Around the World in 100 Books

Please read: Moving to a new address

2007-05-27T10:47:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone,

I'm moving to a new address. You will be able to find my blog at

http://booktraveller.wordpress.com/

so please update your bookmarks/site links. The new site is better organised and I love it because I made it purple! It takes so little...Anyway, this is my last post here but I will continue my literary explorations at my new address.

See you over there!

The Traveller

8 Random Things

2007-05-24T17:44:00.000+01:00

I've been tagged by this meme by Bibli0addict.

The rules -1: Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2: People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3: At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
4: Don't forget to leave them a comment and tell them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

Here are my 8 random facts: (you can just read the first sentence - it is a summary)

1. I have an incredible innate ability to get very lost absolutely anywhere. My mother always marvels that not only do I have no sense of direction, but that I seem to have the opposite of a sense of direction. Case in point: I was staying in Shanghai with two friends. There was an underground stop two minutes walk from our hotel and all three of us walked there every day to use the trains and got off there again each evening to return to the hotel. As soon as I was left to my own devices however, I managed to exit the underground station through a tunnel that led me into an underground shopping city I never knew existed and eventually popped up 15 minutes walk away from my hotel. Then there was the time my travelling companion and I lost each other on while on the same platform and took over 20 minutes to find each other again…

2. I am fascinated by what I call ‘old lady magazines’. Not the ones with knitting patterns and five uses for an empty washing-up liquid bottle in, but the ones with the gruesome real life stories in – My Jealous Lover Cut Off My Nose, My Husband Wears My Underwear or My Sister Married My Son. I don’t know about other cultures, but we seem to have a proliferation of this type of magazine in the UK. Maybe it replaces Jerry Springer or something. Anyway I can’t help it, I love them!

3. I am a sucker for movies that make me cry. My favourite movies include The Land Before Time (I watched my copy so many times the video got all stretched and wouldn’t play anymore), The Notebook, The Neverending Story and Legend of The Falls. The Notebook especially has me howling every time I see it, and I’ve seen it several times. I even cry in anticipation of what I know is coming!

4. When I was a child my greatest ambition was to be a majorette. In case you don’t know, that is one of those little girls who march with a band and throw their little twirling sticks up in the air and do lots of flashy manoevers while marching along in little skirts and white socks. Every time I saw the majorettes at local carnivals and heard the drums, my heart would pound and I would long to be out there twirling a baton. For some reason, my mother hated the majorettes and never let me join.

5. I thoroughly believe in ghosts and an afterlife and desperately wish I was psychic (or at least had the ability to astral travel). I don’t know why – I’ve never seen a ghost – but I cannot accept that a person ends when they die. Something more has to happen.

6. I can sleep absolutely anywhere and can also fall asleep incredibly fast. Has to be witnessed to be believed. I can go from upright and functional to flat out and snoring in under 60 seconds.

7. I teach Chinese to Chinese kids but I’m white British. I studied Chinese at University and wanted a way to keep up my language skills after I left and teaching sounded great. I will never forget the look on those kids faces when I walked in on the first day and started talking Chinese to their Chinese teacher.

8. I am addicted to vanilla perfume and a cocktail called a Grasshopper. Grasshoppers are mint liquor, chocolate liquor and milk. They are, admittedly, a slightly suspicious shade of green and a few of my friends claim they taste like mouthwash but I love them and drink them anywhere I go. It is something of a standing joke among my friends now as a lot of bars have to make them up specially for me after I’ve explained what is in them. I'll still be sitting in coktail bars with a glass of green minty stuff in front of me in 60 years time.

I'm a bit late with this one, so I'm not tagging anyone specifically. If you read this and have not done it, consider yourself tagged!

Books from another continent

2007-05-23T23:22:00.000+01:00

I just finished two Asian novels – one from Japan and one from Vietnam. I can’t recall who recommended Shipwrecks, but I reserved it from the library the day I read the recommendation and I was not disappointed. Shipwrecks (by Akira Yoshimura) is absolutely spellbinding. Somewhere on the Japanese coast, a small village of fishing families try to eke out a living from the sea. The village is virtually untouched by modern civilisation and society is deeply rooted in traditional practices. The lives of the villagers revolve solely around food and meals are dictated by the seasons; jellyfish in the spring, fish in the summer, whatever they have managed to store in the winter. Each winter, the village lights fires on the beach to attract O-fune-sama, the merchant ships that carry cargo, onto the rocks where they founder. The villagers murder surviving crew members and take whatever the ship is carrying and either use it to live on or sell it to buy food. If no O-fune-sama come for a few years, family members are sold into bondage for periods of up to ten years so their families can survive. The book focuses on 14 year old Isaku who is the man of his household following his father’s departure on a three year bondage contract. In his father’s absence, Isaku, his family and the entire village are changed by the devastating consequences of a wrecked ship. Besides being a refreshing change from the usual setting of civilisation and material concerns, this novel was free from stereotypical characters and clichéd expressions. As far as I can remember, this is the first non-happy ending I have savoured in a while; the whole things was so simple, so subtle, so poignant.

I followed up Shipwrecks with another novel ending in ruined lives. The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh is a novel about a soldier’s participation in the Vietnamese-American war and the profound effect it had on everything in his life that followed. I don’t usually like what I call ‘gritty realism’, preferring novels that end optimistically with promise for future happiness, but these two have caused me to rethink. Prior to reading The Sorrow of War, I never really thought much about war; I associate it with history, and history for me has strong connotations of boredom (and my history teacher who never shaved her legs). War is one of those things you can’t comprehend properly unless you have directly experienced it or been affected by it somehow. This novel succeeds in bringing home what war can do to a person and contains some horrifying accounts I assume are drawn from the author’s own experiences. Definitely difficult to read but compelling at the same time. I would never have picked it up if I hadn’t seen it and realised I hadn’t read anything from Vietnam yet – once again I am left wondering at the things I manage to read. What would I be reading if I wasn’t looking for books from a range of countries and cultures? The best thing about these two is that they fulfil something I had hoped to get out of reading literature from around the world – new cultures, new perspectives on life and what it means, a different outlook on the world. Like all exceptional books they made me question how I live, how I think, what I prioritise.

2007-05-20T22:42:00.000+01:00

I cannot imagine what possessed me, when I was still a student, to think that what I told myself was full time study would be anything like full time work. From my new vantage point, I can see that I was even lazier than I admitted to myself previously (and I was quite frank with myself over the actual amount of work I did as opposed to the amount I should have been doing). In comparison to students on other courses perhaps, I did work hard, but in relation to those on my own course I certainly did not. I've always done the absolute minimum work possible to acheive the grades I wanted to acheive and have ended up cutting it pretty close at times. I don't think I especially regret not working harder at university, but I do sometimes wish a couple of my marks had been higher! Then again, I did pass a paper that I had neglected to attend any classes for, ever.

This has turned into a slightly nostalgic recollection of lazy Sundays and miscellaneous afternoons devoted to reading for pleasure when I should really have been writing essays in any one of three languages, which it was not supposed to be. I had intended to briefly complain about how little time I have at the moment, but while I get annoyed at my lack of reading time I know I had better get used to it. It isn't likely to improve much in the near future.

I haven't blogged for about a fortnight (where did the time go?) but I have at least managed to get some reading done in that time; Shipwrecks by Akira Yoshimura (Japan) and The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh (Vietnam) and am close to completing The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa (Angola). I've discovered a new website, Poetry International Web and been impressed by David Cameron's plans to create more interest in reading for leisure among boys in their early teens. It distresses me to think it, but he got one over on Labout there. I've also been 'detoxing' which in my case really just means eating more fresh fruit and veg and scoffing less chocolate and nutty popcorn. I now have a new-found mania for noodles in spiced coconut milk - sounds dubious I know, but I am addicted. And it is good for me!

I promise I'll post more reading-relevant things later in the week; I'm looking forward to doing the 8 random things meme among other things, and I found some new poems (new to me) I'm going to post because I love them so much.

Culture Clash

2007-04-30T21:58:00.000+01:00

The two books I read over the weekend both deal with clashing cultures - basically, racism (and England is the bad guy in both cases). Nehanda by Yvonne Vera (Zimbabwe) is about the white invasion of Africa, and The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon (Trinidad) is the story ofWest Indian immigrants in the 1950s. I hadn't intended on reading these two together, by good chance they just happened to come off my library pile that way.

While searching for an image of the novel Nehanda, I accidentally discovered Nehanda herself was a real woman and is still revered as the most important person in Zimbabwe's history. During her lifetime (c1840-1898) she was a spirit medium of the Shona people. As one of the spiritual leaders of the Shona, she provided inspiration for their revolt against the Rhodesian colonization of Zimbabwe. The British spent some time hunting her down and when they eventually captured her they executed her as a warning to all those who refused to accept and embrace the supposedly superior English culture and religion.

Sam Selvon's novel is also a history of experience and Selvon himself was also a leader of a kind. Before he died, he was already being hailed as the 'father of black writing in Britain'. Although Selvon's situation is the inverse of Nehanda's - he chose to come and make a life in Britain - he didn't have an easy time in London. Londoners were racist and expected the West Indians to behave as though they were British while still assuming an inferior status. There was no mass persecution or executions, but it is still not exactly a comfortable read. Selvon's writing is incredibly atmospheric; he is one of those authors who can put you inside a character's head so that you absorb their feelings or personality traits while you are reading and it only occurs to you to think objectively about what just happened when you put the book down for a break and realise your feelings are something quite different to the main character's.

The themes of these two novels are themes that will never get tired and will never be resolved. Culture and society are like religion; almost everyone thinks theirs is best.

New Notions

2007-04-26T19:00:00.000+01:00

There's a great new challenge up at Grasping For The Wind. It's called New Notions 5 Reading Challenge, and the requirements for books (you only have to read one a month) is that they have to challenge your thinking on any given topic. That's the kind of challenge I love!

I haven't had much time to think about what I might pick, but Wikipedia does have a list of controversial books and there is a long list of banned books here, and a list of the most harmful books here.

Some of the issues I'd be interested in reading around would include:

- Climate change theory; I'm in the camp that does not believe global warming is due to carbon emissions, but I'm always interested in reading about different theories)

- White supremacy; I've been fascinated by the supposed allure of blonde hair and the status accorded those who have blonde hair for a long time and want to look at the darker side of the Aryan ideal and its supporters

- Conservative politics; I'm pretty left wing and want to know how these people think!

- Che Guevara; I loved the film The Motorcycle Diaries, but I get the feeling it isn't a very objective interpretation of Guevara's life

- Cloning; I am very against cloning in theory, but perhaps if I knew more about how it can change people's lives and how it actually works, I might change my mind

I can't wait to start finding books that will count toward this challenge, and I also can't wait to see the selections other participants make. Half the point of reading books is to increase knowledge and stretch the mind, but that sometimes gets neglected.

Speedy Reading

2007-04-25T22:00:00.000+01:00

I'm powering through my library stack - two more books down! After a reader commented that I had to read Pedro Páramo because 'providence, not the librarian, had placed it on top of my pile', it had to be next on my list.

Juan Rulfo wrote Pedro Páramo when he was into his fifties and it was hailed as an instant masterpiece. It was his first and only novel. Garcia Márquez claimed that this novel along with Kafka's Metamorphosis (also on my reading list - thanks for the recommendation nyssaneala!) was the most influential work in his early reading, and could recite whole passages of it from memory. The novel follows a man who returns to his mother's birthplace to find his father, in accordance with his mother's dying wish. He finds a ghost town; the whole place appears abandoned, but wandering among the deseted buildings he encounters some former residents. The ghosts carry him back in time through their memories and help him gradually reveal the truth about his father and how the ghost town died. Rulfo said of the way the novel is written: "There is a structure in Pedro Páramo, but it is a structure made of silences, of hanging threads, of cut scenes, where everything occurs in a simultaneous time which is a no time." The translation I read was beautiful; I couldn't put the book down. It reminded me in some ways of The Obscene Bird of Night which was my read for Chile; many of the same themes, although Pedro Páramo is far shorter and more accessible.

From a Mexican ghost town, I travelled to Kenya and read my first play of the journey! Mugasha is a play derived from an oral legend of the East African region and narrates the birth of one of the most revered deities in that area. Mugasha is a miracle birth to the barren wife of the former king and once born, returns to reclaim his father's kingdom from the usurpers. He commands the weather, the lakes and the animals, all of whom help him in hs mission. He also takes the opportunity to teach a stuck up princess a good lesson about snobbishness and the duties of a ruler along the way, like all good leaders should. The only complaint I have is that none of the references to aspects of African culture were explained in the volume, especially when the original African words were used. Although this is an old story and I don't wish to grossly generalise African culture, I did feel some of my impressions garnered from earlier reading were reinforced; the importance of rituals surrounding births and deaths, the relative status and roles of men and women, the strict ethical codes governing life.

Finally, on the way home today (as it was payday!) I stopped at virtually every book shop I came across and ended up with a vintage secondhand edition of A Concise History of Romanian Literature and also To Bury Our Fathers, a Nicaraguan novel. The only book I bought new - very proud of the restraint I exercised - was a memoir by a Vietnamese man whose job during the war was dragging Vietnamese bodies from the jungle. The memoir is called The Sorrow of War - it sounds like an interesting if harrowing read.

Weekend Reading

2007-04-22T21:44:00.000+01:00

Following my trip to the library, from whence I hauled home 11 new books, this weekend has proved to be a veritable reading retreat. I finished off one book I had already started and devoured a further two.

First up was The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble. I read this one for a number of reasons, but it isn't something I would usually have picked up. Way back in January, when I signed up for the Winter Classics Challenge, one of the books I wanted to read was The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong, the diaries of an eighteenth century Korean princess. I never got around to reading it for a number of reasons, but it was suggested to me that I might enjoy Drabble's fiction novel, inspired by the same diaries. I did not. In short, I found the novel full of trite, irritating asides, and it never really went anywhere. I can see that the idea behind the novel was interesting, but Drabble's realisation of that idea left a lot to be desired.

Thirteen Cents, by South African author K. Sello Duiker was a far more engaging read. Drawn from the author's own experiences, the novel is a brief snapshot of a few months in the life of a street orphan in Cape Town. Having lost both parents, 13 year old Azure with his blue eyes and black skin is left to survive alone. He sleeps on the beach and makes his living by prostituting himself to men.

"A boy? I'm not a boy. I've seen a woman being raped by policemen at night near the station. I've seen w hite man let a [11 year old] boy get into his car. I've seen a couple drive over a street child and they still kept going. I've seen a woman give birth at the beach and throw it into the sea."

Not exactly enjoyable, but certainly gripping. Although this is a gritty read, the narrator's strong tone and refusal to be a victim holds it up. I thoroughly recommend this for an eye opening read - think City of Men (I've only seen the film, but I remember being horrified - very naively). I couldn't have got further from magical realism if I'd tried!

Finally, yesterday's read was The Fatal Eggs by Bulgakov. Who could resist a book with such a tempting title? It actually turned out to be a sci-fi dystopian vision of possible future scientific discoveries. A (somewhat) mad scientist in Russia discovers something in a strand of DNA that causes all organisms exposed to it to grow to gigantic proportions extremely quickly. Before he has had time to experiement with anything more significant than amoebas, Russia is struck by some form of poultry flu which wipes out their entire chicken population. The state initiates a project to use the new technology to grow more chickens in a short period of time, but everything goes wrong when instead of chicken eggs, they are sent the eggs of another type of animal. The consequences are disastrous. Not the type of thing I usually read, but I enjoyed it.

New Books/Countries!

2007-04-19T20:37:00.000+01:00

Following yesterday's panic-inducing realisation, I took a trip to my local library to see what I could see and have returned joyously with 11 books from 11 new countries! All relatively short at around 200 pages and hopefully quick to read. I'd forgotten how much I relish browsing the shelves of the library and searching for new books - the satisfaction of coming away with a new stash is almost unbeatable. Inevitably there is also the regret of passing over several books I would have liked to pick up and bring home - I think the library must have gone on a Persephone spree, because there seemed to be an inordinate number of those elegant grey spines adorning the shelves. Also - and it is funny how these things seem to come in groups - I kept coming across books from Nigeria and Iran/Persia. I've never managed to find anything from Iran/Persia before and I discovered three books from there today (bear in mind that my local library is very small and has large collections of Danielle Steel, Jackie Collins et al). I wanted to read all three, but have come away with Layla and Majnun by Nizami, which claims to be the classic love story of Persian literature. I must confess that despite stating yesterday that I would not read Pedro Paramo which I had reserved at the library, I might have to. The woman at the checking out desk just put it on my pile, how could I say I no longer wanted it after they'd sent it down from another library? And it is so little, I'm sure it wouldn't take too long to read. Excuses, excuses!

Thanks to everyone who made suggestions for new books I could read - I'm grateful for the help, and have a new list of books to look out. I can't wait! (Suggestions are always welcome, so if anyone has anything they'd like to add, please feel free.)

Anyone have a time machine going spare?

2007-04-19T07:38:00.000+01:00

I've just checked my first post and discovered I wrote it on July 20th 2006. Horror of all horrors! I wanted to read 100 books from 100 different countries in a year...which means I now have 3 months to read around 75 books. But all is not lost - today is April 19th, so I have 62 days left to complete my challenge which means all I have to do is read 1.2 books a day and I'll make it! All I have to do now is build my time machine and I'll be well away.

Now onto the serious stuff - how, HOW, have I only read 25 books from 25 countries so far? I know I doubled up on some of the countries, and I also know that some books were so monstrously large and took so long to read that I fell behind. I suspect the real reason is all those books I don't tell you about on here, or the ones that I do write about on here but don't count towards my reading challenge. Last week for example, I was so enchanted with Little Boy Lost, I ran straight out and got another Persephone book - Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day - from the library and devoured that. I will concede it was enjoyable, not as much so as I had hoped, but if I want to meet my own challenge, I may have been better off reading something else. Over Christmas I read several Chinese books I didn't mention on here, and now I come to think of it, reading books that do not count towards my challenge has been something of a theme lately. Oops.

So - dear, dear readers - I need your help. You can find a list of the countries I have read books from here. I would love your suggestions for any short books you know from any countries I have not yet visited (if I can read them in one day so much the better). I'm going to stop reading books that will not count towards my challenge. Although...Pedro Paramo is waiting for me in the library and I really really want to read it - but I already read Carlos Fuentes who can count towards Mexico, and I also have Octavio Paz on my shelf who is Mexican. I must be strong! I will send it back unread. I will read it after July 20th!

Anyway, all suggestions welcome. Even if you don't know any books that I can read quickly from other countries, send me good luck wishes! I'm going to need them...

Magical Realism

2007-04-17T22:33:00.000+01:00

I think I’ve discovered why I love Magical Realism so much.

Magical realism as a term describing a genre of literature was initially coined by a Venezuelan critic in the 1960s and was used to apply to a specific type of Latin American literature. The expression gained currency after Nobel Prize winner Miguel Angel Asturias used the it to describe the style of his novels and it has since been widely applied among Latin American novelists – Gabriel Gárcia Márquez, Isabel Allende, Jorge Luis Borges, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa and many more. (It isn’t limited to Latin American authors however; the works of Salman Rushdie and Ben Okri among others have also been labelled magical realism.)

One article I found online here claims that magical realism is “a literary mode rather than a distinguishable genre” and “aims to seize the paradox of the union of opposites”. In the works of Allende, this is often manifested in her juxtaposition of the supernatural alongside the earthly, or in Gárcia Márquez simply by incorporating elements of the fantastic, almost surreal, into plausible stories grounded in reality. In Latin America in the 1940s, “magical realism was a way to express the realistic American mentality and create an autonomous style of literature” and I believe this statement still holds true today. One of my favourite aspects of literature is how it can be used to effect social change or to embody a collective cultural passion or goal and I suppose I’m drawn to works of magical realism partly because the works of Latin American authors in particular are very distinctive and disparate from most other genres or movements in literature I’ve encountered and partly because I believe in magic and spirits and relish the fact that in much magical realism these aspects of life are brought to the fore and accepted as part of the natural order of things. I’d far rather magical realism than gritty realism!

Besides these aspects there is another factor which keeps me returning to magical realism, and I only identified it recently while reading one of the earliest works of magical realism to emerge from Latin America – The Obscene Bird of Night by Chilean author José Donoso. It is certainly the most challenging novel I’ve read in the last six months and maybe longer than that. I’m still not quite sure what is real in the story and what is not, or even who is real and who is not. I am sure that everyone in the novel is insane to varying degrees. The key story is that a son of one of the oldest aristocratic families in the country is born a hideously deformed monster. In shame, his father hides him from the world, but out of love and pity for his child, but also reflecting his aristocratic heritage and outlook, sets the monster up in a fantasy world populated by freaks gathered from around the continent. The world is entirely enclosed and self sufficient, and the aristocratic monster is bought up as king and groomed to believe he is the epitome of physical perfection. A normal human being seems unbelievably deformed and ugly to him. One day he manages to escape his fantasy world and spends some days in the outside world where his notions of reality and social order are destroyed as he is taunted and called a freak in a world that seems to him to be populated with freaks. In his misery he returns to his fake kingdom and plots to destroy his father and erase his memories of his new knowledge through a lobotomy. This whole story is narrated by Humberto, his father’s servant who inhabits the world of freaks and reports back to the monster’s father. Humberto appears to be severely delusional whether on purpose or not, and narrates several different realities at once changing names and places and events until nothing is certain.

There is much more to the novel and several more storylines, but I couldn’t relate them properly even if I wanted to. The main point I’m trying to get to is that this book was so much more extreme than anything else I have read in the magical realist mode that it prompted me to consciously and consistently analyse everything I read and led me to examine my own position as a reader. I had to make choices on how to read the book; Humberto’s stream-of-consciousness narrative pulled me into the story and made me question everything from what and who was real, what was symbolism, the nature of truth and reality, whether as reader I should judge Humberto or any of the other characters, whether the techniques the author was using were effective and how I was being provoked into thinking one thing by the narrator but after the next comma being told something different. The novel made me look at myself and my beliefs and how I see the world and threw it back at me to be questioned again. I felt like I was finally finding my feet as a reader and gaining some kind of understanding of what it means to read with awareness.

Persephone Books

2007-04-15T17:31:00.000+01:00

Almost a month since I last posted (properly)! Time flies – I don’t think I’ve even managed to read very much over the last few weeks.

That’s a lie, really. I know I’ve been reading, just not things that are strictly to do with world literature. My favourite part of this last month’s reading has been the discovery of Persephone Books. I know quite a few bloggers have discovered them recently, or known and loved them for a while, and I’m going to add my voice to those of the devoted. The company itself has a touch of the magical about it, and even the way in which I read my first book is special! I first heard about Persephone Books a couple of years ago when reading India Knight’s book The Shops (great fun to read, I recommend that one too). My lasting impression is, I think, how she raved about the elegance of their grey covers with their vintage prints inside the covers. Just the descriptions of the way these books would look on a bookshelf made me covet one, never mind about the contents. I forget why, but I never actually bought one. Then, a couple of weeks ago, a parcel landed on my doormat, and on opening it I discovered – much to my great delight – a Persephone book with a note from a friend saying Happy early/late Birthday, she’d seen the Persephone shop and thought of me! I was incredibly touched and impressed by her excellent taste and devoured the book in less than 24 hours. It is called Little Boy Lost and is by Marghanita Laski. I can honestly say it was the best read I’ve had in a while for pure entertainment value. During WWII, a man was separated from his wife and baby boy. His wife was subsequently murdered by the Nazis and his child lost. After the war had finished, he returned from America to search for his son in Europe but can find nothing concrete. With the help of a friend, he identifies one child in an orphanage that might be his son, but when he visits the boy he sees no physical resemblance and the child can remember nothing of his early life. In the days that follow, the man becomes acquainted with the boy and it seems increasingly likely that this boy is in fact not his son. Ultimately the man has to make a choice – should he leave and get on with his life and accept that his son was lost and probably killed, or should he take the child from the orphanage and try to give him a better life? Does it matter that the child is not his son? Where does his duty lie? Laski evokes a complex emotional moral dilemma so well I couldn’t put the book down and was practically crying in the hairdressers by the time I finished the last page. The last sentence was utterly perfect and I’ll always remember the story. I know some of you out there are looking to buy some more Persephone books, and I really can’t recommend this one enough.

Aisha, huge thanks again for sending me this one – I love it and you!

Here's the Persephone catalogue entry for Little Boy Lost.

2007-04-08T23:27:00.000+01:00

Oops...I wasn't back on Sunday at all! Not the Sunday I originally meant, anyway. This post is actually to say that I'm away all this week, and I won't have computer access to blog. Or time, I expect. I'll have to make a renewed effort when I return to make time for blogging. Wish me luck!

Back on Sunday!

2007-03-28T21:49:00.000+01:00

I've been away (again) for almost two weeks - there was an issue with my laptop so the computer place has had it for ages, but I can pick it up on Friday! It isn't mortally injured or anything - the dog leapt on it and ripped off a load of keys with her claws, leaving several gaping holes in the keyboard. I knew there was a reason I never usually let her into my room...

The Moral Superiority of the Novel by Susan Sontag

2007-03-17T08:09:00.000Z

The Guardian (my favourite!) has just published an essay by Susan Sontag entitled Pay Attention to the World. It compares the novelist's traditional task to the new task they face in modern culture (and the predicted 'hypernovel'), and contains some wonderful observations.

The Lady, The Chef and The Courtesan

2007-03-15T23:46:00.000Z

The Lady, The Chef and The Courtesan, by Marisol
Country: Venezuela

"According to a Latin American proverb, a complete woman must be a lady in the living room, a chef in the kitchen and a courtesan in the bedroom."

Ironically, a couple of days after writing a post ranting about the difficulties of finding anything to read from Venezuela, I came across a review of this book online. I read the blurb on Amazon, and since I have a weakness for certain types of book - in this instance, a feminist novel of newly discovered inner power enabling the central character to go against her mother and cultural traditions to follow her heart and step into a new life in Chicago - I snapped up a copy and dived in.

As it turns out, the original reviewer was right on the money - I can't find her review, but she wrote something along the lines of 'not great, but interesting for the cultural knowledge it contains'. My initial impressions of the novel were not favourable. I thought the language was stiff and cliched, nothing piqued my interest and I decided that life is to short to carry on reading if it didn't pick up by the end of the first chapter. As it turned out, the book did pick up - without wishing to give too much away, much of the main body of the novel is Pilar's grandmother diaries, containing stories from her life, lessons she learned on love, cooking and living in Venezuelan society and a secret she carried with her to her grave. Slightly weirdly, once the author got into the diary excerpts, her prose changed and became beautifully composed and flowing. The contents of the text also changed, revealing aspects of traditional Venezuelan customs and culture within the main storyframe. Unfortunately, the end was a little predictable and unsatisfying, but I do now posess a killer paella recipe, which I will be trying out as soon as I buy some oregano!

Here's three facts about Venezuelan culture you probably didn't know:

1. Women are expected to remain virgins until they marry, but men undergo a rite of entry into manhood by visiting prostitutes in brothels.

2. When a marriage proposal is put forward between two families, the bride's propective mother-in-law must prepare the most delectable meal she can for the bride's family to prove that her son is worthy of his future wife (who will already have undergone extensive training for housewifery).

3. Traditionally, Venezuelan women make a lot of their own beauty products - tooth whitener made with lime juice and baking soda, lip plumper made with honey and chillis and each woman will also blend her own unique individual scent.

Once I put it down, I just couldn't pick it up...

2007-03-12T17:55:00.000Z

I was planning to post on something entirely different today, but an article in The Times with the same title as this post caught my eye today (you can find it online here). The piece amused me after my observation yesterday that I've spent the last two weeks starting several books without finishing many of them. According to a recent survey, "the average Briton spends more than £4,000 on books over a lifetime, but leaves nearly half unfinished". I'm fairly sure I'll spend a good deal more than that, but I don't plan on leaving such a large proportion unfinished. A high percentage of people surveyed confessed to buying titles that would look good in front of others, which is something I don't think I do. I will admit to making careful selections from my shelves at times, but generally that just means leaving Harry Potter and Jilly Cooper at home! Here's the list of the top ten unfinished fiction books:

1 Vernon God Little, D.B.C. Pierre
2 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J K Rowling
3 Ulysses, James Joyce
4 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres
5 Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
6 The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
7 The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
8 War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
9 The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
10 Crime and Punishment, Dostoyevsky

I've started (and completed, before you ask) four of these - Harry Potter (loved it), The Satanic Verses (disappointing, wanted to give up but didn't), The Alchemist (overrated) and The God of Small Things (compelling but disturbing in places). Of the others, I know Captain Corelli's Mandolin is in the house somewhere, and Ulysses has been languishing on my shelves for ages, as has Crime and Punishment. I haven't even heard of Cloud Atlas, I don't think - and I'm unlikely to look it out now! How many on the list have you completed or abandoned?

Carlos Fuentes on Reading

2007-03-11T23:22:00.000Z

During my (slightly extended) break from blogging I’ve been delving into books left, right and centre. I’ve started several, including Memoirs by Pablo Neruda, One L: The Turbulent True Story of a First Year at Harvard Law School by Scott Turow and The Sin of Father Amaro by Portuguese writer Eça de Queiroz.. I’ve also been dipping into Neruda’s poetry as I go. On top of these, I started (some time ago now) Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands as well as The Obscene Bird of Night, both of which are staring accusingly from my shelves. Abandoning books before completion is not usually a problem I encounter and it is definitely not a habit I want to get into – apart from anything else it is very frustrating to have half-finished books lying around. I feel like a sloppy reader!

Another book I’ve been dipping into when the urge takes me is a book of essays by Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, called This I Believe: An A-Z of A Writer’s Life. I’m gaining such immense pleasure from his writing, I’m going to include some extracts from his essay on Reading here. What I love about Fuentes are his ideas and his obvious love for Mexico, indeed all of Latin America, and belief in the power of books. The spirit of forward motion, toward a better life and better society that is evident in his words is something I’ve noticed in Latin American cinema recently. One interview I read with Mexican actor Gael García Bernal showed the same spirit (and, now I’ve read some Fuentes, I see where some of the things Bernal discussed came from. If I read some Buñuel, I think I’d find some more.) It is something I especially admire, not least because to me, it seems absent from British society.

José Vasconcelos, the first Education Secretary of the Mexican Revolution, published a collection of universal classics, beautifully bound, sometime around 1923. Why publish Cervantes in a country with a 90% illiteracy rate, people asked him and criticised him in his day. But today the answer is self-evident: so that the illiterate, once they are no longer illiterate, will be able to read Don Quixote instead of Superman.

Over the past century, in every Latin American country, we have all witnessed and participated in the creation of a great circle, a circle that travels from writer to editor to distributor to bookseller to the public and then back to the writer. Unlike what has happened in countries with more mercantile development but less intellectual stimulation, in Mexico and Latin American there are books that never disappear from the shelves. Neruda and Borges, Cortázar and García Márquez, Vallejo and Paz; they are always present in our bookshops.

They are always present because their readership is constantly being replenished, never depleted. They are young readers, between fifteen and twenty five years old. They are men and women of the working class, middle class, or somewhere in between, carriers of the changes and the hopes of our continent.

Today, the succession of economic crises endured by Latin America since the 1980s is the greatest threat to the continuity of the reading tradition, which is a reflection of society’s continuity. Various generations of young Latin Americans have discovered who they are by reading Gabriela Mistral, Jorge Amado or Juan Carlos Onetti. A break in this circle of reading would signify a loss of identity for any young people. Let us not condemn them to abandon libraries and bookshops only to get lost in the subterranean world of misery, crime and neglect.

In 1920, as the Dean of the National University of Mexico, Vasconcelos ordered the printing of a collection of beautifully bound volumes of Homer and Virgil, Plato and Plotinus, Goethe and Dante – a collection of true bibliographical and artistic jewels. But for a population of illiterate, indigent and marginalised people? Yes, precisely; the publication of these classics at the University was a way of saying to the majority of Mexicans: one day you will be at the centre, not at the margins of society. One day you will have the resources to buy a book. One day you will be able to read and understand those things that now, in our day, all Mexicans understand.

The book is the intimacy of a country, the inalienable notion we create of ourselves, of our time, of our past and our remembered future, experienced throughout the ages as verbal memory and desire in the here and now.

Until March 5th...

2007-02-25T21:34:00.000Z

I won't be posting again until around March 5th. I haven't had time to devote to blogging or reading recently, and it is driving me mad. So, I'm taking a break from blogging to take care of some other things and hopefully I'll come back refreshed and renewed and better than before!

Captivity of the body, freedom of the mind

2007-02-21T21:05:00.000Z

As I mentioned in my last post, The Ballad of Reading Gaol is one of my favourite poems. I first encountered it via Nelson Mandela; when he was in prison, he recalled some of the lines of the poem and how his situation had given them new meaning. Primo Levi, in his memoirs of Auschwitz called upon his love of poetry to sustain him, using Dante' s Divine Comedy to teach other prisoners Italian, but more significantly, to retain his humanity and soul. The freedom of the mind when the body is imprisoned interests me, and it says a lot about poetry that people seldom seem to recall passages of prose or scenes from a book to identify with their personal situations. A search on the internet turned up this project of teaching poetry to prisoners, some of whom had never read or written poetry before. Some of the poems they have produced are surprisingly evocative. My own favourite is this one:

Over two years ago
I knew nothing of
poetry
Of how it allows a
huge part of me to
be free.

How the truth in
it makes people feel
how it allows me
to feel love and sorrow
like a great earthquake
starting from
so deep
within.

If This Is A Man

2007-02-19T21:44:00.000Z

In a bid to recover some lost time on my classics reading challenge and retain some chance of completing three more books over the next ten days (as if), I rescued Primo Levi's two memoirs of his time in Auschwitz from my shelves and devoured both 'If This Is A Man' and 'The Truce' over the weekend. It's been a while since I read these two, and although some things had stayed with me since my initial reading of his works - a general impression of extreme work, no food, sore feet and appalling living conditions - those things were overshadowed by the new impressions my latest reading has left me with. There's nothing to say about German concentration camps and the persecution of Jews; all that is left is for each individual to discover that appalling chapter of history for themselves and take from it what they will. I personally found Levi's lack of resentment and anger the most astonishing facet of his writing, although whether he was too numbed and drained by everything that had happened to him to want to cover it again through writing or whether he was simply past resentment because there was no comprehending the behaviour of the Germans is impossible to say.

Since this was only the second classic I've managed to complete to date I have some way to go. The Obscene Bird of Night is still on my nightstand and I'm still less than halfway through it - it requires concentration to read it, because the prose is semi stream of consciousness and semi...something else, and it is hard to know who is actually speaking, whether they are really speaking or just thinking, whether the action is in the present or in a memory or even whether anything real is happening at all. When I manage to set some time aside for it, I do enjoy reading it and marvelling at how verbose the narrator is while at the same time conveying seemingly minimal information.

I also caved today while in Borders and bought the collected poems of Oscar Wilde. I haven't read much of Wilde's poetry, but The Ballad of Reading Gaol is one of my favourite works and I can recite vast tracts of it from memory. I'll never forget the unfortunate student on University Challenge who called it The Ballad of Reading Goal in response to one of Paxman's questions, to be met with a stare of disbelief as Paxman corrected his pronounciation and told him 'I bet the title makes more sense now, doesn't it?'

Happy Endings

2007-02-14T23:23:00.000Z

I stole the inspiration for this post from this article here, all about the author's favourite happy endings. As so often happens, I started contemplating my own favourite happy endings in literature, thinking I'd lazily compile a list and post it. I rapidly discovered however, that most of the books on my shelves (and those that I've read recently) don't end happily. The only two titles I could come up with were The Time Traveller's Wife (which, although it makes me cry every time I read it, has a sweetener at the end) and Reunion by Fred Uhlman (a book about terrible things but with the most effective ending I've come across - not conventionally 'happy' per se, but changes the entire book).

I haven't read most of the books included in the aforementioned article, so I can't really say whether it is the case that I don't tend to read books with happy endings, or that my definition of a happy ending does not include an author promenading some hitherto unfortunate character's future possibilities for a happy life in a vaguely hopeful way at the end of a novel, or simply that the conventional happy endings - true love, another chance at life, freedom - now belong primarily to the domain of films rather than books. Take Trainspotting, for example. That novel is, without doubt, the single most sordidly depressing book I have ever come across, yet when it was made into a film the characters morphed into funny, likeable mischief makers and the film as a whole was extraordinarily optimistic and forgiving.

Realistically, I suspect that a happy ending is harder to pull off than a slightly grittier, imperfect ending. Nobody really believes in Prince Charming anymore; he's a cliche, as are the rest of the traditional happy endings with which everybody is acquainted. Authors face the problem of making a story credible and consistent while avoiding the deathly pitfalls of being steroeptypical and trite, and the easiest way to do that is to condemn characters to an unavoidable reality rather than allow them the golden dream. That's not to say that contemporary fiction is generally pessimistic, quite the opposite. And even if a story does end badly or pessimistically, the conclusion can still be striking. It's more that the art of ending a novel powerfully and effectively seems to be disappearing from modern literature.

Literature in Schools

2007-02-12T08:47:00.000Z

Roy Hattersley's article today in the Guardian on teaching literature in schools was interesting, if vague. He rightly points out that "the way in which [books] are used in schools can make or break our enthusiasm for them in the years which follow". I remember detesting poetry with a passion when I was at school, thinking it was boring and pointless and a waste of time; likewise with Shakespeare. Away from the heavy analytical atmosphere of English Literature classes (what does this word mean? how does the author use irony to undermine his narrator? what is the poet *really* saying here?), I discovered an equally strong passion for poetry as I had experienced in the classroom, only now I love poetry. Not all of it, granted, but I couldn't live without Neruda, Yeats, Edna St Vincent Millay, Auden, Frost, Byron on my shelves. I know some of you feel the same and still have a deep aversion to reading poetry, probably because it recalls the feelings we experienced in the classroom years ago - always analysing, always feeling we were missing something, afraid we didn't 'get' poetry. I never 'got' Shakespeare at school - I remember sitting in class one day reading The Merchant of Venice, and not understanding any of the speeches and soliliquys and feeling decidedly stupid for it. Now I realise it was the way I was taught Shakespeare - I make a point of visiting the Globe theatre in London every year to see at least one performance (and am certain that visits to the Globe would do all young students of Shakespeare an immeasurable service). I can't blame it all on the teaching however; some of the poetry chosen is still the sort of thing I wouldn't choose to read, having had time to develop my own taste, but perhaps I wasn't ready for some of the material selected for us as students of 15 or 16 to read?

What, then, should students be reading? What would instill in them the joy of reading and a love of books? It is all very well to state that "the school syllabus must meet the needs of more than the academic minority", but what does that really mean? Should Shakespeare have been excluded from GCSE curriculums? Will poetry be next, because pupils are not deemed 'academic' enough to cope with it? Hattersley states (and I couldn't agree more) that "everyone should also read books and poems with which he or she can directly identify", and that we shouldn't be afraid to allow "new classics" to enter the syllabus. Both good points in theory, but combining 'modern classics' which allow students to 'identify directly' yet learn about literature as an art form (which, let's face it, is part of the point of teaching literature in schools - otherwise we'd just be teaching reading) will be difficult. Can it be done within the confines of English literature? Or should we look to international literature for inspiration? After all, what do inner city kids who lead deprived underprivileged lives have in common with a novel written by a reasonably well off, middle class Oxbridge graduate about something that doesn't directly relate to their lives? I didn't relate to or enjoy either Great Expectations or The Remains of the Day, both of which I did at A Level - but I did read a lot of Jane Austen and I especially remember how much I loved Wuthering Heights, neither of which were on my syllabus. I don't even see why English literature is confined to English Literature (if you see what I mean) - why can't international literature be read? It is impossible to gain an understanding of the English literary canon and Tennyson's or Forster's places in it in two hours a week, so why continue the pretence that A Level English Literature can achieve that?

The question of what students should be given to read in schools is knotty, and won't be easy to solve. One thing is certain; the poeple who best know what 15 and 16 year olds would most like to read and enjoy won't be consulted. Why aren't the students ever consulted?

Classics Challenge: One Down!

2007-02-09T19:26:00.000Z

Some books tell inexpressiby beautiful stories; some tell common stories but with such finesse and expression that they become remarkable. Chéri is one of the latter. There is nothing extraordinary about a broken heart, after all.

Colette, the author of Chéri, is notorious in France both for her outrageous lifestyle and views, and her works of fiction. My personal feeling is that Chéri is one of the best classics I've read. The emotional punch the ending packs is phenomenal, not because it is good writing (which it is) but rather because Colette draws her characters so skilfully. Without being too explicit in detailing thoughts, emotions or personal habits, she creates characters so real that the reader is left wanting to know how it ends for them - I'm still absolutely reeling from the punch Colette delivered at the end of Chéri. I hadn't realised quite how immersed in the story I'd been, or how much I liked Léa, the female lead.

If you haven't read Chéri but are planning to, stop reading now because I'm going to reveal some of the plot and characters and I don't want to prejudice your own reading.

Chéri is a typical spoiled angel incarnate; utterly beautiful and desirable, but turns out to be (as Bridget Jones might put it) a bit of a fuckwit. He embarks on a six year love affair with Léa, a contemporary of his mother's and several years his senior. Although both refuse to admit it, when the time comes for Chéri to marry and they are ripped apart, both realise how much they love each other and spend a torturous six months wondering how the other's life is progressing. Léa suffers especially; a beauty as a young woman, at fifty she has become old and lost her looks and with them any chance for real love. To disguise her longing for Chéri, she creates a fictitious lover with the (possibly unrealised) intention of making Chéri jealous. Finally, Chéri gives in to his desire for Léa and storms into her apartment at midnight to declare his love for her and the two are reunited. Léa's relief is as evident as her love for him, and for a few hours perfect happiness is hers. Upon waking up in the morning, as Chéri watches Léa in unfavourable daylight, he notes her wrinkles and changing figure and realises that he does not want Léa. Chéri probably doesn't possess the self awareness to understand himself, but his change of heart is a combination of many factors, not least finding out that what he thought all along he couldn't have never did belong to another. There follows a fight between the two, and this is how it all ends. Colette is inexpressibly cruel.

She closed the door behind him, and silence put an end to her vain and desperate words. She heard Chéri stumble on the staircase and she ran to the window. He was going down the steps, and then he stopped in the middle of the courtyard.

"He's coming back! He's coming back!" she cried, raising her arms.

An old woman, out of breath, repeated her movements in the long pier-glass, and Léa wondered what she could have in common with that crazy creature.

Chéri continued on his way toward the street. On the pavement he buttoned up his overcoat to hide his crumpled shirt. Léa let the curtain fall back into place; but already she had seen Chéri throw back his head, look up at the spring sky and chestnut trees in flower, and fill his lungs with the fresh air, like a man escaping from prison.

Deliciously Decadent

2007-02-07T20:24:00.000Z

Book two of the Classics challenge started! (Book one still pending.) Due to the fact that The Obscene Bird of Night is not very portable - read: it has a flimsy cover and I don't want to bend it - I've begun reading Cheri by Colette and am enjoying it immensely. It couldn't be a greater contrast with Donoso's prose; Donoso is verbose and employs stream of consciousness across great chunks of text, where Colette is more concise and builds her characters through observations about them as much as revealing their feelings and thoughts directly. Cheri is full of light and people hedonistically pursuing the finer things in life; in Donoso's novel, the characters rattle around empty, dark and dusty halls and make semi-new garments from the unravelled wool of old clothes. Their pleasures are twisted to fit into their warped world and they have no hopes of hedonism whatsoever.

While I'm enjoying both novels, I have to confess that reading about the lives of the rich and idle always fascinates me. Let me put a proviso on that: reading about the lives of the rich and idle from past times fascinates me; otherwise it all gets a bit political. It feels somehow extremely indulgent to be reading about people dressed up in pearls, lounging about in sunny gardens and sipping brandy from 'petal-thin glasses' when I'm shivering in Caffe Nero, wrapped in a ratty old cardigan and slurping hot chocolate from a generic coffee house mug. I suppose it is really escapism - unless one of the characters is completely unbearable, but Colette tempers things with humour and doesn't take her own characters seriously at all. Decadence is just so...decadent. Who wouldn't want to be completely self-indulgent once in a while?

What makes decadence so attractive is the perceived glamour of it - decadence has connotations of wealth, beauty, fine food/jewellery/fashion, the whole charmed life. Moral decay is irrelevant because who needs morals when you have as much money to do as you please? I do sometimes wonder at the recent proliferation of books such as A Girl's Guide To Glamour or The Goddess Guide - books claiming to contain the secret to imparting glamour into one's life, usually by putting an orchid in the bathroom or buying extraordinarily expensive new shoes and keeping them in plastic boxes with a polaroid on the front. It is all about indulgence and image, two things modern women are informed they should aspire to. At times (when I'm shivering in a coffee house and wrapped in a ratty cardi) I can see the attractiveness of the lazy, glamourous life and the point of a not-so-ratty cardi. But really, who has time to put one's shoes into see-through boxes and colour code one's wardrobe? And why is an orchid in the bathroom necessary to feel glamourous? You still wouldn't have time to lounge around drinking brandy and looking stunning, and after buying everything in those books, you definitely wouldn't have the money to support yourself in pursuing such activities! In my opinion, all you really need is a stash of books like Cheri to immerse yourself in all the glamour and all the decadence you could wish for (and much cheaper than those heels).

From Chile with love

2007-02-04T21:53:00.000Z

I've finally started on my selections for the Winter Classics Reading Challenge. Considering I'm supposed to read five by the end of Febuary and I'm only 80 pages into The Obscene Bird of Night which is well over 400 pages, I'll be delighted if I manage to complete three! I'm finding the lack of time I seem to have free to devote to reading a real problem; I have so many commitments that take up hours each week that I might otherwise spend reading but I must also conclude that the material I've been reading recently isn't the type of literature that lends itself to being read quickly. With Donoso so far, I'm lost in the labyrinths of language and stream of consciousness just as the characters I've met get lost in the dusty passageways and courts of the casa they inhabit, and just as I think some sense is beginning to shine through the surreal surroundings something else is revealed which throws everything into question. Donoso really is an exceptionally effective writer.

Continuing the Chilean theme, here is my most beloved poem from Pablo Neruda, who Márquez referred to as "the greatest poet of the 20th century in any language". I discovered Neruda by accident one morning. I pulled out a volume of his poems from the shelf in the book shop, and settled down to have a look through. Ella Fitzgerald was playing, I had the book shop to myself and there was the most wonderfully peaceful atmosphere. I've been in love with Neruda ever since (and am resolved to marry anyone who can write me poetry like his!). Read it slowly and feel what the poet feels.

Tonight I Can Write

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Break...

2007-01-28T08:31:00.000Z

I won't be posting for another week or so - I'm off to London to do some work shadowing with a barrister, since at some stage I do need to find an actual career. I haven't posted for a while because I've been madly busy filling out applications for law schools, jobs with law-type places, and reading many books about the law (learning a lot!). If my next post raves about how well Glanville Williams writes about something legal, don't be surprised!

Dirty Havana Trilogy

2007-01-23T17:45:00.000Z

Dirty Havana Trilogy, by Pedro Juan Gutiérrez

Country: Cuba

Reviewer's opinions on this novel are divided into two camps; those who think it is "an intellectual and deeply introspective piece, full of passion and honesty” and those who loathe it as a piece of “bland sensationalism". That the novel is exceptionally full of sex and dirt (in all senses of the word), everyone agrees.

Pedro Juan, a forty five year old living in Cuba under Castro during the '90s narrates a series of short stories that introduce the streets and the people of Havana. Life is tough; mostly, there is nothing to do, except drink rum, smoke cigars, have sex (preferably with as many different women as possible in as many different ways as possible) and try to earn a few pesos by engaging in any one of a number of illegal activities while avoiding the police.

Pedro Juan is an intriguing character; he paints a vivid picture of Havana in the '90s, and despite finding many of his attitudes and observations of people crude and vulgar, I couldn't help liking him and even respecting his attitude to life. Cuba has been through some tough times and the people have taken the brunt of it all, but their way of living is just to get on with it as best they can, and not waste time complaining about their situations. I'll admit, when I first began reading the novel, I felt quite uncomfortable with the explicit way the narrator deals with sex (and, less frequently, death) but once I settled into it and became more familiar with the narrator, I became more appreciative of the context of the novel and precisely what life in Havana actually meant for the Cubans.

I know it is cheeky and lazy to do what I'm about to do, but somebody called James Ferguson has written a fantastic review here if anyone is interested. Dirty Havana Trilogy wouldn't usually be my cup of tea, but since it wasn't pessimistic and managed to challenge my perceptions and prejudices I enjoyed reading it. Definitely the most controversial (and dirty) thing I've read in a while!

In The Mood for Quizzes

2007-01-21T21:53:00.000Z

Instead of using my free time profitably, I've been fooling around on various websites taking literature quizzes. Rather disgracefully, I scored 100% on the Guardian's Jilly Cooper quiz, and only 11 out of 29 on this, The Guardian World Book Day quiz. It's an intriguing quiz, asking questions on authors/book/book related things from each continent in turn. Strangely enough, the continents I scored best on were Africa, Asia and South America. Must improve on the others...

Global Interest

2007-01-16T23:25:00.000Z

Sometimes it is very hard to find books by authors from a certain country. Venezuala is proving particularly problematic at the moment. I've investigated a list of authors, searching for their works online and on Amazon for volumes of poetry or novels with limited luck - apparently some works in Spanish are available (at a price, naturally) but only two authors appear to have works published in English that are available through Amazon, and generally Amazon is a fair indicator of what is out there. In addition to the limited availability of translated authors, I can't afford to keep buying books from every country: doubly annoying when no library in the southwest of England contains anything by either of the Venezualan authors I have identified. It isn't especially a problem as such at the moment, just more of an annoyance. But is could become a problem later on - there are approximately 180 countries in the world which gives me a lot to choose from (in theory) - I only have to find books from around half the countries out there, right? Only I'm starting to worry that maybe books from half the countries out there will prove harder to find than I had anticipated.

I've been thinking over the last couple of days along two lines - firstly, why isn't there more of an interest in literature from other countries? And secondly, why can't I (as a highly educated individual) read in more languages? I only did Spanish for GCSE level at school when I was 16, and haven't spoken it at all in the seven year interval since, so there is no way I could tackle anything from Venezuala in the original. I would quite like to be able to read Spanish fluently though; Neruda is one of my favourite poets and I hear that his peoms lose a lot in translation. But more than that, writers from certain countries seem to take it for granted that they should be able to read novels and poems in languages other than their native tongues - French, English, Japanese and Russian (in the case of Chinese authors), yet I cannot imagine many writers in the UK being able to read fluently in a European language. Does anyone read Balzac or Zola in the original French besides academics? And does it really matter? Just because I think so, and feel slightly ashamed for what I perceive to be a British cultural failing (general widespread lack of interest in other languages/cultures and not just limited to literature), should it even be something of significance? Perhaps my perceptions are entirely incorrect; but I feel that more interest inthe world's societies and cultures can only be a good thing, and we could do worse than literature as a medium for imparting a little awareness.

Mooching Books

2007-01-14T22:59:00.000Z

When it comes to my books, I am incredibly pedantic. I can’t (or won’t) read books with creased covers, or those that have page corners folded down to mark where someone finished reading. I absolutely detest marking my books in any way – one of my friends always underlines those passages in novels that he especially appreciates, which to my mind is akin to a crime. As a student, whenever I came across an academic work that somebody else had made notes in or highlighted relevant passages, I would sit in the library grimacing and rubbing out their marks in a righteous fury. I also learned the hard way never to lend books out to people; a copy of A Clockwork Orange that I had never read came back to me crumpled, ripped and with paint fingerprints across it. I never picked it up again. In addition to these slightly ridiculous obsessions, I cannot bear to throw anything away, more so when books are concerned. When it reaches the point that some bookshelves are two rows of books deep however, and there is no room for more bookcases, something must be done.

I think either Dorothy or Danielle first introduced me to BookMooch. Initially, I was very sceptical; how could I give up any of my precious books? If I wanted to mooch anything from someone else, I had to list ten. There was no way I could find that many from among the volumes on my shelves; it couldn’t be done. Then I discovered that lured on by the promise of a coveted book for nothing (or for the price of postage), I could bear to make some sacrifices. Luckily for me, the first person to request a book lived in another country, so I got extra points to ‘spend’. (Should that be luckily, or fatally?) All I can be grateful for is that most of the books I want at the moment are obscure enough that they are hard to find even on Amazon, let alone on BookMooch, so the damage I have done has been contained. The plan was to give away more books than I mooched. So far, it isn’t working out. I’ve only received a couple so far but more are in the post. Plus I received an order I made before Christmas in anticipation of book tokens I knew I would be getting. I'm sure I am supposed to be decreasing the number of books I own...my only consolation is that technically I haven't paid for any of these! Here are my new acquisitions (one day I'll work out how to upload photos from my camera):

The Night Buffalo by Guillermo Arriaga (Mexico)

Dirty Havana Trilogy by Pedro Juan Gutierrez (Cuba)

Memoirs, Pablo Neruda (Chile)

The Obscene Bird of Night by Jose Donoso (Chile)

Hopscotch by Julio Cortazar (Argentina)

Death In The Andes

2007-01-10T17:48:00.000Z

Death In The Andes, by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)

One of the best things about novels is that everyone takes something different from them, which becomes apparent in discussions or reviews and which, as you read these divergent opinions, encourage you to slowly absorb and savour what you have read so that your own opinions can settle. Had I read reviews of Death In The Andes online, I wouldn’t have picked it up in the book shop; as I’m trying to read only one book per country I’d have gone for Aunt Julia and the Script Writer instead which is almost universally admired. As it is, I decided that Death In The Andes sounded like an intriguing read (seduced by the publisher’s carefully selected glowing reviews) and that was the one I took home.

I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it – most other reviewers don’t seem to be overly impressed with it for a variety of reasons, many of which are precisely the reasons I enjoyed it so much. Death In The Andes was written at the tail end of Peru’s Shining Path rebellion (which is ‘fuelling Lima’s literary revolution’ according to an article in the Guardian last week) and touches on many themes – politics, crimes of passion (political and otherwise), superstition, love, deception, rural society, to name a few. Set, as the name suggests, in the Andes, the novel follows a member of the Civil Guard who has to solve some unexplained local disappearances, surrounded by hostile rebels, unfriendly mountain people and ancient Incan myths. Llosa plays with the narrative, allowing memories and reality to intrude on each other and distort perception which can be both very comic but also quite unsettling. I basically found this a very thought provoking novel (even if a lot of the thoughts did revolve around how awful Communist revolutions invariably are), and a very gripping one – and it is quite probable that it isn’t possible to get further removed from the magical realism which numerous South American authors are known for, which makes for a sharp contrast with my previous reading.

Flu

2007-01-08T06:08:00.000Z

I've managed to catch an especially nasty flu bug and am feeling pretty terrible, so I won't be posting for a couple of days til I've shaken it off.

Guilty Reads

2007-01-04T19:24:00.000Z

When I happened across this article in The Guardian, I had to laugh. A survey of the general reading public has laid bare our guilty pleasures - and it's good to know I'm not alone!

It seems everyone has some kind of junk food for the mind; those certain books you reach for when you want to read but don't want anything that requires any effort to enjoy. Mine is Terry Pratchett, which I'll happily own up to. I have reread almost everything in the Discworld series multiple times, because they are so easy to read, I find them funny, and each time I reread something, I notice a reference to something that I hadn't picked up on before (Terry Prachett is a mine of useless trivia). One that I don't always admit to however, is Jilly Cooper's Riders. I can't help myself, I love it - and I'd reread Polo too, except I was silly enough to throw it out in a fit of snobbishness one day, telling myself that I shouldn't be reading worthless junk like that anyway.

Strangely enough, Stephen King topped the poll as Britain's number one literary junk food choice, followed by Harry Potter then John Grisham and Dan Brown. I've read my fair share of King novels in my time (but he's another one that lost the plot, no pun intended, as he got older), and I am utterly devoted to Harry Potter - but who is this John Grisham? His name makes me not want to read anything of his - makes me think of gristle, which is a bit unfortunate really. Do any of you have any guilty literary pleasures that you normally keep hidden/would never read in public? (I would certainly never read Jilly Cooper in public - perhaps it is very British of me, but there is sex in there! People would know!)

The Fragrance of Guava

2007-01-02T22:26:00.000Z

The Fragrance of Guava is a collection of ‘conversations’ between Gabriel García Márquez and Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, first published in 1982 when Márquez was about fifty (after One Hundred Years of Solitude had won him universal recognition but before he was awarded the Nobel Prize). He discusses many things from his life up to that point: his almost superstitious need to have yellow flowers, preferably roses, on his desk when he is writing; the numerous hours he spent alone as a young man reading poetry as he was carried around the city on public trams, until it became too dark for him to read any more; his political views and relationships with political figures such as Castro.

For me, however, the most fascinating elements of the discussions were those that centred around his love for women and his love for his craft. As an incurable romantic, I was touched by his confession that “All through my life there has always been a woman to take me by the hand and lead me through the confusion of existence, which women understand better than men…I think nothing awful can happen to me if I’m with women. They make me feel secure Without this security I couldn’t have done half the worthwhile things I’ve done in my life…”. He also made some quite humourous remarks about feminists, but only because they were true observations.

Márquez’ comments on his literary influences and the authors/works he admired and disliked made me think about the relationship between a work of literature and myself as a reader. At times, I am very aware that I am not reading analytically enough and am therefore missing out on subtleties and nuances in a novel or short story which would probably have contributed to my understanding and/or enjoyment of the way the book has been composed. On the other hand, I am not a re-reader. And I have to ask, is it possible for a reader to extract in one attempt even a tenth of what an author has put into a work? And how much should we attempt to do so? There is always the additional danger of over-analysing and reading into a body of text something which the author had not put in there; Márquez cites an example where he laid what amounts to a booby trap for the critics, by giving a central character the collected works of a certain author to read. The critics then emphasised the influence of said author on Márquez’ work when in fact, Márquez had never read that particular author himself. It is hard to gauge how superficially I tend to read things, but I’m not sure that it matters especially. There are a lot of rather pretentious essays on the internet pontificating on the finer points of being a ‘good’ reader, but all I can conclude after having abandoned several of them in disgust is that one can enjoy a good book without being aware of every literary technique deployed by an author in creating a certain atmosphere or character, every subsidiary theme, the agony that underlay the choice of each adjective. Perhaps it is true that those who write themselves find a deeper appreciation in reading the finely tuned works of the great authors; but the heights of literary analysis aren’t something each individual reader should strive for. (Having said that, I’m sure that I’ll be paying closer attention to the next novel I pick up. But that’s ok; if Márquex can be susceptible to double standards, so can I!)

My only complaint about The Fragrance of Guava is that although it purports to be conversations between two friends, it reads as a somewhat stilted series of interviews which seem to follow predetermined questions and as a consequence, I found myself wondering what Márquez might have discussed had a conversation been permitted to run a more natural course. What digressions might have been made? What more would Márquez have revealed about the workings of his mind? Despite that, reading this book was an experience I didn’t want to end. I don’t know if it is simply that Spanish translates into English extraordinarily well, or if the best authors writing in Spanish have a naturally fluid and almost poetic manner of speech, but I derive a lot of pleasure from Márquez’ linguistic expression, both in prose and in conversation.

Reading Resolutions

2006-12-31T14:55:00.000Z

As I’m not progressing on my literary travels quite as fast as I hoped (too many diversions), I’m going to have to be stricter with myself and reduce the number of miscellaneous books I consume along the way. I’ve reached a compromise with myself, and have decided to allow myself some slack – for every four books I manage to get through for my world literature challenge, I can read something that won’t count. 80% of what I read will therefore hopefully be getting me closer to my eventual aim of reading one hundred books from one hundred countries while at the same time allowing me the occasional irresistible bliss of a tempting volume of something – for example, The Fragrance of Guava which is by Márquez but can’t count as I’ve already read something by him. (It was looking at me in Borders, I couldn’t help it.)

Genre is something else I’d like to experiment more with; not so much crime as opposed to fantasy or travel, but rather forms of writing – short stories, poetry, essays and so on, in addition to novels. I admit I tend to look for novels before anything else, but I’m determined to make an effort to read more widely.

I’m also going to try and blog more consistently, and to that end, I think I’m going to try blogging every other day for a while. I would like to blog every day, but I have so much on, I don’t always feel I can craft a worthwhile post either because I don’t have the time/energy or simply because I haven’t been reading. So, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and perhaps the odd day in between if I feel like it.

To kick off 2007, I’m reading my way around some Latin American countries. Here’s a list of some of the things I’ve picked up recently or am planning to read:

The Labyrinth of Solitude, Octavio Paz (Mexico)
This I Believe, Carlos Fuentes (Mexico)
Memoirs & Selected Poems, Pablo Neruda (Chile)
The Fragrance of Guava, Márquez (Colombia)
Death In The Andes, Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, Jorge Amado (Brazil)
The Obscene Bird of Night, Jose Donoso (Chile)
Hopscotch, Julio Cortazar (Argentina)

Eight books but only six countries…you can see why I’m in trouble! At least there’s a good mix of genres in there – essays, recorded conversations, memoirs, poetry, novels. I think most people have made some reading resolutions for 2007, so I wish you all luck in sticking to those. Happy reading in 2007, and happy new year!

That’s All, Folks! (The Review Post)

2006-12-30T17:50:00.000Z

I’m just over five months into my challenge, and according to my calculations, I should have read something like forty books from various countries by now. I’ve probably steamed through forty books easily since the end of July, but as only twenty of them actually counted toward my challenge I’d better not dwell on my progress in that respect!

But for anyone who is interested, here is my official list of books counted towards the challenge so far:

In Lucia’s Eyes, by Arthur Japin (Holland)
Les Liaisons Culinaires, by Andreas Staïkos (Greece)
Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, by Ismail Kadare (Albania)
No Saints or Angels, by Ivan Klíma. (Czech Republic)
Embers, by Sándor Márai (Hungary)
The Czar's Madman, by Jaan Kross (Estonia)
The Three Cornered Hat, by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (Spain)
The Fish Can Sing, by Halldór Laxness (Iceland)
Les Enfants Terribles, by Jean Cocteau (France)
Journey In Blue, by Stig Dalager (Denmark)
Reunion, by Fred Uhlman (Germany)
Home And Exile, by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
As The Crow Flies, by Véronique Tadjo (Côte d'Ivoire)
So Long A Letter, by Mariama Ba (Senegal) AND Scarlet Song, by Mariama Ba (Senegal)
Ancestor Stones, by Aminatta Forna ( Sierra Leone)
The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, by Ayi Kwei Armah (Ghana)
This Blinding Absence of Light, by Tahar Ben Jelloun (Morocco)
Woman At Point Zero, by Nadal El Saadawi (Egypt)
Memories of My Melancholy Whores, by Gabriel Garcia Márquez (Colombia)
Waiting, by Ha Jin (China) and A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li (China)

It is difficult to pick out favourites, because now that I look back, I enjoyed almost all of the above titles. So Long A Letter was an absolute revelation and is my most appreciated book of all time so far; but as for the rest of the list, the titles listed encompass such a variety of styles and themes that I am reluctant to begin analysing the merits of each. What I can say with absolute certainty is that purposely exploring literature from across the globe has been exceptionally gratifying. Almost everything I’ve read has been quality writing, but the array of cultural/social settings and opinions expressed has been diverse enough to constantly capture my attention and encourage me to take a fresh look at some of my own attitudes, or, on a different note, revisit things like Andersen’s fairy tales which are quite surprisingly different from an adult perspective.

For the final few hours of 2006, I’m going to take advantage of the Christmas break to indulge in some of the books I received as presents which are unrelated to my world literature challenge, but I promise I’ll be back on the global diet in 2007! Expect a post with reading and blogging resolutions in the near future…

Last post before xmas

2006-12-21T19:35:00.000Z

I'm taking an xmas break - one where I don't write at all for a few days instead of writing sporadically! - so I'll take this opportunity to wish everyone a merry christmas and a happy new year. Have fun, I hope you get what you want!

I'll do an end of year type post before the new year; I have to say, I'm not sure my around the world reading has been progressing much recently, certainly not as fast as I'd hoped. I've got stuck on the Sandman series, reading the whole of book two yesterday (I am now completely hooked and can't wait for number three to wing its way to me), and reading more from China, this time in the form of a novel. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress has been a book I've glanced at many times in the past but never wanted to read, so I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting I found it. It was a testament to the power of great writing and how great writers can change lives, give hope, encourage people to believe in themselves. I thought the quality of the writing fluctuated a little, and the very good passages stood out from the rest as being exceptionally noteworthy as opposed to merely very readable; I have one more Chinese novel to read, then I'll move on, but my recent forays into Chinese writers, or writers of Chinese origin, has made me very nostalgic. I have a feeling one of my new year's resolutions will be to start reading in Chinese again; I didn't realise how much I'd miss it!

Book Festivals

2006-12-19T23:23:00.000Z

For years I've been meaning to go to the Guardian book festival at Hay-On-Wye. I still haven't been, and I discovered it about six years ago. It is simply the biggest and the best book festival here in the UK, a mecca for anyone interested even remotely in books and writing. The thing is, for the last six years I've had exams every summer and it has been impossible to justify taking time out from revision to attend lectures entirely irrelevant to my subject and miles away from my university. Highly frustrating; next year however, I have no exams. I sense a trip to Hay-on-Wye!

This is what the official site says: Hay-on-Wye is where the fun first started. Hay is a tiny market town in the Brecon Beacons National Park, It has 1500 people and 41 bookshops. The Festival is a spectacular holiday party for friends to gather and indulge their tastes for the finest books, food, drink, comedy, music, art, argument and literature.

How could anyone not? It sounds like paradise; all the books you could ever want and more besides, a massive variety of free lectures and talks (some you do have to pay for), and the company of fellow book lovers. They've expanded too, into Spain and Latin America. There's a festival in a few weeks in Colombia which features a range of Latin American and international writers and sounds wonderful. The authors listed have also given me some inspiration for more Latin American authors to look up, and I can't wait for the audio files to be made available online. What did we do before the internet?

Mr Sandman, bring me a dream...

2006-12-17T21:52:00.000Z

...but not a nightmare, please.

I hate admitting I was wrong. I was very skeptical about Neil Gaiman's first Sandman graphic novel, and scoffed at the thought that I might be hooked by the end of it, but you know what? I think I almost am.

Originality is the key attraction for me, I think (although it might just be because I am new to the genre). Gaiman takes stereotyped characters and recreates them, makes them more human, allows them to be exposed to situations and attitudes that do not fit conventional images of them and offers different perspectives on practically everything. I was quite intrigued by the fact that Death personified is also Life, and her (she's a woman! no, better - a Goth girl!) activities revolve around not only taking but also bestowing life upon individuals. Apparently there is more to come in the following nine or so books in the series, and I am quite keen to keep reading and find out more following the catastrophes that befell Earth when the Sandman was captured and nightmares stole the world.

Thud! (a little rant)

2006-12-14T22:14:00.000Z

I've finally managed to read my latest Pratchett acquisition, Thud!. I have to confess, I'm a little disappointed - it just isn't as good as some of the vintage Discworld books I know and love. The Hogfather was my first ever Pratchett read, given to me one Christmas by an uncle who is himself an avid Pratchett reader (quite appropriately as the story is about Christmas (in a warped kind of way), and I still love it, along with almost all books featuring Rincewind the inept Wizzard who can't even spell 'wizard'. I think people have the Marmite approach to Pratchett - love him or hate him, sometimes without trying him - and I definitely love his stuff. Why has he gone downhill? It happens to a lot of authors - happened to Stephen King, who seemed to lose all ability to write in an engaging manner after his first twenty or so books, maybe less, and then Jilly Cooper whose latest offering made me want to hit her over the head with it, or something equally terrible. Honey, if it has taken you literally years to write a piece of chick lit and it turns out to be 900 pages long, GIVE UP! Is my frustration coming out here?! I tell you something; if the last Harry Potter book is rubbish, I think I'll actually cry.

A Burst of Short Stories

2006-12-12T21:17:00.000Z

I think most people have at some stage or another observed how things seem to come in groups. I'm not much of a short story reader, but recently, I've read quite a few. Yiyun Li's Ten Thousand Years of Good Prayers has received a lot of attention recently in the press, winning the Guardian award for best first work of fiction and being praised by many other reviewers. I snapped it up when I saw it a couple of weeks ago as it'd been on my wishlist for ages, and at the same time, I discovered I had a volume of short stories by another Chinese native already on my shelves; Waiting by Ha Jin.

Reading the two volumes side by side has made for some interesting comparisons. Although both deal with recent society in China, the generational difference is very marked; Ha Jin tends to write about issues confronting individuals of the generation above the one with which Yiyun Li concerns herself, and each author picks up on appropriate prevalent issues depending on which stage of development Chinese society is in. In Ha Jin's work, China struggles to prove her prowess to the West and modernise society. Families destroyed by an earthquake in one city are patched back together again with survivors from three different family units to form a new dysfunctional nuclear family. An American fast food restaurant successfully competes with local street vendors for business, but when the workers go on strike in an effort for fair pay they are fired and replaced with new workers. Two peasants are executed for making a joke about a workunit leader that was misconstrued as a slight against the dead Chairman Mao.

In Yiyun Li's stories, young men and women compete to escape the confines of China for the freedom and riches of America, then struggle to retain their Chinese identity and empathy with China. Caught between tradition and modernity, a young man educated in America struggles to tell his mother that the reason he keeps rejecting the potential matches she arranges for him is because he is homosexual; a woman moves to America after falling pregnant in order to seek a better life and finds hope that China cannot give her; a husband and wife battle to keep their family together in the face of rejection from society when one of their children is born mentally ill.

What struck me most was how much Chinese society has changed in such a short space of time. I know China has been trying to modernise, and having spent time there, I know there are massive divides between country and city, old and young, and new and old; but I've never been exposed to such expressions of these struggles. Both books are of course banned on mainland China (although probably not in Taiwan) and I am surprised that censorship doesn't feature more heavily in either set of stories. Not only in literature, but generally in freedom of speech in the media or even in what Chinese people are allowed to view from overseas media. In hotels, foreign news reports on China are often cut from broadcasts. Foreign papers arrive three weeks late and will sometimes have articles perceived as reflecting negatively on China's progress or development torn out. Everyone (in the West) knows that a massive quantity of websites are blocked in China - my blog is banned in China! (Not mine specifically; blogger appears to be banned.) But the Chinese are, by and large, unaware of the extent to which their government blindfolds them. Anyway, I've managed to go off course on my speculations about censorship; my point is really that China is going through a massive rapid social upheaval, and reading these two books together has provided an interesting record in literature on social problems.

The Graphic Novel and Me

2006-12-10T18:32:00.000Z

Graphic novels are an unexplored realm as far as I'm concerned. I barely knew they were even out there until I picked up a copy of Lonely Planet's Guide to Cult Fiction one day in a library and discovered a whole section on graphic novels, including a debate I didn't know existed - is the graphic novel 'literature'? (Seems rather a ridiculous debate to me, since nobody can pin down or agree exactly what 'literature' is, but there we go.) The closest I'd come to reading a graphic novel is either an illustrated Pratchett novel or an abridged graphic novel version of The Hobbit, which I've had for aeons and only recently read.

I have, however heard of Neil Gaiman's legendary Sandman series of graphic novels, so when an acquaintance offered to lend me the first in the series to get me started, I decided to take her up on it. With promises that I'd be hooked by the end of the novel ringing in my ears, I settled down to read Volume One: Preludes and Nocturnes. I have yet to be hooked.

It's not that I don't like the storyline or the illustrations; I have some minor issues with the font used and the apparently arbitrary way some of the words are in bold which makes me emphasise them in my head when there is no need - see? And I have to concede, the more I read, the better the storyline becomes (more intricate, more questioins being raised). But, the main sticking point for me is that I find it a disturbing mix of film and written novel. A lot of the scenes are drawn as they might be shot in a film, and there is a little voice in my head asking why. Perhaps it's simply because I'm not accustomed to the visuals being provided when I read or that I'm not used to that kind of illustration techniue. I'm not saying I dislike the novel because of it, but I'm finding it hard to adjust.

Having said that, I am enjoying the concepts and characters in the novel - in attempting to summon and capture Death, a mage manages instead to capture the Sandman, and, fearing punishment, will not release him. Strange things begin to happen to people and the dreamworld crumbles without the Sandman there to control the nightmares, and worse is to come when the Sandman finds his release and begins a quest to recover what was taken from him. I'm still only halfway through, so addiction could develop yet. And if I do become addicted to the genre, there's always Japanese manga to explore!

Book shopping in charity shops

2006-12-06T18:33:00.000Z

Sarah Burnett of The Guardian produced a wonderful blog entry yesterday on buying books from charity shops. I found myself smiling and nodding in agreement as I read through it, and indeed, yesterday I have been to my own local Oxfam and bought two treasures - both of which I have devoured already!

The first one I found was a brand new copy of Marquez's Memories of My Melancholy Whores in immaculate condition, and for only 40% of the original price. How could I not? And then, an unexpected delight in the poetry section; I pulled out an old-fashioned little hardback book entitled Great Horses and Gallant Horsemen which, when I flicked through it, turned out to be a trove of horsey poetry complete with beautiful illustrations to accompany most of the poems. I had no idea such an anthology existed, and the copy I picked up was printed in 1988 and looks it, but is in beautiful condition. It is hard to explain, unless you have a passion for horses, but these poems together epitomise everything horse lovers feel about horses and feats of horsemanship - one of the poems made me cry, but another immediately after made me laugh; the poem The Knight's Leap is a great story told in seven short stanzas, and The Arab's Farewell To His Favourite Steed reminded me of the horses I have sold in the past and how I felt about it. I sat in a coffee shop yesterday and read the entire anthology right through, then went back and re-read some of them. Unfortunately, I know this book would be a perfect gift for a friend who runs a racing yard, as most of the poems deal with racing and hunting; only I don't think I can bring myself to part with it!

After I'd done with the poetry, I started on Memories of My Melancholy Whores, and finished it up this morning. It is quite different to the two books by Marquez that I've read before; shorter, more obviously humourous, less complex. I won't go into the details of the story - it is quite short for a novel - but here's an extract I found rather funny and wanted to share.

The only unusual relationship was the one I maintained for years with the faithful Damiana. I remember I was reading in the hamoock in the hallway, when I happened to see her bending over in the laundry room wearing a skirt so short it bared her succulent curves. Overcome by irresistible excitement, I pulled her skirt up in back, pulled her underwear down to her knees, and charged her from behind. Oh Senor, she said with a mournful lament, that wasn't made for coming in but for going out.

Winter Classics Reading Challenge

2006-12-05T23:31:00.000Z

It is high time I joined in a reading challenge, and this one is the perfect choice! Five classics in January and February and, most crucially, they can be international classics! I am very excited about this one already. Here's my list (version one!):

The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz (Mexico). On my shelf as I bought it a few weeks ago, but I doubt I'll get round to it before Christmas, so it can be part of my challenge.

Cheri by Colette (France). Because I got it while in Paris and want to read it!

The Memoirs of Lady Hyegyong by Hyegyong Hong Ssi (Korea). Written by a crown princess of Korea in the 18th century, this memoir recounts the death of her father (placed inside a rice bin to starve because his son refused to kill himself) and the events in the court thereafter.

Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin (Russia). Massive poetic epic. It's been on my shelf for years, and I've only ever watched the film (grossly different in some respects from the book, I've heard, and since I'm something of a purist it should make for interesting reading).

The Obscene Bird of the Night by Jose Donoso (Chile). The title of this is taken from a letter to Henry and William James from their father, and is apparently a very valuable contribution to the Magical Realism genre. The title actually refers to the dark side of the imagination.

I'll probably change some of these as I go, depending on availability and what mood I am in during the first two months of next year - I have a list of other books I want to read from various countries and I'm sure some of those are classics too. All the same, I have some quality literature lined up for post-Christmas literary indulgence. I can't wait to see what everyone else is reading!

Poetry Meme

2006-12-04T22:35:00.000Z

1. The first poem I remember reading/hearing/reacting to was...

Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken. Weirdly enough, the poem was in a Jilly Cooper book, and after reading it in there, I bought a book of collected poems by Frost.

2. I was forced to memorize (name of poem) in school and...

I don’t think I had to actually memorise any poetry in school, but I do have a few memories of poetry classes –reading ‘Upon Westminster Bridge’ by Wordsworth (as a country girl I was even then disgusted by the notion that ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair’ than London city), analyzing what turned out to be a list of poetry titles because one teacher was curious about how we perceived poetry, and a class where we all had to pick a poem to share with the class, and I chose one by Emily Dickinson (predictably I cannot now find or recall the poem in question).

I also especially remember this sonnet by Keats, because it expressed some of my feelings when I was about 15 and having more thoughts about things than my head was able to contain.

3. I read/don't read poetry because....

it adds to my life. Every time I re-read a favourite poem after a long interlude, it feels like coming across a loved friend I haven’t seen for ages and stopping to catch up with them, and finding them as wonderful as I remembered.

4. A poem I'm likely to think about when asked about a favorite poem is ...

Puedo Escribir by Pablo Neruda. I know it is cliched to like Neruda, but ever since I discovered his poetry in Borders one day, I’ve been utterly in love with the man. I used to say I’d marry the man who bought me my own library (unless I earn enough to buy my own library first, of course), but I’d settle for the man who wrote me love poems like Pablo Neruda.

5. I write/don't write poetry, but...
I don’t write poetry because I don’t believe I could ever express my thoughts and feelings as well as the poets I most admire, and possibly do not want to suffer the disappointment of trying and failing. But, I wish I could.

6. My experience with reading poetry differs from my experience with reading other types of literature...

Poetry is more personal, I think. There are some poems that seem to be universally popular, but when it comes to it, reading collections of other people’s favoured poems is never as satisfying as reading your own favourites. Maybe it is the space for interpretation each poem leaves, or the way in which the poet moulds language to their purpose, or even just the memories associated with a certain poem in the mind of the reader. Also, the delicacy of poetry. Prose is often clumsier and almost always far more explicit. I am a dreamer, and I prefer poems that make my mind wander after reading them.

7. I find poetry...

more fulfilling than prose in some instances. Hard to explain; both have their places. Prose captures life and poetry captures the things we take through life with us – feelings, memories, reflections. The things that make us us.

8. The last time I heard poetry....

I was quite into journalism at university, and for one of my feature pieces I went to hear Andrew Motion, the poet laureate, give a reading of some of his works from Public Property. I bought the book as preparation for the interview I was to conduct with him after his reading, and was unimpressed with his poems. Until I heard him read some aloud – then they came to life, and I understood why poets like to read their work aloud. I particularly liked his poem Serenade but unfortunately I couldn't find it online.

9. I think poetry is like...

Art. It depicts beauty and truth. There are a lot of pretentious fools out there, but the real good quality stuff is instantly discernible. I also think it is like any other literature; some good, some not so good; some complex, some not so much. In my opinion the best poems are those that capture something everyone shares; a common experience (which is why Frost's poem is so popular), an epiphany everyone has had at some point, feelings everyone had experienced. The best loved poems, if you will, are those that frame the beauty in something common or ordinary in an exceptional way. Who doesn't have their own golden memory that always makes them smile, like Wordsworth and his daffodils?

Woman At Point Zero

2006-12-03T22:36:00.000Z

If anyone still bothers to read this, I’d like to apologise for my general lack of posting last week, mainly due to laziness/the winter blues/time spent sitting around and moping. Enough is enough! Pick yourself up traveller, give yourself a dust off, and get back on the road. Louise Bagshawe has been a literary version of Fiji – relaxing, fun, non-taxing, all in all a nice break. (It is possible I may be extending my whole world travels via literature thing too far here…)

Anyway, following my chick lit diversion, I delved into another ‘prison novel’, if I can use that term. It isn’t prison fiction in the same way that This Blinding Absence of Light was, although I hardly need state that the obvious central theme of confinement remains. Nawal el Sadaawi has been imprisoned for her controversial writings and activism for change in Egyptian society. Woman At Point Zero is a partly fictionalised tale of a woman Saadawi met when she paid a visit to Qanatir prison. Firdaus, the woman whose story Saadawi tells, was imprisoned and executed for murder. In telling Firdaus’ tale for her, Saadawi raises many questions about liberty, death, the repression of women, the morals of murder. The novel isn’t about prison walls of stone; it’s about the prison men have made for women in society and the punishments meted out to those who dare to try and break out.

I found Woman At Point Zero an interesting contrast to recent works I’ve read; both The Blinding Absence of Light and So Long A Letter were about confinement and restriction and punishment, and all three are from different parts of Africa with different cultures, albeit a shared religion in the form of Islam. All three books have been exceptional reads, and reading books which take such similar central themes yet take those themes in such different directions has encouraged me to think a lot about the world we live in. Sounds corny, I know, but there is always a new perspective to consider, always a new take on an old situation, and there is always some kind of relevance to our lives or our own society if you choose to see it. And I think I’m still young enough to be a bit naïve about the world!

Not About Books At All

2006-11-28T21:39:00.000Z

You know that saying that you learn something new every day? I always think of it when I learn something new, or when I discover something very obvious. Today I learned about the Wurzels.

What on earth is a Wurzel? These are the Wurzels:

They're a singing group from the Westcountry here in the UK. The existence of the Wurzels has vaguely penetrated my consciousness several times before now; people randomly humming snatches of 'I am a Cider Drinker' or merrily shouting 'I got a brand new combine harvester and I'll give ye the key!', but mostly these grand old bastions of Westcountry culture have passed me by utterly. I'm not sure why, but I got the sudden urge to investigate these Wurzels last night, and discovered a myspace page which not only contains the aforementioned tracks, but a wonderful ditty called 'Blackbird' which I have been singing all day (please follow the link and listen, I was crying with laughter earlier today and kept going 'buggered if I won't 'ave thee' at random intervals, much to the amusement of everyone at work) plus a marvellous version of the Oasis track 'Don't Look Back In Anger', complete with authentic 'Ooh arrrrrr's in a thick Westcountry accent. Seriously, you've never heard folk music this good. I certainly never have! Makes me proud to be a country bumpkin.

Some day I'll tell you all about Tar Barrels, another long established Westcountry tradition. Maybe now, since I'm thinking about it. In other parts of Britain they celebrate bonfire night with fireworks, possibly as a reminder to the monarchy that but for a stroke of luck, it could have been them up in flames so be nice to us commoners lest we hatch a plot to blow you up again, sort of thing. Apparently we don't see it that way down here in the sticks, because the way we celebrate is by heaving huge barrels of tar onto our backs (and when I say 'we', obviously I only mean the slightly insane among us), setting them alight and hurling ourselves with gay abandon down streets jam-packed with drunken spectators while the barrel blazes merrily away and sparks set unwary members of the public on fire. Of course, you try to foist the barrel off on someone else before it burns all your hair off, and then they can run like a mad thing back the way you came. If you don't believe people can be quite so stupid, see here.

Anyone else have any interesting local traditions? There's also the Morris Men of course, who I haven't seen for years, mainly because I haven't been to any local fayres or anything. They dance around and have bells on their knees and belt each other over the head with inflated pigs bladders. Excellent entertainment. I look forward to hearing about anyone else' s strange local customs!

Return of internet

2006-11-27T22:33:00.000Z

Hooray! The internet is back! Apologies (again) for another prolonged silence - the internet at home went away and I had to talk to the nice phone people to get it back, but back it is. And hopefully won't be going away again anytime soon.

I've decided I need a break from reading books which make me think (very pathetic of me; clearly my brain is disintegrating since graduation!) and have retreated to the world of Louise Bagshawe. Most of you probably won't have heard of her; she is a British chick lit author, but more of a thinking girl than a lot of the other chick lit writers, from what I can gather - she's really the only one I read. Personally, I think she's like a modern day Jilly Cooper, with the intricate plots, forays into the worlds of the super rich, and the ability to mesh the stories of a number of characters together to produce surprising twists. I'm re-reading Sparkles, her latest offering, which is centred around an exclusive jewellery house in Paris. I'm something of a magpie, and while in Paris drooled over the crown jewels in the Louvre for quite some time one evening and resolved to buy more sparkly jewellery for myself, although possibly not diamonds as big as my fist. Reading about characters in books wearing and buying sparkly things is almost as good as buying them, provided it is well written as Louise Bagshawe's work is, even if she does have a bit of a thing for canary diamonds. (Why canary? Pink is clearly the way to go.)

On a random note, I discovered I own something by Ha Jin already (I bought Waiting the other day) but have never read it. It is a collection of short stories called The Bridegroom, which I will have to investigate soon. I'm going to postpone some of my African works I think and move on within the next week. I have Octavio Paz and Gabriel Garcia Marquez waiting, not to mention the three books I bought the other day from my newly discovered independent book shop. And the books I bought in Paris. Sometimes I could just cry at how much time I don't have to read all the books I have.

2006-11-21T21:04:00.000Z

I'm feeling pooky because I haven't had enough time to sit down and really spend a good chunk of time reading recently. I need to get into a book properly! Therefore I declare this evening an honorary book-reading evening, to be devoted only to reading for pleasure. I am off to run myself a nice warm bath in which I can recline and read to my heart's content. Heaven!

Borders Vs Brendon Books

2006-11-20T22:58:00.000Z

My biggest weakness (and I never admit this to prospective employers) is that I cannot be told. I always have to find things out my own way, even if it means doing it wrong and having to begin again from scratch. I realised this some years ago, but knowledge of the fact apparently does not change my inherent stubborness when it comes to advice from others, because I have only just discovered the joy of the independent bookshop. (Sometimes I just want to kick myself and howl 'Why didn't you LISTEN!') Hence my belated discovery of the joys the independent bookshop has to offer.

My bookshop of choice always used to be Waterstones (the largest UK bookshop chain). In the city where I went to college, there were two branches, each with slightly different stock. One was better for poetry, one was better for novels and plays, and I used to visit both of them on a regular basis and buy significant numbers of books each week. I loved Waterstone's - it always had what I wanted and I was always able to find something I wanted to read every time I visited. When I went off to university, I was in bookshop heaven. The city where I studied had zillions of the things, ranging from academic specialists to chains to independents dealing with travel, spiritualism, art. Not to mention the libraries! Sadly, now I'm all done with university and have moved back home for a few months, all I have is a measly Waterstone's which stocks almost nothing I want to read. I went in to search for world literature inspiration and found a mere two books that I was slightly interested in. I left in a huff, missing Borders madly (they always have stuff I want to read).

Then I got a tip off - did I know about an independent bookshop tucked away down a little alley? Well yes, but I'd never bothered visiting it. Fed up as I was and thinking it could do no harm, I trundled off to visit Brendon Books and discovered a veritable treasure trove! They have books I've never seen anywhere else, and the shop is packed with stuff I want to read. And if they don't have it, they operate this wonderful overnight order service! It's like a miracle - there is light! Naturally I was transported with joy and spent an hour wandering around with a huge grin on my face browsing the shelves, and left with three new books (oops). Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie, Red Dust by Ma Jian and A Thousand Years Of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li. A bit of a Chinese kick because I've been missing all things Chinese recently (yes, I know Dai Sijie is technically French, but I don't care). The upshot is that I am a total convert and you couldn't pay me to set foot in the other bookshop now. If only I'd listened before...

This Blinding Absence of Light

2006-11-19T21:03:00.000Z

Book Number 17: This Blinding Absence of Light by Tahar Ben Jelloun
Country: Morocco

On July 10 1971, 1,000 Moroccan soldiers were herded into trucks and taken to the palace of Skhirat, where King Hassan II was celebrating his 42nd birthday. Upon arrival, their commanding officers instructed them to find and kill him. Almost 100 guests lost their lives in the ensuing bloodbath, but the king survived. Those deemed responsible were dispatched to Kenitra, a prison known for its harsh conditions. However, most of those imprisoned were unwitting and unwilling participants in the coup and many had not fired a shot. On a sultry August night two years later, 58 of them were again herded into trucks and taken to the remote desert hellhole of Tazmamart; here they were thrown into underground cells 10ft long and 5ft wide, with ceilings so low they were unable to stand, and with just enough food and water to keep them lingering on the edge of death for years. Each tomb had an air vent and a tiny hole in the floor that served as the lavatory. They were crawling with cockroaches and scorpions the men could hear but not see. There was no medical attention, no exercise, and no light. The only time they were allowed out was to bury one of their friends. Thirteen years would pass before the outside world found out that Tazmamart existed. It would take another five years of international campaigning to shut it down. There were only 28 survivors. By 1991, most had lost up to a foot in height. Survivors were warned not to talk to the western press, but in Tahar Ben Jelloun the authorities have an enemy more formidable than 1,000 foreign journalists. This Blinding Absence of Light is based on the testimony of a former inmate of Tazmamart.

I only discovered the above passage after finishing the novel. It lent a new depth to what I had read; for some reason, I believed the entire account to be fictional, and was unaware that Tazmamart had actually existed. There isn't really anything I can say about this book that hasn't been said or that won't sound like a cliche. All I can say is that this is what it means to be a survivor. These are the things you never think you will have to endure and would not think anyone could endure. It is the stuff nightmares are made of. Melodramatic, I know, but it comes from me and does not exist in the book. There is acceptance and adaptation; no dwelling on how and why and when it will be over. Emotion must be banished in order to endure.

I wouldn't call this 'a joy to read' as one Guardian reviewer did, but it certainly made me step back and evaluate some of the things I take for granted in my life. As James McCosh said, "The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think."

Early Reading Meme

2006-11-17T21:09:00.000Z

I came across this meme on Danielle's blog and was instantly entranced. These questions were designed to bring back happy memories!

1. How old were you when you learned to read and who taught you?

My mother always tells me that I was reading by the age of two. Apparently I sort of taught myself – she devoted some time every day to reading to me (which I loved) and I got to know a lot of my books so well I could recite them by heart, and she says I used to sit on the stairs with a book, reciting the words of the story aloud and following what I was reading with my finger until I could read new material independently.

2. Did you own any books as a child? If so, what’s the first one that you remember owning? If not, do you recall any of the first titles that you borrowed from the library?

My earliest memory is about books. Books, and the birth of my sister. I was two and a half years old when my sister was born, and I remember going to the hospital to see my mother with my newborn baby sister. To prevent any jealousy, my mother had thoughtfully found something for my baby sister to give to me as a present – an entire series of Blackberry Farm books! There must have been over twenty of these little books, all containing different stories of the farmyard animals, and all different colours. I especially remember the maroon book with the illustration of the bounding black and white sheepdog on the front. I was delighted with my gift, and I think that sealed my adoration for my baby sister more effectively than anything else could have done.

3. What’s the first book that you bought with your own money?

Difficult. I have always received lots of books as gifts and I’m pretty sure I used to get book tokens from a young age too, so I could select for myself what I wanted to read. The purchase I remember clearly was one I made when I first started my paper round. I earned ten pounds a week, and it was the first money I’d earned for myself. I went to Waterstones and bought a copy of Robert Frost poems. I think it sticks in my mind because it was the first ‘proper book’ (ie, not junk) that I bought for myself. Before that, I suspect it was mostly horsey fiction that combined my two passions – reading and horses!

4. Were you a re-reader as a child? If so, which book did you re-read most often?

Definitely! I re-read The Saddle Club series over and over and can still recite the adventure of Stevie, Lisa and Carole and their arch-enemy Veronica to this day. I also read The Silver Brumby Series by Elyne Mitchell over and over, entranced by the creamy coloured Australian brumbies and their magical sounding names – Thowra, Bel Bel, Kunama, Mirri, Yarraman. Basically, anything with horses in was a hit when I was younger.

5. What’s the first adult book that captured your interest and how old were you when you read it?

Well – Jilly Cooper probably! I used to poach my mum’s bonkbusters from quite an early age and secretly read the sexy bits with glee. I was far more educated about sex than any of my friends when I was younger! Besides Jily Cooper, Tom Jones by Henry Fielding was the first classic I read, which I recall because I made a conscious choice to start reading classics. We didn’t have many in the house, but I knew that I wanted to take my reading to a new level. I think I was about 14.

6. Are there children’s books that you passed by as a child that you have learned to love as an adult? Which ones?

Um…I can’t think of any. I devoured anything that came my way without discrimination when I was a child and loved almost all of it. I have been back to revisit some of the books I loved when I was younger, but have stopped after a couple of books because they don’t hold the same charm for me anymore and I was sullying happy memories with my adult perceptions ruining it.

Returned

2006-11-16T18:45:00.000Z

Stepping off the plane from (cold but dry) Paris, I was greeted by English rain. How I love the weather here! Paris was utterly fantastic, but I didn't get much reading done, possibly due to all the time I spent wandering around as much of Paris as possible and sitting outside bars drinking hot wine and hot chocolate. I have returned with a few books anyway; books in France are so much cheaper than in the UK, at least half price, so I took advantage of that fact and decided to buy a few titles to read at my leisure back home. My titles include Le Sabotage Amoureux by Amelie Nothomb, Je Voudrais Que Quelqu'un M'attende Quelque Part by Anna Gavalda, Un Coeur Simple by Flaubert, Cherie by Collete and La Princesse de Cleves by Mme de Lafayette. I've heard good things about all these books, so I'm looking forward to getting stuck in at some stage in the near future. Now I just have to find that French dictionary...

Holiday!

2006-11-07T08:14:00.000Z

I am off to Paris for a week, so no blogging from me.

I am looking forward to wandering along the rive gauche on Sunday and browsing the book stalls...can't wait!

Reading Resolution

2006-11-05T22:12:00.000Z

I’ve seen a few posts around talking about the stacks Winter Reading Challenge (reading a number of books from your own shelves over the next couple of months instead of buying more). If ever there was a worthy challenge, that one is it! I’ve taken inspiration from it and decided to compile my own list of books that are on my shelves already – but since I really want to finish Africa this month so I can move on to Latin American literature, I’m listing the books I want to get through by November 20th (monthly review day). I’m looking forward to seeing what Carl’s Christmas challenge is too, I’m sure I can find a way to incorporate it into a world literature theme!

Anyway, here is my list:

A Question of Power, Bessie Head

Neighbours: The Story of a Murder, Lília Momplé

This Blinding Absense of Light, Tahar Ben Jelloun

In Search of our Mothers’ Gardens, Alice Walker

Contemporary African Short Stories, Chinua Achebe (ed.)

Five books, including a collection of essays, is a lot to get through in a couple of weeks, but I’m going on holiday in a couple of days. Always good for quality reading time!

The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born

2006-11-02T20:02:00.000Z

Book Number 16: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, by Ayi Kwei Armah
Country: Ghana

In an earlier post, I observed that from my (very limited) reading, African authors seemed to write either stories about people or stories about countries. The Beautyful Ones is a story about a country struggling to find its feet amidst corruption and poverty, with the tantalising gleam of the riches of the white man’s world corrupting men’s souls by promising a better life for those willing to go far enough for it.

How long will Africa be cursed with its leaders? There were men dying from the loss of hope, and others were finding gaudy ways to enjoy power they did not have. We were ready here for big and beautiful things, but what we had was our own black men hugging new paunches scrambling to ask the white man to welcome them onto our backs…we knew then and we know now that the only real power a black man can have will come from black people.

Armah’s novel is filled with many impassioned speeches such as the one above, decrying Africa’s poverty, her corrupt and greedy leaders who seem to lose all sense of morality at the merest whiff of power or riches, the hopelessness of life for millions of Ghanaians who have no way to break the vicious cycle of poverty and labour.

The man (who remains nameless throughout the novel) struggles to find something good about life in Ghana, but can only hold onto his own integrity for comfort. He watches his friends grow rich through cheating their fellow countrymen out of money and by sucking up to rich white men, and is berated by his wife and family for failing to provide for them and bring in the money to buy European beers and Japanese cars. He suffers as he watches his own children go without, but cannot bring himself to abandon his own morals. When the old regime is overthrown by the military, his formerly rich friends have a price slapped on their heads overnight, and the man must choose between helping his corrupt friend and saving his life, or allowing the authorities to catch him.

It’s taken me a few weeks to finally finish this novel – I found it very difficult to get into at first because it is so bleak and lacking in hope. I persisted however, and found it to be a very well-written novel, making powerful observations about life in Ghana, the African leader and the African countryman. Armah’s writing is very atmospheric and his depictions of daily life very effective. What struck me most was the passion behind Armah’s writing, shining through the grey drudge of poverty and desperation.

Scarlet Song

2006-11-01T21:20:00.000Z

Senegalese author Mariama Ba only wrote two novels in her lifetime - one was So Long A Letter which I raved about a couple of weeks ago, and the other was Scarlet Song, written as she was dying. Since Scarlet Song was sitting on my bookshelf, I couldn't resist picking it up and reading it. I was eager to see what else Ba had produced and whether I would find it spoke to me in the same manner as So Long A Letter did.

As I read the first few pages, I felt some initial disappointment. The style of the writing (possibly due to the translator) was a little more stilted and read almost like a fairy tale from the expression and cadence of the phrases, which I hadn't been expecting. I decided to push on however, and soon discovered that the story itself was so compelling that it transcended any reservations I had about the style of the writing and the subjects it seemed to be dealing with.

In short, a black Senegalese student falls in love with a white girl at his university, the daughter of the French ambassador to Senegal. A Romeo and Juliet-type story plays out; the lovers are found out by their respective families, both of whom disapprove strongly, and the girl is whisked back to France immediately. The young couple continue to correspond via letters, and eventually the man travels to France and following their secret marriage, the pair return to live in Senegal. Although they feel as though their love can conquer all, and they are filled with the idealism of youth, the challenges of living as a mixed race couple in Senegal soon become apparent. I won't say any more on the plot in case anyone wants to read it and doesn't want a spoiler, but I will say that this was an extremely interesting read for me. Mariama Ba does an excellent job of presenting the viewpoints of both parties, depicting cultural and racial clashes from both sides of the divide, and concluding her story with a very vivid final scene. She is one of the best authors I've encountered when it comes to drawing the reader completely into her world.

Ancestor Stones

2006-10-29T21:11:00.000Z

Book number 15: Ancestor Stones, by Aminatta Forna
Country: Sierra Leone

I'm getting the feeling that African writers write either stories about people or stories about countries. This one is about people. Londoner Abie receives an unexpected letter from her cousin in Africa, informing her that the family coffee plantation, Rofathane, is hers if she wants it. Abie proceeds to undertake a journey to Africa, travelling not only across oceans but also wandering across time and through the souls of her four aunts, recounting their personal stories as she goes, weaving a tapestry that vividly depicts how the events in each of her aunts' lives shaped their personalities and minds and recalls Abie's own cultural heritage.

There are many themes running through this novel. The ones that struck me most were woman-to-woman relationships (mothers and daughters, co-wives, belly sisters and half-sisters) and the strong reminders throughout the stories told by each woman that a person is much more than the face they present to the world; people are shaped by their circumstances, the other people they come into contact with, the events they experience, the things they see. The women recount their stories in turn, one after the other, representing their lives in memories. Asana speaks first, then Mariama (Mary), followed by Hawa and finally Serah, before Asana begins again.

"Asana, daughter of Ya Namina, my grandfather's senior wife: a magnificent hauteur flowed like river water from the mother's veins through the daughter's. Gentle Mary, from whom foolish children ran in fright, but who braided my hair, cared for me like I was her own and talked of the sea and the stars. Hawa, whose face wore the same expression I remembered from my childhood - of disappointment already foretold. Not even a smile to greet me. Enough of her. And Serah, belly sister of my father, who spoke to me in a way no other adult ever had, as though I might one day become her equal."

Abie's initial impressions of her four aunts upon her arrival in Africa are challenged throughout the novel. Hawa's character left the deepest impression upon me after I finished reading; commonly perceived by her fellow wives as being very negative and pessimistic and generally unpleasant to be around, Hawa's accounts of her life demonstrate that looking at the same thing from various angles can lead to very different conclusions. As Hawa explains, "This is what I think about luck. Luck is like adjoining pools of water, each flowing into the other. One pool might be dry, the next pool overflowing. It's the same with luck. Some people have everything. Other people have nothing. The people who have plenty just seem to get it all, all the luck that ought by rights to belong to someone else. That's the way it was with me. Always the luck just seems to drain out of my pool and into somebody else's." Hawa had never been able to hold onto anyone she loved. Her mother died while she was a child; her husbands either died or ran off with a younger woman, leaving her to fend for herself; her son left Africa for America and was not heard from again.

I've explained the concept of the story very clumsily here and have utterly failed to do the novel and the writing any justice whatsoever, but I found this book absolutely compelling and hard to put down. Each woman has a different voice and a different impression to give of Africa and culture in Sierra Leone. Reading this book was one of those times when, as I was approaching the final few pages, I found myself wishing fervently that there was some more of it!

Third Monthly Review

2006-10-27T19:53:00.000+01:00

I am so not keeping up with my own challenge! Although I got off to a perfect start, last month and apparently this month have both been a bit dire as far as reading goes. The list this month is as follows (bear in mind I need to read an average of 8 books a month to fit in my 100 books):

So Long A Letter, by Mariama Ba (Senegal)
Ancestor Stones, by Aminatta Forna ( Sierra Leone)
Scarlet Song, by Mariama Ba (Senegal)

In case anyone is wondering, you haven’t missed anything; I actually haven’t posted on the latter two yet. I only finished the second Mariama Ba novel today – I couldn’t resist reading it since I loved the first one so much, and although I wasn’t sure about it at first, it turned out to be pretty good.

In summary, reading Africa is going slowly, three books in a month is utterly appalling (poetry doesn’t count) and I am resolved to read tons next month to make up for the last two! I’m off to a good start, anyway, with my new purchases sitting beside my bed willing me to pick them all up at once and devour them.

Irresistible Bliss

2006-10-25T20:17:00.000+01:00

Bliss must be shopping for books. While on a flying visit to Oxford today, I popped into my church of books (aka Borders) and bought some new items! Very satisfying. I was paid today, so what else could I do but go out and spend a chunk of money on books?

Here's my list of purchases:

The Labyrinth of Solitude, Octavio Paz - this is a collection of essays by a Nobel prize-winning Mexican author on the people, character and culture of Mexico.

In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens, Alice Walker - from the author of The Colour Purple, this is another collection of essays, this time on womanist prose. (I'll be posting soon on feminism and womanism, but I think this book will be crucial to how I end up understanding womanism.)

Collected Stories, Gabriel Garcia Marquez - one of my favourite authors, but I haven't read many of his shorter works (or indeed many short stories in general) so I'm looking forward to delving into these.

Thud!, Terry Pratchett - Pratchett, what can I say? I've been waiting for this in paperback for months!

The only thing I'm missing is some poetry. I did want some Maya Angelou and some of Alice Walker's poems, but I felt I'd spent enough for one day. Also, I can find a lot online compared to most other African poets, so it isn't urgent. I am going to go bask in the glow of my newly acquired literary treasures now, then collapse into bed!

My Blog Is Alive!

2006-10-24T21:07:00.000+01:00

Another long gap between posts, but not for want of trying. For at least three days I have been unable to view my blog for some reason, and neither have some of my friends - but now it lives once more! Hooray!

My reading experiment (reading more than one book at once) is...interesting. In a way I suppose it has worked, but in another sense, it hasn't worked, or not like I expected it would. I was having a hard time with The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, so I decided to see what I made of reading multiple books and picked up Aminatta Forna's Ancestor Stones with the intention of reading both books simultaneously, alternting between the two. What actually happened was that I got so absorbed in Ancestor Stones that I abandoned The Beautyful Ones utterly until today, when I finished Forna's novel. Immediately after completeing Ancestor Stones, in an overspill of remnant enthusiasm I was inspired to pick up and read a few pages more of The Beautyful Ones, which is still hard to read (very depressing, quite bleak, full of gritty imagery and everything is very colourless). I usually like to concentrate on one novel at a time, but with The Beautyful Ones, if I hadn't broken it up with something rich in imagery which provoked lots of peaceful rumination and wasn't too depressing, I might have given up altogether. As it is, I still find it hard to progress through but am determined not to give up on it. I have more books to read from African countries before I move on again, so more time to practice simultaneously reading multiple books! I'm not sure I'll be converted though; once I get sucked into a novel, I simply can't pick anything else up until I've devoured it completely.

All Gone Out The Window...

2006-10-18T18:52:00.000+01:00

I am so horrified to realise that I haven't posted a blog entry for almost a week! Partly due to tiredness, partly due to the fact that I don't blog about reading done outside my world literature challenge. I have been reading The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah for a few days now, but am having difficulty getting into it properly. It is set in Ghana and is a bit gritty and depressingly realistic for my tastes - I hate being reminded of the less-than-sparkling aspects of daily life, it's why I can't abide Irvine Welsh. I'll press on with it anyway, because it it interesting so far, and I do so hate giving up on books once I've started them. Maybe I should adopt the habit of reading more than one novel at once? Something I've never done, since I'm often too absorbed in a particular book to even contemplate laying it aside in favour of another until I have totally devoured it. It would definitely be a new reading experience, however, and what better occasion to try it out than when I'm not utterly absorbed by my current read? A lot of other bloggers seem to do it, and it certainly provides blogging fodder. Let me think...tonight I'll start Aminatta Forna's Ancestor Stones which has been on my bookshelf for a couple of weeks now. Maybe I'll go nuts and start a third book tomorrow! Although I don't want to bite off more than I can chew...

Lack of Reading

2006-10-12T23:15:00.000+01:00

Ugh. Haven't been reading much again recently. Very strange; I'm not used to not having much time to read, and I'm finding it hard work reading books so slowly when I usually power through in a couple of days. I forget what I was reading or lose my sense of the characterisation or just get confused and frustrated if things don't make sense. I'm going to have to start scheduling some quality book time each day, I think!

A Poem from Senegal

2006-10-10T21:09:00.000+01:00

I'm feeling sleepy and lazy tonight, so I'm going to grace my blog with this beautiful poem by a Senagalese poet called Annette M'Baye d'Erneville. The poem is called Requiem.

Requiem

To Adrienne d'Erneville who did not return

Your final bed was not adorned with roses
Your shroud was neither white silk nor maternal cloth
No perfumed water bathed your body
And your tresses were not arranged with a comb of gold.
You spoke your fear of the giant bird!
You believed the fork tongue and evil eye!
Who could have thought, seeing you so beautiful,
That you were dressing for Lady Death?
Embrace of the night? Kiss of the early morning?
The sand of the desert has cast your curves
And burned them to a powder.

Just so you know, I did try to find an online biography or information about the poet, or links to more of her poems, but I didn't have any luck. If anyone has any leads, please comment and let me know.

So Long A Letter

2006-10-06T09:37:00.000+01:00

Book Number 14: So Long A Letter, by Mariama Ba
Country: Senegal

So Long A Letter was recommended to me by a friend's mother. I found it in the library the other day as part of the new influx of African literature, and I swooped upon it eagerly and began reading. It is the most powerful book I have ever read.

Ramatoulaye is a Muslim school teacher in Senegal. After many years of marriage, her life is turned upside down, the story of which she relates in a long letter to her friend. She begins with a story of young love and devotion; she met her husband while they were at school and fell in love with him at first sight. After years of marriage, Ramatoulaye's love and respect for her husband is as strong as ever. One day, without warning, an Imam, a friend of her husband's and her brother-in-law pay her a visit. The three men tell her "There is nothing one can do when Allah the almighty puts two people side by side...all your husband has done today is to marry a second wife." From that moment on, Ramatoulaye and her children are on their own as her husband abandons them completely in favour of his new wife and her family. She struggles to understand her husband's action and the laws that subject a woman to such pain on a whim, and tries to work out what she should do. Following the death of her husband some time later, Ramatoulaye is approached by her brother-in-law as Muslim law states that a man may inherit his brother's wife. She angrily rejects him and the Muslim ideals that give so much weight to man's whims, stating "You forget that I have a heart, a mind, that I am not an object to be passed from hand to hand. You don't know what marriage means to me; it is an act of faith and of love, the total surrender of onself to a person one has chosen and who has chosen you." Ramatoulaye's story continues to recount her personal battles, with life, love and her family.

As I read Ramatoulaye's letter, I felt as though she was my soul sister. Everything she says and thinks about what it means to be a woman is everything I think, everything she says is true in the deepest sense of true, everything she goes through is what millions of women live every day. It doesn't matter that we live in different countries and cultures, that she believes in God and I don't, that she is black and I am white. This book speaks to me exactly; it is hard to articulate precisely what I mean, but if everything I am and everything I believe about the way human relationships, especially those between women, should be was written down, it would closely resemble this book. Mariama Ba speaks for million of women through the character of Ramatoulaye. Through everything, depsite her rejection of Muslim laws that give men power over women, Ramatoulaye always "sought refuge in God, as at every moment of crisis in my life." That is the only thing in her character that I cannot grasp, for as firmly as she believes, I reject. I hope I'm not making this book seem as if it is some ultra feminist lecture, because it isn't; it is simply a story of one woman's life lived.

I honestly cannot recommend this book highly enough. You know how a popular question seems to be which one book would you take to a desert island? I would always take this one. I would be happy to read it over and over forever, because it is real and true and has real meaning. Everyone, go out and find it and read it and tell me what you think!

Reading Africa #2

2006-10-05T11:14:00.000+01:00

There has been a display stand prominently arranged to catch the eye (and the interest) of library visitors since yesterday. The title, in huge red capitals, proclaims 'READING AFRICA'. I was scared.

Not because the thought of Reading Africa fills me with dread, and not because the display stand was in anyway terror-inducing - to the casual observer, at least. No, I was taken aback because when I first began my forays into the realm of African literature, my first blog post on the subject was entitled Reading Africa. Plus it came on the back of my complaining on my blog that my local library had a distinct dearth of African literature and my subsequent discovery of two days ago that the new books shelf was filled with African books. Was someone from my local library reading my blog without telling me? Sadly not, as I discovered.

As I read on down the display board, I learned that it is now officially Black History Month, hence the focus on Africa. Now I know the nation as a whole is paying attention to African authors, I feel like a trend setter; the Kate Moss of readers! Impeccable taste, always ahead of the pack. Naturally, darling! I'll blithely ignore the fact that not enough people read my blog or otherwise have knowledge of what I'm reading to impact on the literary tastes of the nation...

Interesting Times

2006-10-03T21:12:00.000+01:00

A strange thing happened today. A few posts ago I was bemoaning the lack of books by African authors in my local library while at the same time praising the African Writers Series for bringing the works of African authors to a British readership. Maybe someone from my local library reads my blog or something, because today when I went into said library, what should I see on the 'new books' stand but a range of books from the African Writers Series? As Alice said, curiouser and curiouser. But welcome, all the same!

Films v Books

2006-10-02T11:21:00.000+01:00

I am notorious among my friends for never being able to watch a film through to the end. Usually the scene plays out something like this: someone will announce that they want to watch a film, and a group of us will pile into that person's room and settle down to watch the film. The film will start and ten minutes in, I'll start thinking that I don't really like the characters, or that nothing is catching my attention. By the time we're fifteen minutes in, I'll be fidgeting and looking around the room. I'm lucky if I make it twenty minutes into the film before I jump up and leave the room in exasperation to go and do some quality reading instead.

Recently however, I've found myself watching films instead of reading. Since I'd all but given up on films altogether, I am surprised to admit that I've found something new in films that I hadn't found before. Over the last few weeks, I've watched a variety of foreign films (my local dvd rental shop has a special offer on - £5 for three dvds for one week), including Oldboy (Korea), Maria Full of Grace (Colombia), The Motorcycle Diaries (Latin America), Lilya 4-Ever (Eastern Europe) and Il Postino (Italy) among others, and enjoyed them all - some more than others, admittedly, but I have made it all the way through every single one of them. What's different? For starters, I think the fact that they haven't been Hollywood blockbusters has made a huge difference. Obviously The Motorcycle Diaries was a huge hit and the others are pretty well known to a lot of film lovers, but these films have all dealt with real issues and real people (excepting Oldboy which was simply a very good story) in a way that Hollywood mostly fails to do. As a result, they have a passion and emotional depth which I haven't encountered in films before. The characters are more real, the problems they deal with and experiences they undergo are patently very real and I think that films such as Maria Full Of Grace are a more effective way of drawing public attention and understanding to issues such as the international drug trade in Latin America than newspaper or television reports. Il Postino and The Motorcycle Diaries reminded me that a person is more than the words they leave behind (in the case of Neruda), more than their actions (Guevara), that they existed and had an effect in the world and on people's lives, that they had ideals and weren't afraid to fight for them. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that everything and everyone suddenly became 3d in the films mentioned above.

After watching the Motorcycle Diaries, I am tempted to read Guevara's actual diaries, but I have to confess, I am afraid of what I might find. The Guevara of the film seemed very idealised, never putting a foot wrong, empathising with the people of Latin America, fighting for what he believed in. I've heard that his diaries reveal other things about him however, such as his preoccupation with getting laid as frequently as possible on his travels and other slightly unfavourable incidents which don't appear in the film. This of course is where the conflict between books and cinema comes in. Like most book lovers, I am always quite distressed when I see a cinematographic depiction of a book I read and loved, only to find that the characters have been changed and painted in a entirely new light, major events have been omitted from the story altogether, and the film overall is a pale imitation of the book. (This happened to me with Iris, John Bayley's memoir of his wife Iris Murdoch. I loved the book more than I can say, but I was absolutely horrified when I saw the film, and exited the cinema very quickly.) While the memory of the film is still fresh in my mind, it might be best if I avoid Guevara's diaries and come back to them at a later date! Much as I have enjoyed the films that I've watched recently (and am planning on finding more), cinema will never replace books for me.

For Love Of Libraries (Part Two)

2006-09-29T22:00:00.000+01:00

So, following on from two days ago - my ideal library. Obviously, it'd be in the castle I want to have. I want a huge library, filled with books in several languages (which, of course, I'd be able to read). At the front of the library would be two huge windows with seats, where I could sit and read by sunlight, and look out over my own fields and countryside, maybe see my horses grazing in the fields as a brook babbles nearby.

I think it would be rather nice to have an upstairs sort of gallery in my library. A certain library I used to frequent was in a large hall type room, and it had a walkway all around the interior wall at the height where a second floor might be, forming a sort of wall-less corridor. It would have been improved by an expanded area of flooring with chairs at one end of the walkway, spanning the width of the room so you could sit and look down on the books and anyone who might wander in from above.

A domed ceiling is a must; as is deep carpet, soft lighting among the shelves, and the sort of shelving design that allows you to feel almost as though you could get lost, wandering deep among rows and rows of books, discovering books on everything under the sun by authors you've never heard of. Of course, all my favourite books would be bound in bespoke leather covers (probably pink, knowing me) with elegant gold lettering for the title and author's name. You can actually get this done for your own books, I've discovered; it costs quite a lot, of course, but since I'm in fantasy-land right now anyway, what the hell. Pink leather bound tomes it is.

Personally, I quite like to have music on quietly in the background when I read. Depending on what I'm reading, I prefer classical or jazz, maybe opera. (In my magical library, the sound system would know what I wanted to hear at any given time!) I would recline in giant squashy armchairs with a mug of hot chocolate to hand, and sit for hours reading. Nobody would be permitted in my library - I cannot focus when other people are around, even if it is watching a film or something. Privacy and solitude are key to my enjoyment of books, I'm afraid. And that is pretty much my dream library. Lots of books, big windows, huge armchairs and hot chocolate. Bliss.

For Love of Libraries (Part One)

2006-09-27T20:50:00.000+01:00

I have been very lax about updating recently, which I am very ashamed about. I blame a new job, lots of job applications and lots of applications for work experience, which has been cutting into my reading time, but they don’t really constitute much of an excuse, do they? To make up for it, here is a post which I hope anyone who still reads this will find interesting (although you’ve probably all given up on me in disgust!).

People always smile when I tell them that I want to live in my own castle, or, at the very least, have a huge house complete with (and this is the most important part) my own private library. I’m not sure why they seem to find it humorous; I am entirely serious on both counts and fully intend to do everything in my power to get my castle!

Anyway, as a consequence of being determined to eventually possess my own library, I spend a reasonable amount of time daydreaming about libraries and what my own ideal one would be like, and so on. Some parts of my dream library I take from libraries I’ve seen either in films or on television, or those I’ve actually visited. Other aspects are probably impossible to attain, even with the best will and all the money in the world, but I think they’re darned good ideas as far as libraries go, so I’m incorporating them into my dream library anyway. I’m going to make this post a two-parter. Today I’ll look at some of the best fictitious libraries I’ve encountered, and tomorrow I’ll discuss some of the real libraries I’ve been to or seen, and the aspects I’d include in my own ideal library.

Personally, libraries have a sort of aura of special-ness for me. When I’m surrounded by so many books and there’s an atmosphere of quiet but intense studying, I can virtually feel myself absorbing knowledge and learning and an urge to devour every book in sight overcomes me – even the books on obscure things that I’d never normally want to read, like quantum physics and equally dreadful things. It is very vexing when libraries fail to have books that I want to read however, which is why I think Terry Pratchett’s concept of L-space is such a good one. For those of you who don’t read Pratchett’s Discworld series, I shall explain. L-space means library space. On the Discworld, words have power, and where many books are grouped together in a relatively small space, the power accumulates and strange things happen to space as we know it. In the library of Unseen University (for trainee wizards), wild thesauri roam amongst the shelves in the deepest darkest corners of libraries; some books are so powerful they have to be kept in vats of ice to prevent spontaneous combustion; and some are so rare and obscure, they necessitate entire expeditions of students to pursue them through the library, with a reasonable chance that the students will not return. The power of books and words distorts space and time, but the Librarian has learnt to manipulate this to his advantage, and can use L-space to access any library, anywhere, any time. There is no book that cannot be found through L-space, and rumour has it, even books that have not yet been written and may never be written can be found if you look hard enough.

From the universal eternal library of the Discworld to the infinite universe that is Borges’ Library of Babel. Borges once wrote “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” For anyone that has read ‘The Library of Babel’ however, surely that library is Borges’ vision of hell. A universe comprised of a library that contains more books than can be read in any one man’s lifetime; a library that mostly contains books that are filled with meaningless jumbles of letters; a library which contains every possible book but in which it is virtually impossible to find any book, let alone the book, which details the how and why of the library, or even any book which contains something other than incomprehensible strings of letters.

In a book I once read, which I cannot recall the name of now, was a prediction of what may in the future be possible – what is almost possible now. Each child is issued with a primer when born. It is a real book; the pages turn, it has a beautifully bound cover, and contains…whatever you need it to contain. It is a computer in book format. If you could access the internet, and every book ever written was online, in any language you chose, your own personal library would be contained in that single book. While I find this concept intriguing, I don’t especially like the idea of a single book as a substitute for a library. Part of the joy of libraries for me is wandering amongst the shelves, touching books, looking at the covers of books and the illustrations they contain, reading blurbs, reading bits from several books at once.. A single book wouldn’t do it for me. It may contain everything but what good is that if you can’t see it all laid out before you?

Finally, The Shadow of the Wind by Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafon has the most fantastic book shop in it. Although it isn’t a library, it symblises everything that is wonderful about books and bookshops and libraries. Some of you have probably read it, but here is a brief extract so you can all imagine the book shop for yourselves: The Cemetery of Forgotten Books.

A blue-tinted gloom obscured the sinuous contours of a marble staircase and a gallery of frescoes peopled with angels and fabulous creatures. We followed out host through a palatial corridor and arrived at a sprawling round hall where a spiralling basilica of shadows was pierced by shafts of light from a glass dome high above us. A labyrinth of passageways and crammed bookshelves rose from base to pinnacle like a beehive, woven with tunnels, steps, platforms and bridges that presaged an immense library of seemingly impossible geometry…For almost half an hour I wandered within the winding labyrinth, breathing in the smell of old paper and dust. I let my hand brush across the avenue of exposed spines, musing over what my choice would be. I roamed through galleries filled with hundreds, thousands of volumes. After a while it occurred to me that between the covers of each of those books lay a boundless universe waiting to be discovered.

Home and Exile

2006-09-21T21:47:00.000+01:00

Book number 13: Home and Exile by Chinua Achebe
Country: Nigeria

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Home and Exile is based upon three lectures Achebe gave at Harvard in 1998. It's an excellent starting point from which to commence reading African fiction, providing brief explanations of why literature is important for Africa and of the battles African writers have been fighting through their works. Broadly speaking, Achebe's lectures focus on the impact imperialism has had on Africa, perceptions of Africa and African literature. It is widely claimed that Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart, his most famous work, to provide an accurate perspective on African culture in response to Conrad's depiction of Africa in Heart of Darkness. Conrad's dehumanisation of Africans in Heart of Darkness was representative of the prevalent Western attitudes towards African peoples and their lack of 'civilisation', and their supposeldly inferior culture, customs, even brain capacity. Elspeth Huxley, in White Man's Country, explicitly expounded the view of her contemporary medical men - that the black man's brain ceases development at ten years of age, leaving him with a far inferior brain capacity to that of the white man. That opinion sounds ridiculous now, but 'the use of imperialist literature to justify degradation of a continent' affected not only Western popular perceptions of Africa but also those of the African people themselves. Achebe writes of Amos Tutuola and the reception of his novels in London; Dylan Thomas 'recognised Tutuola's merit instantly', but most other Western reviewers and even some educated Africans living in London at the time of the novel's publication slammed his work without even having read it, believing his African mind to be incapable of producing anything worth reading.

Achebe's battle has been to assert the value of Africa. He, and many others since, have tried to paint a true picture of African people, culture, customs. African authors (not just authors) have had to fight not only white imperialist ideas of superiority but also concepts of inferiority planted in African minds by white imperialists. Society and attitudes have developed a lot since the 1950s, but nothing can diminish the significance of what Achebe and other African authors have been accomplishing through giving Africa a voice. Their literature was an entirely new creation, not just because of what they were trying to acheive but because African writers refused to follow Western conventions in composing novels.

(Incidentally, the African Writers Series I mentioned a couple of days ago was the first ever attempt by a Western publisher to find and publish African literature of merit; perhaps Heinemann was the first to even accept that African literature could have merit.)

Second Monthly Review

2006-09-20T19:58:00.000+01:00

A slow second month. I've only managed to read four books (I finished Achebe's today and will be posting on it tomorrow, so I've included it). I'm not really sure quite what happened this month; I suppose I've just been preoccupied with other things recently and reading has taken a back seat. I'm still pretty shocked I've only read four books...one a week! I've never read so little in my life! Here they are:

Journey In Blue by Stig Dalager (Denmark)
Reunion by Fred Uhlman (Germany)
Home And Exile by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
As The Crow Flies by Véronique Tadjo (Côte d'Ivoire)

It may have been slow but it's been a good month for quality reading. I honestly enjoyed all the books up there - Reunion had the most fantastic twist at the end, Journey In Blue was stylistically amazing, Home and Exile started me thinking about Africa and analysing visions of Africa, and As The Crow Flies was simply prose poetry. As you can see, I decided to move on from Europe after Uhlman and started reading African authors instead. I haven't really got into my African reading properly yet, perhaps because I've devoted less time to it. I'll make more time for reading from now on and I hope I'll enjoy African literature as much as I enjoyed my sampling of European literature. I got a real sense of some of the history of Europe from my reading last month, so it'll be interesting to see how my own vision and understanding of Africa develops. One book I tried to read and couldn't get into was The Book Of Disquiet by Fernando Passoa (Portugal). I think I had 'reader's block' or something, which was disappointing because I'd been looking forward to reading it for a while. On the plus side, it means that for Portugal I can read Sarramago's Blindness, which has been added to my TBR list after reading about it on another blog.

As The Crow Flies

2006-09-18T08:47:00.000+01:00

Book Number 12: As The Crow Flies, by Véronique Tadjo
Country: Côte d'Ivoire

This is officially my first entire novel from Africa (on my world literature tour, at least). It's certainly my first ever novel from the Côte d'Ivoire. I'm definitely delighted I happened across this one by chance, because it it one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. Tadjo's novel is fragments of lives, stories of parts of people, snapshots of existence, all framed in poetic language and exquisite imagery. I ascribe the beauty of Tadjo's writing to the short sentences she uses throughout, conjuring images and understanding and emotion from what is not explicitly written as much as from what is. Take the passage below for example:

Some people die without anyone even realising it. No drums, no fanfare. You open the papers and see their faces:
Here is one with a half smile that makes him look shy. Then, there is the young woman with a radiant smile and shining eyes.
Then all of a sudden, there in the middle of the page, a familiar face, someone you love:

The Divo family
The commander of Abidjan
The permanent adviser on education
The professor in Daloa
The agricultural assistant in Bonoua
The Sassandra family
The Tabou family
announce with deep sorrow the death of their beloved brother, father, grandfather, nephew and brother-in-law. He passed away at CHU of Cocody after a brief illness.

Can anyone fail to empathise with the unknown woman here? Fail to feel her shock and disbelief at this unexpected revelation that pounced without warning from the pages of the paper?

Tadjo writes about he, she, us, we, you, me. She flits from person to person, telling their stories without prejudice, representing their emotions and actions succinctly but with passion. At first I was confused because I was expecting a linear narrative, and it took me a few pages to understand that she was not always the same person, he was not always the same man. The fragmented style makes it hard to get into the book, but themes become apparent the further on one reads. Love is the primary subject Tadjo returns to - as she says, love is a story that we never stop telling, but she touches on many other things, creating links between reader and character, promoting empathy with others, developing understanding of the human heart.

Finding African authors

2006-09-14T21:57:00.000+01:00

I know there are African authors out there. Wikipedia lists hundreds, organised by country (very useful). I've never heard of most of them, and despite spending a good hour searching my local library area catalogue, I can't find many of them. So far I've only searched authors from countries in West Africa, so perhaps looking for authors from other regions will prove more fruitful. I won't hold my breath. Or maybe it's just that people don't tend to read a lot of contemporary African authors.

Am I being unfair, assuming that African literature, be it poetry, plays, fiction, autobiography or whatever is not widely read? It strikes me that for a continent comprised of over 50 countries, Africa's literature largely fails to make an impression on the rest of the world. There are of course a few writers who have widely gained critical acclaim and entered the public consciousness; Chinua Achebe, Coetzee, Doris Lessing, Nadine Gordimer. Heinemann publishing created the African Writers Series which is dedicated to translating (where necessary) and publishing African authors, so there must be an audience somewhere for it. But where? I've been googling African writing and authors a lot recently in a bid to find out whatever I can, and I'm not finding much at all. It's very frustrating! Where are all the author interviews and book reviews and generally informative sites? Where is Africa on the literary map?

This post is a bit pointless and rant-like, for which I apologise. My brain isn't working too well tonight, and I'm all pooky because it's so hard to find books by African authors without ordering them from Amazon (not an option due to extreme lack of money). I should probably just chill out and carry on blithely reading the books I do have and concentrate on enjoying them. Sounds like a plan!

Igbo religion

2006-09-12T21:37:00.000+01:00

Chinua Achebe is one of the Igbo people, an ethnic group in Nigeria numbering some ten million. The book of Achebe's I'm currently reading, Home and Exile, stemmed from three lectures he gave at a conference in 1998 at Harvard. The content is primarily autobiographical and the lectures explore themes of African imagery in Western cultures, images of African people and culture, the intrusion of Christianity into Africa and how Africans should/could counter stereotypes and create a new, truthful vision of Africa and her peoples. One passage in particular caught my eye.

I heard that one of Ogidi's neighbouring towns had migrated into its present location a long time ago and made a request to Ogidi to settle there. In those days there was plenty of land to go around and Ogidi people welcomed the newcomers, who then made a second and more surprising request - to be shown how to worship the gods of Ogidi. What had they done with their own gods? Ogidi people wondered at first but finally decided that a man who asked you for your god must have a terrible story one should not pry into. So they gave the new people two of Ogidi's gods, Udo and Ogwugwu, with one proviso, that the newcomers should not call their newly acquired gods Udo but Udo's son; and not Ogwugwu but Ogwuwgu's daughter.

The significance of the Igbo reluctance to share their religious beliefs demonstrates their lack of awareness of such a concept as religious imperialism, as Achebe notes. This would clearly have made it easier for the Christian missionaries to bring in their own religion, as indeed they did, replacing traditional cultures, religions and customs not just in Nigeria but all across Africa. Although a short passage and not central to the theme of the lecture I read today, I found it an interesting snapshot of one of the many issues Achebe confronts in his works.

Reading Africa

2006-09-11T20:58:00.000+01:00

After many days and several hours on the phone to an Indian call centre across a period of several days, and in the wake of many conversations with people whose accents I had great difficulty in understanding over the phone, I have internet again! I hope you haven’t all given up hope on me after my lengthy silence.

I’ve decided to move on from Europe and read my way through some African countries for a literary change of scenery. I’m starting with Nigeria’s Chinua Achebe. Although I’ve already read Things Fall Apart and I stated I wanted to read as many new authors as possible, I think that as far as African literature is concerned Chinua Achebe is really the only place to start.

Actually, it’s possible that the place to start should really be with some research and reading about African literature and Chinua Achebe so I can better understand and appreciate his work. My reading of African literature to date really only comprises Things Fall Apart and Purple Hibiscus (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, also Nigerian) which is feeble to say the least.

Due to the number of countries on the African continent, a single precise definition of what African literature is is impossible. My research has been confined to online resources (and there aren’t many) so what I’m going to write here may not be accurate and shouldn’t be taken as such. Broadly speaking, African literature can be split into three general categories – precolonial, colonial and postcolonial. Precolonial literature primarily consists of an oral literary tradition, as literacy did not become widespread until the arrival of Christian missionaries in the 1800s. Literature from the colonial period centres around the slave trade while late- and postcolonial literature focused on themes of liberation, independence and negritude (affirmation of the African cultural heritage and identity). Contemporary anthologies of works by African authors, be it short stories or poetry, are always roughly grouped by geographical area – Northern, Southern, Western, Eastern and Central Africa. As far as I can tell (my knowledge of contemporary African politics and culture is also lacking) this is because each region has distinct cultural differences – think about how different Egypt and Kenya and South Africa are, for example.

Some modern authors from the African continent stand out more than others, and Chinua Achebe is arguably the best known of all of them. Among African countries Nigeria has been especially prolific in producing literature – Wole Soyinka, Ben Okri and Achebe are all familiar names in the West. I’ll write more about Nigerian literature and Achebe in particular tomorrow; for now, I’ll leave you with a poem Achebe wrote during the Nigerian Civil War.

A Mother In A Refugee Camp

No Madonna and Child could touch
Her tenderness for a son
She soon would have to forget…
The air was heavy with odours of diarrhea,
Of unwashed children with washed-out ribs
And dried up bottoms waddling in laboured steps
Behind blown-empty bellies. Other mothers there
Had long ceased to care, but not this one;
She held a ghost-smile between her teeth
And in her eyes the memory
Of a mother's pride...She had bathed him
And rubbed him down with bare palms.
She took from their bundle of possesions
A broken comb and combed
The rust-coloured hair left on his skull
And then - humming in her eyes - began carefully to part it.
In their former life this was perhaps
A little daily act of no consequence
Before his breakfast and school; now she did it
Like putting flowers on a tiny grave.

Lack of internet

2006-09-06T15:07:00.000+01:00

Apologies for severe lack of posting - I was supposed to get broadband at home this week, and the little broadband box arrived and I set it all up, had broadband for about half an hour, then nothing. After over an hour hanging around on helplines and demanding to speak to the supervisor of somebody remarkably unhelpful, another somebody in a call centre in India eventually conceded that the problem was with the company providing the broadband. I am so unimpressed. Why haven't they fixed it yet?!

Anyway, until they do, I have no internet access at home and won't be posting (but hopefully they won't take too long). I'm currently in a library, but there is a queue to use the computers, so I can't post more than this now.

Book Meme

2006-09-01T22:20:00.000+01:00

I've been saving this book meme (created by litlove) for a day when I'm feeling uninspired. It has great questions - I've been thinking about some of them for a while, so hopefully my answers are interesting.

1. First book to leave a lasting impression?

Definitely To Kill A Mockingbird. The first time I read it was in English literature class at school when I was 14. Even though I knew the black man was going to be convicted for a crime he clearly didn't commit, I couldn't believe that it would actually happen (very naive I know, but I had a very sheltered childhood). Then, when I read it again a few years later, I was just as shocked and bewildered by the verdict. That book was the main thing that helped me understand what racism was.

2. Which author would you most like to be?

Right now? J.K. Rowling. Hellooo, she is rich. Most authors are tormented souls who struggle away in dire poverty for the sake of their art. So not the way to do it. Give me money and the relatively insignificant stress of wanting to kill off my main character because the pressure of all the people who want to make me more money through their inventive gimmicks (featuring my scarred but lovable character) is getting too much for me.

3. Name the book that has most made you want to visit a place.

I know I bashed on about James Herriot enough in the last meme, but being a country girl, reading about the Yorkshire Dales in his books has given me a long lasting urge to visit them. (I know I should have come up with somewhere more exotic since I'm reading world fiction, but there we are.)

4. Which contemporary author will still be read in 100 years?

Um. I don't know...100 years seems like a long time, but it's actually pretty short when it comes to literature. I'm going to say Ian McEwan, even though I've never read any of his work. He gets rave reviews, right?

5. Which book would you recommend to a teenager reluctant to try 'literature'?

Depends how one defines 'literature' really. I'd want to recommend something interesting - not Dickens or anything, because he's a little hard to get through first time out. Maybe The Golem by Gustav Meyrink (seeing Carl's book challenge made me remember that one.) Darkness, intrigue, twisting plot - very good. Alternatively, Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder, because it really does make you think. When I was a teenager it introduced me to some of the thinking other people had done about things I'd always wondered about, and inspired me to study philosophy further.

6. Name your best recent literary discovery.

Reunion, by Fred Uhlman. He's only written one other book, and I fully intend to find it and devour it. I don't usually seek out everything an author has written if I enjoy one of their books, but that one was so good I can't wait to get his other work.

7. Which author's fictional world would you most like to live in?

Excellent question! Probably C.S Leiws' Narnia. How fantastic would it be to have a whole other magical world that not only was accessible through the back of a wardrobe, but that you also reigned over? The megalomaniac in me is emerging! Seriously though, being Queen of my own world is one of my ambitions. Definitely want my own castle. Maybe I could rule my own island...I hear you can actually buy Indonesian islands. That's what I'll do with my first billion!

8. Name your favourite poet.

Pablo Neruda. Without a doubt. Something in his poetry just speaks to me (and a lot of other people, judging by his popularity).

9. What's the best non-fiction title you've read this year?

Blogging For Dummies. Well, you did ask! It's what got me started on my book blogging - I learned more than I ever imagined there was to know about blogging from the first chapter of that book, and now I'm blogged up and loving it.

10. Which author do you think is much better than his/her reputation?

Reputation varies so much depending on who you speak to. A lot of people adored that Wild Swans book by Jung Chang, except my course tutors who unanimously loathed it. As a work of fiction, I think it's pretty good but should never be cited as being anything aproaching factual. It's impossible for me to answer this question, because I divide books into those I like and those I don't, regardless of how marvellous the author's technique is, or how well they dealt with such-and-such a topic - I love Louise Bagshawe, for example, who writes the most incredible fluff, but I dislike Irvine Welsh intensely, yet look at his reputation. Some of the books I've been reading recently aren't necessarily widely read in the UK or the USA, but the minority who read them rate them highly; look at Ismail Kadare.

Breaking into the Chinese market

2006-08-30T20:55:00.000+01:00

Penguin has just announced that they are translating ten classic books into Chinese which will be hitting the mainland in November. Here's the list:

Cervantes Don Quixote
Emily Brontë Wuthering Heights
Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre
Victor Hugo The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Charles Dickens Oliver Twist
Dante Divine Comedy
Dostoyevsky Crime and Punishment
Goethe Faust
Leo Tolstoy Resurrection
Herman Melville Moby Dick

I wonder how they'll be received? I'm not sure how many have been translated before, if any. A lot of modern Chinese authors (and by modern, I mean 1919 May Fourth writers) did read Tolstoy and Dickens and others, but I'm fairly sure that they mostly read them in Japanese because Chinese translations simply weren't available. Also, their concern at that time was specifically to create a new literature to aid China's social revolution, and translated literature played a big part in making that happen. The times have changed, and as the author of this article notes, "the most popular publications are usually management guides, self-help books and biographies of the rich and famous". This is because these books are what meet the need of China's urban populace at this time - I'm not sure if a leisure reading market even exists. There is no such thing as nationwide best selling lists that are available in book shops; each book shop has its own list of bestsellers, which vary depending on what that particular shop stocks, and books on English language learning are invariably up there somewhere.

I would have thought Penguin would be better translating some of China's classics for the Western markets. There is such a vast, rich literary tradition in China, and with the surge of interest in everything to do with China, surely the country's significant literature will soon catch the public interest here in the West. Everyone knows Tang dynasty poets are to be admired, but what about the four great story cycle novels - who even knows what they are? What about all the revolutionary authors from the 20th century - Lu Xun, Shen Congwen, Lao She, Mao Dun, Ding Ling? None of these are widely available, if available at all. Penguin currently carries two Chinese classics - The Story of the Stone (extremely long, undoubtedly a classic, hugely popular in China, but perhaps not the best to start with if you are new to Chinese fiction) and Fortress Besieged, by Qian Zhongshu, which I haven't read. Of course, since winning the N0bel Prize for literature, the works of Gao Xingjian have been translated and are available almost everywhere, and there are a few contemporary authors who are regularly published but by and large, Chinese fiction is not translated.

Maybe this will change soon. I find it ironic that to find English translations of many of the authors I mentioned above, one has to go to China. While I'm waiting for more English translations of Chinese authors, I hope China enjoys Dante!

Reunion

2006-08-28T20:51:00.000+01:00

Book Number 11: Reunion, by Fred Uhlman
Country: Germany

While I was in London this weekend, I took the opportunity to make a beeline for my favourite book shop. I first discovered it last year, while I was doing an internship in London. Naturally an early riser, I found myself with nothing much to do one Saturday morning, so I headed out to a book shop I'd read about in a London guide with the intent of finding something new to read and spending the rest of the weekend curled up with my new treasures. Much to my delight, the book shop was blissfully empty of other customers, and I spent an entire morning wandering round the impresive selection on the shelves, pulling out books, then sprawling across a huge squishy couch with a pile of books beside me, reading Pablo Neruda and Isabel Allende while Ella Fitzgerald played softly in the background. I was in heaven.

This weekend, while meandering slowly around the fiction shelves, a small book caught my eye; partly because the author's name hinted at a European origin, and partly because of the book's publisher, which I know from experience selects books I enjoy and also creates beautiful covers for them which immensely enhances the pleasure of reading. I glanced at the brief blurb on the back, and settled down onto the same couch to read the book and was shortly lost in the captivating story.

It is an enchanting tale of unlikely friendship between two boys, one a rich German aristocrat from an old established family, and one a middle class Jew. As so often happens with children, their differences never bothered them until Hitler arrived on the scene and society turned against all Jews. Their friendship was torn apart, and the young Jew was sent to America by his parents in order to avoid persecution by Hitler's regime. I can't tell you the ending, because that would spoil a first reading of the book, but it is exceptionally good. I should really implement some kind of ranking system, because I seem to have been quite nice about all the books I've read so far - but this one would definitely merit 11 out of 10. It is very delicately written and I never can resist emotionally charged books. Heaven revisited!

*In case you're wondering what this wondrous book shop is I've been raving about, I have to confess it is Borders on Oxford Street. I'm sorry it's an evil corporate giant and not an independent, but I love it so. I can't help myself! The fact that they don't mind you reading the books in the store without buying them is amazing; for me, reading is never better than when I am surrounded by masses of books with masses of time to dip into as many as possible.

Journey In Blue

2006-08-28T20:48:00.000+01:00

Book Number 10: Journey In Blue, by Stig Dalager
Country: Denmark

Firstly, apologies for the prolonged absence of entries - I went to London for a few days and had no internet access. But on the other hand, I got to hang out in my favourite book shop and read, which is always a highlight of London! More on that tomorrow.

I finished Journey In Blue, which is the novel I mentioned in my last post about Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales. It is a fictionalsied autobiographical novel about Andersen's life, told through snapshots of memory as Andersen lies on his deathbed and morphine sends his thoughts drifting through time. Reminiscences are punctured by brief moments of decreasing lucidity as his grip on reality slips away and Death stalks his dreams.

This book is fantastic in so many ways - stylistically, it is frequently one of the best examples of stream of consciousness writing I've read. Dalager suceeds utterly in painting a portrait of Andersen and all his neuroses and insecurities, but where others have condemned Andersen as a boring personality, Dalager takes us inside Andersen's thoughts so we can empathise with him and see the world through his eyes. In his afterword, Dalager emphasises that in his opinion, "poetic genius corresponds to a complex, rich and enthralling personality", accounting for his need to represent Andersen in a different light to that in which his critics cast him, redressing the balance where Andersen himself could not. Dalager adds that where appropriate, he has used Andersen's own words; at other times, he has paraphrased or rewritten some of his stories, underlining themes in his fairytales to themes in Andersen's own life - unrecognised beauty, unfair persecution, the differences between poor and rich. Anyone who enjoys Andersen's fairytales will find this beautifully written book an invaluable companion for enriching and enhancing the stories, and even if you aren't a fairytales fan, I would still recommend this as an exceptional portrait of an enduring artist.

Along with reading about Andersen's life, I've been rereading some of his fairytales (my last post reflected my first initial foray into them since childhood, and my horrified reaction), and I hope to do more reading and research into the fairytale genre over the next couple of weeks, so look out for that post. Being able to link Andersen's writings to his own feelings at different times in his life has enabled me to see more in them already, and I've been given some names to look up and some things to think about relating to the fairytale genre so I'm looking forward to revisiting more of them. As Andersen himself said, his fairytales are not just for children. Adults will see more in his works than a child can.

Links and random trivia:

- A $12.5m theme park based on Andersen's tales and life will open in Shanghai by the end of 2006. Multi-media games as well as all kinds of cultural contests related to the fairytales will reportedly be available to visitors. He was chosen as the star of the park because he is a "nice, hardworking person who was not afraid of poverty", Shanghai Gujin Investment general manager Zhai Shiqiang was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.
From this Wikipedia entry on Andersen.

- The Guardian review by Michael Faber from last year

Fairy Tales Revisited

2006-08-23T22:38:00.000+01:00

I'm currently reading an excellent novel about Hans Christian Andersen, which has encouraged me to pull a book of his fairy tales off my shelf and start reading them again. It's actually scary how...well, scary, his stories are!

When I hear the label 'fairy tales', I immediately think of princes and princesses and happy endings. Above all, happy endings! I watched a lot of Disney as a child (still do, really) and I never realised just how carefully selected and edited their stories were - take The Little Mermaid, for example. Mr Andersen's version is horrible, quite unlike the Disney one. As in Andersen's tales, Disney always preserves a moral, but they are diluted down versions - Belle loves the Beast despite his appearance; moral is, beauty isn't just about external appearances. Ariel gets her prince in the end and the evil sea witch is duly punished; moral is, love conquers all and/or if you're a bad person, bad things will happen to you. Same goes for Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty and all the other heroines. But in Andersen's tales, if you're not a model Christian, terrible (and I mean really terrible - we're not talking all-singing-all-dancing teapots here) things happen to you.

I'm going to illustrate this point with two of Andersen's less well-known stories, which, incidentally, focus on females and their shoes. Firstly, there's the case of the little girl who was born poor and coveted red shoes like all the other little girls had. Sadly, because she was poor she had to make do with what her mother could afford, which was rather second rate brown shoes. When her parents both died, she was taken in by an old woman who took care of her every need and bought her whatever she needed. One day they were out shoe shopping and the little girl, quite naturally, chose a pair of stunning red shoes above all the others. Revelling in the special feeling that a truly beautiful pair of new shoes can give you, the little girl wore them to church but everybody disapproved of her vanity (including the old woman who was blind and therefore had no knowledge of the colour of the shoes). The little girl, having slightly limited understanding as children do, danced for joy in her red shoes and didn't understand why something that gave her so much joy could be as awful as everyone seemed to think. It seems red shoes were a bad choice for her however, because once she'd started the shoes wouldn't come off her feet and she couldn't stop dancing. She danced and danced and danced until she was exhausted, terrified and in floods of tears, whereupon a helpful woodcutter stepped in and cut off her feet. Now is it me, or does a love of pretty shoes seem an insufficient crime to warrant the punishment she recieved? Namely to be permanently crippled, unable to wear any shoes at all ever again because of the clunky wooden feet she had instead of her own feet and thus condemned to never again recieve joy from a pair of beautiful shoes or indeed, probably many other things - because if having a sense of aesthetics gets your feet cut off, who knows what enjoying the taste of cheese or the melodies in a piece of music might get you?

Second example: another poor little girl who had the good fortune to be taken in by a rich family. Admittedly, this little girl is not quite as likeable as the first; as she gets older, she turns into an ungrateful little cow. She doesn't visit her birth parents very often as she is a bit ashamed of her humble beginnings (although this seems to be inherent in her - her foster family are by all accounts lovely people). One day, her foster mother sends her with a loaf of freshly baked bread to visit her birth mother. As the little girl walks through the forest, she comes to a part of the path which is rather muddy. Not wishing to dirty her pretty shoes, the little girl then throws the loaf of bread onto the mud so she can use it as a stepping stone and thereby keep her shoes pristine. Reprehensible, certainly - although possibly not worthy of the punishment she received, which was to sink down through the mud into Hell where she remained for many many years until she turned completely to stone. (Some dear soul eventually rescued her, pointing out to God that the little girl's crime was not horrendous enough for the punishment she had endured.)

I am not impressed with these stories, and not just because I see nothing wrong with having a certain amount of love for one's oh so beautiful shoes. Stories with a moral are a fantastic idea, but there is so much wrong with these! Firstly, of course I appreciate that it is important to educate children while they are young so they don't grow up to be young offenders or 'yobbos' (as English people of a certain age like to label almost all teenagers). But the way to do it should be to tell them stories of what happens to children who grow up to be horrible adults, a) because adults should know better whereas children are still learning, and b) because everything Andersen said was simply a mean ploy to terrify children into submission - to their parents, to the Church, to anyone older than them. I feel this is akin to cheating, personally. I know he was writing in the early 1800s and was a product of his time, but still! What an awful thing for the son of a shoemaker to tell millions of little children, when the truth would have sufficed just as well.

First Monthly Review

2006-08-20T22:57:00.000+01:00

Wow! A whole month (and a day) since my first post. Exciting times! Each month on or around the 2oth, I'm going to do a review post listing the books I've read that month, the continents I've been reading from, how much I've enjoyed my reading, and so on.

Basically I worked out that in order to attain my 100 books in a year mark, I need to be reading nine books each calendar month. (Usually I read far more than that anyway, but I do tend to read a lot of rubbish interspersed with my literary novels, which is generally less time consuming.) I'm delighted to report that I am right on schedule, having read nine books in my first month of my World Literature Tour. Here they are:

1. In Lucia's Eyes, by Arthur Japin (The Netherlands)
2. Les Liaisons Culinaires, by Andreas Staïkos (Greece)
3. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, by Ismail Kadare (Albania)
4. No Saints Or Angels, by Ivan Klíma (Czech Republic)
5. Embers, by Sándor Márai (Hungary)
6. The Czar's Madman, by Jaan Kross (Estonia)
7. The Three Cornered Hat, by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (Spain)
8. The Fish Can Sing, by Halldór Laxness (Iceland)
9. Les Enfants Terribles, by Jean Cocteau (France)

It goes without saying that these are all European countries. So far, I'm loving my literary travels so much I feel as though I could happily devote an entire year just to reading European authors. I'm feel as though I'm learning so much about Europe - Europe is scarred not only by the Holocaust but also by Napoleon, for example, which I never realised. I'm going to have to do more reading about him and what he got up to, because he is mentioned in almost everything I've read. I was surprised that I liked Jaan Kross' The Czar's Madman because before reading it, I would have said I loathed historical novels - I think my definition of what a historical novel actually is was somewhat limited, because now I stop to think about it most of what I've read is not in a contemporary setting. For the first time in ages, I'm happy with everything I've been reading recently. Not in the sense that I have enjoyed everything, because some books I have enjoyed more than others, but more because everything I've read is an example of the best literature from each country. Or if it isn't great literature, it is at least fun or deeply rooted in that country's culture or it has won international literary prizes or something.

Blogging is definitely part of enjoying reading. It is somehow very satisfying to stop and reflect on books and put my thoughts down on my blog, and I love reading other people's blogs to find out about new authors or books I might enjoy, or just reading their musings on anything bookish. Plus I love the fact that I have a record of what I've been reading and what I thought of it. It makes it more real, because I forget books very fast, even those I loved reading. Blogging about them helps them stick in my mind and form clear impressions, whereas I always used to read, reflect for about two seconds, and move on (unless I had to write an essay on sex and death in the works of author x, or something equally terrible).

Reading purely for myself on my own random reading mission is proving to be more rewarding than I thought.

Les Enfants Terribles

2006-08-18T19:04:00.000+01:00

Book Number 9: Les Enfants Terribles, by Jean Cocteau
Country: France

All I know about Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) is what is printed in the front of the book I picked up, the most significant item of information being "...a leading figure in the Surrealist movement." All I know about Surrealism is Dali, with his melting clocks and his swans being reflected as elephants. Pitiful, really.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Surrealism:

Surrealism is an artistic, cultural and intellectual movement oriented toward the liberation of the mind by emphasizing the critical and imaginative faculties of the "unconscious mind" and the attainment of a dream-like state different from, "more than", and ultimately "truer" than everyday reality: the "sur-real", or "more than real".

Les Enfants Terribles is surrealism epitomised, going on the above definition. For the four children at the centre of the novel, all there is is Life and the Game. The Game is the surreal, a reality born from their minds that comes into itself at night, while in the day they mostly sleep through Life or wait for the night to come again. The Game affects everything in their lives - their relationships to other people, to each other, their loves, their passions. Eventually, for one of the group, the Game proves to be more important then real life and the consequences are terrible.

The 'children' featured in the book are a little older than children featuring in novels of make-believe worlds usually are - the book starts when the oldest of them is 16, and she is probably at least 20 when it ends. The others are a couple of years younger. Their imaginary world is never fully explored or explained, and the reader is not initiated into their group, but kept very much as an outside observer. The Game intrudes into their lives, and the boundaries between the two rapidly become uncertain. Good fortune and the group's careful exclusivity and rejection of the outside world create a cocoon for them to play out the Game, until something changes and real life forces its way in. Perhaps because of the exclusivity of the group of children and the distance the author retains from their minds, this book was quite challenging to get into, and took me a couple of attempts to get going. I found myself frequently re-reading passages to try and make sense of what I had read, because much of it is couched in semi-Game language - by that I mean phrasing and references to things of import in the Game I didn't fully comprehend the significance of. The confusion I felt while reading was undoubtedly intentional on the author's part, to emphasise the lack of clear distinction between reality and the surreal, but I can't say it suceeded in either helping me liberate my mind or understanding the liberation of the character's minds.

I was mildy curious about the ending from the blurb on the back of the book, which encoraged me to keep reading, but I can't honestly say I enjoyed reading it. I prefer books where I can engage with the characters, get into their minds, understand who they are and why they do what they do. While I found the concept behind the book interesting, fantasy worlds have become common place in literature since the Surrealist movement, and I didn't find these characters interesting so much as self-absorbed and spoilt. A decidedly uninspiring read as far as I am concerned, although I did like the accompanying ilustrations. Cocteau would be horrified!

Libraries of the World...some, anyway

2006-08-17T22:26:00.000+01:00

I discovered http://www.futureofthebook.com/ today, while surfing the net. I thought it sounded as though it might be interesting (it's about "the future of the codex book"), but the first paragraph on the homepage made me smile so much, I didn't get any further into the site - instead, my thoughts went off on their own little tangent, and I never did read about the future of the codex book. Here's the first paragraph:

"The easiest way to achieve planetary peace and cross-cultural understanding is for libraries all over the world to issue a Planetary Library Card. This should be a paper card with the two global hemispheres imposed over the spread of an opened book. The card will be signed by the reader and issuing library and be considered a welcomed credential at libraries everywhere."

What a fabulous idea! Spreading world peace through a mutual love of books. Sadly, never going to happen. I was pondering the wonders that must be concealed in libraries of other countries, that I just don't have access to, then I remembered my trials at the China National Library in Beijing...

I read Chinese for my undergrad degree, and as I am wont to do, selected what I thought would be an amazing topic to do for my dissertation, and didn't realise how much research I would have to undertake in China. Silly me. The National Library is spread over several sites, and it is extremely hard to get a reader's card for any of them if you aren't Chinese and don't have a Chinese University card. I had to rely on personal connections to wangle myself a card, along with lying and saying I was actually doing research for a phd, but that was only the start of my struggles. Each department of the primary site of the National Library is several floors tall, and consists of several buildings on one site. I thought I'd wander in, browse the shelves, pick up some useful tomes and scarper back to my flat to peruse them at my leisure, a la England. Not so. Firstly, there are very few shelves to browse, for reasons given below. Secondly, (something that never even crossed my mind) so many people use the National Library that removing books from the premises is prohibited, else the library would be permanently half empty. Instead, the books are stored on several floors under the library. To view a book, you must call it up from the basement on the computer system, which took me most of a day to fully figure out, and then take your seat in a waiting room for at least two hours, and eventually, your selected items will rattle up from the basement on a little trolley train (probably not all at once), which the librarians will then give you on production of your Reader's card. Happily, you can call up any number of books, but it involved many hours of sitting and waiting, and cursing as I realised that what I'd thought might be useful was in fact utterly irrelevant. I remember thinking furiously, why won't they let me at the books so I can flick through them and look for useful articles? Happily, my second experience was far more enjoyable.

My topic was such that I also had to access some older dynastic works, but for those, I had to travel across to the other side of Beijing, to a beautiful site next to an old Confucian college. The courtyard outside the library was gorgeous, with the ubiquitous stone lions that adorn every doorway of any significance in China flanking the tall red gates, and the library building itself was just as stunning. It was an older building than those on the main site, made of grey stone with carved lacquer furniture and staircases inside. When I found the library reading room, it turned out to be a rectangular hall with large windows across every wall, and dark wood tables and ornate chairs in rows across the floor. There were even a couple of venerable long haired Chinese scholars poring over classical texts, who gave me slightly quizzical glances. To be fair, I shouldn't expect they see young white girls reading late Qing texts in semi-Classical language in there very often. The reading room was empty apart from myself and a couple of other scholars every day I was there, and I can honestly say that given the chance, I would work there every day. The room itself was the epitome of serenity, and between bouts of scrutinising texts, I could gaze dreamily out of the window into the courtyard, and think happy floaty thoughts about all the thousands of people from hundreds of year before who must have been there before me, or read the same texts I was reading.

Still, the thought of a Planetary Library Card is appealing. No need to plan holiday reading, you could pick it up when you arrived at your destination! (Obviously reading for the plane journey would still be crucial - planes should have libraries on board! Although books are quite heavy...ok then, planes should have the option to read books on a screen. I personally hate doing this, but could bear short stories or poems or articles. I read blogs off a screen all the time! Anyway...) Until a Planetary Libarary system is developed, book bloggers will have to spread the love online. If anyone else has any experiences of libararies abroad (that is to say, not in your native country), be they good or bad, I'd love to hear them.

The Fish Can Sing

2006-08-16T09:24:00.000+01:00

Book Number 8: The Fish Can Sing, by Halldór Laxness
Country: Iceland

To be honest, most of the time I forget Iceland even exists. This sounds a little rude, and is an insult to Icelanders, but Iceland has never managed to really penetrate my consciousness. It wasn't something we covered in Geography classes at school, it isn't ever in the newspapers, and although Bjork used to be kind of famous...it wasn't in an especially 'what a wonderful country Iceland is' way. It's ironic that I picked up The Fish Can Sing by Iceland's most famous author (although I had to look on this list to find an Icelandic author - doesn't say much about my current state of literary awareness), because it's about the backwardness and obscurity of Icelanders.

The book is set at the beginning of the 20th century. Reykjavik is still a small town, and the people live simply. Alfgrimur lives with an old couple he calls his grandparents in a house called Brekkukot. As Alfgrimur grows up, his life changes and becomes more complex as Iceland develops. The personality of Garðar Holm is sporadically present - Holm is well known in Iceland to be a world famous singer, rich and globally renowned, despite the fact that he never sings in Iceland. Alfgrimur and Garðar Holm come into contact on the few occasions that Garðar Holm returns to Iceland to visit his mother, and Holm chips in with everyone else in offering Alfgrimur advice on what to do with his life.

I'd originally wanted to read Independent People, which is recognised as the best of Laxness' works, but the library only had this one. Fine by me, because I loved it. Perception and transition are central themes, played out through Alfgrimur as he grows older, and reflected in the people around him. Alfgrimur is not an emotional narrator, and I was very surprised that the last page almost made me cry - but it isn't until then that he really sees anything and understands what he is seeing.

A little bit on Halldór Laxness: He is Iceland's only Nobel prize laureate, not only because he wrote amazingly compassionate and profoundly touching works, but also because he wrote them in Icelandic. Icelandic authors used to write in Danish, because "they despaired of the Icelandic language as an instrument for artistic creation". Laxness forged the path for modern writers to use Icelandic as an artistic means of expression, giving his fellow Icelanders a priceless gift.

On Selecting Books

2006-08-14T08:48:00.000+01:00

I’ve had a couple of comments recently asking me how I’m selecting the books I read. I started to reply to one just now, but I discovered I had a lot to explain, so I’m putting it all in a new post.

I started my tour of world literature almost a month ago, and so far, most of the time I wander around my library, or a local second hand bookshop and pick up any authors that sounds as though they might be European. A slightly dubious method, I agree, but it seems to be working out so far. I am trying to steer away from reading authors I have already read, as well as books everyone has read - so, for example, I wouldn't choose Madame Bovary for my French book, because to my mind, it is a little like a tourist hotspot. (Plus I already read it, but you get the idea.) I came across The Three Cornered Hat by browsing in the library, and I chose it above Cervantes as my Spanish read for the above reason, really - I'm out to discover books I've never heard of, new authors, new everything really. Of course, Don Quixote is on my 'to read' list, but not this year.

Another way I find books/authors is searching online, either specifically for, say, Romanian authors (if I am having trouble finding a Romanian author), or for lists like the Nobel Prize winners for literature - see http://almaz.com/nobel/literature/literature.html

This year, I'm not out to read every great work of literature I can find; mostly, I want to have fun, read a variety of books from a range of authors, and discover books I otherwise might not have discovered. I do sometimes think that maybe I'm missing out by not aiming for the universally acknowledged greats, but I have the rest of my (hopefully long) life to read everything I want to read. Having said that, a lot of the time, the books I happen across are examples of the best work from the authors held in highest regard in their own countries and abroad – for example, Jaan Kross’ The Czar’s Madman, or the one I’m reading at the moment by Halldór Laxness, The Fish Can Sing. Both of those were random finds, and I’d never heard of these authors before, even though Laxness won the Nobel Prize in 1955, and Jaan Kross was nominated for it a couple of times. It’s a fine line, I suppose; I also don’t want to waste my time reading utter rubbish! However, I usually go on the assumption that if it someone has gone to the bother of producing an English translation, there must be something about the work to recommend it, although if I don’t like what I see on the back, or don’t like the random page that I read, I won’t take it home.

So there you have it. In future posts, I’ll include a little bit on how I chose any particular book, and on the author – whether they’ve won any notable prizes and such. I don’t really know why I haven’t been doing this – so thanks Litlove and Booklogged, for making me think more about what I’m trying to accomplish on my world literature tour!

The Three Cornered Hat

2006-08-11T21:40:00.000+01:00

Book Number 7: The Three Cornered Hat, by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón
Country: Spain

First published in 1874, the cover of this little book promised me 'a hilarious tale of lust, intrigue and corruption...one of the best loved Spanish novels of all time'. It certainly delivered! It is a classic tale - a great beauty married to an ugly man, a magistrate (whose badge of office is the three cornered hat he wears) who desires the beautiful woman for himself, and the lengths he goes to in order to arrange a union with her. Predictably, nothing is quite what it seems, and chaos ensues. It actually reminded me a little of Chaucer - the same bawdy humour, the way the story is framed, with its origins in spoken word (this story purports to originally have been a ballad, and claims to have made young women blush), and the enduring popularity.

This short but sweet fable has spawned at least two films, as well as a ballet, which Dalí designed a set for, and for which Picasso also created 31 colour plates (see the curtain he designed here). The Three Cornered Hat really does pervade Spanish culture - it's only a short book, but massive fun to read, plus you'll gain an insight into something Spaniards treasure.

The Czar's Madman

2006-08-10T22:19:00.000+01:00

Book Number 6: The Czar's Madman, by Jaan Kross
Country: Estonia

Timotheus von Bock was declared mad by the Emperor, and for nine years was incarcerated in the icebound Schulusselburg castle with only a grand piano for company. Jakob, Timo's brother in law, begins a secret diary on the day that Timo is released in 1827, relating his investigations into Timo's state of mind, the reasons for his imprisonment, and his unexpected discoveries.

The Czar's Madman is a historical novel, based on real occurences and real people. Through Timo, Jan Kross criticises the totalitarian regimes of the Czars of post-Napoleonic Russia, the repression of free expression, and the failure of the nobility to empathise with the working classes. An aristocrat idealist, Timo von Bock's passion for proving the "equality of all human beings before nature, God and his ideals" led him to marry a woman from a peasant family in a practise-what-you-preach move. Later on, honouring an oath he swore to the Emperor to always tell him the truth for the benefit of the people the Emperor ruled over, Timo wrote a memorandum, the contents of which were deemed so shocking that the Emperor immediately proclaimed him to be insane, and Jakob agreed that to even write such a thing was insanity in itself, let alone allow the Emperor to read it.

The technique employed by Kross is highly effective - Jakob's resistance to the fact that Timo married his sister, provided both of them with an education, a home, an income, all contrast with Timo's enthusiasm for and belief in the equality of all men. Jakob is an example of the ignorance and unwillingness to change as exemplified by the typical man; he feels inferior to born noblemen, depite the fact that his education easily matches theirs, and resents the fact that his sister seems perfectly at ease in her new role as an aristocrat's wife. Jakob really serves to illustrate that although Timo's idealism is admirable, his conviction is incorrect - all men are not equal. Mostly, they're just human.

It took me a few pages to get into this book, but once I did, I almost couldn't put it down. A few other reviewers have noted that a knowledge of Russian/Estonian history would allow a deeper enjoyment and appreciation of the book, which I agree with. While I recognise the air of authenticity the diary format gives, no historical background information is included in the book, even on a page before the novel begins. On the plus side however, I feel as though I know more about European history (which isn't hard, since I never studied it and barely know who Napolean was!).

For more on Estonian writers, click here.

To read or not to read?

2006-08-08T17:03:00.000+01:00

The Observer ran an interesting article this weekend on Richard and Judy (a married couple with a daily entertainment show here in the UK) and how their televised book club is affecting the British bestseller lists - last week, three of the six books they recommend for summer reading took the top spots in the national bestseller listings. The book club is on weekly (I think), and each week Richard and Judy send out camera crews to capture the thoughts of some people who have read the book they are featuring on the show that week. The public thereby gains a range of opinions in colloquial language on a number of books, and can also refer to the website for additional information on the author and the book as well as quotations taken from the televised reviewers.

Anyway, the article got me thinking about the reasons people read (or not). I am passionately devoted to books and always have been. On the other hand, my sister probably only owns about three books, and she has those because other people bought them for her. I remember one occasion when the two of us were out shopping with out parents - we must have been about 11 and 13, and on the way home in the car, we were comparing purchases. Shopping was an exciting event for us; we each had a paper round, and earned about five pounds a week, and we'd save up to buy our individual objects of desire. Naturally, my sister always wanted cosmetics or clothes, which I duly admired. I will never forget the look on her face as she looked into my Waterstone's bag at the book inside, and said, incredulously: "You spent seven pounds on a book?" then, as she turned it over, "You spent seven pounds on a poetry book?" There is some famous quotation I came across the other day (predictably, I cannot find it again) which expresses the opinion that a love of reading is developed through having books read to one by one's parents while very young. All I can say is, my mother read books to both my sister and I on a daily basis until we learned to read by ourselves, yet one of us loves reading and the other does not see the point.

I've digressed somewhat. I meant to discuss the role of the professional book critic in promoting books, because it occurs to me that the vast majority of the reading public obviously do not pay much attention to what reviewers in national papers say, or possibly even the bestseller lists. I wonder if anyone really pays attention to professional critics; I very rarely do, unless it happens to be John Bayley, because I know I can trust his opinions. It is common knowledge that publishers routinely manipulate the national bestseller lists by buying up their own books in vast quantities in an attempt to bring them into the public eye via the bestseller lists (so clearly they believe in the power of the bestseller list), so sales rates are not always good indicators of the quality of a book. What, then, encourages people to pick up a certain book? Might more people read if reviews were couched in language that is less literary, or simply more colloquial? I am speculating here, but I would ascribe the success of the Richard and Judy book club to good old popular culture. There is an anti-intellectual trend in the UK (even among university students - Oxbridge students divulge the name of their university at their peril to a student of any of the other UK universities) which reflects negatively on books and reading. At the other end of the spectrum are those who scoff at the notion of something as untaxing as chicklit fiction, and don't seem to be able to get their heads around the fact that entertainment literature has its place in the book world as much as the Romantic poets do. Given that one in five adults in the UK is 'functionally illiterate', totalling over 7 million adults, maybe Richard and Judy is the way to get more adults reading. After all, Nietzsche is never going to be everyone's cup of tea, and who cares whether people are reading something light and fluffy, as long as they read and enjoy it? If parents like reading, they can encourage their children to read - it may turn out that some kids, like my sister, will never take to reading for fun, but everyone should at least be able to read.

I know there is no evidence that Richard and Judy are actually causing people who do not tend to read for fun to go out and buy books and start reading, but since people are actually buying books as opposed to borrowing them, and in sufficient quantities to top the bestseller lists, their show is clearly exercising a strong influence over vast numbers of people, among them likely to be some who generally do not read as a regular pastime. People trust Richard and Judy, and appreciate hearing what other 'normal' people think of books. It is an unprecedented phenomenon, and makes me think that maybe televised book clubs are the way forward in promoting reading. They are arguably the most accessible form of book reviews for the majority of adults, because there is no need to spend time on specific book websites, or go into a library and be faced with a bewildering array of literature with no way of knowing what you might enjoy. Instead, the choice of literature is narrowed down for you in your own living room, and you can even buy the books through Richard and Judy's book club website. I say bring on the televised book clubs!

Book Meme

2006-08-03T23:20:00.000+01:00

After reading many versions of the book meme on various blogs, I've decided to finally do my own. I do so love lists! Plus, I'm feeling very lazy today.

1. One book that changed your life.

A Long Walk To Freedom, by Nelson Mandela. I read it when I was 16 or so (not that long ago for me), and it opened my eyes and got me thinking in so many ways. One of my ambitions is to meet Nelson Mandela before he dies (because let's face it, he's an old man now), but I have the feeling that the closest I am likely to get is the Make Poverty History rally I attended in London, where he was a speaker.

2. One book that you've read more than once.

The entire James Herriot series. If you've never heard of these, they are the autobiographical stories of a vet in the Yorkshire Dales during the '40s. It helps if you love animals, but these books are utterly fantastic - I love re-reading them. Each time I do, and I come across a favourite anecdote, it's like catching up with an old friend I haven't seen for ages. The characters are beautifully represented (I wish Tristan were one of my friends so I could marry him), and they are hilarious to read. It makes me smile with delight just thinking about those books.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island.

Probably the Bible...I tried reading it once, and I got as far as Noah's age and gave up in disgust. I think if I read it, I would understand much more about this world. A desert island would be the ideal setting too, because not only would there be no other books to distract me, but I imagine that at that stage, I would be very receptive to the idea of God.

4. One book that made you laugh.

Any of the James Herriot ones. That's cheating really, isn't it? Ok then, any Discworld books featuring Rincewind the Wizzard.

5. One book that made you cry.

Iris, by John Bayley. It's Bayley's memoir of his wife Iris Murdoch, and he recounts everything, from the first time he saw her right up to how he coped when she developed Alzheimers. I love this book for so many reasons, not least because I always wondered if love truly lasts until old age. Now I know I have something to look forward to. I always hoped I would see John Bayley shambling around Oxford since he still lives nearby, but I never did. I don't think I would have spoken to him, but I wanted to see the man who loved his wife so much and wrote such a beautiful book about their life together.

6. One book that you wish had been written.

Another James Herriot one. (Does anyone sense a theme here?)

7. One book you wish had never been written.

So many people have said that there are no books they wish had never been written. I think there are probably some books I wish had never been written, but as I can't recall any of them right now, I'm going to say I wish I had never wasted my time reading Platform by Houellebecq. A friend recommended it to me, and it had a lot of rave review extracts in the front, and I expected great things. Instead, I loathed it.

8. One book you're currently reading.

While I was in the library today, I picked up a book called Yan and the Pike, by Jun Machida. When I have kids, I'm going to buy it for them and read it to them.

9. One book you've been meaning to read.

Ulysses. It has been on my bookshelf for at least five years now, and I have tried a couple of times to read it, but always given up by about the second page *blushes shamefacedly*. One of these days...
(Or I could just read the cheat's guide)

10. I'm not tagging anyone, but if you happen across this and haven't done it, do it!

"Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends" - Dawn Adams

2006-08-02T21:28:00.000+01:00

This week in the Guardian Books supplement, there is an interesting article and discussion on how our reactions to people are influenced by seeing what they are reading. According to a new survey, the genres 'most likely to help you pull' (or simply inspire a positive reaction in those around you) are 1) the classics and 2) modern literary fiction. This makes me very suspicious.

I'm about to be very hypocritical, but here goes: I distrust completely people who judge others on whether or not they read 'the classics' or by how many classics they have read. I admit, when I was 17, I went through a stage of reading nothing but classics for about a year, even going so far as to work my way through the entirety of Paradise Lost (much to the delight of my English tutors). My passion was partly fuelled by the desire to be 'well read' (pretentious in the extreme), partly by the feeling that I should somehow be holding my own in an undefined literary arena, and partly simply because I felt there must be something very worthwhile about reading these books, and that they were classics for a reason. I still read classics now, but with less frequency - there is simply too much else to read, so much so that sometimes I feel unbearably frustrated by the thought of all the books I want to read, and all the time I will waste reading books that for me are second rate, as I hunt for those elusive few that I wish I could continue reading forever. The thing with classics is that an awful lot of people read them or carry them around in their bags in order to prove their intellectual superiority (as evidenced by some of the people who have participated in the discussion on the Guardian site). I am wary of people who publicly proclaim their love for 'the classics', because I am only too familiar with intellectual snobbery and competitiveness, and distrust people who casually throw Tolstoy or Baudelaire into conversation in literary name-dropping games.

On the other hand, I have a lot of time for those who genuinely speak of the classics with real enthusiasm, and can articulate real opinions about what they have read. In my experience however, these readers are relatively rare. As Mark Twain said, "A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read." I'm just deeply cynical. But - here comes the hypocrisy - I can't help feeling a little impressed by glimpsing a man reading a classic (or anything I have read and admired). So many people just don't read, and who doesn't want a partner who can hold their own in reading discussions?

So there we have it. I hope I've managed to explain my views clearly enough - nothing against the classics, nothing against those who read them (after all, I'm one of them), but wary of pretentious fakers.

Finally: in answer to the questions posed for discussion on the Guardian's boards, if I saw a man reading any of the James Herriot novels, I would quite possibly fall at his feet. If I saw a man reading and enjoying Houellebecq, I would be more distressed than I can express.

"Thy friendship oft has made my heart to ache: do be my enemy for friendship's sake."

2006-08-01T23:58:00.000+01:00

Book Number 5: Embers, by Sándor Márai
Country: Hungary

41 years ago, a man took up his gun to kill his closest friend. Instead, he fled. 41 years later, he returned to face his old friend and resolve what passed between them.

Two old men nearing the end of their lives sit together in a castle and one narrates the tale of their friendship. The story passes from the glittering ballrooms of Vienna to the old aristocrat’s isolated castle in Hungary, from childhood through to adulthood, until it was abruptly suspended by the deception by one friend of another. The men had been close, and shared everything; what belonged to one, belonged to the other. Their friendship prevailed in spite of the differences between them, and was valued by each. Yet one did not understand the other, could not see into his heart, did not understand the differences in his soul.

The book is narrated primarily through the voice of the General. For 41 years, he has waited alone in his castle for his old friend Konrad to return, and while he waited, he has contemplated the meaning of friendship, the nature of their friendship, and the reasons for Konrad’s actions 41 years ago. The story is delicately unfolded, and explores the themes of love, loyalty, togetherness and isolation. While recounting the General’s carefully thought out conclusions, Márai explores the character of the old man and reveals it slowly and carefully through the General’s explanations of everything he has considered over the years.

I found that as I read, I was prompted to think about my own close friendships and what friendship meant for the people involved. Márai’s book is not an exercise in philosophy, but it is extremely sensitive and relevant to everyone. My enjoyment of it stemmed not from the final folds in the story being smoothed out, but rather from the insights I gained about my own life, inspired by reading this book. (Incidentally, the copy I read had the most beautiful cover.)

People Almost Always Long For Change

2006-07-29T00:35:00.000+01:00

Book Number 4: No Saints Or Angels, by Ivan Klíma
Country: The Czech Republic

In her dreams, Kristyna murders her ex-husband.

Jana, Kristyna’s daughter, is rapidly sliding into drug addiction.

Jan, Kristyna’s lover, is in danger of uncovering too much in his investigations of war crimes in Prague.

In contemporary Prague, these three individuals, all at different stages in their lives, struggle to find happiness from life. Each narrates parts of their own personal battles. Kristyna, a depressive dentist, is the centre of the story. Her life is scarred by the death of her grandmother in a gas chamber during the holocaust, her father’s intense Socialist ideals that overshadowed his interest in his daughter, the betrayal of her ex-husband, and her deceitful teenage daughter, who steals and lies to fund her drug habit. Gradually, Kristyna learns that she wasn’t the only one her father or her husband let down and she slowly begins to find the strength to let the past go.

Although I found the greyness and bleakness of this book hard work at first, as the story progresses, Klíma’s philosophy emerges – there are no saints or angels in life, and as long as we can make our peace with that, the beauty in life will become apparent. The depressive depiction of life at the outset of the book is a gratifying contrast to the hope and promise Kristyna eventually realises life contains - "You live so long as you have something to expect."

The Land of the Eagles

2006-07-26T22:05:00.000+01:00

Book Number 3: Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, by Ismail Kadare
Country: Albania

The works of Albania’s most controversial author Ismail Kadare reach English-reading audiences by a more arduous process than those of other foreign writers. Apparently nobody English speaks Albanian; or, if they do happen to be fluent in English and Albanian, they must have better things to do with their time than translate literature, because Kadare’s works are translated first into French and then into English. There are always numerous concerns regarding translated literature (primarily regarding the translator’s loyalty to the original), and more so when the literature in question has been translated from a translation, but Kadare’s writings seem to have emerged pretty well. This is evidently a testament to the skills of both the author and his translators.

The first book of Kadare’s I read was Broken April, which transported me to the Albanian mountains and the midst of an ancient blood feud, with the shadow of the Kanun (the book in which the code of the blood feud is written) colouring everyone and everything. With Spring Flowers, Spring Frost I was expecting a read at least as entrancing as Broken April, but rather disappointingly I found it distinctly unsatisfying.

The story follows Mark, an artist, as he struggles to make sense of what is happening to Albania, and in his life. Mark and Albania have both lost track of where they are going and what they are doing, and both man and nation are desperately trying to avoid slipping into utter despair and confusion. The book is written in chapters and counter-chapters, juxtaposing Mark’s life in the present with myths and legends of old that Mark contemplates in an attempt to understand love, life, and Albania’s precarious teetering on the boundary between the old society and the new. The Kanun is omnipresent in this book also, threatening to break down the fragile new society and deny Albania entry into the EU.

I’m ashamed to say I’m not too good with subtlety in books, and I definitely feel as though I have missed something crucial in this one. One of the mysteries I am still trying to work out is Mark’s absent friend, Zef. He is a conspicuous absence throughout the book, and one that the author touches on repeatedly, but I can’t see why. The surreal aspects of this novel are always touched upon by reviewers with mixed conclusions, but for me, it contributed to the disappointment I felt with the book overall. I am in no way implying that this is not a novel worth reading; I just didn’t get on with it. Although I appreciate the themes and techniques employed by Kadare, I didn’t like the characters or the grittiness of the subject matter. I’d love to hear anyone else’s thoughts on this book if anyone has read it.

* Article on Kadare winning the International Man Booker Prize in 2005
* Albanian Literature online

Never Judge A Book by Its Cover?

2006-07-26T00:40:00.000+01:00

I always judge a book by its cover.

I don’t see it as a fault on my part; rather, I prefer to blame the publishing houses that commission and then authorise the designs. It is rare that I enter a bookshop with a list of books to buy, and ever rarer that I stick to the list when I do have one. I take enormous pleasure in slowly wandering among the shelves, pulling off books with attractive covers and promising titles (or more recently, books whose authors look as though they might be European), sitting and flicking through them, and trying to decide which of the books I have selected will be coming home with me. There is nothing more distressing than a beautiful book with promising reviews on the back, which then turns out to be unworthy of attention. Only slightly less upsetting is the sensational book with the unappealing cover.

It is impossible for me to define exactly what makes a book cover good in my eyes. Of course, I know what I don’t like, which includes shiny covers, very bright colours, overly curly fonts and depressing titles. I also loathe the fact that every other contemporary book is declared by the critics to be ‘a modern classic!’ or a ‘masterpiece!’. Whenever I read those words on the back of a book, my heart sinks. I suspect, for me, the secret of a good book cover involves the use of a painting as illustration on the front, an outstanding quotation pulled from somewhere inside the book, and the simplest design possible.

One of my favourite book covers belongs to my copy of Pasternak’s Dr Zhivago. There is a detail of a Caravaggio on the front cover, and at the top, the title of the book and the author’s name underneath it are printed in embossed gold capital letters. In the bottom right hand corner, the first line of the book is printed in white italics (“On they went, singing ‘Eternal Memory’, and whenever they stopped, the sound of their feet, the horses and the gusts of wind seemed to carry on their singing…”). The spine of the book is plain black, with the title and author’s name in white, and on the back cover is a black and white photograph of Pasternak. Below his chin, the briefest synopsis is printed across his jacket, in five neat white lines. It is understated, elegant, and the beautiful sentence on the front of the book makes it irresistible.

For the next year however, I'm having to abandon my whimsical dismissals of works as a result of an unsatisfactory cover. My local library simply doesn't possess a large enough range of Estonian authors for me to be so picky.

In Every Sense Hungry

2006-07-24T19:51:00.000+01:00

Book Number 2: Les Liaisons Culinaires, by Andreas Staïkos
Country: Greece

The contenders: Dimitris and Damocles.
The battlefield: The kitchen.
The prize: The affections of Nana, a married woman.

In Athens, the way to a woman’s heart is through her stomach. Upon discovering that they share a lover, neighbours Dimitris and Damocles commence a fierce culinary competition in order to exclusively secure Nana’s attentions. As the weeks progress, Nana is seduced by creations such as moussaka, stuffed vine leaves, and the magical-sounding ‘sea urchin corals, drowning in a spoonful of Aegean water’.

The author includes the working recipes for all the dishes that feature in the war of seduction, most of them classic Greek recipes. The majority of them feature meat as a main ingredient, so if, like me, you happen to be vegetarian, you may have to resort to another book for versions minus the meat. However, the inclusion of the recipes is what makes the book, providing a brief introduction to traditional Greek cuisine, and inviting readers to experiment in their own kitchens. Even I was inspired to create a vegetarian moussaka!

Nana is a hilarious character; totally unashamed by the discovery of her deceit in conducting affairs with both men, she enters into the spirit of the contest for her love wholeheartedly, urging the men on with declarations such as: “Today is going to be such an ordeal for you: cutting, slicing, peeling, grating, chopping – just for me…Fitting remuneration for my love, I think you’ll agree.”

Personally, I loved the light-hearted irony of the role reversals – it is the woman arriving in the flat and reclining in a chair while the man attends to her every need, and strives to delight her taste buds by slaving for hours in the kitchen. Nana strikes one back for the women!

The Meaning Of Love

2006-07-21T17:02:00.000+01:00

Book Number 1: 'In Lucia's Eyes', by Arthur Japin
Country: The Netherlands

It is, I think, brave for a man to place himself in the shoes of a woman in love and attempt to write an account of her desires and sacrifices as though he himself had lived her life.

I discovered Arthur Japin's fictionalised memoir of the life of Lucia, one of only two women Casanova admits to having 'wronged', in a secondhand book shop, when I shouldn't really have been looking for a book at all. What I stumbled across turned out to be a story of all kinds of love: real and imagined, unrequited and passionately returned. As children, Lucia and Casanova fell in love. As adults, they loved each other again, but she hid herself behind a veil, and he did not know who he loved.

This book is utterly spellbinding. The only complaint I can imagine someone having is that the character of Lucia is somewhat idealised. Although the man she loved with all her heart confirmed her (and perhaps everyone's) worst fear, she never lapses into self pity, or resentment, or bitterness. Then again, this is a fictionalised account of a life lived, and in my opinion, it adds to the romance and ambiance of the story. Any artistic liberties the author has taken with Lucia's character obviously do not interfere with the historical facts as far as they are known.

I'm not really one for re-reading books, but I have a feeling I'll be coming back to this one in the future. It has everything - love, betrayal, deception, sacrifice and an unexpected bittersweet ending. I'm actually a little horrified to think that if I hadn't specifically been searching for something by a European author, I probably would never have read this!

The Book Traveller

2006-07-20T23:00:00.000+01:00

First things first. I'm not really travelling. I just plan on reading books. A lot of books.

Here's my plan (because it's good to have a plan) : I am aiming to read 100 books from 100 different countries in one year. These books will include novels, short stories, poetry, maybe non-fiction books...it all depends what I come across through my browsings in libraries and bookshops. This may seem like an arbitrary goal, which I suppose it is really, but I'm hoping to get a lot from my year of world literature. A better knowledge of geography for a start...

My love of wasting time drifting aimlessly round bookshops prohibits me from making lists of all the books/authors I would like to read this year (that, and the fact that as soon as I slap something onto one of my 'Must Read' lists, I immediately lose all will to pick it up), so I'm just going to see what happens. Actually, I know what happens, because I went to a secondhand bookshop and then the library a few days ago, meandered, and discovered my first few books.

My itinerary for the next couple of weeks includes the Netherlands, the Czech republic, Italy, Greece and Albania. Keep reading to see how my journey is progressing!