Month: November 2013

The Boy from Aleppo who painted the war by Sumia Sukkar

~ winstonsdad ~ 3 Comments

the boy from Aleppo who painted the war

The Boy from Aleppo who painted the war by Sumia Sukkar

British fiction (based in Syria )

Source Review copy

Well when I got an E Mail from Maddy who I have met a couple of times saying that the poetry Publisher Eyewear publishing was to publish its first fiction novel I couldn’t say no when I read the blurb on Sumia debut novel .Sumia is a young 21-year-old writer of Syrian – Algerian ancestry ,she grew up in London .

Mama died when I was 11.I miss her .She always told me I should be good and go to university to show people my paintings .I can’t wait to go to university .My classmates say I belong to the special needs class and not university .They are stupid and wrong , says Yasmine .I don’t like meeting new people , so I won’t speak to anyone in class at university .

This passage captures Adams world view so well I feel .

Well I’ve been hoping a novel would appear from the Syrian conflict and this is the first I have come across I know a few have been written in Arabic ,but haven’t yet been translated .The Syrian conflict was all over the British news as it started but has faded away from the headlines ,which is a crying shame as people are still suffering .Through this novel you get an account of the war for the every man of Syria .The novel focus on a family in Aleppo which as many of us that followed the horrors of the conflict was one of the main places hit by the Regime .The family is three brothers one of which is Adam ,he has Aspergers syndrome and it is his story there is also his Older sister Yasmine who is devoted to her younger brother .So as the war rages around them we see the family struggle to eat and get on with every day life ,the neighbours disappear and Adam takes in their cat .Adam seems the war through his Aspergers a detached view free of emotion so we as the reader  have to paint the world he sees into its full horror  .But he does paint the war and he use colours to show how it affects him and his feelings rather like Synesthesia we see the changes each chapter heading  is related to paints and painting .WE see the family try to keep together and the love between a brother and sister ,the lengths she would go to keep her brother safe .

“What’s wrong ?”

“Where’s … where’s …”

“Yasmine ?”

“Yes!…Yes!”

“She’ll be back soon ,just don’t think about it ”

“Khaled I miss Yasmine ”

Adam miss Yasmine when she is taken by a group of soldiers .

This novel captures the Syrian  conflict so well  ,we see the chaos at times ,But also the despair it can cause a family .As Adam  views the war he says nothing wrong boys are on the street ,not knowing they are involved in the fighting .Adam view of the world is like a play with the direction for the actors on how to feel and act out the scenes removed ,we see the world not through a vision of this side or the other or love or hate or pain or grief no Adam looks at the world  like it is a film or a news report thus we as the read through what isn’t said what is in-between the words written ,we  see the true  horrors of the war .Syria need to be in the foreground so we can help the people like Adam and Yasmine .

Have you read a book based in Syria ?

The inflatable Buddha by Andras Kepes

~ winstonsdad ~ 3 Comments

Kepes The Inflatable Buddah_coverW

The inflatable Buddha by Andras Kepes

Hungarian fiction

Original title – Tövispuszta

Translator –   Bernard Adams

Andras Kepes was educate in Europe ,Latin america and the middle east as he grew up .He  the wnet on to  study  to get a  degree in aesthetics  and then studied further in the US .He then he  became from the 1980’s onwards a well known figure on Hungarian tv as an interviewer of figures connected with the arts world  he is like a Hungarian  Melvyn Bragg.He has written a number of books ,this is his first to be translated into English .

He was a great fan Isri , and his unreserved enthusiasm rubbed off on him .This particularly because even in elementary school David had done Isti’s homework for him .It didn’t bother David at all that the teacher gave him a worse mark than Isti. “Comes of being ” Jewish Isti would say patting David’s face ,and they would laugh together .

Even early on David being Jewish was noticed by his friends and what it meant to some .

The inflatable Buddha or as its Hungarian title translates  as thorn bare. It follows the life of three boy growing up ,through the 20th century in Hungary ,as the back cover says an experience that has been more than others have in their entire history .So the story starts when the boys are young in the 1930’s .Pal , Isti and David form a close bond early on and then as they see the war come on as they are an upper class boy working class boy and  Jews as the war appears on the scene they find there lives separate and bonds broken then after he war they drift apart but some how keep in touch eventually all arriving back in the childhood home .Meanwhile the country of their birth is tumbling through tough times we see how the events of the Hungarian uprising of 1956 affect the three now men and there young families ,the tough times after that due soviet crack down .Then how the changes after the fall of communism and the new freedoms and how they effect people .A wonderfully well crafted tale of how Hungary in its own way has been involved with most of the Major events of the 20th century and how it effect three boys that became men ,husband ,fathers  they all at some point left and then returned to their home town  which is own by the Baron of the village  .

Isti had been to Budapest only twice before the wat and now looked in amazement at the destruction wrought on the city , the houses disembowelled ,their  spines of their roofs broken and the bridges which hung crippled and wrecked , into the Danube ,it was as if he saw his own deformed leg everywhere .

The post war world needed to be rebuilt .

Well I read Parallel stories last year which thou narrative is  a more complex take on Hungarian and east European history during the 20th century  ,but this book has the feel of being a more  personal  take on the times  than  the Nadas book was and for me it worked better as a novel about being Hungarian during the 20th century on a personnel level  rather than being viewed as a part of the whole story .The three boys are a good cross-section of Hungarian society and show how some fall ,some rise and some had to escape Hungary during the 20th century .But above all else what  comes out of the book ,is the bond of friendship and how it can survive those changes no matter what .

Libra by Don Delillo JFK 50TH

~ winstonsdad ~ 10 Comments

libra_first_ed

Libra by Don Delillo 

US fiction 

Source – personnel copy 

Well today is the 50th anniversary of the shooting of JFK and I have chosen two books to remember or mark the occasion this is the first that I did read a year or so after it came out in 1988 the year of the 25th anniversary.Don Delillo is probably alongside Paul Auster my favourite American writer. I have read most of his books and even read his huge Underworld twice I loved it so much ,If you fancy try that book Jackie and a few others have done a read-along that starts in two weeks .Don Delillo grew up in an Italian part of the Bronx , New York .He has written more 15 novels . 

Earlier that day a young man walked into the outer office at Guy Banister associates in New Orleans .Delphine Roberts was at her desk typing a revised list of civil rights organizations for Banisters files .The young man stood patiently waiting in jeans with rolled cuffs two days stubble on his chin .

Oswald in Guy Banisters office where he also meet David Ferrie both big character in the film JFK . 

Well Libra is a fiction account of the life of Lee Harvey Oswald the man who shot JFK .from his early life ,joining the marines ,his journey to Russia to become a defector  where he met and married  his Russian wife Marina and then his return to the US with his wife  .Then he settled in Dallas after spending time in New Orleans working for the Free Cuban Movement and pro Castro causes .He finally start working at the book depository in Dallas where he Shot JFK from .Now he comes across as a strange man , almost outcast ,a man who  is never really part of anything a man who has communist leanings ,but he  can also be  easily be swayed by others it seems .The book has a similar feel to the film JFK by Oliver stone that did actually come out a few years after the book ,but isn’t based on the book and actually the book is far more in-depth and connects the dots a lot more in regards to Oswald’s life .

Well it is fifty years to the day ,since the events in this book The death of JFK at the hands of Oswald .So reading this book brought the events of that day and what lead to the assianation ,things like the Cuban crisis ,JFK personnel views .On the other side is Oswald this guys life is strange to say the least a man who was not once but twice a traitor ,the first time is his decision to escape the Us and to become a Soviet citizen ,where he is suspected of giving away secrets to the U2 spy plane .But even after doing this he returns to US and has no real action taken against him and has his wife allowed to be with him .He even appears of TV as a communist .I still wonder who he was Delillo has lifted the lid on his life a bit more in this novel but Oswald is still one strange man and his history just in my mind seems very strange .The book is of course a novel so what is real and what is made by Delillo mix but we get a real feel of the man and the times he lived in .Also a look at what drove this man who shot the president ,almost like he is destined to do this one thing as he gets more and more desperate .

Have you read Delillo ?

What are your thoughts on JFK and the Assassination ? 

The lost honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll

~ winstonsdad ~ 12 Comments

The lost Honour of Katharina Blum  or how violence develops and where it can lead  by Heinrich Böll

Original title – Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum oder: Wie Gewalt entstehen und wohin sie führen kann

German fiction

Translator – Leila Vennewitz

Source – personnel copy

A couple of years ago I review the German Nobel laureate Heinrich Böll best known book billiards at half past nine .Böll  he refused to join the Hitler youth as a boy took an apprenticeship as a bookseller before becoming a full-time writer aged thirty .He was chairman of German PEN for a long time and then he chaired International PEN .He won the nobel prize in 1972 and passed away in 1985 .His book were mostly reissued in english a couple of years ago by Melville house .

Inquires into Blum’s activities during the four days in question progressed nicely enough at first ,and it was only when attempts were made to gather information about that sunday that they were brought up short

On the Wednesday afternoon Blorna personally paid Katharina Blum two full weeks wages at 280 marks per week ,one for the current week , the other for week to come

The reportage style of Böll writing in this book

 

The lost Honour of Katharina Blum ,follows Katharine Blum ,she gets drawn into a tabloid sensation after meeting a man at a party who it turns out is a bank robber  and she becomes the target of the newspaper “der zeitung “( this is thinly veiled version of the German paper der bild a sort of German  version of the sun ) .She is called a whore ,a communist sympathizer as she sees her private life torn apart by the paper and gets hate mail just for knowing one man . this leads her agreeing to do an interview with someone from the paper and now a couple of hours later she is at a police station giving this statement to the  police about recent events in her life  .What happened during that interview ? We see the story of her recent life unfurl .

Seven anonymous postcards , handwritten with “crude ” sexual propositions that in one way or another all included the words “communist bitch”

Four more anonymous postcards containing insulting political remarks but no sexual propostions .These marks ranged from “Red agitator ” to “Kremlin stooge ”

The fall out of what of Katharina Blum life in the papers .

 

The style of this book is like a police report or a bit of reportage we get a detached feel on the events in Katharina’s life and what lead to her agreeing to the interview and how she meet the man ,whom dragged her into the presses eyes .Amazing this book to say it was written in the 1974 before the modern scandals and rise of the modern celebs that have been caught in the media spotlight  ,Katharine blum reminds me of many people who have been in the  UK papers over the last few years people who have  gotten  caught up in a big story by chance  or accident , like the landlord of a recent victim of a killer  who saws his life invade by the papers by just being her landlord or the woman that hid her child .Katharine story is a bit more than theres in the end but we see how far some can be pushed by the tabloids and the prying eyes .For a book that is nearly thirty years old I would say the themes and style of Böll writing is still relevant today as much as ever .He captures what it is to have your life fall apart it seems .A small work that packs a punch above its weight .

Have you read Böll ?

The Loser by Thomas Bernhard

~ winstonsdad ~ 8 Comments

Thoams Bernhard the loser Faber Finds

The Loser by Thomas Bernhard

Austrian fiction

Original title – Der Untergeher

Translator – Jack Dawson

Source – personnel copy on Kindle

Well I couldn’t take part in German Lit month and not review  a book by Thomas Bernhard could I ? I had read this for Thomas Bernhard week I did earlier this year but held it back for German lit month .I have mention quite a bit about Thomas  Bernhard and his life in my previous reviews and pieces all found here .This is the Fifth book by him I have read and review on the blog  .

The teacher’s child ruined my Steinway in the shortest period imaginable, I wasn’t pained by this fact, on the contrary, I observed this cretinous destruction of my piano with perverse pleasure. Wertheimer, as he always said, had gone into the human sciences, I had begun my deterioration process. Without my music, which from one day to the next I could no longer tolerate, I deteriorated, without practical music, theoretical music from the very first moment had only a catastrophic effect on me. From one moment to the next I hated my piano, my own, couldn’t bear to hear myself play again; I no longer wanted to paw at my instrument.

Bernhard, Thomas (2013-02-21). The Loser (Kindle Locations 65-70). Faber & Faber. Kindle Edition.

Now The loser isn’t very different to the other books I have read by Thomas Bernhard .It is told in the form of a monologue a recollection of two mens life and the event before ,during and after a meeting with the world-famous pianist Glenn Gould .We never get told are Narrators Name as he recounts how he and his friend Wertheimer they are both studying Piano at Salzburg .They are invited to see Gould play the Goldberg variations and are to say the least blown away bu this mans talent ,more than any one they know or have seen play .This revelation brings the two men to the edge and we see how for a long time after they try to discover a new way as they now see the music they loved isn’t worth as much .The narrator left music to become a philosopher  .The other Wertheimer is drawn into a dark spin of suicide and a life falling apart .

If I hadn’t met Glenn Gould, I probably wouldn’t have given up the piano and I would have become a piano virtuoso and perhaps even one of the best piano virtuosos in the world, I thought in the inn. When we meet the very best, we have to give up, I thought. Strangely enough I met Glenn on Monk’s Mountain, my childhood mountain.

Bernhard, Thomas (2013-02-21). The Loser (Kindle Locations 97-99). Faber & Faber. Kindle Edition.

Well as you see this has all of the traits you would expect from a Thomas Bernhard Novel a narrator ,art in this case classical music ,life’s falling apart .Now what makes this stand out a bit is the inclusion of Glenn Gould ,he is a real figure and his life could almost read like a Bernhard novel .I must admit I am not a huge Classical fan but among the few Albums I do have is Glenn Gould Goldberg Variations which I got after seeing the film thirty short films about Glenn Gould in the nineties .

I advise if you haven’t seen it try to next time it is on tv or on stream somewhere .This book is less bile filed than say the woodcutter is similar in style the monologue is very like the woodcutter in the way it recounts past events .But this book is more about loss ,loss of a dream ,loss of direction .The German title is actually a word that means more than loser meaning one that goes under ,almost like in the Stevie smith poem these character are in a sea of music and are drowning after seeing Gould  and this book is them waving at us .

Have you listened to Glenn Gould ?

Midsummer Night by Uwe Timm

~ winstonsdad ~ 7 Comments

Midsummer night uwe timm

Midsummer Night by Uwe Timm

German Literature

Original title – Johannishacht

Translator – Peter Tegel

Uwe Timm is a name better known in German than English ,he is highly regard as one of the leading German writers of recent times .I had read him years ago with the invention of curried sausage ,so when a couple of years ago I was in LRB and saw this I decide to by it for a German lit month and this time round I ‘m reviewing it .Uwe Timm father died during world war to on the eastern front .He went on to study philosophy and German Literature in both Munich and Paris .He then went on to become a writer and has been a writer in residence .His last novel in German released this year had been long-listed  for the German book prize (the German equivalent of the booker )

A magazine editor asked me if I would be interested in writing something about potatoes : the Peru – Prussian connection .Potatoes and the German mentality .And of course personal potatoes preferences recipes .Fried potato affairs .He laughed .” You’re interested in stories about everyday things aren’t you .eleve to twelve pages , you can spread it out ”

The bizarre article request that takes our narrator to Unified Berlin .

Midsummer night follows a journey to write a piece about potatoes for a newspaper .This article happens to be at the same times  as there  plans to wrap the Reichstag by the conceptual artist Christo  .Our narrator discovers an east German has written a book about potatoes and the nutrition to be eaten .So our narrator heads into the night of Berlin and comes across a worker on a sex line ,arms dealers ,a designer and a drunk wedding party .He is also search for what his later uncles last words meant .So as over three days he sees all the city of Berlin has to offer .We see the melting pot that is Berlin post the wall falling this is 1996 and Bulgarian ,Poles ,old east Germans all mingle together as wee see the dark and light side of city life but also a large chunk of humour .

“They’re after me .”

“who ?”

“A gang of arms dealers .”There was a silence at the other end of the line I heard a faint astonished snort from Kubin , at any rate I decided the snort was astonished .”it sounds crazy ,I know “I said , “I’ve gotten involved in a really insane business ”

“Hogwash ,”  he said .”You’ve boiled over with your potatoes ”

The insane days and nights lead to this incident in the book .

 

Now this is a book you don’t expect from Germany a comic novel ,Our narrator is a writer with writer’s block that has taken this bizarre article to try to kick-start his writing of a new novel .We get the city at its maddest Middsummer has always been connect with people going slightly mad and we see some drawn into a bizarre world .This isn’t the berlin of Alexander platz or Even Wender Wings of desire ( der himmell über Berlin) .But it is the berlin of the follow-up film to Wenders  wings of desire ,faraway so close which is roughly set in the right time and like this book we follow a hapless chap round post communist unified Berlin fall in with arm dealers as well .Also the film has the same comic touches in this book are similar the woody Allen, like  people being caught in strange situations .This book could have been a film by Allen if he had been touring Europe as he seemed to have in recent years at the time the wall fell he would have made a film similar to this .It’s safe to say I hope you all root this lost gem of German Literature out as the book its self and its writer Uwe Timm need a wider audience in English .

Have you read Uwe Timm ?

The Testament by Elie Wiesel

~ winstonsdad ~ 3 Comments

the testament

The Testament by Elie Wiesel

Jewish fiction

Translated by Marion Wiesel

original title – Le Testament d’un poète juif assassiné

Source review copy

Elie Wiesel is probably one of the best known Jewish names in the world .Born in Romania he grew up in a house speaking Yiddish.His father encouraged him to read and learn Hebrew .He was caught up in the war and end up in one of the Nazis Concentration camps he has the number 7713 , he was lucky to survive and since the war he has taught Hebrew and publish many books on his experience and Novels like this about the War and the Jewish experience in the war ,for his work in highlighting the holocaust he was awarded The Nobel Peace prize in 1986 as the committee said Elie Wiesel was ” A witness for truth and justice ” .This novel was published in 1980.

Grisch , my son

I am interuoting my Testament to write you this letter when you read it , you will be old enough to understand it and me .But will you read it ? Will you receive it ? .I fear not .Like all writing of prisoners it will rot in the secret archives . and yet … something in me tells me that a testament is never lost .Even if nobody reads it ,its content is transmitted

Paltiel writing at the start of the book to his son Grisch

The testament is a book that has an ambitious scope to it as Elie Wiesel has tried to capture in some way the changing face of Europe throughout the 20th century .The person describing this journey is A “mute poet ” Paltiel Kossover  ,he is Jewish and grew up in Russia before Lenin and Stalin took power .Now Paltiel has two things we should know about him the first is he believes in Communism ,this takes him some part to spain to fight in the civil war there .But he also like many writers in Stalin time ends up in Jail for his thoughts .But he is also Jews this brings him into conflict with the Nazis and leads him to go the holy land .This book is a letter or Testament to a son that he will never really know .We see the europe he saw unfold before us .

In my dream

my father

Asked me

if he is still

my father

 

I hold his hand

and I ache

I talk to him

and I ache

the First two verses of one of Paltiel Kosovers poems from the book .

Now any one that has read this blog for a while will know I have a real soft spot (is that the right term a needing to read ,learn and thus impart to others ) books about the war and Holocaust .Elie Wiesel is someone I had read years ago he alongside the likes of Levi is one of the strongest voices about what happened during the Holocaust  .So this novel thou not directly involving The concentration camps skirts the times ,Does show another Jewish life in the Europe off the time  and one that has equally had its ups and Downs the choice of a man who can not speak gives this story a feel have been written by an observer as Paltiel see ,hears but doesn’t speak it all .Elie has managed to capture how it felt to be some during the Russian revolution  fight in the Spanish war .Also the purges and dark times of Russia under Stalin this is one for anyone that like 20th century history .

Have you a favourite book that looks back on 20th century history ?

I was Jack Mortimer by Alexander Lernet-Holenia

~ winstonsdad ~ 12 Comments

Pushkin_JackMortimer

I was Jack Mortimer by Alexander Lernet-Holenia

Austrian Fiction

Original title Ich was Jack Mortimer

Translator – Ignat Avsey

Source – Library copy

glm_iii

Well on of the best things about Pushkin press and one of the reasons I choose to do a fortnight dedicated to their books is perfectly shown by this Novel originally published in 1933 ,we finally got to read it in English due to this translation .Alexander Lernet-Holenia was born in 1897 in Vienna ,he fought on the eastern fron in world war One and then in the inter war years became a writer ,he was a protege of the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke .He was first called up as he was still a reservist lieutenant and fought in the invasion of Poland but became wary of the Nazis and in 1941 wrote a book called the Blue Hour describe as the only Austrian resistance novel .He spent war trying to avoid combat and prison but after the war he grew to be a well Known figure in Austrian culture .

During that evening and the next morning .Spooner found out from the doormen in Allergasse and from the head waiter of the nearby Cafe Attache ,but in particular from a commissonare who used to sit either on the street corner or in a bar opposite ,under a sign with two white horses that the girl was called Marisabelle Von Raschitz .

Spooner tries to find the girl he gave a ride to in his cab .

The book follows Viennese Taxi driver Fredinad Spooner ,as over course of one November he gets drawn into a strange and dark world .He has a girlfriend, but he  has fallen for a girl he gave  a ride too and tries to find her and to try to catch her eye he drawn into a dark world as a few days late he picks up a ride that ends up dead in his cab this ride turns out to be the Jack Mortimer of the title .Spooner sees he has a hotel room reserved and thus he decides to  assumes the identity of this man ,with out even know who he really is .and because he Spooner is nervous of what may happen when the body is discovered in his cab .But who was Jack Mortimer and why is he in Vienna ? and why is he dead ?

He took the dead man’s belongings out of his pockets and put them out on the table .They ,too ,were wet to some extent ,and only the passport ,wallet and the letters ,which had been in the breast pocket ,had stayed almost dry

He opened the passport

And what did he find Spooner in this collection from the dead man in his cab

 

I Loved this book the feel is like a mix of what I love best of the Austrian fiction of the time a sort psychological tale of what drives people a sort Freudian look at Spooner why he does what he does    and the best of Noir america, the sort of  adventure when a unexpected door opens  by the finding of the body and how it draws Spooner into a darker world around him .I wasn’t surprised to find out it had also been film twice .In fact one of the main things I left the book with was a feel for a film I saw many years ago in fact I blame mention of Patricia Highsmith (some one I not read enough off )and a film by the German director Wim Wenders called American friend a version of the  Highsmith Book Ripley’s game and that sees the characters drawn into a dark world the darker side of Hamburg in that case .Another triumph from Pushkin press I hope to go back and try other books by this writer as I like his style that seems more american than his fellow writers at the time .

Have you read this writer ?

What gems from Pushkin press have you found ?

 

Naw much of a Talker by Pedro Lenz

~ winstonsdad ~ 8 Comments

NawMuchofaTalker.270

Naw much of a talker by Pedro Lenz

Translator – Donal McLaughlin

Swiss fiction

Original title – Der Goalie bin ig

Source – Review copy

glm_iii

Well when I was contact by the publisher about this book it sound really fun take on a translation Pedro Lenz has spent time in Glasgow the lead character in this book is from Glasgow ,so the choice of Donal McLaughlin a Scottish translator meant that he could translate the book into a Scottish vernacular .Pedro Lenz was born in Langenthral in Switzerland studied spanish literature at Bern university ,since then has spent time as a freelance writer for papers ,magazines and is also a member of a spoken word group .This is his debut novel and was nominated for the swiss book prize and won the Berne prize .This book is also to be made into a film .

Tell me summit ,Goalie .Whit like wise it in jail ? Ah don’t kow anyone else who’s been .

Is thart how ye came ?

Naw , naw at aw .Ah telt ye , didnt ah ,someone said it wis yir birthday .Ahm jjust intrtisit ,that ‘s aw

It’s nowt special

Just after he gets let out Goalie ask how it was locked up .

Now the title has change from German to English but the German title gives a clue tot the books main character he is called Goalie ,and is like a character out of an Irvine Welsh novel he has just been released from prison after serving time for drugs  and he  has decide to get away with his friend Regi and his new girlfriend to spain for a break .Now how do you describe Goalie well he is one of these guys that is destined to be a no hoper a loveable rogue ,but his greatest flaw is that he trust those around he maybe a little too much and this can lead him into trouble .It seems this isn’t the first time this level of trust and belief has led goalie astray .He is also a great spinner of yarns and likes to twists his own truths .As they are away he tells his yarns and slowly his friend ,tells him he should be doing more with his story telling ability .In the end we see him trying to forge a new life away from his old life .

Well this is a book of the voice ,I can see why some that does spoken word performance ,would fall in love with the loveable rogues and tall tales of Glasgow .Goalie is the embodiment of type of man not even from Glasgow but a man who lives his life large on tall tales and what he has done ,there is many of them in every big city in the corner of a pub or club holding court and telling his Yarn .As I said in the start Goalie could walk of the pages of Irvine Welsh or even Roddy Doyle Novel ,he would be a side character in their books maybe a man in the pub as the commitments played telling tales or a fellow drug taker from train spotting telling a story as the buy There drugs .Now this isn’t the easiest book to follow at times it is in a thick Scottish dialect ,but when I tend to speak the lines to myself I got the real feel of the book .This is a book that would do well as an Audiobook or to be read out loud a clever take on modern Glasgow and its colourful characters .

would you like more books in Dialect or given a more regional feel if set in the uk in translation ?

Pushkin press fortnight 2014

~ winstonsdad ~ 20 Comments

pp_logo

Now I now there has been a yearly event for Persephone books in the past .Now I want to start a yearly event for one of my favourite publisher Pushkin Press ,they are publisher of great translation and have just started doing a number of books from  English  as well .I am picking the middle  two weeks in February  2014  the 10th til the 23rd  , which ties up with the  anniversary of the death of Alexander Pushkin which of course whom the press was originally named after .I hope you can also tie these into my year-long Translation Bingo project .Recent highlights from Pushkin press  for me are –

The parrots by Flippo Bologna 

parrots Flippo Bologna

 

Jarmilla by Ernst Weiss

JarmillaTraveller of the century bY Andres Neuman

traveller of the centurySo what are you favourite books from Pushkin press ?

 

 

 

Bunker by Andrea Maria Schenkel

~ winstonsdad ~ 4 Comments

Bunker - Andrea Maria Schenkel cover

Bunker by Andrea Maria Schenkel

German Crime fiction

Original title – Bunker

Translator – Anthea Bell

Source – Personnel copy

glm_iii

Andrea Maria Schenkel is probably the best known German crime writer ,translated into English .her first novel murder farm was published in German in 2006 and has since been made into a radio drama ,she has used well-known German crime  case to base her books partly on but this book is a truly fictitious crime .she has won a number of prizes for her books .She currently lives in New York .

I still have to get the Keys .They’re in the bedroom , on the bed .Back into the bunker .Damn the paraffin lamps have burnt out ,even thou I had two for each room in it .Funny ,I thought those things lasted longer .What a waste ,six lamps in three rooms .

The opening lines and why the need for lamps and to be in the bunker ?

Bunker is the tale of a kidnapping the title refers to where the woman who has been kidnapped .Monica is  being held by a kidnapper  .The book unfolds in an unusual narrative style where as opposed to a beginning middle and end to the story we see all three of these parts happen at once so the event leading up to the kidnapping of Monica ,the time she spent with the kidnapper and the rescue of her are all told in changing chapters .Monica doesn’t initially know why she has been kidnap or who could have done this to her see gets small glimpse into what has happen who the kidnapper is and maybe even why she was taken .What has happened in her past  to cause this to happen ?

I lie there on my stomach , the cold cement floor under me .A musty cellar smell .I feel awful .My arms and legs are scratched .My grazes are burning .My head aches he dragged me down to the cellar by my hair .Every root of it hurts .My mouth is dry my tongue feels thick and swollen ,glutinous saliva sticking my mouth up .

Monica describing her situation just after the kidnapping .

 

I really fell for Schenkel unusual narrative style in the book it remind me of the way we sometimes see crimes unfold on Tv Crime dramas especially something like CSI were the crime is shown how the crime was done and how the victim and criminal were dealt with even why the crime was done and not always in the order they happened .The setting was caught so well the room Monica was held in and the conditions she found herself in ,made my skin creep at times .I will be going back to the other books schenkel have written to find if this style she writes in is carried on in her other books .As ever Bell has done a great job on the translation .I am actually not a huge crime fiction fan but this book has gone to the top of my list of all time favourites .

Have you a favourite translated crime novel ?

 

Mrs Sartoris by Elke Schmitter

~ winstonsdad ~ 13 Comments

mrs sartoris

Mrs Sartoris by Elke Schmitter

German fiction 

Original title – Frau sartoris 

Translator – Carol Brown Janeway 

source – personnel copy

glm_iii

Elke schmitter is a German writer from Krefeld ,she studied philosophy at Munich university and then became a journalist before becoming a full-time writer in 1994 . This was her début novel .I choose this book because I had visit Krefeld ,it was a chance buy in the works (a uk shop that sells unwanted stock cheap ) and may I say a gem of a find for 50p!

Without hesitation I was immediately ready to attribute all of Ernst’s annoying characteristics – including his ridiculous name – to his father .For example ,Imri was always proper and took her self seriously ,as was the expression back then , but Ernst displays of pedantry must have come from Heinz-Gunther 

Ernst wasn’t an easy husband to have for Margaret 

Mr sartoris is a first person narrative told by Margaret Sartoris ,her life is told by her from her lost love for a rich landowner called Philip that she feel in love with one summer .The break of this relationship caused her to have a mental breakdown and end up in a hospital that happened when she was 18 ,we capture her later when she is married to Ernst a veteran from the war but a man who has no real passion as she is now in her forties she finally meets another man that makes her feel the passion she had felt in her youth with Philip so she begins an affair with a man .Along side this plot there is a plot about a car crash the two finally meet at the end but you have to find the book to see what happens .

When I got to the hotel for the first time ,I could hardly breathe .It was a mild summer day ,with no wind  .I had my hair cut , and glad it wasn’t raining .I was wearing  doe brown suede pumps and a wine two piece I had brought a few days before …

Margaret waiting for her first meeting with Michael the man .

Well I don’t read many books about love and affairs ,I am not a huge fan of romantic fiction but this book is slightly darker than that it is easy to view this from my description as simple chic lit but now Magaret jumps of the page as a damage soul that is having an affair to try to finally grasp what she had once lost .The cover quote says a modern-day Madame Bovary but it is a far more German take on that story ,that sense of duty that I feel is very common in German society is deep in the story her relationship to Ernst is far from perfect but she makes in work out of duty to him  and the daughter so this affair is a real test of her as a person .But she wants the passion she is finding in the arms of the other man .I feel sorry this one is a book that has dropped of the radar and hope this review makes a couple of you root it out as it is well written with a real sense of tension as she builds Margaret’s life and her story to the climax in more ways than one .Another book that if not for Lizzy and Caroline push to make more women writers read this German lit month may have gone unread .

Have you a favourite book about affairs ?

 

The taste of apple seeds by Katharina Hagena

~ winstonsdad ~ 7 Comments

the taste of apple seeds

The taste of apple seeds by Katharina Hagena

German literature

Original title –  Der Geschmack von Apfelkernen.

Translator Jamie Bulloch

Source – review copy

glm_iii

Katharina Hagena studied English and German at Marbach , Freiburg and London ,after getting her degrees ,she spent two years working at the James Joyce centre at Zürich ,this lead to her first two books which are non fiction and relate to Joyce’s work .This is her first novel .she currently lives in Hamburg .

I was intoxicated by the aroma in the entrance hall : it still smelled of apples and old stone , and my great-grandmothers carved dower chest still stood by the wall .on either side of it were the oak chairs adorned with the family coat of arms : a heart divided by a saw .My mother and Aunt Inga’s heels clacked against the floor ,sand crunched beneath the leather soles .

such a feast for the reader in her words sums up the farm-house so well .

I feel awful it took me so long to get to this book I read it earlier in the year but I loved it so much I felt it need the chance of German lit month to get every one to know about it .The story follows Iris and her growing up ,a grandfather with a secret in  his past during the second world war and her grandmother ,now in her twenties her grandmother has died she is having to return to the house where she spent her summers and to the memories of those summers ,so she decides to spend the summer there and choose what to do with the farm-house remember her family the smells of summers gone by and her mother and also her  aunt a pair that were so close  growing up .A journey through iris growing up ,and having friends and falling in love for the first time  families and how three generations got on in post war Germany chuck in a handful of interesting side characters some that always wore black the odd secret her and there you have a stunning book .

An apple

Or , rather the remains of an apple .The flesh at the blossom end was missing ; the top half with its stalk lay in two pieces by his shoe .Lexow stood still , his breathing was rapid and fitful . there was a rustling in the tree .

The trees played a huge part in Iris memories .

I loved the nature of this book rural Germany a happy on the whole family a young girl finding herself in the world ,I don’t read many female writers mainly as it seems to be male writers on whole that get translated more so Lizzy and Caroline saying we had to read two weeks of female writing means I have read a few more female German writers recently  .Given Katharina hagena history and previous work I had to try to link it some how to Joyce and I can in the sense of place she capture that so well like in Joyce the smell of liver cooking is memory for me that lingered long after I read Ulysses ,this had the scent and taste of apples and apple  trees  the clean smell of there blossom in my mouth for weeks after I had put the book down.Also as ever I have to say Jamie has shown why he is one of the best young translators from German around as with his work on peirene you are hard pushed to find fault with it  .I’m pleased to see this visual book has had a film made and just released in Germany and by the look of the trailer they have caught what I visualized in the book .

Do you have a smell you have attached to a book you have read ?