SassyLassy: September and back to the Alphabet

Tomorrow is September 1st, the start of a new year in my mind and the start of my favourite time of year. Since September is traditionally associated with back to school, I'm going back to my sadly neglected alphabet. My 2015 goal was to read my way through authors in translation alphabetically. Of course, there's lots of other reading too, but time is running out, so I will be more diligent.

I learned my alphabet from Edward Lear. It starts off like this.





In this year's alphabet, I have been using nautical symbols.

My reading to date:
Juan Tomás Avila Laurel, Equatorial Guinea
Mikhail Bulgakov, Ukraine, was Russia at the time
Chan Koonchung, China
Marguerite Duras, Indochina, France
José Maria Eça de Queirós, Portugal
Carlos Fuentes, Mexico
Paul Goma, Rumania
Agnes Hankiss, Hungary

And we're off

This book seemed to take forever. My H book was finished at the end of May, this one wasn't done until the end of July. I really enjoyed it while I was reading it, but whenever I put it down, it moved further down the pile.



Spoken: India
Meaning: I am altering my course to port

We are here:



Odessa, 1929, the fictional Chernomorsk

36. The Golden Calf by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov, translated from the Russian 2009 by Konstantin Gurevich and Helen Anderson
first published in serial form in 30 Dnei in 1931
finished reading July 29, 2015

How do you review satire, comedy? It's almost impossible.

Comedy may endure, but satire often has a limited shelf life, particularly when it comes from a different time and place. The Golden Calf takes place during the time of the New Economic Policy, a period in the late 1920s when the new Soviet government was encouraging cooperatives and small businesses. It may be difficult to picture now, but Ilf and Petrov paint a picture of a financial wild, wild west, an everyone for his or herself world, where everyone knows the rules of the game and no hard feelings at the end, because after all, you have to admire the ingenuity of the winners.

What is this game? It's the art of the con. Ostap Bender is a master. When first encountered, Bender is claiming to be the son of the 1905 revolutionary naval hero Lieutenant Schmidt, to obtain money from the chair of the city council in a small town. He had almost succeeded in his pitch when another man burst into the room, also claiming to be the Lieutenant's son. Leaving the office, they met a third claimant.

This unlikely trio formed the core of a group that would try to execute one of the most elaborate cons devised, against a man who was living an even more elaborate one. Bender's gang of adventurers survived through Bender's sheer audacity. Along the way, they acquired a driver and a beaten up old vehicle they named the Gnu Antelope. The Antelope* became an integral part of the scheme, most notably when they crashed a road rally.

What motivated Bender? The simple wish to get to Rio de Janiero "... the cherished dream of my youth". As he explained to Balganov, the second son,

I want to get out of here. During the past year, I have developed very serious differences with the Soviet regime. The regime wants to build socialism and I don't. I find it boring. Do you understand now why I need so much money?

He needed five hundred thousand rubles.

Knowing it would take time to conclude his swindle of "the clandestine millionaire" Koreiko, "(God only knows how long. And since there is no God, nobody knows"), Bender and his gang needed a legitimate front. As Bender explained it:

We need to blend in with the cheery masses of office workers. That's what the bureau is all about. I have long been interested in administration. I am a bureaucrat and a mis-manager at heart.

The gang established the the Arbatov Bureau for the Collection of Horns and Hoofs, Chernomorsk Branch.

In Bender, with his Order of the Golden Fleece, Ilf and Petrov have created a satiric comedy that still holds up today. Their earlier book, The Twelve Chairs, introduced Bender. The adventures of Bender and his gang in this second book read like a clever script for the Marx Brothers, for as you read, you see the action and hear Bender's voice. The two authors have managed a fine balance of political satire that could easily have been labelled subversive, with comedy. Nabakov said they were able to escape retribution by making their protagonist and adventurer, a rascal, and so not a political man. In their introduction, the writers acknowledge the problem, saying

"...whenever we worked on The Golden Calf, we always felt the presence of this stern citizen hovering over us:
"What if this chapter turns out funny? What will the stern citizen say?"

I suspect they were able to get away with it because the crimes of their target, Koreiko, were crimes against the state, and so Bender was targeting a political criminal. Ilf and Petrov were allowed to visit Europe in the early 1930s and the US in 1936.

However, political considerations may have precipitated a second alternative ending as life for writers grew more difficult in the 1930s. This second ending is the one used in this edition, based on commentary by Aleksandra Ilf, Ilf's daughter. It is not as joyous as the one that appeared in the original publication. The translators have included the original ending in an appendix, but the one in the main text seems more apt. It points the way to what was to come in Stalin's Russia.

________________________

*The Gnu Antelope is considered such a character that there is a statue to it outside the Odessa State Literature Museum

That sounds like fun . . . until the end.

17 letters to go...

This review was very entertaining, although it sounds like it was more fun than the actual book.

Map of Odessa, scanned from a Baedecker, I presume....

Wonderful review. You may have answered this question in a previous thread, but I'm curious: how are you choosing your alphabet authors?

>4 rebeccanyc: and >5 dchaikin: There were times when I thought the book was hilarious and others when I just read. I suspect it would have been far better to read it straight through, but July was very disjointed. I don't usually think this, but in this case I think it may call out for an audio version to get the madcap pace of some of the thinking and gatherings.

>6 edwinbcn: If only I had a Baedecker. I found this on the North Dakota State University website. The map citation is "Glogau: Geograph. Institut Carl Flemming u. C.T. Wiskott AG. Foldout map betw. 698 and 699, in Radó, Sandor, comp. Berlin: Neuer Deutscher Verlag, 1929"

Apparently many German Russians from the Odessa oblast settled in the midwestern plains of the US and Canada in the late nineteenth century, when they started experiencing problems in Russia/Ukraine.

The 1897 census has only 3% of the actual city of Odessa as German speakers, versus just minutely over 50% Russian (a little bit of juggling perhaps?) and 32% Yiddish.

>7 labfs39: Thanks labs. You're actually the first person to ask. I'm embarrassed to say that so far they have all been from my TBR piles. I'm also relieved though, because the pile was going down slowly, but then I started "rewarding" myself for that feat and now it is going up again.

I do notice that I do not have any writers in languages other than English beginning with the letter O, so all suggestions gratefully accepted. I think I have the rest covered, with actual choices as well, except for Q.

I looked through my LT library, and for O I have Ovid and Amos Oz. Also Yoko Ogawa, but the book I read was weird. Nothing for Q...

Raymond Queneau, Jose Maria Eça de Queirós, Rachel de Queiroz, Qiu Xiaolong?

There must be other Chinese authors with family names that begin with "Q", but I can't think of any offhand.

Silvina Ocampo, Yury Olesha, Juan Carlos Onetti, Anna Maria Ortese, Mykhaylo Osadchy, Kenzaburō Ōe

Apparently, these are letters of the alphabet that I do not read -- I cannot recommend any specific books by these authors....

>8 SassyLassy: I've had a book about Odessa on the TBR for years, because I find the city fascinating, but I've yet to read it.

For "O" I can recommend Netherland by Joseph O'Neill, The Topless Tower by Silvina Ocampo, Tell Me a Riddle by Tillie Olsen (although I read it decades ago), Case Closed and The Opportune Moment by Patrik Ourednik, God's Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane, Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi, and Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono.

I have no recommendations for Q.

Once again, this shows me how fabulous LT is because I was able to sort by library by author name!

I very much enjoyed The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa. I read and reviewed Children in Reindeer Woods by Kristín Ómarsdóttir (Icelandic) for Belletrista. The review is here. A Moroccan memoir I read was Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail by Malika Oufkir. It was okay. I gave it three stars.

Some O's on my TBR are:

Purge by Sofi Oksanen (Finnish)
Scenes from Village Life and the memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz

No Q's, sorry.

I'll second Purge. She also has a new book out called When the Doves Disappeared.

I didn't like Purge, although it had its moments. And I had mixed feelings about Children in Reindeer Woods as I wanted to like it more than I did.

Thanks all for the suggestions. M and C seem to be overrepresented on my TBR.

Elizabeth, I think I have one Q person somewhere. I read a book by Qiu Xiaolong last year and found it quite interesting for its picture of bureaucracy and social life. You're right about Q family names. I read Eça de Queirós as letter "E" and quite liked him. I have another book by him, so if all else fails, perhaps I can make him a Q too!

Florence, you remind me that somewhere I do indeed have an Amos Oz book, but after searching last evening, I decided it must be in a box.

rebecca, I think I might have that book too. After looking at pictures of Odessa online last week, I think I need to go there sometime. I had heard of Joseph O'Neill, but I guess I never thought he would be in translation, given his name. Silvina Ocampo is someone I keep looking at on the NYRB website.

labs, I haven't had much luck with Japanese authors, but Children in Reindeer Woods and Purge sound like possibilities, as does Oufkir.

rg and rebecca, interesting about your individual thoughts on Purge. That's what makes choosing so interesting around here.

I still have to read through my current "L" book and then an "N". "J" and "K" are done.

Spoken: Juliet

Meaning: I am going to send a message by semaphore (That's why all these flags)

We are here



Tove Jansson's studio and island of Klovharu in the Pellinki archipelago, where she and Tuulikki Pietila spent almost thirty summers. The boat was used for fishing and to get back and forth to the mainland.

37. Fair Play by Tove Jansson, translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal
first published as Rent spel in 1982
finished reading July 30, 2015

There is lots of fair play in this collection of linked sketches, but above all else, there is a love story. Not a romantic book, not a steamy novel, it is a quiet picture of two people deeply in love, able to give each other time together and time alone.

The reader is drawn slowly to this realization. The first episode, "Changing Pictures", has a rather bossy woman bustling around her friend's apartment, organizing and rehanging pictures, discarding ephemera, gaining definition for the display. In the next vignette, the scene is set:

They lived at opposite ends of a large apartment building near the harbor, and between their studios lay the attic, an impersonal no-man's- land of tall corridors with locked plank doors on either side. Mari liked wandering across the attic; it drew a necessary, neutral interval between their domains. She could pause on the way to listen to the rain on the metal roof, look out across the city as it lit its lights, or just linger for the pleasure of it.
They never asked "Were you able to work today?" Maybe they had twenty or thirty years earlier, but they'd gradually learned not to. There are empty spaces that must be respected -- those often long periods when a person can't see the pictures or find the words and needs to be left alone.

The two were meeting for one of their film and discussion nights. This night it would be Fassbinder, another night it might be Robin Hood. As the book moves on through the seasons and the years, we see the two women, one an artist and one a writer, in the most domestic of situations. They are completely comfortable with one another, supportive of each other's work, yet fiercely independent in their creative lives.

Summers see them on their island in the Gulf of Finland, winters in the city. They bicker about their respective mothers, hang out in a bar in Phoenix, they do the chores and go fishing. In the hands of most writers, tedium would be mounting swiftly, but with each episode, Jansson develops the relationship in a way that makes the reader care about their lives. By the time the final surprising story is told,, the resolution seems completely apt.

This book of course is the story of Jansson and her lover Tuulikki Pietila, written when Jansson was in her mid-seventies. There is a sense of looking back on life, together with the assurance that despite encroaching age that life is by no means finished. There are always new possibilities.

Sounds terrific (and what a place to live). Lovely review

Oh, I must look for Fair Play. It sounds lovely and would be the perfect complement to the only Jansson I've read, The Summer Book. I'll share my little review of it, because if you haven't read it, I hope you'll be tempted to...

What a delightful little book! In a series of short vignettes, the relationship between six-year-old Sophia and her grandmother is slowly uncovered with all its quirky, lovable details. Sophia is by turns precocious, imperious, frightened, and maternal, while her grandmother swings between the wisdom and the childishness of the very old. Together they explore the small island that is their home for the summer, shared only with nature and, very peripherally, Sophia's father. Together Sophia and her grandmother build secret hideaways and a miniature Venice, write the definitive book on bugs, concoct life-saving remedies, and trespass on a newcomer's island. Sophia learns about life and love in the dappled light, while her grandmother considers her own mortality. The stories are an ode to life and to the natural beauty of the islands in the Gulf of Finland, where the author spent much of her own life. Don't expect life-changing insights or a gripping plot, but rather the quiet joy of summer and childhood and a life well-lived.

>16 SassyLassy: Could almost be somewhere by Peggy's Cove.

I really enjoyed The True Deceiver which you recommended last year, and A Winter Book is in the overflow TBR on the staircase to be fitted in with this year's seasonal reading. Now two more Janssons to consider, though perhaps time to make better use of my local library.

I love that you've read (seemed to like) Tove Jansson. She was an incredible person and writer, though I'm not very familiar with her "grown up" novels - mostly just the children's books. But I do recommend that everyone read the Moomin books - they're terrific (and very philosophical).

Fair play sound like a lovely read

I haven't read anything by Tove Jansson, but every review i read tells me that I should.

Tove Jansson is one of my cherished authors. Lovely review of Fair Play.

I loved the Moomin books I read when I was young. Obviously I need to read some of her adult books as well. And maybe re-read Moomin.

>18 dchaikin: I must say the description of the two studios at opposite ends of the corridor intrigued me. Then needless to say, the idea of the island when the sun barely sets was wonderful.

>19 labfs39: The Summer Book is one of my favourites. Thanks for your review. You can't ask for much more than the quiet joy of summer and childhood and a life well-lived

>20 Oandthegang: It could indeed. Hackett's Cove?

I don't have A Winter Book, but the coming season seems like an ideal time to read it. The descriptions of winter in The True Deceiver were superb. People who haven't been through winter like that are missing one of life's experiences. Not that I like it going on all winter, but a week a year would be fine!

>21 PawsforThought: I must confess I haven't read any of the Moomin books and didn't know about them until I read The Summer Book, my first Jansson book. The illustrations seem familiar, but the books don't. I will try to read some soon, having read more about them.

>22 baswood: and >23 NanaCC: It was a lovely read and I think you would both like it.

>24 janeajones: Thanks. "Cherished authors" is a lovely term and very apt in this case.

>25 FlorenceArt: Rereading childhood books is something I really enjoy, so do reread Moomin. Looks like I need to read them while you catch up on some of the adult books.

Next up, a biography of Tove Jansson, but first I am going away for two weeks and my annual mostly lack of contact with things electronic. I will be on an island though. Actually two; one a real island with island ways of life, and the other one is Montreal. It will be quite a contrast.

>20 Oandthegang: Growing up in Sweden, you can't escape Moomin. (Not that that's a bad thing, the Moomins are GREAT!)

Have a wonderful holiday! What are you bringing to read? (a much more important question than where you are going!)

Jumping in (a little late) to suggest The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. It is the only thing of his I've read, but it was superb.

>3 SassyLassy: - Informative review of The Golden Calf. I have that as an ebook, so it is only metaphorically sitting on the pile. The Twelve Chairs was a lot of fun except for the ending, which seemed like a forced nod to the system. Do they link that book to The Twelve Chairs? I was wondering how that would work (don't want to give too much away).

Agree with the above that Fair Play and The Summer Book are quiet but wonderful reads. I'm reading The Woman who Borrowed Memories right now and some of the stories are dark and depressing - more in line with The True Deceiver.

Back from holiday all too soon and I now have that September thing to catch up on: homework, in this case for LT in the form of reviews. I'm eight behind and hope to start posting tomorrow, but maybe Monday.

>28 labfs39: I usually take only a couple of books on holiday with me, as part of the fun is going to bookstores and making discoveries. This time I took Last Friends which I actually read, Child 44 thinking it might be a good cottage book, but didn't get around to, The Fountain Overflows for a belated All Virago All August, and two books by Ma Jian, one of which I read. The very first day started the book acquisition with Alligator which I read. I usually read far more on vacation than at home, but Montreal is a wonderful city and doesn't lend much time to reading!

>29 Helenliz: O is tricky, but a rearrangement of one of the TBR piles in a closet yielded an Amos Oz. The English Patient was excellent, I've read it twice and seen the movie. You might like Anil's Ghost and Divisadero as well.

>30 DieFledermaus: I'm also dipping in and out of The Woman who Borrowed Memories, finding lots to think about.

That's interesting about The Twelve Chairs also having a perhaps contrived ending to suit the system. While I haven't yet read the chairs book yet, and like you trying not to give too much away, the introduction to The Golden Calf refers to it saying that no explanation is given for Bender merely carrying on in The Golden Calf as if nothing had happened in the earlier book, which is only referenced twice in TGC. The translators of the edition I read say it is the only English translation of the entire text, so presumably those are the only references.

A present from my sister, who always finds the right book:



38. Tove Jansson: Work and Love by Tuula Karjalainen, translated from the Finnish by David McDuff
first published as Tove Jansson: Tee Työtä ja Rakasta in 2013
finished reading August 8, 2015

Work and Love were the two most important things in Tove Jansson's life. It was her motto. The order was significant, giving priority to work, for this was a woman obsessed with work. While most LT readers will know Jansson as a writer, she was also an artist, a cartoonist, and an illustrator. Any one of these occupations would have made a career, but Jansson never stopped.

As Karjalainen points out in her introduction, all this makes it difficult to frame a biography, normally a chronological work. What she eventually did was work out a loose thematic framework in tandem with the chronology of Jansson's life.

Tove Jansson was born in Helsinki in 1914. Her parents, a sculptor and an illustrator, belonged to the Swedish speaking minority. She studied art in Stockholm, Helsinki and Paris, returning to Helsinki before the Winter War of 1939-1940 with the Soviet Union. The coverage of World War II and the years following was fascinating. Karjalainen details the Winter War, the Continuation War of 1941-1944 when Finland fought the Soviet Union with German help, and the Lapland War of 1944-1945 when Finland fought Germany. We get a sense of Finland, recently independent, but now occupied and unable to act on its own; a country full of internal refugees, rationing and privation. The difficulties lasted well into the 1950s, as neighbouring Sweden moved light years ahead.

During World War II, Jansson began her most significant heterosexual relationship with Atos Wirtanen, "a driven, passionate politician, preoccupied with world issues and ideologies", and a Member of Parliament. Their affair was well known, but the conventions of the day and Wirtanen's public profile precluded their living together. Just as their affair was winding down, Tove wrote to a friend in late 1946 that she "had fallen madly in love with a woman", Vivica Bandler.

The war years were the start of the Moomin books and cartoon strips. Odd little creatures, the Moomins seemed to come out of nowhere. In 1991, Jansson wrote of their origin:

It was the winter of war, in 1939. One's work stood still; it felt completely pointless to try to create pictures.
Perhaps it was understandable that I suddenly felt an urge to write down something that was to begin with 'Once upon a time'.
What followed had to be a fairytale - that was inevitable - but I excused myself by avoiding princes, princesses and small children and chose instead my angry signature character from the cartoons, and called him the Moomintroll.
The half written story was forgotten until 1945. Then a friend pointed out that it could become a children's book; just finish it and illustrate it, perhaps they will want it.

The Moomins were far and away Jansson's greatest commercial success, setting her up financially for life. At the same time, once they became serialized as a comic strip in the 1950s, ultimately reaching twenty million readers, Tove found she had "no time for painting, never mind books, friends, or solitude". After six years, she resigned in 1959 to pursue her "real" art. Tove had had a career as an artist with exhibitions and public commissions before the Moomins took over her life. First and foremost she considered herself a visual artist. In 1960 she started exhibiting again. It wasn't until 1968 that she started writing for adults.

The Moomin years weren't all drudgery though. In 1955 Tove met Tuulikki Pietilä, an artist and the woman who would be her partner until Tove's death in 2001. Fair Play is a loving look at this enduring relationship. A person who puts work before love is not an easy person to live with, but luckily for both of them they each were driven to create and understood that in the other.

This is an excellent biography of a complex subject whether you are interested in art, politics, writing or Finland. This edition was lavishly illustrated with photographs of Tove and her art that give a real sense of who Jansson was. There is an elegance in many of the photos, a reserve, that is at first unexpected from the author and illustrator of the Moomins, but Karjalainen does an excellent job of explaining the context for this in Tove's family and personal life. Definitely recommended.

I'm fascinated by your reviews on Jansson and her life. Never read her or seen a Moomin.

>33 dchaikin: The more I read by and about her, the more interesting she becomes.

I have never encountered a Moomin either, perhaps I will see if they hang out at the library. Would any of your children be the right age for a meeting?

Spoken: Kilo

Meaning: You should stop your vessel instantly.

We are here:



Chinese Posters.net tells me that the script says "Long live the friendship of the parties of China and Albania, 1969"

They cite the source as Elez Biberaj: Albania and China - A Study of an Unequal Alliance.

Naturally I couldn't find a map with Tirana and Beijing close to each other, so thought this worked beautifully.

I find it so strange that there are people in the (Western) world who haven't encountered the Moomins and Tove Jansson before. I don't want to come off as a know-it-all or something, it's jsut really strange to me since the Moomins and Jansson's tales are woven into the fabric of childhood over here. Everyone knows who the Moomins are and even if they're never themselves read the books (or had the read to them) or watched any of the TV shows they still know who they and their friends are (most of them by name).
If someone in Sweden or Finland (and I'm obviously counting people who've grown up here, not people who moved here as adults, though I'm sure it applies to quite a few of them as well) didn't know of the Moomins, it'd be like a British person now knowing who Paddington bear is. Or an American not knowing about The Wizard of Oz.

A book by an author who is quickly becoming a favourite, the winner of the first Man Booker International Prize and I hope one day a Nobel Prize.



39. The Concert by Ismail Kadare, this 1994 translation from the French by Barbara Bray from the translation from Albanian into French by Jusuf Vrioni
first published as Koncert në fund të dimrit in 1988
finished reading August 13, 2015

Despite its title, The Concert requires no real knowledge of music. What it does require is an interest in Sino-Albanian politics and a fascination with the final hours of Lin Biao. Certainly not a novel for everyone, but definitely one for me.

As negotiations for the Sino American rapprochement were going on, Gjerj Dibra flew to Beijing to deliver a letter from the Albanians, asking that the meeting with the American president be cancelled. Who was little Albania to demand such a thing? China's only ally, a tiny country cut off from the Europe which should have been its natural home dared defy Chairman Mao. Back in Tirana, Chinese diplomats, engineers, scientists, workers and trade delegations were disappearing from Albania as if they had never arrived, abandoning engineering projects, construction sites and trade missions.

This wouldn't be a Kadare book though without elements of the surreal. One nameless man, high in the Arctic, constantly sifts through transmissions in the ether, reading the tea leaves of changes in the rankings of the Chinese Politbureau. Mao Zedong wanders in and out of lucidity in his favourite cave retreat. The x-ray of the broken foot of a Chinese diplomat causes a rift between the two countries.

All these elements are essentially shadows, glimpses of greater realities. It is in this contrast between the world of conjecture and the harsh reality of Enver Hoxha's Albania that Kadare excels, setting up a real and justified paranoia. There are repeated references to MacBeth (was it because Mao and Lin Biao "were both hatching a plot based on treachery at a banquet?"), ghosts and isolation. Alone in China, Albanian Party member Skënder Berema repeatedly works out scenarios for Lin Biao's flight and death.

Finally there is the concert itself. Zhou Enlai had said the way to understand Chinese politics was to study Chinese theatre. Eleven hundred people, including Berema, received invitations on the very day of the concert.

Zhou Enlai, the man who knew all and controlled all, was contemplating his masks.

He had three masks: the mask of a leader, the mask of one who obeys, and the mask as cold as ice. The first two he usually wore to government and Politbureau meetings or committees. The third he kept for occasions when he had to appear in public.

The clock on the wall behind him struck six. This was the first time he had gone out without one of his three masks. They were all out of date now. Instead he now wore a fourth. A death mask.

As the high level audience assembled, speculation ran rife.What was the plot of the performance? Were the movements of the second female dancer going to signify anything? Where and with whom was everyone seated? Hua Guofeng was working on his best imitation of Mao's hair to impress the audience. Finally all were assembled. Tensions built throughout the concert. The end of the performance brought a completely unexpected panic.

Kadare shifts events somewhat and timelines are unclear. Mao may die before Zhou, or the deaths may be the same day. The magic realism he employs, the varying iterations of the same story be it the massacre of Albanians in Kosovo, the war in Cambodia, or the leitmotif of the death of Lin Biao, illustrate the many forms history can take, and the impossibility of knowing the truth. This is classic Kadare.

Wonderful reviews of Jansson bio and Kadare novel. I recently read Kadare's Spring Flowers, Spring Frost and loved it (though I have yet to review it) -- my first Kadare, but not my last.

Great review of The Concert you make it sound so exciting.

I read The Successor by Kadare some years ago and had ixed feelings about it, so I haven't read anything more by him. However, you make The Concert sound intriguing.

Thank you for the review. I read The General of the Dead Army not too long ago and thought it was good but not very exciting. You make me want to read another book by Kadare, maybe The Accident that I have on loan from my mother (on paper unfortunately), or maybe The Concert.

i was whisked away by your review of Kadare, and an Albian take on Zhou Enlai. I really ought to read him.

>34 SassyLassy: I'm pretty sure my kids are too old for Moomins now. Bummer...

>36 PawsforThought: that's interesting Paws.

>36 PawsforThought: I'm not sure where you live, but I would be surprised if people in the UK weren't familiar with Moomins given their long run in The Evening News, however, I'm not sure about when publishing rights were granted in North America. I don't remember seeing them in the children's sections of bookstores in Canada. Wikipedia tells me the strips started to be reprinted in Canada from The Evening News in 2006. I will look next time I am in an actual bookstore (none where I live).

That is odd though when you encounter people who don't know of your favourite childhood characters and don't get the references. I have that difficulty with some of my childhood favourites. Here is some real recognition for you:



Moomintroll, Snork Maiden and Little My

>38 janeajones: Glad to see another fan. Spring Flowers, Spring Frost is one I haven't seen yet, so another one to look forward to.

>39 baswood: It was exciting in an odd way, as there was little action but lots of tension.

>40 rebeccanyc: and >41 FlorenceArt: I think for mixed feelings about Kadare, the book that might clinch it would be Broken April, the first one I read after first hearing about him here on LT.

>42 dchaikin: Zhou Enlai will always fascinate me and that was a great take, especially after reading Zhou Enlai, The Last Perfect Revolutionary earlier this year.
Too bad about your kids, maybe for yourself?!

>43 SassyLassy: I'm from Sweden. Moomins (Mumin, actually) are really everywhere, both here and in Finland. The very famous glass and porcelain works Iittala makes glasses, mugs and saucers with the Moomin characters which are very popular (my best friend has ALL the mugs, and there are quite a few design versions).

I have friends here in the UK who have coffee mugs decorated with the Moomins/Mumin and I have seen other chinaware so decorated. I think it's all been around for a while. I first heard of the stories back in the 70s, told about them by an English friend - in his teens but a big fan. I tried reading one of the books but found it very peculiar. Must try again.

>45 Oandthegang: I'm not surprised that they're around in the UK (and probably most of the rest of Europe).

Back in August, it was finally feeling like summer, so I had to indulge myself as I do every year with a good fat historical novel to read outdoors.



40. Elizabeth I by Margaret George
first published 2011
finished reading August 20, 2015

Everyone knows the story of Elizabeth Tudor's parents. What is not as well known is the story of her Boleyn relatives after the deaths of Anne and her brother George. Margaret George uses one of these relatives, Lettice Knollys, her younger cousin, to portray a woman every bit as ambitious as Elizabeth, but unable to use her family connections due to rivalry and distrust.

Over the years of her reign, Elizabeth had a number of favourites. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was one of the most notable. Unfortunately for Lettice's ambitions, she and Dudley had an affair and married secretly. When Elizabeth found out, Lettice was banished from court. Dudley was forgiven.

In 1588, the first Armada against England was defeated and Elizabeth scored a major public triumph. That same year, Dudley died. Some said he was poisoned by Lettice. Whatever the means of his death, it was a personal blow for Elizabeth.

Margaret George starts her novel with this critical year of 1588. Elizabeth was an established monarch nearing the end of her reign. It was too late for her to bear an heir, so the question of the succession loomed large. Lettice had a son from a previous marriage: Robert Devereaux, the Earl of Essex. Why could the successor not be him? Like Leicester before him, Essex became a favourite, but unlike Leicester, he let his ambition get ahead of him.

George has Lettice and Elizabeth alternately narrate these last fifteen years of Elizabeth's reign, thirteen of them taken up with Essex. Here is the aging queen, fighting the Irish and the Spanish, trying to maintain diplomatic relations with France and the Netherlands, and constantly worrying about the Scots. At home, managing her court with all its petty intrigue and scandals, she tried to balance out favours and punishments. Always there is the struggle for money to fight wars and to keep her courtiers loyal.

Lettice, her younger cousin, could only hope for social and political redemption through Essex. She mounted skilful campaigns to win him favour, but Essex botched them all. As he became more and more unruly in his quest for power, Lettice became more and more frantic over their eventual fate.

The dual narrative structure worked well, with each of the cousins advancing the story and rounding out the events set in motion by the other. George knows the era and it notables well, so there are some excellent fictional characterizations rounding out the cast of characters. Perhaps most surprising is that of Shakespeare. While not on par with Hilary Mantel, George is certainly better than other writers like Jean Plaidy or Phillippa Gregory, so guilt free novel reading. Summer may be over, but it would work just as well in the depths of winter.

>47 SassyLassy:. You have just added another book to my wishlist, Sassy, with your review of Elizabeth I.

>47 SassyLassy: That book seems to have received very favourable reviews from most readers.

>47 SassyLassy: I read this a couple of years ago and also enjoyed it. In fact, I just started another of her books Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles which seems promising so far.

>47 SassyLassy: What I liked about this one is that it focused on the later part of Elizabeth's life rather than the more commonly told early years. I've liked all of George's Tudor books.

Coming in a bit late, but enjoyed your review if George's Elizabeth I.

Glad to see there are some other Margaret George readers here.
>50 japaul22: Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles was the first George book I read (her second novel), then someone visiting left me The Autobiography of Henry VIII with Notes by His Fool Will Somers, which I really enjoyed. I see she has written novels of other eras, but it was this particular one which drew me to her.

>51 Nickelini: That was what I liked about it too; being free of the endless marriage speculation left room for other things.

This next one was inspired by dchaikin. In the last few years I have been trying to read a McCarthy a year. When I read his July review of this book, I knew it was the one for this year.



41. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
first published 1985
finished reading August 26, 2015

In the 1850s, what would become the state of Texas was a lawless land filled with fortune seekers, bounty hunters, criminals of greater or lesser degree, everyday misfits, a few wagon trains of hapless people who actually believed there might be a better life, and of course various tribes of American Indians. Into this mix came soldiers fighting to define the location of the Texas-Mexico border.

Back in the woods of Tennessee, a frontier of a different kind, a fourteen year old boy, illiterate, small for his age, ran away from his squalid home. In him broods already a taste for mindless violence." Memphis, Saint Louis, New Orleans, Nacogdoches: in each place the child left a piece of himself behind, to fighting, thieving, and plain old self defense. By the time he reached Laredo, two years had passed. There he joined up with an army, not the United States army, but an army of sorts, with its own ranks, rules and arms.

There was no way the kid could know it, but the easiest part of his life had passed. What followed was pure carnage, for Blood Meridian is a book full of slaughter. Murder is too sane, too personal, too individual a word to use to describe these acts of brutality in a land where there was no good, only varying degrees of evil; Evil of a kind that makes words like"immoral", "gruesome", or "depraved", lose all meaning.

Why keep reading such a book? There is the compulsion to know what will happen to the kid, so unimportant to all that he is nameless, what will happen to Glanton, and to the insane Judge, Lucifer incarnate. Most of all though, there is the sheer beauty of the language, the King James Biblical feel of it, as McCarthy sets out his own Creation myth for an unredeemed land.

>54 SassyLassy: I'm reading a McCarthy book too, All the Pretty Horses - due to one of Dan's reviews.

That is a great review of Blood Meridian. I think McCarthy does an incredible job of pulling you into the story.

(ETA: All the Pretty Horses is my first McCarthy; I haven't read Blood Meridian)

>54 SassyLassy: I felt that biblical feel to the language too, an amazing book. I like your sense of him losing parts of himself, something for me to think about and in view of where they get to.

>54 SassyLassy: In the 1850s, what would become the state of Texas...

Texas actually became a state in 1845, but it's still a lawless land full of criminals and everyday misfits. I'm one of the misfits. The criminals mostly hold public office.

Amazing review of Blood Meridian. I am going to have to read McCarthy soon (I'm not sure The Road counts.)

>57 StevenTX: Ha ha!

Awesome review Sassy. Why keep reading such a book? I never did manage to answer that question for myself. There is an odd compulsion to it.

>55 avidmom: enjoy Susie. All the Pretty Horses is quite different, it's outright charming in places, well kind of. Blood Meridian is never charming.

>55 avidmom: Again thanks to Dan, I too will be reading All the Pretty Horses as my next McCarthy book.

>56 tonikat: I couldn't find an apt place in my review to put quotations, or the whole review would have become quotations, so you have given me an excuse to put one in here, so that those who haven't read McCarthy can get a feel for his language:

In the night they followed a mountain torrent in a wild gorge choked with mossy rocks and they rode under dark grottoes where the water dripped and splattered and tasted of iron and they saw the silver filaments of cascades divided upon the faces of distant buttes that appeared as signs and wonders in the heavens themselves so dark was the ground of their origins. They crossed the blackened wood of a burn and they rode through a region of cloven rock where great boulders lay halved with smooth uncentered faces and on the slopes of these ferric grounds old paths of fire and the blackened bones of trees assassinated in the mountain storms.... They travelled through the high country deeper into the mountains where the storms had their lairs, a fiery clangourous region where white flames ran on the peaks and the ground bore the burnt smell of broken flint. At night the wolves in the dark forests of the world below called to them as if they were friends to man and Glanton's dog trotted moaning...

>57 StevenTX: Oh dear. I did have difficulty with this. The kid was born in 1833, left home at age 14, and spent two years on the road before joining Captain Smith in what would have been 1849-50. Texas was then a state as you say, most of the fighting over the Texas boundary was finished by the time of the Texas Compromise in 1850, but the kid couldn't have been there for most of that. My intent was to indicate that the fighting for the borders of what would become the boundaries of the state of Texas was still ongoing, because to the participants, there could have been no way of knowing in those years that there would not have been years more of fighting, and that they would not advance further into Mexican territory. I have tried to redeem myself by reading about these conflicts since your post, but maps such as this indicated to me that borders were still fluid.



Perhaps the lesson for me is that McCarthy was writing fiction.

The world does need more peaceful misfits of your ilk! The criminals mostly hold public office made me think of Noam Chomsky's "Ask them about East Timor" ( a rough paraphrase).

>58 RidgewayGirl: Thanks. I read The Road and think it would indeed count, but did not find it to be of the same level of despair, if that is the word, of the other books of his I have read.

>60 dchaikin: As I was reading this, I thought about you reading McCarthy in a year. I know it is possible, that the immersion is almost required. I'll remember your ...it's outright charming in places, well kind of thought on All the Pretty Horses when I read it! You're right: Blood Meridian is never charming

>61 SassyLassy: Now you know more about Texas history than most Texans! The history that we were taught when I was in school played down the idea that Mexico had any claim after 1836 to lands north of the Rio Grande. I hope students are now given a more balanced view. One of the books on my TBR is Texas: The Great Theft by the Mexican author Carmen Boullosa. It is historical fiction set in the borderlands area in 1859 and gives a Mexican perspective on the border dispute. Now that you've gotten me interested in the topic, I'll try to work it into my near future reading plans.

>61 SassyLassy: Wait. So The Road is more cheerful than the usual McCarthy fare?

>61 SassyLassy: >63 RidgewayGirl: Well, I gave up McCarthy after The Road, so I guess Blood Meridian isn't for me (but it wasn't the lack of cheer that irritated me).

>63 RidgewayGirl: It is less violent and the language is less Biblical -- much more spare and poetical. My bookclub debated about whether the end offered hope or foreshadowed further difficulties.

>63 RidgewayGirl: oh dear. So many ways to take this question.

It is interesting where my brain goes as I think about how I would compare them. There are similarities, but the books are of such different sorts and weights (BM is much weightier) there are just a lot of different ways to go. For example, I just had this idea that the author of BM is jumping up and down and stamping his foot to make a point, like a newsman exposing some wrong in the hope there will be a public outcry and a fix. Whereas the author of The Road has thrown in the towel. He is more like a jaded beat writer reporting a gruesome reality without any expectation of response, or change. But that's pretty hokey when I write it out like this.

>61 SassyLassy: the immersion is almost required

There is an addictive quality to McCarthy, and his language games. I guess that creates a sense of immersion, but I feel at least part of it is just the experience of acquainting yourself with language in a different way.

I'm so glad you liked Blood Meridian. It was the first McCarthy I read and I had the advantage of reading it without having heard of it or him, so no preconceptions. It is one of my favourite books, and, as I've said elsewhere, always seems to me to beg to be read aloud, or preferably recited to a small group gathered around a fire at night somewhere out in a barren wilderness. Yes, ok, it would have to be a very long night.

Although I have the Border Trilogy i've yet to get through it, as All The Pretty Horses seemed so flat in comparison, and I felt McCarthy had sold out and gone mainstream/commercial so never finished even the first volume. Perhaps after all these years I should have another go.

I did enjoy No Country For Old Men even though it is a long way from Blood Meridian.

I found the language in Blood Meridian a bit too much, after the stark minimalism of The Road. He almost lost me when I couldn't find lemniscate in my dictionary (or with a definition that didn't fit the way he used it).

I am really liking All the Pretty Horses so far. Sometimes the language and the style trip me up a bit but I have to admit admiring McCarthy's rebellious streak. He doesn't use punctuation correctly. There are rarely any apostrophes or quotation marks (which, for me, makes reading the conversations between the characters easier!). Those long run-on sentences that go on forever can be a bit overwhelming too - but I think those are my favorite parts of his writing. They usually are so vivid. (And let's not even talk about the Spanish thrown in - which I love and hate at the same time!) Grammar or no grammar, he's a great storyteller.

>70 avidmom: Ah I remember reading his remarks about his style *goes to check* McCarthy told Oprah Winfrey in an interview that he prefers "simple declarative sentences" and that he uses capital letters, periods, an occasional comma, a colon for setting off a list, but never semicolons. He does not use quotation marks for dialogue and believes there is no reason to "blot the page up with weird little marks". xD It is not at all my preference, but I don't have a problem reading it, aside of the rare longer conversation moments where it can get a little confusing who's saying what.

Interesting discussion of The Road and/vs Blood Meridian. Of McCarthy's novels I have read so far, The Road would have to be my least favourite, but yes, rg, it is the most "cheerful" I have read so far.

Like Oandthegang, my favourite is the first one I read, only in my case it was Outer Dark. Like all McCarthy books, the plot was naturally disturbing, but also like all of his books I've read to date, except possibly The Road, the search for redemption, if it can be called that, was also there.

Interesting also the different views of >68 Oandthegang: and >70 avidmom: re All the Pretty Horses. As mentioned above, it will be my next McCarthy book thanks to dan and others.

>69 FlorenceArt: >70 avidmom: >71 .Monkey.: I suspect you just have to let the language flow over and around you at first and then go back for everything else. That's quite funny about McCarthy preferring simple declarative sentences. Maybe again it's a matter of definition!

With regard to translations, here is a link I found after I had finished the book:
http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/resources/translations/

Spoken: Lima

Meaning: You should stop, I have something important to communicate.

We are here (among other places)



Bessastaðir, Iceland

Several years ago, I bought the three Halldór Laxness novels then available in English translation. I read Independent People. The writing was superb, but I found the novel so depressing I set the other two books aside. Luckily my alphabet project sent me back to the TBR pile for this L author book.



42. Iceland's Bell by Halldór Laxness, translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton
first published in three volumes as Íslandslkukkan (1943), Hið ljósa man (1944) and Eldur í Kaupinhafn (1946)
finished reading September 7, 2015

Iceland in the early eighteenth century was one of the most dismal places on earth. Life there was a true example of Hobbes's "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". Death came from starvation, freezing or plague. A colony of Denmark, it was exploited and plundered at every turn. The Great Northern War occupied the Danes and Iceland had to contribute whatever it could. Religious leaders imposing the "Lutheran heresy" were stern. The administration of justice was harsh and severe. The only national treasure was a bell, given to the people by the Norwegian king in 1015. The bell was at the courthouse in Pingvellir, where Icelanders had held their national assemblies and from where they were now ruled by Denmark.

One year when the king decreed that the people of Iceland were to relinquish all their brass and copper so that Copenhagen could be rebuilt following the war, men were sent to fetch the ancient bell at Pingvellir by Öxará.

The king's hangman brought Jón Hreggviðsson, a liar and a thief, to cut down the bell. Jón slandered the king and unable to pay his fine, was subjected to twenty-four lashes, administered by the hangman. Following the punishment, a drunken night ensued for all involved. In the morning, the king's hangman was found dead in the stream. Jón Hreggviðsson was too drunk to remember anything.

Laxness moves quickly, introducing all his major characters right away, setting up the different story lines that are the three books of the text. Before page twenty, we have them all together in Jón Hreggviðsson's hovel under the most unusual circumstances. Arnas Arnæus, an Icelandic scholar living in Copenhagen had come to Iceland

to purchase any and all ancient tatters of writing, whether on parchment or paper: old scrolls, scraps, anything resembling a letter or book that was decaying now in all haste in the keeping of the destitute and wretched inhabitants of this miserable land.

He wanted to

find for these poor scraps of books a place of refuge in his own great mansion in the city of Copenhagen, to be stored for all eternity so that the learned men of the world could be sure that once upon a time there had lived in Iceland folk to be reckoned men.

With Arnæus were the Bishop, and the Magistrate's daughter, Lady Snæfriður. If Jón represented the dregs of Iceland, Snæfriður was all that Iceland wanted to be. She was the very stuff of legends, the girl who would become Iceland's Sun. She was no stereotypical maiden though. She emerges as one of the strongest and most independent women in literature.

Jón would become a convicted murderer, would escape execution and travel as a down and out Everyman through much of northern Europe over the next thirty years, never losing his sense of independence, his insolence, or his gift for seeing through to the heart of things. His attitude to all and sundry, and the resultant escapades, provide the humour that is needed in any great tale.

Arnæus, a fictional representation of the real life Árni Magnússon, is a man consumed by his hunt for every last scrap of Icelandic literature, even if it is a literal scrap. As a friend of the Danish king and his assessor, he is able to wield much influence on the course of events.

Laxness tells the story of these three characters like reciting a saga, all facts and dialogue. We only get to know the characters through his recitation of their words and actions. We also get to know and care a lot about Iceland itself, to want it to have a better fate. Iceland won its independence from Denmark in 1944, while Laxness was writing this book, one which provides a lesson on what colonial status can do to a nation.

Laxness won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1955. Iceland's Bell is just one reason why. I won't wait so long to read another of his books.

Excellent review of Iceland's Bell

I will probably never get to it for fear it will make me feel cold and miserable, which is my loss.

I'll keep this in mind. Sounds wonderful.

Yes sounds very interesting, Iceland keeps growing in my imagination through things I've encountered in recent years.

>74 SassyLassy: I've read about Laxness and Iceland's Bell in the past, and I thought it was in my wishlist already. Now it most definitely is!

>75 baswood: Maybe the fact that I'm always cold helped with the spirit of it all!

>76 dchaikin: It's well worth reading and a definite escape from Texas.

>77 tonikat: Iceland has that same effect on me. I also seem to be drawn to writing that echoes sagas more in recent years.

>78 FlorenceArt: Good addition.

I first read Lisa Moore when February, her second novel, was published in 2010. It made such a positive impression that I've been afraid to read anything by her since, for fear of spoiling it. Then I was given this book on my September holiday, so I read it.



43. Alligator by Lisa Moore
first published 2005
finished reading September 13, 2015

There are those who feel if only people with fewer advantages worked harder, studied harder, grovelled harder, then they would somehow succeed in improving their lives and all would be well. Alligator is the perfect explanation for the theory of the permanent underclass. Some people cannot be bothered to exert themselves. Some are unable to do so. Some do everything they are supposed to do and then something comes out of left field and washes out that upward path. Lisa Moore gives us all of these and more.

There are cautionary tales right from the start. Colleen watches the safety training videos her Aunt Madeleine made for nuclear power plants. A man in Louisiana is about to put his head in an alligator's mouth, while the narrator instructs the plant workers on the importance of always following exactly the same procedure for a given dangerous job.

Colleen is seventeen years old with all the contradictions of intensity and inattention that age commands. She spend hours alone in her room on the edge of the continent in St. John's, Newfoundland, trying to make sense of the world so far away. Cosmo magazine improving your sex life, beheadings by terrorists in the desert, environmental activism, all are processed and filtered for clues as to how that world might work.

Frank has little time for reflection. His solitary life is consumed by his hot dog stand in the bar district. This will be his ticket to university.

Madeleine of the videos did make it out, not just to the mainland of Canada, but to foreign countries where she made a successful living. Now she's back home directing a motion picture about the early days of the island, starring her friend Isobel.

Madeleine's sister Beverley, Colleen's mother, stayed home in Newfoundland, followed the rules by and large, and discovered that they don't help.

Moore develops these characters separately by devoting alternating chapters to each. As they develop, they start to connect with each other, sometimes just briefly, sometimes more intensely. The reader recognizes each decision taken, good or bad, but just as in real life, the consequences are not immediately evident.

This is Moore's first novel, following two collections of short stories. The episodic narration may come from that, but more importantly, it emphasizes each individual's attitude and response to fate, which intervenes no matter how careful we are. If only we would think first, could go back, had turned left instead of right, life would have been a very different proposition.

Intriguing review of Iceland's Bell. I have Independent People on my TBR.

And I've also hesitated about reading more by Lisa Moore because I liked February so much. But Alligator sounds like a book I'd like.

Just found this wonderful image of St. John's as seen from the harbour mouth on the provincial tourism website. It really does look like this, one or two days a year at least.

Good Lord! What on earth is that enormous edifice up on the hill? It looks like it's been pasted in from some other picture on an entirely different scale.

I read and loved Independent People this year and didn't know where to go next with Laxness. I think I'll try Iceland's Bell next.

I've recently read Laxness's The Fish Can Sing and Under the Glacier which I loved. They are his later books, and certainly don't have the depressing aspect that seem to characterize his earlier books.

I had no idea Newfoundland was so colorful. I would have thought the photo was from the Caribbean.

>83 Oandthegang: I thought it would be fun to see if I could identify it from above via Google Earth, and it was very easy to do. It's a museum and gallery called "The Rooms." http://www.therooms.ca/abouttherooms.asp

>86 StevenTX: Clever! I must have a look.

>83 Oandthegang: and >86 StevenTX: It is indeed The Rooms, which combines the provincial archives, museum and art gallery into one place. It is designed to look like old fishing sheds (rooms) on wharves and also old warehouses on the wharves.



In this photo you can see how it is meant to look like a wharf from the ground up.



images from The Rooms website

The Rooms does a marvellous job of combining these three resources. That odd blue grey thing joining the various boxes is an incredible glass space that overlooks the harbour and almost gives you the feeling you are right on the docks.

Naturally when it was being built in the early '90s there was a huge amount of debate about the skyline, which previously had been dominated by the Basilica, as all ports used to be dominated by a church of whatever denomination guiding mariners into safety. When you are actually up on the road between the two buildings, Bonaventure Avenue, the Rooms don't seem quite as overwhelming.

The Rooms has an amazing archive about WWI. I see that they are preparing for the 100th anniversary of the battle of Beaumont-Hamel on July 1, 2016, discussed on this thread http://www.librarything.com/topic/189057 in posts 3-16

steven, Newfoundland is indeed colourful, but blue skies like that are not seen that often. Usually the Rooms and the Basilica are emerging from clouds and fog. However, the weather has definitely been getting better over the last fifteen years or so.

>84 japaul22: I remember your review of Independent People. Iceland's Bell would be a lighter followup, but with some of the same domestic themes. This was written about ten years later.

>85 janeajones: I remember your reviews too. I will have to look for those two books as they aren't on my TBR. I think I will try The Fish Can Sing first.

>81 RidgewayGirl: Funny that we both had the same reaction after reading February. For those who haven't read it, it is a marvellous novel about loss and involves the real life event of the sinking of the oil rig The Ocean Ranger in a storm in 1982, with the loss of all 84 souls aboard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc-gEtByAV4

It was the largest semi submergible oil drilling rig in the world when it was built. February expands the ideas in Alligator of random events and planning. This disaster was the worst thing to happen in Newfoundland outside of war since the Great Newfoundland Sealing Disaster of 1914: see Death on the Ice.

_____________________________________________________

It's ELECTION DAY in Canada. If you meet the qualifications, please vote. Here is how:

http://www.elections.ca/home.aspx

_____________________________________________________

That's my contributions to LT's Canadian Content for the day!

That's my contributions to LT's Canadian Content for the day!

Good job!

I voted last week, so now there is nothing to do but sit back and wait for the results to come in. No one seems to know how it's going to shake out.

>47 SassyLassy: Just catching up. Excellent review of Elizabeth I by Margaret George. A friend was amused by the title of another of George's books and is giving me rave reviews of The autobiography of Henry VIII.

>82 SassyLassy: Wonderful information and images of St John's.

John Oliver has just informed me that as a non-Canadian, it is illegal for me to give my views on who should be voted for.

>89 Nickelini: I'm on the way out this evening to do it. You guys out there in BC just might hold the key.

>90 VivienneR: Thanks. That Henry VIII book was the best of the three I read.

>91 RidgewayGirl: That was funny. I hadn't seen it. There was an update posted an hour ago saying the Canadian government will not prosecute in this case!

I had thought you were Canadian living overseas. Of course with our new elections act, you might not be able to vote anyway, since now if you live out of the country for five years, you lose your vote. Donald Sutherland is fighting this. He is Canadian, has not taken out US citizenship, promotes Canada, owns property here, pays taxes here, and works here occasionally. I think he has a good case.

Great picture of St John's. I can see what you mean by always being cold, because I pulled up the climate charts for the area.

>92 SassyLassy: I'm on the way out this evening to do it. You guys out there in BC just might hold the key.

Turns out, nope, it was a done deal. While I was stuck in horrendous rush hour traffic (everyone going to the polls) I listened to the CBC commentary and all of a sudden Newfoundland results came in --boom boom boom and then the Maritimes, more boom. And so it went.

The ex-pat voting thing . . . I remember visiting my uncle voting from Paris and he hadn't lived in Canada for 20 or more years. He subscribed to McLeans magazine and knew way more about what was happening than I did. This was in the 90s before that law. I was wondering about the tax thing though. If you're a Canadian citizen and still paying your taxes, I can't believe they think it's okay to take away your vote. (And yes, I thought Ridgeway Girl was Canadian too, although I wasn't quite sure. If not, almost Canadian. Ridgeway--you're welcome here any time.)

I grew up in Canada, but was born in the US, to Americans. I had the choice of dual citizenship when I turned eighteen, but as an oblivious teenager, paid no attention to this and it never occurred to my parents that I'd want to do this. So I am merely a Canadian-of-the-heart. All three other members of my family have managed to hold two passports, while I must content myself with a permanent residence and work permit for one country and a passport for another.

The election was such good news. I have a few friends who may well have spontaneously combusted had Harper retained his position. I am still trying to figure out how courting Rob Ford was consistent with Harper's anti-drugs position, unless Ford restricted himself to harder drugs and didn't smoke any weed?

Hurrah for Donald Sutherland, good old bluenoser that he is! (link below for anyone mystified).

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/bluenoser-makes-it-into-the-oxford-dic...

>93 baswood: Further south than Paris though, the people will tell you!

>94 Nickelini: It was a done deal by that time, but I suspect it made a difference to a particular seat out there being red or orange.

>95 RidgewayGirl: It was amazing the overnight change in attitude. The next day the guards on Parliament Hill were smiling, reporters were smiling as they updated the seat counts, the sun came out and the world was new.
Although internal polls apparently let Harper know as early as Labour Day weekend that his was a lost cause, I can only attribute the Ford rally to a last deluded grasp. I won't sully my thread with an image, but Rob Ford has been photographed with various bongs in hand.

>96 Oandthegang: And then there are the herring chokers next door.

The past three Septembers have found me reading Jane Gardam. Thanks to vivienne for the intro.



44. Last Friends by Jane Gardam
first published 2013
finished reading September 13, 2015

It's always a bit sad when you reach the end of a favourite series of books. So it was with Jane Gardam's Last Friends. The third part of her trilogy that has told the story of each member of a triangle in turn, this novel gives us Terence Veneering, the outsider.

Edward Feathers and his wife Betty, the subjects of the two earlier books, may have lived their youths outside the mainstream of English life, but there was never any question that they belonged to that class that instinctively knows what is done and what is never done. Nor was there ever any question of their success in life. Veneering on the other hand never gave clues to his origins. Although he had achieved tremendous success and wealth, he was never really accepted.

Last Friends isn't quite as successful as Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat. This may be because all three characters are dead by the start of this novel. While we want to know about Veneering, we already know what will happen to him. However, Last Friends does give an excellent portrayal of life in the world of those who never entered the thoughts of those in control, unless they were perceived to be making a nuisance of themselves. The waste of human capital at the hands of the class system is never pretty.

That is not Gardam's theme however. Rather, she continues her treatment of aging and death begun in the two earlier novels. There is not only the death of the main characters, but for them and the friends left behind to ponder it all, there is also the death of a way of life. If life as you know it disappears, what are the expectations of the new world, and how do you adapt?

Feathers, Betty and Veneering had each survived their own cataclysms and made it through at enormous personal cost. Gardam writes so well and has such attention to detail and dialogue that even the most vapid supporting character emerges with a degree of dignity. There may be old fashioned ideas here, but in Gardam's hands they provide some of the best current fiction I've read lately.

You have reminded me that I would like to get to Jane Gardam.

Much interesting reading here! (trying to catch up a bit).

>54 SassyLassy: Your take on Blood Meridian is interesting. The discussion that follows also.

>74 SassyLassy: That sounds like an excellent recommendation. I have another of his here, but I may start with your recommendation.

Love the photo of St. John. I adore their choice of house colors! I really wanted to go there when we were planning our fall trips but after some research, I decided I need my knee replaced first. Did DC and Quebec City instead (but it's on my list!)

>95 RidgewayGirl: I have a few friends who may well have spontaneously combusted had Harper retained his position.

Include me in that group!

>97 SassyLassy: It was amazing the overnight change in attitude. The next day the guards on Parliament Hill were smiling, reporters were smiling as they updated the seat counts, the sun came out and the world was new.

Again, include me in that group. I wakened up the next morning feeling extraordinarily happy!

>98 SassyLassy: So glad you enjoyed Jane Gardam. You have reminded me that I must pick up more of her books.

>97 SassyLassy: It was amazing the overnight change in attitude. The next day the guards on Parliament Hill were smiling, reporters were smiling as they updated the seat counts, the sun came out and the world was new.

>101 VivienneR: Again, include me in that group. I wakened up the next morning feeling extraordinarily happy!

I had no expectation that the election results would change my thoughts or mood in anyway, so I was surprised that I had the same reaction as you describe. "Hopeful" describe it best. I also feel like we dodged a bullet. I think Trudeau is in for a tough haul, but at least his values align better with what Canada is all about.

Spoken: Mike

Meaning: I have a doctor on board.

We are here:

Guangdong Province



image from Expo 2012 website

As I was writing this yesterday, news came that China has officially changed its one child with exceptions policy to a two child policy.



45. The Dark Road by Ma Jian, translated from the Chinese by Flora Drew
first published as Yin zhi dao in 2012
finished reading September 21, 2015

Ma Jian's The Dark Road is a bitter and scathing diatribe about life in Deng Xiaoping's China. Meili and Kongzi are expecting a child. Unfortunately for them, they already have a daughter, Nannan. The couple thought they had taken care of things by buying a fake birth permit for this second child. However, this time the surprise family planning crackdown in their rural district is being conducted by officials from outside the county, beyond any influence they might have. Women of child bearing age are being rounded up for IUD insertions, forced terminations, or forced sterilizations, depending upon their childbearing history.

That night, the family of three left Kong Village to make their way down Dark Water River to the Yangtze, hoping to find a place where they could evade the family planners and have their child in peace. On board their boat, Meili met a woman who told her

There's one place in China you can live in complete freedom, though: Heaven Township. It's in Guangdong Province. I worked there for a while. No one checks how many children you have. And it's almost impossible to get pregnant there... the town's air contains chemicals which kill men's sperm...
It's full of workshops that dismantle the electronic goods. It's a Special Economic Zone now like Shenzhen. But to reach it, you must travel through many large cities. If the police catch you, you'll be slammed in a custody centre and booted back home.

Meili seized upon the notion of this place, deciding it would be their destination. Heaven isn't easily attained though.

Unbeknownst to them, their journey will take nine years. Some will be horrible, others merely awful. It will see Kongzi, a descendent of Confucius and a respected teacher in his village, become a drunken lout whom even the prostitutes scorn. There will be more pregnancies for Meili, who will be forced to take whatever work she can find as Kongzi deteriorates.

Ma uses the family's travels to show the reader the degradation and destruction of not only the family, but of the country itself. Kongzi works for a while demolishing a village that will be flooded by the Three Gorges Dam. There is work picking through recycling. Corpse fishers, counterfeiters, corrupt officials and child traffickers are only some of the denizens of the new China they come up against as they sink to the class of the Three Nos: "no documents, no home, no income."

The family finally reaches Heaven Township, where the economy has indeed taken off. A local family had discovered a market for scrap metal and plastic at the local toy factory. Now other families are doing the same thing,

opening workshops on the ground floors of their homes and hiring migrant workers to help out. Today, the front doors of every house are not surrounded by bales of wheat, but bundles of electric cables, circuit boards and transformers. In just one decade, Heaven has transformed from a quiet backwater into a prosperous waste-choked town.

There is a lot of material here, almost too much. Either that, or Ma has written at a frantic pace, trying to convince his readers of every injustice and wrong, belabouring them when a lighter hand would have done a better job. Minor characters suddenly step forward as if on stage, and denounce the hellish environment or the one child policy. Part of the story is told by the spirit of Meili's second child. Each chapter starts with a list of keywords, warning the reader of the dangers to come.

Meili herself is pregnant for five years with her last child. She has promised this child she will give birth to it as soon as the One Child Policy is repealed, as soon as "...every child born in China will be given full legal citizenship."

Whichever thread connects most with the individual reader, the overriding theme is that no matter what the message of progress China projects to the world, hundreds of millions outside the urban areas are not part of it. Changing from a one child policy to a two child will do little for them.

Fascinating! And what an unexpectedly timely read!

>104 SassyLassy: I read your comments just minutes after listening to a piece on this on CBC The Current, featuring Jan Wong ( Red China Blues), Xinran (Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother ) and a poli sci professor specializing in China. Did you hear it? If not, here's a link. A fascinating 20 minutes: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent (China's one-child policy changes to fix demographic deficit)

>105 rebeccanyc: I read this book because I thought and still think his Beijing Coma was one of the best books I'd read in a long time. This one didn't have the same impact, probably as it was less restrained, but as you say it was fascinating nonetheless.

>106 Nickelini: Thanks for that link. It was an excellent discussion, even though I would have liked Jan Wong's mike to be cut off a few times to prevent her from interrupting the professor. What did surprise me that no one mentioned that the disposal of female children is really nothing new in China.

Spoken: November

Meaning: No

I kind of like this combination of No November, probably my least favourite month

We are here

46. The Alphabet of Birds by S J Naudé, translated from the Afrikaans by the author
first published as Alfabet van die voels in 2011
finished reading September 27, 2015

The contemporary South African fiction I have read all has a certain sense of loss and displacement. Many of the white characters in these novels have left South Africa. Some have left and returned. All feel inextricably bound to the country for reasons none of them seem able to articulate, try as they may.

S J Naudé's The Alphabet of Birds continues these explorations in a group of short stories. Some are linked by common characters, all are linked by the search for place, for roots. So deep is this search that it examines the very words used in it, and then looks beyond them to music, the root of language.

South Africa has much natural beauty, but the people in self imposed exile find themselves in urban hardscapes, only alienating themselves more. Concrete and glass towers in London and Dubai, arid suburbs in Arizona, discourage any attempts at life and connection with others. Even remnants of other times are barricaded: a Milanese villa hides behind steel doors with electronic locks; the only livable rooms in a German castle are enclosed by the ruins of that same castle. Even Sandrien, the one character who remained in South Africa, feels compelled to exile herself to a featureless black village where "She is in fact the only white person in town." The town people scorn her for it and she finds herself exiled in her own country.

The sense of transience and loss these soulless places engender calls for escape. Sex, drugs, alcohol and music all feature, but none offers any permanent solution, except perhaps that of death, and that surprisingly often.

As borders, relationships and people break down, language itself, the basis of culture, is called into question. Ondien, who studied music and language, contemplates what constituted protolanguage. She explained the work of Louis Wolfson to her brother one evening. Wolfson wanted to "decapitate and disempower the {English} language" used by his mother. He discovered though that working so hard to forget this language made him remember it that much more. However this

...opened a glimmer of possibility that, one day, he would be able to forge a new relationship with the mother tongue. That he would be able to return to it, as if to a lost land.

While none of the characters knows when or how the axis of their individual lives tilted, all know it involved loss. This glimmer of a remembered lost land, a land that never really existed, is the only thing left for them.

Hi Sassy. Catching up a bit.. Enjoyed N and M. Interesting choices.

>110 dchaikin: Hello there. While it's embarrassing to admit that all my alphabet books to date have come from my TBR pile, it's also a relief to have them read. It's also good to have a pile large enough to offer a choice for every letter so far. It might take me several years of doing this to get through the pile!

Last night I realized that I am a mere 11 books behind here and it is starting to nag in the back of my mind. Time to do something.

Don't be put off by the title of this next book. I avoided it for years on just that basis, afraid it would be a romance, or something preachy, but found it instead to be delightfully realistic. Thanks to cdvicarage in the Viragos group for this book.



47. The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
first published 1957
finished reading September 30, 2015

One of the most difficult writing skills must be to write convincingly from a child's point of view. When it's done well though, it's a form that tells its story with a view the reader has often long abandoned. Being reminded of our childhood thoughts and selves can take us back to those ways of thinking and allow us to consider, with hindsight, the strange world of "grownups" and how we got to be such creatures. Great Granny Webster, A Childhood in Scotland and Frost in May all did this for me in the past couple of years. The Fountain Overflows is my latest foray into this world. Interestingly, all these books frame a similar time.

The period from 1890-1910 was somewhat like childhood itself. On the one hand, there was rapid change in the immediate world outside, as things like clothing, lighting and transportation leapt forward into the new century. On the other, so much felt like it would never change: the rituals of schools, meals and family life. Although the class structure in England had started to alter, that change had not yet come to the Aubrey family, the focus of this somewhat autobiographical novel.

The Aubreys were certainly entitled by education and background to a strong position in the middle classes. Piers Aubrey, the father, was an editor and political writer of some standing. Unfortunately, he was also an inveterate gambler and speculator, whose escapades forced the family into frequent moves and ever seedier accommodation. The children, three girls and a boy, were "not part of any world". Marriage prospects were practically nonexistent for the girls.

Their mother tried to shelter them from these realities, but as children do, they knew they were different. They were not part of the middle class economically, and their speech and upbringing ensured they did not fit into the lower classes. Rose, the narrator, instinctively understood these distinctions. On a first visit to their Aunt Constance, who lived in an even worse part of south London than the Aubreys, Rose realized exactly what it was that separated her family from those around them

... I realised without emotion that Constance lived among the kind of people who in those days were called 'common'. More fortunate children than ourselves might have called them poor, but we knew better, for most of them were no poorer than we were. They were people who lived in ugly houses in ugly streets among neighbours who got drunk on Saturday nights, and who did not read books or play music or go to picture galleries and who were unnecessarily rude to each other, and what was specially degrading, 'made face' as well as not having baths every day. We did not despise these people, we simply felt they did not have as amusing a time as we did, and we had understood, almost as soon as we could understand anything, that we had to rely on our own efforts if we were not to find ourselves living on that level, and I was not surprised, therefore, to find that a relative of mine had sunk to that level; I was only anxious to find out whether she found life there supportable.

The children's mother, based on West's own mother, devoted herself to creating lives for them that would lead them to some form of success. A talented musician, she saw enough talent in Rose and Mary to allow her to believe that they could make their ways in the world through music. Their father became less and less present in their lives. Rose had started her story by leading the reader directly into her parents' relationship. There was such a long pause that I wondered whether my Mama and my Papa were ever going to speak to one another again. As time went on, the pauses and the absences grew longer.

Since this was an Edwardian house, troubles were never discussed in front of or with the children. They were left to work out among themselves the causes of the odd swings in the life of the family. They learned the subtle signs that distinguished the bearable from the unbearable. Music was the constant presence in their lives, a solace and discipline that took them away from their surroundings. West skilfully uses it as a metaphor as Rose and Mary develop through their studies, while their less talented sister Cordelia floundered through hers.

All this makes it sound like a thoroughly depressing novel, when it is actually nothing of the sort. There is a joy and purpose in these children and their mother as they live their rich interior lives despite their outward poverty. First published in 1957, West intended this book to be the first in a series of three or four books devoted to 'the saga of the century'. Other projects came along though, and this was the only volume to be completed. There are hints and foreshadowings of what was to come, especially the cloud of WWI. This book can certainly stand on its own however. Perhaps it's better just to remember the voices of childhood.

I've had that on the TBR for years. Thanks for giving it a nudge!

I enjoyed your review of the Fountain Overflows. I have read The return of the soldier, which I enjoyed.

The Alphabet of Birds sounds pretty depressing. Did the exile theme resonate with you?

>112 SassyLassy: Excellent review - and you've given me the nudge too! It will pair well with my current book The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West that provides a picture of the other end of Edwardian economic groups.

If you are interested in Reading Globally, there is now a thread set up to discuss possible theme reads for 2016. http://www.librarything.com/topic/205764

Reading Globally looks at the world mostly through fiction with a bit of non fiction. It's an opportunity to read thematically about areas of the world and most of all to discover some of the amazing writing from parts of the world other than your own.

>113 rebeccanyc: I suspect you have to be in the right frame of mind to read The Fountain Overflows. Luckily for me, I was when I picked it up.

>114 baswood: I was just looking at The Return of the Soldier online at the Book Depository as I contemplated adding to my piles of books, but decided it's the time of year when I should be adding to other people's piles instead. Good to know you enjoyed it. I will keep it on my list of potentials for my Thingaversary in February.

The Alphabet of Birds was depressing in certain ways, especially for what it said about the destruction of the hopes for South Africa, in what seems to be a common theme in recent fiction from there. However, it was also an excellent look at what could be described as the twenty first century generation of post nationals, youth with no national allegiances who travel the world, not like people did in the 1960s and 1970s, retaining their sense of cultural identity while exploring new cultures, but rather in a new way free from any sense of identity, sort of global citizens with no particular allegiances. I found this disturbing for the rootlessness it engendered together with a sense that nothing really mattered.
The exile theme is one that does indeed resonate with me, especially that of internal exile, which was brought out beautifully in this book by Sandrien, the woman who stayed behind and was destroyed by it.

>115 VivienneR: I think you're absolutely right about the pairing with The Edwardians. It was the book I picked up next after finishing The Fountain Overflows, but then thought I had best finish my alphabet project as the end of the year is getting close, so set it aside for 2016.

Here goes with more of that project.

I am amazed at how many of these meanings have linked with the associated novel.



Spoken: Oscar

Meaning: Man Overboard

We are here:

48. To Know a Woman by Amos Oz translated from the Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange, in collaboration with the author
first published as La-da'at ishah in 1989
finished reading October 2, 2015

Who better to understand the physiology of secrets than an Israeli agent? When Yoel's wife was electrocuted in the back yard of their Jerusalem building, with the next door neighbour dying beside her, Yoel came home from his mission in Helsinki. He stopped his clandestine work and set out to deconstruct the riddle that was his family.

Grief is a curious thing though. No matter how competent and detached we may feel, it is working away deep down inside us in its own secret ways. Yoel's immediate response had been to sell the apartment and move to Tel Aviv. There he leased a house and moved in with his teenage daughter, his mother, and his mother-in-law.

Yoel was a man whose very survival had depended upon his ability to read people, total strangers, immediately. "His perceptional life had been so sharp in those years, and now everything was blunt." He had felt that the bond between him and his wife Ivria was shared knowledge, a deep and profound knowledge of each other. Had he really known her, this woman who locked herself in a room all day long to write about the Brontes, this woman who slept apart from him every night?

Now he retreated into routine and busywork to block his thoughts, although the sharp sense of observation that had served him so well in his professional life stayed acute.

He had nothing to do all day long. The days were all alike. Here and there he made various improvements in the house. He fixed a soap dish in the bathroom. A new hat and coat rack. A lid with a spring on the dustbin. He hoed the soil around the four fruit trees in the back garden. He lopped of some redundant branches and painted the wounds with a black paste. He prowled around the bedrooms, the kitchen, the car-port, the balcony, clutching the electric drill with its extension lead always plugged in, like a diver attached to his oxygen tube, with his finger on the trigger, looking for a spot to thrust the tip in.... He rewashered all the taps in the house... He oiled the hinges of the doors to stop them squeaking. He took Ivria's pen to be cleaned and to have the nib changed.

Oz writes with a flat almost laconic style that grated at first. It seemed nothing would ever happen and perhaps nothing ever really did. Gradually the narrative took over and became almost hypnotic. Gradually Yoel worked his way through the idea of secrets in family life, finally acknowledging their existence, without having to know their content. For "What was the extent of the resemblance or difference between different people's secrets? Yoel knew there was no way to know. Even though the question of what people really know about each other, especially people who are close to one another had always been an important one for him and had now become an urgent one"

He realized that sleepwalking through life was not the answer, that he had to come to life again. It was another death that enabled this transformation, a death that made him realize that like King David, with the deaths of Saul or Uriah or even Absalom, the news of death "brought him relief and sometimes even rescue".

This is a quiet book that keeps the reader thinking long after it is finished.

>119 SassyLassy: That sounds quite interesting!

Another Oz to think about reading. I've enjoyed his books quite a bit. Enjoyed your review of the Rebecca West too.

>120 .Monkey.: There was lots to think about.

>121 dchaikin: This is only my second successful foray into books translated from Hebrew. Perhaps it is the structure of the language. Books I have tried have seemed flat, but with the content of this one, especially after the main character's bereavement, it worked well. The other successful on was A Woman in Jerusalem.

Spoken: Papa

Meaning: 1. In port; All aboard
2. At Sea; Your lights are out or burning badly

We are here:



Pushkin's library in his last flat, where he wrote many of his works. This 11 room flat is in St Petersburg.

Photo from The Guardianhttp://www.theguardian.com/travel/gallery/2012/nov/20/st-petersburg-pushkin-muse...

49. The Queen of Spades and Other Stories by Alexander Pushkin, translated from the Russian by Alan Myers
first published individually in 1831, 1834, 1836, 1837
finished reading October 9, 2015

"Hold on a minute" was my first thought. Pushkin is a new author to me, but even before I had finished the first page I was convinced this man was channelling Walter Scott. The author's conceit of being a publisher in receipt of these tales from a collector, now deceased, and receiving information about that collector from a third party, strongly echoed Scott's introductions to his Waverley novels.

The feeling happened again and again. By the time I got to The Captain's Daughter, the footnotes caught up to me, saying "... an imitation of the beginning of Scott's Rob Roy..." and later, "Pushkin closely follows Scott's practice of adding chapter titles. His choice here directly echoes Quentin Durward..." citing identical and highly similar chapter titles. The narrator, Grinyov, has a retainer very similar to Ravenswood's in The Bride of Lammermoor. Later in The Captain's Daughter, the notes state the obvious: "Pushkin's treatment of this adventitious meeting is a deliberate reworking of the incident in chapter 37 of Scott's Heart of Midlothian, where Jeanie Deans pleads for a pardon for her sister from Queen Caroline." Then I discovered that the Bibliography cites an article, "Pushkin and Sir Walter Scott" in Forum for Modern Language Studies and another in The Heyday of Sir Walter Scott.

Having finished the book, I turned to the Introduction, written by Andrew Kahn. In a lengthy consideration of Scott's influence on Pushkin, Kahn delivers the sentence which sums it up beautifully:

Pushkin was captivated by Scott's demonstration that the historical novel not only charted turning-points in national politics, but also presented a family chronicle, dividing the fiction between domestic space and the public arena of warfare and lavishing realistic detail on both.

Being a big fan of Walter Scott, none of this was a problem; it was just a complete surprise. But enough of Scott. What of the tales themselves?

The five tales which form Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin (1831) are universal in themes, but with a distinctly Russian flavour. They are the kind of stories people would enjoy around the fire in the evening. "The Stationmaster" reworks the biblical tale of the prodigal son, with Dunya as the prodigal daughter. Marriage to the right person and falling in love with the wrong person, at least in parental eyes, are common threads, along with that old standby mistaken identity. Belkin's tales are a mere appetizer though for what is to come.

The Queen of Spades (1834) would be required in any anthology of Russian short stories. An eighty year old countess was rumoured among the Horse Guards to possess the secret of winning at faro, a card game based solely on chance. Hermann was an upstanding young engineer in the Guards. Though he had "the soul of a gambler", to date he had never picked up a card at the gambling tables, where he sat all night watching, "...trembling feverishly, as he followed the shifting fortunes of the play." He became determined to discover the secret the Countess had revealed only once in her long life. Did he kill the Countess in the process? Paranoia set in and the Countess had her revenge.

The Captain's Daughter, first published in 1836, has been called the first great Russian prose novel. Pushkin follows Scott's lead using folk tales, poetry, history and detailed domestic life, all recalled years later, to create a novel of the Pugachev uprising, a rebellion of non-ethnic Russians against Catherine II. Pugachev offered freedom to serfs who would join him and his forces, which included many Yaik Cossacks. The story is told by Grinyov in his old age, looking back upon the time when he first met Masha Mironova, the daughter of his Captain. It was Grinyov's first action posting, and like so many young men he eagerly anticipated combat. Grinyov and Pugachev met by chance, which worked to bring them together several more times, at great peril to Grinyov. Pushkin explores the themes of honour, of the duty of the Tsar toward his people and the reciprocal duties of his people. He indirectly attacked Nicholas I's use of torture by contrasting the use of punishment in Catherine's reign. Catherine had felt guilt should be established legally before punishment; a scruple not always employed by Nicholas. All this is done through the eyes of the young soldier in love, tempered with the hindsight of an old man.

The final story in this collection is Peter the Great's Blackamoor (1837). Loosely based on Pushkin's maternal great-grandfather, it tells the story of a young African slave given to Peter the Great as a gift, a boy who became Peter's godson. Peter sent Ibrahim to France to be educated. There the young man fell in love with a married woman. He ignored Peter's requests to return to Russia. This situation gave Pushkin the opportunity to contrast the frivolity and dissolution of the French court with that of the industrious and reform minded Peter, while at the same time suggesting an unfavourable comparison between Peter and Nicholas. Caught up in a scandal, Ibrahim returned to Russia and an arranged marriage. Although begun in 1827, this novel was never completed.

This volume served as a terrific introduction to Pushkin and I will be reading more by him (and Scott).

I read a different collection by Pushkin, The Captain's Daughter, which also included, obviously, "The Captain's Daughter," as well as "The Queen of Spades," and it made me also want to read more by Pushkin (but I haven't done so yet). Maybe should try Scott too. I have The Heart of Midlothian on the TBR, based on your earlier recommendation.

Fascinating connection between Scott and Pushkin. I've not read much of Pushkin beyond "The Queen of Spades" which has been in most Norton Anthologies of World Literature which I've used in classes.

>125 rebeccanyc: I think based on your 19th century reading that you would enjoy Scott, who influenced many writers. The Heart of Mid-Lothian is a great place to start.

>126 janeajones: It was fascinating to see such direct influence. There are some echoes of Scott in Dumas as well, but it was The Captain's Daughter that brought the Pushkin connection out the most. Dumas translated Scott into French.

A long time ago I saw Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades in live performance. It was incredibly dramatic and I've wanted to read the story ever since.

>124 SassyLassy: It's been many years since I read Pushkin and if I noticed the relationship with Scott, it's been lost in the mists of memory. However, I do remember enjoying The Captain's Daughter and always planned on reading more. I recently gave my copy of Pushkin to my daughter-in-law, who read and passed it on to someone else. Now I wish I'd kept it.

>128 VivienneR: I was amazed at how many anthologies and collections have this particular work. If I hadn't had this particular edition on my TBR, I suspect I would have been tempted by the NYRB version, since it is one of my favourite publishers. However, I do see it frequently in second hand bookstores in good condition. Hopefully that says more about the people who discard it unread than the work itself.

Still in the grip of Ma Jian, S J Naudé and Amos Oz I was looking for something lighter. Another review in Club Read made me realize I hadn't actually read this book, although I had already shelved it. It wasn't exactly a pick-me-upper, but it did satisfy my completist streak.



50. The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell, translated from the Swedish by Laurie Thompson
first published as Den orolige mannen in 2009
finished reading October 13, 2015

On the surface, The Troubled Man is fairly standard Wallander fare, brought closer to home by the fact that it is his daughter's parents-in-law who disappear one after another. Disappearance is what this book is about on more than just the superficial level though, for Wallander also is disappearing, as incipient dementia creeps up on him.

The real reason to read this book is Mankell's descriptions of aging, both physically and mentally. As Wallander looked in the mirror each morning, he reflected

...now it seemed as if his father was taking him over --- like a runner who has been lagging a long way behind but is slowly catching up the closer he gets to the invisible finish line.

This is the tenth Wallander book, or the eleventh if you count the one with Wallander and his daughter. Readers of the series know that for a diabetic, overweight, smoking, drinking detective, there just aren't that many years or books left from either Wallander or Mankell's point of view.

Mankell takes the high ground and lets the reader know that this will be the last Wallander book. Instead of having him go out in a blaze of glory though, he takes the more difficult road. In what is probably a more realistic turn, Mankell has Wallander slowly close down. Wallander's processing gaps terrify him: Why am I standing here with my keys? --- Where have I been? Working through the interminable details of a case became increasingly difficult and tiring. The past occupied him more and more: his own and his country's.

Fear of living out his last years alone, fear of descending into living nothingness, fear of dying, all threatened to become overwhelming. Wallander struggled to work out what was important and how to live his remaining years.

Wisely Mankell doesn't take the reader down that path to its end, leaving us instead able to say good-bye to a man in a diminished world, but one who still believes in a future.

__________
edited to remove typo

I didn't know that about Scott and Pushkin.

Enjoyed your review of The Troubled Man

These are great reviews. Wow on the Pushkin and very interesting about the Scott connection (wondering what Twain would say). And you make Mankell appealing.

>130 SassyLassy: I read The Troubled Man last year, and felt that Mankell did a pretty good job ending the series the way that he did. Right now, I am listening to Pyramid and Four Other Kurt Wallender Mysteries, which in the Author's note at the beginning of the book, Mankell said that he wrote these short stories to let people know where Wallender started. I've only listened to the first one so far, and Wallender has just met Mona.

>131 baswood: >132 dchaikin: Thanks. Twain is on my radar for 2016, so will read with that in mind.

>133 NanaCC: I just heard about that short story book and it would be interesting to find what shaped Wallander. Mona was never fully developed in the full novels, so that in this last one, you had to wonder how she ended up the way she did. The short stories sound like they would help.

Oh dear. Here goes:



Hamlet by William Shakespeare
first published 1603
finished discussion October 15, 2015

It's difficult to read some of the finest writing in the English language and really dislike the character who delivers the words. Such is my dilemma with Hamlet, the play selected for 2015 by the study group to which I belong.

The edition we selected was the Arden Third Series, edited by Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor, the Second Quarto text. There was a tremendous amount of background and commentary here in addition to the actual play itself. I got a lot out of it all. The wonderful language rolled over me, familiar, yet fresh every reading. When it came time for the "To be or not to be..." soliloquy, the existential argument was as it should be for a person in Hamlet's situation. However, the aftermath is where I always struggle with the man.

It is perfectly reasonable to articulate questions to oneself before choosing a course of action, especially when at the centre of both political and emotional crises. However, once the questions are posed, arrive at some conclusions and do something. Vacillation and indecision are among the worst possible traits in my book. Strong language, but little disturbs me more. My difficulty is neither with Shakespeare nor his play. It is just this particular character.

As is the custom with our group, we individually found our way to Stratford Ontario to see the play performed after our winter reading and discussions. I had hoped just sitting back and absorbing the play as spectacle would help, but it was not the case. A friend tells me the production starring David Tennant is excellent, others rave about Cummerbatch, so I shall have to see if interlibrary loan can help.

Spoken: Quebec

Meaning: My Vessel is healthy and I request free pratique*

* permission granted to a ship to deal with a port, after having been in quarantine or having presented a clean bill of health

We are here:



Spain in 1592, we are actually about 30 years later, but no map was found. This map is from Gallery Ortelius.

Another character who troubled me for entirely different reasons:



52. The Swindler by Francisco de Quevedo in Two Spanish Picaresque Novels translated from the Spanish by Michael Alpert
first published as La Vida del Buscón in 1626, first translation into English in 1657
finished reading October 18, 2015

Although he purports to follow the popular and established format of the picaresque tale, de Quevedo takes his story of The Swindler too far. He steps over that line which keeps the reader in sympathy with the main actor, no matter how much of a rascal, and instead presents a thoroughly disagreeable character.

While disagreeable characters often make the most compelling subjects and memorably some of the best books, there was nothing about Pablo as he told the story of his adolescence and the litany of his sins that made him remotely interesting or sympathetic. There is some initial humour in the book, but that fades as Pable hones his criminal skills.

Briefly, Pablo went off to boarding school as a sort of servant/companion to the son of a local gentleman. There he engaged in petty theft and swindling. One day he got a letter from his uncle, the hangman for Segovia, recounting the heroic death of Pablo's father, whom the hangman had had to hang and quarter, even though it was his own brother. Pablo's mother, a suspected witch, was in the hands of the Inquisition. The uncle had money for Pablo from his parents and asked that he come to Segovia to claim it and take up his work.

Reaching Segovia and seeing the life there, Pablo decided that it was not for him. So began a life of crime, alternating with stretches in jail, none of it very interesting or out of the ordinary. Read however as a study of the underclass, it tells a lot. This was a time when Spain was coming to the realization that the glory day were over. All levels of society were corrupt including the clergy. The wealthy were dependent on connections to maintain their positions or advance. The poor struggled to find the necessities, stealing and rummaging whatever they could. In the cities, prostitution, begging, acting, thieving and card sharping were common occupations.

There was a permanent underclass with no hope of escape or redemption. Pablo the narrator recognized this when he abruptly ended his narration when he came to age eighteen. In the second last paragraph, he introduces a prostitute called Grajales and tells us

I consulted her first; I thought things would go better in the New World and another country. But they went worse, as they always will for anybody who thinks he has only to move his dwelling without changing his life or ways.

>135 SassyLassy: fun stuff. I read Hamlet for the first either last year or the year before. I think I was more sympathetic with his indecision.

>137 SassyLassy: how interesting, especially that last quote.

>135 SassyLassy: I can second the opinion of the David Tennant Hamlet being excellent, though I can't say whether it would resolve any problems you have with the character. I've never actually read the play, only watched it, but I did enjoy it.

>135 SassyLassy: Earlier this year, I listened to Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Novel by A. J. Hartley and David Hewson. The book was narrated by Richard Armitage, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. While Hamlet is not a likable character, the book was. This is the second of their rework of a Shakespeare play that I've listened to, and they do an excellent job making Shakespeare approachable. I think that Cariola / Deborah liked their Hamlet better, while I preferred their Macbeth. I found that reading the play, and then reading the novel was a rewarding experience. I don't know if you ever do audiobooks, but these books were meant to be listened to.

I have seen film versions and stage productions of Hamlet, but as of now have not read the play. A treat to come.

Great catching up with your reading!

>140 NanaCC: I bought Hartley's audiobook for my husband. Sounds like it was a good choice although in the past he hasn't cared for re-workings of classics.

>143 VivienneR: You might call it more like expanding the story behind the play, with all of the bits you need to imagine happened off stage.

>144 NanaCC: Sounds just right!

>138 dchaikin: I think you would fall in with many of the group in being more sympathetic, although part of the discussion about how much sympathy should be extended seemed to be linked in part to how old that person thought Hamlet was.

That last quote from The Swindler did sort of come out of the blue, almost as if the author thought "Well I have to end this sometime, might as well be now." De Quevedo himself had an interesting life. He was well educated and travelled, but in a time of change, his connections did not always help him and he spent time in jail and in poverty.

>139 valkyrdeath: Glad to hear the David Tennant being seconded. It sent me to the web where I found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYZHb2xo0OI version of To be..., which convinced me to track it down. There was also this review from The Guardian http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2008/aug/06/theatre.rsc

>140 NanaCC: I looked at that book but couldn't fit it in at the time. I would be interested in reading it now. Another book that was suggested was John Updike's Gertrude and Claudius. Has anyone here read that? I like the idea of expanding the story if it works well, sort of like reading The Wide Sargasso Sea after Jane Eyre.

>141 baswood: Reading the plays is a very different experience from seeing them. I think reading in advance is a good idea for going to a live performance, where it is sometimes difficult to catch what is actually happening. It also allows you the time to actually absorb the content. That said, there is nothing like a brilliant live performance.

Catching up here but wanted to say that I found Hamlet is a wonderful play but pretty cringe-inducing character. But I like this what if Othello and Hamlet switched places:

>147 janemarieprice: I think those are great! We read Othello two years ago and there was quite a bit of discussion about the contrast between the two.

Spoken: Romeo

Meaning: "None"

We are here between these years:



Map from BBC iwonder

53. Tarabas -- A Guest on Earth by Joseph Roth translated from the German by Winifred Katzin
first published as Tarabas in 1934
finished reading October 21, 2015

Nicholas Tarabas was an aimless young man. He had been implicated in a plot to kill the Tsar, was tried and acquitted. His father sent him to New York City to spare the family shame. "Young Tarabas left his native land as unthinkingly as he had become a revolutionary two years before."

Tarabas was not happy in New York, with all its stone blocking out the sky. Although he would have thought of himself as a modern man, he had a deeply superstitious streak that governed his behaviour. One day at Coney Island, he had his fortune told by a gypsy. She spoke to him in his native language and told him

You are very unlucky, sir. I read in your hand that you are a murderer and a saint. There is no unhappier fate in all the world. You will sin and atone -- and both upon this earth.

While this might inspire doom in some, Tarabas felt "He had been set apart for great things."

Later that night, Tarabas was involved in an altercation with the owner of the café he frequented. Believing he had murdered the owner, he fled. The first part of the prophecy had been fulfilled. This was 1914. The next day war was announced. Tarabas made his way back to Russia and a commission as a lieutenant. The war appeared to have little effect on him other than promotion, a phenomenon noted by others.

The war became the revolution and still all that was important to Tarabas was the military company he led. One day, one of his most deeply felt superstitious fears was fulfilled. He met a red haired Jew on a Sunday morning. Superstition knows no reason. From that day on his inner live was transformed. This was the very person who would announce to Tarabas the triumph of the revolution.

Roth carefully doesn't assign Tarabas a country or ethnicity. The reader is told "By nationality he was a Russian." With the revolution at an end, Tarabas was told he and his fellow countrymen were free to return to their native country, which now had its own government and its own capital. Tarabas went home to join the new provisional army as a colonel in Koropta.

Just as Tarabas had felt his world tilt when he met the courier of the revolution, so the Jews of Koropta felt when they found their country was no longer the Tsar's, but an alien new place presided over by the brutal Tarabas.

...the innkeeper Kristianpoller became possessed with a terror entirely foreign to his nature and unlike any he had ever felt before. An unknown apprehension filled his heart which had grown used to all the usual established fears.

The inevitable occurred. Roth's description of the ensuing pogrom is almost journalistic in its immediacy.

Roth adapts his style as the narrative changes pace and direction. He can address and mock the bureaucracy of the new state and then write lyrical nineteenth century style descriptions of the countryside a few pages later without the reader having that feeling of interruption or redirect.

The second half of the book, Fulfilment, concerns remorse and atonement, the search for grace. Roth writes here of the eternal wanderer, the Everyman. His technique becomes that of the story teller of universal tales, encompassing lessons and commentary. Underneath it all is the warning of change to come. Roth knew the Eastern European world he wrote about was disappearing, although he died before the vast machinery of its death was put into motion. He himself never found the peace Tarabas sought.

>150 SassyLassy: Thats an interesting review.

Enjoyed your review of Roth's Tarabas.

I did too.

>150 SassyLassy: Sounds like a really interesting, and rather unusual, book.

>151 baswood: >152 dchaikin: >153 rebeccanyc: >154 Oandthegang: I was glad I had read Roth's nonfiction The Wandering Jews before I read this, as it gave me a better idea of the desperation Roth felt and transmitted to his characters about the as yet undefined upheavals which he was convinced were coming to Eastern Europe. There's certainly a lot more of his work available in translation and I will very slowly work my way through it.

After Roth, Hamlet and the odious Swindler, I needed something lighter, so inspired by rebecca and others, I started the Inspector Sejer series.



54. In the Darkness by Karin Fossum translated from the Norwegian by James Anderson
first published as Evas oye in 1995
finished reading October 29, 2015

Luckily, I didn't start my Karin Fossum adventure until now, so I was lucky enough to be able to start with the very first Inspector Sejer novel, which for some reason is the most recently translated into English.

Used to and fond of the rumpled and flawed Rebus, Wallander and Erlendur, Sejer was a surprise. Here is a quiet widower, as socially conscious as the aforementioned trio, but able to deal with his demons without resorting to gloom and doom. Like Rankin, Fossum has a good eye for local details that set the book apart and yet the story is one that could be anywhere.

Briefly, a woman and her young daughter are out walking when they find a body washed up on the riverbank. The woman has an unusual reaction, but the body is reported. This could be an unsolved murder, it could be an accidental drowning. Sejer works through the facts, revealing a lot of himself along the way.

This being a mystery, that's all I will say other than I've found a new series to fill the gap.

_____
edited because I can't count

Glad you enjoyed the Fossum. I'm coming to the end of the series, so I'm looking for a new mystery series . . .

It was Colleen (NanaCC) who introduced me to Fossum.

Spoken: Sierra

Meaning: My engines are going full speed astern

We are here in the top left west fjords:



Map by Abraham Ortelius depicting Iceland and the sea creatures around it in 1587, from Library of Congress website.

55. From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
first published as Rökkurrbýsnir in 2008
finished reading November 3, 2015

What could a 61 year old man possibly have done to be condemned to solitary exile on an island off the coast of Iceland; an exile that condemned anyone who helped him to the same fate? Jónas Pálmason spent his days on Gullbjorn's Island debating life and the natural world with its inhabitants the sandpiper, the mussels and the visiting seals.

It was 1635 and Iceland was under the control of Denmark. The Catholic religion was forbidden, cutting off intercession by the saints to Heaven in the same way intercession to the courts had been cut off on earth.

In Iceland's Bell the adventures of another down and out from that era were recounted. However, while Jón Hreggviðsson was concerned with the material world, Sjón's Pálmason, based on a real person, is fixated on the world of science and alchemy, in particular "the healing of female disorders and the collection of ravens' heads". Alone on his island, he imagines Adam in Paradise before Eve, before the Maker of Man was forced to create Eve to control Adam. He muses on the seasons and the hell of endless winter. There is magical realism and time shifting, countered with encyclopedia like entries on the natural world, as they would have been written in Pálmason's time.

"In early September 1636, Jónas Pálmason the Learned was fetched from Gullbjorn's Island and conveyed in secret to the south of Iceland." There he was put into a ship and sent to Copenhagen. Denmark was a shock, an assault of sight and sound. "In those first few hours after he stepped ashore in Copenhagen, Jónas the Learned saw more people than he had hitherto seen in the whole of his life."

In Denmark he was put to work with Dr Ole Worm, to whom he was able to explain how it was that only the horns of unicorns turned up in royal courts, when nothing else was ever found of them.

Naturally things could not continue to go well. Soon this Jonah found himself back on his island, sunk in gloom on the winter solstice. Pálmason remembered the story of the Basque whalers, among them friends of his, murdered in the only massacre on Icelandic soil. The slaughter had been condoned by that same Ari Magnússon who was behind Jonas's downfall. Sjón once more slips back into the narrative of Pálmason's thoughts, the jumble and stream of consciousness, as yet another cycle of Pálmason's life starts, another chapter in this masterful saga.

Because I am unable to resist whale fact and fable:



Whales naturally were a recurring theme in From the Mouth of the Whale. Here is one of the encyclopedia like descriptions:

SHELL-HEAD or HUMPBACK WHALE: has shells and barnacles covering most of its head. Whenever the water is deep enough, it rubs itself against barnacle-encrusted rocks. Of all the inedible whales, this is the greatest scourge of ships and men, for it will charge at boats and smash them in two with its fins, flippers, or tail. At times it will block men's course, so they have no alternative but to collide with it. Upon which it will cast the ship high in the air if it can, and pick off everyone on board, unless men succeed in dodging so that it misjudges and travels past. However, the sound of an iron file is insupportable to it, causing it to go mad or kill itself. On hearing the sound of a thin piece of iron, about the size of a saw, being rasped against the gunwale using a large file, the humpback will be repulsed and flee or, if shallows are to be found nearby, take its own life by running aground. It contains a good deal of blubber and its short baleen makes fine runners for sledges. The humpback can grow to some sixty ells long.

pp44-45


This year the edict that allowed Icelanders to kill Basques on sight was repealed in Iceland to mark the four hundredth anniversary of the Basque massacre. Here is more information on a conference held this year to mark the event:
http://baskavinir.is/english/

>156 SassyLassy: that is the one Fossum that I haven't read. I've been interested since Rebecca reviewed it. It wasn't available when I read the series in 2012.

>159 SassyLassy: From the Mouth of the Whale sounds quite good.

Very intriguing review of From the Mouth of the Whale.

And really, Iceland still had an edict to kill Basques? Strange.

>159 SassyLassy: I have another book by Sjon, The Blue Fox, which I bought because someone on LT recommended it. Was it you?

Great reviews of Tarabas and From the Mouth of the Whale, Sassy!

From the Mouth of the Whale. Has it any resemblance to Moby-Dick, because that encyclopaedic description reminded me a little of Melville's book.

>161 NanaCC: Thanks for starting the Karin Fossum read for us all.

>162 dchaikin: I suspect it was one of those things on the books that all jurisdictions have which get forgotten over time until they prove useful or some scholar dredges them up. Apparently they invited some Basques to the repeal.

>163 rebeccanyc: It wasn't me, I only discovered him by accident this summer, but I would like to read it now.

>164 kidzdoc: Thanks!

>165 baswood: Believe it or not I haven't read Moby Dick since I was a kid. I was planning on rereading it for the Sea theme in Reading Globally, but never did get going on that theme at all, despite my own Ahoy tagged section. It is in my plans for 2016. The answer though, from what I do remember, is that yes, it is similar in that fashion, but lacks the very personal obsession with a particular whale which drove Ahab. Pálmasson's interest is more scientific and there is a feeling of being one with the universe with all the sea creatures. He seems to have these encyclopedic entries as reminders to himself of his knowledge, the way a prisoner might recite favourite passages to maintain his sanity in captivity.

The day I posted that, I went to see the film In the Heart of the Sea. I had read the book when it first came out, so was surprised at the device by which the story is told, although it worked well and any film with Brendan Gleason in it, in no matter how small a role, is a winner. Definitely a film for the big screen. It was also the winter solstice, so all in all, as in tune with whales and winter as possible.

Sjón (Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson) is also a lyricist for Bjork, a librettist, a poet, and is also Johnny Triumph for The Sugarcubes.

Spoken: Tango

Meaning: Do not pass ahead of me

We are here:



1855 Map of Turkey and the North Caucasus from Wikipedia. Chechnya appears as Gelia in the upper right corner.

An interesting pairing with The Captain's Daughter read a week before (@124 above)



56. Hadji Murat by Leo Tolstoy translated from the Russian by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
first published posthumously at the author's request in 1912
finished reading November 5, 2015

Harold Bloom called Hadji Murat "the best story in the world". While each reader will have an opinion as to what might constitute the best, Bloom is probably not far off the mark.

Here is a story that manages to take all that makes us human and set it in a moral and military conflict that puts ardent nationalism at odds with family loyalty. A common enough struggle for many, but in this one story, Tolstoy makes it universal by having one man embody the range of humanity.

Hadji Murat was a real person, a Chechen rebel who led his Avar tribesmen against the army of Nicholas I in a fight for independence. He later defected to the Russians. In retaliation, the Chechens took his wife and son captive. The struggle Hadji Murat went through to maintain his honour and preserve the lives of his wife and son, and the consequences of this struggle, are the matter of this book.

This was Tolstoy's last book. However, he had been intrigued by its hero since 1851, when he visited Chechnya. In his introduction, the translator Richard Pevear says that Tolstoy's first short story, published in 1852, dealt with a Russian raid on a Chechen village in which Tolstoy had actually taken part. This same raid is reworked in Hadji Murat. This time, speaking of the simplicity with which Tolstoy wrote the scene, Pevear says "Nowhere in Tolstoy's polemical writings is there a more powerful condemnation of the senseless violence of war".

Tolstoy does not ascribe the characteristics of either a saint or a sinner to his protagonist. Instead, he tells his story from differing perspectives, allowing the readers to put together their own picture of the man.

This is a very short novel, but one which Tolstoy worked on for eight years, collecting information and reading primary sources. Pevear writes "... it contradicted all the aesthetic, moral, and spiritual principles he had been formulating since 1880, which had made him a world-famous public figure".

This stripped down Tolstoy shines through.

I had never heard of Hadji Murat before. Great review.

I loved Hadji Murat too and I felt it explains everything about Russia's continuing history with the Chechens.

This title is new to me. Intrigued by your enthusiasm...and it's relevance to today.

I've never heard of this Tolstoy work either but it sounds very interesting. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

Spoken: Uniform

Meaning: You are standing into danger.

We are here:



This map is from 1847, a little earlier than the next book, by which time the union of Sweden and Norway had been dissolved, but I liked this map and Norway didn't move.

If like me, you're only familiar with Sigrid Undset through the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, this next book will be a surprise.



57. Jenny by Sigrid Undset translated from the Norwegian by Tiina Nunnally
first published in 1911
finished reading November 13, 2015

The first person we meet in Jenny is not Jenny herself, but Helge Gram, newly arrived in Rome. Back home in Norway, Helge had spent years reading about the city, its art and architecture. Now here he was.

Helge whispered aloud to the city of his dreams, whose streets his feet had never trod and whose buildings concealed not one familiar soul: "Rome, Rome, eternal Rome." And he grew shy before his own lonely being, and afraid, because he was deeply moved, although he knew that no one was there watching him. All the same, he turned around and hurried down toward the Spanish Steps.

While Gram had come to Italy to see all these things, somehow nothing seemed real, he believed more in his books.

That first day, Helge met two Norwegian girls, Jenny Winge and Francesca Jahrmann. They, on the other hand, had thrown themselves whole heartedly into the bohemian life of the city. Jenny emerges as a strong young modern woman, out to make a name for herself as an artist. She wonders about love and what it would mean to her only as a concept. Cesca is more fragile, physically and morally, easily swayed by her many suitors.

Undset uses mood and settings to reveal her characters. As the novel moves from an Italian summer to a Norwegian winter, the world closes in. Behavioural strictures constrain the characters, each of whom reacts differently. Undset is highly critical of provincial Norwegian morality and the hypocrisy needed to maintain appearances. She herself was criticized for being immoral in writing about it.

Published in 1911, Jenny was Sigrid Undset's breakout novel. She refused to use the euphemisms of nineteenth century novels when putting her characters in questionable and unpleasant situations. Even worse for the time, the characters acknowledged and discussed their situations. There is no happy ending, but a realistic one for the time and place.

At the time of the initial translation into English in 1921, parts of the novel were omitted. This new translation by Tiina Nunnally , who translated the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy so well, restores the complete text. Reading both this first novel and the later trilogy gives a more complete sense of the range of Undset's writing and an insight into why she would win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928.

I still have to read Kristin Lavransdatter, and I have it on my Kindle and in hard copy as well. No excuses. 2016 is the year I should read all of the "I still have to read" books. (There are really way too many of them, but I should try to make a dent in the pile.)

>175 NanaCC: Make sure you read the Tina Nunnally translation of Kristin Lavransdatter, Colleen, as it is the only complete English translation. I was entranced by it.

>175 NanaCC: rebecca is right. I read the earlier translations in stages as I found them in used book stores in the days before online ordering and knew there had to be something better. I had actually seen the Tiina Nunnally ones in Penguin, but not all three and never when I could buy them. Once I could, I bought all three, read the series again back to back and it is excellent.

Spoken: Victor
Meaning: Require assistance, not in distress

We are here:



In 1961 Santo Domingo, the capital, was known as Cuidad Trujillo

Enjoyed your review of Jenny

Not one for the squeamish, but one of the best books I read this year.



58. The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman
first published as La Fiesta del Chivo in 2000
finished reading November 26, 2015

The Feast of the Goat is one of the few novels Mario Vargas Llosa has written that take place outside Peru. Definitely a political novel, probably one of the best, it is a condemnation of American foreign policy in the Caribbean, Central and South America in the 1950s and '60s. At the time, the US was terrified of the idea of Communist countries so close to its shores. To prevent "losing" neighbouring nations to such ideologies, it propped up a variety of dictatorial regimes. Among the most questionable of these was that of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina in the Dominican Republic.

Vargas Llosa weaves fact and fiction seamlessly to create a chilling account of life in that country. The book opens with Urania Cabral, the fictional daughter of one of Trujillo's former cabinet ministers returning years later to visit her father. This man who had held so much power is now an empty shell.

There is little of Vargas Llosa's magic realism here, but as Urania's visit progresses he uses his classic time shifts to allow the reader to see then and now almost simultaneously. Gradually the plot to kill Trujillo creeps in, along with the sense of paranoia which possessed everyone. When the tale shifts to the actual assassination and its gruesome aftermath, Urania's plot line recedes. The reader is gripped in the terror of the moment. Once the outcome has been settled, Urania reveals the last piece in the puzzle of Trujillo's final days, one Vargas Llosa has been hinting at all along, but one no less powerful for that.

I believe that the Kindle version we bought is the Nunnally translation. I think Rebecca had mentioned that when Chris was preparing to read it, and she bought it to replace the older hard copy we have.

I've added The Feast of the Goat- to my wishlist. Nice review.

Nice review of The Feast of the Goat, Sassy. I loved that book, although I was practically shaking in my boots at its end.

Thanks Nana and doc. I understand that "shaking in my boots" aspect!

I needed a break from My Century, which was progressing very slowly, so I took this book down from a TBR shelf where it seems to have been sitting since 1998. It was just the right time for it.



59. La Dame aux Camélias by Alexandre Dumas fils, translated from the French by David Coward
first published 1848, this edition translated from the 1852 3rd edition which had been corrected by Dumas
finished reading December 3, 2015

Almost as soon as I started reading La Dame aux Camélias, a feeling of familiarity crept in. As I went along, I realized I had read it when I was about ten. How that ever happened I'm not sure, for this is the story of the most famous and wealthy courtesan of her time. Perhaps my mother saw the name Alexandre Dumas and thought no more of it.

This reading was on quite a different level. No longer did I think mistress was a word for very serious girlfriend; no longer did I think it was pure romance that generated all those wonderful gifts.

Despite that, this is a romance. Marguerite Gautier is already dead of consumption as the novel starts, and the contents of her sumptuous apartment are about to be auctioned. Through buying a copy of Manon Lescaut at the auction, the narrator meets Armand Duval, a man who had truly loved Marguerite. Duval tells their story, full of all the great nineteenth century devices of evil men, loyal servants, jealous suitors, upright parents and missed opportunities. It is still an engrossing story, for Dumas was writing from life. Dumas had had an eleven month affair with Marie Duplessis, who was indeed the most famous and wealthy courtesan of her time. Unable to support her, the affair was doomed, but Dumas has written himself into the character of Duval.

La Dame aux Camélias was one of the most loved books of its time, becoming a stage play and the basis for La Traviata as well. Why is this story still so popular? David Coward in his introduction gives an excellent explanation when he says of Dumas

... neither as a novelist nor as a playwright did he ever recapture the mythical quality of the tale he told of Marguerite Gautier. He wrote better novels and more significant plays, but he wrote them with his head. La Dame aux Camélias is a young man's book, and it has all the faults and virtues of youth. It was a romantic indiscretion for which Dumas was never moved to apologize.

I know I will read this book again.

Great reviews. The Feast of the Goat sounds great but not for me. I've never read La dame aux camélias but maybe I should.

>185 FlorenceArt: I thing you would enjoy the Dumas. It's a wonderful book for when you hit a reading block and need something to get you going again.

Spoken: Whiskey
Meaning: I require medical assistance.

We are here:



The Lubyanka prison, just one of many in which Wat was incarcerated.

60. My Century by Aleksander Wat translated from the Polish by Richard Lourie
first published as Mój Wiek in 1977
finished reading December 20, 2015

Aleksander Wat was a Polish poet. Prior to WWII he had been employed by a large publishing house, had been a newspaper editor and had had connections with the Polish left wing. When Germany invaded Poland, he headed southeast to Lwów. He was accompanied by his wife and child. Eventually he was taken prisoner by the Soviets. My Century is the story of his various consecutive imprisonments, over a dozen in all, over the next several years, imprisonments that would take him all the way to Alma Ata.

Wat dictated these memories and thoughts to the Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz. In them he reveals himself as a complex person: highly intelligent, exceptionally well read, and far too proud of both the first two characteristics. He is not a likeable person to read about, and apparently many of his fellow prisoners found him unlikeable in person. Wat has a selective memory in his recitations, understandable enough given the political situation in Poland when he was recalling his history, but sometimes the lapses seem just too convenient.

Why read this book then? One reason is that it is a superb record of the intellectual history of mid century Europe and the era between the two World Wars. Another might by an interest in religious belief in difficult circumstances. Wat was a descendant of the Cabalist Isaac Luria. Wat himself led a fairly secular life before his imprisonment. He was often scornful of the Jews he met in prison, and emerged a Christian. He speaks of a single twenty minute walk on the roof of the Lubyanka at Easter, of hearing strains of Bach's St Matthew Passion, and of the effect of such stimuli of light and sound on his deadened senses.

Yet another reason might be an interest in political prisoners. Wat details the various prisons, their individual characteristics and inmate populations. There is a litany of well known names here. Wat speaks of meeting them, of their various reactions to imprisonment and of some deaths that were not known at the time. All prisoners could rank the prisons, and knew their probable fate on entry, just by virtue of which prison it was. Wat recounts some of the differences:

By then I knew that there were worse prisons than Lubyanka in Moscow. Lefortovo. People are tortured at Lubyanka too, as I learned later on when I was in another prison with people who had been tortured. People were tortured physically, not only morally and mentally. But Lefortovo was designated especially for those who are to be tortured. Lefortovo has luxurious cells, solitary cells; it's actually an old military prison. A toilet in every cell. Luxury. But they torture people there. And there's one prison the Russians fear even more. Sukhanovka, in the woods outside Moscow. It's for those who are to be shot.

This is a valuable reference book for those interested in the history of twentieth century eastern Europe thought, with a who's who of names mentioned in the back, and a foreward by Milosz telling how this book came to be, and an introduction by the editor and translator, telling of the difficulties in bringing it to print form.

Spoken: Yankee

Meaning: I am carrying mail.

We are somewhere here:

What happened to X you may ask? Stay tuned; all will be revealed.



61. Hardboiled and Hard Luck by Banana Yoshimoto translated from the Japanese by Michael Emmerich
first published as Hadoboirudo in 1999
finished reading December 22, 2015

Japanese fiction is a largely unexplored world for me, so I approached the two long stories in Hardboiled and Hard Luck with some apprehension. What I discovered in Banana Yoshimoto's writing was what one might call an "old soul". Her setting and backgrounds are definitely contemporary Japan, however, the two stories are both classic love stories which could have been written in any era.

Hardboiled has a solitary woman hiking in the mountains. Stopping for the night at a small inn with a sort of David Lynch feel to it, she encounters spirits from both the inn's past and her own. Working out what it all means, she manages to free herself from guilt over her lover's death.

Hard Luck has a young woman and her family in that suspension of life that happens in a hospital while waiting for a family member's certain death.

These scenarios both sound like odd premises for hope, but there is a sense of future at the end of each, a sense that the protagonist has gone throught a trial and emerged stronger, that offers solace at the end.

I'll look for more books by this author.

>180 SassyLassy: When I read The Feast of the Goat, I didn't like it as much as other Vargas Llosas I'd read, but your review makes me relive the terror of it.

>188 SassyLassy: I really loved My Century -- it made me look for more Wat and more Milosz.

62. The Glitter of Mica by Jessie Kesson
first published in 1963
finished reading December 27, 2015

"Write what you know" is the advice given to budding authors. Jessie Kesson was intimately acquainted with the world of villages like her fictional Caldwell in the northeast of Scotland.

The Glitter of Mica captures a time in that rural area when the world changed dramatically from the remnant feudal system of Term Days and uncertain futures to farm workers with their own cars and superannuation; A revolution as complete as the Industrial Revolution, but quieter --- and bloodless. It was World War II that brought such upheavals. The work world may change dramatically, but it takes far longer for those immersed in it to change their way of thinking.

Kesson's writing is brilliant as she portrays the people and times. Her explanation of the taciturn: "It was simply that words had caricatured their thoughts. And, by God, words could do that, right enough. Look and touch and feel should suffice to allow you to walk wordless all your days." There is the compulsion of " 'Keeping one's proper place' so strictly adhered to". God forbid you called attention to yourself or deviated in any way, for folk will always remember your origins and be quick to remind you of them. Readers of Alice Munro's Who Do You Think You Are? will know the tone all too well.

There is a timelessness in the language and its application, captured so well here:

There were no words for death itself, only for its justification. God Knows stood listening for them now, although he knew their every qualifying adjective by heart - the very old who were "better away from it all"; the very young "happier out of it"; the middle-aged who rarely died, but when they did were apt to "slip away", taking their secret word "incurable" with them. Even so, they were the kind of words which had to be uttered by the one and heard by the other. You accepted death, but found the reason for it before burying the body.

"Still, when you consider how things were --- "

"Just so." God Knows implicitly confirmed Hugh Riddel's reflection. Words which he had heard from the beginning of time, when it was only the brute beasts that died and man was immortal; and, though time in its passing proved that man died too, the words kept their truth: never completed, yet needing no expansion.

Times may change, but words still fail and rituals are needed.

Spoken: Zulu

Meaning: Used to call stations on shore

We are here at a chess game



image from Wikipedia, an Elke Rehder woodcut for the novel

63. The Chess Game by Stefan Zweig translated from the German by Joel Rotenberg
first published posthumously as Schachnovelle in 1942
read December 28, 2015

What appears to start out as a simple story of a chess game on an ocean liner, soon takes on an urgency that grips the reader until the very end of this novella.

As the passengers board the liner, they are excited to discover that Mirko Czentovic, the world's chess champion, is among them. While no one believes that the champion can be defeated, a few are bold enough to try to entice him to play, among them the stubborn Scottish engineer McConnor. They succeed. During a return match with McConnor, a new character, Dr B, steps forward. Dr B is possessed of an apparently boundless knowledge of chess. During the voyage, he recounts his story and how he obtained his chess knowledge to the book's narrator.

Zweig builds a carefully controlled path to frenzy and obsession here, reminiscent of Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde or Pushkin's The Queen of Spades. Zweig, however, goes even further, using the game as a metaphor for Nazi expansion in Europe and the ills that had come with it. This is the last work Zweig wrote before the double suicide of he and his wife in 1942. It gives a sense of the exile, the man without a spiritual future, and the inevitable question of whether Zweig himself was thinking this.

An excellent book.

Spoken: X-Ray

Meaning: Stop what you are doing and watch my signals

We are here



Even finding a map of Tibet is a political activity. This colours in this one reflect different claims to the region.

65.* Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet by Xue Xinran translated from the Chinese by Julia Lovell and Esther Tyldesley
first published as in 2004
read December 29, 2015

I am a completist. I was having difficult finding an X author. Two or three years ago I had started Xue's The Good Women of China, but didn't find anything there. Now I thought finding it might be my only way to complete my alphabet in translation, but it was not to be found. Perhaps I gave it away.

The year was rapidly ending, I had already read my Z book. All this took me to the local library in the next community over on December 29th, where I found not only the Good Women, but this book as well. Hope flickered but then quickly faded as I read the blurb from that great literary review source The Financial Times: "A romantic epic of loss and redemption, of stoic constancy in the face of the vagaries of fate."

This book purports to be the true story of a Chinese woman who spent over thirty years in Tibet, looking for her husband whom the PLA had told her was killed in 1958 in eastern Tibet. According to Xue, she met and interviewed this woman in Suzhou in 1994, upon her return to China. It reads like complete fiction, sort of like the odious Three Cups of Tea, but its library classification is nonfiction.

Xue's writing in both books is like that of a diligent creative writing student. Even the translation by the able Julia Lovell can't mask that. Most of the time it felt like reading about those mythical role models like Dongzi, so loved by the Party in China, exemplars whose life story every Chinese child could recite until they were exposed as complete frauds. At no time did Shu Wen question what her husband and the PLA were doing in Tibet. She seems to have miraculously avoided any contact with anything or anyone that might have given her any knowledge of the cataclysmic changes in Tibet and China since 1958, until one day she meets the one person who can tell her about her husband.

This is sure to be a book club favourite.

_______________

* I seem to have neglected giving Hamlet a number. It should have been 51 and everything after it to here should have one added to it.

I couldn't let the year end on the book above, so since I also read other books I may not post about here, I thought I would add one I loved.



66. The Farmhouse: New Inspiration for the Classic American Home by Jean Rehkamp Larson
first published 2006
finished reading October 2015

Landscape is something I read about a lot. This book takes homes from across the US and shows how the traditional farmhouse is designed to fit into the landscape and fulfill all its functions as a workplace and home. With examples from New England, the American midwest and the southwest, it takes the local vernacular and works to maintain it with extensions to older farm houses, or completely new ones. I learned things like why peaks face the road in some areas, and the side in others.

There are excellent photographs by Ken Gutmaker of each farm, both inside and out, with sketches of floorplans. Challenges the landscape presents are discussed, as are the materials. This all sounds very dry, but Larson obviously spends a lot of time getting to know her clients and these homes reflect that. There are no sterile structures here; each house is eminently liveable. One of the best features for any LT readers, is that every home seems to have bookshelves specially incorporated, and these shelves are full of real books, not just some designer's idea of what they should look like.

It's no wonder that the idea of the farm still remains so important to many who may never have lived there or left long ago.

This was an excellent book. This link will give you an idea of some of it:

http://www.gastarchitects.com/the-farmhouse-new-inspiration-for-the-classic-amer...

Clicking the small images will show you more of the work.

Happy New Year to All!

>196 SassyLassy: "Sure to be a book club favourite" made me smile.

>197 SassyLassy: The Farmhouse sounds lovely. I have started my 2016 thread with a resolution to try to stop buying books, so I shall have to gaze from afar. (I have looked at the online pictures and would like to move in. Now.)

>196 SassyLassy: you made me laugh with "from that great literary review source The Financial Times".

Happy New Year!

Whew! You got to Z. I have enjoyed all your reviews along the way.

>191 rebeccanyc: I haven't read any Milosz. Anything you can recommend?

>199 Oandthegang: Always happy to provoke a smile! Unfortunately too many will twitter on about what a lovely moving... story it was and believe every word, without questioning.

>200 NanaCC: I wonder how it even made their pages; not something I see financial types or dot.com millionaires sitting around reading.

>201 baswood: I did make it! Thanks, it was quite a trip.

>202 SassyLassy: The Issa Valley is a wonderful book; it was one of my favorites the year I read it. I also have some poetry he wrote and a nonfiction work, The Captive Mind, which I haven't read yet. I had mixed feelings about the collection of stories I read by Wat, Lucifer Unemployed.