Author Archives: Caroline

Poetry Month Book Giveaway – The Day the World Ends – A Collection of Poems by Ethan Coen

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April is poetry month and that seems to be an excellent reason to give away a book of poetry. I wasn’t even aware of the fact that the younger of the two Coen brothers wrote poems before Crown Publishing offered me the opportunity to give away his newly released book The Day the World Ends.

Here is what the blurb says

Coen’s eccentric genius is revealed again in THE DAY THE WORLD ENDS (Broadway Paperbacks Original, on sale April 3, 2012), a collection of poems that offers humor and provides insight into an artist who has always pushed the boundaries of his craft. THE DAY THE WORLD ENDS  is a remarkable range of poems that are as funny, ribald, provocative, raw, and often touching as the brilliant films that have made the Coen brothers cult legends.

I haven’t read any of his poems but I like the movies of the Coen brothers a lot. The Big Lebowski is one of my favourite comedies. It seems that some of the poems in his older collection were quite controversial.

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If you would you like to win the book, please leave a comment. The giveaway is open internationally. The winner will be announced on Sunday 15 April 2012. 

7 X 7 Link Award

Posted in Blogging, Books by

I’ve been tagged by the lovely Novia from Polychrome Interest and received the 7×7 link award. This is a fun award and more than anything I hope that the people I’m going to tag will participate as well as we will get to read and re-read a few really great posts.

What is it all about?

1: Tell everyone something about yourself that nobody else knows.

2: Link to a post you think fits the following categories: The Most Beautiful Piece, Most Helpful Piece, Most Popular Piece, Most Controversial Piece, Most Surprisingly Successful Piece, Most Underrated Piece, Most Pride-worthy Piece.

3: Pass this on to 7 fellow bloggers.

While everyone seems to skip question 1,  almost everybody enjoys answering question 2. Admittedly not an easy question and I’m cheating. I have included posts from my movie blog.

The Most Beautiful Piece

I think my post on Niccolò Ammanitis’ novel I’m not scared was my most beautiful post. The book made me travel back to my own childhood and long-lost summers.

Most Helpful Piece

People were glad to read something about Indirect Translations and L2 Translations.

Most Popular Piece

10 German war movies. It had 30’000 views so far. It’s quite surprising.

Most Controversial Piece

I don’t think any post on this blog was very controversial with the exception of on Negative “Reviews” but that was a mild controversy. However there was a very controversial one on my movie blog on Movies on the Crusades. I was even tempted to close the comments section.

Most Surprisingly Successful Piece

I wrote a post on my German blog called Menschen, die zu viel reden – People who talk too much. It is surprisingly successful and viewed more often than the whole blog.

Most Underrated Piece

One of my earliest posts which I personally like got no comments and hardly any views. It was a post on Nora Murphy’s memoir Knitting the Threads of Time.

Most Pride-worthy Piece

A post on the movie Napola got me a quote on a DVD cover.

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Now it’s my turn to tag 7 people. I decided to include only book blogs.

Danielle from A Work in Progress. Danielle’s posts are very varied. Some are informative, some are entertaining, others lovely and many are full of book discoveries.

Guy from His Futile Preoccupations. Guy is by far the person who makes me buy the most books (followed closely by Danielle). Not only do I like his taste in books but I also enjoy that he writes so very well about them.

Emma from Book Around the Corner. Emma’s posts are very diverse, some are long and elaborate, others short and to the point but they are always full of interesting and nuanced insights into the books she has read.

Litlove from Tales from the Reading Room. Litlove writes on many different topics, mostly book related but also essays on interesting people and personal essays. All of her posts are well written and thought-provoking.

Richard from Caravana de Recuerdos. Just to put his name on the list made me grin. I have a feeling I know which could be the “most controverisal post” in his case. Richard has an interesting choice of lengths for his post. From three sentence pieces containing a deadly blow to longer and very soulful posts, you will find everything.

Stu from Winston’s Dads Blog. Stu is dedicated, passionate and never ceases to surprise me with his book choices and the enthusiastic posts he writes about them. How many great posts on books in translations have  I missed? Many I’m afraid.

Vishy from Vishy’s Blog. Another blog I have only discovered recently. Vishy has a very special way of combining personal anecdotes and book reviews. I’d love to read and discover some older posts that I may have missed.

Violet Still Life With Books. Don’t we all have a blog we secretly admire? Someone who writes like we would want to write? In my case it’s Violet. Since I’ve first visited her blog I loved the way she writes and her book choices. I’d love to discover her older posts.

I’d love to see all of your choices but don’t feel forced to particpiate.

Muriel Spark E-Book Giveaway – The Hothouse by the East River

Posted in Books, Giveaway, Novel by

The poll has decided and the second e-book I’m giving away courtesy of Open Road Media is Muriel Sparks The Hothouse by the East River.

This book is one of eight of Muriel Spark’s novels that have just been released.

Here is what is said about the book

Touched by madness and haunted by a secret past, Paul and Elsa’s relationship reveals that there can be no normality for people who witnessed the worst of war

In 1970s New York, Paul and Elsa are like many other well-off middle-aged couples, worrying over their apartment and psychoanalyst bills by day, and meeting friends at restaurants by night. But this is not an ordinary couple with ordinary neuroses, as becomes clear when Paul convinces himself that Elsa’s shadow always points in the wrong direction. As Paul and Elsa’s involvement in World War II espionage begins to surface, the glitz and glamor of their lives is revealed to be nothing more than illusion.

The Hothouse by the East River is a delirious satire of superficial urban life in the shadow of one of modern history’s great horrors.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Muriel Spark including rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s archive at the National Library of Scotland.

 

If you win this giveaway you are still in time to join Muriel Spark week, hosted by Simon (Stuck in A Book) and Harriet (Harriet Devine’s Blog), which is taking place from April 23 – 29

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If you would like to win this e-book, just leave a comment. The giveaway  winner will be announced next Tuesday, April 10 2012.

Literature and War Readalong April 30 2012: Coventry by Helen Humphreys

Posted in Books, Novel, Readalong by

With last month’s book we have left WWI behind us and move on to WWII. The first of the WWII books is Helen Humphreys’ novel Coventry. I thought this would be my first novel by this author but I have read another one before, The Lost Garden, a wonderfully lyrical coming-of-age story which I liked a lot. With this in mind I’m keen on reading Coventry. Helen Humphreys is British but she lives in Ontario, Canada. Helen Humphreys has won several prizes, she is the author of 4 novels, one book of narrative non-fiction and four collections of poetry. I have a weakness for poets who write novels or novelists who write poetry because the writing is usually far above the average.

On the back cover of the novel it says that Coventry is “a memorial to the terrible losses of wartime, and a celebration of remembrance, determination and resilience.” The book tells the story of two women and moves back and forth between 1919 and the night of the 14 November 1940.

Here are the first sentences

The swallow arcs and dives above the cathedral. Harriet March watches it flicker through the darkness ahead of her as she walks along the cobblestones towards the church. The bird moves in the night air with all the swiftness of sudden feeling, and Harriet stops at the base of the ladder, tracking the flight of the lone swallow as it shivers up the length of the church spire.

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The discussion starts on Monday, 30 April 2012.

Further information on the Literature and War Readalong 2012, including all the book blurbs, can be found here.

Muriel Spark E-Book Giveaway Winner and Poll

Posted in Books, Giveaway, Novel by
 

It’s time to announce the giveaway winner of the e-book The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark courtesy of Open Road Integrated Media.

I drew the winner via random.org list generator.

The book goes to Marcus (Cinesprit).

Happy Reading Marcus!

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The poll which I added to the last post is now at the bottom of this one.

You can still vote until the next giveaway will be announced.

Claudia Piñeiro: All Yours – Tuya (2003) An Argentinian Crime Novel

Posted in Books, Crime, Novel by

I had never heard of Claudia Piñeiro before I saw her book All Yours reviewed on Guy’s blog. I wanted to read more Latin American literature this year and an Argentinian crime novel sounded like a good start.

All Yours, or Tuya as it is called in Spanish, is as entertaining as it is amusing. It introduces us to the world of Inés, a middle-aged housewife, mother of Lali and wife of Ernesto. A real perfectionist when it comes to her home and keeping up appearances, a master in the art of self-delusion. More than once while reading I was exclaiming “What a nutter”.  Of course I was glad that she was such a nutter as this is why Tuya is so entertaining.

When Inés discovers a lipstick-written note, a heart signed “All Yours”, in her husbands briefcase, we are at first startled to hear that she doesn’t think it’s all that bad. After all, she believes, sooner or later all men cheat on their wives. The outcome purely depends on how gracefully the wife handles it.

Since her own unfaithful father left her mother after having been confronted with his infidelity, Inés decides not to act but to observe. One night when her husband is called to his office – there seems to be a computer related emergency which happens quite frequently -, she follows him. Of course he doesn’t drive to the office and Inés observes him while he meets with his secretary in Palermo Park. They are fighting and at one point Ernesto pushes the secretary away. The woman trips, falls and breaks her neck in the fall. How wonderful, Inés thinks, she will help her husband to cover up the whole incident. She will provide him with an alibi… But for the time being, she stays in the dark, drives home and doesn’t say a word that she has watched everything. Inés is happy, she believes that the secretary was Ernesto’s lover, and now that she is dead, nothing can separate them anymore. Right? Not quite, as we will see and from here on, things do not go as planned at all.

This isn’t the only instance in which Inés is wrong and we start to learn that absolutely nothing is at is seems in this novel and that what Inés pretends to be a picture book family is in reality rotting from the inside.

All Yours is told in alternating points of view. The most important parts are Inés’ first person narratives. Being a highly unreliable narrator, she tries to pretend everyting is fine until the very end of the book. Other parts of the story focus on Lali, Inés’ daughter. They are in dialogue form and reveal that the daughter has as much to hide as her parents but that she knows everyting about the two of them. Lali blames and hates her mother more than anyone else and towards the end of the book we realize she may have reason. Some of the chapters are police reports and third person narratives. Each of these elements together give the reader the full picture.

All Yours reminded me a lot of German crime writer Ingrid Noll’s novels in which seemingly harmless and invisible women start to develop their criminal and vengeful side. They are perfectionists, driven by an urge to save appearances at any price. We don’t warm to these women, we don’t feel for them but we enjoy the delicious frisson that we experience while following them on their journey towards retribution.

Jean Giono: To the Slaughterhouse – Le grand troupeau (1931) Literature and War Readalong March 2012

Posted in Books, French Books, Novel, Readalong by

There are so many different ways to write about war. Some novels focus on the experience of the soldier, some will focus on what the civilians go through, some move back and forth between the front lines and the home front. While Jean Giono’s Le grand troupeau – To the Slaughterhouse does move back and forth, the book is still completely different from anything else that I have read so far.

Giono’s technique does need some getting used to. What he describes is equally beautiful and horrifying. The result may very well be one of the most radical anti-war books that I have read.

If you are looking for an action-driven novel, this isn’t one to turn to, Giono’s novel is far more like the description of paintings. I was reminded of Otto Dix’ WWI paintings more than once. Some of the very visual descriptions in this novel are as graphic and gruesome as Dix’ work.

The war has come to a little village in the French Provence region. All the men are drafted and go to war, leaving the women, old men, children and animals behind. Some of the men are shepherds. They have to abandon their herds. Left on their own,  the animals are endangered, they have accidents, get wounded. One day a massive herd enters the village. It’s an awful sight. So much suffering, so much pain.

Julia’s husband Joseph has gone to war, as has her sister-in-law’s young lover, Olivier. The story moves back and froth between life in the village and the men. It’s more a series of pictures than a real story. Very powerful and graphic pictures.

Giono chose to show us how war affects the body. It’s not the fighting he is interested in but what happens when someone is wounded. How the wounds fester, how the juices flow out the dead bodies. The rats which are always mentioned in WWI novels are present here as well but we see how they eat the faces of the dead men.

I had a faint feeling in my stomach for most of the time while reading but I saw what he wanted to achieve and I thought the idea was amazing. He didn’t stop at describing the horrors of the war and what it did to the bodies of the men, he described the beauty as well. The scents in the air, the taste of food, the beauty of the landscape.

There are hunting scenes and scenes of slaughter and the bodies of the dead animals resemble those of the dead and wounded men.

Human beings and animals both suffer pain, their bodies are vulnerable and frail, they can be killed and harmed and wounded and the result will be the same. At one point he goes one step farther, describing how the earth suffers too, when her body is ripped open by explosives. Giono includes the entirety of creation in his novel and shows that every being existing in this world, wants beauty, love and tenderness, shelter and food and when this is not provided, when aggression is let loose, the body is harmed, wounded and the being ultimately dies.

It’s a highly symbolical novel, with a profound message of peace. It was hard to read but I am glad I did. It really would be hard to find a more eloquent anti-war statement and a book which manages like this one, to show, that since we all, animals and human beings alike, suffer pain, we are equal. This profound message makes To the Slaughterhouse not only a plea for human rights but for animal rights as well.

Other reviews

Danielle (A Work in Progress)

To the Slaughterhouse is my fourth contribution to the War Through the Generations Challenge hosted by Anna and Serena.

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To the Slaughterhouse was the third book in the Literature and War Readalong 2012. The next one will be Helen Humphreys’ Coventry. Discussion starts on Monday April 30, 2012.