Tag: pushkin press

Letters from a Seducer by Hilda Hilst

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Letters from a seducer by Hild Hilst

Brazilian fiction

Original title – Cartas de um sedutor

Translator John Keene

Source – Personal copy

I picked this up last month on my trip to Suffolk from the excellent Aldebrough books. If you ever get a chance, pop into an excellent shop with a wide selection of books. I was drawn to the cover art, it reminds me of those folio-shaped flower photographs that Robert Mapplethorpe did. In a way , this book is like some of his other photos. Like yesterday’s book, this is another slim novella from a country that, years ago, had few female writers translated. It shows that this writer died in her late seventies, and it isn’t until the last few years that we have got her books in English. A writer who liked to challenge in her time, Hilda Hilst was known for her challenging writing that would tackle sensitive political and, in this case, sexual subjects. This book is a set of letters from Karl, a libertine, to his sister. This book has a nod to the European writers she likes, such as Joyce and De sade. I also felt she must have been a fan of Casanova because this man is perhaps a Brazilian version of the great lover.

I tiptoed out and still could hear Franz’s guffaws and Frau Lotte’s sobs-giggles-farts. Listen, Cordélia, seriously: you told me in your last letter that Albert’s balls and cock and little asshole are of no concern to you. That you’re not interested any more by all this filthy sex stuff. I feel you’re lying. But anyway, you said “filth.” And then you talked about “feelings.” But please, dear irmanita, you never had them! Are you calling

 

‘feeling’ what you were exuding for father? Hanging around the room’s terrace, behind that B. Giorgi sculpture, massaging your pussy while papa played doubles, are you calling that a feeling? I had reached my lovely 14 years, you your 24, I was lifting your satin nightgown and standing up screwing you in the ass right there behind the statue (the sculpture there before), while you were masturbating yourself moaning, babbling childish things that always ended in Ohs, Ahs, and you were squatting, crouching down, finishing all sprawled out atop my harmonica, howling, howling, and that never stopped.Later still I licked you, you lying beside the stone vases, and the ferns concealed your view of father on the court, and you propped yourself up on your elbows to see him better, then you saw him… and you would jump up (I still with the tongue hanging out) roaring: bravo papa! bravo!

I picked this as it is totally shocking but like most of the book also in a way!

The book is in three parts. It has an introduction of letters from Karl to his sister Cordelie about his sexual acts and the acts they had when he lived at home. This is very eye-opening. You can see how Hilst, as a writer, likes to push the boundaries in her writing. The book then moves as Karl discovers the works of a lost poet whose letters he finds in the trash. The last two sections see these other letters intertwining with the conquest of her brother, as we see a very. Male sexual view of the times the other man the lost Poet Stamatius is from the pother enbd of the social class a dpown and out man just getting by and having lioots of sex like Karl as well this is a book that questions class, sex and also is the poet really just Karl in a way if that makes sense this is a book that gives a nid towards the modernist writers she liked.

I do have a lover but she’s married, that I’m afraid to pick up women out there, all this AIDS-related stuff alarms me and because of that I always have to masturbate. I cited several men illustrious defenders of masturbation, John C. Powys, Havelock Ellis, Theodore Schroeder etc. But I spoke with much brilliance, with much elegance, slightly agitated, occasionally passing my hand on his thigh like a very manly man, sympathetic, relaxed. I described wonderful moments of getting it in and when I detailed an uncommon position (do you want to know, irmanita? She with legs open at the edge of the bed, me licking her and under the bed another woman sucking my pod) he laughed with pleasure, made nervous movements with his leg, and I glanced at him and visualized the dick stuffed inside his pants. I asked abruptly: you never masturbated with your friends?

I laughed when he tried justify himself by using some well known writer about there sex lives

This is a book that isn’t for those who get easily offended by a lot of sexual chat and discussion of acts that are maybe taboo even when the book is set but this is a man obsessed with sex and telling people about that but maybe imagining himself as the down and otut opoet and his poems and conquests as well this is if Cssanova had been latin american he would been karl sending these dispatches of his sexual acts and conquests in Brazil rather than in Venice. This is a book designed to provoke the reader. I was reminded of the splurge of sexual references in Pierre Guyotat’s book. I tried to find a connection between these two writers, but all I saw was a shared attempt to shock their readers. As I said, the Mapplethorpe-like cover, phallic in its appearance, is apt for the book. Have you read any of her books that have been translated into English?

An Untouched House by Willem Frederik Hermans

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An Untouched House by Willem Frederik Hermans

Dutch Literature

Original title – Het behouden huis

Translator -David Colmer

Source – Personal Copy

Well, it is back to Simon and Karen’s twice-yearly book club, where everyone is asked to read a book from a particular year. This time around, the year is 1952, as ever, I have taken that as the year the book was published in its original language, and I had to look hard to find some gems. This is the first book and is a Dutch classic. I first came across Willem Frederik Hermans when he was included on a list of the best Dutch novels ever compiled by NRC in 2007. At that time, some of the books on the list weren’t available, and over time, I have read a few from this list, but this is the first time I have got to Hermans. I decided he would be a writer, I leave for a rainy day, if that makes sense. He is considered one of the greatest post-war writers in his country.I decided it was time to read him as this is one of the earliest books from him as a writer, and before the two books that made the best Dutch novels (if this is the third best of his books, I can’t wait to read the other two at a later date). Do you have writers you have put on the back burner?

“Me from Spain when civil war,” he said. “Me Communist. Captured by French. In camp. Then escape. On ship. Turkey. Russia.”

Having got this far, he began to talk faster, using more and more Spanish words. It seemed that Russia had not lived up to expectations. That was why, for the first time since leaving the German sphere of influence, I said, “Me no Communist!”

He laughed.

“Merde! Tout ça, merde!”

“Comrade! Give me a cigarette!” Talking had only made me thirstier. He didn’t even have a canteen.

He broke his last cigarette in half and lay down,

leaning on one elbow.

“What you do?” he asked, making it clear that he wanted to know what I had done long ago, before the war.

The partisan had been all over during the war !

The book is told by a Dutch Partisan who is heading back after fighting; he had just killed five Germans on the Eastern Front in the tail end of the Second World War. So when he happens across a near-perfect villa after being sent there, he finds the house is clear of booby traps and then decides to take of his uniform and have his first bath in a very long time and puts on some clothes he finds in the house. So when a troop of Germans are sent to secure the house, they think he is the owner of the house. Later on, the actual owner of the house appears, and the partisan thinks he is actually a local who has come to clean the windows. Then there is a single room with a locked door leading to a bedroom, where someone is obviously on the other side. SO, what happens when the real owner and his wife have paper, and who is in the locked room? I leave these threads for you to discover by reading the book.

The house itself wasn’t that big, but all of its parts were. The windows were single sheets of reflective glass; the portal was as high as two floors; a balcony stretched across the entire façade.

There was a sloping, dark green lawn with a large plane tree in the middle that had been pollarded so many times it now looked like a gallows with room for an entire family. The front door, made of glass and wrought iron, was well ajar.

The house is almost a character itself in the book

I loved this book, it is one of those miniature epics of a book that is less than a hundred pages long, but to the reader it feels like a hell of a lot more than that !. It has an authentic thriller style to the writing, a sense of violence and death happening at every turn, which keeps you gripped as a reader. It is also about regret, as the story seems to be someone looking back on the events. There is a certain feel of being a little too used to the killing and bloodshed of war, if that makes sense. It is also a book that is very tightly written; there isn’t a wasted scene or passage in this book. It is so neatly written. Have you read Hermans? There is also a fascinating afterword by Cees Nooteboom about the book, Hermans, and Dutch literature. He said this on my blog about Dutch literature and mentioned Hermans in an interview he did for the blog 14 years ago. “The Dutch are a rather special tribe, like the English, but smaller.On the other hand, Holland is not an island. It has taken the world a long time to recognise that there are some interesting writers out there, like Hermans, Mulisch, Claus, Mortier, van Dis, Grunberg, and many others. And of course, it does not help that we know much more about English writers than English readers know about Dutch literature. A small language can be a prison. Translation is liberation,” Cees Nooteboom . I love the last word of that quote

Winstonsdad annual Guesses at the BOOKER INTERNATIONAL LONGLIST 2024 edition

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Its that time of year when all us bloggers that love books in translation look into our Crystal ball well in my case what I have read in the whole 9 of the 12 books I have picked will be ones I have read  and 3 are books that I hope to read.

I start with The end of August by Yu Muri the tales of a century of Japanese Korean history told through a pair of marathon runners grandfather and granddaughter in Morgan Giles stunning Tranlstion. This is one of the two I really hope make the longlist.

Star 111 by Lutz Seiler Translator Tess Lewis is the other book I have longed to see on the longlist. It is set during the Berlin War and partly based on the writer’s own life at the time and also his parents’ life at the time, as he stayed in the East and they headed west.

Next up are two choices from Machlehose Press. First is Vengance is Mine by Marie NDiaye. is bout a middle-aged lawyer who is hired by someone she used to know to try a case, and as she does, the past becomes clearer. Translated by Jordan Stump Then we have Wound by Oksana Vasyakina. It is the tale of a daughter taking her mother’s ashes back to her mother’s village in Siberia. As she is doing so, she looks back on her life. It is one of the first openly lesbian novels in Russian. Translated by Eliner Alter

Next and Epic prose novel from Sweden Ǎdnan by Linnea Axelsson Translator Saskia Vogel is the tale of two Sami Famlies through the 20th century shows how there world has changed. Also be a great to see and indigenous writer on the longlist.It has the feel of a epic told in verse could be told around the campfire.

Off to Italy its been a while since an Italian book has been on the longlist and I loved this novelisation of a true life event The city of the Living by Nicola Lagioia translatror Ann Goldstein pulled apart the events that lead to the death of Luca Varni was killed by two men similar age to him in a planned murder that looks at the darker side of masculinity and being male in Modern Italy.

I love to support small presses, and one of my favourites in the last couple of years is Three Times Rebel Press. They have been bringing out thought-provoking books for the last couple of years. The Dear Ones by Berta Davila. This is a powerful little novel about motherhood and struggling with motherhood when you have a child but then have an abortion. Translated by Jacob Rogers

The most secret memory of men by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr translator Lara Vergnaud this is part road novel part look at being an African writer in France also use a real novel that was accused of plagrism and has also just come out as a starting point when a writer reads the imagined novel that was withdrawn and goes on the hunt for the writer. I hope this makes the longlist ine I really connected with as a reader.

About uncle by Rebecca Gisler  Translator Jordan Stump. This has been my favourite Peirene for a long while and follows a family looking after an odd war veteran and his odd habits about family and what happens when one member need all the other to look after him.

Now my three I haven’t read with a quick explanation why

The annual Banquet of the Gravediggers Guild by Mathias Enard translator Frank Wynne

Just about to start this hard say why I haven’t got to it as it is translated by one of my favourite translators Frank Wynne and Enard ois a writer I love to read.

Anomaly by Andrej Niokladis Translator Will Firth  Lets hope this is out from Peirene a new publisher for his works he is a writer I have long championed and have met he has also done a piece for this blog. He is one of the best writers from Central Europe at the moment

Lasstly is a Nobel winner The children of the dead by Elfriede Jelinek Translator Gitta Honegger is meant to be her greatest book I have read a couple by her so am looking forward to this one.

Ædnan an Epic by Linnea Axelsson

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Ædnan an Epic by Linea Axelsson

Swedish fiction.

Translated by Saskia Vogel

Source – Review copy

I am on the list of books coming out this year. This was one of the ones that really caught my eye. An epic novel set in Sweden around the Sami community appealed to me as there aren’t enough books in translation from indigenous writers. So I was pleased when pushkin sent me a review copy, Linea Axelsson was born in the north of Sweden around the area, the book is set. She studied art history at university and then moved to Stockholm. This is her debut novel and focuses on the last century in a Sami community following three generations and their struggles in an ever-changing Sweden. This book won the August prize when it came out.

Through the Rosta River Valley from Lake Adjávárddojáurrit. Past the rivers

Tamok and Dapmoteatnu, 1913

(BER-JONÁ)

My brother and I

Aslat

we sang nothing

we no longer sang forth the earth and the memories

–

Vessels of song formed by the voice

When words were not enough for the lives we lived

They had trudged through hate

They had waded in sorrow

The birth of the twins in 1913 a harsh world they are born into

The title of the novel means the land , the ground the Earth. This is an epic verse novel. that felt like you were sitting by a campfire as a family recounting that history over the century. the book is the history of two families over three generations from 1900 until nearly modern day. The book opens with a young couple heading to the winter feeding grounds as they are expecting twin boys. Aslat and Nila, but when Nila, the smaller twin, is found to be too weak to be of use and his brother suffers an injury. add to this the fact they have Norwegians have closed the border, meaning families and couples are separated. And it is a hard life. We meet the twin’s father and when he is a much older man and living in a Swedish city in Projus. The family is now part of the indigenous studies by the Swedish government at the time. At this point, the narrative switches to the other family, neighbours Off. Ristin, and we follow Lise’s story. so we get the next generations to take on being indigenous as their natural  grazing band is being looked at and may be taken over to build a dam and a hydroelectric plant. This is in the 70s. The book just goes on after this, but I will leave you to discover the end of the book.

The little needlecase

made of reindeer horn that she had on her belt that one time

The seaplane made

an emergency landing in the fells and she was there

and had to mend a tear in the wing with sinew thread

You didn’t usually have the needlecase on you Mama

But that time you did

–

You who always said that you were sure I’d marry a Swede

I loved a lot of the little details thrown in like the little needle case here.

Ever since Lisa has done her indigenous reading weeks, it has made me more conscious of writers from indigenous backgrounds. what really grab me to know about this book, I was the style of writing a three verse with no punctuation in short bursts of three lines. Something almost hypnotic times about reading it. Have you really got the feel of an Icelandic epic or those great verse poems? It’s almost as though the World she wrote about has lost it anyway is it is this is it testament to the struggles of the Sami People in the 20th century; it is also a description of how hard the nomadic life can be when we follow the life of the twins in a harsher world, and where life is a struggle day to day.She also little snippets of everyday life from the way they live or what they carry, those little things that set them apart but mean so much in their nomadic world. One of the reasons I wanted to get to this book was I felt it would be a strong contender for the Man Booker International Prize, and it is always handy to get those 500-page novels out of the way before the long list is announced. I found, but to be fair, this book is nearer half the size in pages as it is all told in three lines and that means about fifty to sixty words on each page. So if you like sparse yet powerful family histories and growing up in an indigenous background, this is a book for you. Have you read this book?

Winston score A I gave this book an A as it already feels like it could be one of my books for the year

Beyond The Door of No Return by David Diop

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Beyond the Door of No Return by David Diop

Senegalese fiction

Original title – La Porte du voyage sans retour

Translator – Sam Taylor

Source – Personal copy

I bought this book just after Christmas; I have been watching it since it came out. I don’t think it will make the Booker longlist these days. The list seems to have a turnover of new writers every and David Diop had won the International Booker in 2021. I was a fan of the book he won with All blood is black. It captures the war from an African soldier’s point of view wonderfully. This is his latest book. This time, he has gone farther back in history and back to his homeland of Senegal, a tale of the early years of the French involvement with his country told through a French Naturalist and the chief’s daughter.

Ndiak kept telling me that he resembled his mother more than his father. She was the noblest and most beautiful woman in the kingdom of Waalo, possibly in the whole world, and–since he had inherited her beauty- he was quite naturally the most beautiful young man I had ever seen.His features were stunningly regular and symmetrical, as if nature had calculated the proportions of his face using the same golden number as the sculptor of the Apollo Belvedere.I merely nodded and smiled when Ndiak boasted, which encouraged him to say, without laughing, to anyone who would listen: “You see, even this toubab Adanson who has seen more lands than all of us put together, including five generations

Ndiak learns him the local languahge as they head out to find Miram

The materialist Michel Adamson is dying, and his daughter is attending to him. When he finally passes, he has one word on his lips: a lady named Miriam. His daughter has never known her father mention this name and has no idea who this woman was. So she found his journals from the 1750s when he was sent to collect plants from Senegal. Which he had done, and on his return, he had written one of the first guides to Flora and Fauna in Senegal. This was an actual trip the real botanist took. But the story of this man and his meeting with Miriam Seck, the beguiling daughter of a chief, is Taken and taken to be a slave is a nod to the title of the book, which is the name given to a door on the island out of Senegal and the last door that many slaves went through when they left Senegal. Anyway, she escaped and returned to her homeland in what is now Cape Verde, the islands just off the coast, with his young companion, a 15-year-old Ndiak, who teaches him the Wolof language, the language that is the most spoken in Senegal. The book focuses on when these two meet and the relationship and sparks that fly between them so much that fifty years later, when he is dying, he has her name on his lips.

Now that I am an old man, I do not believe that the sin for which I reproached myself was really so great. Is it not absurd to attach moral judgments to natural urges? But I must acknowledge that it was my religion that kept me from offending Maram Seck. Had I made advances, I would almost certainly have lost her trust and she would not have told me her story. If the world in which we lived had given us that chance, I would have one day asked her to marry me. And if she had accepted, I would have known her, in the way nature invites us to when a man loves a woman and a woman loves a man.

He is drawn to Miram

This is a story that mixes the violence that followed slavery and how it tore families apart. But it is also how a French man, by finding how the language of the locals works, gets more connected to the tribes and the locals and how the oral tradition of the country is opened up when Adamson learns Wolof. I love the way we are drawn into the story. The use of his last words, Miriam, is, of course, very much like the last words of Citizen Kane. This is his Rosebud moment, that moment when that one love that slipped through your hands is there, and this is a woman, an alluring, powerful, and brave woman, so much so she has become part of the vocal tradition in her country. I enjoyed this way of tackling slavery through both the African and French eyes, using a real person for the main character’s work. There were many people like Adamson who, when the world was unknown, went to hunt those plants that many of us would now call common in our Gardens. Have you read this book? and do you think it will be on the Booker longlist? For me, I’d love to see it there.

Winston score – A I hope it makes the longlist an interesting historical work

 

The Cake tree in The Ruins by Akiyuki Nosaka

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The Cake Tree in The Ruins by Akiyuki Nosaka

Japanese short stories

Original title 戰争童話集（Sensi doca shū)

Translator – Ginny Tapley Takemori

Source – Personal copy

I looked for Japanese books that appealed to me when I went to York. This caught my eye. I loved the title , but I have always enjoyed the pocket-sized, more miniature classics Pushkin does. They are just pretty and easy to carry little books. I hadn’t heard of Akiyuki when I bought the book, but I then decided to Google him; I don’t know about you, but I would like a little background on the writer. It just helps me place them and why they wrote the book they did, etc. I was shocked to discover he was the man who wrote Grave of Fireflies, which, if you haven’t seen, was made into one of the saddest and most touching films that followed two children after the war had ended in Japan. This book is set actually on the day the war ended. That made his appeal to me, but he was also in the House of Councillors and a Chanson singer and TV star. I loved this nugget of information.

The whale had come of age in the winter spanning 1944 to 1945, when the war between Japan and America was drawing ever closer to the Japanese mainland. The humans who’d waved at him were Japanese soldiers on their way to defend Iwo Jima against the Americans and, aware of their impending death, they’d been envious of the peacefully napping whale. The small ship he’d swum alongside was a fishing boat there to detect the American planes as they headed for Japan, while the man in the clumsy little yellow boat was an American pilot who’d been shot down and was hoping against hope that he might be rescued. Far from wanting to kill the whale, they knew they themselves might die at any time and so they were friendly towards him.

The Whale came of age during a war it knew nothing about.

This is a collection of  12 stories all set on the 12th August the day world war two ended. I will mention a few of the stories. They all have a fable-like quality to them. But with that same underlying sadness and remembering what happened in the war, we saw in Grave of Fireflies. The collection opens with the tale of a Sardine whale a female of the species that has ended up alone at the end of the war and has just fallen in love with what it thinks is a male whale but in reality, is a submarine. This leads to shock when she discovers it is a submarine with little men inside not a whale. Then, we have the tale of a boy and his parrot hiding from the American bombers that are going over. He hides away after his mother dies, shocked and unable to talk. His parrot still telling a sad story. This reminds me most of Grave of Fireflies. In others, a mother becomes a kite to save her children. A zookeeper looks after his elephant. They all have fable-like turns in them. This is a touching but heart-wrenching collection.

His mother’s body floated up in the strong breeze that always followed an air raid. “Mama, where are you going?” Katchan called in surprise, but his mother merely smiled at him the same way she always did. Relieved, he ran after her, but then a strong gust of wind suddenly whipped her up and away, higher and higher into the sky. “Mama!” he called again and again, and each time she turned to look back at him. Like a kite her body was drawn up into thePost-blaze sky, and remained there dancing there like and angel until eventually she disappeared from view.

A mother changes to save her children in this fable like short story.

 

I loved this I think even if I hadn’t known he’d written Grave of Fireflies, I’d liked this collection he has a way of using a fable like style of tale with out it seeming to twee or losing its heartwrenching meaning this is a collection that reflects on a country broken and falling apart. At the start of the book, it says that since the early 80s, the 15th of August is now a day of remembrance in Japan. This collection is a remembrance of the war and the cost to Japan, from children losing their parents to broken men returning in a submarine to find a whale falling for the craft. This is a collection for both adults and children. I think he has written it mainly for children. There is nods to traditional folk tales like the wolf looking after the Girl is a classic tale. Have you read this collection or any other piece by this writer?

Winstons score – A this book should be better known.

This is Amiko , Do You Copy by Natsuko Imamura

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This is Amiko, Do You Copy? by Natsuko Imamura

Japanese Fiction

Original title – こちらあみ子

Translator – Hitomi Yoshio

Source – Review copy

This is an early book from the Japanese writer Natsuko Imamura she has been nominated three times for the Akutagawa Prize one of the biggest book prizes in Japan. I have reviewed the third book she wasp for the prize for on the blog before the woman in the Purple Skirt which won the prize she has written aa number of other books and won several prizes for her fiction. She lives in Osaka with her husband and Daughter. This is a odd little novel around one odd little girl Amiko and we see her grow into a Teen

AMIKO GREW UP AS THE SECOND CHILD IN THE TANAKA FAMILY until the day she moved out at the age of fifteen. She had a father, a mother, and an older brother who became a juvenile delinquent.

Back when Amiko was in elementary school, Mother taught a calligraphy class at home. The classroom was small and simple, with three long rectangular tables arranged in an eight-mat tatami room where Mother’s mother used to sleep. Now the floor was covered with a red rug from corner to corner.Next to this room was the so-called Buddha room, where the butsudan was placed, and across the hall was the kitchen-dining room. The classroom was connected to a veranda, and that’s where the calligraphy

Her step mother taught Calligraphy this is where she meets the boy she falls for.

I said this is the story of Amiko. I was a few pages in and said to myself Amiko reminds me of some of the people I have looked after and supported she has some condition whether it is Autism or on the ASD spectrum or some other condition. She struggles to read the world around her. She has a trait of obsession early on in the book it is a boy that her stepmother is teaching Calligraphy too this is more than a childhood crush it is obsessive in its nature. That sort of obsession and inability people on the ASD spectrum can have to find it had to read social traits and ticks and emotions or even be unable to hold back their own emotional feelings. She has a walkie talk and this is another thing that makes you think she has autism the obsessive way she uses it is a portrait of a girl but a girl alone for none of those around her seem to see her as a person with Neurodiversity. Her view of the world is strange. Even the flat way at times the story is told it makes it seem like we are in her world at times there is a clinical nature at times to the prose style. A girl misunderstood it makes you wonder how people with Autism fair in Japan she is caught as a naughty bullied child and she isn’t it upset me at times.

But Amiko, who ate like a bird, couldn’t even finish the small bowl before her. With two or three bites left, she threw her pink chopsticks onto the table. Mother tried to offer her some kara-age fried chicken, another favourite of hers, but Amiko shooed away the plate, saying, “No more.” She then grabbed the box of chocolate cookies that Father had given her and placed it on her lap. “This is what I’m having!” she announced excitedly as she opened the lid with a big heart on it. After licking the chocolate coating off the surface of every cookie, she felt so full she could barely breathe.

I loved this description of her eating so many signs of her having some sort of ASD like symptoms

As you can see this girl grows in a third person description which is suited to this type of book it works well in the book The Incident in the Night. That flat way of viewing the world that Autistic way of not being able to see social traits and ticks but also struggling with your own emotions and how to show how you feel about people either seem distant or over the top and stifling at times was caught so well, I loved her little traits like the Walkie Talkies is just perfect and the sort of obsession some would have whether it was that all just talking via text as it is easier. This of course grabbed me as it is my job but I have a neurodiversity condition and can see in hindsight how it has affected me over the years so could connect with Amiko and how people just misunderstood her so much. If you like her other book The Girl in the Purple Skirt which dealt with Obsession really well you will connect with this book. It is also a perfect choice for next month’s January in Japan event it is part of a series of Japanese novellas that Pushkin has brought out by contemporary writers in Japan I have a couple more from the series to review. Have you read any of the books from this writer?

Winstons score – A solid little novella around a young girl growing up with an ASD condition.

Summer Fishing in Lapland by Juhani Karila

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Summer fishing in Lapland by Juhani Karila

Finnish fiction

Original title – Pienen hauen pyydystys

Translator – Lola Rogers

Source – Via Translator

I was contacted by Lola as, over the years, I have reviewed several books that she has translated from Finnish, and this had passed me by. Still, when I read the blurb of this book, I loved the idea it seemed to do the thing that Finnish fiction does very well, and that is genre-bending literature. Some of the recent books I have read are like this mix of murder and magical realism, and here, Juhani has used the myths and creatures of Lapland to tell a story of a fishing trip and a chase and the myths the writer obviously grew up listening to.  The other characters in this book are the nature and views of Lapland and the remote places they go fishing.

Elina got to the pond before the clouds did. She unhooked the black nine-centimeter Rapala lure from the rod line guide, pressed the reel release, and swung the rod back, ready to cast.

Then, on the other side of the pond, the knacky surfaced.It rose up out of the water slowly, like an ancient statue uncovered by a receding tide. It was as beautiful as a Greek god. Elina knew that it could look like a man or a woman or an androgyne, depending on the person it was trying to entice.

Anyone who made the mistake of looking into its eyes would get lost in them. Some people fell in love with the knacky, and some were so love-struck that they walked straight into the water and drowned.

She sess the Knacky on the opther side of the pond

The story follows an annual pilgrimage made by Elinas from the small village she grew up in east Lapland, and every year, she returns to take this pilgrimage to a lake to try and do battle again with the PIke of the lake. But this is also how she has reset herself yearly on those three days at the pond. But this time it is different as a spirit from the water appears, and they appear other creatures appear around her.  She sets of to fish, but the pike is a clever fish and is as elusive as ever as the Knacky spirit from the water appears. Then there is a side story of a detective, Janatuinen, who thinks Elina has committed a murder. He sets off immediately after his partner ensures he can’t make the trip north. He follows behind her, visiting the same bait shop, but he is an outsider, and the world he sees differs from Elina’s. The story drifts from the two main characters back into the youth of Elina as we see the two stories twist and turn, and we have a sprinkling of odd creatures, a sort of Finnish bigfoot, a hairy man-like creature, but he is a little dum,. Elsewhere, a farm hand is fighting off his own death but, at the same time, starts sprouting branches and leaves. This a quirky nove. Will he catch Elina? will she get her fish?

Janatuinen used Gunnarsson’s belt to make a tourniquet for his leg, then she drove him to the hospital entrance, waited for the nurses to get him and his suitcase out of the back seat, asked them to close the car door, and drove off without a glance in the rearview mirror.

It was a two-hour drive from Oulu to the border. One hour in, Janatuinen sat in a service-station café, eating breakfast and looking out the window. The wind was dying down. Birch branches tapped wearily against the glass, as if knocking to get in.The border came into view at nine a.m. The guard booth had a broken window. The window frame had been taken out and leaned against the wall of the booth. The barricade boom was broken, too, and had been carried behind the booth in two pieces. In its place was a green Suzuki jeep, parked in the middle of the road. A boy in a billed cap sat in the driver’s seat asleep, his head resting on the steering wheel.

His partner breaks his leg just as he is about to go nmorth to follow her

I loved how he has mashed up a murder, fishing, rural lapland and myths so well. I was reminded of the book from Olga Tokarczuk’s book Drive Your Plough a book that is set in the countryside and has a feel of myth and reality mixed at times. In an interview, he mentions an Estonian Novel, Old Barn by Andrus kivirähk. I looked this book up it hasn’t been translated into English another book has been translated, though.  I think I may have that one somewhere the cover looks familiar, so I may look and see if I brought it with me when we moved.  Andrej Sapkoski is another writer; he says he mixes myth and place well. A number of his books have been translated. This book has a real sense of place. The, swamps and world of Elinja’s youth jump off the page. Also the myths that come to life seem so real he has made it seem like a piece of magic realism rather than a work of fantasy. Have you a favourite Quirky novel from Finland?

Winston score – A -I love the quirkiness of Finnish fiction at times, they seem to mix genres so well

Pyre by Perumal Murugan

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Pyre by Perumal Murugan

Indian fiction

Original title – Pūkkul̲i, Tamil –  பூக்குழி

Translator – Aniruddhan Vasudevan

Source – review copy

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

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

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

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

The rock is like the island in a sea hatred.

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

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

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

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

Later on the tension and what may happen becomes clearer.

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

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

 

Gold Dust by Ibrahim al-Koni

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Gold Dust by Ibrahim al-Koni

Libiyan (Tuareg) fiction

Original title – التبر

Translator – Elliot Colla

Source – Personal copy

I shift from Spanish lit to join in Lisa Indigenous lit week for this year and the Libyan Tuareg writer Ibraham al-Koni a book that I have had for a long time. al-Koni grew up as a child in the Desert not learning to read and write Arabic till he was twelve he then went on to study comparative literature in Moscow. This is where he discovered the Lit theory of Geroge Lukac about the novel can’t be outside the city and then decide to set the novel he has written in the desert world he knew thus working against Lukac theory. He has produced over 80 books there have only been a few translated to English. He has taught all over the world and is considered one of the best Arabic writers alive. he was longlisted for the man booker international prize a number of years ago.

When Ukhayyad received the camel as a gift from the cheif of the Ahaggar tribes, he was still a young colt. Back the, on moonligh nights, Ukhayyad liked to brag about the throughbred camel to the other young men of the tribe, taking pleasure in posing questions to himself and then answering them

“Have any of you ever seen a piebald Mahri before ?”

“Never !”

“Have you ever seen a through bred so graceful so light of foot and so well proportioned?”

“Not until now.”

Have you ever seen a Mahri who could compete with him in pride, fierceness, and loyalty?”

“Not like this one”#”Have you ever seen a gazelle who took on the form of a camel?”

“Of course not”

He loved his camel ? a gift the two become close the camel is almost human at times it seems

 

The book focuses on a young Tuareg man as he rejects the wife his father has chosen for him after being persuaded by his wife’s cousin  Duda to divorce her which he pays him in gold dust.  and has thus had to go into exile with only his camel which he was given as a gift by the chief of the Ahaggar tribe it is a thoroughbred camel his pride and joy a piebald camel. The tale is of these two a man and their camel as the two try and survive in the desert as Ukhayyad tries to avoid the men of his tribe the war in the south of the desert as we follow them. The two have a bond that is almost like a pair of best pals the camel at one point saves him from a well when he has fallen down. The camel who like his owner drifts from good health to being on the edge of life as the desert takes it toll on the two of them. the two end up in caves where the walls are covered in prehistoric painting where we see Ukhayyad dream of a house deserted as he hides away from those chasing him.

When the herders brought their camels to the well, they found the young man’s emaciated, bloody body stretched out naked beneath its edge. His foot was still fastened to the tail of the throughbred Mahri that looked as if he had been skinned alive, The camel sttod over his head using his body to shield him from the scorching sun, They carried him into the shade of a nearby lote tree. Under that thick canopy crown, ther dunked his head into a bucket and poured water over him, An older herder hasten to light a fire and heat a kettle of water . The man rifled through his belongings and returned woith a handful of Fenugreeek seeds that he proceeded to cook. The camle herder served the broth to him with a spoon, all the while holding his head like mothers do when they breast feed their children.

ukhayyad nearly dies in the middle of the desert to saved by some camel herders

I have had this on my shelf for too long I know it is considered one of the best books from Arabic and one of the best about desert life as I said this is a buddy book the man and his camel but there is a third character and that is the desert itself the harsh world of the Tuareg is opened up as we follow Ukhayyad and his camel through the Sahara the changing environments as the two on the run try to get by in the tribal world where he has rejected that world when he divorced his with for a bag of gold dust. It is a book about man, desert, tribal life, Sufism, and the natural world. Ukhayyad is a character that isn’t easy to like but you feel for him and the [redicment he has got himself into. A great choice for Lisa’sindigenous lit month ! Have you read any of his books ?

Winstons score – -B an interesting insight into the tuareg world

 

 

The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

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The Passenger by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz

German fiction

Original title –  Der Reisende

Translator – Philip Boehm

Source – Personal copy

Pushkin has a habit of turning up with these lost gems of writers from around Europe. Here we have Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz. Boschwitz was the son of a Jewish businessman that died in world war one where he was brought up by his protestant mother they left Germany for Sweden but in the mid-thirties he was called up for the Wehrmacht. So they went on the run around Europe before ending up in London in 1939 where he published his second novel under the name John Grane and the original title was  The man who took trains. This and his debut novel didn’t come out in German until a few years ago this is a new translation of the book that follows the events on Kristallnacht written shortly after that night Ulrich captures the chaos but also the loss of personal identity for our main character otto Silbermann.

I’m living as though I weren’t a jew, he thought, somewhat incredulously. For this time being I’m simply a well-to-docitzen- under threat, it’s true, but as of yet unscathed. How is this possible ? I live in a modern six room apartment, People talk to me and treat me as though I were one of them. They act as if i’m same person I used to be, the liars – it’s  enough to give a man a guilty conscience. Whereas I’d like to show them a clearer picture of reality, namely that as if yesterday I’m something different because I am a Jew. And who did I used to be? no-who am I , really A swear word on two legs, one that people mistake for something else!

It dawns of Otto what has happened and how the world is changing.

The action opens just after Kristallnacht has just happened in Berlin and it has finally dawned on Otto Silbermann a successful Jewish businessman that runs a factory just about until now he thought he was going to avoid the worst of what was happening he isn’t overly Jewish looking and had a German wife. But when he meets his partner Becker after the night as he talks he notices the difference in his manner and later at a hotel he had been going to for years he sees how people treat him differently.  But this single night has turned the world around him to one he doesn’t know and he now must try and get money for his business and try and find a way out of Germany what follows is a wonderful portrayal of a man on the run as he sells his business for a pittance and then goes on the run on train after train rides as he crisscrosses Germany trying to connect with old friends and work a way out of German even at one point he gets to a border but is then turned back into the heart of Nazis Germany. There is a sense of the world shrinking around Otto as he sees who are his true friends and acquaintances are and those that now despise him as it shows the way the Nazis manipulated people.

Silbermann’s coat pockets were bulging out from all the bills, so he went to a shop to buy a briefcase, after making the purchase he realized it was already 6:55, so he dashed to the nearest post offive, where he too a form from the telegragh counter and sent a local telegram to his wife. Because he was worried about returnuning to his apartment, he asked her to meet him in a cafe close to home.

When he left the post office he wondered what he should do with the forty-one thousand five hundered marks he has recovered. He decided no to dwell on the matter of Becker and how deeply his former friend had disappointed him although that did little to stave off his painful, depressing reflections.

AS he starts to go on the run with the money from his buisness and the loss of his friends

This is a classic thriller that goes at full pace as we see Otto trying to get away, of course, the train and escape is a nod towards John Buchan in a way Hannay of course tries to escape the spies that are following him on a train to Scotland. Then he has taken a large linch of Kafka as the world he is living in becomes a maze of these train journeys as he tries to escape and avoid being seen as Jewish the world he knows is changing to a Kafkaesque nightmare before him as door after door gets shut in front of him. Otto is the every Jews Man of Berlin after that night trying to escape the collapsing world around them in Otto case he has the fact he can pass as Aryan but it still means his papers are showing him as Jewish. Another gem from Pushkin and I feel there are still more books out there waiting to be rediscovered that like this haven’t aged the book actually feels modern and the pace it is told at is wonderful we get caught up in the chaos of that world.

Winstons score – +A a true gem rediscovered

Shadow Booker Shortlist 2021

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Well we have read all the books between us in the shadow jury and had a successful first-ever zoom chat to discuss the books and it was clear there we had only a few titles of this year’s longlist that we all really loved and for a change they were the same books we all seemed to champion and like this list, this year has a scope but the books although diverse in the style of writing from memoir, verse, vignettes, short stories, nonfiction fiction, sci-fi, historic, autofiction and a novel for a novel prize!

So what are our choices here they are-

David Diop (France) & Anna Moschovakis
– At Night All Blood is Black (Pushkin Press)

Benjamin Labatut (Chile) & Adrian Nathan West
– When We Cease to Understand the World (Pushkin Press)

Olga Ravn (Denmark) & Martin Aitken
– The Employees (Lolli Editions)

Adania Shibli (Palestine) & Elizabeth Jaquette
– Minor Detail (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

Maria Stepanova (Russia) & Sasha Dugdale
– In Memory of Memory (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

Andrzej Tichý (Sweden) & Nicola Smalley
– Wretchedness (And Other Stories)

Our journey of books takes us from a Sudan soldier in world war I. Then a  book about science and those odd little tales of how things come about. Then a crew of a spaceship both human and android is interviewed about what makes us what we are. A footnote in history that saw a girl’s life change is recalled then and now. A flat clearing turns into an epic about a family but also about art during the 20th century. Then there is a story of breaking free of our roots or is it! Three of the publishers here have supported this blog with books over the years. the other was new to me at the start of this years prize we will be rereading discussing and deciding our winner watch this space guys !!!

When we cease to understand the world by Benjamin Labatut

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When we cease to understand the world by Benjamin Labatut

Chilean  fiction

Original title – Un verdor terrible

Translator – Adrian Nathan West

Source – review copy

I’m late to this it has already been on a couple of year-end lists in the papers I have seen. itis described as a non-fiction novel. To me it is a digressive work the like I have read by another Spanish language writer Augustin Mallo who also uses scientific facts and history in his stories. Benjamin Labatut own Life story is as interesting Born in Rotterdam he grew up in Hague, Buenos Aires, and Lima a real mix of places. He has had two works of fiction out and this is his first book to be translated into English and he has called it a non-fiction Novel.

In a medical examination on the eve of Nuremburg trials, the doctors found the nails of Hermann Goring’s fingers and toes stained a furious red, the consequence of his addiction to Dihydrocodeine, an analgesic of which he took more than one hunderd pills a day. William Burroughs described it as similar to heroinm twice as stong as codeine, but with a weird coke like edge, so the north American doctors felt obliged to cure Goring of his dependency before allowing him to stand before the court. This was not easy.When the allied forces caught him, the Nazi leader was dragging a suitcase with more than twenty thpusand dosesmpartiically all that remianed of Germany’s production of the drug at the end of the second world war.

The opening  stry and lines of the book grab you straight away.

I see this as a collection of interlinking essays or stories somewhere in between. It starts with Prussian blue which starts with the Addicted medication Dihydrocodeine that Goring took in large quantities with resulting effects on his body and the writer William Burroughs took over the years and he compared it to heroin. as he used it on mass the story winds around a mix of history and little stories. Till we get to the invention of the color Prussian Blue. The favorite of this collection is The heart of the heart which has at its heart Mathematicians tales starting with the Japanese blogger Schinichi Mochizuki whose 600-page thesis on the proof of him solving A+B+C a thesis which no one has understood to this point this leads to one of the best-known Mathematician Alexander Grothendieck a man who won the fields medal and was a leading thinker of his time but he withdrew from the world and started to live like a hermit in France racing around the countryside in a Hurst he published a 1000 page autobiography about his time in the maths world a piece that showed how everyone he had been connected with had used him to launch their own careers this work is being translated into English and struck me as a singular work.I will let you discover the tales and journeys in this book.

“The great turning point” was the term Grothendieck used to decribe the change in the direction of his life during his forties. ALl at once, he found himself swept up by thespirit of the age: he became obsessed by ecology, the military industrial complex and nuclear proliferation. To his wife’s despair, he founded a commune at home, where vagabonds, professiirs, hippes, pacifists, theives nuns and prostitutes dwelt side by side .

He became intolerent of all comforts of bourgeois life; he tore up the carpets from the floors of his house, considering them superfluous adornments, and began to make his own clothign; sandals from recycled tires, trousers sewn from old burlap sacks.He stopped using a bed, instead sleeping on a door torn from its hinges.

THe change in his life views that changed Alexander Grithendieck into a hermit over the years and withdraw from life.

I lived this I am a huge fan of digressive books since reading Sebald in my twenties I am always after books that break the mould that drifts from here to there stories we know titbits or as I remember Irwin’s character in The history boys calls it gobits those little gems we have heard but have forgotten or have never been written down from how Goering dies or we discovered Prussian blue this takes us through those gobits of the science world. I discovered Alexander Grothendieck an interesting figure that I had never heard of and this is what I love about these books they are the journey of the mind and you set sail and discover new ports to try at a later date historic figures pieces of history. This is a voyage through science wonderfully entertaining and engaging it is well-paced. A new writer to the blog and one I will be reading again. Have you tried this book?

The salt of the Earth by Jozef Wittlin

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The Salt of the Earth by Jozef Wittlin

Polish Fiction

Original title – Sól ziem

Translator – Patrick John Corness

Source – review copy

Some publisher do a great job at rediscovering old works that have fallen out of print or haven’t been translated into English or maybe were due a new translation the latter is the case for this book they brought out another book from Wittlin which was a success so they got a new translation of this book. Which first came out in English in 1941 and had been out of print for a long time. Jozef Wittlin had an interesting life join the Polish army then initially when they were combined into the Austrian army. He then studied in Vienna and joined with Joseph Roth his friend. He got scarlet fever and end up a prisoner of war working on a translation of the Odyssey. He after the war traveled Europe and promoted Pacifism and then s[ent time in France collecting his materials together to write the Salt of the earth which has the tale of an ordinary man caught up in the madness of World war One.

Piotr’s entire life involved carrying things. As a child he had suffered from that infamous Hutsul affliction for which the human face had the French to thank, apparently. Its symptons were typicalnose and certain defects of vision, which however, did not devolp further with age, Independently of the french Influences, Pitor body was also subject toEnglish ones, the rickets. And so France and England, those two warring elements that had done battle in the historical arena over man centuries, settled their differences in the body of a Hutsul child, To the end of his life Piotr remained bandy-legged.

PIotr is described here as a sort of uncanilly youth.

The novel begins high up in the war as the war begins and Franz Josef signs the papers to start the war. This is in contrast to the book itself which is based around one man’s experience of the war. That man Piotr Niewiadomski is what one would call a peasant he is an illegitimate child and has grown up as a rather Gangly uncannily youth. He dreams of a simple life working on the railways he is a porter but sees the chance to become a linesman. But he is now faced with the chance of being thrust into the war. He ends up as an Infantryman. He has t I wait until he leaves and as they are all due to leave there is a Solar eclipse leading to the feeling of the end of the world, but he is still on rails as he catches the train to Hungary this is where the story shows the madness of war when Piotr is caught up and gets on the wrong side of the sergeant this shows the madness of rank and war as they draw closer to the frontline and battles. It shows a simple man caught in the wheels of a war machine!

Pitor duties were exceptionally onerous in those days,but he managed. He had acquired a fondness for the railway – thatis, for the section entrusted to him. Every day, he walked the four kilometers to signal box 87, beyond which his responsbilties ended. He left his post only when Magda visited. She stood in for him competently, just like a legitimate signalman’s wife. The sight of young girl standing at her post with the little red flag had already on several occasions brought smiles to the weary faces of those returning from death. As if life itselfhad placed her on watch.

The rail is all he dreams about at the sart of the book.

This was meant to be [art of a trilogy of novels he had planned to write but he had the case with the other two works taken and lost at a later date which only a small fragment remain which is at the end of the book. It shows how hard it was for a simple man like Piotr to avoid getting caught up in the madness of the war he is like a polish baldrick maybe a bit cleverer than but a man that has a lover and a simple dream of being a linesman that because of the action in the first chapter. He gets sent to join the army and caught up in the madness of the war machine this is very like The way Blackadder describes his superiors they pay little head for the man on the ground at the front in that trench facing death. Whether today tomorrow but always there rather than planning and not taking part. This follows his own view of the War and his Pacifist point of view. It a shame we never knew more of the trilogy but it sits next to the great books of world war one as for me I have not read a book that captures the build-up to war so well and tension and horror of what was to come so well. Sasson in Fox hunting man captures the upper-class view somewhat but this is the lower ranks view. Another great discovery from Pushkin.