Tag: penguin classics

Nothing Grows by Moonlight by Toborg Nedreaas

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Nothing Grows by Moonlight by Torborg Nedreaas

Norwegian fiction

Original title – Av måneskinn gror det ingenting

Translator – Bibba Lee

Source – Personal copy

There is a wave of books being published in the last few years that capture extraordinary female voices from across Europe as we try to fill in the gaps that have been overlooked, from Tore Ditlevsen to Natalia Ginzburg, to name two. I had seen this book being mentioned as coming back out; it had come out in the late 80s but was overdue for a reissue and is from a prize-winning and controversial writer when it was published, with its look at back-street abortions and how women had to go to these people to avoid children.  She was also a writer who focused on working-class voices in her literature and was a lifelong communist; she asks us to consider what we would do in the main character’s life and what options we would have.

“This must be god-awful boring to you. Well, I assume you’re telling the truth. Love, well. There should be no name for it.

Because it is… well, it’s not something you can put a name on.

Some of the murkiness that lives its bacterialike existence in a young girl’s fantasy is mixed up in it. No, I’m lying. The murkiness has more profound causes, of course. I’ll leave that to psychoanalysts to mess with. But then a man arrives, a real live man, and he’s been there the whole time. Some are stuck on movie stars during that period, some on sports idols, but those of us who are basically faithful continue to build on our childhood infatuation. Caress it maybe, nourish and cultivate and all the stuff we do to explain the facts. All right by me.

she was 15 when she started her relationship with Johannes

The book is framed by a man meeting and taking pity on a woman at a train station, then taking her home. The book is him looking back on this extraordinary evening and the nameless woman whose path he crossed that evening. The book is the story of this woman’s life. She is a working-class woman who has desires, but when she meets an older man, when she is just 15, she starts a sexual relationship with the older man. He, Johannes, is a school master; he is her lover on and off in this affair for the next twenty years, as it seems he has her at his beck and call. This also affects her everyday life, as all this happens in the small mining town they live in. So when she falls pregnant for the first time, we see her description of visiting a backstreet abortionist; as the years move on later in the book, she performs this herself. This is a tale of a woman who had sexual desire but is caught up by what now would be seen as a predatory male figure. all over the course of one evening, this life is spilt out to this man and us as the reader.

‘Up there where we live. It’s different. Maybe it’s the same other places too, but up at The Mine and in our town especially you have to be like everyone else. You can’t hurt, not any worse than others. You can’t have fun; you can’t show you’re having fun, at any rate. Yes, it’s worse than anything, showing you’re happy. And above all you must never be different than you normally are; they can’t take any surprises from anyone. Take, for example, a girl who never goes dancing, who isn’t interested in kissing the boys. A girl who gets paler and more silent and ugly and hollow-eyed every day, a girl who goes to church and cries during the singing of psalms.

‘She can’t suddenly one day go to the youth centre and start dancing, laughing, and taking a swig with the boys behind the barn the way the other girls do. There would be an earthquake at The Mine and down in town.

The small town she lives in shuns her after the affair and the way she lives her life !!

The voice of the narrator in this book captures her life as she pours out to this man, over the course of one night, twenty years of her life. Visiting a back-street abortionist reminded me of scenes from the film Vera Drake about a woman who was a back-street abortionist in the UK. I was also reminded of the kitchen-sink dramas of the sixties; here, this is a sort of anti-Taste of Honey: the woman who chose her life. It makes you question the society at the time; it shocked the country when it came out with its graphic descriptions, especially when she =uses kiniting needles to do an abortion herself. But it is meant to make you question it all; that is the point: this woman is a sort of everywoman; how many women have faced the decisions she made? nameless, but everyone in a way? What also struck me is how much, within the US, certain states are now taking back years of women’s rights to decide about their own lives; how much more poignant this book is now than even ten years ago! A powerful tale that captures human suffering and a broken woman so well .

 

 

 

Tree by Aya Koda

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Tree by Aya Koda

Japanese Non-fiction

Original title – 『木』 新潮社

Translator – Charlotte Goff

Source – Review copy

I was so excited when I saw this was available to review. The main reason is the connection to the film Perfect Days by Wim Wenders, which is set in Tokyo, and the main character Hirayama is shown as a reader, and when he one day visits the book shop, the book he picks up is this book. The shopkeeper says Aya Koda she deserves more recognition, she uses the same words we do, yet there’s something so special. What more could you want as an introduction to a writer? Aya Koda had been married and divorced before she ever wrote a book. In her forties, she wrote several books about her relationship with her father, Rohan Koda, a well-known Japanese writer, and also wrote novels. Also books in this style Zuihitsu a japanese style meaning follow the brush a way of piecing together memoirs in a stream of conciousness style this is a book made up of her reaction to trees.

Some kabuki costumes are uncommonly thick, such as Matsumaru’s in the tale of the three brothers Matsu-maru, Umemaru and Sakuramaru – named after pine, plum and cherry trees respectively. I have never touched Matsumaru’s costume, and have only ever glimpsed it from a far-away seat, so I suppose I can’t say for sure how thick it is, but whenever I look at the bark of an old pine tree, I remember Matsumaru’s kimono. Pines wear a heavy kimono. Or they wear them heavily, is perhaps more accurate. Their skin is covered in rough, dry fissures forming tortoiseshell-like patterns, the thickness of their bark clear to see from the depth of these cracks. Matsumaru’s costume features pine trees with snow-laden branches against a charcoal back-ground, creating a cool, clear colour scheme of black, white and blue; the kimono worn by real pines has a dirty kind of colour, its hexagonal fissures lending it an imposing quality. Incidentally, Matsumaru’s hair is incredibly thick, and pine trees will also often be blessed With a luscious head of needles.

 

 

Their rare fifteen pieces in this collection range from personal insights like a sapling she had from her father. To visit an island where the trees are covered in volcanic ash.  For me, I picked three pieces that show her drifting style. The first is the tree kimono around the way bark on some trees looks, and the history of trees and the kimono in fashion see unusual trees in a forest all stitched together. Then we have a chapter around a pair of brothers and their relationship to the woods and trees as master carpenters, their view of when trees are living and when they need to be felled. The sort of knowledge built over a lifetime is evident in the way she watches them treat the trees and wood around them. Then a story about the Sugi Cedar that starts with her looking at a concrete tetrapod and ends with the shape and symbolic nature of the Sugi tree. In Japanese culture, the tree is believed to be among the oldest living trees in the world on certain islands.

Back when I lived in Nara I was lucky enough to hear a number of stories from the Nishioka brothers, both of whom were master carpenters, but the lesson that left the deepest impression on me – which they emphasized in all of their tales, at every possible opportunity – was the living nature of wood.

The wood the Nishioka brothers were referring to was not the kind in trees still standing, but rather wood as a material. These carpenters believed that, just as trees have their way of living, wood has its own life, too. They suggested that we call the period while the tree is standing its first life, and its time as a material its second. Imagining that timber is simply dead tree, they told me, betrays a lack of understanding. Theirs was truly a craftsman’s way of looking at things. I remember, once, I was speaking to the younger brother, and he told me not to focus purely on the life of wood, either, but to also think about, as he called it, ‘wood which has died “

The chapter Trees standing up , trees lying down

 

Now this is one of those books I love. If you are a fan of Wenders films, you will love this. It is a perfect book for his drifting, road-movie-style filmmaking. I can see why it may have been chosen as the book brought in the film. If you are a fan of nature writing, it will appeal, as it captures a distinctly Japanese view of trees and their connection not just to the writer but to Japanese society as a whole. Also, I think it will appeal to Sebald fans. I just loved her passion for the natural world, seeing how trees have impacted her life, and the trees she has seen throughout her life.  The book was published after her death. I will now need to find her novels.  Has anyone read any of them?

 

 

The Rainbow By Yasunari Kawabata

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The Rainbow By Yasunari Kawabata

Japanese literature

Original title- 虹いくたび (Niji ikutabi)

Translated by Haydn Trowell

Source -personal copy

In January, I read far more Japanese novels than I could review. This is a new translation from the Nobel prize-winning writer Yasunari Kawabata. He was the first writer from Japan to win the Nobel prize. He was given the prize for his narrative mastery, and his great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind. Is what the Nobel committee said about him as a writer. I have only reviewed one other book by him, and that was Snow Country. So when I saw this new translation of one of his works coming out from Penguin, I made sure I got a copy when I saw one. The tale of the two sisters in this book, having the same father and different mothers in postwar Japan, appealed to me.

Momoko hesitated, afraid of accidentally revealing the secret behind her new hairstyle. With her sister at home, it had become suddenly difficult for her to leave for her rendezvous.

Her emotions getting the better of her, Momoko’s voice turned brash. “Asako. Now that you’re back from Kyoto, there’s something you want to ask Father, isn’t there?” she asked, turning around. “I know. There’s no need to hide it.

It was a lie, wasn’t it, when you said you were going to see a newly married friend?”

“It wasn’t a lie.”

“Oh? So it wasn’t a lie. You went to see your friend, but that wasn’t your main reason for going, was it?”

Asako hung her head.

“Why don’t you tell me?” Momoko paused, softening her tone. “And did you find this younger sister of ours in Kyoto?” Asako stared back, taken by surprise.

The two sisters and the mention of the third out there

The book focuses on the two half-sisters living with the widow’s father. Momoko had lost her mother to suicide, and her m, mother never married after her father got her pregnant. Then n her half-sister Asako had lost her to illness. So, the pair both ended up with the architect’s father. But when Asako gathers from her father, there may even be a third sister, the daughter of a Gheisa in Koyto. In a way, the three of them are reflections of the world they are in post-war Japan. The struggles with Tradition and the future are creeping in as the traditional buildings are overshadowed by the modern city. The quest for this third sister in a way is the thread that runs through this book. The book captures the same world we see in OZus films. In some ways, the sisters could be from a film by the master himself. The two sister clash as Momoko has a boyfriend in many ways she is the most modern and this is a story of family secrets and sibling relationships.Also, how the world they have all known is moving on so quickly.

Since the end of the war, countless villas in the resort town of Atami—the properties of former princes, of former nobles, and of former industrialists—had been transformed into inns and hotels.

The Camellia House was one such villa, having belonged to a former prince who had held the honorary title of Fleet Admiral.

Asako’s father, Mizuhara Tsuneo, pointed out the window of the car as they passed by the entrance. “Do you see those two villas? They don’t really look like inns, do they? That one belonged to a prince, and the one over there belonged to a marquis. The marquis was descended from royalty, but I heard he was wounded during the war. His leg, you see.

Now they say he’s been sentenced to forced labor as a war criminal.”

The world ios changing as the villas change and become other things

I was a fan of Snow Country, and I connected with this book as well. I am a massive fan of post-war novels, wherever they may be, but especially in Japan, which in many ways saw the most significant shift in its world. This is from the same time as Tokyo’s story is set in a way. In fact, the way they all talk is similar to Momoko, who, in a way, reminds me of the son in Tokyo story caught up in the fast-moving modern world as the others are all trailing behind her and all lament the world they have seen gone more. In a way we see how Kawabata feared how quick his country was moving on this was serialised in 1950/52 a year before Tokyo story but his fear is the same as in the fear of the traditional Japan that the younger sister seems so far away from. I like his sparse still, and the world he described that is now gone, you feel. Have you read his books? Where would you go next in his book?

Winston’s score – +B Solid look at post-war Japan through two sisters and their father.

The Strangers in the House by Georges Simenon

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The Strangers in the House by Goerges Simenon

Belgian fiction

Original title – Les inconnus dans la maison

Translator – Howard Curtis

Source – Personal copy

I am late again for my last book for the 1940 club. I’d love a fortnight for it myself. I am like a kid in a sweet shop when I read the list of books for every year when it comes out I have reviewed 3 books, but I had actually brought six for this week ready. But I think the others are books I will get to at some point. There is a given for most years we get to read from for the club and that there is more than likely a book from Georges Simenon as he was such a prolific writer in his lifetime and that was the case for this year it was one of his roman Durs books his darker stand-alone works he wrote and this had a new translation from the ever-growing Penguin series that aims to put all his books out in English. Here we have a book that uses a classic bit of crime novel writing, and that is the found body no one knows at the start.

He could have sworn that the sound didn’t come from the bed, which must be to the left – at least it had been there the last time Loursat had gone into his daughter’s room by chance, perhaps two years earlier.

“Open up!’ he said simply.

Just a minute..

The minute was a very long one. Behind the door, someone moved, trying hard to make his or her movements as silent as possible.

When he hears the shot sand wonders what it was only to fiund out the truth!!

The book finds a reclusive drinker, a man who, after his wife who left him nearly twenty years earlier. He has withdrawn from the world. This all changes when his daughter and her friends living on the edge bring a man they had hit with a car home, and it is that man who is shot dead by the shot that wakes the reclusive Hector Loursat. He used to have a law practice before the divorce and his decline into the bottle, so when he reappears to all those in the small town, many of which he knew before those years away. After many years it is with a sense of strangeness from those in the village, and when Hector wants to find out what really happened on that night with his daughter and her friends, did his daughter’s boyfriend kill this man in cold blood? Who is the man? A father shares a house with his daughter but they are two bodies swimming in different worlds in the same space but in separate worlds. Only after the events does Hector tries to find out about the gang she runs with and her life and save her man! Will he find out who fired the shot that morning that brought him?

Poor Chief Inspector Binet! He hadn’t expected such a greeting. He stood up, then sat down again, apologizing.

It was Josephine who had admitted him to the study while it was still light. She had left him to his fate, and he had stayed seated with his hat on his knees, first in the half-light, then in complete darkness.

I thought I ought perhaps to bring you up to date on . . . I mean, it did happen in your house, didn’t it?

The police are a bit hopeless in the book and jump to a conclusion about the events of that night

This has two classic crime novels things the first is the body appearing in a room dead from Body in the Library by Christie to Silver Blaze by Conan Doyle. The found body and the events thereafter have started a great crime novel. Then we have a group of suspects in His daughter Nicoles, her boyfriend, the chief suspect in the law’s eyes and the gang they run with. This book has a plot but is more driven by the characters in the book and their stories as much as what is happening in the book. It sees a man coming back into the world after so many years. It sees a father uncover his daughter’s actual life. It sees them both facing ghosts from their past and the events many years ago that lead Hector to become a recluse. I had probably read this at some point. My aim is to read as many of his books as I can over the next few years, and the Roman Durs these are the books I have not read as many of, but in this one, he has managed to mix a few classic crime novel traits alongside a  character study. Have you read this book or have you a favourite from his Roman Durs ?

Winstons score – B A solid Simenon not my favourite by him but not the worst I have read.

 

Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto

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Tokyo Express by Seichō Matsumoto

Japanese crime fiction

Original title – 点と線, Ten to Sen

Translator – Jesse Kirkwood

Source – review copy

I start the new year with the first of a few books that I am planning to read from January in Japan. This is the debut novel of the renowned Japanese crime writer Seichō Matsumoto he had no real formal education and had studied ancient texts as his education according to the wiki. He was initially a journalist til his wiring took off he was known for writing multiple books on the go hence he waS OFTEN CALLED THE Simeon of Japan, as most of his works were published in parts in magazines. He was also a lifelong activist voicing anti-America and also at times Anti-Japanese sentiments in his writing.

His designated waitress was Toki, for the simple reason that she had been the one to serve him on his first visit. While they were on good enough terms, it seemed their relationship had never gone beyond the walls of the Koyuki.

Toki was twenty-six but with her beautiful pale skin could easily have passed for twenty. Her large black eyes made quite an impression on guests. When one of them addressed her, she would glance up and flash them a smile she knew they would find enchanting. Her oval face and delicate chin gave her a graceful profile.

The opening chapter and how the exec uses just Toki as his waitress.

The book opens with a restaurant and an exec that is due to go for a meal there. As it has been where he seal deals and fixes there over the years and he has always wanted the same waitress Toki. So when one morning her body and a young man called Sayama he works for the government does that have some barring on why he is there. The two are initially assumed to have taken their own lives on the beach of this small town a train ride or two from Tokyo the family are contacted and the death from poison seems straightforward but then there are two detectives and they start to pull apart what happens the local detective Torigai isn’t sure of the events of that night. So he talks to the Tokyo detective Mihara. Then as they start to work back over the train journey and what actually happened that led to these two bodies on the rocky beach. The trip is picked apart. Were they seen by a fruit seller what happened at the stop-over point who off the trains Saw the couple was there anything else that happened on that trip? Is anyone else around on that night.

Torigai was standing in front of the fruit shop at Kashi station.

“Can I ask you something?’

The shopkeeper, a man of about forty who was busy polishing an apple, turned to look at him. Shopkeepers weren’t always the most helpful people when questioned in this way, but when Torigai added that he was with the police, the man became more attentive.

‘How late do you stay open in the evening? asked Torigai.

‘I close around eleven.

In that case, would you be able to see the passengers when they come out of the station at around nine thirty?’

“Nine thirty? Definitely. There’s a train that gets in from Hakata at twenty-five past. The shop isn’t very busy at that time of night, so 1 keep a lookout for potential customers.’

The fruit seller at his shop what did he see that evening if anything?

I loved this it started as thou it was one thing and then we see how the crime and events were pulled apart over the days the trip was worked back. At the end of the book, it said seichō had used the real timetables to plan the events and to follow what happened and of course being Japan there is never a mention of the train running late or being cancelled and this is back in the fifties. The real reason for the deaths appears over time. He has a great pacing to the story as the events are slowly unpicked as we see the night in reverse almost the events worked back to Toki’s workplace at the restaurant which caused their deaths really. This is one of the best-selling books of all time in Japan you can see why it is maybe the perfect crime novel that can be read in a single sitting and I loved the way they just unpicked the train journey and who saw what. Have you read any of his books? I have another on my shelves that I have had for a number of years I hope to read that at some point. I love the cover of this penguin classic and the photo is just perfect. What are you planning to read for January in Japan?

Winston’s score – A Well paced and believable crime novel.

 

Travels with a writing brush edited by Meredith Mckinney

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Travel with a writing brush( Classical Japanese travel writing from Manyoshu to Basho)

Japanese travel writing

Editor & Translator Meredith Mckinney

Source review copy

I was rather happy to get sent this, especially after earlier this year reading the Man Booker international prize longlist The pine island which is the second book that had a Basho influence the other being the title of Richard Flanagan booker winner book was a nod to Basho. The book contains a thousand years of Japanese travel writing which includes a number of pieces that were translated for the first time.

Works translated into English for the first time:
• Ionushi’s Pilgrimage to Kumano by Zōki
• Senjūshō
• Pilgrimage to Kumano
• The Death of Sōgi by Sōchō
• Journal of the Kyushu Road by Hosokawa Yūsai

On we went, past Uta no Mastubara. Pines in untold numbers stood along the shore, untoldages old. Waves lapped at the feet of every one; restless cranes thronged around every branch. Unable simply to stand and gave in wonder, one on board composed this:

Miwataseba                Gazing upon thesepines

Matsu no uregeto ni   It seems the cranes

Sumu tsuru wa            Nesting on every branch

Chiyro no dochi to zo Must take the trees for friends

Omoubera naru           A thousand generations old

THis poem doesn’t do justice to the actual scene we saw

From Tosa diary a voyage that lasted 55days at sea.

The book has a great intro and translator notes also map for a number of the Journeys which begin in 759 with MAnyoshu which is one of the first works in Japanese collection it has 400 plus poems the few select are set around boat travels around the island seeing things such as cranes. Then in Tosa diaries, we have a female narrator although as it says in the intro we see that a few times the male writer’s voice is evident this journey is shown on the first map of the maps in the book from Tosa to Kamakura as they see pines and Cranes but as the narrator says the prose doesn’t do it justice. Then as you’d expect we have a pilgrimage piece by Zoki. Then we have a more famous work the pillow book written by a lady in waiting to the empress. Nearly all the pieces in this collection all have the sort poems that five lines long. Another diary of a daughter she is just known just as Sugawara No Takasue’s daughter. Then my favorite title of the works dusts dancing on the rafters That came from a Chinese saying related to two singers. I am only mentioning the first half of this wonderful collection it is taken out of Meredith McKinney own journey through classical Japanese writing and her love in particular of how they described travel this covers a thousand years and ends with the man himself Basho with the narrow road to Oku nearly a thousand years after the first piece. as his fame grew he had to travel to meet his followers in his last decade he traveled more than anything.

257

Kumano e mairu ni wa          Hey you pilgrims

Nani Ka Kurushiki                  What’s so hard

Shugyoja yo                           About the road to Kumano?

Yasumatsu Himematsu       it’s easy pine of Ysumata

Goyomatsu                            Princess pine and five-leafed pine

Chisato no Hama                  and the beach of Chisato

The opening poem from the short selection called Dust dancing on the rafters.

I have often been put off by the great classical Japanese works. But this is an easily accessible work that shows Meredith’s talent as a translator. It shows the beauty of Japan where travel through the land is hard due to forest and mountains or had to be done by seeing due to the many islands which means there is much travel writing out there with pilgrimages and ceremonial events and trips we see how the country is so poetic with its pines cranes insects monks and scenery the sea all around them at times. from sleeping on pillows of grass to wishing to be home and among the books a young girl loved. The works mix fact and fiction and the lines of poetry and prose blur here. As the intro says sometimes it is about finding the places here within like in Ise tales which is sent from Mount Utsu which is said to have echoed down the centuries in the journal of travelers along tokkaido who continue to search out the place identified with this scene. This struck me people trying to find a place a thousand years later from a letter enchanting such a great collection I hope we get more from Meredith as she continues her journey. Have you a favorite work of classical Japanese writing?

Vile bodies by Evelyn Waugh

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Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

English fiction

Source – personal copy

Well, I enjoy Kaggy and Simons year club this time we are now back in 1930 this time for the 1030 club and when I looked at a list of books published in 1930 this one was jumped out at me as I have read this a few times before it is one of my favourite books in English. I may review mainly translated fiction these days but in my youth, I loved the works of Waugh and have in the past did a small weekly blog event for Waugh. This book for me maybe captures those bright young things at the best and worst the only book that comes near is Henry Greens party going.

“French, eh/” he said. “I guessed as much, and pretty dirty, too, I shouldn’t wonder. Now just yoy wait while I look up these her books? – how he said it! “in my ist. Particularly against books the home secretary is. If we can’t stamp out literature in the country, we can at least stop it being brrought in from outside. that’s what he said the other day in parliment, and I says “hear,hear,” =Hullo,hullo,what’s this, may I ask?”

The custom officer confiscating his books and his own manuscript as he arrives back in the UK.

The book focus on the ups and downs of the life of Adam Fenwick Symes as he returns to London after time in America trying to write his magnus opus of a book which he has in his Case. The first down for him is that he loses this book and the money he was going to get for it from his publisher as it is seized by an over efficient custom officer with a hatred of literature. Putting at risk his marriage to Nina Blunt this on-off marriage runs through the book as he on a number of occasions tries to get her father a rather mad colonel. He returns to his hotel and by chance doing a magic trick wins a sum of money which he is persuaded not to keep but by a Major to let him bet on a sure thing outsider horse that is running at 33/1. So when the horse wins he needs to find this Major this is another thread in the book. Also, he is given a chance of a job as mr chatterbox by his publishing tycoon boss in a chance to redeem himself as Mr Chatterbox. A role Adam jumps at but then as his predecessor in the job got in trouble he is pushed by Nina just to make up characters and events and trends like a green bowler hat which leads to fact and fiction blurring as people start wearing them. Will Adam get Nina will he get his money or even his book back?

(… Masked parties, savage parties, victorian parties, greek parties, wild west parties, Russian parties, Circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties in St John’s wood, parties in flats and studios and houses and ships and hotels and night clubs, in windmills and swimming baths, tea prties at school where one ate muffins and meringues and tinned crabm parties at Oxford where on drunk browbn sherry and smoked Turkish cigarettes, dull dances in londonand comic dam=nces in Scotland and disgusting dancesin Paris – all that succession and repetition of massed humanity …Those Vile bodies

In his Mr Cgatterbox piece we see the title as Adam describes those bright young things parties and what they get up too !!

Well this is a book that is timeless in fact since the last time I read it Adam stint at Mr chatterbox seems more apt than ever we live in a time that Gossip is now news it seems ever more to me every time you see a red top paper there isn’t news just gossip as news and also the angle of Fake news the reporting of green Bowler hats a piece of fake news that drifts off into reality,. The book is based on Waugh own life and his circle of friends at the time from the batty to those near the prime minister of the day mad relatives. It is for me his funniest book his later books have humour but also the tinged  by world war two this is a moment between the wars that saw as Stephen Fry retitled the book for his film those Bright Young things were able to party and be carefree just before the crash and far enough away that hope had grown after world war one. A perfect first choice for the 1930 club have you read this or have you a favourite Waugh book?

The Train was on time by Heinrich Böll

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The train was on time by Heinrich  Böll

German fiction

Original title  – Der Zug war pünktlich

Translator – Lelia Vennewitz

Source – personnel copy

I brought this when we went on holiday to Northumberland in a small Waterstones. I have been a fan of these Penguin European writer series books that have come out the last couple of years. But even more, I am a fan of Böll so far in the time I have blogged I have cover six of his books for me he alongside Gunter grass was the voice of those early post-war years of German. Now, this takes it right back to the start of his writing career and his Debut novel which had been out of print for a number of years and was first published in English in 1956.

But the silence of those who said nothing, nothing at all, was terriible. It was  the silence of tose who knew they were all done for.

At times the train got so full they could hardly hold their cards. All three were drunk by now, but very clear in the head.Then the train would empty again, there were loud voices, resounding and unresounding. Railway station. The day wore on to afternoon from time to time they would pause for a snack, then go on playing, go on drinking. The schnapps was excellent.

This line got me the fact about being drunk but still clear in head about their situation.

This is a story of one mans train ride from Dortmund through Poland to the Black sea and what is now Ukraine. The 23 Andreas a thoughtful almost one may say a daydream is heading back to the eastern front on this five-day train journey to what is maybe his and his companion’s death. So he is joined on the train by some fellow soldiers. The first of his companions an unshaven solider called Willi that has discovered his wife had cheated him and is seeking solace in the drink then the Blonde that has a sexual disease these are the ordinary soldiers that was the reality of the German army. As the train slowly moves east they remember the horror of the war they have seen their lives before the war and the present. On the way this young daydreamer and his train stops and meets a Polish girl in a brothel in an overnight stop in Poland he falls for her and from then on he wants to be with Olina a musician is drawn into prostitution but also a member of the resistance. Makes him want to escape the fate that awaits him. The death he saw before he boards the train.

“It’s funny that you’re a German and I don’t hate you” she fell silent again, smiling, and he thought, it’s remarkable how quickly she’s surerendered. When she went to the piano she wanted to seduce me, and the first time she played I’m dancing with you into heaven , seventh heaven of love, it was still far from clear.while she was playing she cried…

“All Poland” she went on,” is a resistance movement. You people have no idea.No one suspects how big it is. There is hardly a single unpatriotic Pole.

Oliona and Andreas first meeting the sense of a spark between the two of them a connection.

written whilst he was a prisoner just after the war ended this is a story of the real face of war the horror of a man barely a man Andreas struck me as a young 24 a virgin that falls for Olina straight away his first real chance of love and last glimpse of freedom. His two main companions maybe reflect two faces of what to do in war the Blonde with his sex disease remind me of the character that had crabs on his eyebrows in Das Boot someone having too much careless sex. Then the unshaven companion the drunken remind me of the character Ron Livingstone played in the band of brothers  Lewis Nixon. that using drink to get by through the war. This is a tragedy will he die we don’t know but it is looming and the fact he has envisioned it before he boards the train means he is almost predestined to happen but there is the curveball of Olina which till they meet shows the power of love can happen on one man. But also his conversation with a priest is a nod to Böll religious belief at the time he was a devout Catholic but in later life left the church. This is about the fragility of nature the nature of manhood brotherhood and the simple worthlessness of war.

 

The Penguin Classic book week

~ winstonsdad ~ 3 Comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was sent this lovely Hardback book by Henry Elliot of the history of Penguin classics which covered all the books Penguin classic have brought out over the years little pen pictures of writers and some of the books. This is the sort of dip in and out of the book you can have for the rest of your life. I decided the best way to get it across would be maybe a personal but open to all reading week. I have decided the second week of April to have read these four books from my Tbr that are all in the Penguin Classics book. So if you have a chance between the 8th April and the 15th to read a penguin classic you are welcome to join in .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First up and I go way back to Ancient Greece and my copy of the Iliad by Homer and my 70’s edition which is translated by E V Rieu. A book that is considered the greatest work of Greece and my first foot into Classical literature on this blog. I’m not sure how good this version is or if it is but the Penguin Classic book says it has had the most translations of any Penguin classic over the time they have been bringing the book out.I often feel I have a huge gap in my reading from so little classics I have read so this is a time to change that!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I go now forward to Victorian times and to Charles Dickens I choose A tale of two cities by him as it is one that isn’t talked about as much as other and also given its setting partly in France fits nicely in the blog and it is one of the few by him I hadn’t read years ago. I was at his museum a few years ago for a book launch and said then I need to read him and especially as my best friend is a huge Dickens fan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the first Italian novels tells the birth of Modern Italy.  Confessions of an Italian tells the great story of the Italian Risorgimento through a sweeping tale of Love, betrayal, villainy, and heroism. I also love the cover of this book for me the picture on the cover just wanted me to buy this book when it came out a few years ago. italo Calvino was a huge fan of this book. An epic at more than 800 pages this is one I have been wanting to get to but keep putting aside now seems a good time.

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last off I go to Russia and an Outsider in the time he wrote Nikolai Leskov story collection Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and other stories. I was grabbed by the fact he had used Shakespeare’s characters for his fiction. A chance to read one of the most unique voices of Russian literature in a book that came out in 1987 for the first time in Penguin Classics.

With 1200 books being published by Penguin classics I’m sure everyone has one or two li=ying around and maybe getting Henry Eliot’s book would be a great intro and guide to them!!