Tag: Open letter books

The river by Laura Vinogradova

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The river by Laura Vinogradova

Latvian fiction

Original title – Upe

Translator – Kaija Staumanis

Source – Personal copy

I passed 16 years of blogging yesterday, and this book is the perfect example of all I had in mind for this blog. Translated book, from a small press, from a female writer from a country with very few books translated into English. This book is the second in a triptych of books that Open Letter has just released from Latavia. In some way, this is the sort of book I love and have always championed, those sorts of tales that touch me as a reader. Laura Vinogradova is someone who started off with a business degree before discovering her passion for writing a few years ago. She then published a couple of children’s books before this, which was her first book for Adults. It was nominated for the European Literature Prize and shortlisted for the Latvian Book of the Year.

Rute sits on a small stool in front of the stove, her head resting between her knees and her hands submerged in a bowl of warm water. She’s washing dishes, slowly and clumsily. She’s used to having a dishwasher, and the plates slip out of her hands, the forks prick her fingers. She sets the clean dishes on the floor next to the stool. Then she picks up the bowl of water, now full of coffee grounds and bits of food, to dump it outside behind the house. She opens the door carefully, the full bowl in her hands, and stops, startled: a young woman is in the yard, a little boy stands at her side and another child kicking in her stomach. Rute doesn’t see this, but can sense it. The woman’s coat is fastened only over her breasts, her stomach stronger than the buttons, splitting the coat in two.

Rute arrives athr fathers little house in the countryside !

Anyway, the book follows the stories of two sisters, or is it the story of Rute, the sister who is left behind? Her sister, Dina, disappeared many years ago, and is only present in the book through the frequent letters written by Rute to her sister, which litter the book. In the book, we meet Rute, a woman who seems to be at a crossroads in her life as she points out she is now maybe the older sister, as she is now much older than her sister was when they were last together. She is in a relationship, but she has also discovered that her father, a man she never really knew, has passed away. She heads to the property he owns in a small village. This is where she meets the couple next door and their young son. But it is also where the reality of who her father is, a man her mother said was a waste of space, comes alive in the eyes of the couple, an odd couple of single mother and brother next door, and the man she thought she knew is not the man he is. Add to this her escape from the city and perhaps her own problems. This is what happens when you step outside your own typical life, look at someone else’s life, a past you never had, and wonder where you move forward. All this, along with the small house that later develops its own problems, prompts Rute to reassess her own life and future.

Dear sis!

I planted the dahlias. For you. I dug up the ground with a dull shovel and tore out the weeds. Matilde was right the soil here is all clay. But I planted the bulbs and did some thinking. Ten years. Do you still remember me? Or think of me? Are you planting dahlias for me, somewhere?

Life seems to happen on its own. I would’ve never guessed that I’d one day be planting dahlias at our dad’s house. Never. But life happens. In all kinds of ways.

Sis, I want to tell you about the river. About me in the river. It makes me tremble and shiver. It makes me laugh.

It’s been so long since I’ve felt this alive. The water is fairly clear by the dock. Deep. I can’t touch the bottom, I’d have to go under a bit. You can cross it in no time. If you want get a good swim in you have to kind of circle around. You can feel the current. If you let it, it’ll carry you, though I don’t know how far.

Sis! I want to stay in the river.

I wish you’d come back …

Love you.

One Rute’s letter toher sister long disappeared but she still writes to her !

Now this is what I call a small epic, a novella that feels like an epic work. It packs a lot into a small book. Loss of a sister, moving forward with a relationship, our parents, and our own vision. In our lives, all these are looked at in this very short novel. As I said, this is the type of novel I love: personal, heartbreaking, thought-provoking, and a gem that needs to be widely read. It reminded me of those early Peirene books from well over 15 years ago, books that can be read in the time it would take to watch a film, and in this case, will leave you with a lot more than most modern films do. This tugs at what makes us human as readers. Do you have a favourite novella that feels epic ?

 

Attila by Javier Serena

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Attila by Javier Serena

Spanish ifction

Original title – Atila. Un eseritor indescifrable

Translator Katie Whittemore

Source – personal copy

I also recently ordered these, as I want to support Open Letter, which had lost some grant funds, by purchasing a few books from them that had caught my eye over the last few months. Open letter brought out two books with the same title, Attila. This is the one written by Javier Serena, a Spanish writer, whose other book examined the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño. In this book, he features his fellow Spanish writer Alioscha Coll, who is the author of another book titled Attila, which he  wrote . He died shortly after this book was published, and it is now considered a masterpiece. Serena himself has spent time in Paris, which is where the book is set and where Alioscha Coll spent most of his adult life as a writer in Paris after he had left his studies as a doctor. What is captured is the time he spent writing his book and himself as a person.

This seemed to be his only aim: to finish the book as soon as possible, working around the clock, refusing to feel sorry for himself over Camille’s jilting, taking refuge in his idiosyncratic endeavor to string together words and thereby not confront the absolute isolation in which he was immersed. He clearly avoided the subject of his reclusion as we looked for the exit from the park, for as we climbed stairs and left ponds and leaf-strewn dirt paths behind us, Alioscha wanted only to talk about his recent reading and certain technical aspects of his book, making no mention of the despair I knew the young university student must have caused him. Nor did he confide in me when, having left the bounds of the park, we ran out of literary topics to discuss. As we moved farther from where I had found him, I remained uncertain whether Camille’s departure was a temporary, mutual decision, or if she had unilaterally resolved never to sleep in my friend’s company again.

Regardless of what Alioscha did or did not tell me, he certainly showed obvious signs of having gone too long with no one to talk to: it was partly the nervous way he had of speaking, his expressions more clipped and abundant than usual, along with the worsening of his physical appearance, evidenced by long greasy hair and obvious pallor.

He has a on/ off relatonship with his girlfriend

The book is divided into three parts, all of which revolve around the writing of his historical novel Attila. The book is told from the point of view of a friend of Coll, a fellow writer who talks about a hit man who may be caught out of time. From him not reading any modern novel. We see him later on diving into a bin of discarded books, hoping to find a lost gem of a book. He is described as a man who could sit and read a three-hundred-page novel in a single sitting, coming from a relatively well-off family with a number of his relatives having fame as well. This is a writer on the edge like a modern day figure from a Somerst Muagham novel, living in a one of those numerous small parish flats writers and arritst inhabit when trying to be famous and struggling to get by that was Coll he was a volatile man that had an up and down relationship with his girlfriend. But also struggles to be a writer in the modern age. He is drawn to history, and this current book he is writing, which is other book that Open Letter has published in this pair of books

This seemed to be his only aim: to finish the book as soon as possible, working around the clock, refusing to feel sony for himself over Camille’s jilting, taking refuge in his idiosyncratic endeavor to string together words and thereby not confront the absolute isolation in which he was immersed. He clearly avoided the subject of his reclusion as we looked for the exit from the park, for as we climbed stairs and left ponds and leaf-strewn dirt paths behind us, Alioscha wanted only to talk about his recent reading and certain technical aspects of his book, making no mention of the despair I knew the young university student must have caused him. Nor did he confide in me when, having left the bounds of the park, we ran out of literary topics to discuss. As we moved farther from where I had found him, I remained uncertain whether Camille’s departure was a temporary, mutual decision, or if she had unilaterally resolved never to sleep in my friend’s company again.

Regardless of what Alioscha did or did not tell me, he certainly showed obvious signs of having gone too long with no one to talk to: it was partly the nervous way he had of speaking, his expressions more clipped and abundant than usual,

As a character he capture Alioscha well .

 

I loved this. I picked this way around to read this fictional account of the writer. I’m not sure how much is the writer himself and how much is what Serena has imagined. But the bones of the story are the actual fact that he was writing this novel at the time the book was written, and he had struggled with his mental health. I do wonder how much is his and how much is Serena’s own experience as being a lone writer in Paris. However, the book captures a writer on the edge trying to be distinctive, as evident when he states in the book that he avoids modern writers of his age. This is a view of a soul trying to get his final book on paper, a book he knows is essential, but as he does this, his whole world is falling apart, and other things are happening./ An interesting mix of books to publish the book of the writer and the book from the said writer is an interesting idea. I will review the other Attila novel at a later date. Have you read either book?

 

 

Berlin by Andris Kuprišs

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Berlin by Andre Kuprišs

Latvian fiction

Original title – Berlin

Translator – Ian Gwin

Source – Personal copy

I brought this trio of books from. Open letter books just after I read about the withdrawal of the funding for so many great publishers in Translation. I had some other books preordered from different publishers. However, I had been keeping an eye on this collection before the announcement. I had this down if I was going by one of the three books that Open Letter calls a translator’s choice for a country. It reminds me of the Peter Owen series of books, which they released several years ago, featuring three books from each country per year. I think someone could run with this as a long-term project to build a collection of world literature, with the opportunity to acquire a selection of books from each country. I noticed after reading the collection that Andris Kuprišs holds a master’s degree in photography. I can tell the very short stories are like a wonderfully framed photo, a glimpse at a life, a moment.

He put his hand on her stomach, sliding it lower. With his fingers he found her hip bones and felt them. He brushed her left leg, his fingers sliding down to her shin, then back up, his fingertips resting just above her knees.

“You were away when it happened. He was already drunk when he got here, the door was unlocked that night. At first I wanted to tell him to leave, but he insisted he had something important to tell me. He asked me to pour him a drink, so I let him have the last of the whiskey from my birthday. We satin the kitchen until I finally said something, that it was time for him to get going, but he just sat there, listening and slowly drinking. I said he had to hurry up because you were coming home soon, and he said I had nothing to worry about because he knew that night you weren’t.”

He had stopped caressing her and was sweating again.

A woman recounts something thagt happened in the story The Rape

The collection now comprises 19 short stories and a novella titled Berlin. I will leave Berlin to you, a reader, to say that it captures the expat experience in that city. If you are from the Baltic states, the rest of the collection is also set there. So, the rest of the book is composed of a collection of short stories and what may be flash fiction. A couple are in bed as the woman tells the man about what had happened whilst he was away. A friend, drunk at the time, came into the flat when she invited him in, she tells her partner. Then she says she couldn’t get away after she had let him in. This is a theme that runs in some of the stories, unease another sees a young boy fearful of answering a ringing phone. The short pieces are like little gems. How do we view someone in two ways? Why are his hands cold?

The first way in which the following situation differs from an-other, similar situation, is that I met him—a person I respect and regard quite highly—here, where I figured I would never have met him at all.

The second way, no less important to this situation, but perhaps far more important than the first, is that just as I went to shake his hand and ask him what he was doing here, he took me by the hair and forced me down. I fell to my knees, my face nearly touching the ground, him angrily saying almost shouting-“Learn humility!”

From the story two way in. which the following situation differs

Again a play with duality of life here in this flash fiction piece

There is a pervasive sense of sorrow and melancholy throughout this collection. It is a series of stories about the darker side or the underside of life. Being maybe an outsider in a town, and how that affects you moving forward. I also said this is like a collection of black-and-white photos. I wonder if that was his medium in photography, where the world is very black and white, with shadows and a feeling of gloom over the world we visit. He also plays with two characters interacting at the heart of some of the stories, which is that interplay and the way power and mood can shift between them. Whether it is a teacher and student, parents and their children, lovers in bed, or a man awakens in a bed and the man next to him thinks he is Jesus (I remembered the NYRB book about The Three Jesuses of Ypsilanti). Do you have a favourite book from the Baltic states?

 

The brother by Rein Raud

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The Brother by Rein Raud

Estonian fiction

Original title – Vend

Translator – Adam Cullen

Source – personal copy

Well, I’m on book review 999 on the blog and I have decided on a novella from the Baltic states an area I haven’t covered enough I feel so my second read from Estonia is from the well known Estonian scholar Rein Raud. He had a philosophical show on the tv there for a number of years From a talented family his brother is a musician his parents were both writers. He has written several novels in which a number has been translated into English. This was his first to be translated into English. It is also another from Open letter book the US publisher of books in translation.

“I would have expected anything” Brother said while unlacing his knee-high boots; the brother, of whichshe hadn’t the slightest clue just a  moment earlier, but whom – she now knew- se had awaited for so long.

“I would have expected anything, but not that,” said Brother. “When I arrived at the villa’s front door was locked and no one came to open it when I rang the doorbell. I went around back to te garden to see if you were walking the paths or sititing in the gazebo, but my heart was already punding with fear od finding,perhaps that the windows facing the yard had been boarded up  and not aa single soul occupied the house anymore, because i had come too late.

Her brither appears out of the blue.

In his afterword, he tips his hat to both Clint Eastwood and Alessandro Baricco’s works. This is a spaghetti western plot in a way or a classic revenge thriller in a way as it has the character of the stranger at its heart a man just known throughout the story as the Brother. The stranger heer is the half  Brother that Laila doesn’t know she had when he appears at her door in his hat and knee-high boots making him stand out. This happens after she has been cheated out of her inheritance a villa by the men of this town that is run by the males. Laila had taken this loss but the brother has come to take on these powerful men they have powerful jobs within the town A banker, a lawyer, and notary (I felt this was a nod to the western as Notaries are often mentioned in Westerns). As he starts to ruffle the feathers in the town the locals try to find out more about this new challenge to them and find out about Laila half brother what is his story? a rat-faced assistant of the lawyer starts digging into the past. The brother also has a fling whilst in the town.

 The notary’s secretary accidentally knocked over an inkwell, which spilled accross ten or so signed contracts awaiting archiving, and the lawyers wife was complaining of chronic headaches every evening. The banker was still in a bind with his branch office: customers were closing their accounts there en masse, and in order to resolve the temporary liquidty problem, he had been stable for a long peroid of time; shares, whichlaunched into an unexpected rise two days laters. However, all these kinds of things shouldn’t have lasted for very much longer.

The pressure the brother brings starts to show on the main chanracters lives.

I mean the obvious example of the main character in this book is the character played by Clint Eastwood in the classic western High Plains drifter as a stranger enters a town to sort something out another film I remembered was the Bruce Willis film Last man standing where he goes to get revenge on a corrupt town.  Even The equalizer  I remember those lines in the advert Got a problem? Odds against you? Call the Equalizer and the brother is like that Laila has been beaten down this is a book that draws the line that this is males inflicting the loss on a female character. The brother is her savior as she had lost hope and excepted the status quo. The novel has a great atmosphere the chapters are short almost like short scenes in a fast-moving western as the action moves from here to there as the brother starts to ruffle the feathers and they find out how Laila was conned out of her inheritance by deceit and trickery. A great little gem as with the Peirene books this is easily read in an evening.

30 covers for #WITMONTH A dane whose personal book touched me

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I have had this a while but earlier this year I reviewed a more personal book from this Danish writer Carls book or its English tile When death takes something fro you give it back a work dealing with the loss of her son at an all to young age I read this and as we have been dealing with the grief of losing my brother in law since last November where he took his own life for me I love that more personal book but this is a novel about a son discovering his father legacy after his death. My review of the book mentioned is her 

The taker by Rubem Fonseca

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The Taker and Other Stories

The Taker by Rubem Fonseca

Brazilian short stories

Translator – Clifford E Landers

Source – personal copy

Well, I’m suffering from the weather as it has sapped my mind and made me not read a lot in the last week.I am trying to read early in morning and late at night. Anyway I now stop at Brazil this Spanish and Portuguese lit month and one of the best known Brazilian writers. Rubem fonseca studied Law then became a policeman in Rio many of the police characters in his books are drawn from his time in the Police. He then spent time US being sent to study US police techniques. He then decided to become a writer full time.He is best known for his shprt stories and a collection of books about a lawyer. Mandrake one of his main characters ab amoral Lawyer that has been made into a tv series by HBO.  He has won many prizes the Biggest the Premio Camoes is considered like a Portuguese Nobel prize. Fonseca himself became friends with Thomas Pynchon and like Pynchon has rarely been interviewed and has maintained his privacy.

Betsy waited for the man to return to die.

Before the trip he had noticed that Betsy was unusally hungry. Then other symptons emerged: excessive drinking of water, urinary Incontinence. Betsy’s only problem till then was the cataract in one of her eyes. She didn’t like to go out , but before the trip she had unexpectedly come into the elevator with him and the two of them had strolled along the sidewalk by the beach something they had never done.

Betsy waiting fot the man to return the opening lines .

The taker has 13 stories. I will mention a few  of the stories that I really liked. As for the whole the collection it  shows the brutal nature of Rio.  Where every day can be a struggle for some people living on the edge. We also see how violent the city can be. The first story I will mention is Betsy as for me it was a little different to the other stories as it remind me of the way Roal Dahl would leave a twist to the ery end of the tale here we see what we at first see as a woman dying waiting for an unnamed man to come home and then her last evening. Only in the last few words of the story you get a real twist that makes think. Then in the opening story we see a buisnessman arrive home his wife wants things his kids want things next thing is he is out in his car and heading striaght at someone. Then later we have a police like account of what happened when a cow is hit on a bridge and we see the local poor people running to cut up the dying cow. elsewhere we have serial killers a man trying to find his past that others would rather he had forgotten.

Early on the morning on May 3 a brown cow was crossing the brigdge over the Coroado river, at marker %£, in the direction of Rio deJanerio.

A passenger bus of the Unica auto Onibus firm, license plates RF-80-07-83 and JR-81-12-27, was crossing the Coroado bridge in the direction of Sao Paulo

When he saw the cow, the driver, Plinio Sergio, tried to avoid hitting it . He collided with the cow and then the bus hit the side of the bridge and plunged into the river .

On the bridge the cow was dead.

The report of an incident this could almost have been a police report theat Fonseca maybe wrote himself at some point.

Now I knew this would be a great collection as how often do you get a Pynchon quote on the cover of a book he says “Each of Fonseca’s books is not only a worthwile journey: it is also, in some ways, a necessary one. There is a sense of the policeman sat times in tthe clipped nature of Fonsecas prose that police report style that over time sees them cutting to the bone of the matter. The stories show the acts also he does have a clever way of twisting a tale like Betsy where it isn’t to the last few words the story is turned on its head.  This is a man rasing the torch tothe city he had spent most of his life in Rio this isn’t the glamor of copacabana this is the side streets the  poorer areas of town. He has a way of opening the door on the darker side of life from a man randomlly running some one over to the man that just takes what he wants. The taker is one of those collections that isn’t for every one but if you want see the real side of Rio in its fully brital nature this will appeal to you.

Abahn Sabana David by Marguerite Duras

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Abahn Sabana David

Abahn Sabana David by Marguerite Duras

French fiction

original title –  Abahn Sabana David

Translator – Kazim Ali

Source – title

So a new translation into English from one of the best known French woman writers Marguerite Duras is of course  a good choice for Woman in translation month. Duras is best known for her novel The lover which I reviewed  six years ago . Duras early novels were quite plain and it was to mid way in her career she decide to become part of the french Noveau roman movement , a movement which the writer tries to write a new novel in a new style every time they write a novel.

She is small and slim, wearing a long black dress. Her companion is of medium build, wearing a coat lined with white fur. “I’m Sabana , “she says “this is David. We’re here, from Staadt .”

The man walks slowly towards them.He smiles

“take off your coats.” he says “Please sit.”

They do not answer. They remain near the door

They do not look at him

IThis first meeting between Sabana David and Abahn maybe is a warning for what is to come .

The book takes part over the course of one night and involves four characters . David and Sabana have come to Guard Abahn (A jew) but also under the orders of their boss the cringo. Then later in the evening a fourth man called also Abahn appears after this point the first Abahn is mainly called the Jews by Sabana who is talking about him as David is asleep and she is worried that The Jew will turn on them.Over the course of the night all the problems of the 20th century from Soviet to Nazis have been discussed by the group. Leading to what they are all doing there what  their positions where with in the group and why they have been sent a sort of questioning of meanings and values.Also what happens when Abahn become the Jew when the second Abahn appear the change sparks a change in how he is spoken about !

“Which forest ?” ask Abahn

Tears fall from Sabina’s eyes. She thinks on it

“the forest”

“You don’t know what’s beyond here,” says Abahn. “Where is the forest ?”

she searches her thoughts.

“Where I don’t know. We have to talk about it.”

“The wild forest,” says the Jew.

“Yes” she says, pausing.”Where is it ?”

“Deep within Staadt” says the Jew.

She isn’t crying anymore. She looks at the Jews once more.Her gaze has become somber again, somber and blue.

The forest is in Davids mind as well ” Says the Jew

This talk of a forest for the Jews made me think of the words the Nazis used to disappear Jews inWW2

This is a classic bit of Noveau roman. Duras has drawn on Theatre of the absurd for this piece I was reminded so much of the works of Pinter in particular the birthday party where two characters turn up at a characters house and through the night discuss the power and use of power. This is one of those piece that show power and the abuse of it like in this case the fact Sabana and David have been sent for a dual purpose from the Cringo to Abahn in the Staadt these terms can be interchange with a number of places and political parties within the 20th century. This is what we are drawn to think by  the way  Duras has apart from the dialogue drawn the bare bones of a story over this work leaving us the reader to fill in the parts unspoken or unsaid ourselves. A powerful Novella from one of the best French writers of the 20th century.

Have you read any more books by Marguerite Duras ?

 

Post exoticism in 10 lessons.Lesson 11 by Antoine Volodine

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Post exoticism in 10 lessons.Lesson 11 by Antoine Volodine

French fiction

Original title -Le Post-exotisme en dix leçons, leçon onze

Translator J.T Mahany

Source – review copy

 

It began when they come took me from my home
And put me in Dead Row,
Of which I am nearly wholly innocent, you know.
And I’ll say it again
I.. am.. not.. afraid.. to.. die.

I began to warm and chill
To objects and their fields,
A ragged cup, a twisted mop
The face of Jesus in my soup
Those sinister dinner deals
The meal trolley’s wicked wheels
A hooked bone rising from my food
All things either good or ungood.

i choose Nick Cave’s mercy seat as it is also a man reflecting on his life in Jail .

This is the second of four books I got sent from Open Letter the american publisher .I have been aware of Antoine Volodine ,via the three percent podcast (a good podcast for fans of translated fiction ) .So Antoine Volodine is the main Pseudonym of a french writer , he has also used Lutz Bassmann ,Manuela Draeger and Elli Kronauer .All the books he has published have been around a near distant future and a group of writers that form a movement called “Post exoticism ” .

Lutz Bassmann passed his final days as we all did ,between life and death .A rotten odor stagnated in the cell , which did not come from its occupant, but from outside. The sewers in the city fermenting, the docks in the habor were emiting a rancid signal, the covered markets were stinking terribly as they often did in the springtime when both the waters and the temperature began to rise .

The opening lines evoke his last days so well .

The book is one long piece that is based on Lutz Bassmanns last days ion a prison in the near future as he looks back on the Post exoticism movement and the writers involved in the form of ten lessons .The text forms a description of his present in the jail and intersped with piece from his fellow writers in the Post exoticism movement , so we get a piece about the romance ,whioch mentions an earlier book in the series Minor angels (which was the first in the series I remember hearing about ) .Other lessons specific terms critics of the time use in the reviews .Through to a final list of 343 works that make up the cannon of Post exoticism (I assume these are books the writer has in mind to write or use in other works ).I struggle to describe this as it is a series of pieces about this imagined movement  as great whole as a radical movement of testing writers breaking the law with the words .

7 Specific Terms

We all know that is hazardous to analyze the post-exotic production with terms conceived by official literary critics, made for performing autopsies on textual cadavers that riddle their morgues. The exercise is possible , though at a price of mental contortions that turn post-exoticism into a meeting place for the schizophrenic and haughty elite, perversely infatuated with illegible music .

One of the lessons about how to critic and use certain terms .

 

I struggle to describe this book,as it is totally  unique  and really it is part of a great whole that forms a great work, almost a  vision .A new  way at looking at fiction .The words and works these writers involved with this movement in the near future are testing the boundaries and testing what writing can do .This is maybe a radical look at the future and how writing could be dangerous again .This book is maybe a great starting place as we find a little about the series and the writers involved (although they are all Antoine Volodine ).For me it was a start of a journey through this writers work with at least 20 plus books to be translated we have a lot to look forward too .I have been hooked this is a short book that will set you thinking about this future and the myriad of writers Volodine has conquered up for us to discover .

Have you read Antoine Volodine or one of his alias ?

The one before by Juan José Saer

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The one before by Juan José Saer

Argentina  fiction

Original title – La Mayor

Translator – Roanne L. Kantor

Source – Review copy

Message In A Bottle”

Just a castaway
An island lost at sea
Another lonely day
With no one here but me
More loneliness
Than any man could bear
Rescue me before I fall into despairI’ll send an SOS to the world
I’ll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
Message in a bottle
(Message in a bottle)A year has passed since I wrote my note
But I should have known this right from the start
Only hope can keep me together
Love can mend your life
But love can break your heart

I strangely choose A old Police lyric just as one part of arguments is about throwing a bottle with the word message in into the sea .

Now when this a three other books from the american publisher Open letter arrived for review , I was pleased this book in Particular is by a writer that is on my list of writer to read . Juan Jose Saer born to Syrian parents in Santa Fe , he studied philosophy at Litoral University and after that taught history of cinematography , he later got the chance to studied in Paris where he stayed in Exile up to his death ,Exile , Santa Fe and twins are recurring themes in his fiction according to his wiki page .He passed away in 2005 .

I ate the foods of the world ,My hands touched the stones of famous cities and my body , shriveled now but fit and feral , walked the streets more numerous than ripples in a river ,What man have I not known ? what book have I not read ? What might there be in the warehouse od visible and invisible things that could still be sold to me as a novelty ?

A poet remembering the places he has been Memories serve a part , another story is called scent memory

This book is a triptych of stories . Arguments are snatches of stories range from a paragraph to a few pages ,  thin slices of stories that range from little piece of info , arguments about books , being an exile , and memories  that stack up together to make you as the reader both think and feel  . The second and third story are more straight forward Half erased and the one before . I read the intro by the translator  and found that the Character Pigeon Garay is a character that has featured in other works by Saer ,here  he first appears in arguments here ,we see him wrestling with leaving his life in the last story , but his home town is also wrestling with an on coming flood almost as thou it is trying to wipe clean where he was . But also may drown him where he is which isn’t where he wants to be .

“The best thing a message can say ” said Barco , “is just message .So even when everything would seem to indicate we should write HELP! , I’d suggest that we write this is a message , Or just message  short and sweet .

Tomatis considered this a moment and at last agreed , only to encounter another question : who would write the word ?

I choose the police lyric due to these lines , I love the second part who should write the message .

Well this was my first collection by Saer , he is considered one of the main figures in Latin American fiction . For me I see lots of Borges in the first section .These stories  are like tapas like little pieces of fiction and as I say they are  thin slices so like tapas can be mixed together to everyone’s taste  however each reader approaches them taken what you want from them , rather like Borges made the reader work at times to get to the centre of the labyrinth . For me I got out his love of fiction , his feelings of exile (the parts on exile remind me of Goytisolo another great writer on exile ) The second two stories have a more visceral feel to them more of  a modern feel say like Aira and Bolano write and show how Saer was a writer that links the stylish style of Borges with that brutal cutting edge of prose of Bolano  .A great first book from Open letter books , I have two others coming in the next week or two .

Have you read Saer ?

weekend reads Labyrinth to New York

~ winstonsdad ~ 5 Comments

alain robbe Grillet

I am finishing this Novel this evening as my weekend begins , well I am working but this Classic Noveau Roman novel by Alain Robbe-Grillet is a strange journey into a darker seedier new york and the actions of one underground group  in a near future New york of the time , I’m being remind of both Burroughs and Burgess  in some ways .I must admit I love the cover of this copy from the library an old Calder and Boyars with a great piece of typewriter art .

the physics of sorrow

The other book on my radar for reading this weekend is The last of the three novels I was sent from Open letter and the one I have saved as I have really enjoyed the other books from Bulgaria I have read and this story that is described as a modern take on the minotaur story with its narrator following a labyrinth of stories The Physics of sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov .Is one of the books  I am most looking forward to this year so far .

nmelastissue

There is one last thing and that is this The last NME as it is before it becomes a free magazine .This was the music paper I read in my youth some of those covers on the cover I remember the Stone roses one which to my shock is from 1989 my god that makes me feel old . But its sad to see the fact so few people buy it now it was viable to sell it but do it as a free music paper (I imagine with a lot more adverts in than now ) .

What is on your weekend tbr ?

Winston’s books Open Letter books and Nobel winner ?

~ winstonsdad ~ 3 Comments

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Well I arrived home to three brown envelopes through my door a real bonus , on a day that had been busy at work . I opened them to find three more books to add to the one I got on Saturday from US publisher Open Letter which is attached to the university of Rochester and their three percent website (a real joy for serious lit in translation fans ).The three books were a collection of Poetry from the Italian poet Lucio Mariani , A  well regard and translated poet .Then there is The physics of sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov , a Bulgarian writer , I have reviewed two books from Bulgaria and have a third on my pile of books to review , so I am pleased to read another what seems by the cover blurb another witty and clever books from Bulgaria and he was suggested back at london book fair to me as another writer from that country to read  .Then last but no means least is  a French novel and writer that has been on my wish list for a good while since I heard of an earlier book Minor Angels by Antoine Volodine , I have want to enter the future world of radical writers and exploring the power of writing this book is part of a great project that interconnects a lot of his books . Then below is the book that arrived is another to add to the 10 other writers I have read from Argentina Juan Jose Saer latest translation is a collection of three stories around Exile and memory .He sadly died a few year ago but is another I had on my radar for a while . I am hoping this may spike interest in the uk to this publisher making it easier to get their books in the uk .I know they are easily available on amazon , but I like to buy my books in a bookshop and the nearest place to get their books to me is Nottingham or Manchester .

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Then I got two books from the library today that I had ordered one writer that maybe should have won the nobel in his time Alain Robbe Grillet was a leading writer in the Noveau Roman movement also a filmmaker , last year in Marienbad was his film .I managed to find my library system had one this one project for a revolution in New York .Then there is a name that has been around as a future winner the last few years and thankful my library managed to find the copy they had at last of Voices from Chernobyl the oral history of  nuclear disaster written by Svetlana Alexievich , I always try to read one or two of the names not mention in regards Nobel Literature prize .

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