Month: January 2011

January round up and feb plans

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Well that flew by doesn’t seem five minutes since new years day and here I am at the last day of the month well ,I ve read a lot of Italian novels this month as planned .so here is what I read this month

  1. 2666 by Roberto Bolano (Chile)
  2. Hare with amber eyes by Edmund du Waal (uk)
  3. Norwegian wood by Haruki Murakami (Japan)
  4. Khirbet Khizeh by s. Yihzar (Israeli)
  5. If on a winter’s night a traveller by Italo Calvino (Italy)
  6. The Luneberg variation by Paulo Mauersig (italy)
  7. The leopard by Giuseppe Di Thomas (Italy)
  8. Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco (Italy)
  9. The tartar steppe by Dino Buzzati (Italy)
  10. The fugitive by Massimo Carlotto (Italy)
  11. A song for carrying water ,collected Somalia tales (Somalia)
  12. My dead dad was in ZZ  top by Jon Claser(us)

Twelve books was three better than Last January and enough to keep me on track ,need to catch up on reviews but time has got best of me this weekend .

Favourites –

2666 & if on a winter night a traveller – two modern great that I d been scared of reading but enjoyed both for different reasons both still have me thinking 2666 in particular as I struggle to capture what I felt for the book .

February plans –

The country of focus this month is South africa ,I plan to tackle some more african books this month as well and another Bolano and Murakami ,Plus planning for a special announcement that will come tomorrow and be planned over next month ready for March .

What did you read last Month ?

Italian food

~ winstonsdad ~ 8 Comments

I thought I do a small post on the Italian food ,I  Love Italian food ,I grew up going every sunday to an Italian coffee and ice cream shop ,choose different mixes of ice cream the coffee and nut ones were nu favourites every weekend and when I got a bit older a espresso or a real lemonade .I then discover fresh pasta ,I have a pasta maker that my wife got me but have yet to try my making my own pasta ,I hope too at some point this year .I do make ragu sauce of sorts ,I was going to make it and photo it ,but this week there is just me here and it would be a waste of food but I ll give you my recipe of sorts –

  1. chop an onion in to small pieces ,place a large sauce pan on hob to middle heat add olive oil add onions and a glove of garlic in there crushed or finely chopped and a pack of minced lamb .fry til mince brown and onions nice and soft .at this point add some very finely chopped carrot .
  2. add 500 ml of lamb stock ,a jar of pulped tomatoes and a glass of very good red wine (as you can drink the rest as you cook )
  3. at this point you can add dried Italian herbs or leave it and add fresh herb a little later .now turn  heat right down or as I do place in slow cooker and leave for a good hour till the liquid has reduced to a thick sauce .
  4. serve with lingue pasta .very tasty .

Hope you enjoy it is fairly simple and tastes great,part of Italian reading week .

The Leopard by Tomasi Di Lampedusa

~ winstonsdad ~ 37 Comments

This is Probably the most well known Italian classic .It is a set text in Italian school I was told by Hersilla press the new Italian crime press .Tomasi  was the 11th prince of Lampedusa this was his only novel and was published after his death in the late fifties this was also made into a film by Visconti starring Burt Lancaster he loved the book and was dubbed into Italian for his performance as the Prince .

The book is based in Scilly in the YEAR 1860 and follows a real event and some real people mixed with fiction characters .The main character is the prince of salina ,he is faced with a huge change in his life as Garibaldi red shirts are en route to Scilly to bring it into the Italian unification movement as Giuseppe Garibaldi fought to topple the feudal system that was still part of Italy at the time .So we find a man facing a uncertain values in regards his place in society  but also a changing society round him .The course of the book follows the prince journey dealing with this travelling round the island meeting his mistress and his good friend Father Pirrone that gives him some wonderful advice with what to do about his future .

The old man looked at him with amazement ,he had wanted to know if the prince of Salina was satisfied or not with the latest changes ,and the other was talking to him about aphrodisiacs and light for Golgotha .all that reading driven him off his head poor man .

a section from chapter with Father Pirrone and the Prince talking .

The book has a highly personnel feel given Tomasi family history been from a royal family parts of this story must relate to his own ,Also I thing there is some connection to modern Italy at the time it was written ,just after the end of the second world war ,like the Italy of the 1860’s it was in a state of flux .The leopard is part of Tomasi own coat of arms ,The volume I have is the new Vintage edition that includes some separate pieces that were found after the book was published these include sonnets written by Don Fabrizio the prince these add to the book I like the fact that they haven’t been thrown in to the original text ,but the fact that Tomasi had written them and left them to maybe add at some point is wonderful .The book was originally meant to be an Italian version of Joyce’s Ulysses and set over a day but instead it is slices of time over the course of 1860’s .Now I can watch the film it was on over christmas but I left it as I want to read the book .May I also point out at no point was the Garibaldi biscuit mentioned I do wonder how his name got attached to this biscuit .This book was recently picked by our deputy prime minister Nick Clegg as his desert Island book .after reading I can see why it is a wonderfully written book that would stand numerous rereading .

Have you read this book ?

The luneberg variation by Paolo Maurensig

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source – own copy from inside books thanks

Paulo Maurensig is an Italian writer this was his debut novel published just after he turned fifty.This is my second Italian week read

The Luneburg variation is book about chess ,secrets and world war two ,it is set in a house where a dead body will appear ,it’s about an old man and a younger man ,the chess reflects life in some ways as the books ,unfolds but that is as much as I know on the chess side I play but am not very good ,but the chess is maybe just a framing device for the way the story turns out .Hans Meyer the young man has come to learn from a grand master the older man Tabori ,the men have spent most of there lives studying this game and although different both have a part to play as they narrate the story ,a murder has happen but also this is linked to the past horror of world war two the dead man Dieter Frisch is a german from Munich ,the action happens in Vienna where the old house is

They say that chess was born in blood shed .

Legend has it that when the game was first presented to the court ,the sultan decide to reward the obscure inventor by granting any wish he might have .The recompense requested seemed modest : the quantity of wheat that would result from putting a single grain of rice on the first of the boards sixty-four squares then two on second and four on the third and so on ..I ll leave the in and outs for you to find out the book is very short 138 pages in my edition.

The great opening and the impossible task of supplying the wheat by doubling up on every square .

The book remind me of Kafka or maybe Zweig a bit apart from the setting there is something Noir about this book dark secrets and a constant building of tension .The description of the house remind me a bit of the house in citizen Kane ,where Kane dies ,that’s how the book felt like a black and white film ,A great find by my friend Simon at inside books that sent it to me .the book was translated by Jon Rothschild

Winston’s score –

the tension in this film is similar to the tension in the book ,also both are set in Vienna and round similar times .

Have you read any books with chess in ?

IF ON A WINTER’S NIGHT A TRAVELLER BY ITALO CALVINO

~ winstonsdad ~ 27 Comments

Source – my own copy ,

Well book one of Italian week is the modern classic by the Italian Mastero Italo Calvino ,the cuban born Italian writers Marmite book ,this is a book for reviews I ve read whilst blogging is a book that either people love or hate ,well what did I think ?

You are about to begin reading Calvino’s new novel ,If on a winter’s night a traveller .Concentrate dispel every other thought .Let the world around you fade .

wise words from the sage himself .

 

The book is a book that talks ,you may laugh but every other chapter is telling you about how you read the book and what it is to read the book ,this is a unusual to start of with but is witty and a little tongue in cheek ,like my fellow blogger Parish lantern the humour was a real surprise ,the other chapters in between are a thee story of a man in a made up-country  Cimmeria ,this would appear to be italy through Calvino’s eyes ,the is a relationship and some fraud ,but there is also a number of different separate stories on various subject’s .The plot is hard to explain as there really isn’t one this is like a tour of talents like Calvino’s portfolio it him nudging you and going  to you look at this ,the book draws you in to you feel like you were a character written by Calvino .

Listening to someone read aloud is very different to reading in silence .when you read, you can stop or skip sentences :you are the one who sets the pace .When someone else is reading it difficult to make your attention coincide with the tempo of his reading : the voice goes either to fast or slow .

I heard Ben Okri say something similar ,the opening of chapter Four .

Well as you may tell I loved this book ,and my doubts were silly ,I should have known I loved  invisible cities ,I tend to doubt myself with these books that are experimental or off beat novels ,because everyone I ve read I love this brought to mind B S Johnson whose works I loved when I read them .I can see why people don’t like it there is little plot not many names and it is maybe a male book more than a female book .This is translated by the wonderful William Weaver probably the best Italian translator alive .

Winston’s score –


I was going use the leaning tower of Pisa but choose to use my own land mark our twisted spire here in Chesterfield ,If you know how it got there it loses its wonder ,the beauty is in the way it looks and the same is true of If on a winter’s night , analysis it too much and the beauty of the first reading is lost, the feeling of floating on a sea of words  with the good captain Calvino .

 

here we are and off the prince goes ,war and peace post 1

~ winstonsdad ~ 5 Comments

I miss calculate pages but just means last weeks of  reaalong .so what happen in the first 150 pages ,we meet the cast at some parties well that is how it felt there are lot people in this book to get to know ,this remind me of a tv show when you see the cast in the opening titles so you know who they are .Then Prince Andrei set off to were a tearful send off from his family his sister had a touching seen with him then his father gave him advice .The we see the troops (Hussar’s) depart ? I m hook so far ,little to many footnotes but the are helpful and I like the inclusion of the original french as Tolstoy wrote it in the russian version .

WHAT DID YOU LIKE ?

Bloggiesta wrap up and a question

~ winstonsdad ~ 7 Comments

Well my quiet Bloggeista was a success .What I did –

  • updated what I m reading and put all challenge badges up
  • updated blogroll
  • Start working on about me ,want make this perfect this time so another day or two to muse
  • wrote two reviews
  • commented on new blogs

This was quite productive given the time I had ,I also finished a book and read my first bit of war and peace .

Question –

I m not a huge audiobook fan but would like to try one or two anyone any suggestions on the line of what I read anyway or something simply brilliant that you’ve listen too in the past ? All suggestions welcome .

 

THE THINGS I do wrong

~ winstonsdad ~ 17 Comments

THERE is a list of ten things a blogger shouldn’t do well I ve been guilty of most of them ,only one is not copy another blog this is my own blog and I love being different ,I know reading obscure books isn’t going bring me huge blog numbers and I ve come to accept that ,I try and comment on other peoples blogs as much as time allows and now leave meaningful comments most of time ,I also need to stop worrying this is fun and most of the time is I ve meet some great blogger via blogging and to me that is the most important bit the books don’t matter I want know the people behind the books and hope people want know me .this is my reply to word lilly 10 things a blog shouldn’t do

Norwegian wood by Haruki Murakami

~ winstonsdad ~ 16 Comments

Source – Library

I had a girl,or should I say ,she once had me ,

She showed me her room ,isn’t it good ‘Norwegian wood .

the opening of the beatles song that gave the book its title .

This is my first of many Murakami’s this year so I ve decide to scrap the usual bio start of my post for these and at end of year do a port all about the man and what I ve learned through the year of reading his books ,hopefully all of them if time allows .

So Norwegian wood I read a few years ago and loved it is what I call the classic Murakami style ,A young male and two females ,this has cropped up in other Murakami novels this is set in the sixties and told in a series of flashbacks by the Male Toru Wa\ntabe who on a flight remembers his First love Naoko and a wild lover Midori ,we see the loose morals of the sixties young people finding the feet in the world via drink ,casual sex all this is acted out in front of a soundtrack of modern jazz Miles Davies and beatles songs .Toru in his young days is like a moth caught between two lights the bulb like Naoko dependable and always constant and the candle like Midori a flickering siren for the young man .When you throw into the pot of this book a dying father in Midori case you have a tale that boils over and constantly has you wanting to turn over to the next page .for me one scene really touched me in the hospital Mr Kobayashi Midori’s absent father that return from Uruguay ,that is dying and he shares a cucumber with this old man touching and slightly funny at the same time seemed something that you have to be a master writer to pull off .

I m going to eat some cucumber if you don’t mind ,I said to Midori’s father .He didn’t answer I washed three cucumbers in the sink and dribbled a little soy sauce into a dish .then wrapped a cucumber in nori ,dipped it in soy sauce and gobbled it down.

mmm great I said to Midiori’s father .Fresh simple smell like life .Really goo cucumbers .A far more sensible food than Kiwi fruit .

Toru trying to get the dying mr Kobayashi to eat .an important incident in the book I think .

The book is how we deal with the shit life brings you when young you have it all loss death ,despair ,longing ,angst .All this through the older Toru eyes looking back on his youth .In some way this remind me of W somerset Maugham’s of human bondage Toru and Philip from that book seem like similar characters and both have to deal with the attraction to two women .

Winston’s score –


Kevin from wonder year thou a lot younger than Toru deals with a lot of the same things he does in the wonder years ,like a love divide with Winnie and new loves during the series and there is also the fact that the title music for this is a beatles cover

Bloggiesta 2010

~ winstonsdad ~ 6 Comments

well bit late of mark .but got few goal ,

  • update photos
  • update blogroll
  • update about me
  • do some reviews

A simple list I enjoyed last years bloggiesta found some fun blogs .A breif intro I m stu a late thirties male ,dog owner I support people with learning disablities .I love world lit and blog mainly about this .

Khirbet Khizeh by S.Yizhar

~ winstonsdad ~ 10 Comments

SOURCE – REVIEW COPY FROM GRANTA BOOKS ,OUT 30TH JANUARY 2011.

This is considered a modern classic of Hebrew Literature ,written in the dying embers of the Israeli war of independence ,it was an instant bestseller in Israeli we had to wait to 2008 and the american publication and this year the uk publication of a translation .S.Yizhar was a serving officer in the intelligence officer in the Givati brigade one of the six division that fought in the war of independence .He later served in the Israeli parliament Knesset for the Rafi Party .This book was described by David Grossman  .

S.Yizhar gave us ,the Israelis ,the language to speak about war and its price .No one did so with such courage ,such trenchant honesty and such literary genius .

High words of praise from David Grossman .

The book opens a troop are asked to clear a village of its Palestine residents ,this village they find is called Khirbet Kizeh ,this expulsion is told through the eyes of the narrator of the book .Hew and his fellow solders move on into the village and start moving its residents ,angry men and women on out of the village , Yizhar catches this scene of absolute chaos and madness with clear prose and panache ,what could easily been over the top in a less skilled hand the horrific scene is turned into something poetic and thoughtful .The Narrator struggles as the day unfolds ,how his fellow troop of six men go from cheerful guys to dour stern-faced chaps ,although there is no violence the is always a sense that there may be ,as they view the silent war beaten residents of the village leaving their homes ,this is a heartbreaking scene and the Narrator struggles to comprehend the reasons for this   force evacuation and questions why they are doing and did this ,there is a harrowing scenes when they find two older women by the side of the road that are mistreated by the men in the heat of the moment .

Long live Hebrew Khizeh ! who then ,would ever imagine that once there had been some Khribet Khizeh that we emptied out and took for ourselves ,we came ,we shot ,we burned ,we blew up ,expelled ,drove out and sent into exile .

what in god’s name were we doing in this place .

The narrator questioning his actions after the expulsion of the village .

The Grossman quote is fitting ,this book is like the opposite side of his” to the end of the land” ,this is like the son’s experiences if the story was set fifty years earlier ,war is war the same now as it was 1949 .This book is a set text in Israeli schools and is considered the first true account of the war of independence from the hebrew point of view . Yizhar’s epic Days of Ziklag is probably due a translation into english this 1200 page epic is the follow on to the wonderful novel also about the war the experience is expanded out to seven days ,I hope one day it is I will for one be front of the cue for it .

Winston’s score –


The return of Winston’s score is because I love the Israeli dog the Canaan ,like this book and its narrator  it is a survivor  and symbol of Israeli .

winstons round up

~ winstonsdad ~ 4 Comments

A quick round of some things going on I ve seen around web and on twitter and a e-mail I was sent about a new translation .

New Julio Cortazar prose piece –I received a e-mail from Guernica magazines poetry editor telling me about Anne Maclean’s new Julio Cortazar translation of Prose from the observatory ,A extract is on Guernica here ,well worth a look the book is published later this year on archipelago  books in june .

Prize news –The new panel for this years Independent foreign fiction prize 2011 the are .

The judges for this year’s prize are:

  • Harriett Gilbert, writer, academic and broadcaster
  • Author, M J Hyland
  • Catriona Kelly, writer and Professor of Russian at the University of Oxford
  • Novelist and reviewer, Neel Mukherjee
  • Boyd Tonkin, Literary Editor of theIndependent

A diverse list of Judges my only Gripe with the prize is it name a little to long maybe a catchy replacement needed  and fact it needs a high-profile with the reading public  this year booktrust are running it hope they promote it more than in past years it need it long list out in march I will be sure to list this is my favourite prize .

Next week sees the three percent long list for best translated book award ,the american cousin to our Independent prize on 27th I will post the long list when I find it out and link to any books I ve reviewed .

Google word search – Is google Ngram view that will graph a words popularity from 1860 til now on a graph ,this uses the 6 million books google have scanned and can use fiction and non fiction for your search have fun .

Billiards at half past nine by Heinrich Boll

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source – Library

Heinrich Boil was probably the best post war german writer ,he won the Nobel prize in 1972 .When I lived in germany in early nineties he was vert well known and on my return to the uk I read a couple of his books ,But late last year when I ordered from library found there wasn’t much in stock so choose this probably his best known book in germany .

Billiards at half nine is About a businessman Robert Fahmel  in Koln he is architect ,his secretary tells us about him and his habits ,but we are also told about his families history back to the 19th century a rich history ,We learn that Robert was opposed to the Nazis during the war and also about a conflict the host of buffalos and host of the lambs this is to all do with the church but in a greater sense harks back to the war and the battle of Nazism and pacifism during the war ,we also visit the battle of Kiev during the war .

Robert was not yet two and Otto not yet born ; I was on leave and for a long while had clearly known what I had once vaguely sensed ;that irony was inadequate and always would be inadequate ,that it was inly narcotic for the privileged, and I ought to have done what Johanna did ; I ought to have spoken to the boy ,in my captains’ uniform ,but I merely listened to him as he went on reciting .

Robert father in a flashback  in 1917 on return to home from fighting on-line in world war one .

I found this a tough little book to work through I felt as thou a secom=nd reading would help if I see a cheap copy I will pick it up it has a real depth and complex plot that has a lot of allusions to world war to but in some ways the struggle of religion in germany over history .Boll is a wonderful writer I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in german feelings post war its easy to see the main character as a   Heinrich boll he lives in Koln like Boll and is a similar age to Boll .Boll fought in the Wehrmacht in the second world war ,in Russia so the battle of Kiev scenes I would feel are Boll’s own experiences .The copy I had from library was a Jupiter edition from 1973 and was translated by Patrick Bowles .

 

The hare with amber eyes by Edmund De Waal

~ winstonsdad ~ 13 Comments

There are occasions when you keep stumbling into a title hearing about here and there and maybe not having a inital spark to read it well this is one such book .In the period Just before christmas I heard Edmund on a radio and interviewed on the book show on sky arts ,and I warmed to this bio ? well it is a bio of the objects in it .Well Edmund De Waal is an English Ceramic artist that was train in Japan and winner of prizes for his ceramics , inherited a family collection of Nettsuke (craved ivory or bone pieces that were used to secure pouches from belts in 17th Japan )   from an uncle that he stayed with whilst he trained in his youth at the Mejiro studio in Tokyo .

So the book opens with Edmund getting these Nettsuke from His uncle Iggie a wonderful man he spent time with whilst training in Japan in his youth .He Knows A little of the 264 Nettsukes history from his uncle but decides to trace where they went and who owned them for the last 140 years from the 1870’s .He discovers the person that brought them a distant relative Charles Ephrussi a rich Jewish banker that lived in Paris .This man was in love with Japanese art that was the Vogue of the time ,Charles enjoyed connecting with people in the world of art and literature Knowing Proust Degas and Renoir .a man who lived comfortably but near the end of his time things were turning against the Jewish people in France ,the Nettsuke then move on to the turn of the century coffee houses society of Vienna This is the grand children of Charles story of vienna the rise of anti semitic feeling but also the blossoming of Vienna pre world war one with people like Freud and Klimt in the background .

In March 1899 , Charles’s generous wedding gift for Viktor and Emmy is carefully grated up and taken from the Avenue d’lena ,leaving the golden carpet ,the empire fauteulis and the Moreaus .It travels across Europe and is delivered to the Palais Ephrussi in Vienna on the corner of the Ringstrasse and the schottengasse .

The Nettsuke leave Charles possession the original owner and travel to Vienna to start a new tale .

the Nettsuke of the title

The book is full of love and insight into being Jewish in Europe at this time which Has been at times hard  the Nettsuke arrive in England Just before the war with Viktor then end up back home so to speak in Japan with Edmund uncle before arriving in his possession .Well what can I say about this book other than you should read it ,I was touch in many ways ,I always wonder what stories objects I ve been given via family have ,my grandfather was an Antique dealer and restorer so I grew up looking and sometimes touching unusual items like these nettsukes in this modern age the wonderment these intrigue items can give is pleasing I have a small craved elephant in ivory and its feel and look priceless objects like this are so rarely made nowadays but as De Waal testifies can over time and place produce wonderful stories . This book has a timeless feel even thou it has just been written which is a real achievement from a first time writer ,It also just won the Costa book prize for Biography ,which it richly deserved .