Tag: 2019

Doppelganger by Daša Drndić

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Doppelganger by Daša Drndić

Croatian fiction

Original title – Doppelgänger

Translators Susan Curtis and Celia Hawkesworth

Source – Personal copy

I held back on reviewing this to this month as it seemed fitting I had two books by the Late Dasa unreviewed and I decide to do this one first and Women in translation month seemed the perfect time for a female writer that was one of the strongest voices of Balkan writing in recent years. Dasa studied English literature and then got a master in Theatre. She then worked as a Tv Editor,  a professor of English. Her books had been shortlisted for the IFFP and the EBRD prize in recent years. In the recent books, there is an undercurrent of a warning of Europe slipping into a new Right-wing Nationalistic era. I met her once and spent a good hour talking about books Europe and Lit. She sadly passed away last year I do hope they retroactively give her the Nobel prize anyway. The Publisher of this told me this was one of her favorite works.

Artur Biodi(C), born in Labin, 1921. Extramartial son of Martistella Biondi(C) (deceased) and Carlos Theresin Rankov (deceased). The father of Artur Biondi(C),Carlos Teresin Rankov (deceased) was born in 1900 on the shores of the river Tanaro, as the extramartial son of Teresa Borsalino, co-owner of a hat factory in Alessandria, and the serbian Military officer of the Austro-Hungarian army under Ranko Matic (deceased)

Artur police dossier and it is strange he is a son born of a son brom out of wedlock as well. Then there is the hat connection!

Doppelganger is two novellas I have chosen to talk about the first short novella called Artur and Isabella as it is a real rollercoaster ride of a story the tale of two lonely widowers who know each other but take it further oneNew Years eve with a shocking knock-on effect. It shows how when someone loses their life partner there is a void in their lives that is never refilled the two Isabelle has been trying to become a Croat citizen on three occasions. The final one which happened seven years before. She moved there following her husband’s death some fifteen years before. Then we have Artur a retired Yugoslavian Naval officer known for his extensive collection of hats. The two then spend the new years eve together the story has as a side police dossier pieces on the both but also on the people around them there is a terrible outcome from this evening. The second story sees another lonely figure a man who visits the zoo every day. Talks to himself but the later story has echos of the first story. Both are visions into what makes us human.

Isabelle always unwraps her chocolate balls with care so that she can save the silver paper. Over the year she collects the foil wrappersin a book beside her bed because she eats most of the chocolate balls in bed. When she finshes the book, she will put the wrappers into anothert one. At the moment she is reading an exciting book . The book is called “This way for the gas , Ladies and gentlemen” she puts Karl marx foil wrappers in it. By the ehd of the year, she will have collected a lot oif wrappers for the christmas treem more for the branches on the walls

Isabelle and her chocolate balls which she is an expert on

I often wonder if I am too positive about books well I am on the whole especially as I am now choice more that I read I have brought myself. If you ever met Dasa the effect she would have on you is the same as she had on me as someone that just seemed to have that finger on the pulse of what makes us human but also what is going on in the wider world, Here in the first stories we see the loneliness of the old age. We see the two talk about old age losing control of their bodies wearing Adult diapers and such. Then when they meet they get into a sex scene which reminds me somewhat of the scene in Dennis potters singing detective where the main character is trying to forget the young nurse is touching his body Isabelle is seen going through a list of things as she performs a sexual act on Artur.In these days when the world is so fast The older people sometimes get left behind. But also the past of Yugoslavia where everyone was watched by someone in the Police dossiers on them from their lives to Artur Hatmaker. A tragic view of lives touched with a dark humour at times from the chocolates those Mozart Balls!!. Have you read Dasa ?

 

30 covers for #WITMONTH England through a German eyes

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Maybe not the most exciting cover Fitzcarraldo covers are all the same and are a homage to the original James Joyce Ulysses cover in their style. Here we have a recent favourite from them River by Ester Knsky saw her living in London and using the Thames as a launchpad for her memories of both London and the other cities and places as she was growing up by other rivers as the prose flow you are drawn into her world.

A nail, A rose by Madeleine Bourdouxhe

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A nail, A rose by Madeleine Bourdouxhe

Belgian fiction

Original title – Sept Nouvelles

Translator – Faith Evans

Source – review copy

I featured a picture of this for my women in translation covers piece earlier in the week. I had read this a while ago as it came out in May but felt it was a great choice for women in translation month as it shows what Pushkin do so well and that is rediscovered writers that have disappeared here we have the Belgian writer Madeliene Bourdouxhe although she moved with her family at a young age to Paris  during world war one returning to Brussels to attend university, She married a maths teacher  and began writing during the war she was in the resistance . After the war, she frequently went to Paris meeting writers like Simone de Beauvoir and Raymond Queneau. This collection was published firstly in the late eighties and it great it is back in print in a Pushkin edition.

Come on, “he said, “get some change..”

She went in and returned with the notes. She watched Nicholas as he hung the hose back on the petrol pump and handed over the change; she watched the cas as it pulled out , re-entered the right lane, and disappeared in the direction of Masions-Alfort. At the garage over the way anpther car pulled in. The women who worked there was tall, gaunt and older that Anna, and she wore an old fashion chignon on the crown of her head , fastened not with hairpin but with four or five criss-crossing nails, which formed a rosette around the chignon, a real curiosity

I loved anna description of the woman over the road her hair sounds so unusual and destinctive with its nails holding it in place!!

This is a collection of stories all but one is told from a female point of view. The woman, on the whole, seem to maybe be a general vision of women in the pre and war years this book came out in 1944 the last story touches on this story Sous le point Mirabeau follows a Belgian woman, just become a mother and with many others trying to get into France. I liked another story Blanche it starts with a husband asking if his shirt is ironed but his wife is wistful dreamy Blanche doesn’t see her life as a housewife so doesn’t iron her short this is a woman that maybe is one the edge at one point when she heads into the woods with her son its dark he says but we are looking for squirrels to reassure him this scene makes you wonder what was going to happen . In other stories, we have one  Rene is the flip of the other stories a man looking at ordinary women lives this is a subtle collection of ordinary lives brought to life from Heartbreak to Trauma.

Blanche hurried along the path, holding her hand. Some drops of rain were still falling but the heat of the day lingering and the air was warm.

“Shall we walk through the wooods? Blanche said.

“Its all black in therem I’de be frightened” said Jean-Louis

“You mustn’t be afraid of the wood. We might see some squirrels in there …”

“Squirrels? All right then,” Said Jean-Louis

Blanche takes her son into the dark woods one night …

I held this back as it was so perfect for this month from the great cover art of a factory girl of the time a strong woman, an ordinary woman which is what Bourdouxhe captures so well in this book. she captures the voice and internal feeling of the women she writes about okay they are all very similar in character but they also show maybe the changing thoughts of the writer at the time this collection came out in 1944 a time when the writer her self had seen action in the resistance but women’s roles  in the home and workplace had changed during those war years. I feel this is an undercurrent in these characters from Blanche feeling unlike a housewife to trying to get to France in a crowd. There is a number of other books that the translator had translated inn the eighties lets hope they also get reissued. Have you read her books?

 

30 covers for #WITMONTH Istros

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I have long been a fan of the publisher Istros books and Susie that runs it so for today which is my wedding anniversary I pick my favorite cover from them I love this owl on the cover I reviewed this collection here. I loved the story about Kasper Hauser which is a favorite film of mine as well.

30 covers for #WITMONTH Simone Weil

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I pick an older book but an important one Simone Weil was a writer that sadly died too young the philosopher and mystic was one of the leading left-leaning thinkers of her day I have dipped into this collection she spent time as a worker in a factory to understand the working people. Camus called her the “the only great spirit of times”

Thirty covers for #WITMONTH

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The second cover will be one I am reviewing this month as ever {ushkin press has turned up another lost gem this collection of short stories from the Belgian writer Madeleine Bourduxhe her stories of everyday life are full of color and depth.

That was the month that was July 2019

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  1. The house of Ulysses by Julian Rios
  2. Vlad by Carlos Fuentes
  3. Quiet creature on the corner by Joao Gilberto Noll
  4. the posthumous memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
  5. The Hedge by Miguel Delibes
  6. Atlantic hotel by Joao Gilberto Noll
  7. The fish child by Lucia Puenzo
  8. The Iliac crest by Cristina Riera Garz

I managed eight books all for Spanish and Portuguese lit month. I start with a book about a book Julian RIos House of Ulysess. Then a Mexican take on the Vampire story a poet winds up in a prison writing poems after raping a girl in Brazil. A man whose life is a failure writes about his life from the afterlife. A man gets sent to the country to recover and gets hemmed in by an ever-increasing hedge and sees those around him as animals another trip to Brazil and a man falling apart in front of his eyes from a hotel with the murder happened he then went on a bizarre road trip. A pair of young girls from different sides of the tracks fall in love as one is the maid for the other.and lastly two women turned up at a mans ouse but is he a man and is all as it seems a wonderful selection of books from four countries, no new publishers but an interesting selection. It has taken the total of books reviewed this year to 53 lower than other years but still hoping to pass 100 by the end of the year.

Book of the month

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am a huge fan of James Joyce so this book was a great choice it follows a group of readers following their wat through the book.

Next month-

We’ll have more Spanish and Portuguese lit month offerings. Two writers, I have reviewed before one from Venezuela writes a book about the last year of Chavez from the point of view of one of his doctors then another book around a leader Tyrant Memory by Horacio Castellanos Moya about a 1930’s leader of El Salvador. Both spins on the classic Dictator novel a staple of Latin American literature. A Dutch classic set in China. I am working three of the next four days and on Saturday we will be visiting our local Food festival and celebrating our wedding anniversary. So I will be back on Tuesday unless I get time to review a book. I will add a few titles for Women in translation month.

Other none book events last month

I always like mention something new I’ve found well this month it is a great rediscovery and that is Gerry Anderson’s Space 1999 a seventies sci-fi series I had missed the great guest roles in the past from the likes of Christopher Lee and Leo McKern. It has a similar political undertone.  about it that we found in Start trek when it was shown. I have also been a huge fan of the return of Lloyd Cole his new album is rather good as he uses more Keyboards than he has in the past but still has that Cole feel.

What are your plans?

The Iliac Crest by Cristina Rivera Garza

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The Iliac Crest by Cristina Rivera Garza

Mexican fiction

Original title – La cresta de Ilión

Translator – Sarah Booker

Source – personal copy

Well, another crossover for women in translation and Spanish lit month and another great Mexican writer. Cristina Rivera Garza is a well-known writer and professor, she grew up near the US border in Mexico. She has won many of the lit prizes in Mexico. Garza style has been described by her as “disturbing pleasure ” She aims to darken things and make the reader suspicious. Believing that there is too much light and clarity in the world. She uses concepts such as sex and identity this is very much the case here. Another great novel from Mexico.

Three days after her arrival, Amparo had already devolped a routine that we shared and respected equally. So placid, so natrual, that anyone not familar with us might have belived we werehappily married. At first glance, no one would have suspected that I was just playing along, that my fear hadn’t subsided in the least quite the opposite: it kept growing.

Amparo would wake up early, batrhe and, with her hair still wet, go downstairs to the kitchen to make coffee for me and tea for the betrayed.

The two settle in the mans house and make it like a home before they start twisting the screw on the narrator.

this is a strange book an unnamed narrator is visited on a dark night by two women. He is a doctor in a small coastal town between the north and the south. The women seem to know the narrator they invite themselves into the house. The two of them seem to know some dark secret about the narrator He tries to defend himself from their constant question and accusations of who he was before. The women one a Mexican woman called Amparo Davila a writer the other another unnamed character is just called the betrayed. The two start talking in a gibberish to one another as they start to unsettle the narrator meanwhile he is caught by the hip of one of the women which he sees as he tries to remember what it is called well that is the Iliac crest of the title and part of the pelvis which is part of this gothic tale about peoples gender identity.

Amaparo pproached me sureptitiously one night. She brought a bottle of anisette and, after serving the liquor in two small glasses, reclined in front of the lit fireplace. We chatted idly until, pausing, she looked up at me.

“You know?” she said offhandedlu. “I kniow your secret”

As had become cusomary in our few conversations, her comment made me let out a short burst of laughtter. I laughed not only because the woman claimed to know my secret but because she shockingly assumed there was only one.

I loved the last poart of this about his many secrets and them thing he has this one large one !!

Another one of those great short novels that have come from Mexico in recent years this also features a real person well it isn’t here in the end by Amparo Davila is an actual writer her first translation came out in English last year. She writes a lot about gender and there is a lot in this book about that the IIliac crest for example is part of the pelvis and high and more evident in women then in her intro to this book The translator tells us that the use of gender is hard to translate the narrator refers to themselves as a male but when the two women question them it is as thou they are a female. as they play out positions the betrayed the person from Amparo and the narrator who isn’t what we think he or she, their position is questioned. Like a lot of Mexican fiction, this has levels to the narrative and is mainly about females roles within Mexico. As for the simple story two women turning up and questioning someone well for me I was reminded of the Pinter play The birthday party which sees two men turn up and question a man. A great translation from Sarah booker as she says we lose something as we have no gender in English.

The fish child by Lucia Puenzo

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The Fish Child

The fish child by Lucia Puenzo

Argentinean fiction

Original title – El niño pez

Translator – David William foster

Source – personal copy

A sort intertwined review her as Lucia Puenzo is a film director, screenwriter and a novelist this is debut novel. Which she filmed at a later date. She studied Literature and then film studies. She is the daughter of Luis Puenzo another well known Argentinean filmmaker. I ordered this when the film appeared on Mubi a streaming service I use that has a film on it for thirty days so I was pleased when the book arrived just before the film of this book was due to leave so I got to watch both. The film shares a similar none linear narrative but the book is told from Lalas dog’s point of view.

Guayi no longer took her days off. She would stay at home on sundays. But dressed in lala’s clothes. They were inseparable in recent months. Lala missed school more and more and Guayi cleaned the house less and less. They had begun to look alike, in black and white

The two are drawn closer over time.

The book opens when one of the two main characters Guayi or as she is really known Allin is the Paraguayan she was fifteen when events at home meant she had to leave and find this job working for a Judge and his wife. She finds a puppy and gives the puppy to LaLa the younger daughter of the family that is only a couple of years younger than Guayi the puppy nervous and small is called Serafin by the young girl and we see the dog grow as the family grows in the film the dog is there but it isn’t his perspective on the world whereas the book shows he observing the growing relationship between these two young women over a number of years as the two teenagers become young lovers and women. But the father has taken to the maid as well. Meaning they want to leave the family home. As they grow close they plan to leave and return to Paraguay this is where the title of the book comes from and a myth of a small boy that draws people under the water with him in a local lake this is something in her past that means more than that. Lala eventually early in the book but later in the timeline goes to Guayi hometown finds her father and what happened in the past. In the meantime, The Judge had killed himself and the Maid Guayi is chief suspect as it is discovered that she sold a painting that she and Lala were going to use to escape. They steal bits and bobs from Lala family but they also stumble when they sell the painting into a trafficker of girls through a dog trainer they meet. Will they ever get together? Lala race back to find where Guayi is being held and discover what she can do to help?

The force turned the canoe over and suddenly the lake was larger than the world. The wind was impellin along both clouds and waves, turning my barking intio bubbles. The lighthouse disappeared, along the with the shoreline and the house. I opened my mouthand my lungs filled with water. Lala continued to swim toward the bottom, searching for him, until she ranout of breath..

Serafin and Lala on the lake in Paraguay looking at the bottom for the fish boy to come for her.

I maybe did the wrong thing as the film had only a day left to watch it I watched it straight away then read the book so the two young actress and all the characters were those in the film. I often prefer the over way round to read than watch a film. But I enjoyed  seeing the differences when I read the book first the narrator being the dog Serafin then we have a lot more little side piece in the book whereas the film is mainly about Guayi and Lala there relationship is close sexual and remind me of Heavenly creatures film about  although the girls here didn’t kill anyone there is a close tie between the girls in Heavenly creatures. Then there is the Fish child of the title a little bit of Magic realism thrown in a story that mixes Christian religion and older myths together shown in the film when the gate to Allin’s old house has ribbons and saint-like models of the fish boy tied to it.  So this is a great LGBT book also a woman in translation book also one for my Spanish lit month ticking three boxes. Have you read a novel or seen a film that she has made?

Atlantic Hotel by Joao Gilberto Noll

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Atlantic Hotel by Joao Gilberto Noll

Brazilian fiction

Original title – Hotel Atlântico

Translator – Adam Morris

Source – personal copy

Well, it is back to Brazil and a second helping of Joao Gilberto Noll. I so enjoyed the quiet creature I decided to try another and of the two I had this one appealed. Even thou he died a few years ago, he still has a lot of works to be translated into English. He was a guest writer at Kings College in London in 2004 which lead to the other book I have by him called Lord which I will review at a later date the book is set in London partly.

I glanced at the time: eight thirty. It took some effort to get up; my legs hurt. I slipped my blazer on and went to the bathroom, steadying myself on things, feeling a sort of disability- the image of a convalescent getting ready to leave the hospital came to mind.

In the mirror I saw deep circlesunder my eyes, skin all scaly, parched lips. I slid my tongue along an inflamed cavity in one of my teeth, figuring it wasn’t doing me any good to stay here emumerating thesigns of my body’s deterioration.The time to leave has come.

After his first night in the hotel. This remind me a lot of DOA the way he said he was falling apart.

This is a very different book from Quiet creature was. The book opens with a narrator who arrives at a hotel. The Atlantic hotel and has a room where a murder had occurred, he had just flown in he said but has very little luggage and asks what happened in the room but then he is a taxi and the narrative becomes like the road trip from hell, as we follow him from dark seedy motes to motel as he starts to meet people like Susan on a Bus but she is a troubled soul like a narrator as she takes fatal overdose this increases the sense of death and the world drawing in around our unnamed narrator. later he seeks refuge at a church but who is the narrator as the man says various jobs he has done and various things he has done to the people he meets along the way. As he is accused of something who is this man what has drawn him to be the way he is on the run through Brazil but always being close to death as he does almost as though he has a cloak of darkness that tinges all that is around him.

I was drinking coffee with milk and eating a thick slice of butter bread, in Father Anselomo’s old frock. Antonio was sitting in the same chair I’d found him when I arrived at the house. Only hehad bow turned the chair in my direction.

He told me he lived in Rome for four years.There he’d known hunger , absolute misery. He’d wandered the streets in rags. Eaten whatever he was given Sometimes he sat in the doorstep of a fancy restaurant until a cop gave hium the bootor a waiter brought him something to eat- the ramains of the customers meal into a cardboard carton.

Everyone he meets have dark stories to tell him in this road trip around Brazil.

I felt this was more Lynchian than his last book the feeling of our narrator falling down a dark hole as he like the main character in Mullholland drive seems to be drawn into a dark seedy world that he isn’t quite sure what he is doing. There is as I said that sense of disjointedness that is in his works I was reminded of Toby Jones character in Berberian sound studio where he is drawn into the world around him without seeing it happen and the darkness of the film he was doing the sound for. The other film I was reminded of was a classic film noir that was made twice and that is DOA the man on the run here is obviously trying to escape something dark from his life it says early on that he aged forty years overnight at the first night at the hotel. Like the film his world becomes stranger as the days move on like in the film, his world draws in around him and his body starts to fall apart. Have you read this book at all ?

The Hedge by Miguel Delibes

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The Hedge by Miguel Delibes

Spanish fiction

Original title – Parabola del Naufrago

Translator – Frances M. Lopez-Morillas

Source – personal copy

I again add an older writer and her it is one of the stars of post-war Spanish writing one of the Generation of 36 writers Miguel Delibes sat on Chair E of the Spanish Academy from 1975. He wrote about mainly city dwellers that had lost touch with the natural world. He was also considered one of the leading Catholic writers of the second half of the 20th century like Greene and Boll. He won most of the major Spanish lit prizes. His books in English seem to be out of print.

He (Jacinto) appears to be rather meticulous man and he yearns for personal security. A few months ago he went through a very uneasy peroid when he observed the progress made by the adding machines in the office, thinking that the expert calligraphers were a dying breed, but Don Abdon, who is a father to everyone, reassured him with his end-of-the-year speech, when he said that the most perfect electronic brain wasn’t worthy to untie the shoes of a good solid craftsman. That was what Don Abdon said, Don Abdon who is a father to evryone, and this calmed Jacinto, who often, in view of the conquests of technology, belives that he is dispensible and lives of charity.

The quiet Jacinto and his changing workplace as machines take over.

The book follows a caligrapher Jacinto working in an office for the overpowering as he is described Don Abdon he runs the factory but also the town they live in and he is Jacinto’s boss. Jacinto is a loner a sort of everyman. But he is also worried that his job is about to be automated. The boss is described as” the father of them and the mother of the fathers” It is when he has a relatively series of zeros to copy out this meek man finally breaks it is shown when the language we see has the punctation spelled out so it is comma this and full stop that almost showing his mind breaking. He is sent to the town’s country retreat in this remote cabin but far from getting away he is given a bag of seeds to plant and then wakes up the next day to find the cabin he is in cover and surround by one almighty hedge and one of his colleagues is now dog he tries to tunnel burn and otherwise get past the hedge whilst himself seeing his body grow fluffy hair.

Sometimes Jacinto loses his footing , the bend or fork of the hedge fails him and he is again submerged in that vegtable sea and observes that he is asphyxiating and  moves his arms and groans until he comes to the surface again and then he sighs deeply, but as night falls , and the yellow petals closes over the stamens and the enervating odor of the flowers began to spread, Jacinto thinks the end has come , but he tries no to give in he rejects the intoxicating prefume and yells “Damm You!”

The hedge is all around and is hold Jacinto with inside it as he tries to escape it !

This is a strange book Delibes was known for his playful use of language it is shown here in part when we see the punctation seep on to the page out of the reader or Jacintos mind as we see him breaking before he moves to the county and faces a struggle with nature and maybe finally becomes part of nature. It is easy to compare this to Orwell it tells me that on the back of the book itself written in the later years of the Franco regime it is obviously a sideways punch at Franco with the Don Abdin character obviously a veiled Franco esque character . For me I was reminded of the book restraint of beast in the later part of the books as we see the character Jacinto getting trapped in the hedge was like the characters in the book restraint of beast that see themselves fencing themselves in separate from the world.It also showed Delibes love of nature and how he felt people were losing touch with the world around them which it seems was a theme in a lot of his books. Have you read any books by Miguel Delibes ?

 

The posthumous memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado De Assis

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The posthumous memoirs of Bras Cubas by Joaquim Maria Machado De Assis

Brazilian fiction

Original title – Memorias Posthumas de Braz Cubas

Translator – Gregory Rabassa

Source – personal copy

I always like adding depth to the blog some older writers from around the world.So here I review the second book on the blog from the Brazilain writer Machado De Assis He managed a successful career as a Bureaucrat as well as become a successful writer first with poetry then a series of novels it was when this book came out that he became a really well known in Lit circles in Brazil. The book followed the death of a friend that left him melancholic and thinking about death.

For some time I debated over whether I should start these memoirs at the beginning or at the end, that is, whether I shuld put my birth of my death in first place. Since common usage would call for beginning with birth, two considerations led me to adopt a different method: the first is that i am not exactly a write who is dead but a dead man who is a writer, for whom the grave was a second cradle, the second is that the writing be more distinctive and novel in that way. Moses, who also wrote about his death,didn’t place it at the opening but at the close: a radical differecne between this book and the Pentateuch.

The opening lines explain the choice of style for the book

 

This is a strange book as it is the memoirs of a dead man that he wrote after he died he tells us this early on in the book. As we follow Bra Cubas life as he tells us in a quirky style of short chapters that vignettes of his life from his childhood onwards. but he was a spoilt rich child maybe this explains why his life is never quite right. He also abused the slaves his family had at the time. He then goes on to study law. His wilder years before he settles   Sleeping and falling in love with a prostitute that all the boys loved at the time. He also deals with his mother’s death and ends up in Rio. This is where he starts to meet Virgilia a woman that is the love of his life they never quite get it there she marries someone else he decides to become involved in politics. But he is a man that always sees his world as half empty and his relationships and life all reflect this so when he re-meets Virgilia and they see each other things still don’t go his way. His political career grows but he then is out of favor and starts a pape as a  member of the opposition.

Virgilia ? But, then, was it the same lady who some year later ….? The very same. It was precisely the lady who was to be present during my last days in 1869 and who before, long before, had played a ample part in my most intimate sensations. At that time she was only fifteen or sixteen years old. She was possibly the most daring creatureof our race and, certainly, the most wilful.I shan’t say that she was already first in beauty, ahead of the other girls of the time, because this isn’t a novel, where the author gilds reality and close his eyes to feckles and pimles.

I liove this description of the love of his life .

This is an amazing book for the time it mixes the absurd style of a book like Lawrence Sterne’s Tristam Shandy another fictional biography. De Assis said he was influenced by this book and also the French masterpiece journey around my room by Zavier De Maistre which is another unusual and unique book in style.  But he also mixes realist lit of the day from the likes of Zola and Dickens which showed the world warts and all. We are given this view of the world  Bra Cubas gives of Brazil he grew up in. It captures the wide range of people in Brazil from those nameless slaves to Bra Cubas and those he sees go above him in his life in the upper reaches of Brazilian life. Bra Cubas is  a man that is a normal man, not a hero never really successful in fact in a lot of ways he is a man that things never quite pan out failed romances the sense that he is maybe marked for his younger days in later life. I liked this much more than the other book by De Assis I read a few years ago I see in this how well read he was it is said he read in five languages and you can see what an influence he was for the Latin American writers that followed him. Borges for example in the short choppy chapters that could each be like the small gems  of short stories  that Borges did so well. Have you read De Assis ?

Quiet creature on the corner by João Gilberto Nollrr

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Quiet creature on the corner by  João Gilberto Noll

Brazilian fiction

Original title – O quieto animal da esquina

Translator – Adam Morris

Source = Personal copy

I move from Spanish lit to Portuguese lit well Brazilian lit and a short Novel I have been wanted to read for a couple of years. Gilberto Noll wrote his first short story in 1970 at a very young age and went on to Study at the Iowa writers workshop in the early eighties which is when he started publishing novels and short stories collections around the early eighties as well. He also ran a twice-weekly short story in a Sao Paulo daily paper. He published a number of novels before passing away two years ago in the city of Porto Alegre which happens to be the setting for this book as well.

Suddenly I realized I was so close to the singing girl that I could almost feel her breath- I didn’t say anything, she stopped singing, I noticed there was a speckled wall that hid us from the building – I hit her with a kiss and she fell with me onto the wet earth, my tongue passing through a murmur stifled in the girls mouth, for sure a scream if I were to take my mouth off hers, and it was to late,

He goes round to the singing girl but this leads to him goinjg to far but I like the waty he noticed the speckled war that seems sinster in a way !!

The book is narrated by a 19-year-old poet, a drifter it seems having lost his job within the first lines of the book. Still living at home with his mother early on in the book whilst his mother slept. So he decides to sit and write a poem taking the most of the silence but then he is interrupted ! he goes round to a neighbor who is singing and covers her mouth to stop he screaming and then has sex with her thus he has raped her. return to the shredded sofa at his mother’s house next morning he sees the police around and fails to escape this is where things get strange he is arrested but within a few moments he has ended up in a large country estate  were he is held captive by two people a couple Kurt the German and his wife Gerda also Otavio in this strange house. Where he has been whisked to. The estate is different all they want is for him to write poetry for them, just that.  But why? this is a disjointed world where one moment our narrators is in one place then arrives in another.

At the lunch table there were three people besides me: Kurt at one-end, Otavio at the otherm and a woman with blue rinsed white hair across fromme. Kurt introduced me: Gerda, his wife, silent most of the time she asked my age then drank a sip of white wine from her glass.

Kurt had the same solemn air as his wife, Otavio did not. otavio seemed like the Plebeian of the household, besides the miad, obviously, lowering here eyes threatrically when they encountered mine.

He meets Kurt and his two companions as things take a really weird turn and things start getting surreal.

It’s easy to see why he has been called a Brazilian David Lynch for his writing style it has that sense of drifting place that Lynch has done so well in his later films where we think we are on one path only to be abruptly turned onto another. Our narrator is a troubled man a man that has just lost his job cleaning the drains and really wants to be a poet the world he describes is poetic as it makes what is a dark part of the city of Porto Alegre. Then he ends up in the mansion with the German Kurt this part is like Kafka in a way our narrator has no idea why he is there other than having to write Poems. The title of the book is one of the poems he writes whilst there. This is a jumpy book that sometimes feels as thou he has taken some parts out of it to make you the reader work like I feel Lynch does so well in his films why do we need to know the full picture sometimes filling in the gaps is very interesting. I have two more books by him on the tbr pile so don’t be surprised to see him crop up again in the next couple months.

Vlad by Carlos Fuentes

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Vlad, a novel by Carlos Fuentes

Mexican fiction

Original title – Vlad

Translators – E.Shashkan Bumas and Alejandro Branger

Source – personal copy

I move to Mexico for the second stop on this year’s Spanish and Portuguese lit months. I am reviewing the writer that until the last ten years was the best-known writer from Mexico Carlos Fuentes. One of the great figures of the Latin American boom this was the last book he published while alive. He is best known for the death of Artemio Cruz he wrote over twenty novels in various styles and was often considered as a possible Nobel winner although he didn’t win that prize he won all the major prizes for Spanish language fiction.

“I wouldn’t trouble you, Navarro, if Davila and Uriate were available. I’m not going to call them your inferiors- subordinates sounds better – but neither will I forget that you are a senior partner, primus inter pares, and so are higher ranked in the firm. I am entrusting this task to you because first and foremost, I consider this a matter of utmost urgency ….”

Weeks laterm when the awful adventure had ended, I recalled that, at its beginning, I had chalked up the absence of Davila dn Uriate to luck. Davila was off on honeymoon in Europe and Uriate was tied up in a Judical embargo …

He is given the case it seems great as he is just getting back to work after his recent loss Yves.

This is a short book and is a clever take on the Vampire story. It imagines that Vlad the Impaler has decided he needs to leave Europe and has chosen Mexico city as his new home. The book opens as an estate agent is Yves Navarro a lawyer and he estate agent wife is tasked with finding a fort like home which will be easy to defend, against intruders,  have an escape tunnel and Blacked out windows. The two of them and their daughter are just getting over the death of their son. This is all for the strange  European Vladimir Radu. but maybe is he really Stokers  Vlad the Impaler. Vlad is putting himself into the couples live as he tells the narrator he loves his wife’s smell. Slowly, as he starts to get his way into the lives of this grieving family as he has viewed Mexico city and the way it is as his chance to feast on the city starting with Yves and his family. Could he bring their son back for them?

“Yes, boss” I said almost seetly, sensing his need for consolation. While feeeling myself vunerable because of my affection, memories, and even gratitude.

“You have to hurry. It’s urgent. Have a look at these papers”

He let go of my hand I took the papers he proffered and then walked toward the door. He said, as though from a great distance;

“From Vlad, you can expect nothing but evil.”

and in a lower voice

“Do you think I don’t have scruples or even a conscience I don’t have a fever burnong in my soul?”

I turned my back on him I knew that I would never see him again.

Yves starts to find out the real truth about his client !!

This is a very short book more of a novella than a novel it has echos of the great story by Stoker Yves and Harker in the original book both have wives or finances that Vlad seems to connect the two stories. Then him moving westward as well first to London at the turn of the century a sprawling city and the comparison is apt with Modern Mexico city the city is huge and perfect for Vlad. Then he has the grief of the family and the family story Yves and his wife Asuncion mourning the loss and trying too move forward. this is subtle take there isn’t the violence as in the Stoker book it is more about the menace and characters also about loss blinkering the main character as he heads with his wife into unkn=own waters with this odd European man who is he really with his black outfit just making him seem dark. An interesting last book from one of the great Latin American writers. Have you read Fuentes?