Category Archives: Books

The Canadian Book Challenge 6

Posted in Books, Literature, Novel by

I was hoping to find a Canadian Literature Challenge. These days I’m very interested in literature written in English outside of the UK and the US. The Canadian Book Challenge seemed just the thing I was looking for. I came across the challenge on Gavin’s blog Page 247.

The host is John Mutford from The Book Mine Set. His blog is dedicated to Canadian literature. If you are interested here’s the sign up post with all the details you need to know. In theory the idea is to read 13 books. It sounds like a lot but interpreting what John writes I would say it doesn’t seem as if you must reach that number. Aim for it, if you read less, it’s not the end of the world, if you read more, all the better.

I have a lot of Canadian literature on my book piles and have read quite a few authors in the past. Authors writing in English and in French. I asked and if you’d like to join, you can choose books written in English or French as long as the author or the topic is Canadian.

I know that I usually do not stick to my book lists but I still keep on making them. Possible choices for this challenge are

A Map of Glass by Jane Urquhart. Urquhart isn’t an easy writer but she is a fascinating one who writes beautifully.

Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle. Atwood is another immensely fascinating author I have meant to return to. I loved Cat’s Eye and Surfacing and some of her short stories.

The Birth House by Amy McKay. I haven’t read this author yet but everyone who read this novel was impressed.

The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence is a book I discovered not too long ago on Danielle’s blog (A Work in Progress). It sounded like another Canadian must-read.

I would like to read the one or the other novel by Nancy Huston and some other Canadian authors writing in French.  Since I recently discovered Louise Penny’s Canadian crime series, I’ll certainly read one of those as well.

Are you joining? Do you have any Canadian literature suggestions?

Alvaro Mutis: Amirbar (1990) The Fifth Adventure of Maqroll

Posted in Books, Novel, Novella by

And if you want to change your life – for the better – and have never read the Colombian novelist Alvaro Mutis, you owe it to yourself to get acquainted with The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll. A collection of seven novellas that can be read at a run or singly, it features the greatest rainbow-chaser since Quixote, but a lot sexier and ravenous for both learning and love, not to mention fantastical, doomed schemes to make a pile of loot.

Alvaro Mutis is a Colombian author who lives in Mexico. He is famous for his stories about Maqroll the Gaviero (the Lookout). The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll – Empresas y tribulaciones de Maqroll el Gaviero is composed of seven novels and novellas which can be read as a whole or individually. Each tome is around 120 pages long and they seem to vary greatly in style and narrative technique. Some are like diary entries, others are letters, still others contain more straightforward story telling.  I’ve had  the novella Amirbar, part 5 of Maqroll’s story, on my book piles since years and never got around to reading it. Richard’s (Caravana de recuerdos) and Stu’s (Winstonsdad’s Blog) Spanish Literature Month seemed like the perfect time.

Reading Amirbar was an amazing experience. While Mutis is compared to Conrad – although he himself calls Dickens his greatest influence – I felt he was much more like a Latin American Blaise Cendrars. Amirbar reminded me of Cendrars’ amazing book L’or – Gold but is still a very distinct book. It has also something of the Tales from the Thousand and One Nights.

All the Maqroll stories are told by a narrator who works for some big corporate company and meets his friend Maqroll in different countries and cities at different times. Maqroll is a mariner and adventurer who travels the world without ever settling down for long. The sea is his chosen home and when he is at land it’s only to make business, most of it either illegal or highly adventurous. Whenever he meets his friend, the narrator, he tells him all of the stories that have happened in the meantime. When they do not meet, he writes long and winding letters all containing fantastic stories as well.

At the beginning of Amirbar, Maqroll and the narrator are in the US. Maqroll is ill and almost dying, he has contracted some tropical fever. The narrator takes care of him and sends him to live with his brother in California for a while. It is there that Maqroll tells them the story of Amirbar – a gold mine.

This is how the novel begins (translation taken from the English version)

Los dias mas insolitos de mi vida los pase en Amirbar” nos cuenta Maqroll el Gaviero. En Amirbar deje  jirones de mi alma y buena parte de la energiaque encendio mi juventud. De  alli descendi tal vez mas sereno, no se, pero cansaado ya para siempre. Lo que uno despues ha sido un sobrevivir en la terca aventura de cada dia. Poca cosa. Ni siquiera el oceano ha logrado restituirme esa vocacion de soñar despierto que agote en Amirbar a cambio de nada.

I spent the strangest days of my life in Amirbar. In Amirbar I left shreds of my soul and most of the energy that fired my youth. Perhaps I came down from there more serene, I don’t know, but I was everlasting weary too. What has happened to me since then has been a matter of simply surviving each day’s difficulties. Trivialities. Not even the ocean could give back to me my vocation for dreaming with my eyes open; I used that up in Amirbar and received nothing in return.”

Maqroll is driven by the urge to find gold, not so much because of its monetary value as we understand but because it symbolizes much more to him. It’s an obsession, a magical metal, something that calls for him from the entrails of the earth in which it is buried. The mine is in the Colombian Andes. He first discovers another one but has to flee it when they find a grave with people who have been murdered by some sort of Military Junta. Finding the skeletons puts them in grave danger. The next mine he explores is Amirbar. The wind in the tunnels systems of the mine seems to have a voice and what it is calling is the word “A-mir-bar” which has a special meaning for Maqroll.

One of the traits of Maqroll is that he has a lover wherever he is. In Amirbar it is Antonia who gets unhealthily attached to him. The relationship between Maqroll and Antonia is one of many small side stories in the book, one of many stories which turn into a desaster. Another important trait is Maqroll’s love of books. He is always reading. Most of the books he reads are obscure historical texts. He loves to immerse himself in another era and read about people who are long gone.

As fantastic as some of the stories sound they are infused with a high dose of realism. Set in a corrupt country, some of the characters are arrested, the gold is confiscated more than once and those who help Maqroll end up in prison and are tortured.

You can easily read Amirbar or any other story on its own but one thing is for sure, it will very probably make you want to read them all. I’ve read a few reviews since I started the book and it seems Amirbar isn’t even the best of the stories. In Maqroll Mutis has created some sort of alter ego, a character who feels so real that in his real life Mutis speaks about him with his friends as if he really existed.

Amirbar is a wonderful book, full of life, stories and tales. Reading it is an adventure in itself. I think it would be an excellent introduction to Latin American literature because despite of its complexity and exuberant story telling it is a very accessible, entertaining book.

Amirbar is a contribution Richard’s and Stu’s Spanish Literature Month.

Literature and War Readalong July 30 2012: Black Rain – Kuroi Ame by Masuji Ibuse

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When I saw Black Rain mentioned by Gary (The Parrish Lantern) on Rise’s blog (in lieu of a field guide) last year, I knew I wanted to include this book in this year’s readalong. Last year we read Marguerite Duras’ Hiroshima Mon Amour and I’m really curious to find out how this horrible event will be treated by a Japanese author. John Hersey’s Hiroshima and Ibuse’s Black Rain are said to be the most important novels on the horror of Hiroshima.

Here are the first sentences

For several years past, Shigematsu Shizuma, of the village of Kobatake, had been aware of his niece Yasuko as a weight on his mind. What was worse, he had a presentiment that the weight was going to remain with him, unspeakably oppressive, for still more years to come.

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The discussion starts on Monday, 30 July 2012.

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

On Jacques-Pierre Amette’s Le Lac d’Or, Léo Malet’s New Mysteries of Paris and Eugène Sue’s Mysteries of Paris

Posted in Books, Crime, Novel by

Unfortunately there is no English translation of Amette’s excellent crime novel Le Lac d’Or whose title is the name of a Chinese restaurant that is an important refuge for the main character in this book and aptly indicates the setting, Chinatown in Paris. Only one of Amette’s numerous books – the Goncourt Prize winning  Brecht’s Lover  or La Maîtresse de Brecht – has been translated so far.

It’s a pity as Le Lac d’Or (2008) is a great read and it’s no wonder he has been compared to Léo Malet and Georges Simenon. Like Malet’s Fog on the Tolbiac Bridge – Brouillard au Pont de Tolbiac, Amette’s novel is deeply rooted in the 13th Arrondissment. Place d’Italy, Pont de Tolbiac, Chinatown. It’s not one of my favourite arrondissements but it’s a part of Paris nonetheless. In any case, the 13th is one of those arrondissements that hasn’t any tourist appeal. It is an area with many atypically high buildings, concrete passageways, bridges and as said before, Paris’ Chinatown. But not even Chinatown is very picturesque.

At the heart of the novel is police inspector Barbey who has to investigate the murder of a prostitute. Chloë wasn’t a simple prostitute, she was a police informant and his ex lover. Why they split is not clear as they seem to have been made for each other, what is clear however is that the separation still hurts him, even some years later.

At the time of her murder Chloë was informing on a group of gangsters who regularly rented a few rooms in a hotel in the 13th. They have plenty of reasons why they would want Chloë dead. Reasons and opportunity.

The ending is not what one would expect but it isn’t completely surprising either. Amette’s strength is the description of a lesser known Paris and his likable but sad and exhausted inspector. There were a few interesting bits on the murder of a prostitute and that people think far less in terms of victim when the person who has been murdered was a prostitute. The most important aspect however is that this book is rooted in a tradition that started with Eugène Sue’s Mysteries of Paris.

The book put me in the mood to read some of the Léo Malet titles I haven’t read yet, one of which the afore-mentioned Brouillard sur le Pont de Tolbiac – Fog on the Tolbiac Bridge. Or Eugène Sue. Malet followed Eugène Sue’s famous Les mystère de Paris – Mysteries of Paris, calling his series the “new mysteries of Paris”. Each of his short and taut books is dedicated to another Parisian arrondissement.  I liked all of those I read. He captures the places well, the stories are interesting, the tone is unique.

If you look for a Paris-set series in English, then I’ve heard that Cara Black is quite good but I haven’t tried her yet. I think she also changes arrondissements from one book to the other.

Have you read Léo Malet or Eugène Sue? Or Amette’s Brecht’s Lover?

This post is my first contribution to Karen’s and Tamaras‘s event Paris in July.

Len Deighton: Bomber (1970) Literature and War Readalong June 2012

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It is very rare that I abandon a book. Often I regret this persistence when I finish it anyway and have to find out that it simply isn’t good. Sometimes I’m incredibly glad I went on. Len Deighton’s Bomber was one of those. I struggled badly for 150 pages and the idea to have to go on for another 400 seemed daunting. But it was worth the effort, it really was and looking back, I have to say, how lucky this was part of my readalong or I would have given up and missed out greatly. Bomber is amazing. It’s maybe not refined and highly literary but it’s a huge achievement. Not only because it is extremely accurate and detailed but also because it’s very engaging and admirably well constructed.

Bomber is an epic. A book with a huge cast and numerous different settings and story lines. Deighton really needed 150 pages to set the scene and introduce everyone, including the different aircraft. That part was really challenging to read as there were so many names and one had to try to constantly picture a map to see where they were located. Once the set up was done, the story moved on nicely, all the different story lines were tied together, the characters had become more than just names but people with a story.

Bomber tells the story of a bombing raid that takes place on June 31st 1943. Deigthon deliberately chose a date that doesn’t exist, knowing well that his book felt so realistic and authentic that people would always end up assuming it was non-fiction.

The 31st is a full moon night and all the crews get ready for a night of bombing and fighting. The target is the city of Krefeld in Germany. The planes take off from Warley Fen, head towards Krefeld and have to try to not get shot down before they have dropped the bomb. But before they can drop a bomb

First the PFF Mosquito aircraft will mark the target with red markers. Their gear is much more accurate than anything we have, so their reds are what the Finders must look for. The Finders will put long sticks of flares over the reds. Mixed in with the Finder aircraft there are Supporters – and these are mostly crews on their first couple of trips – who are carrying only high-explosive bombs. That’s because incendiaries could be mistaken for red markers.

What you just read is part of the instruction the pilots receive before flying off. But this part is more than that, it points towards the core of the book because the tragedy of the story has it’s source in the fact that, due to many unlucky circumstances, the markers were dropped on the wrong targets and what was bombed was the small city of Altgarten. No factories, no strategic points, just civilian buildings.

The first third of the book, sets the scene, the next third describes a lot of action and how the mistake happened and the last third is describing the drama in the air and on the ground in a very graphic way. I had to swallow hard a lot of times.

What I liked is that Deighton described a wide range of German characters, from the fanatic Nazi to the likable soldier. The portraits are nuanced and we get a feel for the diversity of the people.

The British crews are equally diverse but for other reasons. There are also Canadians and Australians, upper class and lower class men, married guys and womanizers, men who just do their duty, cowards and heroes.

In the death scenes Deighton’s sympathies clearly lie with the German civilians and the British bomber crews. Each part has one or two main characters and a lot of secondary characters and the fate of the main characters is equally sad in all the parts. I cannot go into too much detail, if you want to read it, you want to find out for yourself who will survive and who will die.

I’ve read a few harrowing accounts in the past and the one or the other book has depressed me incredibly. Bomber didn’t depress me but it brought a few tears to my eyes, a thing that rarely if ever happens to me unless something sad happens to an animal.

Bomber offers an interesting mix of emotional story telling, accuracy and numbers. We are informed of everything. How many people were involved, how many died, how many were injured, how many bombs hit target, how many were jettisoned, how many missed or didn’t go off and so on and so forth. At the end of the book were also informed about each and every surviving character’s future. It’s as if Deighton wanted to answer each and every question someone reading his novel might have.

If you ever wondered what it is like to be in a city which is bombed, this book will bring you close to this experience. If you ever wondered what it is like to be in plane on a bombing raid, this book will allow you to experience this as well.  In any case, if you are interested in WWII and how it was fought in the air, this is the book you should read.

If you’d like to find out a few things about Deigthon and his other books don’t miss visiting the Deighton Dossier. It is a site dedicated to Deigthon’s work and it is done with a lot of passion.

Other reviews (I’m somewhat doubtful that there will be any)

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Bomber was the sixth book in the Literature and War Readalong 2012. The next one will be Masuji Ibuse’s Black Rain. Discussion starts on Monday July 30, 2012.

Katie Ward: Girl Reading (2011)

Posted in Books, Novel, Readalong, Short Stories by

Katie Ward’s Girl Reading is called a novel which is slightly misleading as what it really is, is a collection of seven episodes with a similar theme which are tied together by the last one. Each of the episodes or scenes is set in another time and place, 1333, 1668, 1775, 1864, 1916, 2008, 2060. The way it is tied together, with a final scene set in 2060, gives the whole book a futuristic finish. I knew all this before I started the book but what surprised me was the writing which is quite dense, elaborate and heavily influenced by other books and tales, and, of course, paintings as the linking idea are portraits of reading women or girls seen through the ages.

Most of these “stories” are mysterious, that’s why I chose to call them episodes. They are like small windows that open up on scenes set in the past. We hardly ever get all the background information and often don’t know what will happen to the characters later.

Each of the scenes describes the challenges of women in their respective time and the girl or woman chosen for the portrait is mostly not exactly in line with what is expected of a woman at the time. The fact that the challenges and problems women face stay so similar from the 14th to the 21st century is somewhat unsettling.

Of the 7 stories or episodes I really liked four a lot. The first one, set in Siena, and the second, set in the Netherlands, were not so much to my liking nor was the last set in the future. In the case of story 1 and 2 I had a feeling I have read the exact same stories before, especially the second which was very similar to Girl with a Pearl Earring. Too similar.

I thoroughly enjoyed story 3, set in 1775 in which a female painter comes to the estate of a noble woman to finish the portrait of her lover. The lover, a woman as well, has left and the abandoned one is depressed and morose.

Story 4, set in Victorian England, was another favourite despite the fact that it resembled Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry. It’s a tale of two psychic twins. One becomes a photographer, while the other tours the world as a famous medium. It’s a wonderful story and the decor, clothes, atmosphere, are lush and evocative.

Story 5 is another wonderful story. The girl in the center will be a painter in the future but at this point in time she is a slightly silly young girl, infatuated with a painter. What is wonderful is the intensity with which she experiences life. Everything she does – smoking, drinking, falling in love – she does for the first time and savours every minute. Even being heartbroken as it seems.

While I liked some of the stories, I think story 6, set in a Shoreditch bar in 2008, was the most original and rounded of the stories. We get to know much more about the character in this story than about any other of the characters. She is a young black Tory who wants to become member of the Parliament. At the same time she has to decide whether she should get married or not. I liked the way she was described and how descriptions of the most mundane struggles, like wearing shoes which were new but painful, were interwoven with heavy decisions.

I enjoyed some of the stories a lot but as a novel Girl Reading didn’t work for me at all. While the last story, set in the future, gave it an interesting twist, it didn’t manage to really tie them all together. As a whole I found the book a bit artificial which is certainly due to the elaborate and somewhat forced writing. On top of that a few of the stories were too similar to other books I’ve read to be entirely satisfactory.

I’ve read the book along with Rikki and am looking forward to hear what they thought.

Rikki (Rikki’s Teleidoscope) First impressions, Stories 3 and 4, Stories 5-7

If anyone else has read this I would like to know which of the stories you liked best and whether this worked as a novel for you or not. Looking back, I think that story 6 was my favourite because it was the only one that didn’t feel like a pastiche.

If you’d like to see the paintings the stories are based on here is the link to Katie Ward’s site where you find the links.

Japanese Literature Challenge

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Every year the Japanese novels I read are among my favourites. While I missed Bellezza’s Japanese Literature Challenge last year, I’m very keen on participating this year. It is a 7 month long challenge which has started this month and runs until January 30 2013.

I’m not going to share a proper list at this point although I have a pile with interesting books. Mostly in French or German translations which makes it tricky to find the English titles and, as so often, they do not even exist in an English translation.

A few of the translated choices are

Ueda Akinari’s Tales of Moonlight and Rain.

Soseki Natsume’s Kokoro

Lady Sarashina As I Crossed A Bridge of Dreams: Recollections of a Woman in 11th Century Japan.

I already know that one of my first contributions will be the July title of my Literature and War Readalong.

Masuji Ibuse’s Black Rain is said to be one of the most important novels which have been written on Hiroshima.

If you participate in the Japanese Literature Challenge you might consider joining us in reading this novel.

The discussion is due on Monday, July 30 2012. An introduction post to this novel will follow shortly.