'Minotaur' by Benjamin Tammuz

The keen readers amongst you will have noticed a few Europa Editions posts amongst my reviews of late; this, the third, is Minotaur by Benjamin Tammuz. Minotaur, an Israeli novel originally published in Hebrew in 1989, is the story of a handful of individuals who form the four-corners-of-a-love-square, if you will, bound and connected by obsession, desire and perverse, destructive love. Each character takes a part of the narrative, which begins with an Israeli secret agent noticing a beautiful teenager on a London bus on his forty-first birthday...

I found this book to be an addictive and riveting novel of doomed noir, reminiscent of John le Carre's European spies, but backlit by Middle Eastern dust, sunshine and politics. The telescopic narrative, narrated by the four to the story's conclusion, felt akin to moving down a tunnel which progressively narrows and tightens until it collapses in on itself, trapping the reader, as well as all the characters, as the title might suggest. It is claustrophobic, thick with secrets and ambiguities, and written/translated in a sparse and elegiac hand. I read it in a day on holiday, falling further and further into the twists and turns of the story, before reaching its conclusive and satisfying end.

Surprisingly, given the Israeli and European links of both the author and the story, this story felt quite Japanese to me, and reminiscent of the characters and tone of a number of modern Japanese writers, such as Banana Yoshimoto and Haruki Murakami. A number of the main motifs are there: the distant, nostalgia-fulled, almost-invented relationship between the central male character and his idealised object of affection - who seems to offer beaming salvation to him based  purelyon a look, a face, a memory - wasn't dissimilar to the relationship between Shimamoto and Hajime in Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun. This book also features crippling, inescapable loneliness as well themes of delayed gratification, narcissistic love and ambiguous self-concealment, which felt Japanese to me in description and tone. This gave it a langourous elegance and an extra layer of interest which might serve to expand its possible readership if anyone else picks up on that also. This, layered upon the dry heat of a settlement and several of the most intriguing corners of Europe, adds up to a cosmopolitan and complex novel which unfurls slowly and deliberately until its final page.

My only criticism would be based around the structure of the book: I found the final section to be a bit long and in need of different voice or another type of variation, but overall I found this to be an unsettling, beguiling and addictive literary thriller, awash with noir and atmosphere, which has stayed darkly in my mind in the weeks since reading.

Title: Minotaur

Author: Benjamin Tammuz, translated from the Hebrew by Kim Parfitt and Mildred Budny
Publisher: Europa Editions
Publication date: Original 1989, translation 8th May 2013
Format: Paperback, 185 pages, and I was sent it by Europa as an ARC.






'Lizard' by Banana Yoshimoto

'Lizard' by Banana Yoshimoto was a spur-of-the-moment buy due to its slim volume and flashy neon cover, and I read it in a single evening in a cafe. It's six short stories, plus two afterwords, published in the original Japanese in 1993 and translated into English in 1995.

Out of the six stories - 'Newlywed', 'Lizard', 'Helix', 'Dreaming of Kimchee', 'Blood and Water' and 'A Strange Tale from Down by the River' - 'Newlywed' was my favourite. In it, a tramp turns into a beautiful woman next to a drunk male newlywed on the train late at night, after the man shows him the kindness of not moving away from him when he sits down; a little like a depressing, grown-up version of the beginning of Disney's 'The Beauty and the Beast'. They, the man and the beautiful woman/tramp, talk about why he might not want to go home and why he might: his wife has so quickly spun such a perfect web of domesticity that he is unnerved and a little repulsed by it, as well as being in awe of her and grateful. He finds her slightly unknowable and bemusing, and he finds her a little intimidating too, I think.

Thankfully, he chooses his wife over the other ever-present routes that the beautiful woman/tramp represents - as the tramp says to him, he could just not get off the train - by going home to her even though she is freaking him out; I felt really bad for the wife, as she really hasn't done anything wrong. This story was neat, compelling and sober, I thought, and kinda spot-on about the adjustments and anxieties that accompany settling down, domesticity and marriage.

The other stories were good, covering a lot of the same themes. 'Lizard' also deals with the past and violence, 'A Strange Tale from Down by the River' talks about the changes that accompany motherhood. The others....have kinda merged into one in my head. 

Yoshimoto tells these stories in a sparse, slightly trippy way that resembles a lot of other modern Japanese fiction, and utilises a lot of the features both of it and modern representations of Japanese life: as in, she stays on the surface of characters, rendering them rather unknowable, close individuals and even lovers are completely alienated from one another, and memory and family are dangerous, confusing things. Unfortunately, I experienced very little emotional engagement, which is why the stories probably now escape me. Also, apart from the emotional and psychological revelations, very little happens.

This were nice stories, and I'd pick up a book of hers again, but ultimately I found them a little shallow and forgettable.

Title: Lizard
Author: Banana Yoshimoto
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Date: 1995
Format: Paperback, 180 pages, and I bought it.