'The Story of a New Name' by Elena Ferrante (Review)

After reading the wonderful My Brilliant Friend a few months back, I was itching to get stuck into the sequel to Elena Ferante's novel of a Neapolitan childhood.  Luckily for me, Europa Editions have just published it - and it's another superb read.  A note of warning before we begin though - in reviewing the second book, I will (inevitably) be revealing some plot details from the first one.  *Please proceed with caution* ;)

*****
The Story of a New Name (translated by Ann Goldstein, review copy courtesy of the publisher) picks up where we left off, with the cliffhanger at Lila's wedding.  Her decision to wed to escape poverty appears misguided from the very start, with her husband having seemingly betrayed her to the people she hates most in the world.  As Lenù looks on (slightly distracted by the handsome figure of Nino Sarratore), she begins to feel that for once Lila has overplayed her hand...

Soon enough though, it is Lenù herself that starts to feel lost.  As Lila slowly adapts to life as a married woman, her friend struggles with her studies, always doubting her ability to truly fit in with the people around her.  Having deliberately distanced herself from her family and friends, Lenù now finds herself caught in a no-(wo)man's land, stranded between two social spheres, neither of which she really belongs to.

Again, the old competitiveness and jealousy raises its head, and Lenù tries to console herself that she is, at least, happier than Lila.  The new Signora Carracci, however, is a woman both enigmatic and fearless, and no matter what life throws at her, she is likely to get what she wants in the end.  Which is when Nino enters the story once more...

From the paragraphs above, you might be forgiven for thinking that I've decided to start reading romance fiction, but nothing could be further from the truth.  Taking up the themes of My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name is a twisting, caustic account of the life of women in mid-twentieth-century Naples, a feminist look at the struggles women faced in escaping from the poverty trap and a lifetime of subservience to men.

The first part of the book largely takes place in the neighbourhood, an oppressive, cramped world in itself, where a handful of families rule the roost, lending money and cheating customers at the grocery scales.  While Lila has ostensibly married into this 'ruling' class, she is a woman, with no real rights, and like all wives who hesitate to accept this 'truth', she will suffer for her obstinacy.  Lenù, our eyes and ears, is frightened by a sudden realisation of what happens to women when they become wives and mothers:

"That day, instead, I saw clearly the mothers of the old neighborhood.  They were nervous, they were acquiescent.  They were silent, with tight lips and stooping shoulders, or they yelled terrible insults at the children who harrassed them.  Extremely thin, with hollow eyes and cheeks, or with broad behinds, swollen ankles, heavy chests, they lugged shopping bags and small children who clung to their skirts and wanted to be picked up.  And, good God, they were ten, at most twenty years older than me."
p.102 (Europa Editions, 2013)

Lila is now one of these women, and her introduction to married life is brutal and upsetting.  It does not make for pleasant reading.

The new name of the book reflects Lila's new state as a married woman - Lila (or Lina) Cerullo has become Signora Carracci, and this change of name does bring some advantages.   She gains financially, moving into a large, modern apartment, and she never needs to worry about money, taking freely from the tills of her husband's businesses.  She has also risen in the world in terms of status, walking around the streets of the neighbourhood like a Neapolitan Jackie Onassis.  But at what cost?  Her freedom, her intellectual development and her self-respect...

The widening gulf between Lenù and Lila reflects the general division in the novel between the literate, intellectual characters and the rest of the neighbourhood.  Those wanting to further their minds are able to retreat to a place in their heads where their partners, friends or enemies are unable to reach them, and Lenù sees a need to keep away from her oldest friend, fearing that Lila's problems will drag her back down into the morass of the neighbourhood...

Part of the magic of Ferrante's work though is the way that the two women's lives are so inextricably entwined that there is never a chance of a complete break:

"But Lila knew how to draw me in.  And I was unable to resist: on the one hand I said that's enough, on the other I was depressed at the idea of not being part of her life, of the means by which she invented it for herself." (p.274)

Every time Lenù believes that their friendship is finally over, she can't resist going back to see her friend, looking for something she could never really explain - praise, redemption, a feeling of superiority?

Whatever it is, she's unlikely to leave satisfied - no matter how successful Lenù becomes, there's something about Lila, something innate, which allows her to effortlessly surpass her friend, to always be two steps ahead.  It's a tortured relationship at times:

"When I saw Lila again, I realized immediately that she felt bad and tended to make me feel bad, too.  We spent a morning at her house in an atmosphere that seemed to be playful.  In fact she insisted, with growing spitefulness, that I try on all her clothes, even thought they didn't fit me.  The game became torture." (p.97)

Ah, friends...

A further strong point of Ferrante's writing is her wonderful characterisation.  The two main women are strongly depicted, and can be very attractive, but there is no black and white here.  Lila is whimsical, changing her mind more often than is good for her (and the people around her), but she can also be perversely stubborn, often when giving in a little might actually benefit her.

Lenù, despite being our conduit into Ferrante's world, is a coldly honest portrayal of a character the reader might be tempted to associate with.  Egotistical, immature and often self-serving, she is also somehow easily swayed and unable to keep her nose out of matters that don't concern her, even if she kids herself that she wants no part of life in the neighbourhood.  These flaws though, far from marring the two women, make them real, complete, people we can truly sympathise with.

Ferrante's novel reflects another time, another world, one in which, of the two paths the friends choose, Lila's housewife role seems the most likely route to success.  Sadly though, that's not really the case.  Even in twenty-first-century Australia, true equality is very far from being a reality...

After our recent Federal election, won comfortably by the conservative opposition, the new Prime Minister (a deeply religious and conservative politician) announced his new cabinet.  Of the eighteen ministers announced, only one was a woman, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (Abbott himself decided to take on the women's affairs portfolio...).  A cartoon in the newspaper the next day had a worried-looking colleague asking Abbott if having one woman in the cabinet was a problem.  The cartoon PM replied by saying that it would all be good - she'd be overseas most of the time anyway...  Just a joke, right?  I'm not convinced...

In a climate like this, books like Ferrante's are a reminder of how far we've come, but also of how far we've yet to go - and it's another great read.  So, can I have the final book in the trilogy now, please? ;)

Some Ideas for German Literature Month 2013

By (very) popular demand, November sees the return of German Literature Month, Lizzy and Caroline's third annual festival of all things originally written in the German language.  As you may have guessed, I'll be participating in a major way, with all of my November posts to be dedicated to the event :)

A notable feature of this third edition is an attempt by the host(esse)s to even up the gender imbalance of the past two years.  The month has been divided up as follows in an attempt to get more people to review books by female writers:

Week 1 (1-7/11): Ladies Week

Week 2 (8-14/11): Gents Week

Week 3 (15-21/11): Ladies Week

Week 4 (22-28/11): Gents Week

Weekend (29-30/11): Read as you please

I'm not sure my reading will be a fifty-fifty split, but I have no doubt that a few female writers will be featured on the blog over the course of the month.

So what will I be reading and reviewing in November?  Well, the first port of call is my German bookshelf, where I have a few neglected works itching to be read.  I have a couple from Peter Stamm (Agnes and Wir Fliegen/We're Flying) to choose from, and there's more contemporary fiction in the form of Alois Hotschnig's Leonardos Hände (Leonardo's Hands) and Judith Hermann's collection Nichts als Gespenster (Nothing but Ghosts).  Rounding off this selection is Sebald's Austerlitz (a book I've just finished reading and reviewing).

There are also several older books up there, including Eduard von Keyserling's Wellen (Waves), one of Caroline's recommendations from a couple of years back, Robert Walser's novel Jakob von Gunten, Hans Keilson's Das Leben geht weiter (Life Goes On) and Peter Handke's Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter (The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty) - a book I've been meaning to get to for quite some time now...

Then, naturally, there are the books I've bought from The Book Depository, which are winging their way to Australia as we speak to join the rest of my collection.  I've ordered Christa Wolf's Was Bleibt (What Remains) and Thomas Bernhard's Holzfällen (The Woodcutters), both books I'm keen to get stuck into for November.  I also have one more which might just sneak in - my preordered copy of the paperback version of Anna Kim's Anatomie einer Nacht (Anatomy of a Night) is being released on the 11th of November...

The fun doesn't end there.  Thanks to my Kindle and the evil nice people at Amazon, I have a whole host of out-of-copyright classics loaded up ready to read.  To even up the gender balance, I might try something by Lena Christ or Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach.  But then, there's also Theodor Storm, Theodor Fontane, Adalbert Stifter, Gottfried Keller...

Well, there are definitely a lot of ideas amongst that lot, but there's only one thing I can promise about my choices - there's absolutely no way I'll get through all of them in one month.  Now, about December...

September 2013 Wrap-Up

September was a busy month, both for reading and reviewing, but the highlight was probably the multilingual nature of my books.  While I'm always up for a bit of translated fiction, this month some of the translating was going on in my head - and I even managed to finish a book in Spanish, not one of my better languages :)

But, as ever, the cold, hard figures...
*****
Total Books Read: 12 
Year-to-Date: 94

New: 12

Rereads: 0

From the Shelves: 2
Review Copies: 8

From the Library: 1

On the Kindle: 3 (2 review copies)

Novels: 7
Novellas: 1

Short Stories: 2
Plays: 1
Poetry: 1

Non-English Language: 11 (2 Spanish, 2 Italian, 2 French, Dutch, Japanese, Latvian, Norwegian, German)

In Original Language: 4 (2 German, French, Spanish)

Aussie Author Challenge: 0 (3/3)
Japanese Literature Challenge 7: 1 (9/1)

*****
Books reviewed in September were:

1) From the Fatherland, with Love by Ryu Murakami
2) Days in the History of Silence by Merethe Lindstrøm
3) Multiples by Adam Thirlwell (ed.)
4) Ghosts by César Aira
5) Under this Terrible Sun by Carlos Busqued
6) Open City by Teju Cole
7) The Sorrow of Angels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson
8) The Nihon-ryōiki by Kyōkai
9) The Foxes Come at Night by Cees Nooteboom
10) High Tide by Inga Ābele
11) Shades of the Other Shore by Jeffrey Greene
12) Ballade Nocturne by Gao Xingjian

Tony's Turkey for September is:
Carlos Busqued's Under this Terrible Sun

In fairness, this is here mainly because it just wasn't my kind of book (and I probably would have picked something else up to try if I'd read the review describing it as 'stoner noir' earlier).  Nevertheless, I'm compelled to be honest, so Busqued's book ends up on the turkey shelf...

Tony's Recommendation for September is:

Jón Kalman Stefánsson's The Sorrow of Angels

Easily the pick of the bunch for this month, a book that I'm hoping will do well in next year's IFFP.  Other highlights include Nooteboom's short-story collection, Aira's slight, but memorable, tale and Teju Cole's ode to New York.  However, there was only ever going to be one winner here :)

*****
German Literature Month has just been announced for November, so there'll be a lot of German-language reading going on around these parts in October.  Don't worry though - I've got a good few other reviews all lined up, ready to go :)

'Bariloche' by Andrés Neuman (Review)

As you may have noticed, I've read a lot of tricky books in my time (many this year alone), so why is today's book, a 150-page first novel, one of the most difficult I've ever read?  Well, there's a simple answer to that - there's a lot that's lost in translation...

*****
Bariloche is the first novel of Argentine-Spanish writer Andrés Neuman, he of Traveller of the Century fame.  It's a much shorter and simpler book than his IFFP-shortlisted work though, and is centred on the life of Demetrio Roja, a rubbish collector in Buenos Aires.  Every day, he goes to the depot where he and his work partner cruise the empty streets of the Argentine capital, removing unsightly rubbish before the rest of the city starts its day.

However, back home, we see a different side of Demetrio.  In a stark, semi-vacant apartment, he sits and occupies himself with jigsaw puzzles.  Not just any puzzle will do; they all have pictures showing the lake, forests and mountains of Bariloche, a small rural town on the other side of Argentina.  You see, Demetrio is not a native of the big city, and in his lonely apartment, he pines for the home of his youth - and a woman he once knew:

"Era lindísima y mayor que yo.  Se vestía como los hombres del lugar, escondiendo el cuerpo lo más que podía.  No vivía lejos, pero para mí ese trecho de tierra y a veces de barro era toda una ceremonia, una distancia que no podía recorrerse así nomás."
p.32 (Anagrama, 2009)

"She was very beautiful, and out of my reach.  She dressed like the local men, covering her body as best she could.  She didn't live far away, but for me this stretch of land and, at times, mud was a complete ritual, a distance which I could never cross." (my poor translation...)

As you may have guessed, Demetrio is not a very happy man...

Bariloche consists of sixty-five short chapters, several lasting less than a page, while the penultimate chapter, the longest in the book, only runs for six pages.  Initially, these scenes of urban life are merely snap-shots of Demetrio's daily routine, but as the novel progresses, we are treated to more glimpses of his life before his arrival in Buenos Aires, in particular, of a relationship he has which ends abruptly.

While the scenes in the mountains are sunny and filled with languid happiness, the chapters in the capital mostly happen in the dark, in the midst of the refuse of the big city.  There's an obvious contrast between the purity and innocence of Demetrio's youth and his life in Buenos Aires, and this contrast isn't limited to his physical surroundings - life in BA also seems to have corrupted his morals.  His young love was innocent, if forbidden:

"Nos besamos in ese momento y después no importó nada aparte de sus manos y las mías." (p.61)

"We kissed at that moment, and afterwards nothing mattered except her hands and mine."

Back in the big city, however, Demetrio's female affairs are less simple, as he is sleeping with the one woman he really should have left well alone...

The two strands, past and present, intertwine to create a fuller picture of a man whose life is going nowhere.  Trapped in memories, many of them pasted onto cardboard and carefully cut into small pieces, Demetrio is stuck in a rut he's unlikely to climb out of any time soon.  Work is simply a chore, and his love life is a dead end waiting to smother him alive.  Still, in his mind (and on his kitchen table), he'll always have Bariloche...

*****
The observant among you (i.e. those who have actually read the post carefully) will have realised by now that it wasn't the book that was difficult but the fact that I was reading it in the original Spanish.  Sadly, Traveller of the Century is, at this point, the only one of Neuman's books to have appeared in English, and having read it twice and loved it - and having caught up with the writer at the Melbourne Writers Festival -, I was keen to try another one.

How?  Well, I have studied Spanish before (two years at GCSE level while doing my A-Levels), and the similarity with French, another of my languages, helps a lot.  In essence though, it was me and my hazy memory of the language (with a little help from Google Translate) against an authentic literary text - I staggered through twelve rounds, but I got a hell of a beating ;)

If I'm being honest, it would be hard for anyone to take my review at face value as I did struggle with the book at times.  The first few days saw me read about seven pages at a time, with constant stops to look words up, and I really thought I had bitten off more than I could chew...  However, I slowly got the hang of things, and my long-term memory kicked in, allowing me to double that by the end of my two weeks of reading.  While there were still words I didn't know, I opted for fluency over complete comprehension where possible, especially if I sensed that not knowing a certain word was unlikely to affect the flow of the story.

I did get a lot out of Bariloche, especially when contrasting it with Traveller of the Century, as it allowed me to compare the two books and draw out some parallels with, perhaps seeds of, the later, longer novel.  Demetrio's illicit affair has shades of Hans' relationship with Sophie, and an old homeless man the rubbish collector befriends may well be a literary ancestor of the Organ Grinder.  The care taken when describing the streets of Buenos Aires (and the beauty of Bariloche) is also repeated in Neuman's later description of Wandernburg.  Finally, the picture of Demetrio poring over his jigsaw puzzles in a grotty bachelor pad evokes images of Hans sitting in his room at the inn, dictionary in hand, working away at his translations (which, in turn, is uncannily close to the image of Tony turning frequently from book to i-Pad in a desperate attempt to make sense of it all...).

What it lacks though, is the sparkling conversation and warmth that pervades Traveller of the Century.  One of the features of the latter book is the way in which it exudes life and laughter, with Hans and Sophie knowing full well that they won't be able to enjoy themselves forever, but giving it their best shot anyway.  In contrast, Demetrio is taciturn and isolated, a man who's lost even before he's started the game.  Mind you, it's just as well that the writer skimped on the dialogue in Bariloche; whenever the characters did start talking, I really struggled to understand a word of what they were saying...

For a native (or skilled) reader of Spanish, this is a book to be knocked off in a couple of days - it took me about two weeks ;)  Still, it was definitely worth the effort, and I did enjoy it, even if it never reached the heights of Traveller of the Century.  One thing is for sure though; with Pushkin Press' translation of Neuman's Hablar solos only about six months away, I think I'll just wait for the translation next time :)

'A Man in Love' by Karl Ove Knausgaard (Review)

Back in March, during my IFFP reading for this year, I tried the first part of Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle series, A Death in the Family, a book which looked at parts of the writer's life in minute, painstaking detail.  Today, we're back for part two - it's a touch lighter than the first instalment, but still very, very personal...

*****
A Man in Love (translated by Don Bartlett) starts with our friend on a summer trip with Linda, his second wife, and his three kids.  Knausgaard playing happy families?  Not exactly...

"The situation infuriated Linda, sitting at the other end of the table - I could see it in her eyes - but she bit her tongue, made no comment, waited until we were outside and on our own, then she said we should go home.  Now.  Accustomed to her moods, I said she should keep her mouth shut and refrain from making decisions like that when she was in such a foul temper.  That riled her even more of course, and that was how things stayed until we got into the car next morning to leave."
p.5 (Harvill Secker, 2013)

Three pages in, and he's at it already.  Knausi (as I like to call him) paints a detailed picture of a man who loathes family life...

Then we go back in time, witnessing the writer's arrival in Sweden, overweight and depressed.  Despite his literary success, he's not a happy man:

"All the music around me, all the literature around me, all the art around me, it should have made me happy, happy, happy.  All the beauty in the world, which should have been unbearable to behold, left me cold.  That was how it was, and that was how it had been for so long that I could no longer stand it and had decided to do something about it.  I wanted to be happy again.  It sounded stupid.  I couldn't say it to anyone, but that was how it was." (p.136)

Having walked out on his first wife, Tonje, he's decided that what he needs to kickstart his life, and his writing, is a new start in a new country.

Having escaped from his past, the world is now his oyster.  He sets himself up in an apartment in Stockholm and decides to spend his time focusing on writing and unwinding.  That is, until he catches up with Linda, a poet and dramatist he once met at a writing workshop, and falls suddenly and violently for her.  One evening, after being entranced by an Ibsen play, and by her company, he has a sudden realisation:

"After we parted company and I was trudging up the hills to my bedsit in Mariaberget I realised two things.
 The first was that I wanted to see her again as soon as possible.
 The second was that was where I had to go, to what I had seen that evening.  Nothing else was good enough, nothing else did it.  That was where I had to go, to the essence, to the inner core of human existence.  If it took forty years, so be it, it took forty years.  But I should never lose sight of it, never forget it, that was where I was going.
 There, there." (p.184)

The trouble is that when we get what we want, it rarely seems to be how we imagined it...

In terms of plot, A Man in Love is the story of how Knausgaard fell in love with Linda, and the progress the two make from friends to lovers to married with children; of course, that plot could be written in twenty pages.  However, this is Knausgaard we're talking about, a man who (as a friend jokes) could write ten pages about going to the toilet and make it fascinating.  The book contains the usual minute detail, descriptions of absolutely everything that happens in his life.  Stories branch off into other stories, one memory leads to another.  Somehow, it all works.

On one level, it's the story of a man looking for his place in society and life.  The writer is a foreigner, a boorish, drunken Norwegian in a land of mineral-water-sipping health freaks.  In a country where everything is done by the book, and where, instead of sweets, veggies are served at kids' parties, the chaotic, confused Knausgaard feels even more adrift than he did back home.  He's made to feel low-class and provincial, and his new start threatens to turn sour.

Another view of the novel is the story it tells of the frustration of the writer, when life and absolutely everything gets in the way of what you really want to do - which is write!  He agrees to interviews he really doesn't want to do (and which often go spectacularly wrong), but it is his family life which really angers him.  He resents any time stolen away from him by his wife and kids, loathing his feeling of being a 'feminised house-husband'.  Knausgaard behaves like a 19th-Century man in a modern, equal society - one he hates.  On a side note, I've seen lots of praise and understanding for the book recently from bloggers and reviewers like myself - men, in their mid-thirties, married with small kids...

One name that gets bandied about frequently when discussion turns to Knausgaard is that of Proust, and there seem to be two opposing camps here.  The first, mainly consisting of publishers and blurb writers, is effusive in its Proustian comparisons; the second, comprising critics and grumpy bloggers, slams this as a lazy comparison.  Personally, I'm somewhere in the middle (sitting on the fence, picking out splinters).  Language-wise, there's absolutely no comparison.  Knausgaard uses fairly ordinary language, and he rarely sweeps the reader away by force of expression or beautiful Proustian imagery.  Story-wise though, they are definitely more similar.  Knausgaard's style of slowly, laboriously describing events is obviously Proustian, but there's also a sense of Proust's handling of memory, with recounts going off at tangents, and smells and images evoking long-forgotten memories.  Admittedly though, there are probably better comparisons out there - just ones I haven't encountered yet.

A Man in Love is a little different to A Death in the Family.  It seems even more internal, reflective, and self-flagellating, and there is a deeper sense of something amiss, the writer's madness bubbling to the surface.  Linda herself has a mental illness, and Knausgaard's first attempt to attract Linda's attention, an attempt which ends in a bloody, stunning mess, shows that the writer has (how can I put this tactfully...) 'issues'.  It's painful to read at times, incredibly close to the bone, and this is the genius of Knausgaard, his ability to say the unsayable, the unthinkable... I.  COULD.  NOT.  DO.  THIS. (never - not even in my head).

All in all, I enjoyed it a lot more than I did the predecessor, and I do hope that the other four books in the series get translated at some point (even if I suspect that this may be the high point of the series).  As mentioned above though, this is a book which hits very close to home for thirty-something men with kids, trying to balance writing with family duties (ahem...) - and I haven't heard much praise from women...

Anyone?

'Shades of the Other Shore' and 'Ballade Nocturne' (Review)

It's been a while, but I've finally found a few hours to devote to the other two beautiful Cahiers I received from Daniel Medin at the Center for Writers and Translators at the American University of Paris.  Last time, I looked at an interesting piece from László Krasznahorkai and an alphabetical guide to the life of a translator - today's offerings are just as interesting and varied :)

*****
Shades of the Other Shore, like many of the cahiers, is another mix of prose and imagery.  Writer Jeffrey Greene and artist Ralph Petty are two Americans with a new life in France, and their words and paintings provide an outsider's view on the country.  Petty's vivid watercolours accompany Greene's mix of poetry and prose nicely, but (of course) I'm more focused on the literary side of the partnership...

The writing shows some interesting juxtaposition at times (e.g. Jeanne d'Arc and Steve Irwin...), but many of the pieces come back to the two constant themes of his mother, who lives with him in France, and death.  In 'On Hoarfrost', the writer turns cleaning his frosty windscreen into something deeper in his attempts to remove the white, equalising covering:

"My mother is already seated in the car, engine running with the defroster blowing, and as I scrape away the hoarfrost, her face and figure emerge from under the glass, looking out as if I were exhuming her from the next world into this one."
p.8 (Sylph Editions, 2013)

'The Silent Gardener' treads a similar path, but in a more poetic vein:

"My mother sleeps under a fig tree
 with no leaves, only the spring sun" (p.16)

The title also seems to examine this preoccupation with 'the other side', although he might just be talking about France.  If I'm honest, this wasn't really my thing, but there were some nice lines, and the pictures were very pretty :)

*****
The second work was one I was a little more interested in checking out as it was by a writer whose work I've enjoyed before, Gao Xingjian.  While all the work I'd previously read by the Nobel laureate had been prose works, the subject of this cahier is a short play, originally written in French, translated (by Claire Conceison) into English directly, but with a possible Chinese version in mind.

The play, Ballade Nocturne, is a short piece, with a focus on music, pictures and dance.  There are just four roles: a musician, two dancers and an actresss who also plays a character called 'she'.  Anyone familiar with Gao's prose work, especially Soul Mountain, will recognise the focus on shadowy pronouns as descriptors...

'Elle', the focus of the piece, is all woman:

"On dirait une femme nature,
 mais pas fatale.
 On dirait une femme perdue,
 mais sans rien de public,"
p.2 (Sylph Editions, 2010)

"One might call her a natural woman,
 but not a femme fatale.
 One might call her a lost woman,
 but not a common whore." (p.17)

First we are introduced to her as a person, then the writer positions her as a representative of her gender in a battle of the sexes:

"Oh là là, femme contre homme,
 une dure bataille.
 Qui sera le vainqueur?
 Et qui sera conquis?" (p.4 )

"Oh la la, man versus woman
 a tough battle.
 Who will be the conqueror?
 And who will be conquered?" (p.19)

In the eternal struggle, Gao suggests that men need first to understand women to be worthy of them.

This theme of the struggle is taken up more literally as the play continues (at one point, the musician - the only male character - is trussed up and dragged off stage!).  It's very clear that 'she' is protesting against a man-made world and would like to propose some alternatives:

"et s'il ya une religion en laquelle croire,
 ce sera notre propre corps." (p.11)

"and if there is a religion worth believing in
 it will be our own bodies." (p.29)

If women ruled the world...

There is an intense focus on what is going on around the actors, and the cahier is full of stage directions, descriptions of the background music, and the dances the two dancers are to perform.  To an uncultured novice like myself, it's all rather arty, and Ballade Nocturne is described in the translator's introduction as a 'polymorphic' work, one which can't be pigeon-holed into 'theatre', 'dance' or 'art'.

As always, there is an abundance of beautiful extras.  In addition to Conceison's insightful introduction, the 'reader' is treated to Gao's beautiful ink-wash illustrations, as well as the original French-language version in a pamphlet insert.  It's a book which is a joy to read and admire - being totally honest, I'm not completely sure I'd enjoy sitting through the actual play though!

*****
The Cahiers Series produces beautiful pieces, coffee-table books for those interested in good literature and translation, and I'm very grateful to M. Medin for sending some my way.  Sadly though, with two young kids around, they're unlikely to be sitting on my coffee table any time soon.  Perhaps some of my readers will have more luck with that idea...

'High Tide' by Inga Ābele (Review)

Today's post features a review of another work of translated fiction from Open Letter (a publisher based at the University of Rochester, which is also behind the renowned Three Percent blog).  The writer is a fairly new name in translated fiction - and (excitingly) it's another new country for me...

*****
Inga Ābele's High Tide (translated by Kaija Straumanis, e-copy courtesy of the publisher) is the story of Ieva, a single mother in the Latvian capital of Riga who is approaching middle age.  She's a script-writer, one not in the best of spirits, and she has been deeply affected by the recent death of her grandmother.  However, there's more to her story, much more - this will become clearer as we progress...

...or, more accurately expressed, regress...

The writer (as you might expect) takes the reader on a journey through Ieva's life, but backwards.  As we meet the important people in her life - her gran, her mum and dad, her brother, Pāvils, and her daughter, Monta - things begin to take shape.  The story always returns to two other people though - her dead lover, Aksels, and her ex-husband Andrejs - two men forever linked by one woman and a fateful event.

Ābele's novel looks at how life rarely unfolds the way we expect it to, even if it usually offers you things you never thought possible.  Is it worth it though?  Well:

"Like an Indian who gets glass beads in exchange for gold, you trade the suffering of existence in return for the smell of baking bread.  The feel of a dog's wet nose against your hand.  The look in your children's eyes.  A bird feeder.  May it all bring you joy, says this opposing, unwanted, huge opportunity - Life."
p.8 (Open Letter, 2013)

I suppose though that life is what you make of it...

Ieva starts the novel jaded, cynical and world-weary, and the backwards path through her life allows the reader to see why she ended up where she did, with the reader seeing the results before the causes.  This can be confusing at times, as when Ieva returns to the prison to visit Andrejs time and time again, a little like a moth to the flame.  It takes us a long time to realise exactly why she does this...

Once you have an overview of the whole novel, it can be seen as a work (and life) in three parts, with Ieva's life changed by two pivotal events: Aksel's death and her final rejection of Andrejs.  Ieva passes from young love and freedom, through a miserable existence chained to a jailbird, followed by a life as an artist - although the novel's structure turns that order on its head.  Are you still with me?

The strained relationships the main character has, both with the two men in her life and her parents, has a wearing-down effect on Ieva and causes a rift in her relationship with her daughter, Monta.  In fact, some of the more interesting parts of the book are when we see Ieva through the eyes of the other characters.  She's a middle-aged woman sleeping around, working her way through... what exactly?  Grief? Trauma? Depression?

Of course, Ieva isn't the only one struggling - it's a bleak life, and it's hard to be happy, so you snatch moments when and where you can.  Aksel seems to realise this best, letting go of his anger and trying to appreciate life outside prison, his returned, if monotonous, freedom:

"It's his, Andrejs's moment.  A moment of existence.  He's gotten so good at capturing these moments over the past years.  He sniffs them out like a bloodhound, extracts them like a pearl diver and brings them to the surface of his consciousness, breaks and grinds them down like a nutcracker.  He's almost happy, dammit - happy!" (p.54)

The three main characters have their own ideas on how to be happy though.  While Aksel prefers to go his own way, lost in punk music and drugs, Ieva escapes into a fantasy world of words.  For Andrejs, whose escape lies in hard work on the land, this choice of paper over trees is a suspicious one:

"Independence and betrayal.  The entire breed of book readers are traitors.  Because they use words however they see fit, and they're as sly as foxes.  They'll forever twist the world into something they like better.  Everyone else sees black, but they say it's just the opposite of white.  Obviously you can say it like that too, but it will always be connected to a selfish purpose so tangled it's sickening." (p.64)

Yep - never trust a reader ;)

High Tide is beautifully written in parts, and the writer often plays with the imagery of tides, high and low, usually metaphorically.  In seizing opportunities when they come, the characters are battling through the tough, low-tide times, waiting for the tide to turn in their favour.  There's also a tide-like contrast in the structure between frequent short sections, extended conversations and the few, pivotal, lengthy prose sections.  These long quasi-monologues (for example, a section at the start of the novel with Ieva and Andrejs at the flat) are long, pensive and elegantly written, and are probably the parts I enjoyed the most.

However, not all the writing is as good as in those long sections; some of the shorter parts were a little clumsy, especially in conversations.  Also, once the reader knows the full story, the book peters out a little, and the last few chapters didn't really do much for me.  A life told backwards is a nice idea (c.f. Hitomi Kanehara's Autofiction), but High Tide ends with a whimper more than a bang really...

I'm not sure it all comes together in the end, but Ābele does create some excellent scenes, and High Tide is definitely an interesting read.  In part, some of my misgivings might come from the e-format I was using, which is not ideal for this book - it would have been nice to flick back and forth to refresh my memory (not as easy as I'd like on my antiquated Kindle...).  Despite coming form the digital age, I think High Tide is a book which might best be enjoyed on paper :)

'The Foxes Come at Night' by Cees Nooteboom (Review)

A few months ago, MacLehose Press reissued some books by Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom to coincide with his eightieth birthday, and I was lucky enough to receive copies of them.  At the time, I reviewed his debut novel, Rituals, but today's post looks at a far more recent work, allowing me to compare books from very different periods of the writer's life and career...

*****
The Foxes Come at Night (translated by Ina Rilke) is a short collection of eight stories, first published in Dutch in 2009.  The pieces are very much thematically linked, with Nooteboom using the collection as an opportunity to examine age, memory and reflections on the past, usually from the perspective of a character remembering a lost partner or friend.

A common device used is the humble photograph, and the first story, 'Gondolas', is a good example of this.  In the story, a Dutch art journalist returns to Venice to stand in the place where he took a photograph forty years earlier.  Rather than lamenting the loss of a friend, the protagonist muses about how unimportant people are to the world:

"How extraordinary that things should still be the same!  The water, the cormorant-shaped gondolas, the marble step on which he sat.  It is just us making our exit, he thought, we leave the décor of our lives behind."
'Gondolas', p.11 (MacLehose Press, 2013)

By the end of the story, the reader is unsure as to whether the main character is here to bid his friend farewell, or to be rid of her memory...

Another story which uses a photograph to kick things off is 'Heinz', the longest story in the collection, one which sees a Dutchman reminiscing about his time living in Italy, and his friendship with the titular honorary Vice-Consul.  An alcoholic businessman secluded on the Italian coast, Heinz has an aura about him, one which attracts everyone around.  Sadly though, he is destined to burn out after shining brightly, and his friend studies the photograph looking for evidence of this eventual disaster in the faded picture...

While many stories focus on those who have departed, others focus more on the fate of those left behind.  In 'Late September', an elderly woman on an out-of-season Spanish island waits for some afternoon delight in the arms of a (slightly-) younger local, an event which feels more like a transaction than real pleasure.

'Last Afternoon' also focuses on an elderly woman, this time one who is lost in bitter-sweet memories of her late partner.  Her story revolves around amorous adventures, flowers and tortoises(!), but it is really about finally letting go of unfinished business:

"It was only now, at this mysterious moment of the cypress's shadow creeping up against the garden wall, that he was dead to her.  How could you be so sure about something like that?  There had in fact been three such moments, she reflected: the moment he left, that of his dying, and the present, long-drawn-out moment of beginning to forget him, of his passing into a shadow of himself, his real death."
'Last Afternoon', p.97

Once again, the living must realise that there is no point in dwelling on the actions of the long dead.

The Foxes Come at Night is the fourth of Nooteboom's works I've read, and his deceptively light touch is instantly recognisable.  In fact,  I'm also pretty sure that a minor character in a couple of the stories, Wintrop, is the 'hero' of his debut novel, Rituals... The stories should be depressing, but in Nooteboom's skillful hands, they are imbued with a touch of sarcasm, a subtle wink rather than a mournful sob.  We are told stories of loss and grief, but the underlying message seems to be to keep our chin up :)

Most of the stories are one-sided tales of mourning the lost, but the culmination of the collection is a two-part story which has a slightly different approach.  'Paula' shares many of the features of the other stories: we have a man looking at an old photograph, remembering a lost friend, telling us about the good old days in the company of a beautiful, charismatic figure.  He remembers a shared night in bed, a holiday in Africa and the last night he saw her...

...and then she gives her side of the story.  You see, 'Paula II' allows Paula to have her say from beyond the grave, and her memories are slightly different to those of the living.  She allows us to see the events we've just heard about from her angle, and she is actually the one who feels pity for her friend:

"Take your Zen monastery - I saw it coming miles off.  Forgive me for saying this, for someone still among the living you make rather a dead impression, as though you have taken an advance on your mortality."
'Paula II', p.129

It's a chilling reminder that the living have a responsibility to keep on living - even if they would rather mourn their dead...

While I've enjoyed all the Nooteboom books I've tried, I hadn't really found one I loved until now, but The Foxes Come at Night is definitely a work I'd recommend.  This is easily my favourite of the four I've read, a beautiful collection of thought-provoking stories which fit together perfectly - an example of a crafted collection of stories, rather than a selection of tales randomly bundled into a book.  It's one I hope to reread soon, especially the stories 'Paula'/'Paula II', as I think they are pieces which need a second look to appreciate them fully.  Perhaps Nooteboom is one of those rare writers who improve with age...

'The Nihon-ryōiki' by Kyōkai, translated by Burton Watson (Review)

Over the last few years, I've gradually been making my way through the classics of Japanese literature, and I've come (like many readers) to have a few favourites among the publishers in this area.  One publishing house of note is Columbia University Press, who make J-lit classics (and I mean classics) available for everyone.  However, I'm not sure that today's choice is one for your casual reader...

*****
The Nihon ryōiki, or Record of Miraculous Events in Japan (translated by Burton Watson, review copy courtesy of Australian distributor Footprint Books***) is something a little different.  It dates from around 822, and the writer, the monk Kyōkai, is actually more of an editor than an author.  He collected stories from around the region and put them together in a book of 'setsuwa' - anecdotal tales promoting the virtues of the recently-imported Buddhist faith.  These stories were for explaining the importance of adherence to religion to the common folk who had little idea of Buddhism (and virtually no idea of literacy).

In effect, these are classic tales which play a similar part in Japanese literature as, say, Aesop's fables do in the west.  Short folk tales with a Buddhist slant, they're little vignettes which are part of Japanese culture and, therefore of interest to anyone wanting to look a little more closely at Japanese literary history.

As mentioned above, their primary purpose was to promote Buddhist beliefs.  The stories are rather short, many taking up less than a page, with some comprising a single paragraph, and they display examples of 'karmic retribution' or 'karmic causality' (in layman's terms, what goes around comes around...).  Each story hammers the point home in the last paragraph with a summary of the tale and a heavy moral:

"In appraisal we say: The Venerable Monk went far away to study, met with trouble, and could not return.  Having no way to escape, he rested on the bridge, meditating on the Sage or Bodhisattva.  He depended on the power of the heart, and this caused the appearance of the old man, who disappeared suddenly once they had parted.  In time, he made an image and always paid it honor, never ceasing his devotions."
p.26, 1:6 (Columbia University Press, 2013)

In fact, other stories go further, claiming that 'It was a miraculous event!' or asking the reader 'How can we fail to believe in the law of karmic causality?'.  Which can get a tad annoying at times ;)

Though the stories are short, the titles are very long, and rather illuminating.  When you read headings like 'On Paying for and Freeing Turtles and Being Rewarded Immediately and Saved by them', you have a fair idea what will be happening over the next page or two...  Overall, there is a feeling of common-sense teachings with familiar morals: the idea of might not being right; doing to others as you would have them do unto you; and the importance of living right, rather than being especially pious.

After a while, recurring themes begin to stand out from the blur of short tales.  One is that of reincarnation, with debtors in particular often falling foul of this precept (and being born as an ox in the next life).  Another is the frequent karmic penalty incurred for mistreating animals, an offence usually 'rewarded' by some healthy suffering for the wrong-doer.  Filial disobedience is (naturally) high on the agenda too, and those who disrespect their parents are likely to meet a sad demise.

It's not all about punishment in this world though.  Many of the tales feature journeys to the kingdom of King Yama, a Buddhist equivalent of the western underworld of Hades.  Monks die and come back to life after a few days (luckily, they usually have the foresight to tell people in advance not to burn the body..), and after their reawakening, they interpret the events of the 'journey' (or dream).  These usually lead to improvements in future conduct (as the chanting and copying of sutras does your karmic soul the world of good).

The main idea though is a predictable one - if you mess with monks, or misuse temple funds, you'll meet with a painful, gruesome end...

"The officiating monk saw him and tried to explain, giving reasons of doctrine, but he refused to listen.  "It's no use explaining!" he said.  "You're trying to seduce my wife!  You should be knocked in the head, you worthless monk"  His language was too vile to describe in detail.  He called his wife to go home, and when they got there he violated her.  But an ant bit his penis, and he died in great pain." (2:11, p.84)

Ouch.  Please note, the punishment was for the 'vile language' and not his behaviour towards his wife - these were very different times...

Burton Watson's translation reads fairly smoothly, and the style chosen makes the stories easy to read.  It is am academic text though, and as such is replete with footnotes.  While they can get repetitive after a while, they are useful - and some are surprisingly candid:

"Some kind of stunt?  The meaning escapes me." (1:26, p.46)

It's nice to have honesty in footnotes ;)

However, the short nature of texts, and the fact that many ideas are repeated, means that casual readers may get frustrated.  After the tenth talking ox, your eyes may well glaze over, and even the visits to Hell will pall after a while.  In fact, for those who enjoy a good narrative, the lack of a progression in the stories may make this a challenging read at times.

But it all depends on how you approach the book; it's definitely a resource to be dipped into.  The Nihon ryōiki runs to just over 200 pages, and I read it over the course of five days (and perhaps should have stretched it out more).  As I said in the introduction, it may not be ideal for the complete J-Lit novice, but for those (like me...) who have a deeper interest in Japanese literature, it's a book which will add an extra dimension to your private library :)

*****
***Footprint Books assure me that this book is available in Australia and New Zealand, both online and through bookshops :)

'The Sorrow of Angels' by Jón Kalman Stefánsson (Review)

After enjoying the excellent Heaven and Hell recently, I was eager to dive into the next instalment of Jón Kalman Stefánsson's trilogy set in the wilds of Iceland.  It's a bit risky sometimes, reading a sequel of a book you really liked, as the possibility of being disappointed is always at the back of your mind.  Luckily then, I have very good news for those of you who liked the first book - this one is better :)

*****
The Sorrow of Angels (translated again by Philip Roughton, review copy courtesy of MacLehose Press) picks up very shortly after the end of its predecessor, with the boy settling in to his new home in the cold, isolated village.  Taken in by the beautiful Geirþúður, he is beginning to enjoy a more comfortable life, his days spent helping housemaid Helga with domestic tasks and reading translations of Shakespeare to the blind sea captain, Kolbeinn - that is, when he's not flirting with the beautiful young Ragnheiður.

However, this semi-civilised existence is interrupted one day by the arrival of the local postman, an arrival which is both comical and serious at the same time:

"Helga looks down at Jens and the horses, all three nearly unrecognisable, white and icy.  Why don't you come in, man? she asks, somewhat sharply.  Jens looks up at her and says apologetically: To tell the truth, I'm frozen to the horse."
p.17 (MacLehose Press, 2013)

Once the burly postman has recovered from his ordeal, he decides to set off on another long trek, deputising for a sick colleague.  With a long, arduous journey ahead of him, some of which will involve rowing across treacherous fjords, it is decided that Jens will need a companion this time if he is to make it back in one piece - and so the boy sets off into the wilderness once more...

From the very start, The Sorrow of Angels grabs the reader's attention and doesn't let go for the next three-hundred odd pages, sweeping them up and taking them on a guided tour of the writer's creation.  The first part of the book is set in the village, and as well as meeting familiar faces and hanging around inside old haunts, the reader is introduced to a few new people as Stefánsson widens the circle of our experience.  One highlight is getting to visit the local hotel and restaurant, drinking with the local intelligentsia (the schoolmaster, the watchmaker) while the local big-wigs (including Ragnheiður's father...) dine in another section.

As interesting as this is though, we soon sense that this is merely the introduction, and that the restless Jens will soon be setting out again into a hostile landscape - and if you thought the boy had problems in the first book, think again.  Compared to the journey he undertakes in The Sorrow of Angels, his first trip through the mountains was a walk in the park...

The false comfort of the village gives way to the reality of life outside the small settlements people have created to protect themselves from the elements.  This is Iceland in the nineteenth century, and the reality is that many people live far away from company, isolated (literally) in their sturdy cottages, buried beneath the snow for the extent of the winter.  How long is the winter?  Well, it's hard to say.  In some places, it's difficult to know if spring ever comes at all.

When Jens and the boy stumble across these outposts of civilisation, islands of warmth in a sea of endless snow and driving winds, they become the centre of attraction, sources of news and novelty, people to talk to (often, the first company in months).  In an age of instant gratification, with digital downloads and online grocery shopping, it's confronting to see people thirsty both for letters and books, and for coffee - using the last of their precious grounds to warm up the unknown visitors...

...and they certainly need warming up.  Much of the novel takes place on the heaths, with Jens and the boy lugging the postbags from farm to farm, a task made more difficult by the constant snow storms and the ever-present threat of freezing to death.  The titular 'sorrow' refers to snow, but while it certainly brings sorrow, at times it also entices, invites, the weary traveller to sink into its embrace.  It is little wonder that the further the two wanderers get from civilisation, the greater the feeling they have of not being alone in the storm - out on the wiley, windy moors, indeed...

Bleak?  Unreadable?  Not at all.  The Sorrow of Angels is a beautiful book, one you need to savour - a novel to read over a good few days.  It's certainly one I enjoyed reading and coming back to after a break.  Once again, Stefánsson's writing is wonderful (and if that's the case, it's also important to acknowledge Philip Roughton's immense contribution in bringing it into English).  He has a wonderful, light touch with words, and most pages had something I was tempted to mark for inclusion in my post:

"Stars and moon vanish and soon day comes flooding in, this blue water of the sky.  The delightful light that helps us navigate the world.  Yet the light is not expansive, extending from the surface of the Earth only several kilometres into the sky, where the night of the universe takes over.  It's most likely the same way with life, this blue lake, behind which waits the ocean of death." (p.24)

It's a beautiful idea, and one which sums up the themes of the novel.

Which isn't to say that Stefánsson isn't equally adept at changing the mood and tone, adding a wry aside for the reader's enjoyment.  As mentioned in my review of Heaven and Hell, there's a touch of Saramago in his style, and the book is full of witty one-liners:

"Kjartan would curse roundly if he dared, but God is, despite all else, higher than all storms and men; he hears everything, forgets nothing and collects his dues from us on the final day for every thought, every word, every touch, every detail.  It can be tedious and downright depressing to have such a God hanging over one; we'll likely exchange him as soon as something better is available." (p.188)

Or how about:

"The dead are egoists, making the living toil for them, as well as filling them with guilt for not doing so well enough." (p.287)

There are plenty more where those came from...

Alas, while Stefánsson is a master of his game, I am but a poor scribbler, out of my depth when describing books like The Sorrow of Angels, so I'll leave it there with just a few more words to help emphasise my feelings about the book.  To the publisher: please submit this for next year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.  To next year's IFFP panel: please shortlist this book.  To the wider audience out there: please read the book - it's great :)