Tag: 2022

That was the month that was October 2022

~ winstonsdad ~ 1 Comment
  1. Discipline is destiny by Ryan Holiday
  2. Some prefer Nettles by Junchirō Tanizaki
  3. A High wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes 
  4. Walking in Berlin by Franz Hessel

I decided to have a good break from the blog by coming back to work after all the time I had off with stress and anxiety this year.  I was on a return to work with shorter shifts but there is a few other things at work that was on my mind so I just wasn’t going to be focused enough to blog I felt. It was good timing as  I happened to have covid as well after two years of avoiding it firstly Amanda test positive and I was still negative so I went to get food Amanda’s meds and other bits and luckily went to get a shop in when I got home that day I felt off it even thou I had tested negative in the morning I was now positive and had a few days I felt rough then a couple more days before I was testing negative again. Anyway, I had just reviewed four books. I started with the master of Stoicism’s latest book about TEMPERANCE a  subject that he lit up with his great examples.Then I reared my three books for the 1929 club firstly in Japan a couple struggles with the fact they really need to divorce. Then a set of children are taken by Pirates and go rouge whilst with the pirates. Then a man walks around Berlin. I also add the number of books read this month. I feel ready to get back to blog and now have my monthly blog planner book.

Book of the month

Wel,l it is a hard one but I choose the Hessel it is just such an engrossing walk around a place and city that has changed so many times since he wrote the book and made me want to visit Berlin. Be my own flaneur in the city.In fact, it will make me look afresh next time I’m in a city or bigger town.(Chesterfield I just know to well, sad our town isn’t so vibrant these days but we have a Waterstones, a record shop (2 one new one second hand ) the weekly flea market and a few great shops around the town here and there. Also The Library which is one of the best for a town this size I think.

Non-book events

We watched the series Becoming you on Apple TV which followed kids around the world in the first 5 years of life. it was amazing how kids grow up in so many different ways around the world. Japanese kid on his first errand a tradition was scary a three year wandering the streets but he was a changed kid after it amazing. Kids in Borneo use machetes to cut fish swimming in the sea an amazing show that shows how different parents are around the world. We also listen to the lifeline drama on radio four (bcc sounds) we missed it earlier this year we have listened to this drama based in an ambulance call centre for the last few years we love to sit and listen to this sort of short drama and podcast the BBC does so we have our evening meal at the table listen to these dramas and discuss our day.

The month ahead

I have two great books from Istros books I am partway through both. I have a pile of books I read this month and didn’t review and also it is German lit month which I will focus on the end of November OI have one book read and hope to get a couple more books to read not sure what yet will make the cut I have a few in mind for this year German book month.

 

Walking in Berlin by Franz Hessel

~ winstonsdad ~ 5 Comments

Walking in Berlin by Franz Hessel

German Non-fiction

Original title – Spazieren in Berlin

Translator – Amanda DeMarco

Source – personal copy

I managed to just squeeze the third read in for this week’s 1929 club and it was one I saw on the list of books when the year was announced earlier this year and was reminded about it I had seen it when it came out and had intended to look at it then but it had passed me by. So to get back to it Franz Hessel he was a friend of the great Walter Benjamin who has an essay at the start of the book about the book. He calls how Hessel a flaneur should look t the city afresh. The city of his birth with fresh eyes. Hessel himself with Benjamin had translated the works of Proust into German.

In the half-light of tinted lamps hanging in a number of smaller halls and rooms in the north as well as the west, same-sex couples circulate, here the girls and there the lads. Sometimes the girls are dressed, in a more or less pleasant manner, as men, and the lads as ladies. Over time their appetites, once a bold protest against the dominant moral laws, have become a rather harmless pleasure, and visitors who like to dance with the opposite sex are also allowed into these mellow orgies. They find a particularly favourable environment here. The men learn new nuances in tenderness from the female cavaliers, their partners learn from the masculine ladies, and your own “straight”-ness becomes a peculiar stroke of luck, as it makes you seem rather exotic. Oh, and the light fixtures are positively magnificent: wooden or metal lanterns with serrated frames, reminiscent of the fretwork of our boyhood.

I was reminded of cabaret her and imagine Isherwood sitting in his Berlin

I loved the idea of this book as I had just rewatched the two films Tilda Swinton had made more than 20 years apart, in fact, they could be seen as a cousin of these the first was just at the cusp of the wall falling and the second is the unified Berlin. She covers the same route on a bike across Berlin many points on her route  Hessel visited in his book. t Hessel had walked his Berlin in the late twenties what I first got from the book is that he had a way of looking but not jading the times one passage in the book really grabbed me about girls looking like boys and boys looking like Girls those characters that had fallen out of Cabaret or an Isherwood novel of the time. He captures a city that has underneath the horror that happened in the 15 years after he walk the city. meandering the city that would a few years later be gone. The longest piece is on a tour called the tour of the churches like St Peters etc. Also the old Royal buildings of Berlin, and the National Gallery. This is a flaneur a wander of the city this metropolis his fellow citizens. Then the Zoo places like the Newspaper district a place I wonder is dead like Fleet Street its London counterpart.

Excursioners in light-colored skirts and shift dresses climb the steps leading up to the station. Those lucky things, enjoying such a nice autumn day. Some also go through the narrow entrance to the little Wannsee train station. What I’d really like to do is follow them. A sail. boat, or even just a paddleboat.1 Potsdam and the Havel. see, the secret soul of Berlin, otherworldly places here on earth! And today a weekday. But now we’re arriving at Potsdamer Platz. The first thing to say about it is that it isn’t really a plaza at all, but rather what they call a carrefour in Paris, a crossroads, an intersection; we don’t really have the right word for it in German. That Berlin once came to an end at the city gate here, with country roads branching off from it–you’d have to have a well-informed eye to recognize that from the shape of the inter-section.

Part of the longest section of the book the Tour which remind me of Bois as Homer as he walked down Potsdamer Platz

Another image that came to mind when I read this was of Homer played by Curt Bois in Wings of desire (I so want the blu ray box set of Wenders going out soon but it is out of my price range I’ll have to wait). Bois’s character is seeking what was Potsdamer Platz in the rubble of the city in the late 80s. Bois walk also has old film of Potsdamer back in the day (Hessel is by Potsdamer in the section Fashion around Fashion houses and shops in the city and also the tor section). It’s a Shame Hessel died in the early years of the war in France a follow-up to this would be great like Swinton and my own remembrance of the city I have only been for a day and wish I could go back to Berlin it is a city that has had so many changes in the nearly hundred years since this book came out. This book is a forerunner of Psychogeography a distant cousin of Benjamins Opus to Paris Arcades (I have been reading this on and off for years ). Have you read this or any other great flaneur works of people wandering cities on foot and just taking it in like it was new and fresh to the writer’s eyes.

Winston’s score – A- a gem from this week’s 1929 club reminds me of a place I’d love to go and explore more and each for his ghosts and the ghost of what happened.

A high Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

~ winstonsdad ~ 8 Comments

A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

English fiction

Source – Personal copy

I always have a look on my shelves when the club year is announced and this was a book I already owned so it saved me from ordering another book and it is one I had long wanted to read, I think I may have seen the film when I was younger. Richard Hughes was a journalist and writer he wrote four novels I have another by him Fox in the attic. He was friends with Dylan Thomas who stayed with him. This book has been described as an inspiration for William Goldings Lord of the flies. Supposedly at the time, Hughes wrote the book he hadn’t visited Jamaica. But it is only featured in the first part of the book most of the action is on the sea.

The passage from Montego Bay to the Caymans, where the children had written their letters, is only a matter of few hours: indeed, in clear weather one can look right across from Jamaica to the peak of Tarquinio in Cuba.

There is no harbour; and the anchorage, owing to the reefs and ledges, is difficult. The Clorinda brought up off the Grand Cayman, the look-out man in the chains feeling his way to a white, sandy patch of the bottom which affords the only safe resting-place there, and causing the anchor to be let go to windward of it. Luckily,, the weather was fine.

The island, a longish one at the western end of the group, is low, and covered with palms. Presently a succession of boats brought out a quantity of turtles, as Emily described.

The natives also brought parrots to sell to the sailors: but failed to dispose of many.

The opening of the third chapter is as they set off on the first boat.

The book follows the aftermath of the Hurricane on an English Family in Jamaica whose property is destroyed by the storm. Which leaves the parents of the Bas-Thornton children to take the decision. It would be better to send their five children homeland in England. The children have very few memories of England and are sent with two creole children with them. They head to the port town Montego bay and on to a ship, the Clorinda with its captain Maypole the ship has barely set off when the ship is taken over by Pirates initially thaty seem to wan the cargo but then are looking for a safe they seize the children ( John, Emily, Edward, Rachel and Edward with the two creole Margaret and Harry.) and use them as leverage to get to know where the safe is on the ship. The chain of events that follows means the children end up with the pirates and the Captain Maypole of the ship Clorinda they were on writes to tell the parents the loss of the children rather than dying initially the pirates aren’t to bother with the kids but the chef and a couple of them befriend and the captain of the pirate ship takes a liking to Young Emily another has relations with another pirate as with the shackles of parental control the kids start to go rogue and act like the pirates, in fact, they maybe are worse than them. What will happen will they get home will they all get there alive what happens to them on that ship.

The children all slept late, and all woke at the same moment as if by clockwork. They sat up, and yawned uniformly, and stretched the stiffiness out of their legs and backs (they were lying on solid wood, remember).

The schooner was steady, and people tramping about the deck. The main-hold and fore-hold were all one: and from Where they were they could see the main-hatch had been opened. The captain appeared through it legs first, and dropped onto the higgledy-piggledy of the Clorinda’s cargo.

For some time they simply stared at him. He looked uneasy, and was talking to himself as he tapped now this Case with his pencil, now that; and presently shouted rather fiercely to people on deck.

And by the next chapter they awake to being on the pirate ship and what happens there.

I must admit I was one of those kids that never got into pirates which are maybe why I had never gotten to this book. But I was pleased the 1929 club gave me the nudge to read this book.I can see the connection to the lord of the flies and the way the children act once they are with the pirates.  This book maybe captures the last age of the pirates as it seems it is just as sailboats are making way for mechanical ships.I looked up to see if there had been cases of kids as pirates there were some kids in the 70s that were shipwrecked like the lord of the flies but they didn’t go like they did. I wonder if he had read an article about some kids taken by pirates as one of his other books In Hazard came from a news story. I’m sure there were children taken and became or were used by the pirates. It deals with the idea of what happens when there are no boundaries and no consequences for your actions on the young Bas Thorton children. He captures the darker side of childhood the book has a gothic feel at times in someways the writing reminds me of a couple of Daphne Du Maurier books I have read it maybe influenced her I feel he maybe was a Stevenson fan it is a darker cousin of Treasure island it also maybe has a nod to the books of Conrad another great writer of a ship bound fiction he captures that confined feeling of being on a ship on top of one another and how that makes people feel his trilogy of books set on the sea is set around the same time as both steamboats and sail ship share the high seas. Have you read this book or have you a favourite book set on the sea Pirate or otherwise?

Some Prefer Nettles by Junchirō Tanizaki

~ winstonsdad ~ 10 Comments

Some Prefer Nettles by Junchirō Tanizaki

Japanese fiction

Original title – 蓼喰う蟲 – Tade kuu mushi

Translator – Edward G. Seidensticker

Source – personal copy

I’m back and the strange thing is I had covid last week so the break was a good idea as I wouldn’t have blogged last week it also means I’m probably only going review two books for this weeks 1929 Club but here I am with the first book for this week and it is a book from Japan. I always get the list of books published on the year for the club and try and find the ones in translation first that I may like to review. This title jumped out at me as I had featured a later book by Tanizaki in the 1956 edition of the club. Tanizaki is one of the best regarded and considered one of the founding figures of Modern Japanese fiction in the 20th century as his books follow both the working of the family and the changing times around him.

‘YOU THINK YOU might go, then?’ Misako asked several times during the morning.

Kaname as usual was evasive, however, and Misako found it impossible to make up her own mind. The morning passed.

At about one o’clock she took a bath and dressed, and, ready for either eventuality, sat down inquiringly beside her husband. He said nothing. The morning newspaper was still spread open in front of him.

‘Anyway, your bath is ready?

Oh.’ Kaname lay sprawled on a couple of cushions, his chin in his hand. He pulled his head a little to the side as he caught a suggestion of Misako’s perfume. Careful not to meet her eyes, he glanced at her – more accurately he glanced at her clothes – in an effort to catch some hint of a purpose that might make his decision for him. Unfortunately, he had not been paying much attention to her clothes lately. He knew vaguely that she gave a great deal of attention to them and was always buying something new, but he was never consulted and never knew what she had bought. He could make out nothing more revealing than the figure of an attractive and stylish matron dressed to go out.

the opening of the book we see the problem at the heart of the marriage.

This is described as his most personal book it focuses on the collapse of a marriage as we see what has caused the breakup. The couple Kaname and Misako are trying to navigate splitting up even on the first page there is a sense of distance when Kaname says he hadn’t noticed what Mistake had been wearing lately. He also early on laments the potential loss of his father I law which he feels he may miss more than his wife. He let his wife take a lover. The father-in-law is a very traditional man even his wife is like a doll ( in a very traditional dress and style even down to blacken teeth) This is part of the pull of the book is how the traditional world of Japan is disappearing as the book shows these two views modern western ideas versus tradition. The father-in-law is in the traditional world he loves traditional puppet theatre. The juxtaposed problems and themes in the book are how women are viewed and how the modern Misako maybe just wants her lover and not marriage and her son, as unlike her father’s view of a woman. It follows what happens when neither person in the marriage is brave or strong enough to say not is over. which creates a sense of inertia and causes tension also the fact they have a young son the status quo isn’t ideal as you sense the simmering tension but lack of wanting to end this marriage.

The images of the dolls, Koharu and O-san, were still vivid in Kaname’s mind. He was on edge, however, lest the old man begins his discourse on the serpent, the demon in a wife’s breast, and he found it difficult to stay politely through the lunch.

The doll as the object is part of the values and image of a woman dealt with in the book

I have reviewed three other books by Junichirō Tanizaki over the years it is hard to describe I am a fan but not a fan his books are slow-moving art times and aren’t the quickest to read but then the themes he deals with the clash of cultures the traditional world and modern world is something that I have always loved in fiction.I was reminded of those great books from Africa that followed a similar theme or even Pyre I reviewed recently that had marriage and traditional values at their heart. He is very good at the inside views of marriages. the inner workings of families. The things pulling at this couple from every side but also why divorce is really needed to solve the problems we see in this couple. I like way he describes how cultures clashes. Have you read any books from Him, what books have you chosen for this week’s 1929 club?

Discipline is Destiny Ryan Holiday

~ winstonsdad ~ 1 Comment

Discipline is Destiny by Ryan Holiday

Non- fiction

Source – Review copy

I had forgotten I had said I reviewed this book today so I am back early it is strange that is a book by Ryan Holiday I am back with today. If you are not aware of Ryan he is the voice and person behind the Daily stoic podcast, YouTube, book etc. He uses the stoic philosophers and brings them into a modern context he then uses all he reads and has learnt over time. He has a great number of videos of his reading of the stoics and other books. Where he deep diving into philosophers. Making what the Germans call a Zettelkasten a box of notes. Then how Ryan uses notes to build the books he has written, This book is the second in a series of books he is building around the four cornerstones of Stoicism COURAGE, TEMPERANCE, COURAGE, and WISDOM. He has said he felt this was the hardest book for the writer as TEMPERANCE, SELF CONTROL, MODERATION COMPOSURE and BALANCE are such hard subjects to make compelling to the reader.

For 2,130 consecutive games, Lou Gehrig played first base for the New York Yankees, a streak of physical stamina that stood for the next five-and-a-half decades. It was a feat of human endurance so long immortalized that it’s easy to miss how incredible it actually was. The Major League Baseball regular season in those days was 152 games. Gehrig’s Yankees went deep in the postseason, nearly every year, reaching the World Series a remarkable seven times. For seventeen years, Gehrig played from April to October, without rest, at the highest level imaginable. In the off-season, players barnstormed and played in exhibition games, sometimes travelling as far away as Japan to do so. During his time with the Yankees, Gehrig played some 350 doubleheaders and traveled at least two hundred thousand miles across the country, mostly by train and bus

Yet never missed a game

From the first part of the book Lou Gehrig Baseball Hero

The book is formed in three parts and has a number of examples he uses for each part to try and explain and demonstrate Temperance. the first part at its heart is Lou Gehrig the baseball player (now I know nothing about baseball but he is a name I have heard of, he played the most consecutive games in baseball it is like me picking a cricketer he is a bit like Alastair Cook who played 150 plus test but more so ).Ryan explains how he grew up in a poor family. That it was his self-control on and off the pitch that gave him an advantage and lead to him being seen as an example of the perfect player to those young players coming through. Now the second part used the Queen which at the time I was reading the book was the time here in the Uk we were in the middle of mourning for the  Queen. I am not a royalist but admired and I value and sheer  WATY SHE WAs and how determined she was to serve. This is a perfect example. There are little snippets of her life. LIKE when Churchill first saw her, he was her first prime minister and said she looked serious as a child. It was noted later in her life when asked how many of each party had been prime minister under her she said it wasn’t a matter for her. Then Philip lost his temper one day she said look at the pottery he calmed but when the person looked there was nothing there it showed how she controlled herself so well a true example. The third part I will leave to you.

You could ayitwas in her from thebegining.

Churchill certainly saw it.

Upon meeting the baby who would become the great Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-serving monarch and likely the longest serving in all of history, he noted, “She has an air of authority and reflectiveness that’s astonishing in an infant.”

The observation of Churchill on the young princess as she was then that became the Queen

Now, this is a change for me I was offered the chance to read this book and said yes as I am an avid listened watcher of Ryan’s podcast he is someone that just makes you want to think read discover. I wish I  could get some of his values in my blog more I admire how he took a subject like a temperance and built a guided journey through the subject that isn’t on the surface that interesting self-control, and moderation balance but actually they are Important how often in the books I have read books like stones in the landslide we see females show this stoic virtue when faced with tough circumstances. Have you heard of Ryan or his podcast are you a fan do you think the stoic and the virtues and things like Memento Mori still ring true? I do I often feel this is what makes me read world literature is how it opens are eyes to the world around us and connect joint the dots use what has been for now. Have you read any of his books or the Stoics?

Winston’s score – +A compelling and interesting look at a subject that could be dull.

 

 

I’ll be back in 1929

~ winstonsdad ~ 6 Comments

I’m going to take a few weeks away from blogging and also Twitter. I’m just ready for a break from social media and the blog so I decide to return 3 weeks today, yes I’m missing the Nobel I may be around but think I won’t be posting on Twitter I’m looking forward to 1929 club so all effort while away will be to read for that week. There is nothing up I just want a break from my social media and blog. My  mental health is fair at moment  I just fancy a break from and maybe the headspace will be good for me and the blog.

 

That was the month that was September 2022

~ winstonsdad ~ 9 Comments

You may notice a change I have removed numbers from what I read and from next year the books read page won’t have numbers I feel reading is a personal journey and figures just gamify our reading it isn’t about how many or how few books you read it is all our own journeys I suggest you maybe do the same I can see on my good read the figures as I use that now to track how many etc not here. Anyway back to the books it has seen me travel from Saudi to a man with cancer in a Kafkaesque nod to the book. Then a love affair is subtle as a man takes a mobile library around the hinterland of Quebec followed by a woman and a circus as a slow-burning love affair unfolds. then we meet a pair of widows trying to keep what should be theirs. Then a man in Argentina obsessed with an art magazine. Then a French girl in a provincial town is set back by her sex and will this affect her as a mother to her daughter. Then a wonderful collection of short stories behind those doors in Morocco a wife flirts is a girl a virgin and a crowded bus. Then yesterday I end with a married couple in a village as her caste and the village clash. Where has your reading journey taken you what waters have you been in? I had one new country this month but I like my books this month I always saying I should read more Arabic and African books and I did this month.

Book of the month

This may be the hardest month of all to pick one but this is a book that should be read it is an insight into a writer that died too young. She tackled the subjects maybe other writers would sex, being a virgin or. not, web sex this is just a collection you should try.

Non-book events

I have posted on the holiday the trip and the books. I also picked a couple of great records this month.

First is Filgree and the Shadow by This Mortal Coil, I had this on cd I love this collective that was run by Ivo Watts Russell that used people from the bands on his record label 4AD. If you not listen to this band I would it is ethereal and unique I love the song the jeweller on this album.

Then Sufjan Stevens the outage album The Avalanche is bits that didn’t make his Illinois album (I wish he had made more than two of the state’s albums he had said he do one for every US state but made two in the end so far) I love his mix of lo-fi, country and art rock he is a real talent.

I ll add this here as I brought this copy of Watt by Beckett yesterday and was shocked I had seen it had a couple of newspaper cuttings I just thought oh it’ll be something like a bookmark or local paper no it was from 1969 and a French paper when he won the Nobel prize such a great find.

A tv show Amanda and I watched was 9/11 : one day in America it is a six-episode series from National Geographic about 9/11 I thought I had seen every clip of 9/11 but this had so many moments of that horrific day captured that I hadn’t seen. Also, so many personal stories it doesn’t seem like 20 years ago how time has flown since that day.

Next month

I have a few books read and hope to review them. I have a couple of books for club 1929 at the end of the month to read. Who knows I read so much on a whim these days. I have the new Pamuk to read before the end of the year. What is your month looking like next month ?

 

 

Pyre by Perumal Murugan

~ winstonsdad ~ 5 Comments

Pyre by Perumal Murugan

Indian fiction

Original title – Pūkkul̲i, Tamil –  பூக்குழி

Translator – Aniruddhan Vasudevan

Source – review copy

I draw to a close this month with one of the major Indian writers Perumal Murugan this is the first book I have read by him it is the third book to be translated by Pushkin press from him. He has written 11 novels and five collections of short stories, which means we have a lot more books to come from the book. Murugan has been writing from an early age he was featured on Indian radio as a kid he grew small holding and his father ran a soda shop which is also what Kumaresan is doing as he saves to escape with his new wife Saroja. so some of the settings has some of his own backgrounds.

As they neared the rock, she could see the faces of the women sitting there. Their voices rose in a cacophony. As soon as they saw the couple, they all got up. Everyone was silent for a minute. Saroja stood with her head bowed, while Kumaresan set the bag on the ground and looked at them.

No one said anything. There were five or six men in the crowd too.

Suddenly, from within one of the huts, there came a wail, and an aggrieved voice lashed out at them: ‘You have ruined me!’

The rock is like the island in a sea hatred.

The book was longlist for the south Asian prize and is set in the village of Kattuppati a remote village. A young man has brought home a bride after spending some time in the city. when he returns to his village and to his house on the rock ( I always feel this maybe add to the story the rock is like an island in the sea of hatred they face) with his new bride Saroja is from a different caste to her husband they return n to sure what will happen the minute they get back you get a sense that they maybe hadn’t gathered how bad the reaction Kumaresan marrying this girl from a lower caste. His mother curse her and from the get-go there is a real sense that Saroja doesn’t want and the locals will do their best to get rid of her. Meanwhile Kumaresan  is trying to build a soda business as the plan was to get the money to move this becomes more of the plan when Saroja falls pregnant but this comes as Kumaresan has to go away maybe for a few days Saroja worries about what will happen.

Then appucchi spoke again. ‘Run away from here before your uncles return. They want to hack you to pieces.

They are very upset that the boy whom they raised has done something like this. Your uncles had plans to build you a tiled house on the rock and get you married to a nice girl Couldn’t you find a girl in our village, from within our caste? We can’t even face our people. You have shamed us all. If your uncles see you now, they will hack you to death.

Hey, you! Give them something to eat if you want and send them on their way. If our boys ask, we will tell them that we were feeding some workers’

Later on the tension and what may happen becomes clearer.

This for me has so many things I love in literature the clash of cultures here is almost like a car crash as the new couple from different castes The village is a typical insular village I was reminded of the book  Stones in the landslide (as you may know one of my favourite books) where some one from the next village down moves to the village and seems like an alien to the locals this is the same feeling but tenfold. Another feeling I had was a Dickensian feel with the bottle shop reminding me of David Copperfield but dickens also tackled marriage and relationships across the class divide. It also has that feeling of cranking up the tension as the full extent of the relationship and the outfall of this marriage on the village and his family and the locals as you feel the dark and tension grow. It if Satyajit Ray had ever done an Indian version of Emmerdale this would have been it has the feeling of tension that soap operas do well at building slow tension over time you as a reader can see it coming Ray also captures the Indian village so well in his films. this is one of those books that shows us why we need more Indian books in translation the only thing we miss is as the translator says is the subtle sense of language between the village and city folks those subtle dialects that is always hard to convey in translation but it doesn’t lose anything for not having it.

Winstons score – +A I am always a fan of books set in villages and clashes of classes (Well caste her as well)

 

Those Holiday books and a few gifts

~ winstonsdad ~ 7 Comments

I promised you a tour of the books and I will also show you a couple of gifts I got or Amanda gifted me.

First is the three books I brought at the accidental bookshop the new well think it has been there a year or so in Alnwick. Firstly was a book I was on the hunt for which I had seemed mentioned on Twitter a couple of times over the few days before we went away. It follows the time the art historian Felix Hartlaub his notebooks of when he was assigned to war time Paris. I have read this and am going to reread it next week for a review.

Then I choose this I have only read the first part of Tove Dilevsen Copenhagen trilogy that is enough to know I would love anything by her another of these writers in the last few years we have rediscovered or have just reached us in English this is a collection of her short stories.

The last book I brought was this I always like to buy just three books per book shop do you have a quota per shop? I saw a few titles that I Like on their shelves but I finally went for this book by Alejandro Zambra another writer I have read before and have reviewed three books by him this had been on my list of books to read a poet wanders around a city of poets and then meets up with his childhood sweetheart who now has a child !!!. I may save this for next year’s Spanish lit month.

Then in North Berwick, I had a look around Oxfam (Am I the only one that always thinks in the Charity shop world Oxfam always seems to have the best books in them ?) it was a small shop busy but I managed to find three books again the first is this Turkish writer Yashar Kemal he was best known for Memed, My Hawk which I have somewhere and yet to get to but I have a number of Turkish books on my shelves which I am yet to get too so I have a project in mind around those books which include the new Orhan Pamuk.

Then another old Harvil this book is described as a fast-paced gripping greek tragedy set in a small French village by an Italian writer that is one that seems to tick all the boxes I like as a reader and it feels like a Christopher Maclehose book (from his time at Harvil )

 

Then a third book to read from last years Nobel winner I have yet to read Gurney but when he won everyone seemed to be reading him so I ll wait to get to this next year. It was also a reminder that this years Nobel is just around the corner and we will all see who wins this year.

I am a keyring fan and I brought this small Concorde model the bigger models were either to much or just to basic so I picked this and hope one day there may be a nice large model I can fin or maybe a lego model at some point.

I was torn between this and a print for the Concorde this is for my new library when I move I got this just because not had such a connection to my childhood of seeing this plane, in fact, looking like this passing overhead as I was a small child.

The last gift was one Amanda brought me is a new mug which I loved I am a fan of funky mugs and this is one and as Amanda says I am always telling the tale of when I took someone away many years ago and we visited the Coldstream guard’s museum (which wasn’t that far from where we stayed) they had let the person we had taken away try on a bearskin they had so yet again a connection to memories. But isn’t that what life is as we move forward we also have glimpses and flickers of past times every day. A little haul from a long weekend away.

 

 

Something strange, like Hunger by Malika Moustadraf

~ winstonsdad ~ 1 Comment

Something strange, like hunger short stories by Malika Moustadraf

US title – Blood feast

Moroccan fiction

Original title – some stories in the collection Trente six

Translator – Alice Guthrie

Source – personal copy

I have to hold my hands up this is yet another. Arab book I first heard of via Arablit first I think it was on a list of books to read from Arabic that was coming out this year. It was also on their podcast have they had a chat with Alice GUTHRIE I think I order the book the second the podcast end so caught up in the short life of this feminist Moroccan writer. She died too early as complications of her kidney disease and she had dialysis. Alice said she discover her when she was asked to translate a story by her for Words without words that were 10 years after Malika had died and she has brought most of what she wrote into English this is a short collection of short stories by a writer that tested the bounds of what she could write.

This Saturday night I feel a searing pain rip through my belly. Something warm is pouring out from between my thighs and running down my legs. It smells foul. I understand, but I don’t know what to do. I put my hand between my legs to stop this disgusting contamination
from flowing. My fingers are covered in blood. A droplet falls, dark as liver. I shudder, the iron bed frame creaks.`My teeth chatter. I feel degraded, humiliated, I’m cringing in abject shame. What if the blood floods the whole room? The stairs? The neighbourhood? I cry out. My father comes. His eyes are half-closed. What’s the matter?’ His voice sounds like a death rattle. ‘What’s the matter?’

The young girl awakes and is shocked by the blood at her father’s house.

These stories tackle those people on the edge of the world she lived in those women that just have to get by t in a male-dominated society. from a girl who needed a virginity test to marry and escape the world she lives in will she passes will her mother help her out. Will her daughter get the concrete house in ItalyThen we have a young girl with her father as she has her first period a frightening experience as her father has her every Saturday with different women by his side as she visits him.  she wakes to find dark blood between her legs and a woman she barely knows her only help as the girl ends the story the stone of dread weights her down on the Saturday visits. Then we end up on a crowded hot bus as we see a boy pick his nose she captures that crowded feeling of a busy bus so well. then the tale. IN housefly we have a depiction of cybersex as a woman chats with Jupiter 1960 as a housefly buzz around her as she does so. The last story death was meant to be part of a novel.

In front of me was a woman with a child on her back of about four years old, indifferent to what was going on around him, munching on a greasy doughnut and slurping from time to time on the snot running out of his nose. To my left was someone with body odour so nauseating it could knock a person out. And behind me was someone pressing up against me in a weird way. I could feel his
breath burning my ear. The decrepit bus moved like a time-ravaged tortoise, the driver pulling over to let scores more humans on at every stop. I don’t know how the bus had room for that colossal number of passengers.
The man’s breaths were still too close to my ear. I tried to pull away from him a little, but it was so jam-packed in there – such claustrophobia, such a stink of sweat and farts. The man was blatantly rubbing himself up against me, and if I stayed silent any longer it would be taken to mean I was enjoying the game. You bastards – even on the bus?

Claustrophobia a crowded bus caught so well in this very short story.

This is such a small collection it is so sad this is all we will have this is a writer that tests the boundaries of what she could write. she was the first to depict cybersex in Arabic Alice said in the afterword. the book is one of those that takes you into places we shouldn’t be a girl having her first period, a girl trying to prove she is a virgin than a woman laid on a bed chatting over the internet to a man that isn’t her husband. this is a grimy dark visceral world she paints a world we never see that hidden world. I suggest you listen to the Arablit podcast (BULAQ). THE afterword is enlightening with the slang used explained that opens up the world we enter the sad thing about this collection it left me wanting more she had written a novel which hopefully Alice will translate as she has such passion for this write and bringing her voice to English a brave soul that test what she could get away with. Have you a favourite female writer from the Arab world?

Winsons score – +A one hell of a collection that will stay with me and I will reread this collection for many years to come.

Our weekend away

~ winstonsdad ~ 7 Comments

Last weekend Amanda and I had decide well I had decided we maybe need a weekend break a few weeks before so I had a quick look round I feel comfortable driving to Northumberland now so I decided we choose there after some looking around I found a caravan for a good prize and for 3 nights it would be a great base. It is was a bit further north near the border with Scotland so I looked at places where Amanda and I could visit we  popped into Alnwick were I Used live on the way up after an early start managed a few hours there before we got in our caravan . I brought a few books in the new bookshop there the accidental bookshop. which had a great book shelf which reminds me of the one in Ryan Holiday ( daily stoic love his podcast etc)

I will be doing a post soon on the books I got I love this new shop I missed out Barter books as we had to get to the caravan and have  something to eat so we arrived and the site was nice had a lake our caravan was basic but clean and roomy for just the pair of use. I had a few places in mind for the next day we eventually decided on North Berwick which I  had never visited. It has a large hill that shelters it Ihad research most places I wanted to go watch a few you tube videos and read up on what was there. Our first stop was the steampunk coffee shop

Edited in Prisma app with Glaze

That had this great bike just by where we sat and I also got some coffee here and a funky sticker for my MacBook. We walked along the beach then went to the Harbour saw Bass rock which has the largest colony of gannets in the world

Bass rock there was boat rides there it was also there we could see across to Fife where my Aunt lives in a fishing village so near yet so far. We then had a walk around the lobster hatchery that is helping get Lobster back in the local waters. Then to the Scottish sea bird centre

They had a wonderful spair of statues one of Penguins and this of an arctic tern we went in read about Bass rock and the Gannets there was a cafe we had another coffee and some Cake looked out at the harbour and the birds. We then head back into the centre of North Berwick

As we head out of the seabird centre that had this further statue called the watch it remind me a little of TinTin something in the hair and stance maybe that is just me. we then passed this as it was the weekend before the Queens funeral.

I love crochet bombs like this they always make me smile as it is great people take time to make them and put them there for all to see we had an gelato well I did mmm blood orange and Belgian chocolate (yes I  love to eat whilst away ). I brought a couple of books in the Oxfam which I Weill show at a later date we had scene a nice print but it was a little to much when we saw the price shame but we are find another print for our house. we had a   nice lunch then returned to the caravan. We had already decided on the Sunday to go the Scottish museum of flight which we both like when we saw it was near as it had Concorde there

Which I had never seen when flying so it was great to go and look on board it is really small in side. There was a lot about the crash and the devolpment of the plane there was also a red arrow in the same hanger the museum had a number of commercial planes you could go on and exhibits of other planes Both civil and ,military but the one plane I had want to see was the Vulcan.

I grew up in Cheshire where this plane was made and serviced at British aerospace as it was then but Avro when the plane was made this used pass over me as a little boy at school so close it made you shake as we were a couple of miles from the runway so this was a flashback to that see this giant plane pass over me as a kid. (I also had nimrod and other military planes pass over me as a kid but the Vulcan is so iconic) . IT took us most of the day we had drinks and lunch there and ten head home to the caravan packed as it was the queens funeral next day so we want to get off earl we head off after a wonderful few days in a part of the country I want go back to the East Lothian and borders of Scotland is a hidden gem.

Have you a place in you think is a hidden gem maybe off the beaten track not as popular to visit ?

 

Girl A Novel by Camille Laurens

~ winstonsdad ~ Leave a comment

Girl a novel by Camille Laurens

French fiction

Original title – Fille

Translator – Adriana Hunter

Source – Review Copy

I’m late to the review of this just it was one of those books that you have to let sink into you as it was a powerful insight into growing up female in a male-dominated world. Camille Laurens is a member of the Academy Goncourt she was involved in a scandal last year around her husband getting voted on the longlist and a review she had published of another book on the list in Le Monde (I love these little snippets about writers it makes them seem real, Plus it is hard when you partner is in the same world as you and this situation happens). Camille is a prize-winner writer winning the Prix femina and has been on a number of prize Juries over the years she has had a number of books translated into English this is the first book by her I have read.

You’re a girl. It’s not a tragedy either, you see. You are slant-eyed but we’re not in China. Were not in India. In India the words “it’s a girl”  are now banned. Saying “it’s a girl” before the baby is born is punishable by three years in prison and a fine of 6,000 rupees: people are no longer allowed to ask for or carry out scans to identify the baby’s sex and then have an abortion because too many girls are vanishing; so many have been nipped in the bud that there are whole villages of single men. So many girls have been liquidated, they never use the words “sister” or”wife.” Before scans were invented girls were killed at birth. If you’d been born in India or China, you might be dead. In Rouen
everything’s fine. You’re loved in spite of it

As I said the world still has many Laurence’s in it

The book focus on a childhood in the 60s we meet Laurence she is the second daughter her family is a typical family of the time her father works as a doctor and her mother is a housewife. This is really the back bok=ne of the book the time it is set and what we see is Laurence taking apart her childhood. He wanted a son and heir. so When Laurence is born, that really sets the tone for her childhood in many ways the feeling of always being a second-class person to her father’s disregard for the siblings. The fathers constant undermining and view of the world  This is a slice of a provincial world and views you often look back on news footage of these days(I love the bcc archive YouTube channel little snippets of stories over the years) and think was that the world and this is a birds-eye view of growing up female in a male world. The second half of the book is a flip to the first as we see the daughter become a mother to her own Daughter Alice and can she change the way she was brought up it is a picture of a dotting mother trying to avoid what befell her as a child but it is also shown how times and attitudes had changed in the intervening years. The adult Laurence has scars of her childhood and certain events in her life show that.

My father takes my sister and me to see it one after the other, never together. If the boat should capsize or suddenly deflate, even with our water wings on we could drown, and he wouldn’t be able to save both of us, he’d have to choose. Now that’s a father who thinks of everything, even death. Perhaps he’s thinking of Gaelle: girls do that, they die. Perhaps if one of the two of us had been a
boy, he’d have taken us both in the boat. A boy’s good and strong, a boy can always cope. But more tellingly, I think to myself, if one of us were a boy, he wouldn’t hesitate if the boat went down, he’d know who to save.

This one passage hit me hard sad but true

This is a powerful work of feminist writing it takes apart a childhood when you were the sex that wasn’t wanted there is a universal nature to that yes our attitudes in the west have changed and moved on maybe not far enough but books like this show how far along the road we are but also are a reminder of what still has to change how many Laurence are there still around the world. Its hard not to feel there is still;l far to come as is shown when Laurence’s education and just the sheer disadvantage of being female what is shocking is this is only 60 years ago and seems a distant land for me I am a couple of decades younger, but this world felt alien to even then. She works the narrative well with all three perspectives at the time the first second and third person of this life is a woman’s life a look at those subtle obstacles that often are created whether it be sex, race or sexual orientation there is always those that tried and try to sublet unsettled people. It took me a while to review this as it just has to sink in it made me angry and sad at times and for me that is what we as readers read for those journeys those narratives other than our own to be female in a small French provincial time is something I Never could be but this book brought me into her life. Have you read any other books from Camille Laurens /

Winstons score – A – look behind the curtain at going up the wrong sex and disadvantaged due to that and how it effect her own motherhood.

Artforum by César Aira

~ winstonsdad ~ 5 Comments

 

Artforum by César Aira

Argentine fiction

Original title – Artforum

Translator – Katherine Silver

Source – Personal copy

I had read one other book by Aira it seems it is the one most people read it is An episode in the life of a landscape painter. That was in 2016 and I had brought a few of his books but they just went on to mount TBR and I think with them being short I had just never got to them so when I saw it was on the Moose on the gripes podcast last month I decided I would listen to them chat about him as he is a writer I felt I should have read more of as ever Trevor and Paul’s sheer joy grabbed me so what did I do I went and ordered two more book that would make six books I have to read and I choose this to start with as it seemed short and also a book about obsession appears I tend to be a flighty obsessive Itend to deep dive in and out of things so I will thing of a band I loved order loads cds and vinyl listen to them then be on to something else. Like many of his books it follows a man that lives in Corona Pringles. He has been drawn to getting and discovering the art magazine Artforum.

WHEN I MADE THE TRANSCENDENT DECISION to take out a subscription, I thought that all my problems were over. It wasn’t easy, I had to overcome the internal resistance of the primitive economist that I was, who didn’t buy anything if I couldn’t hold it in my hands and pay with banknotes I pulled out of my pocket. I had never taken out a subscription to any magazine, and it was strange that I hadn’t subscribed to Artforum until then, not only because it was my favourite magazine but because of how difficult it had always been to procure.

He takes the plunge and decides to subscribe to his favourite magazine

 

This is a quest a man’s quest obsession for a square Magazine (I was reminded of archipelago books here they are always on the whole square editions and always collectable ) He has spent years trawling shops overseeing and wanting this Magazine from America he in the ends even subscribes and he does that dance which I think many of us, well I know the is it here yet dance has the postman got it and then there is an added dimension he feels the postman may steal and sell the magazine to the book stalls and he laments that over time he had brought copies of art forum from there then he hears of some that have died and his collection is in a shop this reminds me of the weekly flick through records my local record shop does it has all the new second-hand records and if I see that one I may one I can’t wait to get there to get it myself. Then as it seems to happen a lot of books by Aira from what Trevor and Paul said there is a sudden change of tack and suddenly we are talking about a broken clothes spin (peg we would call it) this leads him to Claes Oldenburg therapist that made giant everyday objects. What happens when it stops coming?

WITHIN THE DAILY ROUTINE OF THE HOUSE-hold, small inexplicable incidents also occur. Why did it happen, why didn’t it happen? Nobody knows. All we know is that something happened. What?
Well… so many things! Something is always happening, and it’s difficult to set one incident, one anecdote, apart. How to know what deserves mention? One should talk all the time, or remain silent forever. The trifles that feed innocent chatter sink into the subsoil of the silence of the responses. Sometimes a chance repetition insinuates a meaning.
“Another clothespin broke! What bad luck!”
“I’ll fix it.” (I thought that the spring that connects the two halves had gotten detached.)
“No. It broke. It can’t be fixed.”
“Throw it away!”
“Throw it away!”

Then we discover a broken clothes peg almost like a chapter from another book had fallen in this book.

I loved this short novella I am someone that so gets obsession with something as I have a little of that and also that feeling of wanting something I think this is something that has changed in my lifetime and maybe what he has caught here is a lost world in the future what he captures is that going through racks looking for that lost copy that lost record that whatever, which is something I n the click and get off the modern world we are losing. So I am thankful that I decided to listen to Mookse and gripes podcast I m sure you all do but if you don’t subscribe they just make you a reader who really wants to discover and revisit books. We follow a man’s obsession and get drawn into his world for a short time will it come today or not? How often have I waited for that book to arrive or that record etc. Do you have obsessions or go down a rabbit hole? Have you a favourite book by Aira ? where should I go next?

Winston’s score – +A rediscovering a writer you think you may love

Co-wives, Co-widows by Adrienne Yabouza

~ winstonsdad ~ 4 Comments

Co-wives, Co-widows by Adrienne Yabouza

Central African Republic fiction

Original tilte – Co-épouses et co-veuves

Translator – Rachel McGill

Source – Personal copy

I saw this a few weeks ago it had passed me by when it came out last year I have read other books from the Dedalus African series. But when I saw it was the first book from the Central African Republic to be translated I knew I had to get it I am not in a rush to read every country in the world although it is something over time I want to complete I have a number of countries to go so this the second novel from Adrienne Yabouza a self-taught writer who has Feld her country because of the civil war. She worked as a hairdresser and has written since a young age she has also written books for kids this is her first book to be translated into English she has said Mariam Ba is an influence I reviewed a book by Ba 11 years ago and can see the connection as it was about   a woman whose husband has a second wife this book takes the two wives stories in a way it could be what happened next to that story.

For some reason, or no reason at all, Lidou felt a sudden pain in his chest. It was a burning kind of pain. It began to get worse. It travelled to his left arm. He dropped his radio on the floor. He tried to take deep breaths of the courtyard air, to flush away the pain, but the pain kept getting worse. He was panting now, his face contorted. He tried to call out, but his voice was weak and was drowned out by Flavour singing his hit song ‘Ashewo’, one time too many, on the radio. The four children Lidou had made with Grekpoubou were elsewhere, the son he’d given Ndongo Passy was probably still in bed. Yaché had gone out, to get her hair braided, perhaps.

The scene where he passes away little do they know what will follow this event.

The book focus on the aftermath of the death of Lidou the husband of both Ndongo Passsy and Grekpoubou the book shows how he spends time with each of the wives it is early on he grabs his chest and dies this throws the wives under the bus so to speak it turns out that his Estate is passed on to them this draws the two close as they start to fight for there world which because of the Patrica nature of the system they find them caught up to and the way those closes to Lidou have come and tried to take over his world apart from the wives so what we see is two women especially Ndongo who seems so empowered by this and takes Grekpoudou and draws the two into a sisterhood for there world. As they battle the corruption and legal world that sees them as surplus now he has died.

In PK 10, Poto-Poto neighbourhood, they were about to strike the linga drum to announce Lidou’s death.A wake was a grand occasion: people were already gathering, eager for the opportunity to let their tears flow in company. The tom-tom player began to beat out his rhythms. It was as if a termite
mound was emptying, as a whole silent population assembled in the compound.

They say that a truce should hold until the dead person is in the ground. Zouaboua didn’t care for that convention; he was already weighing up his options. He’d grown up with Lidou; they’d been like friends and brothers. If an inheritance could fill Zouaboua’s pockets, at least something good would’ve come from Lido’s death. Zouaboua had already made good progress in that direction: he wasn’t going to let a couple of gossiping wives stand in his way.

The vultures start before he is in the ground.

It is far to say I loved this it isn’t what I thought it would be which is maybe a criticism of polygamous marriages it isn’t actually at the heart of this is their world the two wives and how they are thrown together but there a connection to Lidou through marriage makes them more like sisters at times in the book. I said it was like Ba book which examined a husband who wants to take a second wife. This could be viewed as a tail end of that story in a way. What happens after that we get a glimpse into how he’d spend a night her and a night there but it also shows the corruption and how Patrica the world they live in still is. Whereas the family dynamics is deeply centred around the females. The two women are a sisterhood around Lidou. It also shows how death can leave a void and what happens when people try to grab what is left from those who should have it. An insight into death, being female, having a fellow wife and how you have to fight to get by when the male head of the house has died. how they became co-widows to keep their world alive. A great feel to the book I think Rachel has kept alive what is a book that mixes so many emotions sadness sorrow grief anger and humour all in one this has it all. Have you a favourite book from region of Africa?

Winstons score- A – has a little bit of everything `I look for in a book a village, family dynamics and also the political world it is set in.