Month: June 2015

How do you read you shorts ?

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Just a quick question .I’m wondering how does every one read their  short story collection ,.Over last few years I have been collecting a number of collections of short stories mostly of course in translation , as I want to add a side section of short story reviews from next year now I usually read a collection cover to cover reading one story at a time , say one in the morning and one in an evening then maybe move on too something else this seems to work but I’m still tied to start to finish and one book at a time , I wonder is every one the same or is it ok to pick one story here and there ? Do you want a selection of short stories in translation ? I for one am a novel reader but love listening to short stories and love certain collections and want to discover more and promote more in translation here . So rather like Bart Simpson would say how do you eat your shorts ? Do you have a favourite short story writer in translation ? For me I love Borges and Neuman but want discover more from around the world .How would you like short stories reviewed , I used love Fobaroundbooks daily post on short stories and have missed them . What length I feel couple hundred words on a short is ok , maybe as I do more reviews this may grow .

OUP Teales series of translated tales

Winstons books the sunday bumper version

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Well its warm hence I’m in my shorts as I take pictures of some recent arrivals at winstons tower . First as I have read it again is the Murakami biography what I talk about when I talk about running , which I have read but never owned so a cheap harback was a must buy this week and I have read this again that evening .Next up Angre Gide after reviewing the Vatican cellars last year I decide to buy any by him I see so Le symphonie pastorale I brought (although I may have it already not check shelf of old penguins yet .Then there is the classic the romance of the rose a 13th century french classic .Patrick Hamilton was a book I had seen a few times in the oxfam and finally decided to give it a new home also he captured the dark side of the war years at home .Lastly is Peter Hoeg short story collection tales of the night one for my top secret project for 2016 .

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Next in is the best known novel by the Italian writer Antonio Tabucchi Pereira Maintains , which is set in 1938 Portugal a country where the writer spent a lot of his life . A man arrives at a old widowers house and changes the small world around them . Part of a series of great books Canongate have brought out in a new series called the canons .

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Last is the Dedalus collection of Slovak literature , they say it is the most important selection of Slovak fiction to come out in english >Well I haven’t cover a Slovak book so this collection that has writers from20th century is surely a great diving board into this nations fiction .

What have you given a book home to recntly ?

The Ogre by Michel Tournier

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The Ogre by Michel Tournier

French fiction

Original title – Les Roi des aulnes

Translator – Barbara Bray

Source – personnel copy

Belligerent ghouls
run Manchester schools
spineless swines
cemented minds
Sir leads the troops
jealous of youth
same old suit since 1962
he does the military two-step
down the nape of my neck
I wanna go home
I don’t want to stay
give up education
as a bad mistake
mid-week on the playing fields
Sir thwacks you on the knees
knees you in the groin
elbow in the face
bruises bigger than dinner plates
I wanna go home
I don’t want to stay

Another school in Manchester The smiths talk about there brutal school days .

Well I had a lucky day a few weeks back I found this and Roger Vailland book the law both Prix Goncourt winners . The Goncourt is the top french prize for fiction and one of the original prizes for fiction around the world . Michel Tournier . Was born on Paris , but has always had a connection to Germany , he studied german and spent many a summer in his youth there . A number of his books have a German connection like this one .He is often mentioned as a possible Nobel winner .Although with Mondiano winning last year it may be to late now

Febuary 8 1938 , sometimes you have to reach bottom before you at last see a glimmer of hope pierce the clouds .It was the  Colaphus that revealed to me for the first time the astonishing protection I was to be the object of , and which still hovers over me .

When do we know what is bottom thou ?

The Ogre or as it was also published The erl king is his most well-known book . The book is the story of one man growing from a shy boy to the so-called Ogre of Kaltenborn . Abel Tiffauges tale is one of what nuture can do . The story is told by Abel and narrated as we see him move from a simple man working at a garage , a keeper of pigeons and then he joins the army and is caught by the Germans and ends up working at a Nazi school were his job is to recruit kids for this school . How does this bullied school boy become the Ogre of a Nazi school ? When will he see the world for hat it is around him .

He had to make a superhuman effort now to overcome the viscous resistance grinding in his belly and breast , but preserved , knowing all was as it should be when he turned to look up for the last time at Ephraim , all he saw was a six -pointed star turning slowly against a black sky .

The closing lines of this book as he sees the world slightly differently .

This book is an example of what happens when a simple man in a way meets an evil world . Abel becomes like the world around him but how easy it is to get drawn in by the Nazi mindset . Abel is one man but he maybe is also the voice of so many that fell foul of the Nazi regime those how came to blindly believe  at what they are told . But given his past you see how that lead to the present . I was reminded in a way of Alex in clockwork orange especially near the end of the book were both characters see what their effect on the world has been. What we have here is a book full of ideas and how ideas can change the world for good or bad  , The book has been made into a film in the 90’s which I must try to find to watch .Has anyone seen it ?

What is your favourite Prix Goncourt winning book ?

Spanish Lit month

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Well I’m late announcing my Spanish Lit month announcement . Richard announced a few days ago we are doing it again this July for the third time . WE have choosen a short book as the group read . The invention of morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares a book by the great friend of Jorge Luis Borges .

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Well I ve chosen to reuse my first post for spanish lit month for this intro again  I’m excited to see what books every one has chosen but if your still struggling for a book to read for Spanish language lit month ,I ve a few tips here to help my co host richard has done two posts of book lists .the first has 200 books that have been picked on various lists  the second had a further list of 100 plus books from classic to the modern age from spain and latin america .

Right another great port of call is the complete review Michael the guy behind complete review has many more reviews of spanish fiction here  and Latin american fiction here .Mostly modern but it has best selection of Latin american fiction I ve seen .

The site for new Spanish books available to be translated is a great site to see what is happening in Spanish .Nick Caistor and Stefan Tobler advise on here two  people I know are trustworthy .

Then I ll give you five to read from my blog

1.Don Quixote –

This is the head water of all modern european fiction we may think use in the english speaking world got the ball rolling on the novel no its  this book has it all ,meta fiction ,playful story lines ,History and oh the mad don and his faithful friend .2015 I will maybe reread this next spanish lit month in 2016 as that may be the time Terry Gillam has his film of it out or nearer being made .

2 Three trapped tiger G Cabrera Infante –

The cuban Ulysses the call it but actually it is very different it has a very cuban feel you can feel a jazz beat as your read about a day in Havana just before the revolution . 2015 A lost classic this one .I have another by him on the blog both worth trying .

3 I the supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos

Another classic of latin american fiction ,the story of a 19th century dictator in latin america echos of the present in the past image ,controlling the media and writing your own history still go on in the present day .2015  One that everyone interested in the dictator fiction

4 Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras

One of my favourite books of recent years ,the dirty war seen through a young boys eyes .It is touching and entertaining  and with a believable child narrator .2015 still a hidden gem !

5 Exiled from almost everywhere by Juan Goytisolo

He is the wonderful master of spanish fiction I ve read a few but this only one since I ve blog a wonderfully wacky tale that maybe needs a wider audience  . As does Juan he may win the Nobel one day soon and if you’ve not read him you’ll kick your self .2015 more exile tales to come this year from the same writer .

Oh and needless to say Borges is a must read anything by him is going make your reading life a little brighter .

Back to 2015

Again I must start my Borges project , I have read a second Goytisolo for this year already the first of his best known  trilogy marks of identity .I have Desire for chocolate by Care Santos a prize winning Spanish novel due out in August . Also a couple of books about the Peron years in Argentina .

What books may you read next month .

 

Happy 6th birthday winstonsdad

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Well its been a strange year for the blog my beloved Winston sadly passed away last year , I dislocated my elbow and I lost a beloved stepmopther  . Book wise i did another shadow IFFP another spanish lit month and  went to london book fair for the first time .But that said I managed to do 170 posts and 100 of those were reviews of books which isn’t bad going . looking forward after a slow and quiet blogging  wise start of 2015 my life is slipping back to its normal routine .So loooking forward I’m looking forward to Spanish lit month and then trying catch up with my backlog of books . I can’t believe I’ve manage to last six years doing this it has for me opened the doors to a different world and made me many new friends from around the world so here is to another year and a year closer to that first decade of winstonsdad .So we have 1086 posts on the blog and 542 books under review from nearly 100 countries .

Leica Format by Daše Drndić

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Leica Format

Leica Format by Daše Drndić

Croatian fiction

Translator – Celia Hawkesworth

Original title – Leica Format

Source review copy

Sixteen years
Sixteen banners united over the field
Where the good shepherd grieves
Desperate men, desperate women divided
Spreading their wings ‘neath falling leaves.

Fortune calls
I stepped forth from the shadows to the marketplace
Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down
She’s smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born
On midsummer’s eve near the tower.

The cold-blooded moon
The captain waits above the celebration
Sending his thoughts to a beloved maid
Whose ebony face is beyond communication
The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid.

Dylans changing of the guard is about his journey as this book is a journey for a place

Well I promised you all a second Croatian novel this week and another from a female Croatian writer , that I have met . I was lucky met and spoke quite a bit too Dasa at the IFFP when he first book in english was up for the prize  .She is quite a character and had a lot to say about lit around europe . So when the chance has come to read a second book by her . I am excited as she is considered one of the leading lights of modern Croatian fiction a real heavyweight writer .This is her second title she has written more than 11 books so we have a lot more to come .

This town has many constricted parts , lots of small organs  , it has an appendix .

When I think about this town , that is , about life in this town , my stomach begins to churn , my jaws clicks like a padlock , it closes up , I turn my eyes away although they never rest on anything  anymore , I shake my head , I don’t yet rock backwards or forwards , I don’t sway , cowering in the corner of my empty white room like people in films , not yet . I don’t yet hum , that’s the current situation

I love Dasa passages like this that drift off

I wondered where the title for this came from so I translated a number of interviews with Dasa from the net using Google translate . I knew Leica is a camera and format is the prefered style of picture for documentary photographers .Dasa has described this book as in the style of documentary photos snapshots of a city . The book is a story in fragments we dive in and out of people’s lives it is the story of the city from those newly arrived to those who have lived in the city for years . It is a story of secrets people not being whom they seem a woman on a train told she isn’t who she thought she was ? Dark secrets leak out like the drains in the cities .The book unfolds as a history fo all the dark deeds of the 20th century .How this once proud city has become insular and smaller over the century .The city reflects the whole region in a way .

Don’t trust your memory , your memory is a net full of holes , the past and the present slip through it everything slips through your memory , your memory is a hole .

How true is this passage .

I loved the style of this book one of the interviews I translated compared it too Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Doblin , the great german novel that capture that city so well and yes it has a bit of that , one could also compare this book to  something like Italo  Calvino’s   book invisible cities . This is a book of parts a mosaic so to speak that mix style of story and narrative like say John Dos Passos had used in his epic book USA .Of course Dasa has captured her homeland that has seen so much of what happened in the 20th century from the start of world war one , being involved in world war two Tito and then the break up of Yugoslavia .This is one of those books you need to read to know about it is so full of ideas strings and characters .

Have you  favourite female writer from the Balkans ?

 

Spanish lit calling

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You know I was just talking last night an out Spanish lit month on twitter turned and decide to start Beings a collection of Peruvian short stories I was sent earlier this month .I have a couple of books from Peru on mu blog and one story in this collection is by Cueto who I have reviewed before .Then  if by Chance today in town I was busy shopping and found The invention of morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares second hand which I saw as a sign so I need to chat to richard my cohost and we need choose some books for next month but as you see I have two already do you ever get Book deja vu like finding the Casares today and seeing it as a sign of where to go in you reading ? I for one am a sign reader if I hear something see something and connect to a book I tend to read that book next .

Bloomsday Music this year

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Well its that day again the 16th of june the day James Joyce choose to be the day in Ulysses , in the last fiftry years this day has become a day to celebrate both the book , it’s writer and the city of the book in a way Dublin .I have done post before about the book which for me is a classic that I plan to reread again probably for this time next year (?the original plan was this year but as so much has happened I decided to leave it ) So this year I’ll bring you some great songs and singers from Dublin and Ireland .

Hothouse flowers debut album has for some reason been a favourite of mine for the last twenty five years and this song of a man ordering drinks trying to forget a women is my favourite track on the album .

I loved the film Once with Glenn Hansard and Marketa Irglova as a couple from different places falling in love in Dublin of course Hansard has been in an earlier film also The commitments

Andrew strong the singer in the Commitments had one of the true great white soul voices .I do wish they had made a follow up to this film they do so many bad sequels a great one off like this deserved one .

My bloody valentine are Irish we often forget this as they are so busy working on their records in recent years (decades)  seeing them live was a highlight years ago for me .

Not a dublin singer bu Divine comedy Booklovers brings this back to writers and books and also has James joyce in the song .Of course I missed U2 but I couldn’t pick a song by them as so many I like .

have you a favourite Irish band ?

Gender , publishing and reading fuck that lets do a year of publishing translation !!!!

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Sorry to swear but  as Well as many of you will have seen there has been a lot about Females in publishing and a suggested year of publishing female and one publisher has taken up the challenge . Now for me as a male it is hard to comment on this situation , I don’t like counting what I’ve  read or feeling as thou I have to read this many x y or z books to make a quota hell no one is telling me what to read  . I’m taken back to an episode of west wing about feminism and one characters negative  reaction to positive measures for females and why should they have them  if the laws in place are worked probably they are not needed , this was a female character , a right-wing character and in some ways I the arch left winger agreed hell no one is helping me get published or offering me a step on any ladder anytime soon but then I’m just a white northern male !  . It is a hard topic for me to discuss  as a male I don’t want to come across as a caveman , I feel bad as I as a reader tend to be drawn to male voices in the books I read  , but through translation have connected with more female voices from around the world .For me the important thing in a novel  is the story and subject and for these things to push the boundaries for me as a reader whether in style , story matter or characters . I could be shot down but then I say to you go out read books from 100 plus countries and then come back to me and tell me about diversity in reading ! So I wont be doing a year of women , no just same as ever  a year of translation the same as last year the year before and the year before that for me getting more books in translation is the one true struggle even in this I feel the more get translated the more females that will be translated . So a year of publishing women too easy way to easy a year of translation now that would be daring challenging , find new countries , new voices but then as Lennon said I am a dream and maybe the only one .So like Janus I’m looking both ways and dreaming of a day when a year of translated books would seem important to people .I challenge a publisher to just do translation in 2020 for a year of vision 20/20 vision !!!!

Farewell , Cowboy by Olja Savičević

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Farewell , cowboy by  Olja Savičević

Croatian fiction

Original title – Adio  kauboju

Translator – Celia Hawkesworth

Source review copy

 

I seem to recognize your face
haunting, familiar, yet i can’t seem to place it
cannot find the candle of thought to light your name
lifetimes are catching up with me
all these changes taking place, i wish i’d seen the place
but no one’s ever taken me
hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away…
hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away…
i swear i recognize your breath
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising
me, you wouldn’t recall, for i’m not my former
it’s hard when, you’re stuck upon the shelf
i changed by not changing at all, small town predicts my fate
perhaps that’s what no one wants to see
i just want to scream…hello…Now

I think the lyrics in this old pearl Jam song elderly woman behind echo Dada return to the town .

 

I have met both the writer and translator of this book earlier this year at London book fair and had intend to blog about it then as things are and rather like this book family happens and things go astray .Olja Savičević is an award-winning poet and novelist , she has six collection of poetry this was her debut novel and was a huge hit in Croatia already been made into a stage play over there . A part of this was used in the Dalkey archive best of european fiction collection in 2014 .

This business with the cowboys was my father’s doing . He started it , and somehow it was his story . Everyone else in Yugoslavia liked Indians best , apparently because our most popular TV series , which had Winnetou , the indian boy as the hero . It was only much later that cowboys came into their own .

Why everyone liked Indians in the Old Yugoslavia

 

Farewell , cowboy is the story of a brother and sister Dada and Daniel . Dada has returned to her hometown to find out what has happened to her beloved brother .This small seaside town in post war Croatia is seeing the first signs of  people from outside the country starting to buy property in this town , add to this a film crew is making a western Dada needs to find out why her brother killed himself by throwing himself under a train . She meets a band of eccentric characters as she starts to piece together her brothers last few months  whilst seeing the broken town see grew up in and mixing her memories with the broken and changing childhood town so badly scared by the war .

Daniel , my brother , died in his eighteenth year , by jumping from a concrete bridge over the railway under a speeding Osijek -Zagreb – Split intercity train .

He hadn’t appeared at school that morning , he had turned off towards the highway , beside the dry stream , then under it through the secret tunnel beneath the road and along the well know gravel path to the railway . I can imagine it clearly

Dada recalls how Daniel lost his life .

Lost men is a theme in this book the siblings own father has disappeared many years ago , he was a fan of Cowboys when a strange thing in Croatia most people who watch western films connected with the Indians in the films not the Cowboys . Of course the film industry paid a huge part in pre civil war Yugoslavia with TITO attracting and encouraging  film crews many of the great western films of the sixties and seventies were filmed in Yugoslavia .I would recommend the film Cineman Komunisto , which Susan from Istros books suggest I watch , so I did it shows how Tito used films  control people but also the great filmmakers from Yugoslavia that appeared  . Anyway back to the book Daniel seems to be in some ways an everyman for the lost innocence of a generation that was involved with the war and the way many men where missing from this generation brother fathers and husbands .Dada is like an old fashion private investigator trying to find out the clues to her brother’s death , in fact in some ways I was reminded of Twin peaks with some of the odd characters she meets along the way . A novel about a country on the cusp of what is to come just after the last bombs and deaths , the new money just coming and old wounds waiting to heal Olja captures what it is like to be a Woman in a country where the men have gone .

Have you a favourite Croatian Novel ?

 

 

Yeats Day

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W B Yeats book

Well its a double hit this week of Irish writer days today is the 150th annivesary of the birth of William Butler Yeats .I first came across Yeats at school he is one of the few Poets I have actually like from reading the first poem by him which I was The Magi . I brought the above copy about twenty years ago and have read it few many times .This collection was sorted and put together by Yeats himself so I found it maybe a choice of what he considered his best work and for me that is good enough my copy came out in 1938  .Then later in the week we have this years Bloomsday .

The Stolen Child

WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

I choose the first two verses of Stolen child as it ties in with a song version of the poem from the Waterboys . It is also worth checking out there album of songs from his poems a n appointment with Mr Yeats .

Have you a favourite  poem by him

 

What became of the white savage by François Garde

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What became of the white savage by François Garde

French fiction

Original title –  Ce qu’il advint du sauvage blanc

translator – Aneesa Abbas Higgins

Source – Prize winner

 

In eighteen hundred and forty-six
On March the eighteenth day
We hoisted our colors to the top of the mast
And for Greenland sailed away, brave boys
And for Greenland sailed away

The lookout in the crosstrees stood
With spyglass in his hand
There’s a whale, there’s a whale
And a whalefish he cried
And she blows at every span, brave boys
She blows at every span

The captain stood on the quarter deck
The ice was in his eye
Overhaul, overhaul! Let your gibsheets fall
And you’ll put your boats to sea, brave boys
And you’ll put your boats to sea

I choose a Pogues song about Whalers in the 1800’s seemed fitting to this book .

This was a lucky win for the French inisitute on their facebook page , which ask for comments on the cover , I put this is what happens when you fall asleep and leave the pens out for the kids , which won me this book . The book is a prize winning French novel it won the Prix Goncourt Roman , which is the section of the french prize that is awarded to the best first novel . This is The first Novel by Francois Garde , he worked as a senior civil servant for many year in the french overseas territories in Pacific and Indian oceans .

When he reached the top of the small cliff he realised that he was alone . There was no sign of the dinghy drawn up on the beach , no sign of a boat floating on the blue-green water . The schooner lying at anchor in the entrance to the bay was nowhere to be seen , no sails visible on the horizon . He closed this eyes , shook his head .Nothing they had left .

The opening as he sees he is all alone .

This like an earlier Goncourt Roman winner I reviewed HHhH is a novel based on a historic event .This is the true life story of  Narcisse Pelletier a young French sailor who in the 1840 was apart of a french ship that left him behind and was shipwreck in the far reaches of Australia .He is lucky to have been found by a tribe of Aboriginals whom adopt him after he removes his clothes and they see he is a man just like them  . The  story starts when he is discovered after seventeen years in the wild and taken under the wing of a French geographer whom brings the young man named the White savage because of the way he looks .On the way back to France the two men try to discover what happened to Pelletirer , who he is where the rest of the crew are and what he has done for the last seventeen years .

“He belongs to neither the black nor the yellow races . This is evident from the colour of his skin , his build and the texture of his hair . Nor is he of the semitic races this can be seen from his high forehead , straight nose , straight brown hair and full beard . I must also point out that he is circumcised , not in the way that Jews and muslims are , but rather in the manner of the natives of this country .

Narcisse when he is first found is a mystery where did this White savage come from .

To be truthful I hadn’t heard of Narcisse Pelletier or his story before this book . But have always been a fan of Robinsonade  books like The island before tomorrow  , pincher martin or even my childhood favourite Abels island , books inspired or similar by Robinson Crusoe .This in a way is the flip of that story when Crusoe tamed the savage , This sees the white man go native to survive another reason I love these stories is traveling up every year to my grans we passed through the village of lower Largo the home of Alexander Selkirk , whom many thinks was the role model for Robinson Crusoe after he spent five years on an island of the coast of Chile . If you like a novel with a lump of true life this is the one for you as the story unfolds from the two mens points of view , Narcisse telling his story and Octave the geographer telling the story of the journey back via a collection of letters . A book about who we really are where we from or where we have grown !

Have you a favourite novel from the Robinsonade Genre ?

Do you hear them by Nathalie Sarraute

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Do you hear them ? by Nathalie Sarraute

French fiction

Original title – Vous les entendez ?

translator – Maria Jolas

Source personnel copy

Go son, go down to the water
And see the women weeping there
Then go up into the mountains
The men, they are weeping too

Father, why are all the women weeping?
They are all weeping for their men
Then why are all the men there weeping?
They are weeping back at them

This is a weeping song
A song in which to weep
While all the men and women sleep
This is a weeping song
But I won’t be weeping long

The weeping song by Nick cave is about father and his kid like this maybe the father her is truly weeping !

Well in the time I spent away from blogging recently one the things I decide to do was start reading my books , well what I mean by that is books I have brought myself not been sent for review the last few years it has been mainly review copies reviewed on the blog . Well today’s book hasn’t sat to long on the tbr pile no I brought this last week in Belfast when I went for Millie’s funeral my dad , brother and I had a morning free so we set of for presents for my nieces , coffee in an institution in Newtownards and then my choice a bookshop in Belfast No alibis which had a sale on which I brought this and three other books for ten pound .Any way Nathalie Sarruate was one of a group of french writers that during early sixties onwards were writers of Noveau roman New novels , which meant each book they wrote was in a new style . She wrote eleven novels this is the first I have read by her and not the last .

Suddenly he interupt himself , raises his hand , his forefinger in the air , he listens … Do you hear them ?.. a gentle melancoly mellows his features .. they’re light hearted , eh ? They’re enjoying themselves … After all , that goes with their age .. we , too , used to have fits of laughter like that .. we couldn’t stop …

The opening lines as they settle to talk about the art and he hears his kids above them .

Do you hear them is a novel of voice spoken and unspoken . The  book takes place in an evening after a dinner two men sit with the latest piece for the one mans collection of art piece The father of the household and one of the mens best friends .Which is pre columbian statue . The statue owner hears his kids so is thinking of them and the chatting about art but also his place in the world what are his children saying about him . Do they see his collecting as foolish endeavour of an old man .Do they see him as he sees himself ? For him his object d’art are him the life he has lived all around him .

Alone now , leaning towards each other , the two friends turn in every direction the stone set before them on the low table .. the two misers tenderly stroke this precious chest , this casket in which there has been deposited in which is locked up for safekeeping , preserved for all time , something that calms them

The objects which hold the art is precious to them .

I have read a number of Noveau Roman books over the years and have enjoyed most of them so when I got this one I knew it would be one for me hence I got to it so quickly . I was remind somewhat of Thomas Bernhard Woodcutters when I read the synopsis and even when reading the book , I still felt the connection it has the same feel for voice Bernhard has maybe with Bernhard bitterness replaced with the sense of loss here . This is a book about loss generations as we hear the two men talking we also get the thoughts of the one about his kids and his sense of his kids not getting him .Also the sense of what we are is here like the main character I maybe see myself in my things my books my cds my pictures and most of all my memories .The style of Sarruate writing in this book is like a wave of voices that once you get use to it seem like you are in the head of the main character .

Have you a favourite writer from the Noveau roman era ?

Seiobo there below by László Krasznahorkai

~ winstonsdad ~ 14 Comments

Seiobo there below by  László Krasznahorkai

Hungarian fiction

Original title – Seiobo járt odalent

Translator – Ottilie Mulzet

Source personal copy

Just a perfect day
Drink Sangria in the park
And then later
When it gets dark, we go home

Just a perfect day
Feed animals in the zoo
Then later
A movie, too, and then home

Oh, it’s such a perfect day
I’m glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day
You just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on

I choose perfect day by Lou Reed as it mix part of what is in this book there isn’t a perfect day and this wasn’t one but seemed it .

I wonder if I am the only one that tends to go the other way in times of trouble and read the tougher books to read when in times of trouble . So I found myself picking up my second novel to read by Krasznahorkai , the other week of course I had been remind I has it when he won the recent man booker international award .Krasznahorkai is best known for Satantango which is the other book by him I have read . He has since the fall of the soviet bloc traveled the world hence this novel which is written 20 plus years after Satantango  is set mainly in japan but also in various places and times . He has spent the last decade in both Japan and China .

Everything around it moves , as if just this one time and one time only , as if the message of Heraclitus has arrived here though some deep current , from a distance of an entire universe in spite of all the senseless obstacles , because the water moves .

The opening lines .

 

The premise of Seiobo there below is the Japanese goddess once every 3000 years has a peach tree in her garden that bares fruit and this fruit gives who ever eats it immortality . Now she decides to search for perfection on the earth thus setting up the sequences of stories that follow in the book as we see her follow various artist actors and such .Trying to find what is perfection but is perfection what it seems , is that great actor the face every one sees when he acts , or is he different behind the scenes ? How do you get the perfect colour for that picture .What makes great art and is their great art with great artist , do great artist make great art .Each story leads some how in some way to the next as we follow Seiobo on her quest .

Well as you see as ever something seems to escape me in Krasznahorkai  writing  but l, I can put my finger on it here for me as a reader it is time . This is like me being given Boy and Actung baby  by u2  or even Tender prey and push the sky away by Nick cave . Now these are all great records but can you list to Boy then actung baby ? it is like I have broken the sequence as with this book which chapters follow the Fibonacci sequence maybe I have jumped in my reading of him from boy to actung baby and am feeling a bit disjointed .I mentioned Nick Cave as to parapharse him when he was speaking to Blixa Bargeld in the documentary 20000 day on earth he wish he had learned to edit at an earlier age , but why to me Satantango is Krasznahorkai Tender prey rough uncut and totally addictive , but for me I feel I have to read the other books by him in english and at a later date return to this one to fully get the sense of this as a book .As for now I was reminded of the film pi by Darren Aronfsky , which sees a young mathematician driven to madness by the search for perfection in maths like that Seiobo search for the perfect person to receive the peach is actually a flawed one art is in the eye , the moment , the time , the subject and can be perfect for only a split second .So i will return with a longer review after I have in a few years read his other books as I get hold of them in english .

Do you like jumping about  in a writers life ?