Les Enfants Terribles

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

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

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

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

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.