Peirene Press Readathon, No.4: 'Female Voices' Discussion Post

Today's post is of a different kind: Sam and I are continuing our epic Peirene readathon but rather than reviewing the next in the series, we are going to discuss the three books that have just been, which comprise the 'Female Voice' series; these are Beside the Sea by Veronique Olmi, Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal and Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius (see the bottom of the page for our review links).  

For those who don't know, Peirene Press is a small London publishing house which specialises in publishing the most celebrated and innovative European novellas which have not been translated into English prior to now. Peirene novellas are organised into groups of three because of thematic and other similarities, the idea being that they inform and comment on each other. 
  
L: Hi Sam, how are you? Let's start by reiterating our favourites and why that is...

S: So,  although I enjoyed all three, my favourite was Beyond the Sea. I think books touch us the most when there is something we can relate to and I've met many mothers a bit like the mother from the story, who are well meaning but finding it hard to cope with life. I often deal as a teacher with the children of parents like this - children who never have the correct school uniform, turn up late for school, don't read with their parents etc. so I found it really powerful to read from the mother's point of view. I think I can guess your favourite, Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman? And I'm guessing your reasons are similar to mine?

L: Yep, you're right, and yes, my reasons are very similar - empathy and personal experience! I won't go into it again as I talked at length about it in my actual review post, but, like the protagonist, I have been somewhat abandoned in a foreign country, knowing very few people and not speaking the language, whilst my husband has been off at war, and so every word of Margarethe's story rang a small, sad, nostalgic bell within my mind, and I understand the way in which she is fooling herself, and why. I also really enjoyed all three, and although I preferred Beside the Sea to Stone in a Landslide upon immediate reading, it's actually Stone in a Landslide that's stayed with me and that I remember most fondly, so I suppose that would be my second favourite!

It's interesting though, although perhaps not wholly surprising, to note that that our favourites were the ones that tallied most with our own personal experience; do you think that would be so much the case if these were male voices/characters, rather than female?

S: I'm hoping I will have the same connection with the male characters in the next series of books. Many of the female voices focused on motherhood, which I have no experience of, but I could still relate to the characters. I don't know if I will find the male voices as powerful as the female ones, but I'm hoping to see something of the universal human experience in them.

L: Mmm, I agree. Looking at it objectively, if the writing is of the highest quality, the universal human experience element you talk of should allow us to bond as closely with the male voices as the female, but I think we'd both acknowledge that this is not always the case when reading cross-gender, and also that the actual content and narrative of the novellas will also play a big part in that. Good writing and characterisation that central to making a reader bond to a character though, and I don't doubt we'll have that!

Looking at these three books as a group, how representative do you think these stories are of women (!) and of stories written by and about women as a whole?

S: I don't think any series of three books could represent women! Also, the three women were all in extreme circumstances (mental health difficulties and war), which makes them not representative of women in thankfully more ordinary situations. But there were a lot of themes that will resonate with women and humanity as a whole - love, loss, tragedy etc. I think it would have been nice to have one female voice that wasn't about being a mother (Conxa's story was the closest to this), as often women are reduced to mothers and there is so much more to us than that. Would you agree?

L: Definitely. Women get put into so many simplified roles, be it the shopaholic airhead, the put-upon mothers, the icy, career-driven, ball-breaking older woman who will eventually admit that they regret 'not giving love a chance!' or, finally, grandmothers who are either bitter and reproachful, or rosy-cheeked cake-making martyrs who are slightly forgotten at the hub of the home and ask nothing for themselves. Men don't get characterised like this, I don't think. But, saying that, these are not simple, stereotypical women - far from it - and their presentation in these novellas is both impeccable and sympathetic,and I suppose that's better criteria for selecting a novella for publication than thinking 'I must have a female voice in her twenties, I must have one in her forties, and I must have one that's single.' 

However, it is family that defines all three of these women, and it is largely the absence of husbands and fathers that cause them their troubles...but then the majority of women do marry and have children and I suppose for many their most vivid experience comes from instants or upsets in romantic or familial love...maybe we could request that an upcoming trio be an addendum to this, following independent, non-maternal female characters? I personally am a bit disheartened, on reflection, that all three stories talk about women in relation to their husbands and children; I bet that the next three protagonists are not presented as strongly in relation to their children and wives.

Anyway, to happier topics: did you have a favourite, or a least favourite, scene or passage from the three?

S: A scene that really affected me was the scene in Beyond the Sea where the mother arrives at the seaside resort with high expectations only to be greeted with a rainy, dark, grotty town and a grimy hotel. We've all experienced that let down feeling when something isn't what you expected. What was your favourite scene?

L: Although I found it deeply upsetting, I would have to pick the closing scenes of Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman, as I was quite overwhelmed by the power of the Bach music crescendo juxtaposed so skilfully against the emotional climax of the book. Sad times! I also adored all the descriptions of Conxa in the fields, and also the scene in which she first dances with Jaume. I found these scenes so very vivid.

Considering that these novellas are linked as a thematic trio, did you see any marked similarities between them, or any issues on which they all had something to say? Any differences, also? Why do think that is?

S: One theme I identified was women under pressure, and the resilience we can show under difficult circumstances. The narrators of all three books also had a distinct, clear voice, something that you don't see in all novels. I'm hoping the male voices in the next series will be just as developed and powerful. Did you spot any common issues?

L: The main one for me was the overwhelming impact that men, or the absence of them, had on these women's lives, and how often they felt and were powerless to change their circumstances, bound by relationships or to a particular place in a way that the men didn't seem to be. The father runs off so the mother can't in Beside the Sea, Jaume travels, learns and fights whilst Conxa must live at home with one family member or another, and Margarethe must wait for the inevitable event of her baby's birth, and she must cope with that, no matter the truths that on some level she already knows. Resilience too, I absolutely agree, in such awful situations. Not to get too lit studies for a second, but the trio really put me in mind of Virginia Woolf's famous quote 

This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an unimportant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room

because another common theme is that these women are often circling wildly within their own heads, drowning often in feeling, but their perils are reactive, not active. Two of the three are literally in the midst of war, but theirs is the social history, not an account of the battlefield. Not that these books have not been marvellously well-reviewed of course, lol.

As a final thought, which of these three would you recommend to your mother/a parent? Your sister (congrats on your nephew!)? A colleague? Someone you're not close to? And why?

S: As my sister has only been a mother for a week, I wouldn't want to scare her with Beyond the Sea! I think my Mum would enjoy Stone in a Landslide as it's more of a retrospective on a whole life and that would appeal to her. To be honest, all three are well written so I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to others.

L: Good call about your sister! I think Stone in a Landslide for my mother too, as it's the most classical structure and narrative; Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman to a colleague or a close friend as I'll look so clever, considering the radical one-sentence structure,  and also many of my friends have similar experiences as me to draw on, and I think Beside the Sea for someone I'm not close to as it's such a strong story, with such a horrifying resolution, that it might give us something to talk about.

 Come back next Thursday for our thoughts on the first of the next trio, 'Male Dilemma', which is Next World Novella by Matthias Politycki.

Review links:

Beside the Sea by Veronique Olmi (mine) ¦ (Sam's)
Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal (mine) ¦(Sam's)
Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius (mine) ¦ (Sam's)
  





'The End of Everything' by Megan Abbott

I bought The End of Everything by Megan Abbott upon seeing it in the window of my local charity shop, having read about her newest novel, Dare Me, on The Million's Most Anticipated List back in July this year. Megan Abbott is an enormously well-regarded crime writer in many circles and I was excited to see what all the fuss was about.

The End of Everything, Abbott's sixth novel, is the fractured, complex story of Evie and Lizzie, two incredibly close teenage friends who do everything together until Evie suddenly disappears from their quiet suburban street. This horrific, life-changing occurrence leads Lizzie to question everything about the people around her, and also her relationship with Evie, given the unsavoury and confusing truths that steadily emerge.

I thought this book was beautifully, if  breathlessly, written, and captures the manic, deceptive confusion of Lizzie, the main character, who narrates the story to the reader in moment-to-moment retrospect both before and after Evie's disappearance. That same breathlessness has been a common feature of a few books I've read lately - namely, Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman and Beside the Sea - so to my mind, considering the content of the other titles also, this type of heavily comma-ed, freely associating narration is becoming the mark of a female narrator drowning in their circumstance:

Voices pitchy, giddy, raving, we are all chanting that deathly chant that twists, knifelike, in the ear of the appointed victim. One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock, five o'clock...And it's Evie, she's it, lost at choosies, and now it will be her doom. But she's a good hider, the best I've ever seen, and I predict wild surprises, expect to find her rolled under a saggy front porch or buried under three inches of dirt in Mom's own frilly flower bed.

The characterisation in this book is great - the few primary characters are vivid and well-drawn - and the incessant darkness and slightly unreliable narration gave me a nightmare or two and drove the my morbid curiosity right through to the end. A great twist comes about two-thirds of the way through which sends the book off in an unexpected direction, and the revelations and final conclusion are all expertly handled. Abbott has a multitude of haunting and perceptive things to say about the burgeoning sexuality of teenage girls, sibling rivalry, the secrets of those closest to you, and also about the varying relationships that girls can have with their fathers.

This was a dark, immersive read which is beautifully written and fulfils its potential, but I was surprised to find that it left my psyche much sooner than anticipated. I'm keen to read other Megan Abbott books, having enjoyed this, but I may well donate this book to the charity shop where I found it as I feel no keen need to keep it near or to plan a re-read. I think it's probably fair to say that I respected it for its objective literary excellence, rather than took it to heart for its emotional impact, but it's a good book all the same.

Title: The End of Everything
Author: Megan Abbott
Publisher: Picador
Date: 2011
Format: 246 pages, paperback, and I bought it.
  





'A Suitable Boy' Readathon, the Final Post

Well, it's finished! And on time too, which is a bit of a shock based on my behind-time participation in this readathon, lol. FYI, there are some spoilers in this final post.

This book has left me fairly gobsmacked since the moment I opened it nearly three months ago with its consistency, its heart and its raft of characters who feel like long-time friends, and having now reached the end, I feel like I've discovered one of the books of my lifetime. Like, this book now lives under my skin, in my heart, in my own writing, like 'Anna Karenina' or 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' or any of my other long-time faves.

Obviously, Lata's choice of husband was a disappointment - how could it not be? As Malati and Sam have both pointed out, Lata rejected gold and silver in favour of bronze, and Haresh is...I don't know. I believe Lata will be happy because she's strong and she knows why she's chosen him but at the same time, what a waste. I can't believe she won't be bored with him, but I suppose her expectations of marriage are different to mine, silly Western girl that I am! So much more was required of her and her choice, and I do respect her for facing that head-on. 

Throughout this book I've felt that Vikram Seth has been reminding me that life isn't fair and that things don't always work out as you want...but still I kept turning the pages leading up to the wedding thinking 'When will Kabir do something? Where is he?!', forgetting for a time that this book is not resident in modern film parlance but rather 1950s India, which of course is a whole other kettle of fish. Lata is now as old as my grandmother - of course, this is what Seth's upcoming 'A Suitable Girl' is about - and this is a lesson again that times then were perhaps not as selfish and individualistic as they are now. I worry for Lata and I suppose I'm proud of her too. By the way, tell me that she and this book are not real and I'll all but eat your hand.

As with all great books, it's left me humbled, moved and feeling like maybe I don't know much about anything at all, which is often a very liberating thing to feel.

Otherwise, the religious tensions were both shocking and wholly predictable, which gives me little faith that things won't always be the same in that respect. Actually, some of the most powerful aspects of the book speak of non-change in both characters and society: Meenakshi's infidelity remaining secret, intermarriage remaining difficult, people struggling against inequalities of opportunity, PR and class.  Also, Firoz and Maan remaining friends even after the stabbing, Saeeda Bai losing out because of her profession, religious and intense familial tensions inevitably ripping the friendship of Mahesh Kapoor and the Nawab Sahib apart - plus ca change! I think I will need days and weeks to fully comprehend all the lessons I have learned.

I shouldn't need to recommend this book to you here, as if you've faced the spoilers you've probably already read it, and if not, hopefully the statement that it's one of the books of my lifetime is recommendation enough. Every second spent with this book was a nourishing feast and I am already beside myself with excitement that 'A Suitable Girl' is hopefully out next year.

My thanks, by the way, to the other readathon participants; read what they think here:

Tiny Library
JoV's Book Pyramid

Also, here are my previous books about this readathon: No. 1,   No. 2,   and No. 3.

Title: 'A Suitable Boy'

Author: Vikram Seth

Publisher: Phoenix House

Date: 1993

Format: Hardback, 1349 pages, and my copy is a library book.







'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.

  





'A Suitable Boy' Readathon, No. 3

I am a horrible readathon participant - this check-in is now two weeks late and I am still roughly 200 pages behind. Bad blogger, hand slap. 

I have no original excuses really: I've been really busy and the size of this book means it's impossible to read it whilst travelling or to carry around with you, ready for a spare moment. Maybe they should feature it in the adverts for e-readers, or maybe I should have manned up about 400 pages ago and bought it to read on my iPad. There's something though about the inconvenient weight of it that fits that weight and depth of the story that I like, so despite these issues, I plan to slog merrily on with my library-loaned hardback copy til the end :)

Anyway, I am currently on page 829, and there will be spoilers in this readathon update. 

So, this book is long but incredibly satisfying, and I am still enjoying every page. The focus on this middle section has been on the court case surrounding the Zamindari Act, which hopes to remove vast land ownership from landowners and give it to their tenants, and the human face of this, which is represented by Rasheed, Maan Kapoor's Urdu teacher whose father is a landowner in a tiny village called Debaria, out in the sticks. Maan, who is the son of Mahesh Kapoor, the Home Minister and lover of musician/courtesan Saeeda Bai, is a character I am now beginning to see the point of: previously he has been chasing his family strife to no particular narrative end, but now it is clear that his relationship with Rasheed and Saeeda Bai is crucial to the Zamindari narrative of the book. He's deeply flawed still but changing, and I've enjoyed the time spent with both him, Rasheed and Rasheed's family over the last 300 or so pages. As Sam says in her readathon update, the Zamindari resolution is a little anti-climatic when it finally comes, but the characters seem to feel this also, so maybe Seth is making a comment on the nature of both the hype and resolution of great social change.

Still though, the Mehras, the Kapoor and the Chatterjis interest me most, and I enjoy the personal relationships between them. In fact, I find most of them wholly charming, and look forward to finding our how all their predicaments resolve as I move into the final third of the book. I don't like Haresh Khanna, Lata's most likely marriageable prospect at present, though, despite how keen Mrs Mehra is on him. I agree mostly with Lata: he's flashy and distracted, and who would want to marry someone who is openly in love with someone else, even if the object of his affection is Sikh rather than Hindu, which means their love can never be fulfilled? I hope for better for Lata than that. It is interesting though how caste can be discussed in relation to Haresh - he is Khatri, which means he is a suitable prospect for Lata, but he isn't afraid to deal with the stinky and disgusting leather preparation processes of his shoe-making business, which, being traditionally lower caste/untouchable tasks, freaks everyone out. He seems a bit of an anomaly, and I'm not sure if that's because he's a bit progressive in some ways, or if he's a little nebulous in himself, and a little immature. I like Kabir, the unsuitable boy we met in the first third, more and more though, which is a very good bit of subversion on Seth's part.

There have been some horrible parts too though: there is an instance of child abuse that I found so chilling that I had to put the book down for a day or two as it made me nauseous and cold. Also, the tragedy at Pul Mela was just awful, as was the death at the student protest, which I've just passed (apologies for my vagueness, but I don't want to give everything away. Those who've read it will know exactly what I mean), but the result of this is that this book presents a very realist portrait of the highs and lows of a society over time. Also, the Pul Mela tragedy shakes the faith of the spiritually-minded Dipanker Chatterji, and I've very keen to see what this means for his character development.

Seth's writing is still gorgeous and so accessible yet illustrative, and so consistent thus far over 800 pages, that my mind slightly boggles. He is a great writer. I found this passage, for instance, stunning:

'It was not unpleasant to be ploughing at this time of day. It was cool, and walking ankle-deep in cool water and mud behind a pair of well-trained and obedient bullocks (Kachheru had trained this pair himself) felt fine. He rarely needed to use his stick; unlike many peasants, he did not enjoy using it at all. The pair responded to his repertory of calls, moving anti-clockwise in intersecting circuits around the field, as close to the edge as possible, drawing the plough slowly behind them. Kachheru continued to sing to himself, interrupting his bhajan with 'wo! wo!' or 'taka taka' or other commands, and then picked up the tune not from where he left off but from where he would have been had he never stopped singing. After the whole of the first field was covered in furrows - a field twice as large as the one he farmed for himself - he was sweating with exertion. The sun had now risen about fifteen degrees in the sky, and it was becoming warm. He let the bullocks rest, and went around the untouched corners of the field, digging up the earth with his spade.'

I find Seth's way of writing, completely immersive: for the length of this paragraph, I'm tilling a field with Kachheru behind some well-behaved bullocks. I know how early it is, I know how warm I am at different times, and I am in India in the 1950s. This feeling I get from large sections of this book is like the one you get after eating a hearty, satisfying meal that you know is doing you good.

So, I like it a lot, and I'm excited for the remaining 500 (!) pages. :)

Here's what the other readathon participants say:

Sam at Tiny Library
JoV's Book Pyramid
 

Title: 'A Suitable Boy'

Author: Vikram Seth

Publisher: Phoenix House

Date: 1993

Format: Hardback, 1349 pages, and my copy is a library book.







Review: Anna Karenina (2012)

So, I went to see 'Anna Karenina' at the cinema last week with rather low hopes, as the reviews and book blogger chat hadn't been good. But, you know, must go and see for ones self...

Let's say, I was disappointed. Really disappointed. 

First of all, why all the trickery? If you haven't seen it, the set-up of the first half, in particular, was stage set, with movable set walls and scenes in different parts of the city only separated by screens and movable props. I found it very difficult to forget I was watching a film and it very much distracted me from the story. What's wrong with halls and pavements for scenes of action? They work for everyone else, after all. I imagine the set-up is meant to convey the falseness of the social constructs of the contemporary era, in contrast to Anna's vividly beating heart,  but to me it smacked of insecurity, like 'it wasn't meant to be better, it was meant to be different' or something. I imagine it's quite exposing to try and tell a story well and have the emotional impact of it fall flat, so maybe they were self-sabotaging.

I also felt the story presented a too-modern take on the situation, as Anna was overtly applauded for following her heart and society was presented as very mean indeed for not letting her play with them afterwards. Really, she should be a tragic, dangerous figure who destroys her husband, children and lover, before destroying herself, to say nothing of the injuries that she felt she would have done God and her eternal soul. Karenin speaks of this, but Anna does not, and Karenin's moralising is presented like nagging, not as a voice of the church and the contemporary moral structure.  In this film adaptation, she is just sad because she can't have a divorce when she wants one and no-one will sit at her table.  I know they need to sell tickets, but better that they'd had a little faith in their audience rather than dumbing it down into nothingness. Also, I found the jealousy unconvincing and her suicide anti-climatic (and how can that even be?)
 
The main flaw for me, the culmination of these various things, is that this film felt like a classic case of style over substance  -  at one point I found myself admiring the dresses, and I wonder, is that really what my mind should be on whilst watching a dramatisation of what is really, the novel of novels? There was no foreboding, no latent, concealed unhappiness.  Où est la mélancolie? one might wonder, or где меланхолии? (Thanks Google Translate.) The beginning practically bounced along with life, contentment and industry, but everyone knows that happy, fulfilled people are not adulterers. Oblonsky was not 'opposite' enough, either, to fully demonstrate the gender hypocrisy, and Dolly was almost farcical in her distress, which is bizarre as Kelly MacDonald is normally such a safe bet.

The acting and characterisation were so weak also: Vronsky was a cream puff with little discernible personality, Keira/Anna was nervy and inconsistent, and Oblonsky was a very, very British (!) blustering fool. I would not leave anyone for any of them, as they were not real people. The brightest acting spot was Karenin, played quietly and steadily by Jude Law.

I was so disappointed by this film, which really has very little to do with Tolstoy or his story-telling, past the names, main plot points and places. 

Sob. 

(I watched the 1985 TV version, with Jacqueline Bisset and Superman (look!), the other day, and that I found wholly engaging and a version I would recommend. Channel 4 in the UK also did an adaptation in 2000 with Helen McCrory which I remember being really good too. )







'Frenchman's Creek' by Daphne du Maurier

I read Daphne du Maurier's 'Frenchman's Creek' ages ago, kinda forgot about it, and then thought of it the other day and was like 'wow, that was such an enjoyable book!'

So, this is not a review; rather, it is the dregs of my memory of a holiday read that taught me a few important life lessons, which are as follows:

•  Every girls needs, at the low points in her life, a French philosopher-pirate. 

•  If you're going to be stuck in Cornwall with several small children, without husband or company, don't waste the little free time you have tidying up after everyone and watching rubbish reality TV. Instead, use your imagination to write a story where you are a wild, spirited and beautiful aristocratic rebel who flies in the face of convention and runs off to sea to have androgynous adventures with the afore-mentioned French philosopher-pirate. Anything else would be a waste.

•  Daphne du Maurier is an insurmountable goddess and we would all do well to emulate her.

ends







Peirene Press 'Sea of Ink' Event

Yesterday I reviewed 'Sea of Ink' by Richard Weihe, a book kindly sent to me by Peirene Press. Even more kindly, they invited me to an event on Wednesday to promote the book, so I thought I'd write a small run-down of that too.

So, on Wednesday evening, my friend Abi and I went to the University of London's Germanic and Romance Studies Department, in the University's Library, to meet a beautifully select group of Peirene staff and supporters, the book's author, University representatives, representatives from the Swiss Embassy (!) and a few other book bloggers and general fans like me.

We mingled and drank wine provided by the Swiss Embassy - the first time the Swiss Embassy has bought me a drink, to the best of my recollection - and I had a lovely time chatting to Meike, Peirene's publisher, and Maddy, the Marketing Director, and it's clear that a whole lot of love, sweat and passion goes into producing each book from this small but talented team.

We were then treated to some dramatic readings of excerpts from the book  by actor Adam Venus, which author Richard Weihe went on to say was the first time he'd ever heard the English translation of his book read out loud. This was followed by Fabian Künzli, a young Swiss composer, responding musically to Adam Venus' readings of the text on the clarinet. Now, I don't know about you, but people do not respond musically often enough to things in my daily life, so I was really quite fascinated by the tender skill by which he played two pieces, 'The Lotus', an improvisation, and 'Petite Fleur', a Sidney Bechet jazz piece, in response to the text. Even to my limited musical mind, the music echoed the sentiments of the readings and illuminated the audience further about the mood and ambience of the work. 

You can actually hear it here, plus an excerpt of Adam Venus reading, Meike Ziervogel's discussion of the book and Richard Weihe discussing his inspiration and several key scenes from the book:

Questions were then taken from the audience, the most interesting of which was probably to do with the sympathetic qualities of the book's main character, Bada Shanren, or not, as the questioner saw it. After some thought, Richard and Meike came to the conclusion that this was never something that Richard thought of whilst writing the story - he just told the story - and postulated that needing a character to be sympathetic to connect to the story is a very 'Anglo-Saxon' thing. I'm not sure of my thoughts on this (are you?) but it was a fascinating thing to contemplate over a glass of wine in a beautiful book-filled room (contact the Research Librarian to find out about hiring it) on a warm and sunny Wednesday night.

Thanks again to Peirene Press for the invitation and see here for their list of upcoming events.







'Sea of Ink' by Richard Weihe

A lovely surprise popped through my letter box a few days ago: 'Sea of Ink' by Richard Weihe from the lovely people at Peirene (pronouced 'Pie-ree-nee') Press.

'Sea of Ink' is the first English translation of 'Meer der Tusche' which was published in Switzerland in 2005 and won the Prix des Auditeurs de la Radio Suisse Romande in the same year, and is about Bada Shanren, a 17th century Chinese painter who starts life as a member of the aristocracy, but goes on to take many guises (and different names!) whilst forging his own path through the creative and contemporary world. He becomes, to name a few, a monk, a madman, a father and a husband, so this book gives you a pretty thorough account of life at the time, although most of it is fiction as you can imagine that 17th century Chinese non-governmental sources are few and far between... Structurally, it is 51 short chapters arranged as a 118 page novella, the idea being across the Peirene range that you can read these little gems in an evening, or the same amount of time you might use to watch a film.

Rather than film time, it took me a bath and a train journey to delve through to the end, and a very calming and enjoyable read it was too.  I don't know if it's because Bada Shanren is a fairly serene figure or because the Chinese landscape is so poetically evoked, but I found this book to be a profound quiet spot in two quite busy days. The language is lovely, the tale is simply told and I loved that Weihe imagined the process of Bada Shanren painting his most famous pictures (I've included some below) and included the pictures also, so you can read the process of Bada Shanren painting his most famous pictures whilst tracing the lines with your eyes on the opposite page. The novella-length feature that is common to the whole Peirene series is inspired - what a nice feeling to zip quietly through a lovely book in two hours, a small interlude in the midst of my mammoth, if wildly satisfying 'A Suitable Boy' Readathon which is going to take me at least a month more yet :)

My only slight criticism might be to do with the translation - some of the sentences feel too short to let the mood really flow - but in large part it's excellent; the poetic eloquence of the story was conveyed very well by the translator, which after all is the most important thing.

As a side thing, it was a real novelty for me to pick up a book and not to have my attention grabbed immediately by the fellow author boosters and recommendations that normally wave from the cover and chatter through the first few pages, as if buying/borrowing a book wasn't even to imply interest and that we might still need convincing. I found it very refreshing to see a book and feel that the publishers had enough confidence in it to leave this off and say, yes, this book is good enough and brave enough to stand on its own. The cover is gorgeous too - taking the sum of its parts, it's a really lovely thing.

This book is actually one of the thematically linked trio of books that Peirene are publishing in 2012 - the others are 'The Murder of Halland' by Pia Juul and 'The Brothers' by Asko Sahlberg, comprising the 'Small Epics' series; 2011's series was 'Male Dilemma' and 2010's 'Female Voice'. All are European novels in translation, and most (if not all) were launched with a variety of literary salons and elegant evenings with the author attached, so Peirene seems to provide a very sophisticated and total experience. I'm excited. I actually own one of the books from the 'Female Voice' series although I have yet to read it, but I think I'll be bumping it up the series so I get to it soon. 

I thoroughly recommend this lovely, poetic book and actually attended a Peirene event last night where I met the author and saw someone respond to the text via the medium of clarinet (!), so check back tomorrow for my write-up of that! 

Title: Sea of Ink
Author: Richard Weihe
Publisher: Peirene Press
Date: September 2012
Format: Paperback, 118 pages, and it was a happily received ARC.

  





'Tolstoy: A Russian Life' by Rosamund Bartlett

'Tolstoy: A Russian Life' by Rosamund Bartlett was a Christmas present of mine that had been sitting around my home since January, looking so rich and informative that I kept passing it over for easier-looking books, probably because my job was requiring so much research of a similar ilk from me at the time. I'm glad I left it until I had some mental-room for it, as this book is very involving and hugely informative, if requiring of a little concentration to read all the way through.

I found Bartlett's writing both very clear and very illustrative of the Russian context, Tolstoy's friends, family and contemporaries, and of the great man himself. The narrative line was also very clear, making sense of Tolstoy's legendarily haphazard, passion-driven life, and it wasn't too difficult to keep track of who's who and how they relate to everyone else.

The most engaging parts for me were the sections in which he was writing Anna Karenina and War and Peace, partly because they're the works of his I know best, and also because Anna Karenina, in particular, gets to the heart of how Tolstoy viewed women and their contemporary role. He was a complicated chap, let's say. I was also thrilled to learnt that Tolstoy made huge, impressive efforts to build and reform educational practices for Russia's serf population, the vast majority of whom were illiterate, and he personally recorded and distributed some of the first statistical information on the living conditions of Russian peasants that was ever published. Of course, his dramatic shedding of possessions at the end of his life is well-known, but I was surprised to find out how early he began on this path, how he struggled and rebelled against the Russian Orthodox church because of it, and how 'Tolstoyans' were acknowledged throughout Russia, Europe and the US as proponents and followers of his neo-religious teachings. I was fascinated by the fact that his social and religious activism was largely suppressed and forgotten until Glasnost allowed its revival and acknowledgement over the last few decades.

As is acknowledged throughout this book, he was a paradoxical man who in many ways seemed to inhabit several lives at once, personifying Russia to an extraordinary degree. In fact, my main thoughts on this book post-read are two-fold: firstly, that Bartlett's achievement is quite momentous, considering the vast depth and breadth of the information to consider, and, secondly, that Tolstoy was rather a difficult man.

It struck me some way through this book that Tolstoy's character and idiosyncrasies bear a  striking resemblance to Charles Dickens's; in particular, his huge energy, socialist reformist missions and sadly, his unkindness to his wife. Both also neglected their families in favour of looking after the fortunes of the country at large, worrying about other people's families and children rather than their own. They could also both be remarkably unfeeling: for instance, Tolstoy's wife Sonya gave birth to 7 children AFTER telling Tolstoy that she'd had enough (by that point I think she'd had 5) (!!) as he refused to allow her an opinion on the subject; Dickens's domestic flaws are well-known enough for me not to have to go into them here. Both, I think it would be fair to say, were essential men for their time, but people you wanted to admire from afar, rather than live close to.

The failing of this book is the dryness of the subject which meant that, at times, it required quite a lot of motivation to keep reading; however, it is made clear that this is Tolstoy's failing, rather than Bartlett's:

'It is no wonder that Tolstoy saw himself in Rousseau [another comparison!], who had also lost his mother at a young age, and followed a number of different paths in his life before finding his metier. Both figures are united by a soaring genius, overweening vanity, a dogged, noble but often misguided sincerity, and a lamentable lack of a sense of humour, the latter being the single thing which sometimes makes the study of Tolstoy's life and works slightly hard-going.' (p76)

 So, the things to glean from this quote are that Tolstoy lacked a sense of humour, hence the dryness, and great male writers and philosophers often have several qualities in common, which I find simultaneously fascinating and depressing.

A good book, but one primarily for dedicated Tolstoy fans.

Title: Tolstoy: A Russian Life
Author: Rosamund Bartlett
Publisher: Profile Books
Date: 2011
Format: Paperback, 454 pages, plus notes and an index, and it was a gift.







'The Sisters Brothers' by Patrick deWitt

'The Sisters Brothers' by Patrick deWitt will now forever make me think of the tiny island of Sipan, a short ferry ride off the coast of Dubrovnik, Croatia, as I read the majority of this book in the two days we were there, back in June this year (I've written previously about an art gallery in Split from the same holiday), lazing happily in the sun. Croatia is not the most intuitive partner for this book, however, seeing as it is actually set in the US during the 1850s Gold Rush. It's also really good.

The story is that Eli and Charlie, the two Sisters brothers of the title, are hitmen on the trail of notorious prospector Hermann Kermit Warm (what a name!) through California, under the orders of the mercurial and untrustworthy Commodore. It's a classic Don Quixote/Odyssey type caper, with the inner journey at odds with the outer one and a whole load of unusual, charming and downright threatening characters  who you don't know whether to trust from one moment to the next. Eli is our narrator, and we find him increasingly sickened and disillusioned with the life he leads and the work that he does.

The humour of this book as a black as a pit of tar and in moments it's incredibly surreal and bemusing, but I felt that it veritably pulsed with verve and life. It's like not much else I've ever read either, which either means its rather original, or that my reading tastes have become too limited. Either way, this book was a refreshing break during my refreshing break, and I'd wholeheartedly recommend it.

Not that it's light reading though. The style is realist-surrealist-historical maybe (?), in that it has a historical setting, but is realist in a very modern way, whilst using the vernacular appropriate for the time, and is quite surreal, if that makes sense? Maybe if the Coen Brothers did a funny, free-wheeling, literary Western with a lot of dark humour, it might be a bit like this. There are a few particular instances of tooth-ache or horse illness or old crones casting spells that are downright disgusting, described with almost unbearable realist gore, that are also hugely compelling and memorable in a way that I almost wish they weren't, whilst the characters are complexly drawn and completely of their time. You just feel so bad for Eli, and confused about everyone else. I would never expect to find a noir Western so emotionally involving or so wholly creepy.

'Charlie's face had grown hard. 'This isn't your cabin, is it?'

At this she stiffened, and did not look to be breathing. She pulled back her rags, and in the firelight and lamplight I saw that she had almost no hair on her head, only white tufts here and there, and her skull was dented, appearing soft in places, pushed in like a piece of old fruit. 'Every heart has a tone,' she said to Charlie, 'just as every bell has one. Your heart's tone is most oppressive to hear, young man. It is hurtful to my ears, and your eyes hurt my eyes to look at them.'

A long silence followed with Charlie and the old witch simply staring at each other. I could not, from either of their expressions, understand what they were thinking. Eventually the woman rewrapped her skull and resumed her work, and Charlie lay down on the floor. I did not climb onto the bed, but lay down beside him, because I was frightened by the woman and thought it safest for us to sleep close together. I was so weak that despite my uneasiness I soon fell away into a dream state wherein I envisaged the room just as it was, thought I was standing by, watching my own sleeping body.'

This is a fab book and I kinda regret taking so long to read it after receiving it from the More4 TV Book Club at the beginning of the year. Here's Patrick deWitt himself talking about it to round things off, plus an excerpt from the show: 

Title: The Sisters Brothers

Author: Patrick deWitt

Publisher: Granta Books

Date: 2011

Format: Paperback, 325 pages, and I was sent it by Cactus TV/More4 TV Book Club.   





'A Suitable Boy' Readathon, No. 2

So, I'm a little behind on where I should be at this point in the 'A Suitable Boy' readathon (I've read 265 pages of the target 495) but I thought I'd sum up anyway at this one month point as I'm far enough through to have a good grasp on what it's about. There maybe a few spoilers in this review, FYI.

This book is a sweeping saga in the finest tradition, which is expressed not only in its length and revered reputation, but also in the fact that a wholly necessary set of four family trees sits at the beginning of the book to give you hope of keeping track of who everyone is. 

The book, as far as I've read anyway, centres around Lata Mehra, a Brahmpur student who is of marriageable age, which means her mother, the classic busybody martyr Mrs Rupa Mehra, is on a quest for find her that elusive 'suitable boy' of the title. Lata's not so keen and has other ideas anyway, which so far have included Kabir Durrani, a unacceptable Muslim boy who her mother packs her off to Calcutta to keep her from seeing. This central theme of suitable marriage is then extended out using vast tentacles through the book to reach all corners of the Mehra's extended family and circle of acquaintances: each section centres on a different branch of the family, or a different protagonist. Some of the marriages are presented as 'suitable', some are not; the epic scope of this novel seems to include types of metaphorical marriage in the definition, such as work relations, political relationships and the living 'marriage' of different religious and caste types that all seem to meet and clash in Brahmpur. I have a feeling that the conclusion we will come to is that no 'marriage' is perfect and that people must just learn to live together as best they can considering their circumstances, but there are a fair few pages to go (a meagre 1084) before we come to that point!

This novel is beautifully atmospheric and hugely evocative of India, which acts as both the platform and as an integral character of the novel. The characters are wonderfully drawn - Lata and Mahati are particular favourites of mine already, as is cheeky Maan - and I am already so involved with the majority of them and their own particular predicaments.

I'm enjoying it slightly less generally when it moves from the personal, e.g. Lata and the families, to the political: I am currently smack bang in the middle of the repercussions of the Misri Mandi riot, and although I can see how their discussion is integral to expressing the religious and caste tensions inherent in the story, I'm finding the characters and situations associated with this slightly less compelling. The writing throughout is excellent though - it's impressive how the quality is so consistent when there's just so much of it - and I feel in very safe hands. The pacing is also much quicker than you might expect for a novel of this size.

So, onwards! I'll report back next month, by which time I'll hopefully be around page 947... :)

Thoughts thus far from other Readathon participants:

Tiny Library

JoV's Book Pyramid

(I'll add the others as they publish)

Title: 'A Suitable Boy'

Author: Vikram Seth

Publisher: Phoenix House

Date: 1993

Format: Hardback, 1349 pages, and my copy is a library book.







'A Suitable Boy' Readathon, No. 1

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm participating in a readathon of Vikram Seth's Indian masterpiece, 'A Suitable Boy', with Sam at Tiny Library, JoV at Book Pyramid and many others, and I'm excited!

If anyone else wants to join, the plan is to read to part 7.46 by the end of Aug, part 13.38 by the end of Sept and to the end by the end of October. I'm currently at 1.7, so need to do some serious reading to catch up over the next few weeks. It is really good so far though, so that will be a pleasure, I think.

As is easy to believe if you've ever seen a physical copy of this book, it is a front-runner for the longest book ever published in a single volume, at 1349 pages. Lols. 

I picked my copy up from the library last week and had to keep shifting my bag on my shoulder with the weight of the book combined with all my usual paraphernalia. This might not be one for carting pretentiously around my usual cafes; more one for balancing on the edge of a sofa or knee for long, cosy stretches...

Regular sized from the front...

...and two inches thick from the side!







'Everything is Illuminated' by Jonathan Safran Foer

My thoughts on 'Everything is Illuminated' can be summed up quite neatly by Francine Prose, whose book I reviewed the other day:

'To be truthful, some writers stop you dead in your tracks by making you see your own work in the most unflattering light. Each of us will meet a different harbinger of personal failure, some innocent genius chosen by us for reasons having to do with what we see as our own inadequacies.'

So there. This book made me feel so insignificant and talentless that I properly downed tools for a couple of days and started to wonder whether I have been completely wasting my time. I was quite overwhelmed by it because it is MIGHTY and ambitious and clever and funny, and made me feel quite stupid, actually, which is probably why it's taken me an age to get around to writing about it. In fact, I couldn't stop thinking about my age and the fact that I am already two years older than Safran Foer when this was published. He was 25.

The story is lead by the narrative of a young Jewish-American, handily called Jonathan Safran Foer, and his journey back to the Ukraine to explore his familial roots there and try and find the women who saved his grandfather life when his shtetl was destroyed by the Nazis in WWII. He is accompanied on his journey by Alexander Perchov, his Ukrainian translator, Alex's father, also called Alex, and a mangy, flatulent dog called Sammy Davis Jnr Jnr.

The narrative takes multiple strands: 

1) Sections from Jonathan Safran Foer's (the character) own novel-in-progress, about past members of his family who lived in the Ukrainian shtetl a long time ago;

2) Narration from Alexander Perchov, the translator, who provides a running commentary on Jonathan Safran Foer's time in the Ukraine, in his own special brand of English;

3) Letters between Alexander and Jonathan after the event, which work well to tie all the strands together.

None of this of course describes the emotional impact of the story, but it does start to give an illustration of the meta-fictional devices that Safran Foer uses to heighten and give massive energy to his work. The writing is nimble and hilarious, and cut through with a type of knowing literary legacy that allows him to make sense of the insensible, I guess, in a very original way. I found it thrilling and fresh, but at the same time I can see how it would make this book an easy target for haters of this kind of meta-fictional audacity.

I'm not saying it is a perfect book. Alexander Perchov comes across, rather unflatteringly, as a bit 'Borat', with his unique English and wild proclamations (my husband actually dumped it after a page, called it nonsense), and preoccupation with sex and masturbation that runs through the book smacks a little of adolescent male given free rein.

However, the positive outweighed the negative for me on a larger scale than I can measure. It was so funny and then so heart-breakingly sad that I felt the tangible weight of all the horrific things that have happened to billions of people in the recent past, and specifically the unspeakable tragedy of the Holocaust, which is conveyed in this book. I loved also how the generations melded together in Jonathan's stories of the shtetl - there were several moments where I didn't know who we were talking about, or when, as it was so widely and sadly applicable  - and I felt that it gave a good conveyance of locality in the Ukraine. It and him remind me, funnily enough, of Tea Obreht and 'The Tiger's Wife', as they are both dazzling wunderkinds ('The Tiger's Wife' was published when Obreht was 26) who run along similar thematic lines: exploration through Eastern Europe to find specific family members or unearth family secrets, complimented by a magical realist historical narrative thread, with all parts coming together at the end. The impact and aftermath of war also features heavily in both, but that's unsurprising considering that there are few families you could go back through without encountering conflict, particularly in Eastern Europe, where both writers can trace direct links back to.


I feel a bit like something special was happening to me after reading this book and I'm intensely aware that I'm struggling to convey that in this review. I saw a review on Amazon which is basically 'THIS WAS AMAZING, OH MY GOD, I CAN'T TALK ABOUT IT', which echoes my thoughts well. Just read this book, if you haven't. I'll read it throughout my life I imagine, but maybe only when my own work is going well.


Title: Everything is Illuminated
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Publisher: Perennial, and imprint of HarperCollins
Date: 2002
Format: Paperback, 276 pages, and it was very kindly given to me by Nicole at Book Lush.