subversive low-key romance that recently popped up from nowhere
Q2 (see also my Club Read thread http://www.librarything.com/topic/289441):
Q3 (see also my Club Read thread http://www.librarything.com/topic/293138):
The Gaze (2000) by Elif Şafak (Turkey, 1971- ) - Schrödinger's cat meets Angela Carter by the Golden Horn
Q4 (see also my Club Read thread http://www.librarything.com/topic/296979):
Q1 (see also my Club Read thread http://www.librarything.com/topic/278102):
The Architect's Apprentice (2014) by Elif Şafak (Turkey, 1971- ) - gloriously kitsch elephant extravaganza in 16th century Istanbul
Madonna in a fur coat (1943) by Sabahattin Ali (Turkey, 1907-1948) - forgotten mildly subversive low-key romance that recently popped up from nowhere
Q2 (see also my Club Read thread http://www.librarything.com/topic/289441):
Q3 (see also my Club Read thread http://www.librarything.com/topic/293138):
The Gaze (2000) by Elif Şafak (Turkey, 1971- ) - Schrödinger's cat meets Angela Carter by the Golden Horn
Q4 (see also my Club Read thread http://www.librarything.com/topic/296979):
29Nickelini
Albania
The Country Where No One Ever Dies, Ornela Vorpsi, 2005
Rating: 4 stars
Comments: This novella is a series of vignettes about a girl (or possibly girls) growing up in 1980s communist Albania. Some of the bits were incredibly evocative, like when two children played Romeo and Juliet sword fights with what turned out to be the uncle's bones. On the downside, I could have read this in a sitting or or two, but the abuse of the narrator by her elders was too uncomfortable. How many times was she called a "whore" before she was old enough to know what sex was?
Why I Read This Now: I was looking for a short book before heading into October spooky reads (a sorbet course, perhaps?). I own this book because I got interested in Albania a few years ago when I made friends with an Albanian who has told me a lot about the country and shown me pictures of its beautiful beaches and gorgeous mountains. Definitely on my list of future travels. If international travel happens again.
This novel won several literary prizes in Italy.
Recommended for: fans of Dalkey Archives, readers who want to know more about life in Albania or life under real communism, or lives of young women under traditional and repressive regimes.
ETA: Notes about the translation - Originally published in Italian in 2005 as "Paese dove non si muore mal", and translated by Robert Elsie and Janice Mathie-Heck. But I read elsewhere that it was actually written in French in 2004. And the blurb about the translators says that Robert Elsie is an expert on Albania, and doesn't say anything about either of them working in Italian. Strange. At any rate, the English translation was done in 2009.
The Country Where No One Ever Dies, Ornela Vorpsi, 2005
Rating: 4 stars
Comments: This novella is a series of vignettes about a girl (or possibly girls) growing up in 1980s communist Albania. Some of the bits were incredibly evocative, like when two children played Romeo and Juliet sword fights with what turned out to be the uncle's bones. On the downside, I could have read this in a sitting or or two, but the abuse of the narrator by her elders was too uncomfortable. How many times was she called a "whore" before she was old enough to know what sex was?
Why I Read This Now: I was looking for a short book before heading into October spooky reads (a sorbet course, perhaps?). I own this book because I got interested in Albania a few years ago when I made friends with an Albanian who has told me a lot about the country and shown me pictures of its beautiful beaches and gorgeous mountains. Definitely on my list of future travels. If international travel happens again.
This novel won several literary prizes in Italy.
Recommended for: fans of Dalkey Archives, readers who want to know more about life in Albania or life under real communism, or lives of young women under traditional and repressive regimes.
ETA: Notes about the translation - Originally published in Italian in 2005 as "Paese dove non si muore mal", and translated by Robert Elsie and Janice Mathie-Heck. But I read elsewhere that it was actually written in French in 2004. And the blurb about the translators says that Robert Elsie is an expert on Albania, and doesn't say anything about either of them working in Italian. Strange. At any rate, the English translation was done in 2009.
30Nickelini
>2 avaland:
came to mind was Adania Shibli's Touch (no touchstone) which relates the impressions of a young girl living on the West Bank.
The Country Where No One Ever Dies reminded me of Touch too.
came to mind was Adania Shibli's Touch (no touchstone) which relates the impressions of a young girl living on the West Bank.
The Country Where No One Ever Dies reminded me of Touch too.
31labfs39
TURKEY
Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey by Özge Samancı
Published 2015, 190 pages
Özge Samancı was born in 1975 in Izmir, Turkey. Her memoir begins with her six-year-old self using binoculars to see her sister waving from school across the street. "School," Özge says, "was the place where you could wave to your mother and your sister, who were watching you with binoculars. I wanted to be on the other side of the binoculars." Her whole childhood was spent thus, trying to keep up with her smart and accomplished sister, who always seemed one step ahead, and to be in the limelight of her parent's approval. Always slightly off-kilter from the expectations of her family, teachers, and Ataturk (whose hagiographic presence in Turkey during the '80s was ubiquitous), Özge struggled to find her own path and dare to disappoint these expectations.
The tone of the book, as well as the drawings, are funny and sweetly expressive. I was reminded of Ramona the Brave, but life in Turkey was not as saccharine as American suburbia. I learned a bit about Turkey's ban on imports, educational practices, and political tensions, but without any explicit lessons. Dare to Disappoint was a fun book to read, and I enjoyed following Özge into college. She is currently an artist and assistant professor at Northwestern University in Chicago.
Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey by Özge Samancı
Published 2015, 190 pages
Özge Samancı was born in 1975 in Izmir, Turkey. Her memoir begins with her six-year-old self using binoculars to see her sister waving from school across the street. "School," Özge says, "was the place where you could wave to your mother and your sister, who were watching you with binoculars. I wanted to be on the other side of the binoculars." Her whole childhood was spent thus, trying to keep up with her smart and accomplished sister, who always seemed one step ahead, and to be in the limelight of her parent's approval. Always slightly off-kilter from the expectations of her family, teachers, and Ataturk (whose hagiographic presence in Turkey during the '80s was ubiquitous), Özge struggled to find her own path and dare to disappoint these expectations.
The tone of the book, as well as the drawings, are funny and sweetly expressive. I was reminded of Ramona the Brave, but life in Turkey was not as saccharine as American suburbia. I learned a bit about Turkey's ban on imports, educational practices, and political tensions, but without any explicit lessons. Dare to Disappoint was a fun book to read, and I enjoyed following Özge into college. She is currently an artist and assistant professor at Northwestern University in Chicago.
32labfs39
TURKEY
Snow by Orhan Pamuk, translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely
Originally published in 2002, English translation 2004
I read My Name is Red a few years ago and thought it amazing, so I began Snow with anticipation and high hopes. Unfortunately, I struggled to like this book, or even finish it. I think it would have made a good novella.
Ka is a self-absorbed poet who lives in political exile in Frankfurt, Germany. Returning home for his mother's funeral, Ka learns that a woman he formerly had a crush on, İpek, is now divorced and living in a town in the far northeast of Turkey called Kars. When he hears news of a rash of suicides there by girls forbidden to wear headscarves to school, Ka boards a bus for Kars with the intent to write about it for a Frankfurt newspaper. En route it begins snowing heavily, and he barely makes it to Kar before the roads are closed. For the next three days, Ka investigates the headscarf girls, gets involved in a coup, and woos İpek.
The novel is riddled with literary wannabes who seem to have a hand in creating the plot. It is a story within a story with two plays in the middle and peppered with poems which are never revealed to the reader. From page one, the reader is aware that someone is narrating Kars story, and, although he claims omniscience by dint of having read Ka's diaries, the narrator (a novelist) also mimics Ka and seems jealous of him. Is he relating Ka's story or writing it? Ka, who had been in a creative drought prior to his return to Turkey, is flooded with fully composed poems as soon as he arrives in Kars. Is he creating them or simply recording them? Journalists fabricate stories which then come true, actors stage plays with live action consequences, and everyone wants to pass along a message to the West.
The love stories in the book are facile, with little sincerity but lots of angst on the part of our protagonist. I failed to connect with the characters and had little sympathy for their machinations. The only characters I found truly sympathetic are a couple of religious school students and the headscarf suicides whom we never meet.
Pamuk touches upon many issues in his novel—secularism vs Islamist politics, militant nationalism, Kurdish guerilla fighters, the wearing of headscarves, the role of art in Turkish politics—about which I know little. Perhaps if I were more conversant with Turkish history and politics, I would have gotten more out of these sections. As it was I either appealed to Wikipedia or muddled my way through.
Snow was Pamuk's first novel after the wildly successful My Name is Red, and I felt as though he were trying to be as clever and innovative as he had been in that book, but missing the mark.
Snow by Orhan Pamuk, translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely
Originally published in 2002, English translation 2004
I read My Name is Red a few years ago and thought it amazing, so I began Snow with anticipation and high hopes. Unfortunately, I struggled to like this book, or even finish it. I think it would have made a good novella.
Ka is a self-absorbed poet who lives in political exile in Frankfurt, Germany. Returning home for his mother's funeral, Ka learns that a woman he formerly had a crush on, İpek, is now divorced and living in a town in the far northeast of Turkey called Kars. When he hears news of a rash of suicides there by girls forbidden to wear headscarves to school, Ka boards a bus for Kars with the intent to write about it for a Frankfurt newspaper. En route it begins snowing heavily, and he barely makes it to Kar before the roads are closed. For the next three days, Ka investigates the headscarf girls, gets involved in a coup, and woos İpek.
The novel is riddled with literary wannabes who seem to have a hand in creating the plot. It is a story within a story with two plays in the middle and peppered with poems which are never revealed to the reader. From page one, the reader is aware that someone is narrating Kars story, and, although he claims omniscience by dint of having read Ka's diaries, the narrator (a novelist) also mimics Ka and seems jealous of him. Is he relating Ka's story or writing it? Ka, who had been in a creative drought prior to his return to Turkey, is flooded with fully composed poems as soon as he arrives in Kars. Is he creating them or simply recording them? Journalists fabricate stories which then come true, actors stage plays with live action consequences, and everyone wants to pass along a message to the West.
The love stories in the book are facile, with little sincerity but lots of angst on the part of our protagonist. I failed to connect with the characters and had little sympathy for their machinations. The only characters I found truly sympathetic are a couple of religious school students and the headscarf suicides whom we never meet.
Pamuk touches upon many issues in his novel—secularism vs Islamist politics, militant nationalism, Kurdish guerilla fighters, the wearing of headscarves, the role of art in Turkish politics—about which I know little. Perhaps if I were more conversant with Turkish history and politics, I would have gotten more out of these sections. As it was I either appealed to Wikipedia or muddled my way through.
Snow was Pamuk's first novel after the wildly successful My Name is Red, and I felt as though he were trying to be as clever and innovative as he had been in that book, but missing the mark.
33labfs39
TURKEY
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
Published 2006, 360 pages
The Bastard of Istanbul is the story of two extended families: one Turkish and living in Istanbul, the other Armenian and living in San Francisco. Armanoush is the grandaughter of an Armenian deportation survivor, but with an American mom. In her struggle to integrate the two halves of her identity, she decides to go to Istanbul and stay with her stepfather′s Turkish family. What better way to feel Armenian than be surrounded by enemy Turks? And she can look for the house her grandmother′s family owned prior to deportation. Asya is a nineteen-year-old nihilist with a desire to have no past since she doesn′t know who her father is anyway. She lives with her mom, aunts, grandmother, and great-grandmother, a warren of women with disparate views on everything. When Amanoush arrives on their doorstep, the past begins to make itself felt in unexpected and alarming ways.
There are many characters in this novel, and the author does a wonderful job of making each one distinct and memorable. The plot is interesting and surprising enough to keep me turning pages. But primarily this is a book about memory, both personal and national, a topic I find endlessly fascinating. Some characters are trying to cultivate amnesia, to forget their pasts as though they never happened. Others revel in the past as a unifier for their family and their people. Secular, modern Turkey wants to forget that Armanians were ever a part of their Ottoman past, never mind confront the question of deportations and death marches. American Armenians push genocide onto the national agenda as a rallying cry in their diaspora. Why do people choose to remember or to forget? Is remembering always a good thing?
Upon publication of this novel in 2006, the author, Elif Shafak, was charged with ″denigrating Turkishness,″ a crime punishable with up to two years of jail time in Turkey. She drifts too close to the topic of the Armenian genocide, and some of her characters say things that touched nerves. Despite this, the book became a bestseller in Turkey. Recommended.
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
Published 2006, 360 pages
The Bastard of Istanbul is the story of two extended families: one Turkish and living in Istanbul, the other Armenian and living in San Francisco. Armanoush is the grandaughter of an Armenian deportation survivor, but with an American mom. In her struggle to integrate the two halves of her identity, she decides to go to Istanbul and stay with her stepfather′s Turkish family. What better way to feel Armenian than be surrounded by enemy Turks? And she can look for the house her grandmother′s family owned prior to deportation. Asya is a nineteen-year-old nihilist with a desire to have no past since she doesn′t know who her father is anyway. She lives with her mom, aunts, grandmother, and great-grandmother, a warren of women with disparate views on everything. When Amanoush arrives on their doorstep, the past begins to make itself felt in unexpected and alarming ways.
There are many characters in this novel, and the author does a wonderful job of making each one distinct and memorable. The plot is interesting and surprising enough to keep me turning pages. But primarily this is a book about memory, both personal and national, a topic I find endlessly fascinating. Some characters are trying to cultivate amnesia, to forget their pasts as though they never happened. Others revel in the past as a unifier for their family and their people. Secular, modern Turkey wants to forget that Armanians were ever a part of their Ottoman past, never mind confront the question of deportations and death marches. American Armenians push genocide onto the national agenda as a rallying cry in their diaspora. Why do people choose to remember or to forget? Is remembering always a good thing?
Upon publication of this novel in 2006, the author, Elif Shafak, was charged with ″denigrating Turkishness,″ a crime punishable with up to two years of jail time in Turkey. She drifts too close to the topic of the Armenian genocide, and some of her characters say things that touched nerves. Despite this, the book became a bestseller in Turkey. Recommended.
34labfs39
TURKEY
Twenty Stories by Turkish Women Writers translated by Nilüfer Mizanoğlu Reddy
Published 1988, 129 p.
The short stories in this anthology are all written by women born after the establishment of the Turkish Republic, but have little else in common. The stories range from domestic vignettes to avant-garde experiments to social commentaries. Some of the authors achieved fame within their lifetimes, while others remain obscure. Some authors have books that have been translated into English, but most have not. This collection was a good introduction to female Turkish authors and to social issues in Turkey between the 1950s and 1988 when this book was published.
One of the short stories is available online: "In the Park by the Pier" by Füruzan (1970). As is one other short story by the same author, "The River" (1973).
Twenty Stories by Turkish Women Writers translated by Nilüfer Mizanoğlu Reddy
Published 1988, 129 p.
The short stories in this anthology are all written by women born after the establishment of the Turkish Republic, but have little else in common. The stories range from domestic vignettes to avant-garde experiments to social commentaries. Some of the authors achieved fame within their lifetimes, while others remain obscure. Some authors have books that have been translated into English, but most have not. This collection was a good introduction to female Turkish authors and to social issues in Turkey between the 1950s and 1988 when this book was published.
One of the short stories is available online: "In the Park by the Pier" by Füruzan (1970). As is one other short story by the same author, "The River" (1973).
35labfs39
TURKEY
I will never see the world again : the memoir of an imprisoned writer
by Ahmet Altan, translated from the Turkish by Yasemin Çongar
Published 2019, 211 p.
Ahmet Altan is a novelist and sometimes journalist who made remarks on tv deemed to be "subliminal messages" on the eve of a failed coup in Turkey in 2016. He was sentenced to life in prison with no evidence ever produced. While incarcerated he wrote essays which were smuggled out of the prison by his lawyer. Two were published in newspapers abroad. The essays were published as this memoir while he was still incarcerated. In April 2021 he was released by the Supreme Court of Appeals. The book has not been published in Turkey.
The essays are beautifully written and reflect not only on his situation but on the nature of God, literature, and the art of writing. There are many literary references, although most are paraphrased as the author did not have access to the books and was relying on memory. There is nothing gruesome here, he was never tortured; nor is it a polemic. I highly recommend this book.
(Notes on each essay are on my thread.)
I will never see the world again : the memoir of an imprisoned writer
by Ahmet Altan, translated from the Turkish by Yasemin Çongar
Published 2019, 211 p.
Ahmet Altan is a novelist and sometimes journalist who made remarks on tv deemed to be "subliminal messages" on the eve of a failed coup in Turkey in 2016. He was sentenced to life in prison with no evidence ever produced. While incarcerated he wrote essays which were smuggled out of the prison by his lawyer. Two were published in newspapers abroad. The essays were published as this memoir while he was still incarcerated. In April 2021 he was released by the Supreme Court of Appeals. The book has not been published in Turkey.
The essays are beautifully written and reflect not only on his situation but on the nature of God, literature, and the art of writing. There are many literary references, although most are paraphrased as the author did not have access to the books and was relying on memory. There is nothing gruesome here, he was never tortured; nor is it a polemic. I highly recommend this book.
(Notes on each essay are on my thread.)
36Trifolia
Cyprus / Turkey: The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak - 4,5 stars
I have put off reviewing this book for too long. I thought it was a great book that really resonated with me. Perhaps there is something about Shafak's style that I really like, because I also enjoyed reading her previous books. Her emphasis is on storytelling rather than plot. Although you can certainly not claim in this book that nothing happens. On the contrary.
Set against the backdrop of the war in Cyprus in the 1970s, it stars a Greek Cypriot boy and a Turkish Cypriot girl, a love story that casts its shadows to the present day and features a fig tree as one of the main characters. (yes, I know, it sounds absurd, but it fits the story wonderfully). But there is so much more than the classic love story: ecology, fauna, flora, friendship, homosexuality, traditions, depression,... themes that somehow all intertwine into a cohesive story that never feels contrived.
I can imagine that not everyone will feel attracted to Elfi Shafak's style. But I am a fan and plan to read her other books as well. Highly recommended.
I have put off reviewing this book for too long. I thought it was a great book that really resonated with me. Perhaps there is something about Shafak's style that I really like, because I also enjoyed reading her previous books. Her emphasis is on storytelling rather than plot. Although you can certainly not claim in this book that nothing happens. On the contrary.
Set against the backdrop of the war in Cyprus in the 1970s, it stars a Greek Cypriot boy and a Turkish Cypriot girl, a love story that casts its shadows to the present day and features a fig tree as one of the main characters. (yes, I know, it sounds absurd, but it fits the story wonderfully). But there is so much more than the classic love story: ecology, fauna, flora, friendship, homosexuality, traditions, depression,... themes that somehow all intertwine into a cohesive story that never feels contrived.
I can imagine that not everyone will feel attracted to Elfi Shafak's style. But I am a fan and plan to read her other books as well. Highly recommended.
37Trifolia
Turkey: 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak - 4 stars
The book begins with the death of the Turkish prostitute Leila and the ten minutes and 38 seconds in which she reflects on her life from birth, on her difficult childhood in a small town, her flight to Istamboul, and her further life to the point that she is murdered. In the second part, Leila's friends, who are already introduced in the first part, try to give her a dignified funeral and in the third part the book ends nicely from Leila's perspective.
I have mixed feelings about this book. In the first part, Shafak shows herself to be a great storyteller. Told from Leila's point of view, using scents and spices, she brings to life a story that is both heartbreaking and heartwarming in an image-rich language and style. I found the second part a lot less because the story there was rather tragicomic and the characters felt and acted rather cliché. But when Shafak switched back to Leila in the very short third piece, it's all tied together rather nicely.
Despite the lesser second part, I really enjoyed this book. The strength lies mainly in the beautiful writing style and less in the characters who, except for Leila, felt quite flat. Involuntarily I thought of an oriental jewelery box, beautifully decorated on the outside but empty on the inside. But nevertheless beautiful to look at and to enjoy. Very special.
The book begins with the death of the Turkish prostitute Leila and the ten minutes and 38 seconds in which she reflects on her life from birth, on her difficult childhood in a small town, her flight to Istamboul, and her further life to the point that she is murdered. In the second part, Leila's friends, who are already introduced in the first part, try to give her a dignified funeral and in the third part the book ends nicely from Leila's perspective.
I have mixed feelings about this book. In the first part, Shafak shows herself to be a great storyteller. Told from Leila's point of view, using scents and spices, she brings to life a story that is both heartbreaking and heartwarming in an image-rich language and style. I found the second part a lot less because the story there was rather tragicomic and the characters felt and acted rather cliché. But when Shafak switched back to Leila in the very short third piece, it's all tied together rather nicely.
Despite the lesser second part, I really enjoyed this book. The strength lies mainly in the beautiful writing style and less in the characters who, except for Leila, felt quite flat. Involuntarily I thought of an oriental jewelery box, beautifully decorated on the outside but empty on the inside. But nevertheless beautiful to look at and to enjoy. Very special.
38Trifolia
Croatia: On the Edge of Reason by Miroslav Krleža - 4 stars
When a settled man in his fifties almost accidentally accuses a prominent politician of being a murderer (which he actually is), the consequences are dire. Although he is given several opportunities to admit his "mistake", he decides to resolutely choose honesty from now on and give up his hypocritical existence. Within a week, the group turns against him and he loses all the foundations on which he has built his life.
This sometimes funny, sometimes poignant story is told from the point of view of the protagonist who is ostracized from the group. He is a somewhat strange figure, where it is not clear whether he actually wants to be consistent or suffers from some form of madness. Because through his encounters with others, you get the impression that there is more going on. Or is the peer pressure so great that the individual is crushed anyway.
Despite the fact that it has a limited storyline, I really liked this relatively short novel.
When a settled man in his fifties almost accidentally accuses a prominent politician of being a murderer (which he actually is), the consequences are dire. Although he is given several opportunities to admit his "mistake", he decides to resolutely choose honesty from now on and give up his hypocritical existence. Within a week, the group turns against him and he loses all the foundations on which he has built his life.
This sometimes funny, sometimes poignant story is told from the point of view of the protagonist who is ostracized from the group. He is a somewhat strange figure, where it is not clear whether he actually wants to be consistent or suffers from some form of madness. Because through his encounters with others, you get the impression that there is more going on. Or is the peer pressure so great that the individual is crushed anyway.
Despite the fact that it has a limited storyline, I really liked this relatively short novel.
39Trifolia
Albania. Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi - 4 stars
A memoir of the Albanian Lea Ypi who was born in 1979 in one of the most isolated countries in Europe. While she, influenced by her teachers and the society that surrounds her, raves about the regime, about Stalin and socialism, her parents and grandmother seem to have the greatest difficulty to hang the obligatory photo of "Uncle Enver" (Hoxha), the then leader of Albania, in their house.
In each chapter we get a better picture of how things evolved in Albania and although the collapse of Eastern Europe initially seemed to skip Albania, the country eventually made the transition to democracy in its own way. Only then does Lea discover that her parents are very different people than she had always thought.
Heaven falls on her head not only on a personal level. She also has to watch how her familiar world changes and experience how the country is plunged into chaos and civil war.
Through gripping anecdotes and introspection, Ypi paints a nuanced, authentic picture of what it feels like to grow up as a child and teenager in a country, first under dictatorship, later in chaos. It is striking that, despite her parents' choices and history she does not really embrace the new democracy because she also sees and experiences the disadvantages of it. It is impossible to describe the richness of this book in detail but through her eyes you get a wonderful and personal picture of an important fragment of the history of Albania. In the end, like so many others, she will leave her country to go abroad to study.
Lea Ypi is Professor of Political Theory in the London School of Economics. The title of her book is probably a nod to the book by Francis Fukuyama, her American colleague who wrote the book The End of History and the Last Man and in which he described the end of the Cold War as the end of the ideological struggle.
This memoir is interesting from several angles: historical, political, philosophical, sociological, etc. It is one of those books that makes you think.
I liked it very much because it gave me an original perspective of a place and period of time I have witnessed as a (slightly older) bystander living in the West and I found it very insightful. Very well written. Highly recommended.
A memoir of the Albanian Lea Ypi who was born in 1979 in one of the most isolated countries in Europe. While she, influenced by her teachers and the society that surrounds her, raves about the regime, about Stalin and socialism, her parents and grandmother seem to have the greatest difficulty to hang the obligatory photo of "Uncle Enver" (Hoxha), the then leader of Albania, in their house.
In each chapter we get a better picture of how things evolved in Albania and although the collapse of Eastern Europe initially seemed to skip Albania, the country eventually made the transition to democracy in its own way. Only then does Lea discover that her parents are very different people than she had always thought.
Heaven falls on her head not only on a personal level. She also has to watch how her familiar world changes and experience how the country is plunged into chaos and civil war.
Through gripping anecdotes and introspection, Ypi paints a nuanced, authentic picture of what it feels like to grow up as a child and teenager in a country, first under dictatorship, later in chaos. It is striking that, despite her parents' choices and history she does not really embrace the new democracy because she also sees and experiences the disadvantages of it. It is impossible to describe the richness of this book in detail but through her eyes you get a wonderful and personal picture of an important fragment of the history of Albania. In the end, like so many others, she will leave her country to go abroad to study.
Lea Ypi is Professor of Political Theory in the London School of Economics. The title of her book is probably a nod to the book by Francis Fukuyama, her American colleague who wrote the book The End of History and the Last Man and in which he described the end of the Cold War as the end of the ideological struggle.
This memoir is interesting from several angles: historical, political, philosophical, sociological, etc. It is one of those books that makes you think.
I liked it very much because it gave me an original perspective of a place and period of time I have witnessed as a (slightly older) bystander living in the West and I found it very insightful. Very well written. Highly recommended.
40labfs39
BULGARIA
Winner of the 2023 International Booker Prize
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel
Published 2022, 302 p.
Time Shelters is many things: an exploration of memory and memory loss, an imagined future where each European country chooses a different decade in which to live, and a meta-novel where the narrator/author is at once the creator and the created.
The protagonist Gospodinov is an author who is both the creator and friend of a man named Gaustine, an enigmatic figure who wants to create apartments styled in the manner of specific years for Alzheimer patients who remember only the past. Gospodinov helps him by researching the news, foods, sounds, and smells of past decades. The clinics are so popular that even those with intact memories wish to participate: to relive their childhoods or the best years of their lives. Eventually the European countries hold referendums and each chooses which year/decade they will recreate and live in. The campaigns are often ideologically opposed, such as in Bulgaria, where the Nationalists (wishing to return to the apex of the Bulgarian national identity and the uprising against the Ottomans in April 1876) are running against the Socialists (wanting to recreate the years of mature socialism, 1960s and 70s). After the referendums, chaos seems imminent with borders eroding between times, enclaves refusing to join the mainstream time period, and the breakdown of history itself.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first part of the book, when Gaustine is creating his clinics, and Gospodinov (the character) tells the stories of individuals. My favorite is the man who reconnects with the agent who had reported on him for decades, in order to learn the past he can no longer remember. The second part, dealing with the referendums, dragged. I liked the Bulgarian rallies with the Socialists recreating the mausoleum of Dimitrov and the Nationalists dressed in their costumes and sabers, and it was interesting to think about which decade Denmark or Spain would chose, but it went on too long. The final pages, in which Gospodinov himself starts to lose his memories and is confused if he is author or character was a nice way to wrap up the metafictional aspect.
Gospodinov (author) is a deft writer, and I marked many passages that were either well-written or had interesting ideas or both. Here is a passage from early in the book:
And so, Gaustine and I created our first clinic for the past. Actually, he created it, I was only his assistant, a collector of the past. It wasn't easy. You can't just tell somebody: Okay, here's your past from 1965. You have to know its stories, or if you have no way of getting them anymore, then you have to make them up. To know everything about that year. Which hairstyles were fashionable, how pointy the shoes were, how the soap smelled, a complete catalog of scents. Whether the spring was rainy, what the temperatures were in August. What the number one hit song was. The most important stories of the year, not just the news, but the rumors, the urban legends. Things got more complicated depending on which past you wanted delivered to you. Did you want your Eastern past, if you were from the eastern side of the wall? Or on the contrary, did you want to live out precisely that past which had been denied to you? To gorge yourself on the past as if on the bananas you had dreamed about your whole life?
The past is not just that which happened to you. Sometimes it is that which you just imagined.
Winner of the 2023 International Booker Prize
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel
Published 2022, 302 p.
Time Shelters is many things: an exploration of memory and memory loss, an imagined future where each European country chooses a different decade in which to live, and a meta-novel where the narrator/author is at once the creator and the created.
The protagonist Gospodinov is an author who is both the creator and friend of a man named Gaustine, an enigmatic figure who wants to create apartments styled in the manner of specific years for Alzheimer patients who remember only the past. Gospodinov helps him by researching the news, foods, sounds, and smells of past decades. The clinics are so popular that even those with intact memories wish to participate: to relive their childhoods or the best years of their lives. Eventually the European countries hold referendums and each chooses which year/decade they will recreate and live in. The campaigns are often ideologically opposed, such as in Bulgaria, where the Nationalists (wishing to return to the apex of the Bulgarian national identity and the uprising against the Ottomans in April 1876) are running against the Socialists (wanting to recreate the years of mature socialism, 1960s and 70s). After the referendums, chaos seems imminent with borders eroding between times, enclaves refusing to join the mainstream time period, and the breakdown of history itself.
I thoroughly enjoyed the first part of the book, when Gaustine is creating his clinics, and Gospodinov (the character) tells the stories of individuals. My favorite is the man who reconnects with the agent who had reported on him for decades, in order to learn the past he can no longer remember. The second part, dealing with the referendums, dragged. I liked the Bulgarian rallies with the Socialists recreating the mausoleum of Dimitrov and the Nationalists dressed in their costumes and sabers, and it was interesting to think about which decade Denmark or Spain would chose, but it went on too long. The final pages, in which Gospodinov himself starts to lose his memories and is confused if he is author or character was a nice way to wrap up the metafictional aspect.
Gospodinov (author) is a deft writer, and I marked many passages that were either well-written or had interesting ideas or both. Here is a passage from early in the book:
And so, Gaustine and I created our first clinic for the past. Actually, he created it, I was only his assistant, a collector of the past. It wasn't easy. You can't just tell somebody: Okay, here's your past from 1965. You have to know its stories, or if you have no way of getting them anymore, then you have to make them up. To know everything about that year. Which hairstyles were fashionable, how pointy the shoes were, how the soap smelled, a complete catalog of scents. Whether the spring was rainy, what the temperatures were in August. What the number one hit song was. The most important stories of the year, not just the news, but the rumors, the urban legends. Things got more complicated depending on which past you wanted delivered to you. Did you want your Eastern past, if you were from the eastern side of the wall? Or on the contrary, did you want to live out precisely that past which had been denied to you? To gorge yourself on the past as if on the bananas you had dreamed about your whole life?
The past is not just that which happened to you. Sometimes it is that which you just imagined.
41PatrickMurtha
In 1903, members of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization were often considered terrorists, and some later specifically described themselves as terrorists: killers for a cause. But by 1948, many wars and struggles later, the surviving elderly veterans of the group were retrospectively considered freedom fighters by the new Yugoslav Macedonian government, and were invited to apply for pension recognition. Although the shift in categorization from terrorist to freedom fighter is not Keith Brown's specific or overriding subject in his fine monograph, Loyal Unto Death: Trust and Terror in Revolutionary Macedonia, it hovered in my mind throughout my reading of the book, probably because it is an issue that has obvious contemporary relevance and that will never be fully settled to everyone's satisfaction. The linchpin seems to be that if one approves of the goals of a revolutionary organization, one has moved some way towards excusing its methods, and in re-defining terrorists as freedom fighters.
Brown's study is specialized, but quite readable. He uses up-to-date historical and anthropological concepts without getting bogged down in impenetrable language or overly convoluted relations of ideas. He also does not commit the common sin of sniffily dismissing earlier literature on his topic - in fact, he mines such writing, both academic and popular, for all it is worth, and in a very respectful spirit. His chief sources are archival - the aforementioned pension applications, and British Foreign Office records. His goal is to trace the internal workings of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization through anthropological analysis. The promotional copy for the book lays out the project well: "Keith Brown focuses on social and cultural mechanisms of loyalty to describe the circuits of trust and terror--webs of secret communications and bonds of solidarity--that linked migrant workers, remote villagers, and their leaders in common cause. Loyalties were covertly created and maintained through acts of oath-taking, record-keeping, arms-trading, and in the use and management of deadly violence."
Brown has some pointed things to say about the interpretation of past events in the Balkans through a prism of contemporary ethno-nationalism, even suggesting that it was not an ESSENTIAL goal of the MRO to replace one "distant" governing authority, the Ottoman Empire, with another, localized government that would presumably be more representative of and responsive to the people. He calls this skepticism "thinking past the nation," borrowing a term from Arjun Appadurai, and he draws on James Scott's work on traditional forms of "anarchist" resistance to "being governed" to elucidate the theme. I can identify this as an area where experts will debate his conclusions, without claiming any competence to make a judgment on them myself.
The readership for a work of academic history such as this, driven by analysis rather than narrative, is naturally somewhat circumscribed, but it could be larger than it is. Enthusiastic readers of "popular history" ought not to be overly wary of tackling more advanced analyses which will help them to understand historical events in a different, more complex way, and in fact this book is a perfectly recommendable one in that respect, because it is challenging without being inaccessible to the typical educated reader. Brown opens up the concepts that he uses in a way that invites further curiosity, rather than shutting it down, and his very ample bibliography offers many avenues for additional exploration.
Brown's study is specialized, but quite readable. He uses up-to-date historical and anthropological concepts without getting bogged down in impenetrable language or overly convoluted relations of ideas. He also does not commit the common sin of sniffily dismissing earlier literature on his topic - in fact, he mines such writing, both academic and popular, for all it is worth, and in a very respectful spirit. His chief sources are archival - the aforementioned pension applications, and British Foreign Office records. His goal is to trace the internal workings of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization through anthropological analysis. The promotional copy for the book lays out the project well: "Keith Brown focuses on social and cultural mechanisms of loyalty to describe the circuits of trust and terror--webs of secret communications and bonds of solidarity--that linked migrant workers, remote villagers, and their leaders in common cause. Loyalties were covertly created and maintained through acts of oath-taking, record-keeping, arms-trading, and in the use and management of deadly violence."
Brown has some pointed things to say about the interpretation of past events in the Balkans through a prism of contemporary ethno-nationalism, even suggesting that it was not an ESSENTIAL goal of the MRO to replace one "distant" governing authority, the Ottoman Empire, with another, localized government that would presumably be more representative of and responsive to the people. He calls this skepticism "thinking past the nation," borrowing a term from Arjun Appadurai, and he draws on James Scott's work on traditional forms of "anarchist" resistance to "being governed" to elucidate the theme. I can identify this as an area where experts will debate his conclusions, without claiming any competence to make a judgment on them myself.
The readership for a work of academic history such as this, driven by analysis rather than narrative, is naturally somewhat circumscribed, but it could be larger than it is. Enthusiastic readers of "popular history" ought not to be overly wary of tackling more advanced analyses which will help them to understand historical events in a different, more complex way, and in fact this book is a perfectly recommendable one in that respect, because it is challenging without being inaccessible to the typical educated reader. Brown opens up the concepts that he uses in a way that invites further curiosity, rather than shutting it down, and his very ample bibliography offers many avenues for additional exploration.
