IFFP Guest Post by Jacqui Patience - 'A Man in Love' by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Of the Shadow Panelists for this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, only Jacqui (@Jacquiwine) does not have her own blog, so when she asked if she could post the odd thought or two here at my place, I was happy to oblige.  Here, then, is her take on one of the favourites for this year's prize - a big book from an old friend...

*****

A Man in Love (translated by Don Bartlett) begins by pitching us straight into the action, into a bit of a ‘domestic’ in fact, as we join Karl Ove Knausgaard in the middle of a summer holiday in Tjorn, near Gothenburg. The time is July 2008, and these opening scenes paint a candid picture of the reality of Karl Ove’s family life with Linda, his second wife, and their three children (Vanya, Heidi and John). All the tensions of trying to occupy and manage the needs of their three young children are centre stage:

…so twenty minutes later we found ourselves on a high, narrow and very busy bridge, grappling with two buggies, hungry, and with only an industrial area in sight. Linda was furious, her eyes were black, we were always getting into situations like this, she hissed, no one else did, we were useless, now we should be eating, the whole family, we could have been really enjoying ourselves, instead we were out here in a gale-force wind with cars whizzing by, suffocating from exhaust fumes on this bloody bridge. Had I ever seen any other families with three children outside in situations like this?

p.5 (Harvill Secker, 2013)

It’s a compelling opening, and one that immediately captured my interest.  The book starts at this point and returns to these scenes towards the end. In between these bookends, a number of other strands run through the narrative, all of which come together to form the crux of Karl Ove’s story.

In one sense – perhaps unsurprisingly given the book’s title – this is a story of how Karl Ove falls in love with Linda. At this point the timeline flips back to the early 2000s. Having suddenly upped and left Tonje, his wife and partner of eight years, Karl Ove moves from Norway to Stockholm and reconnects with Linda, a writer he first encountered at the Biskops-Arno writers’ workshop. They meet several times for coffee, the occasional drink in a bar, and while it’s clear they are attracted to one another, they seem unable to express their real feelings in order to move beyond mere small talk. Unable to deal with this paralysis any longer, Karl Ove decides to pour out his heart in a letter to Linda:

I wrote down what she meant to me. I wrote what she had been for me when I saw her for the first time and what she was now. I wrote about her lips sliding over her teeth when she got excited. I wrote about her eyes, when they sparkled and when they opened their darkness and seemed to absorb light. I wrote about the way she walked, the little, almost mannequin-like, waggle of her backside. I wrote about her tiny Japanese features. I wrote about her laughter, which could sometimes wash over everything, how I loved her then. I wrote about the words she used most often, how I loved the way she said ‘stars’ and the way she flung around the word ‘fantastic’. I wrote that all this was what I had seen, and that I didn’t know her at all, had no idea what ran through her mind and very little about how she saw the world and the people in it, but that what I could see was enough. I knew I loved her and always would. (p.194)

I won’t reveal exactly how the couple get together, but clearly they do. Here’s Karl Ove in the glow-zone of the first flushes of love:

For the first time in my life I was completely happy. For the first time there was nothing in my life that could overshadow the happiness I felt. We were together constantly, suddenly reaching for each other at traffic lights, across a restaurant table, on buses, in parks, there were no demands or desires except for each other. I felt utterly free, but only with her, the moment we were apart I began to have yearnings. (p 201)

As time passes, however, the heightened intensity of the first flushes of love fades away. Children arrive and A Man in Love taps into Karl Ove’s search for meaning in his everyday existence:

Everyday life, with its duties and routines, was something I endured, not a thing I enjoyed, not something that was meaningful or made me happy. This had nothing to do with a lack of desire to wash floors or change nappies but rather with something more fundamental: the life around me was not meaningful. I always longed to be away from it, and always had done. So the life I led was not my own. I tried to make it mine, this was my struggle, because of course I wanted it, but I failed, the longing for something else undermined all my efforts. (p. 59-60)

In some sense, I think part of what Knausgaard is trying to do here is to find a way of navigating normality, those flat periods between the peaks of intensity that life throws his (and our) way. We experience periods of extreme emotional sharpness in our lives. Our teenage years where everything is hyper-intense, falling in love, the birth of a child, the adrenaline rush from moments of success, a death in the family. But it’s trying to find meaning and fulfilment in the everyday that presents a challenge for Karl Ove, despite the fact he clearly loves and feels great tenderness towards his family:

At the traffic lights across from us a car was revving, and when I turned my head I saw the sound was coming from one of those enormous jeep-like vehicles that had begun to fill our streets in recent years. The tenderness I felt for Vanja was so great it was almost tearing me to pieces. To counteract it, I broke into a jog. (p. 54)

For Knausgaard, perhaps the key to all this is being able to free up sufficient space and time for his work as a writer… and this topic forms another strand within the narrative. Here, an interview with a journalist causes him to reflect on his frustrations as a writer, and difficulties in being able to devote sufficient time to his calling:

I had one opportunity. I had to cut all my ties with the flattering, thoroughly corrupt world of culture in which everyone, every single little upstart, was for sale, cut all my ties with the vacuous TV and newspaper world, sit down in a room and read in earnest, not contemporary literature but literature of the highest quality, and then write as if my life depended on it. For twenty years if need be. (p. 459)

And yet the minutiae and demands of his family life are stopping him, and he lays bare his feelings for the reader to see:

But I couldn’t grasp the opportunity. I had a family and I owed it to them to be there. I had friends. And I had a weakness in my character which meant that I would say yes, yes, when I wanted to say no. no, which was so afraid of hurting others, which was so afraid of conflict and which was so afraid of not being liked that it could forgo all principles, all dreams, all opportunities, everything that smacked of truth, to prevent this happening. (p. 459-460)

This is my first experience of Knausgaard and I found it utterly compelling and addictive. I’m reading this year’s IFFP longlist (along with Stu, Tony, Bellezza, Tony and David) and as I didn’t have time to start with A Death in the Family – My Struggle: Book 1, I pitched straight in with A Man in Love.

I’m finding it a little hard to pinpoint exactly why I found this book so gripping, but I think a large part of it has to do with the sense that these are real people Knausgaard is showing us here. Real people with real names and real lives, that’s how it appears to me. And he’s laying himself and his emotions bare with extreme candour. Nothing is held back, flaws and all. Even though he internalises many of his own emotions and avoids conflict in social situations, we, the readers, gain access to his innermost thoughts right down to their essence.

Maybe there’s also an element of my recognising many of the demands and challenges he describes in raising three small children all very close to one another in age. I’ve seen the exhaustion and mix of emotions this can trigger in friends and family in similar situations and can empathise.

Part of the appeal (for me) also stems from the way in which the narrative unfolds. It doesn’t follow a conventional narrative arc and as a reader there’s the allure of not knowing quite where Karl Ove is going to take us next. Alongside the story of Karl Ove and Linda’s family life, children’s parties and wandering around Stockholm with a buggy, he spins off into topics including existential discussions on the meaning of Hölderlin’s poems, the value in innocence and purity, cultural differences between Sweden and Norway and many more. We meet various friends and family members, all vividly painted in such a way that conveys their distinct personalities and demeanours.  There are flashes of painful humour, too; the acute embarrassment and humiliation Karl Ove feels when dancing with Vanya at baby Rhythm Time class, his irritation at Swedish middle-class parents for plying children with wholesome vegetable crudités at a toddler’s party and his encounters with the neighbour from hell. It’s all here.

This is my fifth book from the IFFP longlist and while I’ve yet to read the other ten I’d be surprised if A Man in Love doesn’t make the shortlist.  Once I’ve worked through the remaining books on the longlist I’m sure I’ll read A Death in Family along with forthcoming instalments as they appear… I suspect I’m in for the long haul now.

IFFP and BTBA - A Few Thoughts...

It's been a fruitful time for literary lists and prizes of late, and the two prizes I'm most interested in have both finally revealed their contenders for this year's main event.  The British version, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize revealed its choice of fifteen challengers (prematurely...) last Friday, while across the Atlantic, the Best Translated Book Award announced its own longlist consisting of twenty-five of the best a few days later :)

For reasons of both background (I'm English) and convenience (library availability and publisher contacts), my focus is on the IFFP, but when I look at the two lists, I can't help but feel (and not for the first time) that the BTBA list is a much weightier, better-looking one - and I don't think I'm alone in this.  The question, of course, is why...  I've been doing a bit of thinking over the past few days, trying to compare the relative natures of the two awards; consider this my attempt to unravel some of the reasons behind the contrasts in the two lists of books.

The first things to look at are the rules governing the two prizes, and there are some clear differences here affecting availability.  For one thing, the IFFP has a strict policy of submitting books by living authors, meaning that for those writers who have shuffled off this mortal coil, the BTBA is the only option.  This year, there are several works by deceased writers on the BTBA longlist, including Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky's Autobiography of a Corpse and Stig Sæterbakken's Through the Night.  Obviously, they're not going to be able to collect the prize money in person if they take home the prize, but is that a reason to exclude them?  Even if the IFFP's reason for this is to avoid translations of old books overshadowing more contemporary fare, it smacks of (for want of a better word) overkill.

Another possible issue over in the UK is the effort and cost involved in submitting titles for the prize.  There are some quite detailed instructions on the number of review copies which need to be submitted, and this may be a factor in limiting the number of entries.  I came up with an imagined scenario in which a press entered three books, two of which made the longlist, with one progressing to the shortlist.  According to my calculations, the publishers would be up for 110 review copies (plus postage) for their troubles...

Back in the US, by contrast, things run on a relatively small scale.  There's a handy list of e-mails and addresses on the Three Percent site, showing publishers where to send the books, which (as is most certainly not the case for the IFFP) can be e-copies.  In extreme situations, the publishers might not even need to send in a copy at all; if enough of the judges have already tried (and liked) a book, it could conceivably be sent straight to the longlist without a finger having been lifted by anyone at the publishing house...

But surely even that's not enough to explain the discrepancy between the two lists?  Well, there are some other possible factors.  I've noticed a disturbing trend whereby successful novels in translation often move from the UK to the US, but not in the opposite direction.  While not many of them made the BTBA longlist, several books from last year's IFFP longlist made their way to the States after originally coming out in Britain (examples include Travel(l)er of the Century, The Fall of the Stone City and The Detour/Ten White Geese).

However, the flow doesn't seem quite as steady in the other direction.  Is there likely to be a British edition of the 2012 BTBA winner Stone upon Stone?  When will Mikhail Shiskin's Maidenhair appear in British book shops?  Is there any chance of works like A True Novel or Blinding being picked up by a British publisher (and thus becoming eligible for the IFFP)?  I'm not sure...  Not being a part of the industry, I don't really know what the reason for this is (in fact, I might have got this all wrong, and British publishers may be preparing to bring out some of these great books as we speak), but I suspect that territorial rights play a role here.  If any of you have any insights into this murkiest of areas, please let me know :)

More than any external reason though, it's the whole ethos behind the prizes that perhaps explain the differences between the two longlists.  Even though the BTBA ends up with a much wider selection of books to choose from (and some of the judges have a good go at reading as many as humanly possible), I have a feeling that the nature of the organising body responsible means that the judges only have one goal - to choose the best piece of translated fiction published in English in the United States in the previous year.  It's a prize which is fairly limited in scope, concentrating on the community of readers passionate about literature in translation, and while the prize money may come from Amazon, the rest of the effort comes across as something put together by a bunch of hard-working volunteers.

By contrast, the IFFP, organised by Booktrust (an independent British charity with some government funding) with The Independent newspaper hovering in the background in the role of an unofficial partner, appears to have more of an agenda.  This is a highly subjective view (so don't sue me), but I feel that along with the goal of choosing the best work of translated fiction, the IFFP is attempting to promote translated fiction in general, meaning that a much more general-reader-friendly longlist is always on the cards.  The prize certainly has the aura of a semi-official, state-sanctioned push to promote translated literature to the masses...

In short, then, after close to a thousand words of idle speculation and guesswork, what it all boils down to is that in addition to having a wider range of books to choose from, owing to differences in rules, entry costs and titles published in the respective markets, the BTBA also has a slightly more high-brow approach to its task, meaning that for people like me, wanting to read the absolute best of what's being written in other languages, their longlist is more likely to throw up intriguing books.  Perhaps the relative lack of prescription on the part of the organisers (which, unless I'm wrong, is just Chad Post and his minions) allows for a much more interesting selection of books. 

Still, I could be wrong (it wouldn't be the first time...).  Please feel free to agree with my claims, contradict me, or force amendments to my post (preferably not through legal action though - I'm always open to change).  Thoughts, anyone?  Comments below, please ;)

IFFP 2014 Round Up - Reviews 5, 6 & 7

After looking at a couple of books by female writers in my first round-up post (and two works by a pair of men last time out), it's time to finish my series of Independent Foreign Fiction Prize round-up posts for the 2014 longlist.  As I mentioned a while back, I've already polished off seven of the fifteen selections - which leaves us today with three more to evaluate :)

*****
Brief Loves that Live Forever by Andreï Makine - MacLehose Press
(translated by Geoffrey Strachan)
What's it all about?
A stroll with an old acquaintance is the catalyst for a series of memories, in which a man looks back at pivotal moments from his life, brief hours of love snatched from the drabness of everyday life.  In a clever, moving book, Makine sets the demise of the Soviet Union against a story of the redeeming power of love and friendship.

Does it deserve to make the shortlist?
I'd love it if it did :)  It's a beautiful little book, one I had sitting around for ages before finally diving in.  A pleasure to read, Brief Loves that Live Forever will leave its mark on most readers, and while it hasn't really got the publicity it deserves thus far, a shortlisting would broaden its appeal.

Will it make the shortlist?
Definitely a good chance.  A nice, short work, with excellent writing, from a well-known writer and an experienced translator, this one has all the hallmarks of a top six book.

*****
The Sorrow of Angels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson - MacLehose Press
(translated by Philip Roughton)

What's it all about?
The boy, the mysterious central figure in Heaven and Hell, has found his place in the isolated village he has been drawn to.  However, his time of comfort is short lived as he is persuaded to go on a trek through the mountains to help deliver the post.  In the company of the burly Jens, the boy sets off into the ice and snow, trusting to the winds for a safe return from a treacherous journey...

Does it deserve to make the shortlist?
Oh, yes.  This was one of my books of the year for 2013, and it's my early frontrunner for the whole thing.  It's such a beautiful book, elegantly crafted, but with a dry, laconic sense of humour in parts too.  Icelandic literature is fast becoming one of my favourite guilty pleasures, and JKS is right up there with the best in contemporary world literature :)

Will it make the shortlist?
Strangely enough, I'm not sure.  Not everyone seems to share my love for this book (the fools), and several people believe it's simply too slow, with very little actually happening.  It only takes one or two jurors to share that opinion for them to decide to look elsewhere for books to fill the shortlist...

*****
The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim - Comma Press
(translated by Jonathan Wright)
What's it all about?
A collection of short stories, mostly set in post-war Iraq, The Iraqi Christ looks at the experiences of people in a war-torn country.  However, Blasim also ventures further afield in his tales of refugees, taking us as far as Scandinavia in one of his stories.  Don't expect brutal realism though - the writer's magical touch turns the stories into fables which often have a sense of the unreal about them...

Does it deserve to make the shortlist?
I don't think this one will make the cut.  I love Comma Press, and I enjoyed this collection, but this is a high-quality field, making it doubtful that Blasim's book will finish in the top six.  A good book, worthy of the longlist, but unlikely to make it further.

Will it make the shortlist?
Probably not.  As Tonkin famously remarked, publishing short stories in translation is 'double suicide', and this will be one step too far.  However, if the judges are looking for a geographical spread, they might be tempted to opt for a book from the Middle East...

*****
That's it then - all seven of my previous reads wrapped up and rated.  Now it's time to move on to the next part of the process, which means that I've got some reading to do.  Expect some more IFFP reviews very soon :)

IFFP 2014 Round Up - Reviews 3 & 4

Last time, I looked back at the first two of my previous Independent Foreign Fiction Prize reads for this year, and today we'll be looking at another pair of contenders.  In fact, the two books discussed today are novels which featured in most conversations prior to the longlist announcement.  The question is whether they can make it to the next stage...

*****
A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard - Harvill Secker
(translated by Don Bartlett)
What's it all about?
Well, him, obviously.

This is the second part of Knausgaard's strangely gripping six-part descent into self observation, this time focusing on the start of his relationship with his second wife, Linda.  Knausi analyses his life in such detail that the reader feels they are right there with him, whether he is taking the children to daycare, having a drink with a friend or, erm, going to the toilet.

I'm joking.  Possibly.

Does it deserve to make the shortlist?
I'm tempted to say yes to this one.  Despite all the comparisons, there isn't much Proustian about the Norwegian writer's work, but it is compelling, and this second instalment of his work is, in my eyes, a lot more consistent than A Death in the Family.  People seem to like Knausgaard's books despite themselves, so this latest set of descriptions of mundane activities could well be set to enliven(?) the shortlist.

Will it make the shortlist?
Probably.  Knausgaard's work just has that feel about it, as if it needs to be celebrated and showered with prizes and accolades, and I'm confident that he'll move a step further towards that this year.  However, I will raise one small potential obstacle.  For a thirty-something frustrated scribbler like yours truly, the writer's rants about the lot of the modern man ring very true.  I just wonder whether the women on the panel will be as sympathetic to Knausi's chauvinistic whinging...

*****
The Infatuations by Javier Marías - Hamish Hamilton
(translated by Margaret Jull Costa)

What's it all about? 
María has a nodding acquaintance with a couple in a café, and after the husband's death, she visits the grieving widow and meets a family friend.  A relationship soon develops; however, it's not one that's got the feel of happily ever after - especially when María starts to sense that the unfortunate death may not have been quite so unfortunate after all...

Does it deserve to make the shortlist?
I enjoyed The Infatuations immensely, but I'm not convinced that it'll end up in my top six.  It didn't quite match up to my first Marías (A Heart so White), and there was one part in particular where the story dragged a little too much.  Still, it's a wonderful story with beautiful, elegant writing, a credit to both Marías and Jull Costa.

I'm sitting on the fence a little here.

Will it make the shortlist?
Yes.  Top-class writer, top-class translator - just what the shortlist needs.  Cynical, moi?

*****
That's the second part of my wrap-up done and dusted then - stay tuned for the third of my reviews when I'll discuss the final three books of my magnificent seven :)

IFFP 2014 Round Up - Reviews 1 & 2

Well, we're off and running in the search for a champion of translated fiction, and I'm about to crack open my first new read of this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize longlist.  However, before I get on to those books I haven't yet tried, I'll be looking back at the ones I've already enjoyed - and this year that means seven of the fifteen chosen.  Sit back, and enjoy the show as I wander down memory lane, rating and slating a few books and musing as to their chances of moving on to the next stage of the competition.  As always click on the links for my full reviews of the longlisted titles.

Are you sitting comfortably?  Then let's begin...

*****
The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke - Peirene Press
(translated by Jamie Bulloch )
What's it all about?
A family sits around a seafood dinner, waiting for the pater familias to arrive home.  The later it becomes, the more they all get to talking about life under the shadow of a domestic dictator.  Once you've heard what's been going on at home, you'll agree that it's time for a coup - father has had things his own way for far too long...

Does it deserve to make the shortlist?
Quite possibly.  This is one I predicted for the shortlist right at the start of 2013, and though there are some great books on the longlist, The Mussel Feast can hold its own with any of them.  It's a biting, bitter tale of domestic psychological manipulation, written in a mesmerisingly gripping style.  One caveat - I read it in German, so you'll have to look elsewhere for views on Bulloch's translation :)

Will it make the shortlist?
I'm going to go with a yes here.  After three consecutive longlistings, Peirene have established themselves as consistent contenders, and I feel that this will be rewarded by the judges this year, with one of their strongest books so far making the shortlist.  One thing I will say though is that if Julia Franck's Back to Back is good, I do wonder if there's room for two German women on a carefully curated shortlist ;)

*****
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami - Portobello Books
(translated by Allison Markin Powell)
What's it all about?

A beautiful story of a May-to-December romance, Kawakami's novel appeared in the States as The Briefcase a while back before being repackaged for a UK audience last year.  A woman bumps into a former high school teacher in a bar and gradually falls for him, despite his eccentricities.  Imagine Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor, but better :)

Does it deserve to make the shortlist?
Probably not.  I liked this book a lot, and I'm glad it made the longlist, but I can't really see it barging its way into the top six (it's far too delicate for that).  I'm also of the opinion that the makeover job on both the title and the cover was hideous in the extreme, and that has cost it any chance it had of progressing.  Sorry, that's just the way it is.

Will it make the shortlist?
Nope.  There are too many good books up against it.  This is a book many will enjoy, but it's not one to stand out in the crowd, especially when there's another, more well-known, female Japanese writer in the mix...

*****
That's the first couple of mini-reviews done - come back soon to see some more longlisted titles under the Malone microscope ;)

IFFP 2014 - The Longlist

Well, the list has finally been announced (shame I was on holiday at the time...), and we have a new fifteen contenders vying to take out the crown for the best book released in translation in the UK in 2013.  Which, of course, will give it the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize - most confusing.  Anyway, here is the official list, complete with obvious choices, old friends, happy inclusions and the odd surprise...

*****
A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Don Bartlett (Harvill Secker) 
A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli, tr. Sam Taylor (Portobello Books)
Back to Back by Julia Franck, tr. Anthea Bell (Harvill Secker) 
Brief Loves that Live Forever by Andreï Makine, tr. Geoffrey Strachan (MacLehose Press)
Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir, tr. Brian FitzGibbon (Pushkin Press)
The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon, tr. Sinan Antoon (Yale University Press)
The Dark Road by Ma Jian, tr. Flora Drew (Chatto & Windus)
Exposure by Sayed Kashua, tr. Mitch Ginsberg (Chatto & Windus)
The Infatuations by Javier Marías, tr. Margaret Jull Costa (Hamish Hamilton)
The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim, tr. Jonathan Wright (Comma Press) 
The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke, tr. Jamie Bulloch (Peirene Press) 
Revenge by Yoko Ogawa, tr. Stephen Snyder (Harvill Secker)
The Sorrow of Angels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, tr. Philip Roughton (MacLehose Press) 
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami, tr. Allison Markin Powell (Portobello Books)
Ten by Andrej Longo, tr. Howard Curtis (Harvill Secker)

*****
Well, my initial reaction was fairly positive.  Of the eight I predicted last week, six made the list (and one of the other two wasn't actually eligible).  I've also read one more of the final longlist, meaning that I only have eight of the fifteen to go :)

While I'm looking forward to trying the rest of the books, the one real omission from my predictions stands out.  I really thought that Elena Ferrante was one writer who would definitely be appearing on the list, and judging by conversations I had with other bloggers and readers before the announcement, I wasn't alone in this.  The Story of a New Name is an excellent book, and I'd urge people to try it, even if it hasn't made it onto this list ;)

*****
So, onward and upward - time to start reading.  Next week, as was the case last year, I'll be posting mini-reminders of the books I've already read (with links to the full reviews) and deciding whether I think they're worthy of the shortlist - and, more importantly, what I think the real panel will decide.  Something to look forward to, then :)

'No One Writes Back' by Jang Eun-jin (Review)

After going back to the 1930s for my first dip into Dalkey Archive's Library of Korean Literature, a balancing look at modern Korea seemed like a good idea.  My second book from the series then was a contemporary novel exploring communication, or a lack of it, in everyday life - and this one was a big hit :)

*****
Jang Eun-jin's No One Writes Back (translated by Jung Yewon, review copy courtesy of the publisher) is the story of a young man who has been travelling aimlessly for the past three years, with only his dog, Wajo, for company.  Every day, he leaves the motel he's slept at, randomly chooses a direction and sees what the day will bring.  If it brings a conversation with a stranger (and if the stranger agrees to swap addresses), then they are added to the traveller's mental database, each being given a number.

Each night, before going to bed, our friend writes a letter about his day, either to his family or one of his collection of encounters; sadly, every time he calls a friend back home to find out if he's had any replies, the answer is always in the negative.  This long-running routine is interrupted one day though when a woman the traveller sees on an underground train decides to follow him - the woman he is to dub 751 thus becomes the first person to join him in his travels...

No One Writes Back is a wonderful little book, simple, subtle and very enjoyable.  The writer starts off by giving the reader very few details, showing us an anonymous man free of ties.  As the novel progresses, information is introduced gradually, making for a perfectly-paced story where the reader is never quite sure where the book is going (but is quite happy to be along for the ride).

The traveller sees himself as a collector of stories, writing down anecdotes about the people he meets every day, a task which has become an integral part of his travels:

"Words penned while traveling do not lie; they're not for showing off, but for making you reflect on, and take care of, yourself."
p.8 (Dalkey Archive Press, 2013)

His letters are merely the outward manifestation of his thoughts.  Each of the random, fleeting encounters is stored away in his impressive memory, waiting to be recalled when needed.

We slowly learn more about the young man and his situation (even learning his name eventually).  For some unknown reason, he is unable to put up with living at home, constant seizures under his own roof forcing him to keep moving on a seemingly never-ending trip around the country.  In his mind, he is waiting for something to end his travels, and he suspects that this might be a letter, a reply to one of the many he has sent during his journey.  However, as we well know, no one writes back...

This is where the woman comes in, an itinerant writer peddling her latest novel, Toothpaste and Soap.  Like the young man, she is travelling for a reason, in her case to gather ideas for a new book.  Curious (and a little nosy...), she desperately wants to know more about the traveller and becomes an interruption, welcome or unwelcome, in an otherwise smooth journey.  She is 751, but who is he?  She decides, using his own logic, that he must be 0, a very apt, and enigmatic, choice.

In No One Writes Back, numbers are extremely important (the book itself is divided into 152 short chapters).  The traveller is able to categorise people thanks to his amazing memory, allocating everyone a number and then writing to them when the time comes.  This focus on numbers comes partly from the young man's mother - as he recalls when thinking of childhood:

"But more than that, you believed that all the truth in the world could be found in math.  All creations are numbers.  That was your philosophy in life." (p.48)

Gradually, however, we move away from the rational, logical world of numbers and into the realm of feelings and words, and as we do, we see a very different side to the traveller.

Even more than numbers though, it's the letters which define the novel.  In a digital world, our hero is an analogue man, preferring to commit his experiences to paper:

"I write letters because I want to convey to someone the stories of these people, but also because I want to let someone know that a day had existed for me as well.  Letters, in other words, are like journal entries to me.  The only difference is that the day does not stay with me, but is sent to someone else.  Journals are monopolized, but letters are shared." (p.13)

He clings to the hope that one of his letters will garner a reply, and when his hopes are dashed time and time again, the reader feels just as crushed as he does.  There is a far greater significance to the letters though, one which only becomes apparent towards the end of the novel.

No One Writes Back is a wonderful story and expertly paced, with Jang drip-feeding new information at exactly the right point each time.  It's written in a very smooth, simple style, and the translation appears to be excellent, making for a fluent, enjoyable read.  There's more than a hint of the Murakamis about the book, particularly his early work.  The start of the novel, with the loner main character calling his friend every day, is especially reminiscent of The Trilogy of the Rat.  Jang has her own style though, and the way she develops the relationship with the woman is excellently done - and even Wajo, the dog, has his own story :)  Towards the end, things get a little manipulative, but the events of the book never seem contrived and make for a wonderful finish.

The idea of the Library of Korean Literature is a great one; it draws people's attention and gets people to try several books, trusting that the publishers have picked a good selection of works.  One flaw though is that a really good book can be buried under the idea of the series, and I hope that doesn't happen here.  No One Writes Back is a wonderful read, one which deserves a higher profile.  It's a book which most people would enjoy, finely balanced as it is between literary quality and readability.  I'm not sure if it's going to catch the eye of IFFP or BTBA judges (although Michael Orthofer did recently sing its praises), but it's definitely one for lovers of translated fiction to look out for :)

'The Good Life Elsewhere' by Vladimir Lorchenkov (Review)

Whether it's Asian boat people sent to Papua New Guinea by a heartless Australian government or phantom Romanians and Bulgarians invading the UK in search of benefit payments, hardly a day goes by without the issue of migrants, illegal or otherwise, causing a stir in the news.  However, it appears that none of these destinations are good enough for the people of Moldova - according to writer Vladimir Lorchenkov, they dream of settling in another country entirely...

*****
The Good Life Elsewhere (translated by Ross Ufberg, review copy courtesy of New Vessel Press) is a novel about the trials and tribulations of the inhabitants of the small Moldovan village of Larga, most of whom want nothing more than to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.  As the story begins, Serafim Botezato, along with forty-five of his countrymen, believes that he has finally made it to the semi-mythical country of his dreams, Italy.  Sadly, on approaching the first 'Italian' they encounter, he realises that the people smugglers have dropped them off a lot closer to home than expected...

Still, one failed illegal migration isn't about to stop our intrepid band of would-be refugees.  Serafim and the rest of the villagers start thinking of ways to leave their worthless, debt-ridden lives, and the ideas they come up with are astounding.  What do you get if you take an old tractor, a stone and a brush, and a fake antique sword?  Three amazing ways to leave Moldova behind, once and for all ;)

The Good Life Elsewhere is a fun, crazy novel which is a joy to read.  It's a book which, in its portrayal of a country in decline (and on the move), swings between side-splitting humour, poignant pathos and macabre violence.  A sample?

"Mingir, a village in the Hincesti region, was famous throughout Moldova for its residents who habitually trafficked in kidneys."
p.53 (New Vessel Press, 2014)

Now that's a sentence worthy of starting any anecdote...  And it's not just the people of Mingir that want out; the list of would-be emigrants stretches across geographical and socio-economic boundaries.  Even the President, dreaming of life as an assistant pizza cook, wants to leave Moldova behind for good.

The destination of choice is Italy, the promised land of wine, pasta and low-paid cleaning jobs, and Serafim, who has dreamt of Italy for decades, is one of the most determined of the villagers.  In preparation for his trip, he has even learnt Italian from a book, although (unfortunately) his language skills are not all they might be.  Still, the problem of actually getting to the promised land remains, and it is in the inventive methods of circumventing the border guards that Lorchenkov excels.

There are three main strands to the book, interspersed with various tales of gallows humour from elsewhere in Moldova.  In the first, Serafim and his friend Vasily Lungu try to escape using Lungu's tractor.  It may not seem like the most useful of escape vehicles, but the two friends are rather inventive when it comes to making the most of their materials.  Meanwhile, the local priest, seeking to catch up with the wife who abandoned him, decides to invade Italy, taking hundreds of thousands of Moldovans with him.  A holy crusade with Italy as its destination?  Why not?

Perhaps the funniest attempt though is the decision of a local to try to play his way to Italy, deciding that emigration through excellence in sport is the best option:

"Our goal?" asked Nikita Tkach.  "What is it brothers?"
  "Italy!" answered the villagers, in unison.
  "Yes, but first our goal is to master the game of curling," explained Nikita.  "This will lead us to Italy.  Our goal is to get the disk-like object with the handle across the ice into the finely drawn target!  And so - what's our goal?"
  "Our goal is to get the disk-like object with the handle across the ice into the finely drawn target!"
  "Amen!" bellowed Nikita (p.30)

Even this laudable ambition doesn't quite go without a hitch, however.  You see, you really need to be careful when learning the noble art of curling - those stones can be quite heavy...

The novel contains elements of magical realism, stretching the fabric of credibility, but there's a stark truth behind the slapstick humour.  Moldova is a poor country where the people are desperate to escape their hopeless lives and make a new start in the west.  In fact, 'Italy' (which several people claim doesn't really exist) is merely a state of happiness, not a place, and what the Moldovans are looking for may be something which is unattainable on earth.  Still, if only the people could start looking for it in their own backyards, they might just be that little bit happier.

Sadly, those heretics who dispute the glory of the heavenly Italian realm are not suffered gladly.  The Good Life Elsewhere contains several brutal stories, with some of the villagers burnt at the stake, or dismembered, simply for making other people uncomfortable.  There's just no future in denying the claim that Italy is the paradise Moldovans are waiting for, a disturbing take on the importance of having a dream.

In short, Lorchenkov's novel is a great read.  It has a very smooth, readable translation, and the book is very funny and bitingly satirical at times.  The writer has come up with an excellent look at life behind the former iron curtain, One Hundred Years of Solitude with more wine and tractors, but beneath the winter sports and holy crusades there is a serious lesson to be learnt.  The good life may seem to be elsewhere at times; however, we're more likely to find it if we start by looking a little closer to home...

'Ekaterini' by Marija Knežević (Review)

It's time for another offering from a small publisher dealing with literature in translation, and today's book comes courtesy of Istros Books.  While based in the UK, their heart is very much in the Balkans, with today's review looking at a very typical choice.  It's a tale of two countries - and one woman...

*****
Marija Knežević's Ekaterini (translated by Will Firth, e-copy courtesy of the publisher) is the story of a life both ordinary and extraordinary.  While the tale is told by a young narrator, the undisputed star is her grandmother, Ekaterini.  Born in Greece, but spending most of her adult life in Yugoslavia (then Serbia), she is a woman caught between two related, but different, worlds.

The story is structured so that we follow her life and the events of much of the twentieth century.  Starting in Greece with Ekaterini's parents' courtship, the novel gradually introduces both sides of the narrator's family, merging the Greek and Serbian strands until we finish up with the birth (and life) of the grand-daughter.  Despite this, we're never in any doubt that it's really Ekaterini's story.

Ekaterini is a personal tale set against the history of twentieth-century Yugoslavia, from the second world war to the Balkan conflicts.  By observing the Greek woman's struggles to keep her head above water, the reader bears witness to the hardships of wartime, the greyness of the Communist era and the dangers of dealing with the secret police.  As a skilled seamstress, our heroine has access to some powerful people (or their wives, anyway) - at one point, even Tito crosses the stage ;)

As much as the book is about history though, it's also about nostalgia and the difficulties of leaving your home behind.  Ekaterini's marriage takes her away from Greece, and she struggles to adjust to life away from home - and, of course, the problems of a new language:

"That's why she so readily became melancholic whenever she heard Greek songs, even if she didn't understand all the words, or when she listened in on Greek students in the bus - not because their relationship problems interested her but because of the words; she longed to hear those words and their sound, their melody, as she used to say.  Language is pure longing.  Our first and final love, although we only discover it through its lack."
(Istros Books, 2013)

The longer she stays in Serbia, the more serious her confusion becomes.  Having forgotten a lot of Greek, and never having mastered Serbian, she becomes trapped in a linguistic limbo, belonging neither here nor there...

It's not just the language she misses though - there's also the small matter of food, films and songs (Ekaterini can get very emotional about Greek music).  Even smells can evoke the memories of her home country:

"She taught Lucija and Ljubica not to throw away the peels but to lay them on the top plate of the stove.  The walls greedily imbibed the aroma.  The beauty of the south lies also in the unforgettable.  Once scented with the orange and yellow peel, the house remembered that smell forever."

The citrus fruit she brings back from her holidays helps maintain a small feeling of Greece in her small corner of Serbia...

Don't be fooled into thinking that Ekaterini is a depressing book though.  The old woman eventually manages to straddle the divide between the two countries, and by the end of the book, we have a woman who radiates calm, enjoying her split personality.  It's an attitude she passes on to her grand-daughter, who also manages to accept life as it is (in a way Ekaterini's daughter can't).  The contrast with the insular American friend who comes to visit Greece at the end of the novel is certainly a striking one.

Ekaterini consists of short scenes, brief snapshots which the reader glimpses before moving on.  In its style of skipping over sadness, it's reminiscent of another short European book I've read recently, Chasing the Queen of Hearts.  In both books, the tragedy of war(s) is evident but glossed over, and the stories of hardship are crisp and factual, told with little wailing.  Like its Polish counterpart, Ekaterini is also a novel where the women are very much in the spotlight - the men here mostly play supporting roles:

"We had protected that moment in its glory, uniqueness and eternal memory from the invasion of pathos which swooped down on our nomadic lives in various formations, sometimes even with the best intentions.  That bond remained and was ours alone..."

This special bond between Ekaterini and her grand-daughter is perhaps what the writer wants to leave us with at the end of her story.
 
It's a simple story, touching at times, but while I enjoyed it, I did have some reservations.  It's a touch too simple in places, and with little plot, I found myself wishing for a more complex style of writing which simply wasn't there.  The prose was very plain, and sandwiched between George Eliot's Romola and Andrés Neuman's new book Talking to Ourselves (the books I read immediately before and after this one), Ekaterini didn't really come off that well.  It's a book which will provide an enjoyable couple of hours - I'm just not sure that it will linger in the memory for that long.

It is a pleasant read though, one which becomes more interesting as it progresses, and as an ex-pat myself, I identify with Ekaterini and her grand-daughter in their efforts to cope with life between two cultures (well, except for the heavy smoking...).  It's hard to balance life between old and new homes, and (from personal experience) I know that it's a struggle which will never go away.  As they say, there's no place like home - unless, of course, you have two...

February 2014 Wrap-Up

February was a fairly quiet month, with a few review copies and even some rereading helping me to relax before things get busy again.  Yep, it was the calm before the oncoming storm...

*****
Total Books Read: 10
Year-to-Date: 17

New: 6

Rereads: 4

From the Shelves: 4
Review Copies: 6

From the Library: 0

On the Kindle: 1 (review copy)

Novels: 8

Novellas: 1
Non-Fiction: 1

Non-English Language: 9 (2 Spanish, Japanese, French, German, Korean, Serbian, Russian, Italian)

In Original Language: 2 (German, French) 

Aussie Author Challenge: 0 (0/3)

*****
Books reviewed in February were:

1) The Happy City by Elvira Navarro
2) Anatomie einer Nacht (Anatomy of a Night) by Anna Kim
3) The Soil by Yi Kwang-su
4) A Treatise on Shelling Beans by Wiesław Myśliwski
5) Calling All Heroes by Paco Ignacio Taibo II
6) Talking to Ourselves by Andrés Neuman
7) Bound in Venice by Alessandro Marzo Magno
8) Romola by George Eliot

Tony's Turkey for February is: Nothing

The Happy City wasn't my kind of book, but it wasn't poor enough to take its place in the pantry - no turkeys this month :)

Tony's Recommendation for February is:

Anna Kim's Anatomy of a Night

To be honest, I was tempted to cheat and name three or four books this month, with none of the main contenders really running away with the prize.  Commiserations then to Neuman, Myśliwski and George Eliot - the Austrian/Korean writer Anna Kim takes the honours in a photo finish ;)

*****
So, we look ahead to March, which (as you should all know by now) means one thing - it's IFFP time!  I've already kicked things off with my post suggesting a few contenders for the longlist, and the real thing will appear on the 8th.  Then it'll be time to get down to some serious reading - and blogging, of course ;)