Tag: NOBEL LIT

Pedigree by Patrick Modiano

~ winstonsdad ~ 12 Comments

Pedigree

Pedigree by Patrick Modiano

French autobiography

Original title – Un pedigree

Translator – Mark Polizzotti

Source – review copy

At home
Drawing pictures
Of mountain tops
With him on top
Lemon yellow sun
Arms raised in a V
And the dead lay in pools of maroon below

Daddy didn’t give attention
Oh, to the fact that mommy didn’t care
King Jeremy The Wicked
Ruled his world

Jeremy spoke in class today
Jeremy spoke in class today

Clearly I remember
Pickin’ on the boy
Seemed a harmless little fuck
But we unleashed a lion
Jeremy by Pearl Jam is another man dealing with the let down of who his parents were .

As we move near this year Nobel we are seeing the first new books in English from last years winner Patrick Modiano , this is one of two books from Maclehose press his two most recent books .There is also a trilogy out from Bloomsbury and the trilogy that was already in the pipeline from Yale press that have all appeared since he won the nobel last year .I’m so pleased I have a number of more books to read by him for when last year , when I read search warrant and published my review just a few days before he won the nobel there wasn’t many books available to be read by him .

On 2 august , 1945 , my father went by bike to register my birth at the town hall of Boulogne-Bilancourt .I imagine returning through the deserted streets or Auteuil and alongside the silent quays of that summer .

Then he decided we would live in Mexico .The passports were ready .At the last minute , he changed his mind . He came so close to leaving Europe after the war .Thirty years later , he went to die in Switzerland , a neutral country .In the meantime , he moved around a lot : Canada , Guyana , Equatorial Africa , Colombia .. He went searching for El Dorado , in Vain

To me this capture his father a flighty man who want the quick buck all the time , how does it go this time next year we will be …

For me this is an interesting choice it is a short book , writers autobiographies tend to be strange books I find .But this is quite straightforward and maybe for someone who is called the Proust of his times , his own life as biography is rather eye-opening and maybe explains his fiction .What we see is the young Patrick that is shipped off after his parents an actress mother and his father a shady character that is also a womaniser .What happens is a young boy sent to schools with a heartless mother that doesn’t want the boy and a father who sets the police on him when he needs money .Add to that a brother that dies and his jewish father trying to get by through the war .We see his early years through to his young adulthood and his first rungs on the ladder of being a writer , as he talks about the writers he knows and the books he likes at the time .This include a book by a French writer called Monherlant which I recently found and got myself to read at a later date .

Raymond Queneau was kind enough to receive me on saturdays .Often , at the beginning of the afternoon .We’d return from Neuilly along the Left Bamk .He told me of a walk he had taken with Boris Vian to a dead-end street that almost no-one knew , at the far end of the 13th Arrondissment .

His early writer years he meet the great oulipo writer Raymond Queneau .

What this is a small piece of the greater puzzle that is the fiction of Patrick Modiano , I have read the search warrant, so you don’t get lost in the neighbour hood (review to follow soon also from Maclehose press ) and suspended sentences from Yale that I read but didn’t get to review before it was due back to the library . I enjoyed the later part of the book where he is just starting his journey as a writer and we see him visiting the leading lights of french literature at the time .I said at the time I thought Patrick was a writer that Christopher Maclehose liked and so pleased to be proven right as they publish two new books by him to the earlier books that he would worked on at Harvil years ago .

Have you read Patrick Modiano ?

 

Female Nobel winners diversity and the Nobel

~ winstonsdad ~ 11 Comments

NOBEL WINNERS

I was  thinking  of a discussion about the winners of Nobel .After seeing a tweet from Peirene press about how many female winners of the Nobel Literature prize their have been .There have been thirteen in all –

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2013

Alice Munro

“master of the contemporary short story”

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2009

Herta Müller

“who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed”

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2007

Doris Lessing

“that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny”

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2004

Elfriede Jelinek

“for her musical flow of voices and counter-voices in novels and plays that with extraordinary linguistic zeal reveal the absurdity of society’s clichés and their subjugating power”

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1996

Wislawa Szymborska

“for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality”

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1993

Toni Morrison

“who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality”

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1991

Nadine Gordimer

“who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity”

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1966

Nelly Sachs

“for her outstanding lyrical and dramatic writing, which interprets Israel’s destiny with touching strength”

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1945

Gabriela Mistral

“for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world”

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1938

Pearl Buck

“for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces”

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1928

Sigrid Undset

“principally for her powerful descriptions of Northern life during the Middle Ages”

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1926

Grazia Deledda

“for her idealistically inspired writings which with plastic clarity picture the life on her native island and with depth and sympathy deal with human problems in general”

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1909

Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf

“in appreciation of the lofty idealism, vivid imagination and spiritual perception that characterize her writings”

Thanks to Nobel for the list of winners , it seems they are addressing the lack of Female winners in a way with 4 female winners in the last decade . I have mentioned the possible winners in my last few Nobel prediction posts but there isn’t many women on this list .Svetlana Alexievich , Joyce Carol Oates , Lydia Davies , Dacia Maraini are among the names mentioned to win in recent years I would add Dasa Drndic and Marie D’Naiye myself from female writers in translation I have read .So I feel as Peirene pointed out there is a need for more female winners and maybe more diversity in General a few more African winners .I feel the fact the Nobel have lists of female winners and have said they are getting advice on world lit these day means we may have something to look forward too .

Where to start with Svetlana Alexievich any one ?#

Any suggestions for a female winner of the Nobel Lit Prize ?

 

The enigma of Modiano ?

~ winstonsdad ~ 23 Comments

 

Well Monday see’s the first post nobel book by Patrick Modiano come out its only on kindle for now by Yale press world republic of letters imprints are bringing out Suspended sentences a collection of three novellas by him , they are described as an ode to a bygone Paris and the dark days of Nazi rules and the writers own experience  , this sounds rather like the search warrant , which those of you that read my review know I instantly fell in love with .So we now need to know how this writer hasn’t ever really taken of in the English speaking world ? So why has this not happened , well has he not won a big prize ? no he won the Prix Goncourt ok a long time ago but it is the biggest prize in French literature , he has also won a number of big european prizes before the Nobel win so no that isn’t a reason .Not enough books ? no he has written 26 novels so there is a body of work by him .His books are they  too long ? no they tend to be below 200 pages which means they are actually cheap to translate .The style of the books tend to be Literary detective book missed with memories a sort of Sebald Eco mix so that isn’t really a reason for people not to buy them as both those writers are among the most popular selling writers in translation .Setting now this is maybe a problem a lot of his books look at the French war years , now I think in the 21st century maybe we are ready to rewrite the view of this period , yes it was bad , but people still had to live and this is at heart what a lot of his books seem to be about the everyday going ons of wartime France .He is called the New Proust I have seen , now for me this is another kiss of death line , it reminds me of the bands in the late 80’s and early 90’s that were given the tagline “The new smiths ” , i for one tend to be wary when a writer is directly compared to one of the greats of his own countries literature !! I did say on Grants post for his review of Honeymoon , which he had already order before the win after reading my review of search warrant , that maybe he was a little too subtle for English readers , in the fact that its good writing but not exciting , rather like Pamuk and LLosa both nobel winners that maybe just write  great books but not Standout books .But that said they both have been published most of their careers ,but maybe this is another reason , they have both been published mainly by one publisher were as Modiano books have come out on a number of publishers .Another reason maybe he is a little shy and isn’t interviewed a lot ,not a full enigma like Elena Ferrante or Thomas Pynchon  which maybe is a problem we like a writer we can’t see and ones we can see ,  but somepne  in-between we maybe just don’t get ! well a post of questions no answers I hope the Nobel win brings some more books by him I for one will be reading them .Maybe now he has won we will finally get to like him !

Have you a theory ?

The Eagle’s throne by Carlos Fuentes

~ winstonsdad ~ 5 Comments

 

The Eagle’s throne by Carlos Fuentes

Mexican Fiction

Original title – La silla del águila

Translator – Kristina Cordero

Source – Personnel copy

 

Here we are, seeking out the Reds
Trying to keep the communists in order
Just remember when you’re sleeping in your beds
They’re only two days drive from the Texas border

How can a country large as ours be scared of such a threat
Well, if they won’t work for us, they’re against us you can bet
They may be sovereign countries but you folks at home forget
That they all want what we’ve got but they don’t know it yet

We’re making the world safe for capitalism

Billy Bragg wrote this song , The marching Ballard of the covert battalions ,the song is a satirical take on US foreign policy .

This was one of the first books I brought around the time I started the blog with the idea of  52 books from 52 countries , well of course that has long since been past and this book has sat on the shelf for over five years , I was attracted by both the fact it was a Fuentes novel , but also the great cover on this book a linocutout of an eagle is very eye-catching .Carlos Fuentes is probably the best known Mexican writer in his time a member of what is called the latin American boom ,he wrote over thirty novels , and was always a writer tipped for the Nobel prize .He supported Castro and was at one time investigated by FBI .I had thought i reviewed him before on the blog , but no this is the first by him on here .

Our modern communications system has suffered a grave paradox .On the one hand ,we strived to become part of the largest global communication network in existence .On the other hand , we have wanted to monopolise access to information for our Government’s benefit.

They put all their eggs in one basket so ended up getting cut off , when US struck back at them .

The eagles throne although written twelve years ago and set in 2020 , seems more apt now than it did at the time it was written .We are told the story in a series of letters , yes letters as the premise of the book is the the Mexican president and government in 2020 , has angered the US government  this has led to the US effectively removing all the modern communication tools from Mexico .So with letters are the only way contacting and keeping in touch .We see a change in life as people start to open up more in letters .The topic of course on the mind is how will take over The Eagle’s throne (the name of the seat of the president !) .So what we get is the inner workings of the Mexican government laid bare in letters as we see the leading figures and powerbrokers jostling for power and trying to get the throne and the blackout sorted .Also what secrets will be let out in the letters .

Ex-president Cesar Leon came to visit me .At first I didn’t even recognise him .That young man with wavy black hair is now a mature man with wavy white hair .Those matinée idol’s wavy locks are what define him for me , politically and morally as well as physically .They remind me of that old song “The waves of the lagoon” some waves come ,while others go .

I was struck by the opening of this letter it is so true , leaders do age when in power .

Now I said this is more meaningful now than twelve years ago , imagine the  present with out the chance to use smartphones , laptops etc .I doubt even Fuentes could see how much the world would move on and really even more on wireless communication , this is like the millenium bug happening a country thrown back to a time when the written word was the only way to contact one another .Another thread to this book is of course the relationship between mexico and the US , this strangely has changed as well (from the totally uniformed view of me ) it seems Mexico is growing and is often mentioned as one of those countries along side Brazil , China  and India that will one day hold more power in world affairs ,whereas the US has seen the world power shrinking in recent years .So Fuentes wrote this after fifty years of writing , it isn’t as epic as some of his other books but is said a unusal future take on the epistolary novel .I must not wait five years to have another book by Fuentes on the blog .

Have you read Fuentes

 

The search warrant by Patrick modiano

~ winstonsdad ~ 11 Comments

 

The Search Warrant (eBook)

The search warrant by Patrick modiano

French fiction

Original title –  Dora Bruder

Translator – Joanna kilmartin

Source – personnel copy

 

it’s a mystery to me, the game commences
For the usual fee, plus expenses
Confidential information, it’s a diary
This is my investigation, it’s not a public inquiry

I go checking out the reports, digging up the dirt
You get to meet all sorts in this line of work
Treachery and treason, there’s always an excuse for it
And when I find the reason I still can’t get used to it

Dire straits private investigations struck me as a great song to match this book .source

Well every year when the nobel betting starts a couple of names that are vaguely familiar but haven’t read or in some case have read but before I blogged crop up in the betting for the winner .Well this year Patrick Modiano is this years writer I’ve not read and a quick check of my library only showed three of his books but in French ,so I brought the only English version of his books available on kIndle .Patrick Modiano is a French writer born to an Italian father and Belgian mother , he toured with his mother who was an actress growing up , with his brother ,but his brother did age ten , all hos early books are dedicated to him , patrick Modiano in his writing life has won every major prize in French literature including the academy prize and the prix Goncourt .

Thus I came to learn that Dora Bruder and her parent were already living in the hotal on the boulevard Omano in 1937 and 1938 .They had a room with a kitchenette on the fifth floor , the level which an iron balcony  encircles both blocks .The level with ten or so windows .Two or three give on the boulevard the rest on to the Rue Hermel or , at the back the Rue Simpion

When I revisited the neighbourhood in on that day in 1996 .I noticed that the rusting shutters to the two end fifth floor windows overlooking the Rue Simpion were closed ,and that on the balcony outside there was a collection of miscellaneous objects ,seemingly long abandoned there .

The past meet the present all the time in this book .

The search warrant , is the story of Patrick Modiano and his looking into the life of a young Jewish woman Dora Bruder , he first comes across her name in an old Newspaper  report from 1941 .Something in the report is familiar from his own childhood and he decides to find out all he can from official records about this fifteen year old girl .As the story unfolds Modiano finds more and more this young girls life and his own have crossed although he never met her , his father had been in the same places and done things at the certain times ,  that crossed over with Dora’s life at the time  ,  such as the time  she enters a convent in an attempt to escape the Nazis , the life is told in glimpse of files of the time and then Patrick going to these places at times as well .He follows the French police reports of her as they search for this girl .

I track down Ernest and Cecile Bruder’s  niece .I talk to her on the telephone .The memories which she retains of them are those of childhood , at once fuzzy and sharp .She remembers her uncle’s gentleness , his kindness .The few details which I have noted down about their family come from her .She has heard it said before they lived in the hotel on the boulevard Omano , Ernest Cecile and their daughter Dora had lived in another hotel a street off the Rue des Possoniers .I looked at the street map , and read her out a succession of names .Yes that was it the Rue polonceau .But she has never heard any mention of Sevran nor of Freinvile , nor of the westinghouse factory

Discover the past of Dora’s life and her family .

The origin of this book came from Patrick Modiano and another writer talking about the nature of memory .The book reminds me of the saying any one person in the world is only six people removed from any other person in the world  .The story of Dora Bruders  is one of a sad life , and ultimate  early death in Auschwitz .At times  in this book , I was reminded of Sebald and his style of writing ,Modiano is very much a character in his own book something Sebald did a lot in his fiction  , his past becomes  intertwine with a girl he never meet but only discover via a small piece in a newspaper a sort of detective story without a crime just uncovering the past bit by bit .Now is this a book from a Nobel winner in waiting , I’m not sure I really have been bowled over by Modiano’s style and will be looking out for his books second-hand it looks like Harvil published him here in the UK, I imagine in Christopher Maclehose’s time there it seems like a book he would choose to publish in English .

Have you read Modiano ?

Twilight of Eastern gods by Ismail Kadare

~ winstonsdad ~ 19 Comments

twilight of eastern gods

Twilight of the Eastern gods by Ismail Kadare 

Albanian fiction 

Original title –  French title- Le Crépuscule des dieux de la steppe

Translator David Bellos from the french translation of  Jusuf Vrioni

Source  – review copy

“Light is meaningful only in relation to darkness, and truth presupposes error. It is these mingled opposites which people our life, which make it pungent, intoxicating. We only exist in terms of this conflict, in the zone where black and white clash.”

A louis Aragon quote seem fitting for Kadare as a writer in general ,source

Now the other day when I did my Nobel round-up for this year I did miss one name of knowing I had this on my pile of books to be reviewed that of Ismail Kadare .Kadare is the best known Albanian writer with nearly twenty of his books translated into english already .i have reviewed Fall of stone city and The pyramid  .Kadare has won all the major book prize around the world barring the Nobel ,he studied at Maxim Gorky Literature institute ,originally at that time he was a poet ,then wrote short stories eventually publishing his first novel in 1963 ,he left Albania as an exile in 1990 ,where he said” the writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship ” .Twilight of the eastern gods is about his time at the Maxim Gorky .

In Moscow Literary circle I had indeed heard a lot of talk about suicide .I shared with her the most interesting pieces of gossip that were going around .She listen without responding .Suddenly it occurred to me to tell her about Fadeyev’s treatment in the Kremlin hospital .

Some of his fellow writers fell before they had really started !Fadyev was one that Kadare studied with that did .

Well twilight of the gods is rather like the fall of stone city was and takes part of Kadare’s own life and fictionalized it .The time is 1958 and the young Kadare is in Moscow studying at the Maxim Gorky (this is a writers workshop like the well-known ones elsewhere ,but obviously with a twist they were wanting a soviet twist on the writers work ) ,when the news filters through that Boris Pasternak has won the Nobel prize ,earlier the young writer had been hand pages of this Banned  book ,why had he won this bog prize  .Why was this book of his banned ? Added to this is the writers at the Gorky ,the wanting of them to follow a style of Realistic writing ,one of the writers ,a French writer who was in love with the soviet system , Louis Aragon ,I have mention before as he championed Chingiz Aitmatov whose book Jamila I reviewed  another writer from the Maxim Gorky not at the same time but he wrote in the style they wanted a social realistic style .Then there is a growing tension between the writers own country Albania and the Soviet regime ,Hoxha the Albanian leader saw the soviets become to liberal .Then there is the last part of the book the city Kadare capture fifties Moscow so well where in some ways there is still a glimmer of light but behind closed door things are very different .

Even if she were to revert to her former friendliness ,to the particular variety of benevolence that most Russian babuskas exhibited towards foreign students ,I would never forgive her coldness she had shown me earlier .

I just has use this bit for the word Babuskas ,such a great word .

Now what can I say ,I  feel  Kadare is  a writer ,I can’t get enough of every time I read a book by him (Hence I tend to buy his one at a time every few years to ration them ) ,you feel he is one that had taken part of what he learned at Maxim Gorky ,but took it further this is realism ,but real realism ,the book originally came out in French in 1978 ,so he was critical while still in Albania and about one of the few regimes to still help Albania the Soviets ,brave moves indeed .Another way to view the book is a coming of age novel ,a writers coming of age surrounded by the cream of the writers in Soviet and soviet satellite regimes The young writer starts to see himself as a writer ,but also gather thoughts that he would later use in his books yes the is hints at thoughts ,ideas that he had since wrote about  in his novels .Although in his canon ,this is a minor book ,for any other writer this would be seen as a major book ,a writers coming of age written so well .Have you read Kadare ?

 

What time is it ? Noble time

~ winstonsdad ~ 9 Comments

IMG_1912.JPGW

Well as the article in the Guardian pointed out yesterday we are just a month away from The Nobel literature prize being announced is it really 12 months since Alice Munro won ? The article mentioned the fact the odds of Ngugi Wa Thiong’o had shorten greatly ,well this served as a timely reminder that  I haven’t a book by him reviewed on the blog so I hope to reread grain of wheat or read petals of blood this next week or so , is the move a sign he is going to win ,for me usually a name or two jumps up in the weeks before it is the name on the few days before that the odd shorten on the tends to be the winner .As for the other names in the running according to ladbrokes –

Murakami favourite

Assia Djebar & Ngugi Wa thiong’o joint second favourites

Svetlana Aleksijevitj  & Joyce Carol Oates third favourites

then Adonis ,Kundera ,roth ,Nadas ,Dao ,Cartarescu ,Un ,Fossee Pynchon and Eco

Well it is similar list of names to last years list and my speculation post .For me I’d throw in Krasznahorkai,Goytisolo,Vila – Matas ,Marani  and Handke as names I’d love to see win .Who would you like to see win this year ?

 

Leaf storm by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

~ winstonsdad ~ 10 Comments

leaf storm by Gabriel garcia Marquez

Leaf storm by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Columbian fiction

Original title – La Hojarasca

Translator – Gregory Rabassa

Source – Personnel copy

From the memory of that house ,and using his grandmother’s narrative voice as his own Linguistic Lodestone ,Marquez began building of Macondo

Salman Rushdie from his essay collection Imaginary homelands on Marquez

Well this is the first of a number of books I intend to review by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ,we lost this giant of Spanish language and Latin American writing earlier this year ,so it seemed fitting to focus for a few days in this times Spanish lit month on his books ,plus it will give me chance to add a few more to the two I have already reviewed here .In a side not I will be carrying on a bit into August with Spanish lit month so if you Haven’t had time to read something or would maybe like to cross over with Women in tranlsation month .

I’ve seen a corpse for the first time .It’s wednesday but I feel as if it was sunday because I didn’t go to school and they dressed me up in a green corduroy suit that’s tight in some places .Holding Mama’s hand ,following my grandfather ,who feels his way along with a cane with every step so he won’t bump into things .

The opening lines the grandsons view of the doctors funeral ,I really felt the kids voice here .

 

SO Leaf storm is the first book I’ve choosen by Marquez because in a way ,although not his first book it is the one that is readily available Marquez did write a book before this but it isn’t readily available .This book also saw the first appearance of the Village of Macondo which appeared in a lot of his later and more famous novels .This book also has a number of characters that Marquez uses in other books ,the first and main character in the book is an old man known in the village as Colonel ,the story centers around a promise he made to the village doctor many years before the book opens as this doctor ,who as an outsider was never really trusted within the village has died and over the years also fell out with other people .So it is left to the old Colonel to bury this man .Then there is the Colonel daughter Isabel ,who is obliged to help her father bury this man .Then there is the grandson of the Colonel he views this death with the mind of a young man ,with wide-eyed interest as he hasn’t seen death much before .So whilst honour his promise we see why the doctor end up the most hated man in the village .This leads to conflict as even thou the Colonel is a respect figure in the village ,no one wants to see the Doctor honoured with a decent funeral .

Even though he hoped it would be the opposite ,he was a strange person in town ,apathetic in spite of his obvious efforts to seem sociable and cordial .He lived among the people of Macondo ,but at a distance from them because of the memory of past against which any attempt at rectification seemed useless .

It was always hard for the doctor ,but aren’t villages always this way to incomers ?

Now this is a must for any one that has read his main novels as it is the first time we get to meet the village of Macondo .But it is also less steep in the magic realism of the later books this feels more like one of the original stories that Marquez heard of course Macondo is based on the Village his own grandmother  lived , we see the infant Marquez I feel in those first lines  and the settings is his own childhood  , the stories he heard from them as a child live on in this and his other books .The Colonel is a figure that crops up again and again in his novels the old man looking back at life and facing his own death in this case through the death of his old friend the doctor .Florentino as old man in love in the time of cholera or Jose in One hundred years of solitude .The narrative style is also clearly seen here ,I always think this is Marquez true gift ,we start the story as the doctor has died then through out the book see what happened and what happens as the two lines of the story twist and turn along we see how the past lead to the present and the tough words in the opening few pages become clear .

Have you read leaf storm ?

The family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo José Cela

~ winstonsdad ~ 14 Comments

The_Family_of_Pascual_Duarte

The family of Pascual Durate by Camilo José Cela

Spanish Literature

Orginal title –  La familia de Pascual Duarte

Translator – Anthony Kerrigan

Source – personnel copy

Why should what I write here be of use to other ,stop judges from judging ,spare unfortunates ,innocent or guilty ,the agony to which I have been condemned ? What’s the point ? What does it matter ? After my head has been cut off ,what is it to me if they cut off other people’s ?

Victor Hugo source my own review of his book the last days of condemned man .

I said earlier in the year I wanted to add depth to the blog ,I’ve read loads and loads of recent books in translation .But the time has come to start sprinkling one or two earlier books to the blog to add depth but also to see where modern books come from ,it’s easy to compare to English books ,but the feeling for me is wanting to find what from the original language may have influence the writer .So to Camilo Jose Cela ,the 1989 Nobel prize-winning Spanish writer ,he is a name I’ve long wanted to add the blog ,he is the main figure in the Spanish literature movement known as Tremendismo ,a cross between extreme realism and existential angst .He wrote over 50 books ,was out spoken once describing the Cervantes prize as being covered in shit (he went on to win this award ) .The Family of Pascual Duarte was his first novel .The second of my Spanish lit month choices .

My father and mother didn’t get along at all .They had been badly brought up ,were endowed with no special virtues , and could not resign themselves to their lot.Andtheir defects,all of them .I inherited to my misfortune .

His early life was one of hard times and violence .

The family of Pascual Duarte ,is the story of one man’s life Pascual Durate ,he grew up in a poverty-stricken world ,his life is one of endless losses .He has a brutal mother  that cheats on his father ,a father who dies of a rabid dog bite  .He then marries a woman who constantly cheats on him , a brother who died young after being bullied by a step father and a sister that becomes a prostitute .This world is very brutal world  one where violence is a way of life in fact in the mind of Pascual it becomes the only way out of his life .He is sitting in a cell telling us his story ,as he took the final plunge in this brutal world and killed his family .The world surrounding him is one of shifting power this book cover the period before Franco and the first year of the Civil war .The bulk of the story is a document found after his death .

The memory of my poor brother Mario used to haunt me .If I had a son who suffered like Mario ,a son who had his luck and his misfortune .I’d have drowned him to save him from any more suffering .

Pascual remembering his poor brother who had less luck than him in life .

Now the main book mention on both the back cover and Wiki page for this is of course Camus The stranger ,it is hard for me to say ,as I read that book more than twenty years ago ,but I know the world of writinng at the time this book was written 1942  .This book fits neatly alongside Camus ,Buzzati and Kafka as one man’s struggle against the world  .But for me the book I was most remind of was one I reviewed a few months ago ,the last days of a condemned man by Victor Hugo.A similar feel of a man giving his last testament a looking back on a life and what brought some to the point of killing someone .I so pleased I choose this as my first book from him to read as it was his debut and I want to try his other books now like the The hive as he has for me become one I want to complete as much as I can in what is available in English .

Have you read Cela ?

 

The lost honour of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Böll

~ winstonsdad ~ 12 Comments

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

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

German fiction

Translator – Leila Vennewitz

Source – personnel copy

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

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

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

The reportage style of Böll writing in this book

 

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

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

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

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

 

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

Have you read Böll ?

Memories of my Melancholy whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

~ winstonsdad ~ 9 Comments

memories of my Melancholy whores

Memories of my Melancholy whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Columbian fiction

Original title – Memoria de mis putas tristes

Translated by Edith Grossman

Source – Library

Well I decide a while ago when news of Gabriel Garcia Marquez having dementia and not in the best of health at this moment in time ,he has won the Nobel prize and sure is a writer I have to say little about as he is one writer in translation that seems to have crossed that magic barrier to be read by everyone regardless of it being in translation (wouldn’t it be great for more writers to break that wall in the reader’s mind )  well up to now I have only one book under review  on the blog by him so hope in coming months to add a few but not being a big rereader at best of times when I was this on in the library which I hadn’t read it seemed a great place to start .

At one time I thought these bed-inspired accounts would serve as a good foundation for a narration of the miseries of my misguided life ,and the title came to me out of the blue .Memories of my Melancholy whores .

The narrator comes up with the actual book title .

Well where to start with Memories of my Melancholy whores ,it is his last book published in English and the last but one in Spanish (that being a collection of his speeches published in Spanish in 2010 ).So the main character in the book is a unamed reporter ,he is on the verge of his 90th birthday ,he decides he wants one last fling with a teen virgin to maybe go out in a blaze of glory  .So he meets the local madam Rosa to set this up ,as we do this the man recalls past women ,the narrator the old man choose a wild life of women over love he recalls his life over the course of the book in small chunks  .He then meets the girl Rosa has found for him Delgradina ,she is 14 and perfect in the old man’s eyes, she has wonderfully flawless skin and hair , because the second he sees her for the first time in his life he falls deeply in love .He shares nights with here but Delgradina isn’t her real name ,he never finds out more about her .

She was surprised when I mentioned the name Delgradina .That isn’t her name ,she said ,her name is …. Don’t tell me I interrupted ,for me she’s Delgradina .She shrugged all right ,after all ,she’s yours,

He never even knows her real name this young girl he has fallen so much for

 

 

Well this is a clever switch on his earlier book love in the time of cholera ,florentino is the flipside of this narrator a man who meet and had to leave his true love for most of his life sleeping with many women ,waiting this story follows a man maybe not knowing it but searching for that true love .Other Marquez traits are there like a  time span narrative , like  in a number of his other books. This book although is told in the present as the man reflects and remembers  the  nine decades in which he has lived   and the changing scenery around him  ,Marquez has always been the master of regret and solitude in his books his two best novels are rife with it  both present in this book .What is this man ?What is the sum of his life ? yes he is a fairly well-known report that has in the recent times written a weekly piece on the town and its life .But is that enough ? questions always questions  in Marquez (well that is what I come away with questions of life ) false turns ,missed chances ,lost loves and that one true love .If this is his last book it is a fitting tribute to the man as it has what made him the star he has been for the last fifty years and I would say is short enough for even those none readers to try .One can say yes maybe a 90-year-old and 14 year is wrong ,but the actual sex and meeting is a sideline in this book .The main themes are Marquez stand fare .

Have you read this book ?

Silent House by Orhan Pamuk

~ winstonsdad ~ 24 Comments

silent_house

Silent House by Orhan Pamuk

Turkish Fiction

Original title Sessiz Ev

Translator Robert Finn

Source – Personnel copy

Well I ve read four Pamuk Novels before this one and as is the case in the world of translation ,I’ve read them out-of-order of publications in Turkish I start with my name is read followed by Snow then Back to an earlier book Whit Castle ,then his latest the Museum of Innocence.Now this has arrived in English and was the second novel written by Orhan Pamuk , but is the ninth to be published in English and the first to be translated by Robert Finn .I have previously mention a lot about Pamuk in the other books I reviewed ,he is Turkeys best known writer and has won the Nobel prize for literature .This book is a double hit for me as it is the fourth from the Man Asian Short-list I ‘ve read but also the tenth book I ve reviewed from this year’s independent foreign fiction prize .

But tomorrow they’ll come and I’ll think again . Hello ,hello how are you ,they’ll kiss my hand ,many happy returns ,how are you ,Grandmother ,how are you ,how are you , Grandmother ? I’ll take a look at them .Don’t all talk at once ,come here let me have a look at you ,come close ,tell me what you have been doing ? I know I’ll be asking to be fooled and I’ll listen blankly to a few words of description!

Fatima the night before the hoards descend on here

So Silent House well the title is a bit of joke because this is anything but a book about silence or a silent house .The book is set in the early eighties a turbulent time in Turkey and we are with Fatima and yes at start as she await the hoards to descend (her extended family of grandchildren to arrive for the summer ).The family arrive one by one and each member of the family is like a jigsaw piece as they arrive we learn a bit more about the family ,but also about turkey as a whole as each one of her grandchildren represent a different face of turkey Faruk is the idealist a troubled historian ,the sister Nilgun that is part of a new elite in turkey with money ,a drop-out ,a right-winger ,As they arrive the hose becomes very vocal and the house becomes a micro version of The turkey of the time .The book is set in 1980 just a coup is in the offering .

It’s well after midnight ,but I can still hear them moving about what could they be doing down there ,why don’t they go to sleep and leave me the silent night ? I get out of bed ,walk over to the window ,and look down :Recap’s ;light is still on ,lighting up the garden:what are you doing there ,dwarf ? It’s frighting ! he’s so sneaky ,that one every once in a while I catch him giving me a look ,and I realize he notices everything about me , watching the smallest gestures ,

The house is loud and what does Recap the dwarf know ?

Where does this lie in the body of Pamuk’s work ,well it is very different as one would imagine with a second novel .The book is a book of voices but also a clever way of discussing the turkey of the time without Pamuk using his own voice as he uses the myriad of character in this book to show the troubles with in his own country ,but also to show how these troubles affect people on a personal every day level .The children also in there own ways show how politics effect people in different way , burying your head in the bottle ,being to rich too notice troubles ,joining a gang of fascists and following the latest causes .Then there is Fatima her self the sort of women that runs a large family in her ninties but has the respect of all and she also has a dwarf servant Recap .I did enjoy this more than I have recent Pamuk novels .Now the question is would this have been better published at the time ,part of me thinks yes then another part thinks it is still happening turkey is still a country with many faces and problems of its own and the book still shows how far they have come and how far they have to go .

Have you read this book ?

Do you have a favourite Orhan Pamuk ? mine is my name is red

The dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa

~ winstonsdad ~ 17 Comments

dream of the Celt Mario Vargas Llosa

The dream of the Celt  by Mario Vargas Llosa

Peruvian Fiction

Translator – Edith Grossman

Original Title -El sueño del celta

Source Library

Just other two yyears ago after he had won the Nobel prize for Literature I reviewed his novel the bad Girl which I enjoyed ,this is his latest book published in Spanish in 2010 ,this translation was published last Year and done by the Wonderful Edith Grossman .Mario Vargas is easily the most well known name from Peruvian fiction this book is his 15th novel in a career that dates back to 1959 and the start of the Latin American Boom .

When in Liverpool with his cousins ,Roger sometimes conquered his timidity and Asked Uncle Edward about Africa ,a vontinent whose mere mention filled his head with Jungles ,wild animals and interpid men .

The first time we see the draw of Africa on Roger Casement

This book focus on the well Known Irish nationalist figure Sir Roger Casement ,I say well-known before I read the book I knew he was associated with Ireland had been executed by the british and he was part of some sort of scandal .So to the book Yes Roger Casement was from Ireland and the book takes you through his youth there then to time spent in Africa ,Peru and the amazon basin then back to Ireland .The book is about a man’s journey  Form Idealist , British Diplomat to Disillusioned ,humanitarian and Irish freedom Fighter .We see  this youth In Ballymena (just thought mention this it isn’t a large part but my step mother is also from this town in Northern Ireland ) he is a quiet and quite shy young man growing up much different to the figure he later became ,Then in his late teens  joining the British government as a diplomat . Where he ends up being sent to Congo ,where he see the horrors of the dying embers of the slave traders and How the white Europeans treat the natives ,whilst in Congo he meet two well-known figures in History ,the Explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley and the Novelist Joseph Conrad .Then he is sent to sort out and report back on a dispute in Peru involving the Local tribes of Indians Seven in all and The rubber company .The Indians have decided they need more rights ,because we see people whip and mistreated for not following the company lines or doing what was expected .Following all this he returns to Ireland where his views on his own home land and nation have changed radically and he ends up on the Gaol waiting to be killed  .Well  a lot as you see ,oh and he was gay and tend to like younger men than himself (rather well handle by Llosa it is easy to make this the main theme of the book ,which it could but this is a book on the wrongs of Empire really ) at a time when this was against the law .

O what has made that sudden noise?
What on the threshold stands?
It never crossed the sea because
John Bull and the sea are friends;
But this is not the old sea
Nor this the old seashore.
What gave that roar of mockery,
That roar in the sea’s roar?

The ghost of Roger Casement
Is beating on the door.

John Bull has stood for Parliament,
A dog must have his day,
The country thinks no end of him,
For he knows how to say,
At a beanfeast or a banquet,
That all must hang their trust
Upon the British Empire,
Upon the Church of Christ.

The ghost of Roger Casement
Is beating on the door.

Instead of a second quote I choose to put two verse of the W B yeats poem about Casement which is also quoted in the book

So I suppose like me reading this book on the blurb , the first name that came to mind with this book Is Conrad ,Yes it is similar settings but this is more a view of the natives downfall through a European eyes that Conrad’s books are ,I was also reminded of the recent novels by Bernardo  Atxaga  seven house in France  which I review  here and other book dealing with  the horrors in the Congo at roughly the same time as this book .Another book Ithat sprung to mind was the last but one book by Juan Gabriel Vasquez which I also reviewed on here The secret history of Costaguana another book which set in Latin america and based on a Conrad novel .Vargas has tried to show through one man the wrongs of empire and also how empires are able to fall .The horror of the treatment the locals around the world is eye-opening to you as a reader ,but also to Casement and lead him down a new path seeing these horrors .

Have you read this book ?

Train To Budapest by Dacia Maraini

~ winstonsdad ~ 14 Comments

Train-to-Budapest-Maraini-Dacia

Train to Budapest by Dacia Maraini

Italian Fiction

Translator  Silvester Mazzarella

Original title Il treno dell’ ultima notte

Source personnel copy

Now Dacia Maraini is a name that always seems to be in the top ten when the odds for the Nobel literature prize are mentioned every year so when before Christmas I saw this in my local Oxfam I decided it was time to try her .So Dacia Maraini is an Italian writer her mother was a Sicilian Princess she was an artist and art dealer and her father was an Ethnologist and mountaineer ,The family fled Fascist Italy but end up In a camp in Japan til 1946.They return to Italy and Dacia lived with her father and was educated in well-known Florence school .She started writing age 27 in 1963 ,she had been married before that but was at that time living with the well-known Italian writer Alberto Moravia whom she spent time with til his death in 1983 .Well longer than usual Bio but I felt after reading her Wiki entry she has had a really interesting life .

How can that stone child have survived in that Ghetto ? Would he have had the strength to survive ? Was turning to stone a way of holding on ? And what if ,after all ,he had made it ? A boy has his life before him and it isn’t easy to break stone .

Amara musing after reading a letter from Emanuele

So to Train to Budapest well this is a novel of stories and two main plotlines ,mix styles and genres .So to break it up the main character in the book is Amara she is an Italian Journalist ,we join her on the train to Budapest she has been ask to write about the growing divide that is happening between east and west Europe post world war two  .This is 1956 and the Budapest itself  is heading to is itself heading to trouble as the brief freedom that is flourishing there is looking troubled .The reason that Amara took this job to write about Budapest is the second main plot of the book and that is the other main character in this book and that is Emanuele who was a friend of Amara when she was growing up they had both lived in Florence, then Emanuele family had gone to Vienna and this fallen foul of the Nazis .Emanuele story is told via the letter he had written to Amara during this time so you see the changing face of Austria the fact they have to wear stairs then can’t go here and there and then they are moved to The Ghetto the ? Well I leave that you to find out but at a point the letters to Amara ended and she is taking this journey to find out what happened to her friend  after that point and the people he knew and she did via the letters .Then you add to that a lovely half Jewish man that she meets on the train who’s  job sees him stepping in to be the father for people at weddings .Amara own war memories are mixed in as she take the journey things she will never forget .She also meets someone wanting to print letters from the Russian front .Will she find out what happened to her soul mate ?

The future opens before her like a precious flower touched by the first ray of the sun but still frozen on the branch ,Because spring is not yet here and the sun has deceived her .

The closing words so poetic .

Well this sounds complicated I can see you saying that but it works ,it is great musing on the world war two and how it affect just individuals not nations people also the echoes of the present (well 1956) Budapest and the situation in the Ghetto and for the Jews a sort of comparison of Communism and Fascism  ,with neither coming out on top .The pacing of the book works the sort of feeling of a train journey that feel of moving through the book but not  knowing you have done so .Dacia Maraini shows why she is a frequent Nobel favourite to make something so complex so easy to read and to stick with you long after I put the book down is very hard to do .This is one of those books you think why isn’t it better known it should be it is better than some similar books with less complex themes .

Have you ever read her books ?

Do you have a favourite Italian writer?