Tag: Scribe uk

The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje

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The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje

Dutch Fiction

Original title – De herinnerde soldaat

Translator – David Mckay

Source – Personal Copy

I have long been a fan of Dutch literature; for a small country, it has a unique voice in much of its literature. Cees Nooteboom said this when I asked him about Dutch literature.

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 recognize 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

This is a perfect example as it is a book that came out on a small regional publisher and had almost slipped under the radar until an NRC review and further coverage gave the book legs, so to speak, and it won a number of awards in Holland. Then also a number of prizes in the US, including the Republic of Consciousness Prize, which it won this week. Anjet had written a number of novels before this had such success, and her next book has already been lined up for Translation.

On the train he sits opposite her on the hard wooden bench, their knees not quite touching, and the locomotive labors noisily across the quiet green Flemish countryside with a din that drowns out anything they might say to each other and even his thoughts, and he looks outside, it’s a dizzyingly beautiful world, all those colors and spreading waves of grass and floating white cities of cloud, and if this was around him all that time, unfathom-able and infinitely vast, how is it possible there existed a life such as his, imprisoned within the asylum’s cramped walls, as if in one mighty sweep he’s been erased, that’s how he feels, and he tries not to think about it, he must not under any circumstances have another attack like the one on the platform, and he knows she is thinking about the same thing, because from time to time he catches her looking distrustfully in his direction.

that last line as they head home caught me !

The book is really a two-hander story.  It stars Asylum, as they have a man in 1922, a number of years after the war has ended, who still has no memory of who he is, and no one has come forward to claim him. So they put his picture in the newspaper, hoping to find his family.  There are a number of women who come and go who view Noon Merckem as the man, who is called after the time and place he was found. But no one claims him, then Juliennecomes and says he is her husband, Amand, a photographer with kids. She takes him home and this is where the story begins he is in a room in the studio sleeping as they get to know each pother but this room is used as the studio and has a war scene in the room so as he sleeps every night and relives the horror he has seen you do wonder why Julieene is letting this Amand has no memories of there life and as s=they try to connect you do wonder if he is Amand or what happened. He agrees to pose with widows as their lost loves as part of the photograph business ..As they grow close, is this the real Amand that Julienne is painting to him or a new version of the man? The two of them try to find Amand again and, over time, grow closer, but is it all it seems?

And he sits down and lights the gaslight, and the world leaps back into place, chillingly real, as if it had been lurking by the wayside, and his panic does not die down, he no longer dares to go back to sleep and lies waiting in silence until first light, in the distance he hears a train pass, another, another, and a faraway church bell strikes five, the first cart in the street, hooves on the paving blocks, and then more carts and footsteps and voices, and the half-light of early morning creeps comfortingly across the backyard and into the studio. And when the church bell strikes half past five he gets dressed, but the house is still deep in sleep, and six o’clock, and still no one is up, and at quarter past six the church bells ring in the distance for early Mass, a familiar sound, and she, the children, Felice, everyone sleeps on, not until seven does he hear the steps creak and a door open, and then the toilet flushing, and when he recognizes her voice and Rose’s he goes upstairs, and on the stairs he runs into Gus coming down with the coal scuttle, and Amand says good morning and offers to carry the coal for him, but Gus squeezes past without a word.

At home with the family amd the Studio

I was so pleased when this made the Booker longlist. It had been a personal Christmas gift I had brought with Money I was given at Christmas, and it was high on my list to get this year. It is a book a bout war, which I always enjoy. The aftermath of World War I has been covered by other writers like Pat Barker and Rebecca West, both of whom deal with the Trauma and mental aftermath of War. None deal directly with anaemia, though, and this was inspired in part by actual events.  There were people photographed in the papers and claimed by people, particularly the case of the Frenchman, Anthelme Mangin, who had two people fighting over him. This story inspired two novels. For me, the way the family was photographed was interesting as images can be altered and changed, and is this story a life being retouched or a life being altered? Is he Amand, is he the Amand he was, or the one his wife has invented? The book makes you wonder what is real, what is made up, and how far people will go.

The Hairdresser’s son by Gerbrand Bakker

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The Hairdresser’s son by Gerbrand Bakker

Dutch fiction

Original title – De Kapperzoon

Translator – David Colmer

It is always nice to read books from a writer you loved and read some years ago and rediscover. One such writer is Gerband Bakker I had read his first two books to be translated into English The twin which won the IFFP I was there when he won and did briefly meet him. He also kindly answered a few questions some years ago. So when I was given a chance to read his latest book. I love his life. He is a gardener and skating instructor in the winter and a writer, and also a cycling fan. Have you read the earlier books when they came out. He touches on similar themes in this book.

Igor is swimming. Or rather, swimming’s not the right word.

He doesn’t have a clue about breaststroke or crawl, by the looks of it nobody’s ever been able to teach him how to swim. He’s moving through the warm, shallow water. He’s sloping forward and seems to keep realising how much easier walking was before he got in the pool. His bends his legs, forgets to close his mouth, and gulps chlorinated water. He splutters and burps. Every now and then he shouts something. The woman in the bright-orange swimming costume shouts back at him. Igor! Don’t shout!’ The other woman, the one in the floral costume, hushes him and says,

‘Close your mouth, Igor. If you go under water, you have to close your mouth.’ The two women make sure nobody drowns.

He swims most days doing laps , reminded me to get back into swimming as I did reguarley go a couple years ago.

The book is about a father-and-son relationship that never happened. Simon grew up without his father, but he then strangely followed his father into being a hairdresser. But when one of his customers, a writer he seems to have connected beyond a customer to Simon, but he is very interested in Simon’s life, is this how Gerbrand here this story? , takes a real interest in the story of his father, Cornelis, who, when told of Simon coming, ran off and happened to be on a flight to Tenerife that crashed. I feel Simon’s point of life is similar to mine. You are in your forties. Everything is set in your routine, life, and daily activities his daily swim and the connection with his posts of famous swimmers. . But what happens when he tries to find out something about Cornelis and then sees his name isn’t on the memorial to those who died in the crash. He had been told his father’s body had never been found; this ends up reading Simon to the island after getting stonewalled by his mum. and grandmother about the past. Is there more to the events in the past? What will he find when he goes there?

Jan lights a cigarette. The smoke blows into Simon’s face. He stands up and starts reading the names on the metal plates. Is that zinc? Bronze? He reads them all and has already shuffled around the corner before he realises he’s reading from A to Z.

A moment later he sees that another name has been added. At the end of the row of names, around another corner, a plate has been screwed onto the stone plinth: OF THE VICTIMS NOT BURIED HERE, THE FOLLOWING NAMES HAVE BEEN ADDED AT THE REQUEST OF THE NEXT OF KIN. Then he looks at his grandfather.

When he finds his fathers name isn’t on the memorial to those who dided in the crash !

This is a book that twists slowly. We meet a man in mid-life who is settled and, on the whole, maybe in a little depressed state. His life is an everyday normal routine. The writer’s questions are the spark that changes the book’s direction. It makes Simon want to question his own past, and when the answers from his only family aren’t there or just don’t seem right, he questions what happened and wonders more about his father. It is about that gap in his life. What would have happened had the father been there? Why did he run? He wants the answer but also to unravel the past in the present. Add to that the writer. I  do wonder if it is a story. Gerband himself  has heard himself at hairdressers. I remember the place I went to as a young man. A hairdresser had been there for years and would talk about his life with customers, but most had been coming for years. I do wonder if that is the kernel Gerbrandf spun the story out of this revelation from someone. He deals so well with secrets the past and how people deal with that Bakker. He is a wonderfully paced writer as we follow Simon on his journey. Have you read any of his books?

Winston’s score—A. Who was Cornelis, and why did he run? Will Simon discover who his father really was and what happened? This is a great book about missing fathers and the past.

Elly by Maike Wetzel

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Elly by Maike Wetzel

German fiction

Original title –  Elly

Translator – Lyn Marven

Source – Library

I saw this at the library on a recent visit and thought it was the perfect size for an evening read I still love the idea of a book being like a movie you can sit and read in a couple of hours. It was on a list of the best books in translation to read from the Guardian. It was also on the list for the Dagger Prize for books in Translation. Maike Wetzel studied in the UK and is also a screenwriter and novelist. She also had a short story collection translated into English. This novella caught my eye as it seems like it may have a twist around a child going missing and the outcome of this on the family.

The doctor hooks me up to the drip and puts me on the list for an operation. He wants to remove my appendix. My mother says again: Your colleague already took it out. The doctor prods my rigid belly. My mother stops fighting. She gives my name, our health insurance details. She called me Almut because of the north.

Because of the stiff breeze on the island of Sylt, where she has never been; because of the tall blond boy that she never kissed, because she doesn’t like tall blonds; because of the seagulls, whose cries make her melan-choly; and because of the seaweed and the salt which no longer cling to her legs: now it’s dark stretchy jeans with all their poisonous dyes instead. I’m also called Almut because it contains the German for courage, Mut, and my mother believed the name would give me

I just picked this as I had my appendix out as a kid

The book follows the effect on the family when the 11-year-old daughter, Elly, disappears. She was cycling home from a judo class. This follows when the daughter disappears. The family is gripped by grief and follows the police investigation. We see how Judith and Hamid Elly’s parents cope with this and how her older sister Ines struggles with the loss of her younger sister. So, after four long years, hope appears lost,, as time goes on, the hope of finding her alive drifts, and the hole that is left is still there, but the family, including her sister, move on with their lives. But then, after four years, Elly reappears, and the family is back whole again. However, as the family starts to heal, there are doubts about this girl who has returned as their daughter. Ines questions her about things they did as kids. Her grandmother has even bigger doubts. How has she come back? Is she Elly or ?

 

My sister disappears on a slightly overcast afternoon in June. I imagine how it happens. I see Elly wheeling her bike out of the garage. Her outline is clear and sharp, the background out of focus. She fixes her sports bag to the luggage rack. In it is her judo suit with the green belt. My sister is younger than me. I am thirteen at the time, she is just eleven. We live in a small town. Elly’s club meets in a sports hall in the nearest big town. She cycles there on her own across the fields. The wind sweeps through the wheat. From above, it looks like waves on water. Elly stands on the motorway bridge and looks down at the field. The wind ruffles her dark, almost black hair.

Ines talking About her sister disappering

This book is a wonderful mix of literary fiction and thriller in the way it is paced. The action slowly unwinds in the history of Elly disappearing, and its effect is told from all the family points of view, but the action turns around when the girl returns who is meant to be Elly. The book is an up-and-down ride. I was reminded of the early Peirene books that had the same quality as they did, and that is cinematic books that, like this book, take you as a reader on a journey. You can see that Maike is a screenwriter. This has the feel of a book that could easily be made into a film. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this being made into a film at some point I hope it does so I could watch it. It has a turning point of Elly returning and the doubts about her make this turn from a sad story of a lost daughter to something else. Do you have a favourite evening book, one you read in an evening like watching a great film? Do you like literary novels that have a feel of a thriller in the pace you can read them at?

Winstons score- A

A book strike me as perfect to be made into a film

What I’D Rather not think about by Jente Posthuma

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What I’d rather not think about by Jente Posthuma

Dutch fiction

Original title  Wear Ik Liver aniet aan denk

Translator Sarah Timmer Harvey

Source – personal copy

When the Booker International longlist came out I looked at the books, most I had a vague awareness of . But I read the small blurb on each and then set out on which order I’d read the longlist in part of this was decided by the arrival of the books on the longlist. This was one that I felt I’d get on with I love works told in Vignettes for they can work like a patchwork slowly building the picture of the book as a whole. Jente Posthuma’s first novel People Without Charisma was well-received and was up for several prizes in Holland when it came out. This is her second novel and deals with twins and the aftermath of when the older twin kills himself from his sister’s point of view.

MY Brother called himself one and Me two because he had been born forty-five minutes earlier than I was on a sweltering day in August. He treated me like his little sister, was longer and heavier than me at birth, and had taken up almost all the space in my mother’s belly. I’d been stuck behind him with my left leg thrown over my shoulder, or so the story goes. This was why it took a little extra time for me to emerge. Our actual due date had been a month later but my brother had gone ahead, and I wasn’t about to be left behind.

The fact that we weren’t identical was something I’d long considered a handicap, a consequence of our premature birth, even once I understood the difference between identical and fraternal twins. We could have grown even closer in that ninth month.

The names they used no identical but so close.

As many of you may know my own wife had to deal with the loss of a sibling to suicide it is one of the most heartbreaking things that can happen to a family and this is what ai had hoped to find here. But in a way I not sure if number two as we come to know her as the younger of the twins by some 45 minutes. There is a nod in a way here too the Twin Towers she says he was taller than me and always on the side like the Twin Towers. I felt this is written just after her brother has gone it jumps from their childhood, the discovery of each other sexuality. During those early relationships then her brother settles with a man and has a pair of dogs or as he calls them three and four. Things aren’t what they seem and in her brother’s case there always seems to be that dark spectre over his life. She maybe shows this at times with a lack of emotion I felt but that is maybe from my own personal experience of someone dealing for years with this grief.

The first sweater I bought with my own money was nice and warm and made of Icelandic wool. It wasn’t as soft as some of the sweaters I’d buy once I started working at the vintage shop, when one of my bedroom walls would gradually disappear behind a mountain of wool. I hung shelves from the floor to the ceiling and filled them with piles of sweaters, which, just like my father’s biscuit tins, were sorted according to colour. By my twenty-seventh birthday, I owned 142 sweaters, and it was high time I saw a therapist. What will you do with them all, my friends would say.It’s a collection, I’d tell them. I didn’t have any pets, so I stroked my sweaters whenever I had nothing else to do.

Two has her own issues as you see here.

I said I like vignettes as a style of telling stories and it does work here . I felt sometimes the fact it wasn’t from a real-life experience showed. There is a certain way of remembering and thinking of that event and then not happening the way when you are left after a suicide you always question the reasons motivation and what you as a sibling could have done differently. For me that is what was missing here maybe it is meant be just after he has died two thinking before the full horror or of the tidal wave of grief hits the sibling. I felt it had captured some of this but was maybe not realistic enough for me as someone who has been up in the night after night with my own darling wife as she had nightmares and questions about her own brother’s death. [art of the reason I read this early on is I wanted it to be read and gone as a book if that made sense well it does to me as the reader. Have you a subject you’d prefer not to read books around? or something that has effect your life and you find is never quite captured, right in fiction ?

Winstons score – B Well written but I just quite didn’t get it as a subject for me

Down and Out in England and Italy by Alberto Prunetti

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Down and Out in England and Italy by Alberto Prunetti

Italian Non-fiction

Original title – 108 metri. The new working-class hero

Translator – Elena Pala

Source – Review copy

I ask to get sent this intrigued by the title a nod to the Orwell book about being poor and finding it hard to find a job. But when I looked up the original title was a homage to the John Lennon song Working-class Heron and the foundry where had worked when they made a 108-meter railing. Alberto has worked as a Pizza chef, a cleaner, and Handyman. He did these jobs whilst and after getting his degree he still wrote and has published five novels and has translated works by Orwell (Hence the nod to his book in the English title ) He has also worked on a series of working-class books for an Italian publisher.

We the cooks of United Kingdon solemnly swear before Her majesty the queen to fight the infamous pathogenic bacteria, given to all manner of vicousness and capable of inducing the most grevious bouts of nausea and vomitting. We will deny Clastridium perfingens access to the British soil – that ghastly, degenrate agitator that creeps into the restaurant and can count on the logistical support of Botulinum. The fearsome staphylococusureus- devious bowel terrorist.- will be pushed back accross the Channel, together with the so-called European Bacillus cereus, which cause abdominal pain and spasms as well as nefarious bouts of blouting.

The opening chapter called The Oath

The book follows the time in the early 200os when after his Graduation Alberto came to the Uk to earn money as he was from a working-class family his father was a steelworker from Livorno in Tuscany the side of the place we never see hen it shown here. I remember the town from its football team which is considered the most left-wing club in Italy historically. Anyway back to the book and we follow Alberto as he arrived in Bristol and he knocks door to door at the local Pizza restaurants when he got a job he falls into a weird brotherhood of the workers a mix of failed actors, Turks that pretend to be Italian.  He joins the club secret group the SKANK (Stonebridge kitchen assistant Nasty Kommittee) a gang of rogue fast food folks. He drifts then through cleaning jobs where he is watched as he goes around the shopping center where he is employed. Cleaning school toilets working with an opera lover toilet cleaner. What we see is that underbelly as he talks about the dying ember of Thatcher’s time still being felt I feel this is something that has grown Brexit has brought even more of a racist feel to our country.

The atomsphere was, in short , intoerably opressive for us Pizza chefs, and I had proof that my locker was being routinely searched for evidence of my wrongdoing.I remember losing my temper one day, shouting and kicking the furniture in the dining room. It was tin response to the umpteenth punitive task the signora, clearly moticvated by her hatred for the British waitresses, had imposed on the girls after an excruicating shift, she’d ordered them to scrub the legs of all the tables and chairs, it was through such measures that she aimed to puinsh the guilty, encourage the righteousm and warn off the evil-minded – predictably, however, thisonly earned her more insults and abuse

The italian owner of his first place of work in Bristol

I loved this book as it remind me of my own experience which was in the early nineties where I worked in a German packing factory. It opened my eyes to those people we don’t always see those restaurants workers, fast food, drivers who many assume are one thing but Like Alberto was and many of the friends I made working in a German factory a mix of students, Germans and a number of workers from the Balkans I had a great connection to a pair from Kosovohe worked in TV there in the football shows he was a huge Football fan. His wife was a professor of Literature. Like the gang of brothers, he made the way I  connected with these people hardworking and saw the other side of the fence being a foreign worker in a foreign country. even down to the acting Italian, my Kosovan friend had another job in an Italian cafe where he tried to look like he was Italian!!  This also reminds me of the description of the workers that Anthony Bourdain gave in his book Kitchen confidential hard working and on the whole workers from around the world working in the kitchens of New York. He captures those unnamed workers we all see but don’t know as well as we think we do. An eye-opening look at working at the bottom here that I feel is maybe worse now given the Gig economy and zero-hour contracts leaving people on the edge of nothing all the time.

Winstons score – A an interesting memoir about being a foreign and working in the UK !!

 

The Liquid land by Raphaela Edelbauer

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The Liquid Land by Raphaela Edelbauer

Austrian fiction

Original title – Das flüssige Land

Translator – Jen Calleja

Source – review copy

My second woman in translation month book takes me to Austria and a book that was on both the German and Austrian book prize lists make the German book prize shortlist in 2019. Raphaela Edlebauer studied philosophy and has published in numerous publications since 2009 and has had three books published two of them novels and this her first novel was written with a grant she got to write it. She grew up in Hinterbruhl which has a location near it that was the inspiration for the village of Gross-einland in the novel Liquid land a satellite camp, that was making plane parts in the second world war in an area surrounded by former mining sites. Which is similar to the village in the novel.

It was the fourth day of my journey in the Alpine foothills, and I sat down with the nearly split bread rolls in order to plan my trip for the day. As id this inconsqnential rhythm of stopping off at inns, contemplation, dinner, sleep and breakfast buffets were leading me to utter lethargy. I decided every morning  to uphold it. I hadn’t yet been able to let go of the hope of finding Greater Einland I loved simplicity of the conditions.

A village that has disappeared into the ether !

The book follows Ruth Schwarz as she has to deal with the death of her parents in a car crash. She is in the middle of her final thesis at university about the fluid nature of time and is struggling to finish this when the death arrives. This means she has to go back to her parent home village the lost vilage it seems of Greater Einland a village that her parents was form but seems to have diappeared in the time since they left eventually she arrives and start to dort out arrangments of her parents funeral. She is only thinking this may take her a few days but as she starts to speend time in the village she finds the village is caught out of time as the countess the head in a way of the village has tried to stop the effects of time on the village so it is a place oiut of time and also siting in the middle of lots of former mines as this is causing holes to appear around the area and the village seems to be oblivous to this and she evens finds that they already have the answer to why these things are happening with the details held with in the town Library ? What has happent ot make thew Countees act like this what has happen to the village and as time seems to stretch and days become weeks will Rith ever leave Greater Einland as those days she had intend to spend become weeks as she is drawn into find out why all this has happened.

It wasn’t until a few days after the strange encounter with the Countess that it occurred to me that I’d had missed my appointment for the funeral arrangements. I hurriedly called the company’s office from the reception and invented a tall tale about a psychological breakdown, The lady in the secretary’s office gave me a new appointment for the following day without complaint, and asked whether I happened to already know when my parents be transferred.

I said that I didn’t, and [romised to be in touch again soon, Too restless to work, I listened, lying on the floor back in my room, to a coulle of  Chet Baker albums I’d brought in a second hand shop, which fused with the autumn weather.

She meets the Countess and then time slips through her hands

The book has echos of things like the village in Whicker man an island but the way this village is hdden it could be a island itself also with a population that seems to oblivous to the outside world and the start of this is from the Countess that has something of the Miss Havishaim about her, in the way she has wanted time to stand still around here. Time is a large theme in this book a scientist that is sudying time, a village where time seems to move different to the world outside the village and the holes like black holes add ruth surname and the holes you have black holes and this is what is happening her a village caught in darkness as time is slowing down as it falls back but in Ruth’s eyes time is speeding past there. This has nods to a world of Kafkaesque twists and turns if Franz Kafka Dickens and Bernhard co written a book this would have been it a mix of great expectations , a kafka nightmare about to happen and a austrian sense to it all is an interesting mix I felt. Have you a favourite German language woman writer ?

Winstons score – A a new talent a clever tale of time and turniong a blind eye.

Beowulf A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley

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Beowulf A New Translation by Maria Dahvana Headley

Classic Epic poetry

Original title – Beowulf

Source – review copy

I haven’t reviewed a lot of poetry over the years of the blog which is strange as I have a lot of poetry on my shelves that I tend to dip in and out of so when I was given the chance to read a reworking of the great Anglo Saxon Poem Beowulf. In the acknowledgments for the book Maria said she came up with the idea of translating Beowulf when she was up for a world fantasy prize for her acclaimed book The Mere Wife how she had used a translation of Beowulf in the research for the book and was asked in the Q & A when her translation would be out she decided to pick up the Baton. As for me, I did read the Seamus Heaney about the time it came out as there was such acclaim for that book as it made the poem more accessible but I always feel language moves and there is always room for new angles at old works if it brings something new to the table. as Borges said in his poem about his thought on translating Beowulf.

Poem Written in a Copy of Beowulf

At various times, I have asked myself what reasons
moved me to study, while my night came down,
without particular hope of satisfaction,
the language of the blunt-tongued Anglo-Saxons.

Used up by the years, my memory
loses its grip on words that I have vainly
repeated and repeated. My life in the same way
weaves and unweaves its weary history. Borges

The opening of Beowulf in the new translation!

Bro! Tell me we still know how to speak of kings! in the days

Everyone knew what men were: brave, bold, glory-bound.Only stories now, but I’ll sound the Spear-Danes song hoarded for hugry times

Their first father was a foundling: Scyld Scefing.

He spent his youth fists up, browbeating every barstool-brother, bonfiring his enemies. That man began in the waves, a baby in a basket.

but he bootstrapped his way into a kingdom, trading loneliness for luxury. Whether they thought kneeling necessary or no, everyone from head to tail of the whale-road bent down:

There’s a king, there’s his crown!

Thats a good King

The opening 11 lines of Beowulf !!

 

Beowulf follows the hero of the Title as he heads from Anglo Saxon England (Although England is never mentioned in the text as Q (Arthur Quiller-Couch) pointed out in a lecture in his work “On the art of writing”. he travels to help the king of the Dane who has lost many of his best men to the monster Grendel. he offers his help to kill Grendel and creature that has been terrorizing the kingdom since the creature is meant to be descended from Cain a nod to biblical connection in the origin of the book. They celebrate when Beowulf kills him with his own hands and then on the next night they are attacked by Grendel mother as Beowulf isn’t there but when he arrives back there follows a great battle Beowulf returns home and is made king of his own land only many years later to die fighting a dragon now this is the story but what Maria has done is made it easier to get into with the use of street terms and add a little more flow to the prose.

 

Hidden by fog,grendel roved the moors, God-cursed

Grudge worsening. He knew who hunted:

wine-drunk, mead-met men, and he oined

for his prey. Under storms clouds, he stalked them,

in his usual anguish, feeling a forbidden hearth,

that gulded hall stop the hill, gleaming still,

through years of bloodshed.This was not

the first time he’d hunted in Hrothgar’s hall,

butnever before nor later had he such hard luck.

no one worthyhad historically lain in wait

10 lines from early on in the book just show you how the book pops.

Christopher Hitchens said in his review of Harry Potter many years ok said it would spark a revival of anglo Saxon works like Beowulf as it has since the likes of Tolkien and C S lewis been interwoven with the world of fantasy as well. With dragons, quests warriors it has a link to Fantasy and also back to greek epics but what Maria has done is make it also sound modern with her use of street slang with words like Bro. She has also made it bloody it’s almost as though it has mixed a Nordic noir with an episode of Vikings and has also made the female characters appear a little more than I remembered in the Heaney translation. This is a great new version of the book if you haven’t read it this may be the edition for you if you like a=fantasy or greek epics this is the bridge between those works a cornerstone of English literature given a new breath of life for a new generation !!

At Dusk by Hwang Sok-yong

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At dusk by Hwang Sok-yong

Korean fiction

original title – 해질 무렵

Translator – Sora Kim-Russell

Source – personnel copy

One of the nice things that have come about from the longlist. It has given me a chance to revisit three writers that have featured before on the blog. This is the second visit I featured Hwang Sok-yong nine years ago. The book ” the guest”  was one of the earliest reviews on the blog when I read that book I liked it but didn’t fall in love with it. But I have since struggled with finding Korean fiction either twee with the folk-like tales of Salmon or Hen dreaming of better things. Then there have been other books that I haven’t connected with. Until now the only one before this was please look after mother and I found this is a different story but it is the same tale of Korea that is the changing face of modern Korea.

It was mere coincidence that I had studied architecture and made a career of it and that Byeonggu had come to own a costruction company, but after meeting again in our forties, we were like hand in glove. Because we needed each other.

Of course, we all like to think that our own stories of difficult childhoods and overcoming adversity are the stuff of tragic epics, but they’re never really worth bragging about. Talking about it is pointless as telling youngsters that they’ve never known true hunger, that they don’t know what it is like to be the hungry kid with no lunch trying to fill his empty stomach at the drinking fountain.

Park partner the one that cause him the trouble and how he dragged himself up her in a neat passage.

We meet Park Minwoo if there was a poster boy for what you could do with your life in Modern Korea. This guy would be if he is at the forefront of making modern Korea as an Architect. He is one of those who are making bright shiny Korea and is good at his work so is an in-demand man for designing the future. He has maybe grown too far. The company he runs is in trouble. The buildings he has been asked to design may not be built but are just there to draw in peoples money in.  This leads Park to rethink his present and his past along with the fact an Old flame Cha Soona. The chapters fall with Parks story in the now and Cha’s story of her and Pask’s younger years. She grew up on what was then the edge of the city and worked in a shop a time when people were the son of this man or daughter of such a man in these case a noodle maker and fishcake maker this harks back to a simpler time. She loved acting literature and books. She had dreams but we see her life now in a tiny apartment. the book draws the past and the present together. From the fact that Park’s wife and child now settled outside Korea. Too Cha living in a small apartment in one of his building as Park meets the ghost of his past in the place where he grew which his building have eaten up.

When my younger brother and I got home from school, we snacked on the torn fishcakes, still warm from the fryer. Once our hunger was sated, we’d laugh and point at each other’s greasymouths. My mother would wrap up the rest of the torn fishcake from that day and send us out to deliver them to places she owed favoursto or anyewhere else that she needed to stay on the good side of. That meant places like the tiny shack inhabited by the elderly man who fetch water from the public tap for us and the other vendors in the marketplace, the garbage collectors station, the police box and so on

Park and his brother handing out the left overs to the community to keep it runninga time now gone and habits now dead.

Now, this is a book that like Please look after mother did that mixes what Korea was with what Korea is. I keep thing back on my recent watching of Tokyo-ga Wim Wenders ode to the Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu which he said Ozu tried to capture in his films the downfall of Japanese society and this is what Sok-yong is doing here with Korean society and the world people lived in from the simple age when people knew every one til you end up like Park lost in the clouds or cha lost in a small apartment with just two stip lights for company. This uses the twin narratives well as the book comes to the end you see the two narrators drawing closer till the end. I am liking this list for the fact I have discovered books that had past me by in the last year.  But also the books are all quite short this took me a little over a day and I am already well into the next on the list. it’s hard to say where this will end up I found it clever using the twin stories and loved some of the use of names like the fishcake makers son. Then it is just a simple tale.

Among the lost by Emiliano Monge

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Among the lost by Emiliano Monge

Mexican fiction

Original title – Las Tierras arrasadas

Translator – Frank Wynne

Source – review copy

Some of the best books I have read in recent years have been from Mexican writers they seemed to have been an explosion of great writers from the from Yuri Herrea, Valeria Luiselli and Guadalupe Nettel. So when I got chance to read another rising star of Mexican fiction Emiliano Monge is a political scientist journalist and writer. His works have featured in the 25 best-kept secrets of Latin American literature and Mexico twenty this is the second of his books to be translated into English Arid sky was translated by restless books. But this has been translated by Frank Wynne which I have long been a fan of his translations.

After a brief silence, Epitafio brings his left hand to his pocketand, as he takes a was of banknotes to give to the boys, he feels a pressure in his bladder. I’m pissing myself,he thinks, handing over the money, then, unbucklinghis belt, he adds; how about we say same place, next thursday? Fine, we’ll be here, promises the older of the two boys, who dragging the younger boy by hand, heads back into the jungle.

As his body empties, Epitafio watches how the two boys hop overa root and how they pull back the curtain of liana.But he does not see the two disappear beyond the wall that separates the clearing from the jungle, because at that moment the petrol genartor belches again and he looks anxiu=ously at the old truck: Fucking hell …I’ll have to wake her up.

His first times in the jungle he is nervous Epitafio

 

 

 

This is a love story in the middle of the hell that is the world of being trafficked through Mexican jungle. Although it is described more of Dante like a trip through hell. The two main characters Estela and Epitafio are the lovers that grew up in a lonely orphanage became lovers then the world tore them apart on too two sides as we see their worlds of brutal trafficking of kids and adults where life can be swift and brutal and for the woman here harrowing. We see there lives as they often have no names just a jumble of words stuck together as a description of them like Estella who is called shewhoadoresepitafo . He Epitafo forced by the head of the gang into a marriage, not to Estella has a wife and son constantly tries to get in touch with Estella but in this hinterland of Mexico his mobile phone rarely works and the vehicles he uses are broken and old so he catches glimpses and seconds with his old lover. Will, they ever escape the hamster wheel of hell that is their lives to be together again.

Two metres from IHearonlywhatiwant, in a nest build unto the rock face, two hatchlings cheep and the sound attracts the attention of this woman, who, on seeing the nest, shifts her thoughts to another person, thinks for a moment about Cementeria: back in El Paraiso, they were responsible for feeding the chickens.

turning back from the sheer drop, estela stares at the fledglings and once again wonders what happened to Cementreria ,where she was all that time she was missing, and why the hell she tookher own life. But her minds quickly accepts that now is not time to think about such things, and her friends suicide is once again replaced by thpoughts of Epitafio: Fucking hell …I didn’t even respond to your message!

I bet you’re pissed off

A brutual world weere they lose friends but estela still after all thinks of her man !!

This book uses the divine comedy as a sort of companion to describe the hellish world the two lead characters find themselves in this is shown by the frequent Dante quotes through the book. I also read he is a Joyce fan as he is one of a group of this is shown to me in the Names of some of the characters which in a way echo Joyce’s way of combining words in Finnegans Wake. This is a grim world that hasn’t been shown through rose colour glasses this is a brutal world where the migrants are the currency for those taking them to the north and the end of the journey for that get to the end that is or those that like Estella and Epitafio are born into this world and never really have a chance to escape this world. A powerful view of his home country wonderfully translated by Frank who has a great intro around names and words used in the novel.

The winterlings by Cristina Sanchez- Andrade

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The Winterlings by Cristina Sanchez-Andrade

Spanish fiction

Original title – Las Inviernas

Translator – Samuel Ritter

Source – review copy

I was grabbed by this when it had a quote on the back cover by Manuel Rivas calling her writing Original and Unusual was a plus point for me having enjoyed his books, I knew this would be one for me. Cristina Sanchez-Andrade has a degree in law and mass media, she has written for numerous papers in Spain and has published seven novels.In 2013 she was shortlisted for the Herralde prize one of the top prizes in Spain. She has also written a novel about Coco Channel.

Don Manuel , the priest in Tierra de Cha, used to sit between the two winterlings, who were only little girls back then. He was short and fat, an absolute glutton. He was always somewhere between dinner and Mass. As soon as he finished the sermon, he’d be out and into the street. With great strides, pulling up his cassock to keep the manure off it, he would cross the square to eat his lunch. While the maid was tying a napkin around his neck and serving him, he positively burbled with pleasure.His mouth watered  at the sight of what lay before him : a hearty broth

I loved the imagery this passage evoked in me

The book follows the return of two sisters to a small village in Galicia Tierra De Cha, the two sisters have return after many years away. They have come back to their grandfather’s house. They have grown since they left but the place it self is just the same as the place they fled many years earlier. In a dark past that the village has hidden Delores and Saladina have their own secrets as well they are on course for disaster when a glimpse of light happens the sisters love the glamour of the film world and hear that the American actress Ava Gardener is to come to their part of Spain to make a film and they need some stand ins the sisters feel they could fill this roles. What will happen will they get the part or will everyone have to face their own pasts at last ?They are also drawn to the sea , why !

Throughout the following days, Dolores heard it while she went about her daily chores – immense and powerful and even nearer, turning her actual world into a narrow and boring place – an ocean pulling at her , calling her :”Did you hear that Ava Gardner is coming to Spain ?

To Spain ?

Ava Gardner coming to Spaaaaain ?

Sometimes , the sea was like a cornfield, with waves that ebbed and flowed. Dolores was in the middle of it, it smelt of salt, and that smell impregnated her clothes and hair .

The sea is a large draw to the sisters

I loved this it remind me what I love about fiction set in small villages where everyone knows everyone no matter how far you go from the village they will always remember your past when you return . What Cristina Snachez does so well here is build up the feeling of the dark past the sisters where part of . Also the feel of returning to a village the way they are still part of the place but looked at as thou they aren’t they’ve grown out of the place the sister have had their eyes open to the world by the world they have seen and the films they have watch , hence their wanting to be part of the Ava Gardener production. This also has the feel of an oral tradition of storytelling that Galicia is well-known for. This book is also a perfect choice for the forthcoming Woman in translation month .

what is your favourite Village based novel ?

The portrait by Willem Jan Otten

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The portrait by Willem Jan Otten

Dutch Fiction 

Original title – Specht en zoon

Translator – David Colmer 

Source – review copy 

 

I think images are worth repeating
Images repeated from a painting
Images taken from a painting
From a photo worth re-seeing
I love images worth repeating, project them upon the ceiling
Multiply them with silk screening
See them with a different feeling
Images
Images
Images
Images

Images by Lou Reed and John Cale from their album Songs for Drella about Andy Warhol

When I was asked to review this award-winning Dutch book from scribe ,I was pleased as Scribe the Australian publisher has not long moved into the uk market and has over last few years found some gems in translation ,like David Vogel ,whose books have been on my radar for a while .So The portrait or in its Dutch title Specht and son ,is the fourth novel by Willem Jan Otten ,he is also a well-known poet , playwright and essayist in his native Holland ,he has won a number of awards including two for this book ,the most prestigious being the Libris literature prize a Dutch language prize whose previous winners include Harry Mulisch ,Hugo Claus and JJ Voskull .

I admit to remembering virtually nothing of the moment I was finally brought .It was a nondescript man ,smallish ,in a dark-blue army-disposials coat and paint splashed shoes .He had wide ,avid eyes but I didn’t really see them wile the transaction was taking place .

The canvas is brought and taking tom wait at the studio .

So the portrait ,is an unusual book as the narrator of this book is a canvas , we see the story unfold from its point of view  .The book starts at the end as a man walks in the snow  towards a fire   ,then we go back in time and this canvas is waiting for what it calls the creator to use it  .The creator is an up and coming young painter known for his realistic paintings of people .He has been hired by Specht who is a rich and powerful man who could help the creator become better known  he has asked the creator  to make a photo of his late son into a painting like his other painting and breath life into it , to save  his  own life  .So as the creator starts to cover the canvas we start to find out who is being painted on him ,is it Specht’s son or something more sinster  what is their relationship ? What happened to this young boy ? Who is Specht why was he in such a rush for the painter to create this painting for him ?

Specht had sat down again .

I actually only have one question , he said

His voice ,which had been very quiet the whole time had become virtually inaudible .

Do you also work from death ?

Specht ask the creator does he paint from death and the canvas gets its chance to come to life .

Now this is one of those books that just goes at a pace when you start reading it ,at points I had to keep saying to myself this is just a canvas as the narrator as it’s  jumps of the page ,we see its waiting as the creator ,choose other canvases before it  until the big job he has been destined to be used for comes in .The book has a slightly Moral feel to it almost as thou the story of Specht’s  son is a wider story of lost children everywhere .I read in a Dutch interview I translated online that Otten has convert to Catholicism with his wife in the 90’s and this book was picked as an example of literature reflecting Christian  values and morals  the ClO 15 list ,which also features a book ny his wife Yvone van der Meer  the list shows the literary merit Christian literature can have .Know I can see you shaking your head and I am not a big fan of overtly Christian books ,I can say this isn’t you can read into it that it is but also just read it as a story of a painting being made and the young bo is in the painting a journey through a life of a canvas  and it’s subject .Also another readable and faultless translation by David Colmer  .Have you a favourite book about artist and paintings ?