Depressaholic's 2009 reading

Hello.

I am really looking forward to seeing how this group goes. I tend to read international and translated fiction, mostly 20th century. I also go on big reading jags. At the moment I am planning to read some of the german Nobel Laureates in 2009, as well as having a metaphorical visit to Argentina to sample some of its fiction. In terms of buying stuff, I visit second hand bookshops religiously, and, reading jags aside, mostly buy on a whim. Like Cariola, I am actually trying to massacre my TBR pile at the moment by not buying more books for a while. We'll see how that one goes...

Good luck with that....

Andy, I'm looking forward to hearing about all the jags that you don't post on Reading Globally! And yes, good luck on the 'not buying more books for a while" - it hasn't worked for me; but in colder climates books also serve as extra insulation for the house.

Yes, good luck with that. I've fallen off the wagon already. I just received three more swap books and a box of nine books I ordered on the BookCloseouts.com sale. Well, five of them are for Christmas gifts and one for a class I'm teaching (she says, making excuses).

Massacring the TBR pile - that sounds like a really good idea, but.......

Yeah, somebody on The Green Dragon mentioned the BookCloseouts.com sale, so I'm waiting for a boxful, too...

I did a short synopsis of Argentine writers in the Books compared group a while back:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/10980

Cheers for that lriley. When I read to a theme I usually have a couple of specific targets and then try to pick up the rest from second hand book shops. I am going to re-read some Borges and finally get round to Cortazar, but other than that didn't really have any ideas, so thanks.

No problem. It was just laying around dormant anyway. I did two big projects for that group. The other one was something on the line of Russian literature in the Stalin and post Stalin years. I was thinking about doing something on OULIPO (being a big fan of Raymond Queneau and Georges Perec's Life: A user's manual).

lriley, dormant but not forgotten! I really enjoyed your resume. I also aim to read more Argentinian fiction next year, so I look forward to suggestions here. I went on a Latin American fiction binge in the 1980s but, in the absence of LT, I no longer recall exactly what I did read. One Argentinian work I just rave about is Juan Jose Saer's The Investigation, a short novella that packs a punch and is tremendously well written. If you wished, you could likely get hold of it, as it's published by Serpent's Tail Press and is on Amazon.co.uk (though I ordered it for a friend in August last year and Amazon still have not got hold of it).

#10--I've read Saer a couple times. The Event and Nobody nothing never. Both those books kind of dragged. The Investigation does sound interesting though. I'll see if I can find it.

nice to have you with us, depressaholic. i'm trying to read more globally, so I'll be following your reading as you travel the planet.

avaland, insulation... good thinking... the furnace broke this morning!

You know how I said I was going to reduce my TBR pile before accumulating more books, and you all said I was a big, fat liar. Turns out I'm a big, fat liar. I have been preparing for my 2009 reading jags and have, since my rash statement, bought three books by Argentinian writers, ordered and received books for my world reading challenge (Belarus, Lithuania, Slovakia, Malta, Jordan, Costa Rica and Honduras) and have one more on order. Other than that, I am doing very, very well.

YAY,

Slovakia is on your list. What have you selected? Can I throw other suggestions your way?

I'm not exactly sure. I selected two books during a visit to Prague. My girlfriend bought them for me, then hid them. She gave me one for my birthday (a collection of stories called That Alluring Land by Timrava). I have completely forgotten what the other one was. I have a memory of looking at a book by someone called David Gida (possibly?) but am not sure what I ended up buying. Hopefully, I will receive that for Christmas. Anyway, the Timrava is definitely there.

Suggestions are always gratefully accepted, if not always acted upon.

btw before you compare Slovan Bratislava to Luton Town, could I suggest you look at an English league table, and I mean a loooooooong way down an English League table.

Sorry, ignore the David Gida thing. The name I was trying to remember was Robert Gal.

I have finished the Restrepo and will be sending it off to you with the Aira, just to ADD to your TBR pile:-)

Thats really kind of you. Not only will I have two more books to read next year, but I also get to transfer blame for my TBR pile onto someone else. I seem to remember you being accused of this many times in the past. I was assuming that 'avaland' was just a username, but I'm going to check my Milton to see if there is a similarly named demon responsible for the construction of dangerously teetering towers and the spreading of creeping TBR guilt.

Thanks once again.

>3 avaland:, And thank god for Amazon, since colder weather means I never want to actually leave the house to buy a book.

Partly due to discussions on other threads, I have taken the plunge and started Joseph and his Brothers by Thomas Mann. It is the story of the biblical figure of Joseph (he of the selling into slavery and technicolour dreamcoat). I am mentioning this now (a few days short of 2009), because it is likely to take up a decent chunk of my reading time in 2009. For those who don't know, it is 1200 pages of smallish, dense print. It is handily broken down into short chapters (2-5 pages) and novel sized sections (first one is 250 pages) so I think I will be reading in chunks then pausing. If anyone wants to join me, I remember it being on at least one TBR pile in this group.

I was brought up as a Roman Catholic, though have been atheist since my early teens. The bible holds a strange fascination for me because I was taught it as a religious, rather than historical, text. I also know the bible fairly well, mostly as a result of my interest as a teen atheist, rather than a young Christian. Consequently I have always been interested in literature that re-examines biblical stories, whether these re-examinations are respectful, irreverent, satrirical, etc, as long as they force me to re-assess stories I thought I knew well. I have often thought that it would be an interesting project to read modern re-tellings of as much of the bible as possible (not something I am planning to start anytime soon).

Anyway, I have read the first section, which contains a long, slow but, in places, brilliant treatise on interpretations of history, and the role our (the reader's) perception of lapsed time affects our view of historical evidence. It is told using Joseph's own views of his family stories and ancestries, and shows how his (and his father Jacob's) interpretations of religion are based on a conflation of historical fact with family legend. I think Mann is making a fairly complex point about how Joseph's story came to be told the way it was, how modern readers of Mann's book should interpret Mann's own interpretation of Joseph's story, and how Judeo-Chrstian theology was born from a vast array of possible cosmologies and theologies. It is, as you can tell, dense with rich ideas.

I think its going to be slow, but I will enjoy this one a lot. At 1200 small print pages, I really hope so.

I will be following your progress with Joseph and His Brothers with interest. I have read The Black Swan and Buddenbrooks and plan to read Dr. Faustus one of these years. Joseph sounds more interesting than Dr. Faustus, however!

Andy, it's definitely on my TBR pile, but I feel I have to take a little break from Thomas Mann. Having just finished Doctor Faustus, after zipping through Buddenbrooks, I'm definitely looking forward to reading it, but I'm going to have to read some other books first just to clear my palate. Since I am Jewish, and have some knowledge of the Joseph story from that perspective (but was brought up in a nonreligious household), it will be interesting to compare our reactions.

Only 8 days into the new year and I am already way behind on chronicalling my reads. Heres a bit of catch-up...

The first book I finished this year was The Transformations of Mr. Hadliz by the Czech* artist Ladislav Novak. The book is a lovely edition, published by Twisted Spoon press, that I found on a trip to prague last year. It reproduces a series of 12 paintings by Novak created by froissage (basically screwing up paper and colouring in the subsequent folds - its much better than it sounds). Mr. Hadliz is Novak's alter ego, named for the street he was brought up on.

Despite the beauty of the book (and the paintings), Novak's text was far too mundane to illuminate his drawings. He attempts to describe each picture one by one was laboured, and the subsequent narrative, aimed to draw the pictures together, a little bit silly. It is only a tiny book (20 minutes reading), and looks great, but didn't do the job for me.

I enjoy contemporary art a lot, and enjoy comtemporary literature as well, but have never really found a book the marries the two with insight and intelligence. There must be something out there, but this wasn't it.

*I am, for various reasons, obsessed by author nationalities. You may notice that I always list them in reviews, etc. This is not because I think it helps, on the whole, to understand a writer or their work, but rather because I am interested in how I have access to and choose to read world literature.

I am also reading Joseph and His Brothers, as mentioned above. I almost never read more than one book at a time, but this is such a chunky one that I am keeping other stuff on the go. I just finished the first book (called 'The Tales of Jacob') which, as the title suggests, follows Joseph's father Jacob on his search for a life under one God, a wife (or several, as it turns out) and children. The story follows that of Genesis very closely, and Mann interpolates very little.

This is an incredibly powerful and intense re-telling. Mann (and/or his translator) sticks to fairly archaic biblical language in reported speech (lots of theeing and thouing), and his characters rarely forget their roles in history. Every event is framed in terms of Jacob's relationship to the monotheist religion that his family are destined to to help create. Many of the re-tellings of biblical stories I have read in the past have worked because they give their protagonists a more human face. This book succeeds because of the opposite. It is a grandiose, epic re-telling of what is, after all, a grandiose, epic story, and I am loving every second of it.

I was trying to put my finger on the reason I enjoy bible re-tellings so much. I think it is because religious stories are usually presented as being teleological, in the sense that the ending is set, and known to everyone (i.e. one god, Jesus on the cross, etc.). Stories with a strong narrative element make me realise that the state we have arrived in is just one of many possibile narratives, and that the characters involved actually affect the narrative direction (this is, of course, under the control of the writer when the characters have been lost in history). History is presented as a fait accompli, but reading books like Mann's is a reminder of how the things we accept as inevitabilities were once only possibilities. I actually had a similar reaction reading John Dos Passos' 'U.S.A' trilogy, which describes attempts to forge a socialist USA in the 20s and 30s. The idea of a socialist USA seems absurd now, but Dos Passos' book was a reminder of the possibilities open to an ever changing nation. Anyway, Mann's book has really got me thinking about this.

I also thought I would mention a stroke of luck I had on the book buying front. I have vowed, for the time being, to only buy books related to my two reading jags (Reading Globally and Argentina). I thought I was safe on the former, as I have only relatively obscure nations left to find. I was in the charity bookshop where I volunteer yesterday and there, on the shelf, was a book that hadn't been there last week by Bereket Hapte Selassie. I jumped on the web and, sure enough, it turns out he is an Eritrean writer. I had long since given up hoping to find Reading Globally books 'at random' but it just goes to show what happens if you keep looking.

Final post, for today (honest).

Just finished Spring Flowers, Spring Frost by Ismail Kadare. It was my second Kadare. My first was a couple of years ago, and I wasn't ovewhelmed, but I thought I would try again. This may be the last one for me. It was, to be fair, an awful translation, but there is also an overabundance of ideas that the book is just too short to handle comfortably. There are some nice touches, such as the amount and location of the lead character's girlfriend's body hair as a metaphor for modernization in Albania, but I wouldn't recommend this book.

It looks as if your 2009 reading will be just as fascinating (and unusual) as your reading last year. Looking forward to seeing what else you get through!

>27 wandering_star: Thanks. I am really excited by my TBR pile at the moment, and have read some really interesting (though not always great) stuff to start off the year.

More book buying:
I walked down Gloucester Road in Bristol, which has a nice collection of charity shops and second hand bookshops, and found two more books for my Argentina read:
Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig
The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez.
I am pleased to have found these because my current Argentina TBR pile is a little obscure, and it will be nice to be able to share some thoughts with others that have read the same books in the Reading Globally group's March group read.

Just finished the second part of Joseph and His Brothers. I can't even begin to describe how wonderful this book is. Its a salutary lesson that sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and plunge into that enormous tome you have been putting off in deference to much more manageable books.

The second part ('Young Joseph') describes Joseph's youth and alienation from his brothers, culminating in them throwing him in a well and selling him into slavery. Mann weaves some fascinating ideas into his narrative. 'Young Joseph' is rich with an examination of the covenant between God and man. He describes how Abraham 'created' God. Not in the sense that God doesn't exist and Abraham made him up, but in the sense that the idea of God can only exist in human vessels on earth, so that God needs humans to give him form. There is an incredibly beautiful passage at the end, where Jacob is railing against God for the loss of his favourite son, in which Mann re-examines this covenant, casting Jacob almost as a Nietzschean figure in his belief that it is still in man's power to decide the nature of the covenant, and therefore the nature of God.

This book is really setting neurons pinging off in my brain. I am still barely a third of the way through, but am loving every heavy, dense page.

btw as I have stated elsewhere, I am an atheist who has (what I like to think of as) a scholarly interest in the bible. Just mentioning it in case anyone feels it affects my view of Mann's message.

You are making me eager to start Joseph and His Brothers, although I'm immersed in the probably equally long 2666 by Roberto Bolano and when I finish it (weeks from now, presumably), I will probably feel compelled to read some shorter, lighter stuff, if only to reduce the TBR a little. But who knows? Maybe this will be my year to read long, dense books!

>30 rebeccanyc: I am still loving it, but would be interested in having some company at some point. I ill wait (perhaps years?) to hear what you have to say.

While I am reading Joseph and his Brothers, I am also trying to slip in some of the shorter books on the TBR pile. I just finished a book of short stories (The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules by Fazil Iskander). Here is my review, copied and pasted from my Reading Globally thread:

Iskander's book is a memoir, arranged as a series of short stories, covering the author's youth in Soviet Abkhazia. Officially sanctioned by, and published in, Moscow, it is not overtly political in nature, but instead is a relatively gentile collection chronicling the author's Abkhaz upbringing. The stories are fairly short (10-20 pages, mostly), and range from relatively mundane observations of Iskander's friends and family, to descriptions of the wider society around him. Iskander sets great store in describing himself as a humourist, and all of his writing has an absurd touch that treads a line between silly and poignant.
Initially, I wondered why I was reading this. Iskander has no stated ideal in his work, and his fame within Abkhazia (apparently considerable) perhaps justifies an interest in his life. In addition, his stories, though humourous in intent, are not actually told (or translated) humourously enough to make them genuinely funny. After 3 or 4 pieces I was starting to feel bored. However, the charm of the pieces and the subtlety with which he made quite hard-hitting points in such a gentile way eventually got through to me, and by the end I was completely caught up. There was still something a bit too light and ephemeral about the tone for me to really fall in love with it, but it will definitely go down as a very pleasant, if slightly forgettable, read.

I'm sorry to hear about your response to Ismail Kadare; Spring Flowers, Spring Frost is on my 999 Challenge list in the category "Writers Who Have Been Compared to Kafka." Perhaps I shall have to revise my category...

>32 cocoafiend:
From what I can tell, Chronicle in Stone is often quoted as being Kadare's 'classic'. The problems I had with 'Spring Flowers...' initially stemmed from the translation. I suspect there will be a better quality translation of 'Chronicle...' about, so maybe you could read this for your challenge instead. I haven't had much luck with Kadare, but he clearly has a lot of admirers, so don't give up on my account!

The only Kadare I've read is The Successor and I was underwhelmed by it. It was interesting as a look inside contemporary Albania, but it was not a compelling read.

Songs My Mother Never Taught Me by Selcuk Altun (Turkey)

I got this free from work, otherwise I would never have touched a book with the 'T' word on the blurb ('thriller' - there, I've said it. I feel dirty). Altun's book was described as Borges-esque, so I thought I'd give it a go. It does involve a labyrinthine plot (despite being very short) and metaphysical, as well as more mundane, puzzles, and this was all enough to keep me interested and reading relatively quickly to the end. Ultimately, though it was all a bit inconsequential. The references to manuscripts and introduction of the author as a character were all a little bit Borges-by-numbers, ad the plot was hasty. I would consider more of Altun's stuff for a (very) light read, but I'm not going to rush at the moment.

Thanks, depressaholic and rebeccanyc, I think I'll give Chronicle in Stone a try...

Finished 'Joseph in Egypt', the third part of Thomas Mann's epic Joseph and his Brothers. It is the longest of the four books in the work, and focuses largely on the household politics of the Egyptian house in which Joseph was enslaved, and follows his rise in eminence in that house. The themes that Mann had developed in the first two books are continued here, including the recurrence of similar identities and themes in differing religions, and the ways in which the human natures of the bible's protagonists helped to shape the nature of the god that emerged from it all. It was the first book in which I got a little bogged down in places, but overall I still enjoyed it. I thought I would be reading Joseph and his Brothers for several months, but I am racing through it, which is a testament to how enthralled I have been by Mann's writing.

Hourglass by Danilo Kis

A strange, abstract and beautiful novel, and a unique approach to holocaust literature. Kis' book uses a variety of literary techniques to build up a composite picture of Eduard, a secular jew in wartime Yugoslavia. There are oblique, almost abstract, accounts of his travels, dry retellings of his interviews by the authorities, question and answer narrative that veers fro the personal to the mundane to the shocking. Despite being short, it reminded me a little of James Joyce's Ulysses, but where Joyce's book internalized the narrative to turn the mundane into the epic, Kis does the opposite, transcribing the epic (the holocaust) in terms of Eduard's human thoughts and feelings. Many of Eduard's sufferings are mild, personal failures, barely presented as a result of persecution. Occasionally, though we get glimpses of the horror on a wider scale, such as lists of acquaintances who are dead or disappeared. A difficult book, in terms of both structure and content, but an excellent one.

>38 GlebtheDancer: nice review, sounds interesting.

After slightly more than a month, I have just finished Joseph and his Brothers. It may just be the longest book I have ever read. I can think of a few others with more pages (War and Peace, Les Miserables, perhaps even The Lord of the Rings), but, given the tiny print, Mann's book may just take it.

I have written a fair bit already in this thread about the book, so I'll just sum up here by once again saying how wonderful a book this is. It is so rich in ideas that I cannot begin to do it justice. The translation of a familiar bible story into flesh and blood, of ancient into current and of the interaction of humanity and myth, is breathtakingly realised. The characters were wonderfully drawn, managing faithfully to be their biblical selves while simultaneously developing real personnas. The dense prose isn't always easy, but I read this very quickly, and without having to try too hard to force Mann's complex ideas into my head. This was one of those reading experiences you hope for every time you start a book, but that rarely happens so satisfyingly.

I have noticed that most of my reads for January were from south east Europe. This wasn't a (conscious) plan either when buying or reading. I have a couple more Manns on my TBR but, having learned from my Solzhenitsyn overdose last year, I will take things more slowly with Mann. In addition, the Reading Globally group is having an African themed read in February, and I think its about time I got out of Europe. I have 4 or 5 African reads on my TBR. Not sure how many I'll get through in Feb, but hopefully a couple at the least. Mann will have to wait.

#20 Due to your glowing reviews of Joseph and His Brothers I have decided to begin it myself. My problem is there seem to be several translations. Do you (or anyone) have any advice on which would be best? Advance thanks.

My edition was translated by H.T. Lowe-Porter. I have no complaint with it, but would note that it is in very archaic language, attempting to 'sound biblical'. I don't know if this is a direct reflection of Mann's original German, but it may be possible that other translations are more modern in tone. Unfortunately, I have never peeked at one, so am not qualified to compare.

#43 Thanks D.

The edition I have is translated by John E. Woods, who is more modern translator who also translated some works by Mann I've already read, including Buddenbrooks and Doctor Faustus. I've already been inspired by depressaholic and my own Mann reading to have this on the list for the year, but I need to read a few shorter works first.

Thanks Rebecca. I think that I will check out Woods. The modern translator would probably be best for me.

I have acquired a couple more books. They are by female authors, in an attempt to redress the appalling male bias I've slipped back into in the last few months:
The Locust and the Bird by Hanan al-Shayk (uncorrected proof)
Qissat, a collection of short stories by Palestinian women.

I also have a book by a (male) Jordanian writer, so will have a mini-middle east visit later in the year.

Snares Without End by Olympe Bhely-Quenum
I have made an effort to read more African fiction in the past couple of years, largely due to my Reading Globally challenge. The Reading Globally group is having an Africa theme for February, which is giving me the chance to get through some of my African TBR, as well as a couple of 'new' countries for my challenge. Bhely-Quenum is from Benin, which helpfully contributes to both. I have copied and pasted my review from my Reading Globally thread:

This was a slightly oddly constructed book, split into halves that were almost unrecognisable from each other. In the first part the narrator recounts a meeting with Ahouna, a once proud man who has been broken by the events of his life. Ahouna tells the narrator his story, which involves struggling to make a living against the hardships of nature (locusts, floods, disease, etc.). Ahouna and his family overcome these obstacles, only to be undone by a faithless woman, who succeeds where nature failed, and destroys his life. It culminates in Ahouna committing a shocking act. This part is therefore told as a first person narrative using Ahouna's voice. The second part involved the narrator observing the aftermath of Ahouna's act, talking largely in the third person about what he is witnessing. In this part, the snares that have entangled Ahouna close in to stifle him, and we are witness to the ramifications of his crime.
Initially, I thought Bhely-Quenum (BQ) was a poor writer, because the narrative pace was jerky and clumsy. However, once Ahouna had finished telling his story the writing improved dramatically, leading me to assume that BQ was deliberately using an awkward style to reflect the fact that Ahouna's backstory was orally told in the book. As a narrative device it was a little disorientating, and I wondered if it was a deliberate mirroring of Joseph Conrad using the same thing in Heart of Darkness, which Snares Without End could conceivably have been a response to. The second half was much, much better, and a scene in which Ahouna is captured, and a thief and a priest abused, was full of fantastically grotesque imagery. It more than saved a book I was starting to feel negative about, and BQ started to really interest me as a writer.
I'm not sure I can rush to recommend Snares Without End, if only because similar themes have perhaps been addressed more expertly elsewhere (Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye spring immediately to mind), but I enjoyed this book. One to pick up if you come across it, rather than rushing to add to you wishlists, but worth a look all the same.

I am continuing with the Reading Globally group's 'Africa' themed read. My second book was also a contribution to my Reading Globally challenge, this time for Eritrea.

Riding the Whirlwind by Bereket Habte Selassie

Bereket's book is set in the early seventies, during the fall of the last Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie. The events set in motion during this period eventually lead to Eritrean independence. Bereket was an Eritrean nationalist, politician and academic, who played a significant role in Eritrea's break from Ethiopia.

The story follows Desta, a senior politician in Haile Selassie's government, who is also plotting with left wing republican rebels to overthrow Selassie's despotic regime. The narrative intertwines Desta's personal, political and secret lives, building up a picture of the last days of the Ethiopian empire and the forces that conspired to overthrow it.

I was impressed with Bereket's book. It is difficult to tell histories in narrative form while balancing the need to keep characters fleshed out and believable. Bereket definitely succeeds. The writing is a little dry, and occassionally becomes overly didactic, such as during an argument between students about left wing politics, but the author stays aware of the need to portray the foibles and quirks of his characters, and the effects they can have on the decisions they make. The only character that didn't work for me was Desta himself. He was portrayed as being largely flawless, except a few sexual misdemeanours which result from his overwhelming sexual magnetism. He was, in short, a bit much. In general though, I would recommend this book. The prose won't win any awards for its fluidity, but I have read many books that aim to tell larger histories through personal stories, and many struggle to find a balance between the two. Bereket's didn't and, as such, was an enjoyable and informative read.

Great reviews and some very interesting books. Thanks. I note the similar surnames - Selassie - and wonder if he is related to the Emperor, although his politics do not?

Hi kiwidoc,
Thanks for the compliment. I have been following your thread with interest, although I don't think I have posted anything yet.

I don't think Amharic (Ethiopian) names work that way. I think the last part of the name can be acquired as a title, so that 'Selassie' doesn't function as a family name in either case. Haile Selassie wasn't born with either of those names, and I think Bereket Habte Selassie's family name is the 'Bereket' bit. There are other recurring names in Ethiopian such as Woldu and Worku. Sometimes these seem to be family names, and sometimes 'acquired' names. I have done a cursory search on the internet but didn't find anything explaining it, so if anyone out there knows, I would love an explanation. Anyway, what I am basically saying, is that they are not related.

I think.

For those of you that frequent the 'Reading Globally' thread, I must apologise for the constant copying and pasting between threads. I don't usually read for challenges and themed reads as much as I have this year, but it is a good way of getting at my TBR. I joined this group so that I would have somewhere to post my non-themed, non-challenge stuff, but I am not reading much at the moment. This will be true, next month as well, as it is 'Argentina' month on Reading Globally, which I will be joining in with for most of the month (and possibly beyond). Anyway, here are my latest two reads, also posted on the 'Africa' themed read in the Reading Globally group.

Search Sweet Country by B. Kojo Laing (Ghana)

Laing's book is an ambitious attempt to describe the city of Accra (c.1980) through the interacting stories of its inhabitants. The central narrative deals with the aftermath of an event at the city's airport, in which some horses escape from their containers. The horses are supposed to be agricultural animals, destined for a politicians farm, but it is obvious to all that they are high quality race horses, and that something fishy is afoot. The horses' owner tries to silence the witnesses, while their handler (Kojo Pol) starts to lose faith in his country, which is frequently cited (inside and outside the book) as being Africa's 'first modern democracy'. The ripples spread in motion by the airport event touch many corners of Accran society, forcing the city's inhabitants to examine themes of modernisation and tradition, and to ponder the meaning of 'Ghana'.
Laing is foremost a poet, and it shows in the almost startling beauty that he brings to the prose. The novel is told using a lyrical, almost abstract, turn of phrase that occasionally conjures the most fantastic imagery. Bits of this novel are truly lovely. However, I ultimately struggled to like the book. Laing's substitution of poetry for narrative lead to a meandering, unfocused, picaresque piece of magical realism that floated for 350 pages on its own whimsy. I, as a reader, couldn't maintain interest, or even retain a clear pattern of the characters, as I became lost in the shower of (admittedly beautiful) words. It reminded me of The Mulatta and Mr Fly by Miguel Angel Asturias, or Flann O'Brian's At-Swim-Two-Birds, both of which are widely admired, but both of which did nothing for me. The word 'picaresque' is the kiss of death as far as I am concerned, and Laing's book flirted with it too often for my tastes.

Oil Man of Obange by John Munonye (Nigeria)

There is a phrase that has entered my private vocabulary in the last couple of years: 'Random Heinemann'. A book is a 'Random Heinemann' to me if I read it based on nothing more than the author's nationality and a liking for the cover. It started because a lot of my African authors were published by Heinemann, though it now refers (in my head) to any book fitting the description. I had vowed to cut down on 'Random Heinemanns', because I have read a lot of not very good stuff because of them. However, I feel my determination slipping, because Oil Man of Obange is one of the best RHs I have read in a long while.
The story is very simple, following Jeri, a seller of kola nut oil, as he struggles to keep his kids in school and to make a living from an arduous daily cycle ride from Obange to Otta, the town where he sells his goods. Deep in poverty, and perched on the edge of destitution, every single penny he gains or loses can spell the difference between survival and death. Although Jeri's story is punctuated by major events (births, deaths, etc.) it is the everyday obstacles that threaten to haul him down. Even a burst tyre could mean the difference between sending his children to school or not. The book shows the extreme difficulty of overcoming crippling poverty with even the best heart and strongest will.
Munonye's prose and narrative are both simple, but no less powerful because of this. The pain of hope against hopelessness is brilliantly portrayed, and I was completely invested in the futures of Jeri's children by the end of the book. Oil Man of Obange is simply a very nice example of uncomplicated storytelling that delighted, touched and moved me far in excess of expectations.

I read part of Kojo Laing's The Woman of the Aeroplanes and didn't have the mental energy to stay with it at the time, but I do plan to go back to it. Even beyond the wandering narrative, just parsing the prose, beautiful as it was, could be a difficult task. I did like it, though, quite a bit, and I still think about the little chunk that I read.

Been enjoying your other reviews as well.

>52 GlebtheDancer: depressaholic,

I would really like to read Oil Man of Obange, but there do not seem to be any particularly cheap copies rambling around at the moment. I have put it on my wishlist.

>53 Medellia: I would be interested in any more detailed comments you had about Laing's book. I can't help have the nagging feeling that I didn't give Search Sweet Country a fair read, because I wasn't concentrating hard enough, or something. It sounds like your feelings about The Woman of the Aeroplanes wasn't too far removed from mine though.

>54 urania1: Will be happy to send, if you are interested. I have left a message on your profile page.

Still ploughing through my Africa TBR. The latest is:
I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

It was commented above (message 104) that nobody has read any African 'fluff'. I work in a bookshop and we received an uncorrected proof of Nwaubani's book, to be released later this year, which probably qualifies. Nwaubani was born in and resides in Nigeria. This is her first book, and I think its fair to say that it doesn't have any great literary pretensions. It was, however, pretty good.

The book is about a young man, Kingsley, whose family live in relative poverty, despite being hardworking. Things like schooling and healthcare are a constant struggle. Kingsley's uncle, Boniface, however, has never worked hard, but has become the king of '419' scams, where foreigners are fleeced for their money by e-mail hoaxers. A family illness and a needy girlfriend force Kingsley towards his uncle's world, much to his family's horror (though they like the cash it brings). The narrative followers Kingsley as he tries to balance his moral qualms against a very real need for funds, and examines the ways in which poverty, morality and crime can sometimes interact in very confusing ways.

Nwaubani's book was nicely written, though at no points outstanding in terms of language. Her characters were nicely drawn, especially Kingsley and his family, and were sympathetic enough to maintain an interest throughout the whole book. For me, this is the bare minimum for enjoying a book, and Nwaubani passed this test with flying colours. Her narrative, however, was little bit of a mess. I never really felt Kingsley's moral confusion keenly enough to join him on his apparent roller coaster of emotions. I like books that challenge and confuse my own viewpoints, and this didn't really do either. I was pleased to read something contemporary, because this was a Nigeria of mobile phones, internet cafes and laptops, and a book that didn't deal with big political issues, which made a change. In fact, Nwaubani does make some half-hearted pokes at bigger issues, but they are largely superfluous and forgettable.
It is perhaps unfair to describe this book as 'fluff', but if you don't expect too much from it. you probably won't be too disappointed.

Just one left now: Ben Okri's The Famished Road. I am already most of the way through, and not really enjoying it. I'll post on it when I am done.

Am interested to hear you're not enjoying The Famished Road. I read it years ago (or tried to read it; I'm not sure I managed to finish it) and didn't like it although I can't remember why now. I'd come round to thinking that I should give it another go at some point as I only ever hear good things about it, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you think when you've finished.

Some very interesting reads here. Oil Man sounds like something I need to watch for. And, along with Rachel, I will be interested in your thoughts on The Famished Road (another of the books I had to write a paper on the relationship of the title to the story). Come May, when I am released from my self-exile in New England history, I can't decide which I will do first - have an African reading jag or a Joyce Carol Oates reading jag. . .

avaland,

Toss the JCO. Head to eastern Europe. It's so sexy.

>To each his/her own, I guess:-)

As an eastern European (although many cultured Czechs have always insisted that Bohemia is NOT in eastern Europe but TOTALLY CENTRAL Europe, much closer to France than to Russia LOL), I must agree with Mary that eastern Europe is ever so much sexier than Oates.

I would be happy to make many recommendations, sexy or not.

Just finished Ben Okri's The Famished Road. Here is my (less than glowing) review, copied from the Reading Globally group.

Okri's book follows Azaro, a spirit child, who chooses life on earth over his spirit existence. Born to a poor family, his fellow spirits try to drag him back towards his other world, as he struggles to find a life in this one. His father is a drunken idealist, his mother a downtrodden pragmatist. The family witness changes to their ramshackle community, changes which incorporate battles between tradition and modernisation, political and social unrest, and the apparent moral decline of their neighbourhood. Azaro's family are witness to the battles between conflicting forces for the soul of their community, and the evolution of their lives.

So, why the negative reaction? Firstly, because the book uses a very heavy handed form of magical realism. I like magical realism with a deft touch, such as in books by Gunter Grass, Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. In all these examples, the magical realism is a device employed alongside the narrative to create a dreamlike reality. Okri, however, uses magical realism as a replacement for narrative. The book is a long allegory, and there is no real story to it, just a series of mostly unconnected allegorical events. I can think of several books which take this approach, none of which I have enjoyed. Characters flit in and out of focus, doing weird stuff with abandon. Their roles as ciphers for wider events completely overtakes the need to flesh them out as real people, making everyone in the book 2-dimensional and, for me, therefore completely uninteresting as individuals. Secondly, and in complete contrast to all the blurbs, I found Okri's language pedestrian and mundane. His use of staccato sentences frequently made the text read like a novel for children, often barely rising above 'He did this. He then did that. Then this happened.'. It was among some of the most boring prose I have ever read in an adult book. Thirdly, the narrative, such as it is, is repetitive, and involved Azaro running into and out of the jungle, getting slapped on the head, before there is a big fight and his father gets beaten up. This seemed to happen pretty much every 20 pages or so. I don't believe this was a deliberate device by Okri to make a point, simply a result of failing to keep any eye on an overarching narrative amongst all the weird stuff happening. To cap it all, I'm not sure I could find any sympathy for Okri's themes. The blurbs described them as universal, but I though they were rendered as such by a persisting vagueness in what he was actually trying to say. It may be my prejudice as a reader, but I think it is a pitfall of magical realism that it can be used to create a smokescreen behind which it is possible to hide fuzzy thought and vague ideas. Perhaps it was a result of not appreciating Okri's language, but that is exactly what I thought he was trying to do here.

Bah humbug, etc.

Cripes, Depressaholic - that one is going in the Goodwill basket now.

I do not like heavy-handed magic realism either. That, combined with 'some of the most boring prose read in a book', has decided it for me!!!! Reviews like this are so useful - saves a wasted attempt.

>62 GlebtheDancer: I admit I found The Famished Road more difficult to get through than most magical realist novels and you may be articulating some of what i found to make it difficult. However, I'm sure I didn't think it as bad as you did. So why do you suppose it won the Booker?

I actually quite enjoyed The Famished Road--it was one of my favorite books that I read last year. But I am usually a magic realism fan, heavy-handed or otherwise.

I hope you don't mind if I just post a few rebuttals--I don't really mean to argue, just to politely beg to differ. Firstly, I found it very easy to become attached to the characters, but that's really something that either happens or doesn't. Secondly, I enjoyed the prose, as it was consistently simple--it read like fairy tale language to me. And what it lacked in syntactic variety I felt was made up for by the imagery--the man does know how to pull a beautiful (often surreal) image out of thin air.

The above are personal preferences, but I must say I don't think it fair to suggest that Okri didn't realize he was being repetitive. After all, the major themes of the novel (even if one thinks they are fuzzy) are pretty clearly laid out toward the end (PERHAPS A SPOILER ALERT for those who haven't read it): for example:

"Our country is an abiku country. Like the spirit-child, it keeps coming and going. One day it will decide to remain."

or, more to the point:
"The spirit-child is an unwilling adventurer into chaos and sunlight, into the dreams of the living and the dead. Things that are not ready, not willing to be born or to become, things for which adequate preparations have not been made to sustain their momentous births, things that are not resolved, things bound up with failure and with fear of being, they all keep recurring, keep coming back, and in themselves partake of the spirit-child's condition."

That suggests a deliberate action to me. At any rate, it's funny what two different people will think of a novel--for example, what you called repetitive, I labeled as "cyclical structures." :)

>65 Medellia: Please rebutt away. The Famished Road has been heaped with praise, and is a very popular book, so it is interesting to know why I struggled with it so much. I expected disagreement with my views, and would be interested to hear more. I really thought I would like this book, and it really disappointed me. I am not generally well disposed to what I described as heavy-handed, allegorical magical realist books, so that didn't help from the start.

As regards the repetition, it is not the recurrance of ideas that annoyed me. I accept the general point that a lot of incipient movements and changes in Azaro's society are curtailed by human failings and, by extension, violence. It was the fact that Okri translated them into repetitious narrative scenarios, by repeatedly having the characters wander into madame Koto's bar and have a punch up. Its funny, because I thought that the repetition in (e.g.) One Hundred Years of Solitude was one of its strengths. In Marquez's book, though, I felt that the recurring failures of his characters (and the recurring reasons for those failures) was brilliantly communicated despite them finding themselves in diverse situations, It was only slowly that I (as a reader) began to understand why they could make no changes to their lives. I feel the same about Joseph Heller, who is, imo, an absolute genius when it comes to drawing an overarching narrative out of repetitive structures. In Okri's book, I felt that he tried to make the same point by simply repeating a scenario, over and over again. It just bored me a bit. I think thats why I labelled them 'repetitive narratives', rather than viewing them as 'cyclical structures'.

>66 GlebtheDancer: As I said above, I don't much like allegorical magical realism, or at least I need it to be tied to an accessible narrative. I guess that within the auspices of a genre I don't get on with, this may have been a very good book. A lot of other people clearly think so. I tend to view the Booker prize as a pretty good guide in general, but not on this occasion.

It is entirely possible that I've rotted my brain over the years listening to too much Morton Feldman and Steve Reich; I have an unusual tolerance for exact or near-exact repetitions, where I feel that it is deliberate and artful. If one can listen to that sort of music in a certain way, it really does dramatically alter one's perception of time and musical objects. So, similarly with the Okri for me: my joy in those repeated scenarios was in ferreting out and savoring the little differences. (And, btw, I suspect that this altered perception of time was a project of Okri's, though I can't recall encountering anything explicit in the novel that would back this up.)

We are in agreement on the Marquez, though, another book I loved. And you have also just sharpened my interest in Heller, whom I have not yet read. Does Catch-22 fall into the category of Heller books that you describe?

Lurking and loving this discussion Medellia and Depressaholic - this is the reason I persist in LT voyeurism!!!!

Catch-22 is never described as magical realism, probably because the comedy is a bit too absurd for the 'realism' bit. Heller does use a lot of repetition, and strangely enough uses it do exactly what you say: to alter the perception of time in his narrative. The book isn't told in linear time, and in fact it is impossible to write a timeline of the events in it because there is no way to arrange it in a logical sequence. The messing about with linear time is one of the main contributors to the surreal feel of the book.

You may well be right regarding how intentional Okri's use of distorted time was. It was a device that made One Hundred Years of solitude what it was, and Okri's themes are perhaps not far from those of Marquez. I guess the difference just boils down to the rather mundane idea that I didn't like the way he did it. Okri's use of language was a real barrier for me. I suppose I was getting bored with some of the passages, and that translated into a general boredom with the book.
On that note, I would add that I would classify myself as a bit of a 'lazy reader'. This is meant in the sense that I usually allow a book to kind of wash over me, and take what I can from it. Thats why I am always very impressed with writers who can plant ideas in my head without me noticing, while just enjoy the language. I sort of challenge authors to grab me, rather than making the effort to engage with them. I think that this is why what I describe as 'heavy-handed' magical realism often fails with me. I can never be bothered to sit there translating allegorical events in my head. Perhaps that is the wrong way to read books like this, but it is what I often find myself wanting to do. I guess Okri's book was a little to oblique and/or inaccessible for this approach.

..... I usually allow a book to kind of wash over me, and take what I can from it. That's why I am always very impressed with writers who can plant ideas in my head without me noticing, while just enjoying the language.

I read for pleasure now, not literary education, so I agree totally with this statement, Depressaholic. Discussing different books with others, though, has made me realize that sometimes different minds find different writers 'hard' or 'easy'.

Now I have to read Okri's book to decide for myself, darn it!!

urania weighing in although she hasn't read The Famished Road. Vis a vis Medellia12's comments in post 67. Repetition, properly used, is gorgeous particularly in tales making use of magical realism. Incidentally, I like Steve Reich too :-)

Sorry to interrupt the Okri discussion, which I hope will continue. I am having an Argentinian reading jag this year and have read my first two books. Both are by Osvaldo Soriano.

A Funny Dirty Little War is a brutal black comedy set in the outpost of Colonia Vela during the first sparkings of Argentina's military takeover. It follows the bloody events of a single night, which are sparked by the attempts of the local police to take control of the town council by labeling its members communists and anti-Peronists. Unexpectedly, the councillors fight back, arming themselves and barricading themselves inside the Town Hall as the shooting begins. Local militias aid the police, while student organisations mobilise to help the councillors, resulting in a night of horrific violence in the small town.
I absolutely loved this book. At little more than 100 pages it can be read in a single sitting, but it manages to pack a punch far beyond its size. The town of Colonia Vela reminded me of one of the outposts described by Garcia Marquez or Vargas Llosa, where the rules of the rest of the world don't quite apply. The local politics is absurd, with everyone trying to be more Peronist than everyone else, and the swirling nexus of petty power-mongering blurring party lines beyond recognition. It is a comedy, but be warned, the comedy is so dark as to be almost invisible. Characters being killed by being blown through the roof on a toilet, or blowing their own brains out with a faeces covered gun may suggest a scatalogical bent, but the overwhelming feeling of the book is complete shock at the brutality of the terrible events unfolding. Soriano described these events with a subtle power and uncomplicated prose. The dark comedy simply adds to the unbelievable-yet-believable surreality of the explosion of absurd political violence that swept the whole of his country prior to writing this book. This is a wonderful blackly comic novella, but perhaps not for the faint-hearted.

My second book is Soriano's Winter Quarters. Set in Colonia Vela three years after the events of A Funny Dirty Little War, the military have now moved in, and wholly control the town. They have organised an anniversary celebration for the crushing of the uprising, and invited Galvan, a tango singer, and Rocha, an uncouth and washed-up boxer. The two meet on the train in, and form an uneasy partnership. Galvan is due to sing at the celebrations, Rocha is to fight the army favourite. Galvan falls foul of his hosts by refusing to attend mass. As he is thrown out of town, he realises that Rocha is being set up to lose, and that his life may be in danger. Galvan returns to town to try and rescue his unlikely friend.
This book is less brutal than the previous one (though it does have its moments) but retains the same comic absurdity. Galvan and Rocha's relationship is genuinely touching and Soriano once again writes beautifully about his sadness with what has happened to his home country. Whereas the Colonia Vela of the first book felt a long way from Buenos Aires, by the second book the Junta had reached out its tentacles into all corners of Argentina. Galvan's weariness and Rocha's naivety make perfect counterpoints to the growing horror of military rule. This was a touching novel, longer and less bloody than A Funny Dirty Little War and, consequently, had much more emotional pull. If Soriano's first book was very good, the this one was excellent. An author I will look for more of in the future.

More from my Argentinian reading:

The book I have just finished is Adolfo Bioy-Casares' A Plan For Escape. Bioy-Casares was a longtime friend and collaborator of Jorge Luis Borges, and wrote similar metaphysical puzzles. During the early days of Peronism, Bioy-Casares found himself censored, and wrote A Plan for Escape as a response to the restrictions on his freedom. He would eventually go on to become one of Argentina's most prestigious and celebrated writers.

The book is set on the eve of WWI, on the French penal colonies off Guyana, including the infamous Devil's Island. Nevers, a young naval lieutenant, is sent the islands for unspecified reasons by his family. On his arrival he becomes aware of erratic behaviour by Castel, the governor of the colony. Convinced that Castel is plotting a rebellion with the help of the prisoners, Nevers becomes unwillingly embroiled in an investigation, becoming both fascinated and repelled with the islands' nightmarish effect on the humanity they house.
This was another very good book. Bioy-Casares builds an ominous tension, aided by the heat and lethargy of his setting. The feel is almost apocalyptic, as what starts as idle curiosity for Nevers turns into a morbid obsession, that he realises will eventually threaten his own sanity, and perhaps even his life. Just enough plot is revealed at the right pace to maintain interest. It is difficult to say too much about the denouement without giving too much away, but suffice to say that, as befits a friend of Borges, the mystery resolves into a metaphysical puzzle. Definitions of freedom and captivity become bent out of recognisable shape, leading to an almost sci-fiesque feel to the book. Perhaps the ending felt a little frivolous in comparison to the dark intensity of the rest of the book, but it was still a very interesting read.

My latest Argentina read:
How I Became a Nun by Cesar Aira

How I Became a Nun is the truncated life story of a six year old boy, called Cesar Aira. His entire existence is sandwiched between two unsavoury incidents involving strawberry ice cream. Seen through the boy's eyes, Argentina becomes a surreal and nonsensical place. The child's perspective is retained throughout, allowing flights of fancy and comic misunderstanding. This particular child's flights of fancy are a tad more disturbing than most. Aira is a strange, solitary child, given to describing himself as a girl (and bemused by the failure of others to recognise his gender), and believing him/herself to be an almost invisible presence in the world. A disturbing precociousness pervades his thoughts, and result in actions that often feel psychopathic, particularly with respect to his parents. Aira's narrative is mostly aimless whimsy, an internal monologue of a disturbed child, and feels like it was written purely for the joy of writing. When I ask my brain if it liked the book, it nods heartily. When I ask it what it was all about, it just sort of wanders off, whistling nonchalantly, with its hands in its pockets. There may be something that I was missing here (or many somethings), but I like the idea that How I Became a Nun is fantastical nonsense written purely for Aira’s own pleasure. I would be happy to read more in this vein, and happy to recommend it to others.

You really are having quite a Argentine lit jag! I like your comments on the Aira, very astute. I have thought since reading it that I might like to read more of his work just for comparison.

>75 avaland:
I'm enjoying myself immensely at the moment. I managed to accumulate 9 books for the Argentina read, but, as I said above, many were very short so I may well read all 9 this month. I have read 5, reviewed 4, and am currently close to finishing another two. If I do read them all, I would move to other things, but hope to have another go round later in the year. The 9 I have were acquired by my usual 'random' shopping, but I would like to focus on some specific stuff (e.g. more Soriano) for later.

Thanks for your comments about the Aira. I was slightly worried that people who were far more astute than me would point out lots of themes and subtexts in How I Became a Nun that I had completely missed, but I am happy with my current diagnosis of 'darkly whimsical'. I think he has written many in this vein, which I would be interested in reading. He also writes historical fiction, which I am assuming has a more focused narrative. I'm not sure how much is currently in translation.

Argentina #5
The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez

I'll keep this very short, because I haven't got too much to say. I almost never read crime fiction/mysteries, because I find that I just don't get much from them. Consequently, I was unlikely to like The Oxford Murders from the start. Part of the point of doing reading jags is to force myself to encounter different types of literature I wouldn't normally read, so I went in with an open mind.

The book follows a young Argentinian maths student spending a year studying in Oxford. Shortly after his arrival, his landlady is murdered, and a cryptic note left with Arthur Seldom, an eminent professor of maths. As more bodies turn up, accompanied by notes and symbols, Seldom and the student find themselves in a race to interpret the symbols and find the killer.

This was a very quick read (200 easy pages), but there was nothing to raise it above the level of by-the-numbers 'genre' fiction. We have sexy femme fatale suspects, eminent mathemeticians, disgruntled academics, policemen who appear to feel the need to include civilians in all their conversations, red herrings aplenty, you know the rest. As a mathematician himself, Martinez takes the opportunity to weave in some fairly complex ideas (Godel's theorem as a motive for murder, anyone?), and he just about keeps it above the level of a silly analogy. There is even something vaguely Eco-esque in the unfolding of the mystery, with false trails, semiotic trickery and an almost meta-physical twist at the end. However, whatever interest this may have generated in me was lost in his determination to stick to the most mundane, formulaic thriller mould he could find. The entire book, with its multiple deaths, felt about the same length as the amount of time Eco takes to describe a doorway (some may see this as a positive). Anyway, as I said, I have no real frame of reference, because I don't read many thrillers, but I didn't really enjoy this one.

I read this prior to it's publication here in the states. I thought the premise was intriguing but it fell short of the best genre mysteries, imo. Interesting though, that I just mentioned over the on the "interesting articles" thread, reviews of two forthcoming books by South American authors (one Peruvian, the other Bolivian), both of which have a crime/mystery premise. In both cases, the reviews (from Publishers Weekly) deemed the books much more than the premise suggests (and one mentioned Camus . . .) While I only left a teaser on that thread, I did leave the date of the issue I took them from so you might find the full reviews online. They both made me think of you.

There is definitely an advantage to a reading 'jag', imo. I know my 2007 African fiction jag was a real learning experience that continued into early 2008. I'm looking forward to going back to it later this year.

Depressaholic - I'm very intrigued by your description of A Funny Dirty Little War. Do you think someone who didn't know very much about Argentinian politics/history would still get a lot from the book?

>79 wandering_star:
Absolutely. Part of the humour of the book is based on the absurdity of small town politics, with everyone claiming to be on the same side (Peronist). The fighting really breaks out because of petty powermongering that is very easy to understand with no knowledge whatsoever of the background behind it. It is a universal tale of human failings, rather than a parable about Argentinian politics.

Very well, it's on the wishlist!

More from Argentina:

Kiss of the Spider Woman
by Manuel Puig

Kiss of the Spider Woman is an unusual book, told only in dialogue, without any pointer text ('he said', 'she said' etc). It is almost entirely made up of conversations between two prisoners, Valentin and Molina. Valentin is a left-wing revolutionary, imprisoned as a terrorist, Molina is a homosexual, convicted of corrupting a minor. Molina keeps Valentin entertained by recounting the plots of films he watched on the outside. Molina is an aesthete, preferring ideals of beauty to ideas of right and wrong. Valentin is the opposite, seeing everything through the filter of his ideology. The two have an uneasy relationship, but a friendship of sorts is forged in the cell and, by the end of the book, each has taken on aspects of the other's personality, with serious repercussions for both men.

I thought that this book was great. The device of only using dialogue was not remotely disorientating, and gave a cramped claustrophobic feeling to the writing that reinforced the conditions the two men found themselves in. It was as if Puig described nothing because there was nothing to describe, just the same four walls and ceiling. But the book's strength was really in the relationship between the two characters. Born out of necessity, their friendship is awkward and forced, as each keeps the lid on the excesses of their personalities for the sake of the other. Eventually, something beautiful arises between them, a communion of minds that couldn't occur in any other situation. The last two pages were some of the most beautiful prose I could remember reading for a long time, and completely blew me away. Be warned though, some of the text is fairly dense, and the conclusion is ambiguous and obscure, which may not provide the sort of pat finish some readers may look for.

All Fires the Fire
by Julio Cortazar

This Argentine binge of mine started because of a recommendation for Cortazar. I still have Hopscotch to read, but I started with this collection of short stories. I have to be honest, I wasn't tremendously impressed.

I am a big fan of short stories, but I have never enjoyed ones that rely too heavily on their cleverness (e.g. interesting concepts or unforeseeable twists). Cortazar's stories reminded me of what I don't like about Italo Calvino, and other authors whose surrealism borders on being sci-fi. There was a bit too much of this in All Fires the Fire for my tastes. That isn't to say that Cortazar isn't a good writer. He is, and is ably assisted by Susan Jill Levine's translation. His more human centred (as opposed to concept centred) stories still packed a punch, though not as much as I had hoped for, but his stories were as much intellectual as emotional episodes, and felt a little cold.

I am certainly not dreading reading Hopscotch after this, and would still be tempted to try Blow-Up, which is often quoted as his classic collection of stories, but I can't quite bring myself to give All Fires the Fire a ringing endorsement.

...On an entirely different subject. I went up to Sedbergh this weekend. Sedbergh is a small village on the fringes of the English Lake District, which is trying to market itself as 'England's Book Town'. This is a direct response to Hay-on-Wye's success in turning itself into a mecca for literary fans. Sedbergh has its own literary festival, though not on the scale of Hay's, and 8 bookshops in a relatively small village (Hay has 30+ in an even smaller village).

Sedbergh is in lovely surroundings, nestled in the hills, and is fairly picture perfect. It has a long way to go to rival Hay, but it is probably prettier. Of the 8 bookshops, however, only one is really worth a visit. That one, though, is REALLY, worth a visit. It is just teeming with stock that is obscure, hard to get and low priced. I bought some very good condition first editions for next to nothing. I buy to read, not for value, but obviously some books are impossible to get at reasonable prices. I got several that would have cost £30+ ($40+) on the web, for only £3 or £4. As a book town, Sedbergh is not quite at the stage where it is worth dropping everything to get there for the books (Hay is. Trust me, it is), but given the outstanding surroundings it it really worth a visit.

My purchases:
The Collected Stories of Conrad Aiken
Gaudeamus Igitur by Alois Jirasek
Ajaiyi by Amos Tutuola
Yaya Garcia by Machado de Assis

All first editions, and all but one in hardback, then three cheap books:
Six Records of a Floating Life by Shen Fu
Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Headbirths by Gunter Grass

Depress.:

I am jealous. I'd like to drop everything and fly across the Atlantic and go to Hay. I'd even settle for Sedbergh. Really, I would.

Discount books are a passion for me.

Having said that, on Saturday, while visiting in a town I don't much go to, I found a thrift shop and in no time at all had over 20 books in front of me. It turned out the shop closes at 5:00 and I got there at ten to, so they threw me out, but I'll be back, I'll be back! The cost of my haul was $16.50.

Thrilling. (Though the calibre of the books was much lower than yours, many were for trading purposes in "higher level" bookstores.

>Polutropos, you will have to settle for Hobart, NY which is trying to accomplish a similar thing as Sedbergh. They had six used bookshops when I was there 18 months ago with several other LTers. However, the largest of the six stores - a barn - was up for sale. Not sure what happened with that.

Betrayed by Rita Hayworth by Manuel Puig

Another Argentina book, and another by Puig. I am enjoying this month immensely, and have found some good stuff and some interesting authors. Also, because a few people have mentioned Puig, I feel like I'm getting to know him pretty well, despite only having read two of his books.

Having said that, Betrayed by Rita Hayworth isn't a book I can praise wholeheartedly. It is a good read, and contains many of the motifs and devices that Puig put expertly into practice in Kiss of the Spider Woman, but it isn't, in my opinion, nearly as good a book. It follows the lives of a cohort of friends born in a small Argentine town in 1933, finishing as they head towards the ends of their childhoods in 1948. Puig uses only voices to develop the narrative. initially there is reported conversations between the children's parents, when the children themselves are too young to talk. Later there are internal monologues, diary entries and school essays by the kids. There is roughly one chapter for each year between 1933 and 1948, each told by a different child. The themes are largely to do with sexual awakenings, and the role that popular media (especially movies) have in shaping ideas about sex and relationships in our heads. The reality of growing up is contrasted with the idealised relationships on the screen, and the hypocrisies of sexual exploration in a conservative catholic country are also explored.

My slightly lukewarm reaction is largely due to the profusion of voices and perspectives Puig uses. It felt like he was trying to build up a mosaic image from all the different children's thoughts and, in doing so, lost sight a little bit of some of his more interesting strands. One boy in particular, Toto, is presented as being a pivotal figure. He is a strange child, effeminate, possibly homosexual,who colours in pictures of movie stars rather than join the other children. I was fascinated by him, but he just disappeared for long periods under the avalanche of perspectives. I tend to struggle with books that have too many narrators, and this was no exception. However, the writing is fluid and crisp, and have reall grown to appreciate Puig's style. Read as a series of themed prose pieces or short stories, Betrayed by Rita Hayworth is a lovely piece of work with some really outstanding passages. As a single narrative entity, it fell a little bit short of the mark, but I think it will still be enjoyed by readers who have enjoyed his other books.

Depressaholic, I have put How I Became a Nun on my wishlist. Alas Baron von Kindle has a slightly sadistic side. He likes to withhold gratification for excruciatingly long periods of time. He ties one up and refuses to make certain books available.

Thanks for your review of Kiss of the Spider Woman. Back in high school I rented the big old VHS cassette of the movie adaptation and watched, rewound it and watched it again. It was the first time I was astonished by a movie. I had known that it was based on a novel by Manuel Puig, but it hadn't occurred to me to read the book. Thanks for that, and for the Betrayed by Rita Hayworth suggestions.

Incidentally, I misread your post on your bookstore finds as having found a first edition of Mrs. Dalloway. After I'd found my eyes (they'd sprung out of my head, cartoon-style) I reread the post and recovered my equilibrium.

>88 urania1: One or two others have taken the plunge with the Aira, and no-one had had a bad thing to say yet. Its not exactly earth shattering, but is high in entertainment value.

>89 RidgewayGirl: A 1st edition Woolf, now that would have been a find! Incidentally, the charity shop in which I volunteer received a donation recently that included a 1st edition Lord of the Flies. Even without the dust jacket, we valued it at between £200 and £400 pounds. With a dust jacket is more like £1200-£2000. We will probably send it to auction.

>90 GlebtheDancer: New Directions has a new Aira book out, Ghosts (I've not attempted a touchstone). Here's PW's review:

Aira, an unusual Argentinean author (How I Became a Nun), writes a compelling novel about a migrant Chilean family living in an apartment house under construction in Buenos Aires. New Year's Eve finds the hard-drinking Chilean night watchman, Raúl Vinas, hosting a party with his wife, Elisa, their four small children and Elisa's pensive 15-year-old daughter, Patri. Moreover, ghosts reside in the house: naked, dust-covered floating men, mostly unseen except by Elisa and Patri. The novel engineers a clever layering of metaphorical details about the building, but gradually focuses on Elisa's preparations for the party and her conversations with her daughter about finding a real man to marry. Prodded perhaps by her isolation within the family, Patri accepts the ghosts' invitation to a midnight feast, at her life's peril. Aira takes off on fanciful sociological analogies that seem absurd in the mouths of these simple folk, so that in the end the novel functions as an allegorical, albeit touching, comment on his characters' materialism and class.

I will have to keep this in mind, but I won't add it to my TBR pile right away (I've stockpiled too many others as is:-)

Thanks for the Aira recommendation. It is on a list.

I have fallen off the wagon (again). After my trip to Sedbergh, I took another one to Hay-on-Wye. Hay is about 2 hours drive from my house, which is perfect because I can easily get there and back in a day, but it is too far to do it regularly. Anyway, my favourite shop there has shelves dedicated wholly totranslated fiction, and categorised by language, so I made a B-line for the Spanish to pick up some more Argentinian books. I bought:
The Algarrobos Quartet by Mario Goloboff (published in the 'Jewish Latin America' series.
Dreamtigers by Borges
Mean Woman by Alicia Borinsky (at last, a female writer!)
The Wandering Unicorn by Manuel Mujica Lainez
Blood of Requited Love and The Buenos Aires Affair, both by Manuel Puig

As well as the Argentinian binge, I also bought:
A Season in Rihata by Maryse Conde
Voices Made Night by Mia Couto

I have been a bad, bad boy.

Andy,

are you buying these at thrift shop prices, or used bookstore prices, or (gulp) regular prices?

I just have to get a sense of a)how bad you have been, and b) whether I need to book my flight to May-on-Wye soon. :-)

It is used bookstore prices, rather than thrift, but definitely not new book prices. Hay is a little pricier than most, because of its fame, but the above 7 books cost me around £25 ($30), which isn't too bad.

I bought all but 2 of the books in a single shop. There are over 30 in Hay. It is, quite possibly, as close as I will ever get to that thing called heaven.

I've been away for over a week so have only just discovered that you've beaten me to Sedbergh! Thanks for your comments on it - sounds like it's definitely worth a visit next time I'm home.

>91 avaland: avaland, I purchased Ghosts while I was in Louisville this past weekend. It is quite short, so if I can break away from Baron von Kindlle's embrace perhaps I may read it this weekend.

Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar

This will be my final Argentina read for the moment (I have several more that I will return to later in the year), and is the one that started me off in the first place. Hopscotch has been on my TBR list for longer than any other book, so lots and lots of thanks to Rachbxl for sending me a copy.

Hopscotch is an odd novel, written as a series of short, staccato chapters that can be arranged at the whim of the reader. Cortazar suggests two schemes: reading only chapters 1-56 in order, or a longer route that involves reading all 155 chapters (excluding one) in an order set down at the start. He also mentions that reading only the odd or even chapters is also acceptable. I suspect that many people, like me, read to the second scheme, because it is the only one that involves reading almost all of the book.
The first 56 chapters contain the bulk of the narrative. It follows the story of Oliveira, an Argentinian intellectual living in Paris. He is part of 'The Club', a group of intellectuals and Bohemians. Oliveira's mistress, known as La Maga, is a relative ingenue. She doesn't understand much of what the Club talk about, and is treated by them as a sort of pet, despite showing herself to be more than their equal when it comes to understanding other people. Oliveira and La Maga's relationship is strained, because he fails to understand his feelings for La Maga, largely because he tries to intellectualize them. When tragedy causes La Maga to run away, The Club drift apart, and Oliveira returns to Argentina alone, where he engages in a series of aimless employments, haunted by the spectre of his former lover. His distance from the Bohemian lifestyle of Paris allows him to reassess his relationship with La Maga, which has disturbing effects on his relationships with other people.

The extra, interpolated chapters are a mish-mash of ideas. They occasionally give deeper insight into the thoughts of characters and into the narrative itself. They also introduce Morelli, the putative writer of Oliveira's story (though Oliveira and other characters frequently discuss Morelli). There are also other quotes and ideas thrown in, some of which inform the narrative in obvious ways, others which are seemingly random. These interpolated chapters have the effect of creating an entirely different book, because the reader understands more about the motives behind narrative events (and occasionally the outcomes of them), creating a different set of tensions and altering their perception of the characters.

With such a complex book, and one so rich in ideas, it seems a bit anti-climactic to report that it was just okay. Not great, not terrible, but just okay. The narrative itself was interesting, and Oliveira is both intellectually complex and frailly human in a really believable way, but I found thoughts and conversations of him and 'The Club' truly irritating, over-intellectualized in a way that drove me crazy. It was a spewing out of ideas, an idea of life as a sort of word-association game, that, I think, always sounds much cleverer than it actually is. I realise that it was part of the point to construct characters as antitheses to La Maga, but they were a bit much. The 56 chapter narrative is also largely built around 3 or 4 long set-pieces, a couple of which I found too absurd for words. The extremity of the characters' Bohemian posings really got in the way of me liking them, or even being interested in them.
As for the interpolations, they were very hit-and-miss. As I said, sometimes they turned the narrative, and my understanding of it, on its head, and sometimes a simple quote planted a seed that would germinate as the subsequent chapter unfolds. In this respect Cortazar was very successful, because he genuinely created very different books out of a single narrative. However, too often my mind skipped, or the interpolation did nothing for the narrative, and I felt like I had been swindled into reading a couple of extra pointless pages. Again, I think it is part of the point that the extra chapters help you as a reader create the book that you are reading, including the bits you skip or fail to understand, but sometimes I found it wearisome.

If I had my time again, I would read the 56 chapter narrative first, then contemplate re-reading with the interpolations. As it is, I can never go back because I have already read and understood Hopscotch one way, and cannot undo it.It was a tremendously interesting and ambitious work, but not one that was always successful.

I have enjoyed the Argentina read immensely, but am happy to be free of themed reads for the moment. I am attacking the TBR again, and will probably start with a couple of other (non-Argentinian) South Americans, and after that....who knows.

Good review. I found the scene in the book where they try to get the keys across from one apartment to the other -remember that one? - one of the funniest I have ever read. I can't remember which order I read it in, but I would like to read it again in different orders. Maybe it's the kind of book you really need to read twice in a row to get the full wammy?

>96 urania1: I think I saw that lriley entered it into his library recently also:-)

>92 GlebtheDancer: I will be interested to hear your reactions to the Couto. I'm not sure I think you will like it (if it is at all like the other two novels of his I have read). I'm not sure you'll go for the "non-realism narrative mode" (magical realism) :-)

Remember, there is still Portugal, Poland, Polar regions and India left this year in Reading Globally! just in case you wish to move away from South America.

>99 tomcatMurr:
I suspect that the most interesting exercise with Hopscotch would be to read it all of the ways Cortazar suggests, to see how it changes. Tell me how it went when you have finished :-)

The episode with the planks of wood was very funny, and possibly the most absurd moment in the book. Definitely one of the high points.

>100 avaland:
I really liked Sleepwalking Land, reservations about magical realism aside. Voices Made Night is a short story collection, so should be interesting. I will, of course, post in due course. As for more themed reads, I am steering clear for the moment, if only because I seem to get over-involved every time (5 books for Africa, 9 for Argentina). I have just started Delerium, by Laura Restrepo, which I am enjoying a lot (50 pages in). I then have one Macahdo de Assis, then have free reign to attack my TBR again (as if I didn't always...).

Has anyone read The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea? If so, what did you think. It sounds intriguing, but I'm a bit suspicious of the over-hyped.

Here are the descriptions from Amazon.

"Her powers were growing now, like her body. No one knew where the strange things came from. Some said they sprang up in her after the desert sojourn with Huila. Some said they came from somewhere else, some deep inner landscape no one could touch. That they had been there all along." Teresita, the real-life "Saint of Cabora," was born in 1873 to a 14-year-old Indian girl impregnated by a prosperous rancher near the Mexico-Arizona border. Raised in dire poverty by an abusive aunt, the little girl still learned music and horsemanship and even to read: she was a "chosen child," showing such remarkable healing powers that the ranch's medicine woman took her as an apprentice, and the rancher, Don Tomás Urrea, took her—barefoot and dirty—into his own household. At 16, Teresita was raped, lapsed into a coma and apparently died. At her wake, though, she sat up in her coffin and declared that it was not for her. Pilgrims came to her by the thousands, even as the Catholic Church denounced her as a heretic; she was also accused of fomenting an Indian uprising against Mexico and, at 19, sentenced to be shot. From this already tumultuous tale of his great-aunt Teresa, American Book Award–winner Urrea (The Devil's Highway) fashions an astonishing novel set against the guerrilla violence of post–Civil War southwestern border disputes and incipient revolution. His brilliant prose is saturated with the cadences and insights of Latin-American magical realism and tempered by his exacting reporter's eye and extensive historical investigation. The book is wildly romantic, sweeping in its effect, employing the techniques of Catholic hagiography, Western fairy tale, Indian legend and everyday family folklore against the gritty historical realities of war, poverty, prejudice, lawlessness, torture and genocide. Urrea effortlessly links Teresita's supernatural calling to the turmoil of the times, concealing substantial intellectual content behind effervescent storytelling and considerable humor.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker
Twenty years in the making, Urrea's epic novel recounts the true story of his great-aunt Teresita. In 1873, amid the political turbulence of General Porfirio Díaz's Mexican republic, Teresita is born to a fourteen-year-old Indian girl, "mounted and forgotten" by her white master. Don Tomàs Urrea later takes his illegitimate daughter into his home, where she learns to bathe every week and read "Las Hermanas Brontë." But Teresita also continues a folk education as a curandera, discovering healing powers and a mystical relationship with God. Indian pilgrims swarm to the Urrea ranch, where "St. Teresita," a mestiza Joan of Arc, kindles in them a powerful faith in God and a perilous hunger for revolution. The novel brings to life not only the deeply pious figure whom Díaz himself dubbed "the Most Dangerous Girl in Mexico" but also the blood-soaked landscape of pre-revolutionary Mexico.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

So you beat me through Hopscotch as well as to Sedbergh! I think I told you I'd started it when I sent your copy, but I put it to one side and haven't found my way back yet. I will read it (if only because The Winners was one of my favourite books of last year), but other things on my TBR pile always seem to be more tempting at the moment.
Hope you enjoy Delirium -- another of my favourites from last year.

I am going to have to try Hopscotch -- it seemed daunting, so I read The Winners instead for the Argentina read. But I've always heard such good things about it . . .

>101 GlebtheDancer: Hope you like the Restrepo. If I decide to pass on my African novels, I'll send you that one. I debate between hoarding them and freeing them so that others can enjoy them:-) I admit that LT has helped me in the latter department.

The Damned United by David Peace

This was a bit of a change of scene for me: a British author and a book based around football (soccer). Peace is a darling of the British media at the moment, having had his Red Riding Quartet turned into a highly acclaimed TV series, and with a film adaptation of The Damned United currently doing well in cinemas. I was given The Damned United, and read it very quickly.

The Damned United is a fictionalized (and factually questionable) account of the true events that saw Brian Clough, arguably the greatest English football manager of all time, taking charge of Leeds United, undeniably the most successful English team of the era, at the beginning of the 1974 season. It was a match made in hell. Clough hated the Leeds players before he arrived, and had publicly criticized them for cheating, diving, violent play and bribery, leading many to question why he took the job. His arrogance alienated him from the Leeds players further, and their resentment was fueled by the feeling that one of them, Johnny Giles, should have been given the job instead of Clough. After just 44 days, the greatest English manger and greatest English club parted company amid bitter acrimony and abject failure.

The book, and film, have been described as the best ever about football, because they are not really about football, and to a point this is true. Clough was a fascinating man in real life: unspeakably arrogant, strangely camp, alcoholic, witty, self-obsessed and undoubtedly a footballing genius. To those who are already yawning at the idea of a sports-based book, get on youtube and see some of Clough's interviews, and you start to get the idea. Peace's book tries to uncover the demons that not only caused Clough to fail at Leeds, but that caused him to take inexplicable decision to accept the job in the first place. The whole book is narrated from the inside of Clough's head, his thoughts stripped bare, and we see the everyday football (training, transfers, results) juxtaposed with the swirling doubts and haunting thoughts that force Clough's search for more and more success: the premature end to what could have been a great playing career,a snub from then-Leeds boss Don Revie, subsequent losses to the violent play of Leeds, the death of his mother, his sacking from the one job he loved at Derby. All of these things create a claustrophobic darkness to Peace's book that transcends the subject matter. The writing is brilliantly structured, with short pieces alternating between Clough's Leeds disaster and flashbacks to happier, more successful times at unfashionable Derby County. In this sense, it is not a book about football, but about being driven by demons to the verge of self-destruction.

Except that, of course, it is about football. Every page has football stuff happening, and reels off match reports and boardroom conversations. I remember Clough at the latter end of his career, and was always fascinated by him, but I wonder how interested I would have been if The Damned United was purely a work of fiction. Peace's writing is very good, and is as gripping as the very best of thrillers, but I suspect that some interest in football, is perhaps required to really enjoy this book. It is a study in obsession, and undoubtedly a good one, but may not be for everyone. For what its worth, I thought it was very, very good.

Some Cloughisms for you (from real life, not the book):

“They say Rome wasn't built in a day, but I wasn't on that particular job.”

"If I had an argument with a player we would sit down for twenty minutes, talk about it and then decide I was right”

"I wouldn't say I was the best manager in the business. But I was in the top one"

Delirium by Laura Restrepo

Thanks to avaland for the book. It was another inspired choice.

Delirium tells the story of Aguilar, a businessman who returns from a weekend away to find his wife (Agustina) in the throes of a severe nervous breakdown. She is unable to communicate with her husband, and so Aguilar, with the help of Agustina's Aunt Sofi, pieces together the threads of his wife's life, in order to determine the causes of her madness. Restrepo's book is divided into short chapters that alternate between these various threads, including the stories of her overbearing father, her effeminate brother, her family's disintegration, her relationship with Aguilar, and the actions of her former lover Midas McAlister.

I enjoyed Delirium a lot. It is skillfully woven psychological portrait of Agustina, blending a variety of narrative styles to great effect. However, its strength lies in treading a fine line between simply retelling the tales of Agustina's lives, and actually being a sort of detective fiction where the culprit is not a killer or thief, but simply a single traumatic event among many possibilities. Restrepo uses the latter device to give a narrative thrust to her backstories, and it creates a book that is both an engrossing study of one woman's mind, and also also a fairly gripping read. My only gripe is that the story of Midas McAlister need not have been nearly so lurid. While the rest of the book proceeded with fairly believable narratives, Midas' story involved an absurd bet with a friend about his sexual impotence, a murdered prostitute and Pablo Escobar's drugs empire. I think Restrepo perhaps didn't need to push this story as far as it went, because it stretched credulity a little too far, as did Agustina's eventual role in it. That said, the book as a whole really worked for me, and it was an engrossing read, and definitely one of the better ones I have read this year to date.

Yaya Garcia by Joachim Maria Machado de Assis

This is the last of the South American books on my current TBR (I have a fresh Argentinian TBR waiting in a cupboard, but that is for later). Machado de Assis was a Brazilian writer who worked in the latter half of the nineteenth century. He occupies an exalted place in Brazilian literature, being seen by many as the father of modern Brazilian writing.

Yaya Garcia (elsewhere spelt 'Iaia') is the story of a convoluted love triangle between Jorge, Estela and Yaya. The young, brash Jorge make a pass at Estela and is rejected. His shame forces him into exile, to fight the Argentinian dictator Rosas in Paraguay. Estela marries Luis Garcia, Yaya's father, in a loveless yet comfortable marriage. On his return from war, and much more mature, Jorge finds himself charged with looking after the well-being of the Garcia family, bringing him into intimate contact with his former love Estela, and Yaya, now a young woman also looking for love.

The book, as my description suggests, does contain many of the things that frequently frustrate 21st century readers about 19th century books. There is an obsession with marriage, an impossibility of anyone expressing their feelings explicitly, a stifling adherence to society's rules and an embargo on physical expressions of love. In short, all the things that make 19th century romances feel distant and inaccessible. Within these constraints, however, Machado de Assis creates an interesting scenario and, in a relatively short book, manages to build up a complex and believable web of frustrated emotions and tragi-comic misunderstanding. Although I did become interested in the characters, ultimately I wasn't remotely interested in the denouement, a sign that Machado de Assis' writing didn't really hit home. This was a pleasant and well-written read which, for me, was fairly inconsequential.

>107 GlebtheDancer: excellent review of Delirium! Well said. I wasn't sure you were going to like, so was very interested in your comments.

>107 GlebtheDancer:, Delirium sounds fascinating. I've downloaded a snippet onto the Kindle to investigate further.

Just read City of Ash by Eugenijus Alisanka as part of my reading globally challenge. It is my first entry for Lithuania.

Published by the ever interesting, and usually excellent, 'Writings from an Unbound Europe' series, this is a slim volume of poems from one of Lithuania's best known contemporary poets. Alisanka's poems are mostly short, but the content makes the book feel weighty and dense. Alisanka's world is one of claustrophobic skies and grey buildings, of lives lived within suffocatingly delineated limits with only fleeting glimpses of eternal time and wide open space. They examine the limitations given to us as humans, and contrast the poet's abilities to imagine space and time with the concrete and asphalt that define our urban existences.
Although I enjoyed the collection, and thought it was clearly successful in communicating its ideas, there was perhaps not enough variety, both in themes and structures, to keep me engrossed throughout. The poems were tightly constructed, but a little mundane, and the unremittingly depressing tones were a bit much for me. An interesting collection, but not an especially memorable one for me.

109, 110
I think Delirium will appeal to quite a broad spectrum of readers. I thought it had its flaws, but it kept me fairly engrossed.

Death in Venice/Tristan/Tonio Kroger by Thomas Mann

An excellent collection of three long short stories, centred around the battle between intellectualism and aestheticism, and the pain of repressed sexuality. All three stories are well written, but it was only the first one that really stood out for me. In 'Death in Venice' a famed art critic and intellectual takes a holiday for the first time in his life, and eventually finds himself in Venice. Whilst there, he sees a young Polish boy, and falls in love. Initially unable to interpret his emotions intellectually, he eventually accepts his feelings, and their origin, leading to a frightening decline in his mental health and behaviour.
Mann's story is touching and disturbing in equal measure. It is based on a true incident, in which Mann developed an obsession with a young boy while on holiday. Mann struggled with barely repressed homosexuality for his whole life, adding both realism and poignancy to the protagonist's behaviour. The battle between intellect and emotion is therefore examined not through the lens of cold intellectualism (as Herman Hesse was wont to do), but rather from the perspective of someone who has suffered as a victim of this battle. All three of the stories in this collection benefit from this, and one can only feel for Mann as he parades his tortured academics for his readers. The subject matter itself is disturbing, but Mann does not pander to, or hide behind, sensibilities. 'Death in Venice' is a painful and dark love story, but one written from the heart, and is deservedly recognised as a classic.

Depressaholic - thanks for that wonderful review of Death In Venice. I read it a few weeks ago and now have a better understanding of the novel coming from that perspective.

Thanks kiwidoc. I read Mann's Joseph and His Brothers earlier this year, and there is an odd recurrance in that book of middle age male characters feeling a strange attraction to Joseph, and struggling to interpret their emotions. It prompted me to wonder if Mann was gay, so I jumped on the web to find out.

I was also interested to note that it was Mann's wifde who confirmed that the story behind 'Death in Venice' was true, and that fact and fiction were very similar (apart from the ending). The young polish boy has even been identified. She must have been well aware of his repressed sexuality.

The End of a Mission by Heinrich Boll

This is my third Boll, and I'm still struggling to know what I make of him. I have read the short story collection Children are Civilians Too twice, but failed to fall in love (the title story is a notable exception - it was wonderful), and have also read The Lost Honour of Katherine Blum, which was great. The End of a Mission was written in an absurd style that I usually like, but it just didn't do it for me.

The book is centred around an absurd criminal case in 1960s Germany, in which a father and son are accused (and do not deny) setting fire to an army jeep as a sort of avant garde protest against modern Germany. The trial is a cosy affair, ignored by the press at the request of the local government, and involving an incestuous group of friends and relations, acting for both sides safe in the knowledge that the outcome is pre-determined. A comic cast of characters is allowed to turn the trial into a comfortable charade.
The End of a Mission is a bit of a one-joke book, and I didn't find it particularly funny. The Boll I have read in the past is at his best when at his driest, and I don't think the sort of absurd humour he was attempting here suited him. It read like farce in places, which is never a good thing in my opinion. Humour is, of course, very subjective, but the book relied heavily on comic absurdity that just didn't work. The writing was also strangely dense, and for a very small book it was fairly hard work. There were a few moments where I could see the shoots of something deeper poking through, and at times he touched on some of the themes that made 'Katherine Blum' a fantastic book, but it was not often enough, or coherent enough for me.

I am waaaaay behind on my reviews at the moment, due to an uncharacteristic outburst of busyness. I am going to try to catch up a bit over the next few days. My first read was:

The Penguin Book of Chinese Verse

This was an odd little book. The editor (A.R.Davis) handpicked poems from between 600BC and the 1940s, and used them to try to show how he thought Chinese poetry has evolved over that period. There is a long introduction to establish his point, followed by about 200 short poems (mostly 4-10 lines) from the poets considered the most celebrated of the era.

I was surprised how incredibly beautiful I found some of the older poetry. There was a simplicity to the language and structure that I found really powerful. I will be looking out for more in the future, and have already identified an anthology by two poets (Li Po and Tu Fu) that I will be on the hunt for. I am hoping this will be the start of a(nother) new reading direction for me.

The poetry then, was very good, which is helpful, because pretty much nothing else was. The introduction is overlong, wordy and concentrated on changes in the number of lines and syllables, rather than how these changes affect how the reader interacts with them. Perhaps it is uncharitable to be overcritical on this point, because the poems were, after all, in translation, but Davis' words did nothing to help me with the book. Poems are crammed, sometimes up to 3 per page, which creates a hurried feel to the book. Finally, the poets biographies are stored far from their poems which, given the shortness of the poetry, meant that I was flicking pages every 20 or 30 seconds.

In short, this a wonderful present in godawful wrapping. I intend to read more of the older poetry if I can, and would recommend you do as well. Just don't do it using this book.

Qissat: short stories by Palestinian women

I think that the true test of a short story collection rarely lies in its overall quality (especially in anthologies of various authors), but rather in the moments, or stories, that take your breath away. This book simply didn't have any. There were definitely some interesting writers in here, but none that I will be rushing off to read more of. The subject matter varies between suicide bombers and armed fighters, to more domestic stories in which the intifada serves as a backdrop, or is barely mentioned at all. It was these latter that I liked the most, providing more subtle insights into what the authors see as contemporary Palestinian life, but this was, ultimately, a fairly average and instantly forgettable collection of stories.

I am on a roll now....

The Sky People by Patricia Grace

I have been championing Grace for a while now on LT (with limited success). This collection of short stories is by no means her best, but that still makes it better than most, in my opinion. Grace effortlessly blends Maori folklore and legend with the more down to earth lives of her characters, who tend to be poor, undereducated Maori struggling to make their ways in urban New Zealand, or fighting the encroachment of urban New Zealand into their worlds. Grace makes the Maori world simultaneously ancient and fragile, proud and ashamed of what it has become. Her characters are lifted by their histories and weighed down by their presents, as they are oppressed because of their race and, more often than not, their genders.

If I started by saying that this wasn't Grace's best, it is possibly because her style suits longer works, in my opinion, and because there were perhaps too few truly memorable pieces. It is, however, still an outstanding collection by most people's standards, and another one of hers that I would like to recommend.

The Circumcision by Gyorgy Dalos

I was extremely skeptical about this book, given the rather overly-jovial blurb. It promised the story of a "self-proclaimed Hungarian Jew for Christ, a painfully overweight 'half-orphan' with a hypochondriac mother" and his decision about whether or not to be circumcised. What I expected was a scatological comedy with lots of jokes about Jewishness and penises. What I got was an excellent dark comedy about the search for identity, and an examination of family dysfunction painfully told through the eyes of a naive boy.

The boy, Robi, is Jewish by birth, but not by faith, and he cannot reconcile his jewish identity with his non-jewish beliefs. Although he doesn't understand the world he sees, he is able to describe enough of it for us to understand what he can't. He has an overbearing communist grandmother, and a neurotic obese mother who is no support in his search for identity. He is constantly an outsider: Jewish to gentiles, a gentile to Jews, and he has no idea how to give himself meaning. Meanwhile, as he searches unhappily for some sort of foothold on identity, his family falls apart around him.

Although the tone is overtly light, there is, at heart, nothing funny about Robi's plight. It is painful to observe, and Dalos' brilliant use of humour allows him to delve deeply into a family on the verge of meltdown. This book won a place in my heart despite me not expecting to like it one little bit from the start, which, I think, is a fairly high recommendation. It is a short, quick read, and one I think anyone who like dark humour should keep an eye out for.

Tunnel Visions by Christopher Ross

Ross' book is essentially musings on the meanings of work. A long-term traveller, he returned to the UK to get a job on the London Underground. His idea was to get a job that was essentially classified as 'beneath him', giving him time to observe himself, and others, and ponder the lives of himself, his colleagues and the passengers from his new perspective. He thus describes himself as an 'underground philosopher'.

I was drawn to Ross' work because I have made decisions similar to him regarding my life and career, and for fairly similar reasons. I wanted to know if he saw his world in a similar way to me, once he had shorn it of the encumberments of ambition, engagement and stress. The short answer is pretty much 'yes'. Despite this, however, I struggled to engage with Tunnel Visions. When Ross says the word 'philosophy' he means homespun saws that rarely rise above the level of bumper sticker wisdom (you know, the 'you don't have to be crazy to work here but it helps' type). This was disappointing, because having got to the stage of believing Ross and I were kindred spirits, I failed to learn anything new about myself from him. Perhaps this would be a good read for anyone stuck in the rat race, wondering what it means, but for someone who has already left that world behind, Tunnel Visions did very little for me.

And finally, for the time being...

'Signs and Symbols' by Robert Gal is the first of three Slovak reads that I hope to get through in the next few weeks. I am reading them to add Slovakia to my Reading Globally Challenge list, but am holding off on posting on my Reading Globally thread until I have finished all three.

'Signs and Symbols' is a difficult work to read and review. It begins as a series of aphorisms, which are then followed by fragments of Gal's personal philosophy. Written at a time when Gal confesses to be at his lowest, they are the words of a philosopher looking up from a deep, dark hole. His pieces describe the view of life, God, ambition and pain from this nadir, while simultaneously lighting his way out. The aphorisms and fragments come together as a sort of dark poetry.

Gal's work is obscure and difficult to access. Occasionally his words are powerful, and easily related to his personal suffering. Too often, though, they are simply barely connected statements, or definitive pronunciations born from associations that I just couldn't relate to or understand. Whereas many authors try to draw you into their world by translating it to the familiar, Gal simply offers his quasi-poetry for inspection without explanation. Because of this, I ultimately failed to 'get' large chunks of Gal's work. Whether it was his failure to communicate or my failure to understand is not the point. There were too many occasions on which Gal and I couldn't find a common language, which frustrated me as a reader. An interesting experiment, but not an entirely successful one, in my opinion.

re: 117 - Vikram Seth (who speaks Chinese) has done some excellent translations of Chinese poetry - available as Three Chinese Poets (two of which are Li Po and Du Fu) and The Humble Administrator's Garden.

As always, you have fascinating reading, deserving of my closer attention (I've been out of town for four days and find catching up with LT, as well as with all the work I didn't do while I was away, daunting). And, wandering_star, I am fascinated to learn that Vikram Seth, one of my favorite authors is also a translator of Chinese poetry!

Great line up of reads, Depressaholic. I was interested in your take on Patricia Grace - I am wondering if she is a Maori herself but the LT page does not reveal her face. I have her novel Potiki waiting for me.

I am intrigued to hear that you have left the rat race (or did you ever join?). Materialism is a hard thing to reject in our modern world, non? I like to think that enjoying a life immersed in the life of other minds of a more superior intellect (ie. through books, art , music) provides me with enough escape, but that is probably self delusion.

re 123 Thanks, wandering star---I didn't know that Vikram Seth had translated Chinese poetry!!! Wow.

Thanks for the posts, and sorry for bombarding you all with reviews.

I have been looking at Vikram Seth out of the corner of my eye for a while now, without ever taking the plunge. I also didn't realise that he translated from Chinese, and will definitely be on the look out for those books. Thanks wandering_star!

>125 kiwidoc: Grace is Maori, identifying herself as having roots in the Ngati Raukawa, Ngati Toa and Te Ati Awa. (according to the blurb in the book). She hails from Wellington originally.

As for leaving the rat race, I don't want to overstate the case, as I am not currently living naked in a cave eating fruit and berries. I simply decided that my old job in academia (which is, contrary to popular perception, definitely rat race-esque) was not making me happy, so decided to take on a more menial role (shop assistant in a bookshop) to make ends meet, prioritise the rest of my life, and enjoy myself. It has worked a treat so far. I have never been especially materialistic relative to other people, but I have come to realise how materialistic my old life was. That was the revelation I shared with Ross, and my new role has given me a new perspective on the absurdity of living to work. I think its great to have a job you really care about, and to do that job well, but it is too easy to get caught up in an upward financial spiral that doesn't allow for priorities to be properly assessed. I have spent two years trying to properly assess mine, and am a very different (and much happier) person because of it.

Hello Depressaholic! The reviews have been very enlightening - I only wsh I could get hold of some of the books. And your change of career sounds very interesting indeed and resonates personally. I would like to know more. Maybe you should write your own musings....

If you are looking at Vikram Seth, one of my favorite books of all time is A Suitable Boy. Two Lives is also wonderful.

>128 chrisharpe:
Chris. I remember you posting elsewhere to say that we often share similar perspectives on books. I think we have had similar-ish backgrounds as well. I was once a biologist (although lab based) with an interest in natural history and evolution. I wonder how much our academic experiences tally. I warn you though my tale is a fairly depressing one (hence the first part of my username). As for writing my musings, I am doing that constantly. They usually descend to naval gazing gibberish (hence the second part of my username) of no more than three paragraphs, but I know I have that Nobel Prize for Literature in me somewhere.

>129 rebeccanyc: Why does everyone have to always recommend the BIG one?

Actually, here is Charles Jackson saying more about my writing and/or academic careers than I ever could. Its from The Lost Weekend:

The defaulters, the renegers, the backward-lookers, the adolescents, the ungrown-ups…He was a life-term member of that motley and ludicrous crew: uncles, cousins, fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, dear friends, promising friends – always promising. Not so damned motley either, since they were all crossed the same, following so consistently the same pattern and history from, oh, way back. They were the loved ones (usually); oddly, too, the well-favoured. As children they were loved of their parents, their mothers especially; and if they were one of several, they were the ones most loved. (‘I’ve wept over you more than any of the others’ – but all they felt was a guilty pride and pleasure at their power to damage.) They were the brightest in school (usually), the intelligent, the quick to learn, never the studious. They tried their hands at many talents; and though they didn’t get anywhere, their friends cover this up for them now by speaking of them as ‘clever’, they say they have ‘personality’, they say ‘So-and-so would go far if only he’d apply himself,’ or ‘So-and-so is a queer duck, what he needs is a good wife,’ and often, ‘Sure he’s got brains, but what good does it do him?’ Brains indeed, and indeed what good does it do them? Dreamy tosspots, they stand all afternoon in a 2nd Avenue bar looking at the sun-patterns under the L or their own faces in the mirror; they do good but not good enough work on the paper and dream of the novel they’re certainly going to get around to some day; they stand behind a desk on the lecture platform lecturing with loving and fruitless persuasion to students watching the clock; throughout whole evenings with sinking heart they sit watching their wives over the edge of a book and wondering how, how, how had it ever come about; they live in and search the past not to discover where and at what point they missed the boat but only to revel in their fancied and fanciful pleasures of a better, happier and easier day; they see not wisely but too well and what they see isn’t worth it; they eat of and are eaten by ennui, with no relief from boredom even in their periodic plunges from euphoria to despair or their rapid rise back to the top again.

Don't worry. I'm feeling pretty good at the moment.

Oh, Depressaholic, after that I may need and go lay down for a few minutes.

And A Suitable Boy is endlessly recommended because it is so, so good. I turned the final page and wished that it had gone on longer, expanded a bit more...

>131 GlebtheDancer: Wasn't this the thread you were supposed to be "sweeter" on?

Depressaholic - I think I have my question answered, in a philosophically grounded sort of a way. Thanks.

Well done on following your inner truths. It is very admirable, talked about by many and rarely pursued.

( I would have definitely popped by to visit you if you lived in a cave eating berries.)

Love the reviews, Andy. I don't think you could ever bombard us in any kind of negative way.

>131 GlebtheDancer: I agree with Ridgeway Girl here . . .

There was definitely an uptick in Patricia Grace sales after you highly recommended her over on the Reading Globally group...

Oh Andy,

another fan has to collect himself from inertia and too much Real Life for comfort to express admiration for your reviews and musings.

I have just caught up on your last month. I will later at some greater length have to comment on Gal (you knew I would, didn't you? LOL).

Seth: I have the Chinese poetry translations he has done and admire them greatly. I also highly recommend his Equal Music but perhaps the ideal way to "read" it is in fact to listen to the audio version which has the music pieces that form a key part of the narrative played in the background, foreground, and throughout. Some people consider it a sentimental tear-jerker but it IS more than that, and the musical accompaniment is wonderful.

I LOVE the Charles Jackson excerpt. In my experience "the defaulters, the renegers, the backward-lookers, the adolescents, the ungrown-ups" frequently decide, when the time comes to make a choice of what to do with their lives, to go to teachers' college. And that is one of the reasons we have such dreadful high schools: they are staffed by people who got there by default. But that is another diatribe altogether.

I admire you for the courage to make the life choice you did.

And thanks for your thoughts on books.

I've been away. It was nice. I'm back now, which is also nice.

>136 polutropos:
Mr. P
I have also read the Timrava and am close to finishing The Year of the Frog, so perhaps you should hold off your Slovak thoughts until I post on them as well. Feel free to express thoughts of any other national origin in the meantime, just not the Slovak ones.

The quote from The Lost Weekend is one of my favourites as well. There is far to much of that book that is familiar to me, though I am pleased to report that I have never spent an entire weekend trapped in a chair by drunkeness, repeatedly wetting myself. I'm saving that one for a special occasion.

I have re-engaged with my Reading Globally challenge for a little while. Unusually, I have multiple books for my next two nations (Slovakia and Belarus), which is why, if anyone was wondering, my next few reviews will all have an Eastern European flavour.

I actually had 3 reads for Slovakia, two bought in a bookshop on a visit to Prague, and one sent by our resident Slovak, Poultropus, who was distinctly unimpressed with my choices (and rightly so). My first is the Robert Gal reviewed in message 122. Here are the other two:

That Alluring Land by Timrava
Written between 1896 and 1918, this is a collection of short (and not so short) stories which aim to illustrate Slovak family life at the time. Timrava's focus, and her strength, is concentrated on the female characters. The stories have a strong feminist message, outlining the difficulties of life for young Slovak women. They are not eulogies to women, however, with her characters beset by jealousies and petty rivalries over household chores or potential suitors. There are running themes of marriage, fidelity and jealousy, and the biggest problems of her characters are frequently portrayed as being caused by other women.
The honesty and brutality with which Timrava addresses her subjects was admirable, and occasionally refreshing. Stories with nineteenth century sensibilities and narratives about who will marry who frequently annoy me, but there was an edge to Timrava's women that maintained my interest. However, while the attempts to illustrate Slovak life were admirable, the stories were horribly put together. Messy and pointless narratives meandered around the prose before eventually dying hopelessly at the end. I don't mind short stories lacking narrative, but these were hamstrung by the author's need to shove one in and hastily resolve it, creating an apparently unintentional anticlimax at the end of each one. There were sparks of life in this collection, but it isn't one I will be revisiting.

The Year of the Frog by Martin Simecka
With much thanks to Polutropus.
This was much more like it. Not just my favourite of my Slovak reads, but my one of my favourite books of recent memory. The story concerns Milan, a young man banned from college in Bratislava by the communist authorities because of his father's politics. Milan engages in a series of dead end menial jobs in hospitals and shops, witnessing firsthand the depressing fragility of humanity and scarcity of moments of beauty in 1980s Slovakia. He finds his own beauty in his girlfriend Tania and his love of running, both of which provide the book with a radiance, but also with its true moments of fear, when it looks possible that he may lose one or the other. Breathtakingly simple, bleakly depressing and beautifully moving on occasions, Milan's thoughts and actions are largely unremarkable, but his search for beauty on the claustrophobic streets of his home town is sad and wonderful in equal measure. One of my favourite reads of this year, without a doubt.

I know that Poultropus was far less glowing about The Year of the Frog than I was, so I look forward to some contrary opinions.

...and for the first of my Belarus books...

Pack of Wolves by Vasil Bykov*

I ordered this online not realising that it was a YA novel (Bykov wrote adult stuff too). I am not a fan of kid's fiction, even when they address fairly adult themes (perhaps especially when they address adult themes), but this was okay. It is the story of four partisans (3 wounded men, one pregnant woman) fighting the Germans and the polizei (Soviet citizens fighting for the Nazis) in the swamps and forests of the Eastern front in World War II. They are told to abandon camp, and make their way back to base for the medical attention they need. Encountering resistance along the way, the book's hero (Levchuk) takes charge, determined to bring his party safely home, against an overwhelming enemy.
Like I said, this was a YA book. It is a fairly straightforward account of one man's heroism, which borders on Boy's Own stuff. However, the 4 characters are actually fairly interesting (the woman perhaps being the exception) and their interactions drive the book along nicely. There is little in the way of complex morality, but Bykov does not shy away from tragedy and disappointment, creating a genuine sense of unease in the reader. If I had known that this wasn't written with an adult audience in mind, I wouldn't have picked it up, and wouldn't have missed it if I hadn't, but it could have been a lot worse than it was.

*I am writing Bykov's name as it appeared on the cover of my book, but this is actually the Russian version. In Belarussian it is spelt 'Bykau', and this is probably the one I have seen used more often in translations of his books.

Khatyn/The Punitive Squads by Ales Adamovich

Its getting a little late here, and I'm a bit tired, but I wanted to get my thoughts about these books while they are fresh in my mind. I have just finished two novels by the Belarussian writer Ales Adamovich. They cover not too dissimilar ground to the Bykov book (message 139) but were a world apart in terms of quality.

Adamovich's books cover World War II Belarus, a country which suffered atrocity as much as anywhere in that conflict. Over 2 million people (a quarter of the population) lost their lives. The eastern front was at the forefront of Hitler's attempts to racially purify large areas of land, and massacres were commonplace. The blurb claims that 9200 villages were destroyed, of which over 600 had almost every inhabitant killed. The killings were done by the German military in alliance with local polizei (non-Germans drafted in to help).

The first book, 'Khatyn' follows the reminiscences of a blind former partizan, Florian, on his way to the memorial at Khatyn that represents all of the Belarussian villages destroyed. As he travels on a bus with former comrades, he remembers the battles and massacres he participated in and witnessed, and the tragic and absurd situations he found himself in, and the people he fought alongside and watched die. 'The Punitive Squads' tells the story of a polizei unit during a massacre of civilians in the village of Borki. As they commit their atrocities, it looks at the previous lives of the men involved, German and Russian, and how they have come to this point, burning civilians to death in a boarded up barn. It is underpinned with an exposition of Nazi thought, and tries to preserve the humanity of the perpetrators, without hiding their acts. As well as the murderers, there are passages of inner monologue from a woman being raked by machine gun fire lying in a pit of bodies, which provides a graphic counterpoint to the men's actions.

I wish I had the vocabulary to do justice to these books. They are quite simply magnificent. In 'Khatyn', the partizans are heroes, but flawed ones. They enjoy their killing and occasionally revel in their hatred. The effects of such a brutal war are laid bare, and trite concepts of good and evil are nowhere to be found. Tragicomic scenarios, such as leading a cow through enemy territory to feed people hiding in a swamp, give way to brutal scenes of despair. In 'The Punitive Squads', this amoral world is even more vivid. Adamovich provides plausible explanations for his character's choices, to the point where they become sympathetic, right before they shoot a baby in its cot. It is harrowing and destructive, a world without heroes and nothing to be proud of. It is simple humanity at its most exposed. None of the people are portrayed as monsters, leading to the conclusion that monstrous acts are very much a trait of humans.

Adamovich is a great writer, and I do mean great. To write books that are non-stop 'action' (in the traditional sense - battle scenes, etc.) but to turn them into acute commentary on the human condition is incredibly hard, and I have never seen it done so well before. In addition, Adamovich's comments about Nazi thought and actions, and their relations to other points in history (My Lai, Auschwitz, Kampuchea, etc. - Soviet atrocities were conspicuous by their absence) were incredibly thought provoking, without once becoming didactic asides, was incredible. This was, for me, a flawless account of the thought that leads to mass murder for ideological reasons, a beautiful, harrowing and upsetting piece of prose the like of which I have never read before.

The Island of Crimea by Vassily Aksyonov

My second Aksyonov, having read the excellent The Burn a couple of years ago. I wasn't quite so excited about The Island of Crimea, but it was still a very good read.

The book plays with the idea that the Crimea (here and island, not a peninsula) resisted the Bolsheviks in 1917, and has become an outpost of democracy for Russian people. There is an analogy to Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. The story follows the Crimean political elite, who identify themselves as Russians and are pushing for stronger ties, even reunification, with the USSR. Aksyonov uses this device to examine the interactions between the political forces at work in the USSR (and on his semi-fictional island), such as socialism, nationalism and capitalism. His focus is on Luchnikov, a powerful media magnate, pushing for stronger bonds with Moscow, as he confronts intrigues both at home, and in Moscow.

The Island of Crimea is awash with Aksyonov's trademark satirical bite. The story borders on the absurd in many places, but still produces a fairly stern examination of the forces for political and social change in the USSR. There were perhaps an overabundance of pointless sex, and a few too many narrative threads for a relatively short book, but its main thrusts still hit home. Indeed the relative silliness of some of the book makes the emotional lows even more painful, as Aksyonov (mostly) successfully treads a fine line between farce and satire. It was a fairly unique take on 1970s Soviet socialism, and worth a read for that alone. Aksyonov is a writer who I have planned to read again for a long while, and The Island of Crimea certainly didn't disappoint.

Depressaholic - your review of the Ales Adamovich books is very inspiring. I have to seek them out because of your comment;

flawless account of the thought that leads to mass murder for ideological reasons, a beautiful, harrowing and upsetting piece of prose the like of which I have never read before.

Although I am not much for battle scenes, I think the ideological reasonings will appeal. I note that there are very few copies on LT and it is rather a hard book to find.

I've been away from LT for a while, largely because I am reading a whopping book very slowly, so haven't had much to post. I have managed to wedge in a quickie though, which was Andrey Biely's St. Petersburg, a gift from Polutropus (thanks muchly).

St. Petersburg is a strange book, set during the first socialist revolutions in Russia in 1905, written in 1916 with the Tsars losing their grip on power, and revised in 1922, after the Bolshevik revolution had succeeded. It covers a period of about 24 hours, in which Nikolai Ableukhov, an anarchist and reactionary revolutionary, attempts to plant a bomb in his father's study. His father, Apollon, is a dignitary of the old guard, representing old Russia to Nikolai and his group. The bomb, in an old sardine tin, is planted early in the novel, and ticks away in the background as Apollon and Nikolai attend a society function and travel the streets of their home city.

St. Petersburg is often cited as a pioneer of modernist fiction. Although it covers similar territory to Dostoevsky's 'The Devils', its reliance on different narrative viewpoints and psychological slants set it apart. At times it borders on horror, as a lovesick and disturbed Nikolai stalks his love wearing a mask and cape, like a ghoul on the misty streets. Although clearly political, it is as much a 'father and son' novel as one about revolution, with Nikolai's reactionary politics and Apollon's fustiness presented as both a cause of, and metaphor for, Russia on the brink of revolution. This very human approach, combined with a genuine spookiness touched with comic absurdity, made for a fascinating and unique book. It was a very enjoyable read, but just disturbing enough to be uncomfortable. A book I enjoyed a lot.

Andy, I am glad to read your review of Petersburg as I picked up this book in my favorite bookstore about a month ago, largely on the strength of the cover and the description on the back, but haven't read it yet. Your review will move it up on the pile.

What is the whopping book you are reading? I am still planning to get to the whopping book you recommended earlier this year, Joseph and His Brothers, possibly in the next week or so as I finish some shorter books.

Its The Mandarins by Simone de Beauvoir. I am actually finding it a fairly easy read, but can't seem to find the time to sit down for long sessions with it.

I really loved Joseph and his Brothers, but I would be interested in other opinions. Let me know how you go with it if you take the plunge.

depressaholic - One one good thing about the big book your reading is it's given me a chance to catch-up with your thread for once. Your review of the Ales Adamovich books are fascinating; Belarus is one of those blank places on the map that I haven't really ever thought much about. Enjoyed your other comments as well.

-->142 kiwidoc:, 146
I wish the Adamovich was more accessible but, as far as I am aware, they were only published by the Moscow based, state approved Progress publishers in the early 1980s. The copies on the web are very pricey as well, so I must apologise for getting people excited about a book they will struggle to get. He has other stuff translated into English, which may also be worth looking out for.

#147 - Four used copies of a book called "Khatyn ; The punitive squads : the joy of the knife ; or, The hyperboreans and how they live " are available on amazon.com. A link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/5010004933/sr=/qid=/ref=olp_tab_used?ie=U...

I have just finished The Mandarins, after finally finding the time for a couple of long sessions. I described it above as 'whopping', but it was a slight exaggeration, weighing in at under 800 pages. It also didn't feel overly heavy, and was a (relatively) quick read for such a big book.

The Mandarins is a fictional account of the activities of de Beauvoir, Camus and Sartre (among others) in post-World War II Paris. Anne (de Beauvoir) provides occasional narration, as she watched her husband, Robert (Sartre) and his friend Henri (Camus) try to build a new socialism in the rebuilding country. Henri edits a paper and approaches the problems of the new France with moral idealism, Robert favours political expediency, causing the two to clash. There is an assumption among the characters that Europe's fate will be tied to Russia's, an assumption shaken to the core by the emergence of stories about the gulags. Robert, Henri and their socialist friends are forced to take difficult decisions in deciding whether to support a totalitarian USSR in the face of pressure from what they see as a fascistic USA.

Anne's narration also focuses on her own love affairs, particularly with the American Lewis Brogan (Nelson Ahlgren), and her relationship with her daughter Nadine. These threads provide a more personal counterpoint to the weighty politics discussed in the book. Indeed, all of the characters are fleshed out beautifully, with personal and political observations combined to build a believable picture of these people's lives.

The Mandarins is a very well written book, immersing the reader totally in the tight-knit group of central characters. I am fascinated by the forces that pushed Europe in certain political directions in the 1940s and 1950s, and de Beauvoir gives a very human account of the hopes and disappointments of the socialist movements of that era. What starts as a hopeful look to the USSR finishes with a growing awareness of the influence of de Gaulle and the Marshall Plan, and the feelings of failure of the characters to influence things becomes palpable, as they become mired in intrigue, rivalry and petty squabbles. My only complaint about the book is due to some very bizarre pacing. There are a lot of strands here (affairs, politics, personal ambitions, relationships, murder even) and they are not always woven together coherently. In particular, Anne's affair with Lewis is sort of shoe-horned in. It felt more like 2 300 page books than one 800 page one. Given that though, it was still a fascinating read: not too political to be cold, not too personal to lack import.

-->148 dchaikin:
Thanks for looking dchaikin. I have had a lot of luck of late with my reading, with some very good books in there. I hope a few people take the plunge with the Adamovich.

Nice review of The Mandarins; hopefully I'll be able to get to it later this year (I bought my copy from The Book Depository a few months ago).

I keep hoping for a Kindle copy of The Mandarins to be published. Alas, St. Petersburg is not on Kindle either. That wicked, wicked Baron von Kindle. Such a trashy man at times.

No new reading to add for the moment. I am reading two memoirs, and in both of them I have taken a strong dislike to the author in the first few chapters, which are making them interesting experiences. One is also very chunky, so I may be quiet for a bit.

I just read that Vassily Aksyonov died three weeks ago. I read one of his books in June, which was good, but he wrote 'The Burn' which still stands as my favourite piece of Soviet era Russian lit (I have read just about enough to give this endorsement a tiny amount of weight). Just thought it was a good opportunity to mention this again, in case anyone missed me raving about it a couple of years ago.

After that glowing comment, The Burn goes on the wishlist.

Interesting reviews of The Mandarins, it's one I haven't read although I have read one or two of her others. Somewhere around here I have a booklet for a university correspondence course on her work (one that I didn't end up taking...).

I have also put The Burn on the TBR list after such a glowing recommend. Thanks.

I have just finished 'Tony the Sailor's Son' by Anton Buttigieg as my Reading Globally book for Malta. Apologies for the review, but it is what it is.

Well, often my challenge introduces me to books I would never ordinarily have read. Usually, it is good thing. Occasionally, it is a bad thing. This one was the latter. I could try to write a normal length review of this book, but I am loathe to spend much more time on it than I already have. To be brief: Anton Buttigieg was Malta's President in the 1970s. This is a book about his childhood. When he was a child he was great at everything. Everyone else in Malta was a caricature, and a bit stupid. Anton Buttigieg is a poet who writes great poetry (which is odd because the stuff in this book was awful). He is great at everything.

Buttigieg opens by comparing himself to Jesus, and finishes by comparing himself to King David. I have never understood the sort of mentality that believes that all other people want to hear about is how great you are. Allied to keen insight and a literary flourish, it can still make for an interesting memoir, but Buttigieg has neither of these. This was 150 pages of drivel. You obviously weren't planning to read this book. That, as far as I can see, is the correct course of action. Continue not to plan to read this book, and your life will be better.

>155 avaland: I enjoyed The Mandarins a lot. de Beauvoir's ability to look on and analyse the situations she found herself and her loved ones in was extraordinary. I was really imptessed.

>156 kiwidoc: I hope you enjoy 'The Burn'. It is fairly surreal satire, so may not be for everyone, but I loved it. It is mostly about the USSR in the 1970s, at a time when fear had given way to the complete erosion of any belief in the aims of the revolution, and depicts a morally corrupt and degenerating country. Its kind of an ugly book, in a funny way, but very powerful.

"Continue not to plan to read this book, and your life will be better." :)

Well, at least it inspired a very entertaining review.

Depressaholic - the Buttigieg is not reaching my TBR after your review (another one continuing not to read it).

I think The Burn sounds like my kinda book, and I am very keen to read all things Russian (I was a teen in the 1970s so maybe that will forge me a closer connection, too). I like ugly and I like depressing.

I have just finished 'Inside the Night' by Ibrahim Nasrallah. It is my Reading Globally challenge book for Jordan, and has happily provided a bit of an antidote to my Malta read (message 157).

This was much more like it. Nasrallah is from a Palestinian family, but was born and raised in one of the permanent refugee camps inside Jordan. He is now a prominent member of the Jordanian literary scene.

'Inside the Night' is a dream-like account of one man's experience as a Palestinian in exile. It interposes short sequences (sometimes only a sentence or two) from scenes in the man's life. These are, principally his witnessing of a massacre in a refugee camp, and his attempt to return to his homeland many years later. The events related in the book are by turns bloody, brutal and depressing, and 'Inside the Night' is a fairly downbeat book.

Nasrallah's dream-like prose can be a little difficult to get a handle on. At no point does he give names to characters or places, so everything and everyone remains anonymous. I can find prose like this a bit difficult, because my brain finds it harder to form concrete images of the narratives, and that did allow my mind to wander, especially early on. The upside, however, is that this really did transform the book from being a Palestinian story into what felt like the Palestinian story. It was not about a specific person's suffering and exile, but about Palestinian suffering and exile, and, as such, was very effective. The writing/translation succeeds in being very powerful without being unnecessarily shocking (though shocking it is). It is a short book, and I am not sure the prose style could sustain anything much longer without losing me. As it was, this was a highly original book, deftly executed, and one I would be happy to recommend.

I am, once again, miles behind with my reviews. I have read some very interesting stuff in the past month, so will try to get it out here before I forget it all.

The first book I finished was When Eve Was Naked by one of my favourite writers, Joseph Skvorecky. I have read a few of his novels, but this was my first experience of his short stories.

The book, like many of his, is semi-autobiographical, with the inimitable Danny Smirecky, jazz-loving cynic and lothario, standing in for Skvorecky. The stories in the book are written over a period of 40 years, and are arranged to reflect the major periods in Skvorecky's life (childhood, Nazi occupation, communist rule, emigration to Canada). Although the stories are not linked by common narrative threads, when put together they clearly read as a sort of autobiography.

There is a huge range of quality to the stories. The ones written about his youth left me worried that Skvorecky was a writer who, while excelling in long prose, hadn't mastered the shorter form. However, as I read on, I was blown away by some of his pieces. The strange juxtaposition of frail, self-interested humanity with earth-shattering events is something he has done brilliantly in novels such as The Cowards. He does this in his short stories with equal deftness. In particular, Smiricky's search for love and sex in an imploding Czechoslavakia, and the Canadian professor's wry observations of his callow students (and himself) were every bit as well done as in his novels. Everything is shot through with a beautifully pitched sense of humour. This was another big plus in Skvorecky's win column for me, and a spur to read even more of his books.

My second book was The Big Banana by Roberto Quesada. I read it for my reading globally challenge (for Honduras). Like many of my challenge books, I wasn't too sure about it before I started. I was very pleasantly surprised.

The book is about Eduardo Lin, an Honduran emigree to New York. He wants to be an actor, and the most famous Honduran in the world. Instead he finds himself living in a community of Latin American ex-pats inthe 1980s Bronx, struggling to make ends meet. He is taken in by Casagrande, a Mexican homosexual and dispenser of wisdom and, together, the two men face the harsh truths of New York life.

The book is a really likeable read. Although the subject matter can be depressing, Quesada allows his characters to maintain their senses of humour throughout, and their outlook is neither over-optimistic nor unremittingly bleak. He uses his two main characters to examine the highs and lows of ex-pat life, and skillfully creates characters that are both engaging and realistic. The book was slightly let down by an overly-absurd story line about Lin's girlfriend back in Honduras, but the damage wasn't enough to affect my feelings towards the book as a whole. This was a very pleasant surprise, light enough to be enjoyable, weighty enough to be worth the effort.

I am also a great fan of Skvorecky - an underrated author imo. I had a blitz on him and Kundera in the 1980s - both great.

Continuing my challenge reading, my next book was Years Like Brief Daysby the Costa Rican writer Fabian Dobles. I felt a little less positive about this book. It was the last book of Dobles' life, and the first to be translated into English. I can't help feeling we should have had something else first.

The book's narrator is 70 years old. He takes a drive into his boyhood area, and begins to reminisce about his childhood. He thinks, in particular about his decision to leave the seminary (due to sexual abuse from a priest) and his decaying relationship with his brother. The narrator uses the opportunity to compose a letter to his long dead mother, explaining his decisions.

The problem I had was that this was clearly an end-of-life book, with all the self indulgences that implies. Dobles was using his literary skills to explain himself to his family, and his readers. While this isn't a bad thing per se, because I hadn't read anything else of his (partly because nothing else is in English yet), I didn't feel invested enough in Dobles to want to read this sort of thing. I was reminded of Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man by Joseph Heller. It is a book I love, and one that touches me very much, because it is clearly a literary farewell from one of my favourite writers. However, the non-Heller fans who have read it have all said that it is rubbish, and I see their point. Heller doesn't work to make you care, and neither does Dobles. The writing was good enough to make me want to read more, and if I did I would definitely re-visit Years Like Brief Days, but I can't bring myself to recommend it just yet.

-->165 kiwidoc:
I agree. It seems like a slightly odd thing to say, that he is 'underrated', because he is clearly very well known, but, I think he should be mentioned in the same breath of many of the 20th Centuries great writers, and he doesn't seem to get that sort of accolade (except from me now, obviously). Perhaps it is due to the terrible misfortune of still being alive...

D; Perhaps being alive is a hindrance, but when you read lists of great writers, Kundera is on most of them, Skvorecky is on nil. I do suspect that Kundera is a tad more innovative in his stylisation, though.

Very interesting stuff, glad you posted. I've added When Eve Was Naked to by wishlist.

Uh oh...it looks as if my wish list will be expanding quite a bit this month, starting with When Eve Was Naked, Inside the Night and The Big Banana.

The book that occupied me for most of August was Hope Abandoned by Nadezhda Mandelstam. I became interested in the story of Osip Mandelstam, possibly the most high-profile artist to die in one of Stalin's many purges, through the mentions he gets in Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. Nadezhda is Osip's widow, almost his disciple. She survived him by 40 years, a time spent bitterly brooding on her survival, and living with the single-minded intent of seeing Osip’s work published.
I wrote I message 153 that I was reading memoirs by authors I had taken a strong dislike to. Nadezhda was one of these. She is explicit that she is writing for ‘her sort’ of people, and speaks with unreserved scorn about almost everyone she has every met. The scorn isn’t reserved for the Soviet authorities who suppressed and murdered her husband, but is liberally handed out to anyone whose perspective differs from hers. Words like ‘cretin’, ‘pathetic’, ‘imbecile’ , ‘idiotic’ and many similar are commonplace. Their recipients include anyone who disagrees that poetry is superior to prose, that Acmeist poetry (the movement including Osip and Anna Akhmatova) could be confused with the movements that gave rise to it (such as ‘Futurism’), and certainly anyone whose recollections of events disagree with hers. Because she is not interested in pandering to anyone outside her circle, there is very little in the way of explicatory text where some is needed. She discusses poems without reproducing them (as if any of her readers worth their salt should already know them), and individuals without really introducing them (a large glossary at the end helps in this regard). It all gave me the impression that I would have been labeled as one of her ‘idiots’ and ‘cretins’ fairly swiftly had we ever met.
So by this time you are probably expecting a bad review, right? In fact, this was one of the most fascinating books I have read for a long time. At 800 pages it was hard work, and I did put it down for days at a time, but when I had the time and mental energy, I was riveted. What Nadezhda lacks in balance, she clearly makes up for in perspicacity, honesty and intelligence. The book is not a continuous narrative, but more like a series of 20 page essays about life, love, politics and poetry in the 1920s and 1930s, in the Soviet Union. It does not really serve as a biography of Osip, although there is enough to piece together an idea of his personality from the fragments she gives. She was a highly spiritual person, believing in Christian ideals, and also appeared to believe the poetry is a sort of cosmic force that Osip was a conduit for, rather than its creator. Consequently she feels little need to discuss him as a person, and her focus is on the loss of this conduit through the brutality and stupidity of the regime. The net result of all this is that the book is really, in my opinion, about Nadezhda herself. Her perspectives are polar opposites to mine in many ways, but she has the erudition to explain herself, and a knack for choosing just the right anecdotes to illustrate her points. Hope Abandoned was thus a fascinating glimpse into a mind that was almost completely different to mine. I’m not sure that this was Nadezhda’s intention, but it worked for me.

I recently finished two novellas by Škvorecký: The Bass Saxophone and Emöke. I thought Emöke was good. I adored The Bass Saxophone. Škvorecký's Dvorak in Love is next on my reading list as soon as I finish writing a rather lengthy review.

Hope Abandoned sounds really interesting. I have it on my wishlist now. Thanks.

-->172 urania1:
The Cowards and The Engineer of Human Souls are both among my favourite novels. The Bass Saxophone seems to be cited as among his best, so I will be keeping an eye out for it.

-->173 kiwidoc:
It was one of those books that I would really like to hear a second opinion on. Hope Abandoned was the follow up to Hope Against Hope (though doesn't serve as a 'sequel' exactly). From what I can tell Hope Abandoned looks at events surrounding Osip's life in the 1920s and 1930s, with the exception of his arrest and imprisonment, while Hope Against Hope deals specifically with the arrest and its aftermath.

#171 - I know this isn't a book I'm likely to read, but you sure made it sound fascinating...

I haven't checked in for a while, because I have been reading books for review on avaland's on-line literature magazine: Belletrista , which I thoroughly recommend you check out. Unfortunately, I can't replicate my reviews here for the time being, but Belletrista is free, so they will (hopefully) be up there for all to see in the next couple of issues. The books were:
Departing at Dawn by Gloria Lise: very good short book about a woman fleeing the oppression of Argentina's military regime in the 1970s.
Dream of Reason by Rosa Chacel: mind-blowing philosophical novel/doorstop from one of Spain's most celebrated female writers
As the Earth Turns Silver by Alison Wong: first novel from a New Zealand writer about an across-the-divide love affair in early 20th Century Wellington.

I am currently reading Patrick Chamoiseau's Texaco, a Prix Goncourt winner and, so far, excellent book. I will post on that one here when I'm done.

> 176 depressaholic, I have admired Rosa Chacel's work for a long time.
And hurray for Chamoiseau's Texaco - brilliant book.

I am just catching up on this thread and see you had a Josef Skvorecky discussion here. I am fortunate enough to have known him personally for over forty years, including house-sitting for him in the seventies. He is a fascinating, humble man, great story teller, lovely to be around. He is unfortunately in poor health and his spirits are down.

I agree with the views about his best books: in my view it is The Cowards and the novellas Legend Emoke and Bass Saxophone. He has also written a number of mysteries about Lieutenant Boruvka, and translated great American novelists into Czech.

Pol - wonderful to hear about Skvorecky. Sorry to hear he is in poor health. I haven't seen anything published by him for quite a while.

His latest, Ordinary Lives, is now out in paperback. It is sitting on my teetering TBR pile. I am told that it is a Danny Smiricky novel, with, as always, musings about Nazism, Communism and capitalism, done in an entertaining way, with the light touch of a master. I am looking forward to it. Perhaps you should also vote for Czech literature in the Reads for 2010 thread.

-->178 polutropos:
I have wondered before about the Czechoslovak/Canada thing you and Skvorecky share, and whether that gave you any chance to interact (I am entirely ignorant about the number of Czech and Slovak emigrants in Canada). He is one of the writers I have always thought I would like if I met him, largely because his books are full of self-deprecating humour, and written in a very personable voice.

If you think it will help his spirits, tell him depressaholic thinks he is bloody marvelous.

Ditto for Kiwidoc - if only I could get my works of his signed!

I know I have given a few people on LT my address over the years, so I wanted to let everyone know it is changing as of Friday the 16th. If you still insist on sending me those massive and expensive Christmas presents you were thinking about, then please contact me for my new address, but please no longer use the old one.

I am finally in my new place and sort of settled (apart from the mess). I have a bit of catching up to do with my reviews. I have actually read some very good books in the last couple of weeks, but haven't found them easy to review.

Anyway, I'll start with Texaco by Patrick Chamoiseau. Its a former Prix Goncourt winner that aims to be a narrative history of the island of Martinique. It is narrated by Marie-Sophie Laborieux, and begins with her meeting a town planner, who has come to the shantytown of Texaco (part of the capital city of Fort-de-France) with the aim of developing it and integrating it into the city. In order to protect her home, Marie-Sophie tells the story of how Texaco came into being, focusing on the stories of her ancestors (particularly her father Esternome) on their journey from slaves to free people to homeowners. Through her telling, the story of Texaco’s foundation becomes the story of the poor black underclass that for so long made up Martinique’s powerless majority, and becomes a powerful narrative history of the cycles of oppression and enfranchisement that shaped the island’s past.
Texaco is written using beautifully lyrical flowing prose, that the translators have done a wonderful job of preserving. Disturbing, occasionally horrific, events are told with a comforting humour that reminded me of writers like V.S. Naipaul and Rushdie. Reading the translators’ notes, it is unfortunately clear how much was necessarily lost in translation. Chamoiseau’s attempts to tell the history of Martinique from the Creole perspective include a playfulness with language that is central to the book, including the importance of alternating French with Creole French, middle-class patois and English. I get the impression that the translators were forced to sacrifice a lot of linguistic subtlety; perhaps more so than is usual with translated literature. Nevertheless, the translation is still excellent. My only gripe with the book (and unfortunately it is a fairly big one) is that, as with many narrative histories, characters are lost as they serve as ciphers for the events they represent. Esternome is the main character for most of the book, but I never feel like I got to know him. The oral structure (the book is as told by Marie-Sophie) also leads to strange pacing (the 20 years between World Wars I and II is dealt with in a matter of two pages). This lead to an oddly disjointed feel to the book as a whole, and, in the absence of characters that I felt I was able to get to know, made the book feel much more didactic than it could have been.
I would still recommend this book on the strength of the beautiful language, and fans of the other authors I mentioned should definitely check it out, as should anyone interested in Caribbean history and culture. Make no mistake this is a very good book, in my opinion. It just didn’t quite get the balance right between being a narrative history of Martinique and a personal history of some of its inhabitants.

The next is From the Diary of a Snail by Gunter Grass:

Most of the things I have ever read about Gunter Grass usually say something along the lines of: excellent first couple of books, load of nonsense for the next 30 years, got good again later in life. It’s an opinion I see a lot, and one I couldn’t disagree with more. I am getting a real thing for Grass at the moment, and have thoroughly admired everything I have read, including this one (which is from his allegedly fallow years).
From the Diary of a Snail is Grass’ usual mix of autobiography and fiction. Written in the early 1970s, it covers the period in which Grass actively campaigned for the Social Democrats, under Willy Brandt, in the West German elections. Grass saw it as an important step in the catharsis of a nation that still hadn’t come to terms with its role in World War II. Like many of his books, this is largely about Germany’s post-war struggles with memory and identity. Largely factual accounts of Grass’ campaign speeches are interspersed with the fictional story of a man nicknamed ‘Doubt’, who spent the war in Danzig supporting Jewish causes, before being forced to live in a cellar to hide from the Nazis. Doubt’s story, juxtaposed with the politics of the early 1970s, serves to illustrate the difficulties that Grass saw in marrying the actions of many Germans in World War II with the hope of rebirth in the second half of the twentieth century.
The book is undoubtedly difficult. Grass, as usual, lacks a clear narrative thrust, preferring a sort of meandering style full of odd interpolations and bizarre extended metaphors (the snail of the title being the most prominent). One of the things I like about Grass, which is also one of the things that makes his books less accessible, is that he never feels the need to explain himself explicitly. It as if he is trying to describe a sculpture not by describing its shape or texture, but by describing the way the air moves over it and letting the reader fill in the gaps. When I read one of his books, I’m never quite sure if I have understood his intent, but I always know I have understood a lot more than I did when I started. From the Diary of a Snail is no exception.

I am building a small mountain of Grass at home, but probably won't get to them in a hurry. I am looking forward to getting to know him much better in the coming months.

The House of Twilight by Yun Heung-gil

This is a very nice collection of short stories from a Korean writer who is apparently well known in Korea and Japan, but largely untranslated into English. It was published by Readers International, a publisher that in the 1980s translated many writers well-known in their own languages but unknown in English. The first few Readers International books I read were fairly awful, but they are going up in my estimation.
The stories in The House of Twilight are set either during the Korean war (with the narrator being a child, as Yun was at this time), or in its aftermath. They illustrate the confusions of political civil war. Communist sympathisers are portrayed as being childish and self-indulgent, even as the capitalist South was evolving into an increasingly totalitarian police state. The stories focus on human interactions in domestic settings, such as families engaged in tense squabbles underpinned by political differences, or the struggles of individuals labelled as outsiders by the government. It is this focus that gives them their strength, allowing for the development of believable, sympathetic and flawed characters in relatively short spaces. I could feel Yun’s frustration with human stupidity oozing from the pages, yet he is sympathetic rather than derisory. The blurb compares him to Dickens (and one of his characters compares himself to the writer), which should give some idea about the thrust of his observations of his society. Unfortunately Yun still appears to have made little impact in the English-speaking world, and based on this collection he deserves better. If you get a chance to read it, I would really recommend you take it.

I have also read Cubana, a collection of short stories written by Cuban women. I am reviewing it for Belletrista.com, but all I will say here is that it is very, very good.

As I mentioned above, I have just moved house, The new place is bigger, and I can get my books out on shelves, rather than hiding them in cupboards and boxes. I am horrified by my TBR. I have been gearing up for a few new reading jags all year, but had no idea how much I had bought. Next year I will be trying to get round to:
14 books by African writers
12 books by Caribbean writers
9 books by Argentinian writers
And all the rest. I'm looking forward to it already.

Great reviews, Andy. I'll add The House of Twilight to my wish list, and probably the Grass, but I'll read the new translation of The Tin Drum first. I'll read Texaco, which I already have, later this year or early next year; I bought Creole Folktales and Solibo Magnificent last month, and I'll read those first.

>187 GlebtheDancer: - snap! I moved in August and have since been shocked into dramatically dropping my book-acquiring rate (although thinking about it I'm still managing a couple a month). I was looking for India-themed books for the Reading Globally thread and ended up with almost 50!

Yes, great reviews. Your comments on Gunter Grass are very interesting. Some day I'll have to try him out.

-->188 kidzdoc:, 190
Although the Tin Drum is often cited as Grass' classic, it is not my favourite. It was my first Grass, so perhaps it merits a re-read. Cat and Mouse is one of my favourite novels, and the first time I really 'got' Grass. He is a difficult writer, I think, but worth the effort. Local Anaesthetic, which was critically panned when it came out, is also, imo, excellent.

-->188 kidzdoc:
I would like to read more of Yun's stuff, but don't think there is any. I know we have a couple of readers on LT who know/have lived in Japan. I wonder if they are familiar with Yun's work from there.

I also have Solibo Magnificent. I actually read about 50 pages while 'working' in my charity shop. Based on that snippet, I am more excited by it than I was by Texaco (which was still a very nice read). It seemed like it would be much more focused.

-->189 wandering_star:
I knew I had a grwoing African pile, but I thought it was 5 books. Same with the Caribbean. One of the good things is that because I 'haven't been buying books', the books I have bought are almost all really short. I have moved to within 200 yards of the best second hand book shop in Bristol, so the future of my TBR is looking disturbing.

My reading has slowed to snail's pace of late. I have a couple more books to report on though.

The first is The Loom by William Clough. Clough is a friend of a friend, and I was asked to read and review it partly, I think, in the hope it would raise its profile slightly (when I say 'asked', I kind of mean 'forced'). I am adding this caveat because I feel slightly awkward about the whole situation. Anyway, I promised that I would be an honest little depressaholic, so here goes...

The Loom is a satire about modern working life, described to me as being Kafkaesque. It follows the first day at work of Mr. Johnson (we never learn his first name) in his new job. The firm he works for is focused on sales and marketing, though we never discover what they sell or market. As his day begins, he is introduced to the importance of indecipherable initiatives backed up with meaningless jargon. Although bewildered, he excels in this environment, though he isn't exactly sure what it is he is doing well. Gradually, and without ever finding out what the firm he works for does, he gets into the swing of his new job. However, in the middle of the day the head of the company leaves, and Mr. Johnson finds that the accompanying changes in policy and structure means that he can now do no right, and still can't work out why. What follows is an increasingly surreal journey into the bowels of the company. The initial 'day' becomes weeks, maybe months, and each successive department that Mr. Johnson visits becomes more bizarre, abstract and disconnected from the main body of the company. Eventually Mr. Johnson loses all sight of the job he was initially hired to do.

I have mixed feelings about this book. The first half is full of meaningless jargon filled conversations that are stultifyingly dull. They are obviously supposed to be dull as part of the satire, and to establish the essential pointlessness of Mr. Johnson's work. However, they were also stultifyingly dull to read. It is a book that is driven largely by dialogue, and yet the dialogue is unrealistic, awkward and boring. I thought I would struggle to finish it. However, as the pace picked up and Mr. Johnson's journey became more surreal, I actually started to enjoy it. Once he fell beneath the surface of the company the satire began to bite. I work for a large corporation, and could easily (and unfortunately) recognise elements from my own working life. From this point of view, the book was very successful in my opinion.

Its unfortunate that the first 150 pages missed the mark as much as they did, because I can see a lot of people starting and not finishing this book, despite the fact that it actually has something to say about the sort of work that many of us find ourselves doing.

The other book is the short story collection Snake Catcher by the Indian writer Naiyer Masud. No such problems here. This was simply superb.

Masud writes in Urdu, and is a past winner of the Saraswati Samman, an award for outstanding writing in a native Indian language. Despite this, and his translation into English, he is not well-known outside of India.

Snake Catcher is a collection of 11 fairly short stories (20-40 pages). They are garnered from a number of sources, including previously untranslated pieces. It is always tempting to discuss writers within a cultural context, such as comparing Masud to other Indian writers, but there is far more similarity between these stories and the metaphysical puzzles of Borges and Eco, among others. Masud's prose is steeped in Sufism, and, as the introduction points out, more concerned with states of being than in describing actions. In the title story, which was probably the outstanding one of this collection for me, a village snake catcher treats his victims by categorising their bites by the type of snake that gave them. His new apprentice draws his awareness to the subjectivity of these categories and, by extension, causes him to doubt their realities. Stripped of his certainties, he loses his ability to treat the afflicted, and even begins to doubt (as do we, the reader) the difference between a snakebite and the fear of one. We begin to wonder if he has only ever been treating the idea of a snakebite. The lack of trust in 'reality' precipitates a decline in the snake catcher's relationship to the world he lives in. Indeed this is a recurring theme in all the stories. Realities become questioned, as do the characters' relationships to them.

The tone is undoubtedly downbeat, even frightening. Whereas the writers I mentioned above share a playfulness when they manipulate their realities, Masud's characters are thrown into mind-numbing terror as their certainties crumble. It reminded me, in this sense, of Sadegh Hedayat's horrifying The Blind Owl. Masud's writing is no less disturbing. If 'philosophical horror' was a genre, this would be up there with the best of them. The ideas he writes about are familiar from philosophies such as Zen and existentialism, but I have never seen them twisted into such a terrifying vision of life before. This is a genuinely excellent collection from one of India's hidden gems.

>193 GlebtheDancer:,

Alas, another interesting book not available on Kindle.

It is however at the Multnomah public library and your review compelled me to put it on hold.

-->195 solla:
It may not be for everyone, leaning heavily towards the metaphysical as it does, but if you like that sort of thing, then this is up there with some of the best i have read.

I am finishing my 'Reading Globally' books for 2009 with a couple of central Asian ones. They were okay, but worked really nicely as a pair. I have just cut and pasted from my 'Reading Globally' thread.

My choice for Kazahstan boiled down to reading something by Abai Kunanbayev, or something about Abai Kunanbayev. I went for the latter, and read Abai by Mukhtar Auezov.

'Abai' is the story of Kazakhstan's literary hero, Abai Kunanbayev. Auezov confesses that details of Abai's life are sketchy, so the work is largely fiction. This part (the first one) is set in the 1860s in the extreme east of Kazakhstan, and follows Abai's transition into manhood.

The book was published in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, and presents Abai as a socialist hero, almost a secular Christ-like figure leading the Kazakh people away from the twin evils of their religious leadership (all corrupt) and Tsarist officials (all nincompoops). However, the political proselytising is kept to a minimum, and Auezov's book is more of a sweeping epic, with romance, bloodshed and heroism aplenty. It frequently rises above this slightly trite description, to become a really interesting read in places. The cultural background was largely new to me, which always keeps me reading, and the story of Abai's relationship with his occasionally despotic father was blossoming into something very interesting as the book ended. I certainly enjoyed this enough to keep an eye out for the second part, but perhaps not enough to look (or spend) too hard to get it. Very enjoyable, for what it was.

The second book was from Mongolia, and was The Blue Sky by Galsan Tschinag

This seems to be pretty much the only Mongolian read that LTers Reading Globally have found so far. Its not fantastic, but enjoyable enough for me to recommend to others waiting to add Mongolia to their lists.

'The Blue Sky' is the semi-autobiographical story of Tschinag's childhood, spent in the mountains of Western Mongolia. He is a Tuvan, a minority ethnic group, and his family were nomadic herders.

Tschinag is a very spiritual writer. He is a shaman, and the book is filled with references to his relationships to animistic influences such as the earth, the hills and, especially, the sky. The book has a wonderfully lonely feel, as if there was nothing in the young Tschinag's life apart from his immediate family, his dog, and the desolate landscape they worked in. In this environment, his spiritual connections to his world flourish, and this comes through in his writing. His relationship to the woman he called Grandma had an especially eerie, ethereal quality. Despite not always being great writing/translation, the setting and sentiments were enough to make this a fairly engrossing read. The narrative itself was meandering, almost non-existent in places, and it took a fairly melodramatic scene at the end to remind me that I was supposed to be learning something about Tschinag, not just observing his world. I think a longer book would have lost its way a bit, but, as it was, I read this in one sitting on a train journey, which was just about right.

It is the first part of a trilogy. I can't say I am waiting for part 2 to be translated with bated breath, but I will probably give it a go, if that ever happens.