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.
I'm breaking my silence of almost a month for a book I absolutely loved - My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. It tells the story of Elena and Lila, two girls growing up in 1950s Naples, which is as brutal and volatile as you might imagine, and in this book is vividly and evocatively portrayed. The complex friendship that exists between the two girls contains all the elements that I recall from the close friendships of my teens: their bond is combative, competitive, intimate and subject to an ever changing power dynamic, played out across some of the most formative years of their lives. I loved it.
The episodic structure and language are both very classical - my one criticism might be that it needed a little more narrative thrust - but I found that this book had knives hidden within the text - sharp points that made me pause or wince with their perceptiveness - that mimicked the blades that so often flash within the story. Elena Ferrante, whose real identity is only know by her Italian publisher, although it's assumed she's a woman, is a serious, interesting, incisive writer, and I look forward to reading more of her books. I felt that she really cut through to the marrow of relationships and situations, but in a very sympathetic manner, meaning that no-one in this Neopolitan quagmire of vendetta and violent is really blamed or excused, although some are very heavily implicated. This felt like a very close book, like Ferrante has lived this and knows that community and the people within it: that quote about Edith Wharton describing things as familiarly as if she loved them and as lucidly as if she hated them (I'm paraphrasing) actually springs to mind, and feels like it might really apply.
The translation is also very good, save the odd overly heavy or overly short sentence, with some beautiful language choices:
'It was an unforgettable moment. We went towards Via Caracciolo, as the wind grew stronger, the sun brighter. Vesuvius was a delicate pastel-coloured shape, at whose base the whitish stones of the city were piled up, with the earth-coloured slice of the Castel dell'Ovo, and the sea. But what a sea. It was very rough, and loud; the wind took your breath away, pasted your clothes to your body and blew the hair off your forehead. We stayed on the other side of the street in a small crowd, watching the spectacle. The waves rolled in like blue metal tubes carrying an egg white foam on their peaks, then broke into a thousand glittering splinters and came up to the street with an oh of wonder and fear from those watching. What a pity that Lila wasn't there.'
At times this was not a peaceful read, but I felt it to be sharp and honest and pulsating with life. The ending is spectacular, although you're not going to hear it from me! It also felt very wise in its dealing with the difficulties of growing up, and how the realisation that you've irrevocably changed can be as challenging for you as for those around you, but once life has moved on, there's no going back.The subversion of the title that occurs towards the end also felt masterful. I really recommend this book, and I'm thrilled to read that this is part one of a trilogy.
Bravo all round.
Title: My Brilliant Friend
Author: Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein
Publisher: Europe Editions
Date: Original 2012, translation 2012
Format: Paperback, 331 pages, and I was sent it by Europa Editions for review.
I finished The Island of Last Truth by Flavia Company last week, but alas, I've been poorly, so I'm just reviewing it now.
The Island of Last Truth is the story of Mathew Prendel, a doctor with a penchant for sailing that ends up getting him marooned on a desert island in the South Atlantic after encountering pirates on one of his expeditions. However, he is not alone (dun dun dun!) The story is told to us as it was told to his girlfriend years afterwards, just before his death, from whence she then goes to tidy up the loose ends for him, so to speak (those aren't spoilers by the way - you find all that out on the first page.)
Unfortunately, this book was underwhelming for me. The first chapters were very engaging, and because I like fiction in translation (this was originally written in Catalan), I had high hopes. The story of how Mathew ends up on the island was interesting and well illustrated, but the tale of his exploits on the island was too far-fetched for me to think it realistic, but too realistic for it to be some kind of mystical story, or an allegory of sorts.
It probably suffered from me having seen, and loved, Life of Pi at the cinema recently, but I'm not sure it knows on which side of the fence it wants to sit: it was neither plausible as a true story nor actually representative of something else. I'm also not really a fan of popular thrillers and by the ending it's very much going that way, so it wasn't really for me.
Some of the writing is lovely though, and the translation itself is well done (this book actually shares a translator with Stone in a Landslide which I've recently reviewed). For instance:
The mother, naturally, cries. How many times must she have cried without realizing it, while she made a meal, or the beds, or did the laundry. As though she were coughing or sneezing. Her children don't look at her. Her husband, on the other hand, moves a hand closer to her and she takes it as if he were passing her the salt or the bread, in any case something she has asked for because she needs it.
Overall, an interesting book and a good translation, but one for fans of thrillers or shipwrecks, rather than me.
Title: The Island of Last Truth
Author: Flavia Company, translated from the Catalan by Laura McGloughlin
Publisher: Europe Editions
Date: Original 2011, translation 2012
Format: Paperback, 124 pages, and I was sent it by Europa Editions for review.
