A Short Life in Detail

The famous (East) German writer Christa Wolf passed away in December last year, and sadly that was the event which pushed me into trying one of her books for the first time.  I was supposed to have read Kein Ort, Nirgends (Nowhere on Earth) at university at one point, but as I recall I didn't even get around to buying it (which says less about Wolf than about my efforts at university...).  This time, however, I managed to both buy and read one of her works - and, more importantly, enjoyed it as well.

Nachdenken über Christa T. (usually translated as The Quest for Christa T.) is an intriguing, at times confusing, story of the short life of a young woman living in the former German Democratic Republic.  Our narrator meets Christa T. at school during the Second World War, and bumps into her again when studying at university a number of years later.  The narrator uses the book to relate selected details from Christa's life, from the moment of that first meeting until her untimely death from leukaemia at the age of thirty-six.

So far, so normal, you may think; however, this book is anything but.  It consists of a series of anecdotes from the narrator, who has been given a box of documents by Christa's widower and is determined to lay bare her friend's life in an attempt to explain to the reader what kind of woman she was and how she lived her life.  But why should we care?

This is a question which is (deliberately) never satisfactorily answered, and it's not the only ambiguous part of the story.  As the narrator relates events from Christa's life, the point of view slips back and forth between the first- and third-person, at times making it difficult to tell who is meant by 'ich' ('I').  In any case, the reader suspects that this issue of identification is complicated further by the temptation to throw a third speaker into the mix - Wolf herself.  Towards the end of the novel, the narrator sympathises with Christa's tendency to slip into the third-person, citing "...die Schwierigkeit ich zu sagen." ("...the difficulty of saying I.", p.201)***.  So just who is speaking here?

Knowing that the book is set in East Germany, it's difficult to avoid reading certain things into Nachdenken über Christa T., even though Wolf was one of the writers who stayed and defended her mother country.  Christa is shown to be a free spirit who refuses to be tied down by the expectations of society, waltzing in and out of lectures, not caring if her marks drag down the average of her study group, running off with any man who takes her fancy.  At one point, the narrator says:

"Kein Verfahren findet statt, kein Urteil wird gesprochen..." p.68

"No trial is taking place, no judgement is being made..."***

However, it is difficult to take this at face value; there is a pervading sense that the free-spirited Christa is somehow letting the system down by doing exactly (and only) what she wants to do.  Mind you, the state censors let it slip through, so I won't labour the point ;)

This book, with its emphasis on examining a person's life in detail, enabling a portrait to be painstakingly built up, reminds me in many ways of another classic German novel, Heinrich Böll's Gruppenbild mit Dame (Group Portrait with Lady).  Böll also used third-party sources to slowly develop his main character, avoiding having her appear in person until late in the piece to heighten the effect of the puzzle.

However, a major difference is that where Böll's Verf., the man engaged in building up a picture of Leni Pfeiffer, roamed far and wide interviewing people to get his information, Wolf's narrator refuses to ask others for help, preferring to rely on her own memory and the scraps of paper she has been given.  At times, she even imagines conversations and scenes which may have taken place, filling in certain gaps for herself.  When events start to become blurred later in the piece, this gives us even more reason to be suspicious of the facts - and of her motives...

Of course, we are given clues of this 'blurriness' early in the novel, when the narrator discusses the difficulties of ever getting a clear view of events, using clever word play related to poetry.

"Dichten, dicht machen, die sprache hilft.  Was denn dicht machen und wogegen?" p.24

"To write poetry, to seal off, language helps us.  Seal off what and from what?"***

Here Wolf is playing on the sounds of 'dichten' (to write poetry) and 'dicht machen' (to seal off) to explain that the role of poetry and literary writing is to obscure, just as much as it is to reveal.

This idea of 'defamiliarisation' would be a familiar(!) one to anyone who has studied literary theory, and while it may sound perverse, there is actually a kind of twisted logic in it.  By defamiliarising an object and rendering it difficult to make out, the writer forces us to concentrate our attention much harder on it.  In this way, we find something new in mundane objects which we don't really see properly any more.

And this is what Wolf does in Nachdenken über Christa T. - she takes an ordinary life and, through her smoke and mirrors, produces the story of a life less ordinary, a life spent trying to avoid being pigeon-holed, trying to find out what she actually wants from her time on earth.  The narrator has used this opportunity in an attempt to show us, just one time, how Christa T. really was, not how people saw her.  Why?

"Wann, wenn nicht jetzt?" p.219

"When, if not now?"***

 *****

Page numbers are from the German Suhrkamp Taschenbuch edition (2007).
All quotes marked *** are my attempts at translation :)

1Q84 Review - Q & A with Yours Truly (Part Three of Three)

I'm back for one final post on Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 (a post which contains plot details some of you may not want to know!), and it seems that my inner voice has a couple more questions for me...

*****
That's right.  Here's one for you to ponder - is 1Q84 finished?
Now that's probably one you weren't expecting ;)  The easy answer to this is simply to say that of course it's finished.  Murakami has written a three-volume novel (very like the Victorians he admires), and that's the end of the matter.  While it would have been a little strange if the story had ended abruptly at the end of Book Two, with Tengo and Aomame finally together, away from the parallel world of 1Q84, we have what passes for a happy ending.

Even if you disagree that the end of Book Three represents an adequate ending, Murakami's previous works will provide evidence to the contrary.  Kafka on the Shore and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, two of his most famous (and substantial) works are every bit as surreal and confusing as 1Q84, and their endings are just as ambiguous and open to interpretation.  Murakami is not known for wrapping things up in a neat bow (even Norwegian Wood, his most 'normal' book, ends in an unsatisfying manner), so why should we expect things to be tied up neatly here?

You would also think that Murakami himself is thoroughly over the book by now.  He's a man of many interests, a writer who bounces between long novels, short stories, works of non-fiction, essays and translations, not exactly a good sign for anyone expecting him to devote more of his remaining years to one particular book.  And anyway, if Book Four was in the pipeline, wouldn't we have heard about it by now?

So why am I even asking (myself!) the question?  Simply because, to me at least, 1Q84, seems unfinished.  There are just too many loose threads, even by Murakami's messy standards, stories which need to be explored further.  Characters like Fuka-Eri, Tamaru and the Dowager have been left up in the air, waiting for their cue to return to the stage.  The lack of cohesion which I mentioned in an earlier post could also be easily explained by the fact that there is more to come, further volumes which will pull these strands together.

One of the reasons I gave above against a sequel was that Aomame and Tengo had finally found each other, closing the gap which was providing the tension for the novel.  But if you recall, there are a couple of details which indicate that this may not be the case.  Aomame is carrying a baby, a child which could be of vital importance to the Sakigake group, and they are unlikely to just give up on her (especially as they are still chasing her for Leader's murder...).

There is also the small hint given at the end of the novel that the lovers have not actually succeeded in returning to the real world, but have entered a third world (1X84?!), which surely gives material for a continuation.  Also, if there's another volume, we may even find out what exactly the little people are actually all about - surely there must be more to them than meets the eye...

You're probably unconvinced (and rightly so) - it's unlikely to ever happen.  However, there is one more small piece of evidence from the text, one last crumb of comfort I'm taking from 1Q84.  When Aomame is lying low in her new apartment, Tamaru brings her some reading material to the pass the time.  It was, of course, Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time - all seven volumes of it.  Now if that's not a sign, I don't know what is...

You're not getting away that easily.  You've talked a lot of rubbish about the book, but you still haven't committed yourself - did you like 1Q84?

I really am tough on myself :(

Did I like 1Q84?  Of course I did :)  Although there are a few exceptions out there, I think that most people who like Murakami's work will get a lot out of 1Q84.  It may not have lived up to the hype (which, for regular readers at least, seemed to be up there with the return of Star Wars), but it's a welcome addition to the Murakami canon.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and will be adding it to my collection at some point for a later reread (the three-volume Australian edition pictured has, alas, now returned to the library - it was brand-new too...).  And, let's face it, if I hadn't liked it, I would hardly have spent countless hours writing a series of reviews which has finally stretched to six separate posts :)

One final point I'd like to make, one I touched on in another post, is that while 1Q84 is one book, for me it is best seen as a series of separate works - and should be read as such.  I raced through each of the books in a couple of days, but I actually gave myself a couple of days between each of the parts, going away and reading something else.  In this way, I think I avoided some of the frustration many readers have expressed about Book Two (probably the weakest of the three).  In fact, my wishes for paperback versions of 1Q84 would be three separate books, all with the Vintage UK black, white and red covers, novels which will slot neatly into my Murakami shelf...

...to be followed by any possible sequels.  We can but dream :)

1Q84 Review - Q & A with Yours Truly (Part Two of Three)

We're continuing our lengthy look at Haruki Murakami's latest work, so here's another gentle reminder that people who haven't completed the book yet may wish to come back another day - I don't want anyone to be disappointed by stumbling across secrets they have yet to uncover for themselves :)

*****
So, we've looked at what it's all about, but there's still something we haven't discussed - is 1Q84 any good?
That's a very good question (thank you Tony!), and it is one which is not that easy to answer.  It is not at all difficult to pick holes in this novel as Murakami's imagination can often leave the reader scratching their head, wondering what exactly he is up to this time.  Be that as it may though, there are several areas in particular that really make you cringe.

One of those is, of course, the suggestions of underage sex inside the cult.  Although the exact details of this later become blurred (we're not really sure who these girls are, or if they're even human, and Leader claims not to be able to do anything about it), the fact is that Murakami writes about ten-year-old girls having sex and then dumps the idea somewhere in a corner.  I actually thought, after finishing Book One, that the idea of sexual abuse would be the dominant idea of the novel, but Murakami seems to be merely using it as a plot device to move things along.  I don't like that at all...

Another issue I have is the large amount of information Murakami dumps into the story.  Part of the pleasure of reading his books is the way the narrative sweeps you along; you may not know what is going on around you, but you feel that the narrator, often a first-person point-of-view, is in the same boat. In fact, the metaphor of a boat, floating downstream towards the rapids, is an apt one for the usual style of Murakami's fiction.  However, the constant stopping and starting in 1Q84, waiting around for back stories to be filled in (or for information to be repeated for the nth time) is frustrating.  Book Two suffers particularly from this, and it's not exactly something that enhances the reading experience.

I can't finish my summary of the negatives without mentioning what could well be the silliest part of the book.  No, not that sex scene; while not exactly great writing, it was inevitable, and I could see where it was going.  I'm talking about the little people, or as I like to think of them, the seven Japanese dwarfs.  If anyone can actually think of a reason for them to be in the book, a real need divorced from the supposed voices Leader hears, or the need for someone to construct the air chrysalis, please let me know.  I really don't see what Murakami thought he was doing here - didn't he realise how stupid that whole idea seemed?

Before you all start tearing up your copies of 1Q84 though, let's look at the other side of the story.  It's not as easy to pick out reasons why the book is actually a good one (the negatives are a lot more immediate and tangible), but they do exist.  No, really, they do :)

One is that, for the Murakami fan, 1Q84 is the culmination of his life's work, with themes and ideas explored in earlier novels drawn together into one over-arching work.  In the first of my more tongue-in-cheek looks at the book, I was allegedly torn between this idea and criticising Murakami for repeating himself.  The truth is that I admire the way he has constructed the book, using the parallel narrative structure of Hard-Boiled Wonderland..., the usual everyman protagonist (e.g. The Trilogy of the Rat) and the societal concerns he has for Japan (e.g. A Wild Sheep Chase, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Underground).  He has gone out on a limb with his attempt to tie it all together, and while it isn't a complete success, he should be applauded for it.

Despite using the familiar though, 1Q84 is also full of new ideas.  The use of the third-person protagonists sets the book apart from Murakami's earlier work, and the introduction of a major female character, Aomame, is also a welcome addition.  Even within the book, the introduction of a third voice in the final book is a big surprise, and one which sheds new light on the story.  Ushikawa (who, incidentally, may have originally appeared in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle..) is key to understanding the story, the price he pays for his loneliness a contrast to what happens to Aomame and Tengo.

The best thing I can say about 1Q84 though (and I know that not everyone will agree with this) is that it is an absorbing read.  The version you can see in the photo above was approximately 930 pages, but I never really felt that it was outstaying its welcome.  The story, while ludicrous at times, pulled me along in its wake, always making me stay for just one more chapter.  The concept of the meta-fictional Air Chrysalis is a brilliant one, and the idea of the beautiful - if slightly robotic - face of a book is one which probably happens more than we would like to admit (yesterday, on Twitter, a few of us were discussing who Murakami's inspiration for Fuka-Eri actually was!).  By twisting the two (then three) strands around, the reader is offered a fuller flavour of what is happening, allowing us to get our heads around the writer's intentions.  I'm not saying it always works...

So, after all that waffling, the answer is... sorry, what was the question?  Oh yes, is it any good...  I would argue that while it is by no means Murakami's best work, 1Q84 is a very interesting novel, and one which will reward those who reread it (especially those who have already ploughed their way through Murakami's earlier books).  The question, of course, is how many people will be prepared to reread a book of this length :)  There's also one final factor which needs to be considered when answering this question, one I haven't yet touched upon, and that is...

...what I'll be looking at in my last 1Q84 post - promise ;)

1Q84 Review - Q & A with Yours Truly (Part One of Three)

Last year saw a few whimsical musings about Haruki Murakami's latest novel, 1Q84, but I can no longer hide behind split personalities, fictional characters and famous ghost-writers - it's time to get down to the serious business of unravelling my feelings on the book.  In the next few posts, I'll be posing myself some rather stern questions and then watching myself squirm while attempting to answer them (fun for all involved!).

Before we begin though, just a friendly warning: if you haven't read the book yet, this might be your cue to slip away quietly before you find out something you didn't want to know yet.  Don't worry - I won't hold it against you ;)

*****
So what's it all about, Tony? 
Glad you asked - well, actually, no, I'm not.  This is not an easy book to define, and any attempt to pigeon-hole it, or define it in one sweeping statement about themes is doomed to failure.  One reason for this is the fact that 1Q84 consists of three books, and after finishing the set, I believe that this is actually how the series should be read.

Book One, as well as setting up the fictional world of 1Q84 (and introducing us to many of its delightful inhabitants), has a strong focus on sexuality, especially society's attitudes towards women.  At the start of the book, the reader is led through a series of erotic escapades, both contemporary and relived in memory, and after a while there is an uncomfortable sense of voyeurism.  At one point, I began to think that Murakami was simply indulging in cheap thrills...

However, when the writer begins to carefully disclose certain details from his protagonists' past lives, this feeling rapidly disappears.  Instead, we are left to ponder the effects of physical and sexual abuse, whether on children or married women, and the way in which a society like the Japan of 1984 (an important point to remember...) can push this kind of abuse under the carpet.  In the actions of Aomame, Ayumi, the Dowager and Tamaki Otsuka, we see the consequences of ignoring such brutal behaviour towards women: suicide, dangerous hedonism or revenge...

Book Two seems to shift focus somewhat, switching its attention to the subject of religious fanaticism and the effect it has on its adherents (and their children).  During Aomame's lengthy chat with Leader (in the course of the strangest - and most unhurried - assassination ever), the truth of what has been happening between the head of the cult and his handmaidens comes to light; however, it appears that Aomame (and Murakami himself) is no longer so interested in what has, up to this point, been her primary motivation.  The focus has switched to the organisation of Sakigake and a desire to know what exactly drives the religious group.

Of course, Sakigake are not the only fanatics highlighted in 1Q84.  In the quest to avenge her daughter's death, the Dowager, the head of an equally shadowy empire (with, arguably, more efficient agents of revenge than Sakigake itself), has become a law unto herself, focused on righting perceived wrongs that the legal system is unable to deal with.  And, of course, if we are discussing fanatics and monolithic systems, there's nobody as dedicated as Tengo's father - if the witnesses have made Aomame what she is, then Tengo is a product of neglect by NHK...

Book Three then moves the reader on to another tangent, this time concerned with loneliness.  All three of the narrative characters, Ushikawa, Aomame and Tengo, spend time cooped up in confined spaces, with limited contact with the outside world.  The result of the choices they have made, their solitude is a trial of strength and character, and Murakami does a great job of showing what a miserable life it can be when you're deserted by (or isolated from) those who make your life worth living.

It is here that Ushikawa is a useful foil to the two main characters.  He is ultimately brought low by his inability to connect with other people and his insistence on going it alone.  While Aomame and Tengo are also natural loners, the love they have for each other is a redeeming factor which saves them from the fate poor Ushikawa suffers.  It is also interesting to note that it is Tamaru who brings Ushikawa's life to an end - his reaction on doing so shows that he realises that this is something which could (and quite possibly will) happen to him one day...

Three books - three ideas.  Whether or not this is what Murakami intended is unanswerable (although highly unlikely!), but there does seem to be a progression in his ideas and interests as the work progresses.   Perhaps it is is this lack of a single focus which makes 1Q84 a difficult book to pin down: a case of too many ideas spoiling the broth?  Or a healthy blend of spicy ideas?  Well, that remains to be seen ;)

*****
So, I've looked at what I think it may all be about, but to what extent has Murakami actually achieved his aims with 1Q84?  Well, for the answer to that question, you'll have to come back next time...

Coming Apart at the Seams

I came home from work a couple of months ago to find a book waiting for me, a fairly common occurrence around my neck of the woods.  However, this particular incident was a little out of the ordinary as it was a book I'd never heard of and had not asked for (even my wife looked a little confused).  Could it be...  Yes, on this day, I had received one of those mythical items, an unrequested advance review copy, a sign that I too had ascended to the next circle of bloggerdom, become one of the chosen...

The book in question was María Dueñas' The Seamstress (also known as The Time In Between), a best-selling Spanish novel of a woman caught up in political intrigue during the Spanish Civil War and World War II.  I was a little hesitant to read it at first, despite its being a translated work, as I suspected that it might be chick-lit in disguise (the cover certainly didn't convince me that it would be one I'd enjoy...).  However, in the idea of trying new things, and with a month of reading books by female writers in full swing, I decided to give it a go :)

The Seamstress, translated by Daniel Hahn (although you have to look pretty hard to find his name...), is written around Sira Quiroga, a young dressmaker living in Madrid, who abandons her ordinary life (and her very ordinary fiancé) to run off with a smooth-talking salesman.  Having been abandoned by her lover in Tangiers, she moves on to Tetouan (in the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco), where she is forced to work hard to pay off debts incurred by her horrible ex.

There she makes the acquaintance of Rosalinda Fox, an English woman who wants help making a fabulous dress at very short notice.  She needs it to wear to a function, on the arm of her lover - a high-ranking Nationalist official.  This chance meeting is the start of Sira's life of political intrigue...

Let me make something clear right from the start - this is not one of my usual literary tomes.  Unfortunately, my first impressions were largely justified, and I spent most of the novel picking faults in Dueñas' style, thinking about how this could have been a better book.  The major issue is that the writer is too eager to tell the story to let the story actually be told.  A good story unfolds at its own pace, unhurried by the writer's intentions, but Dueñas seems to be pushing The Seamstress along as if she has somewhere to be, and that's quite a feat in a book that runs to more than 600 pages (of admittedly large type).  In better hands, this could have been a trilogy of literary tales rather than one plumped-up page turner.

Another worrying problem is the characterisation.  The Seamstress is full of two-dimensional, stereotyped supporting players: the educated, possibly gay neighbour; the suave, roguish, seductive lover who abandons Sira; the buxom, matronly housekeeper (and smuggler!) who takes Sira under her wing in Tetouan.  Every time the reader is introduced to someone new, Sira gives us just enough details to let us know what kind of person it is before the plot continues on its merry way.  Sadly, it's not enough to make us care about any of them a great deal.

I would also argue that the choice of a first-person narrator is a fairly limiting one, forcing the author to resort to a long sequence of monologues, interrupted by the occasional conversation.  In one instance, Dueñas obviously realises that this is insufficient, and the chapter moves away from Sira and describes life in Madrid for Rosalinda and her beau.  In the final paragraphs of the chapter, we find out how this is done; it's all information Sira has gathered from letters - how convenient...

There are several more issues I had with The Seamstress, but to simply list them here would be overkill, and slightly unfair.  You see, for all the problems I had with the book, I did actually read it through to the end, and I ended up enjoying it.  As mentioned above, it is a page-turner, in the good sense as well as the bad, and the further the story progressed, the more I wanted to know about Franco-era Spain and Morocco.  It's an interesting setting for a World War II thriller, playing out in a country which isn't actually taking part in the conflict (even if it is very clear whose side Spain is actually on).

So is it worth reading?  I would argue that this depends very much on the reader.  If you crave literary fiction, books which are written in elegant and mesmerising language, painstakingly constructed with vast repositories of hidden meaning, then The Seamstress is definitely not for you.  However, if you enjoy historical fiction and ripping yarns, especially those told in the first-person by a young female narrator, you may well get a lot out of this novel (I've had a quick look around the blogosphere, and it appears that I am pretty much alone in my opinion of the book!).

Still, one thing's for sure - I don't think I'll be getting any unrequested ARCs again in a hurry...

A Reflection of Society

Bloggers are lovely people.  A while back, I left a comment on a post on Banana Yoshimoto's The Lake by Lisa from ANZ Lit Lovers, in which I had a little whinge about not receiving a review copy of the book after someone from the publisher's had actually contacted me first.  Not only did I get the sympathy I was after (I'm so transparent), but she actually offered to send me her review copy to add to my little library of J-Lit tomes!

Obviously, if the book turned out to be rubbish, I was going to feel very silly indeed.  Luckily though, that's not the case.  The Lake is a very fine little novel, probably one of the best of the five Yoshimoto works I've read, and a very enjoyable way to spend New Year's Day to boot (I ran through the whole thing in a matter of hours!).  Thanks Lisa :)

The Lake (translated by Michael Emmerich) introduces us to Chihiro, a woman approaching thirty, who earns a living painting murals on walls and buildings while she thinks about what she wants to do with her life.  As we enter her world, she has just begun a relationship with a neighbour, Nakajima, a rather intelligent young man with a disturbed, and disturbing, past - one that we (and Chihiro) will learn more about as the story progresses.  Chihiro senses that Nakajima's fear of intimacy and social situations must be related to some kind of childhood trauma, but she is unwilling to push him into a confession, for fear of hurting him.  Then, one day, Nakajima asks Chihiro to accompany him on a journey into the past - a trip to visit some friends living beside a lake...

This journey to the lake is the key to understanding the novel, but Yoshimoto sensibly initially leaves things as vague and murky for the reader as the fog-bound body of water the couple first encounter.  We are gradually fed small pieces of information about Nakajima's past, with the truth not coming out until about forty pages from the end.  Even then, there are things left unsaid, memories left untouched - and the book is the better for it.

Nakajima is ostensibly the character we should be interested in, but Chihiro herself is also an intriguing creation.  While she has not been subjected to the treatment Nakajima was forced to endure, she too, in her own way, has suffered from the way a certain group of people thinks you should live.  Living in an unorthodox family unit, simply because her father's family, appalled by her mother's lifestyle, refused to allow him to marry, Chihiro and her parents were left as a perfect nuclear family without the official social sanction.

For anyone who has lived in Japan, or read anything about its customs, the idea of a homogeneous society will be nothing new, and it is this issue which Yoshimoto constantly returns to in her fiction, the way outsiders have to find a place for themselves in a society which would rather they didn't exist.  In many ways, the group that takes control of Nakajima is a microcosm of Japan itself, a community unwilling to accept difference and determined to make people conform to its own norms.  It is no coincidence that Chihiro and Nakajima are alike in their different approaches to life, or that their goal is to flee to Paris - often the only way for young Japanese to escape the constraints of family and social ties...

As for the lake itself, it's a wonderful piece of imagery and symbolism, almost certainly containing the crux of the whole work - now, if only I knew what that actually was :(  Perhaps a clue can be found in the way Mino, one of the friends living by the lake, insists that although the lake may seem still, it is in fact constantly changing with the seasons and with the activity on it - just like society itself...  Chihiro's attempt then to recreate the lake in her mural could represent an attempt to reshape society to suit her own wishes and to make a place for the two young lovers to live without fear of outside interference.  Then again, I may just have been hitting the literary theory books too hard recently...

Whether any of this makes sense or not, what I've taken from reading The Lake is a sense that this is a very good book, one which lingers in the memory (unlike certain others of Yoshimoto's works) and contains a lot more in its 188 pages than you might think.  I'm not sure that it's the kind of book which wins prizes, but it's certainly worthy of its place on the Man Asian Literary Prize long-list.  Like the body of water which gives the book its name, there's definitely more to The Lake than meets the eye.

2012 - Plans and Challenges

A new year is like a blank canvas for bloggers; we are able to forget about the constraints of the last few months and embark on a new reading direction.  Sadly, being the people we are, we tend to make elaborate plans and fill up that canvas pretty quickly, leaving ourselves just as hemmed in for space by the end of the year as was the case twelve months earlier...  Still, January is a great time for readers, and I always enjoy launching into a new year and wondering what the next twelve months will bring :)

Last year, I only took part in a few challenges, all of which I comfortably completed, and that's the way I like it!  To start off 2012, I'll be putting my name down for a few Australian-themed ones, encouraging me to read more local fare.  For the third time, I'll be taking part in the Aussie Author Challenge, and I'll also be trying the Australian Women Writers Challenge - if I add the Reading Matters January Australian Literature Month, that'll be three birds with one stone :)

I'm also reserving a little reading space for events which may be coming up later this year.  The fifth Japanese Literature Challenge wraps up at the end of January, and given my love of J-Lit, this is another challenge I'll be signing up for when it returns later in the year.  I'm also hoping that after the huge success of German Literature Month last November, Lizzy and Caroline will be up for repeating the event at some point in 2012!

That's more than enough to be going on with for the moment as I don't want to fill up my particular canvas in the first week of the new year!  However, January is already looking pretty scheduled - I have decided to get the year off to a flying start by reading only books by female writers...

I have already set aside a few books from each of my specialist areas: from J-Lit I have Banana Yoshmoto's The Lake and Yoko Ogawa's Hotel Iris; in the German language I can choose from Herta Müller's Herztier, Christa Wolf's Nachdenken über Christa T. and Jenny Erpenbeck's Heimsuchung (Visitation); for Oz-Lit I have put a hold on Miles Franklin's My Brilliant Career and Alexis Wright's Carpentaria at the local library; I also have a couple of Victorian classics up my sleeve in the shape of Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey and George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss.  And if that little lot doesn't take up the whole month, I'm sure I'll be able to find another couple somewhere on my shelves...

That's quite enough planning for one post - I'm off to do some reading...  So, what are you all planning to do with 2012?

*****

Post-Script - Although I have no plans to read any more of Haruki Murakami's fiction in 2012 (as I've read it all over the past couple of years!), my arm has been gently twisted, and I will be taking part in Tanabata's Murakami Challenge again this year :)

How, you may ask?  Well, I've had a copy of Jay Rubin's Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words sitting on my shelves for a while now, so it's about time it got read.  I'm also planning to purchase a couple of his non-fiction titles this year - Underground & What I Talk About When I Talk About Running -, and I may even get around to the anthology of short stories he selected, Birthday Stories.

But that's definitely it...

2012 Challenges

Here's how I'm faring with the challenges I've signed up for this year :)

Murakami Challenge - January 1st, 2012 - December 31st, 2012
-Toru Level (read any three Haruki Murakami books)
1) Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words by Jay Rubin
2) The Sheep Man's Christmas by Haruki Murakami

Japanese Literature Challenge 6 - June 1st, 2012 - January 31st, 2013
- Read any work of Japanese literature
1) The Wild Geese by Ogai Mori
2) Modern Japanese Literature edited by Donald Keene
3) Flowers of Grass by Takehiko Fukunaga
4) The Gate by Natsume Soseki
5) When I Whistle by Shusaku Endo
6) Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami
7) Frozen Dreams by Wahei Tatematsu
8) Lizard by Banana Yoshimoto
9) Ukigumo (Drifting Cloud) by Shimei Futabatei
10) Japan's First Modern Novel - Ukigumo by Marleigh Ryan
11) Some Prefer Nettles by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki
12) Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words by Jay Rubin
13) The Sheep Man's Christmas by Haruki Murakami
14) Volcano by Shusaku Endo
15) The 210th Day by Natsume Soseki
16) Rivalry - A Geisha's Tale by Nagai Kafu 
17) The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata
18) The Briefcase by Hiromi Kawakami

Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2012 Longlist
- Read the fifteen books on the longlist as part of the Shadow Panel!
1) Jenseitsnovelle (Next World Novella) by Matthias Politycki
2) 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
- Book One, Book Two & Book Three
- Aferthoughts: Part One, Part Two & Part Three
3) Please Look After Mother by Kyung-sook Shin
4) Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke
5) From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón
6) The Prague Cemetry by Umberto Eco
7) Professor Andersen's Night by Dag Solstad
8) Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz
9) Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld
10) Hate - A Romance by Tristan Garcia
11) Alice by Judith Hermann
12) Parallel Stories by Péter Nádas (Part One & Part Two)
13) The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg
14) Seven Houses in France by Bernardo Atxaga
15) New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani

Aussie Author Challenge - January 1st, 2012 - December 31st, 2012
- Dinky-Di Level (read twelve books by six different Australian writers) 

Australian Women Writers Challenge - January 1st, 2012 - December 31st, 2012
- Franklin-Fantastic Level (read and review ten books by female Australian writers)
1) Carpentaria by Alexis Wright***
2) Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany***
3) Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany***
4) Mr. Scobie's Riddle by Elizabeth Jolley***
5) Legacy by Larissa Behrendt***
6) The Promise of Iceland by Kári Gíslason
7) My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin***

*** - Eligible for both Aussie challenges

2012 Reading List

Click on the link to read the review :)

125 - Rivalry - A Geisha's Tale by Nagai Kafu
124 - The 210th Day by Natsume Soseki
123 - Volcano by Shusaku Endo
122 - The Sheep Man's Christmas by Haruki Murakami
121 - Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words by Jay Rubin
120 - Some Prefer Nettles by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki
119 - Japan's First Modern Novel - Ukigumo by Marleigh Ryan
118 - Ukigumo (Drifting Cloud) by Shimei Futabatei
117 - Lizard by Banana Yoshimoto
116 - The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
115 - Accabadora by Michela Murgia
114 - My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
113 - Frozen Dreams by Wahei Tatematsu
112 - The Old Man and his Sons by Heðin Brú
111 - Long Days by Maike Wetzel
110 - A History of the World by Andrew Marr
109 - Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami
108 - Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Grimm's Tales) by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
107 - Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
106 - Roads to Berlin by Cees Nooteboom
105 - Ich sehe was, was du nicht siehst (I Spy, with my Little Eye) by Birgit Vanderbeke
104 - Kein Ort. Nirgends (No Place on Earth) by Christa Wolf
103 - Sommerhaus, später (Summerhouse, Later) by Judith Hermann
102 - Herztier (The Land of the Green Plums) by Herta Müller
101 - Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen by Heinrich Heine
100 - Hermann und Dorothea by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
99 - Stone Tree by Gyrðir Elíasson
98 - L'Adultera by Theodor Fontane
97 - Kabale und Liebe (Love and Intrigue) by Friedrich Schiller
96 - When I Whistle by Shusaku Endo
95 - Bergkristall (Mountain Crystal) by Adalbert Stifter
94 - Brigitta by Adalbert Stifter
93 - Where I Left My Soul by Jérôme Ferrari
92 - Ungefähre Landschaft (Unformed Landscape) by Peter Stamm
91 - Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope
90 - Hotel Savoy by Joseph Roth
89 - Angst (Fear) by Stefan Zweig
88 - The Greenhouse by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir
87 - À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs by Marcel Proust
86 - The Creator by Guðrún Eva Mínervudóttir
85 - The Promise of Iceland by Kári Gíslason
84 - The Gate by Natsume Soseki
83 - Art in Nature by Tove Jansson
82 - Children in Reindeer Woods by Kristín Ómarsdóttir
81 - Recipes for Sad Women by Héctor Abad
80 - Cold Sea Stories by Paweł Huelle
79 - Names for the Sea by Sarah Moss
78 - Independent People by Halldór Laxness
77 - Five Russian Dog Stories, translated by Anthony Briggs
76 - The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollope
75 - Beginning Theory by Peter Barry
74 - Alves & Co. and Other Stories by Eça de Queiroz
73 - The Man Who Walked Through Walls by Marcel Aymé
72 - The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
71 - Die Ringe des Saturn (The Rings of Saturn) by W.G. Sebald
70 - The Ghost of Neil Diamond by David Milnes
69 - The Blue Fox by Sjón
68 - The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna
67 - Faithful Ruslan by Georgi Vladimov
66 - Flowers of Grass by Takehiko Fukunaga
65 - Dubliners by James Joyce (link is to 2009 review)
64 - Necropolis by Santiago Gamboa
63 - Twice in a Lifetime by Ágúst Borgþór Sverrisson
62 - Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas
61 - Bord de Mer (Beside the Sea) by Véronique Olmi
60 - Petersburg by Andrei Bely
59 - Modern Japanese Literature edited by Donald Keene
58 - The Frost on his Shoulders by Lorenzo Mediano
57 - Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
56 - Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff
55 - Lost Paradise by Cees Nooteboom
54 - New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani
53 - Legacy by Larissa Behrendt
52 - The Whispering Muse by Sjón
51 - The Islands by Carlos Gamerro
50 - The Murder of Halland by Pia Juul
49 - The Wild Geese by Ogai Mori
48 - Die Blechtrommel (The Tin Drum) by Günter Grass
47 - Dukla by Andrzej Stasiuk
46 - The Book of Answers by C.Y. Gopinath
45 - Sieben Jahre (Seven Years) by Peter Stamm
44 - The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope
43 - The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst
42 - Seven Houses in France by Bernardo Atxaga
41 - The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg
40 - Happiness is Possible by Oleg Zaionchkovsky
39 - Traveller of the Century by Andrés Neuman
38 - Coventry by Helen Humphreys
37 - Parallel Stories by Péter Nádas
36 - Alice by Judith Hermann
35 - Hate - A Romance by Tristan Garcia
34 - Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld
33 - Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz
32 - Professor Andersen's Night by Dag Solstad
31 - The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
30 - From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón
29 - Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke
28 - Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
27 - Heimsuchung (Visitation) by Jenny Erpenbeck
26 - The Trumpet-Major by Thomas Hardy
25 - The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima
24 - Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos
23 - A Family Supper & A Village After Dark by Kazuo Ishiguro
22 - The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
21 - Aquis Submersis by Theodor Storm
20 - The Brothers by Asko Sahlberg
19 - Grete Minde by Theodor Fontane
18 - The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
17 - Mr. Scobie's Riddle by Elizabeth Jolley
16 - The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata
15 - The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
14 - Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany
12a - In Zeiten des abnehmenden Lichts by Eugen Ruge
12 - Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope
11 - Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
10 - Please Look After Mother by Kyung-Sook Shin
9 - Das Gemeindekind by Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
8 - Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany
7 - Silly Novels by Lady Novelists by George Eliot
6 - Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa
5 - Impressions of Theophrastus Such by George Eliot
4 - Carpentaria by Alexis Wright
3 - Nachdenken über Christa T. by Christa Wolf
2 - The Seamstress by María Dueñas
1 - The Lake by Yoko Ogawa

The 2011 Tony's Reading List Awards

Welcome to the third annual Tony's Reading List Awards, a special time when we celebrate the literary successes of the previous year's reading and shine a light on some rather less impressive books, making sure they get the derision they deserve.  It's only fair :)

So, without further ado, let's begin!

First up is the Most-Read Author Award for 2011:

1=) Anthony Trollope and Steven Carroll (5)
3=) Haruki Murakami, Yasunari Kawabata and Franz Kafka (4)

Trollope retains the title he won last year, but only in a tie with first-time contender, Aussie Steven Carroll.  With about fifty novels published though, I'd bet Trollope is the more likely to be there or thereabouts again next year :)

Next, it's time for the Most-Read Country Award:

1) Germany (26)

2) England (21)

3) Australia (20)

4) Japan (16)

A big change here in 2011!  For the first time, my country of birth has been knocked off its throne, thanks largely to my renewed interest in German-language literature and two (!) G-lit months last year.  In fact, England almost fell to third place thanks to a new-found interest in contemporary Australian fiction.

Another interesting statistic is that of the 123 books I read last year, 64 were originally written in a language other than English (of which I read 38 in the original language).  For the first time, translated fiction wins!

The Golden Turkey Award goes to the book that was... well, the biggest waste of time this year.  This is a highly subjective decision; basically this award goes to the book I most regret having read!  2011 was, by and large a good year for reading, but there were several less-than-excellent books.  I eventually came up with a short-list of three contenders:

Praise by Andrew McGahan

Novelle by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Michael Kohlhaas by Heinrich von Kleist

And the winner (or loser...) is... Michael Kohlhaas!  In a bad day for the German nobility, it's Kleist's novella which takes home the drumsticks.  Despite a high body count and a meeting with Martin Luther, this is one German classic I won't be rereading in a hurry.

Now it's time to move onto the big one, the Book of the Year, and my task has been made a little easier this year by the introduction of my monthly wrap-up posts.  The choice for Book of the Year is limited to my monthly recommendations - all sixteen of them (yes, I know...):

January - The Silent Cry by Kenzaburo Oe

February - Beijing Coma by Ma Jian

March - The Gift of Speed by Steven Carroll

and The Bone People by Keri Hulme

April - When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro

May - The Time We Have Taken by Steven Carroll

June - Silence by Shusaku Endo

July - Adam Bede by George Eliot

August - Leutnant Gustl & Fräulein Else by Arthur Schnitzler

and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

September - Violin Lessons by Arnold Zable

and The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman

October - A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe

and Maybe This Time by Alois Hotschnig

November - Chess by Stefan Zweig

December - 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

A wonderful collection of books, I'm sure you'll agree :)  By nationality, there were four from Japan, four from Australia, three from Austria, two from England and one each from China, the Czech Republic and New Zealand.  In terms of writers, both Steven Carroll and Kenzaburo Oe were represented twice on the list.

So, what book takes out the main award?  The Book of the Year Award for 2011 goes to:

Steven Carroll's The Glenroy Trilogy :)

Yes, for the third year in a row, I've cheated massively and made a series my book of the year!  Apologies to Shusaku Endo and Kenzaburo Oe, but Carroll's trilogy is the one to read.  For the record, the trilogy consists of:

The Art of the Engine Driver

The Gift of Speed

The Time We Have Taken

and Spirit of Progress (a prequel to the original trilogy)

Quality contemporary fiction from Down Under - please check it out :)

That's all for 2011: it's time to look forward now and move on into another great year of reading (alternatively, you might want to look back at what I thought of 2009 and 2010...).  See you all again throughout 2012!