Maria Àngels Anglada who died in 1999 was considered to be one of the most important Catalan writers of the 20th Century. She won many prizes and was widely read. The Auschwitz Violin – El Violi`d`Auschwitz was translated a year ago and when I saw it in a book shop I thought it’s a perfect choice. It’s slim, seems well written and tells the story of a musician and his struggle to stay human during his imprisonment in Auschwitz.
Here are the first sentences
December 1991
I always have trouble falling asleep after I perform at a concert. It keeps playing in my mind, like a tape going round and round. I was more keyed up than usual because this concert had been special: it marked the two hundredth anniversary of Mozart’s death. The recital was held in Krakow, a city of wonderful musicians, in a makeshift auditorium in the bellissima Casa Veneciana.
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The discussion starts on Monday, 29 October 2012.
Further information on the Literature and War Readalong 2012, including all the book blurbs, can be found here.
As promised here is the second giveaway of German Literature Month. While the first one was focussing on novellas and literary books, this one combines literary books and genre. Alissa Walser’s novel is clearly historical, it still is a literary novel, the same goes for Léon and Louise and Love Virtually, both are love stories but not pure genre. Things are different when it comes to Andrea Maria Schenkel. Hers is a crime novel, no doubt. One of the most interesting new German genre writers is Zoran Drvenkar who writes a lot of different genres. Thriller, YA, children’s books and many more. The book I’ve chosen is a genre blend which is extremely successful in Germany among adults and young adults alike.
I’d like to thank Haus Publishing for offering Léon and Louise and MacLehose Press for Alissa Walser’s novel Mesmerized. Lizzy is offering Love Virtually and Grimm’s Fairy Tales and I’m contributing The Murder Farm and Tell Me What You See.
I hope the blurbs will help you decide which of the books you would like to win.
Love Story
Alex Capus – Léon and Louise
Summer 1918. The First World War is drawing to a close when Léon Le Gall, a French teenager from Cherbourg who has dropped out of school and left home, first meets and falls in love with Louise Janvier. Severely wounded by a German artillery attack they are separated, both mistakenly believing each other to be dead. Ten years later, while travelling on the Paris Métro, Léon – now married – briefly catches sight of a girl who bears a strong resemblance to Louise, the first love he has never forgotten. He goes in search of her at the insistence of his wife Yvonne. The couple are briefly reunited, but part again with a heavy heart as Louise refuses to destroy Léon’s marriage. And then another war tears them apart. Paris is occupied by the Germans, for whom Léon indirectly works at the headquarters of the Paris CID. Louise, an employee of the Banque de France, is shipped off to French West Africa with the bank’s gold reserves. Narrated by Léon’s grandson, Léon and Louise is the story of an enduring passion that survives the vicissitudes of world history and the passage of time, spanning more than forty years. But it is far more than this. The long-separated lovers are flesh and blood characters vividly captured in complex human relationships and real-life situations: in German-occupied Paris, where Léon wages a lone battle against the abhorrent tasks imposed on him by the SS and his wife fights stubbornly for her family’s survival; and in the wilds of Africa, where Louise confronts the hardships of her primitive environment with courage and humour.
Daniel Glattauer – Love Virtually
It begins by chance: Leo receives emails in error from an unknown woman called Emmi. Being polite he replies, and Emmi writes back. A few brief exchanges are all it takes to spark a mutual interest in each other, and soon Emmi and Leo are sharing their innermost secrets and longings. The erotic tension simmers, and it seems only a matter of time before they will meet in person. But they keep putting off the moment – the prospect both unsettles and excites them. And, after all, Emmi is happily married. Will their feelings for each other survive the test of a real-life encounter?
Historical
Alissa Walser – Mesmerized
Mozart’s Vienna. A crucible for scientific experimentation and courtly intrigue, as Europe’s finest minds vie for imperial favour. In a colourful, chaotic private hospital that echoes with the shrieks of hysterical patients, Franz Anton Mesmer is developing a series of controversial cure-alls for body and mind. When he is asked to help restore the sight of a blind musical prodigy favoured by the Empress herself, he senses that fame, and even immortality, is within his grasp. Mesmer knows that he will have to gain her trust if he is to open her eyes. But at what cost to her fragile talent? And will their intimacy result in scandal?
Crime
Andrea Maria Schenkel – The Murder Farm
A whole family has been murdered with a pickaxe. They were old Danner the farmer, an overbearing patriarch, his put-upon devoutly religious wife, and their daughter Barbara Spangler, whose husband Vincenz left her after fathering her daughter, Marianne. Also murdered was the Danners’ new maidservant, Marie, who was regarded as slightly simple. Despite the brutal nature of the killings and the small village where it has taken place, the police have no leads. Officially the crime is unsolved. And then a former resident returns home… The Murder Farm is an unconventional detective story. The author interweaves testament from the villagers, an oblique view of the murderer, occasional third-person narrative pieces and passages of pious devotion. The narrator leaves the village unaware of the truth, only the reader is able to reach the shattering conclusion.
Fairy Tales
The Brothers Grimm – Fairy Tales
Is a collection of well-loved fairytales by the brothers Grimm. Stories include Hansel and Gretel, Tom Thumb, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltskin, Snow White, the Frog Prince, Rapunzel, The Elves and The Show Maker and many more.
YA/Horror/Ghost story
Zoran Drvenkar – Tell Me What You See
Berlin. The dead of night. Sixteen-year-old Alissa and her best friend Evelin make their secret Christmas pilgrimage to Alissa’s father’s grave. In the graveyard, Alissa falls through thick snow into an underground crypt. Searching for a way out, she discovers something else: out of the lid of a small coffin coils a strange black plant. Drawn closer, Alissa sees its roots embedded in a young child’s heart. This chance encounter sets off a chain of nightmarish events that throw her life into turmoil. Haunted by angels, stalked by her ex-boyfriend, only with Evelin’s help can Alissa reclaim her sanity and discover the truth about her frightening new gift.
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If you are interested in any of the books, just leave a comment indicating which one(s) you would like to read.
The competition is open internationally. The winners will be announced on Wednesday October 10 2012.
Richard Bausch’s Peace (2008) is set in Italy during WWII. An American recon squad comes upon a group of people and a cart. A German officer and a German prostitute are hiding on the wagon. When they turn it around, the German officer opens fire and kills two of the young American soldiers. Corporal Marson shoots him, while Sergeant Glick shoots the woman in the head.
It’s the end of WWII and German troops are retreating but not without trying to take down anyone they can with them. The mountains are hostile territory, it’s cold and it rains constantly. The little troop of men is demoralized. The life of a recon squad is usually very dangerous, they have to find out where the German line is and might accidentally already be behind the lines. After the shooting of the officer and the whore, three of the men are sent on recon again. Sgt Marson, Ash and Joyner. On their way they meet Angelo, a frail and very old Italian man and force him to guide them.
Marson, Ash and Joyner are as different as three people can be. Marson is the oldest, he’s 26, married and has a child. Joyner and Ash are 20. Ash seems to be deeply traumatized by something he experienced in Africa and which wakes him every night. He seems to be a good sort but starts to annoy Marson because he wants to denounce Glick. The murder of the prostitute has shocked him and he thinks Glick should be brought to justice. While Marson agrees with him, he feels it’s not the right time and he has problems of his own. They are on a very dangerous recon mission, it’s very cold and raining. They don’t know where they are and have to rely on a man he doesn’t completely trust. Many of the Italians have surrendered, many never really participated but there are still a lot of fascists who would gladly kill them. Plus he fights a battle with his conscience. Before shooting the German officer he had never killed anyone up close and the memory of it makes him sick. Tensions between the four people would be high anyway but Joyner is an aggressive bigot, anti-Jews, anti-Communists, anti-drinking. But swearing and abusing people constantly which is a huge contradiction.
Matters get even worse when it starts snowing and they hear shots. They find a dead German and later hear more shots coming from a village where, as the old man explains, Jews are being executed.
The three men are really tested and have to go to their limits. They fight the cold, are in enemy territory, traumatized by what they have seen so far and by their conscience.
I must honestly say I was not too impressed with this book. It’s told in chapters alternating between the past of the three men, what they had experienced in Palermo and their actual recon mission. The central conflict or theme, drawing the line between justified killing and murder, is shown but it didn’t move me. The book exemplifies how much it meant for soldiers to kill, it underlines that in WWII shooting someone from up close was in no way common and could cause a huge problem, triggering moral conflicts. Unfortunetly I never felt that conflict.
It’s hard to say why this book did so not work from me. I felt Bausch wanted to tell a story that wasn’t his and I suspect he watched a few movies in order to get a feel for what it was like but ultimately I felt he couldn’t make this story his and tell it in a moving way. In this it reminded me of Coventry but looking back I’d say, I liked that much more.
I’m aware this is a bit of an uninspired review but I’m really unfazed by this book.
I hope others did read along. I’m very interested to hear their thoughts.
Those who followed German Literature Month last year know that Wednesdays are wunderbar because they are giveaway days!
This year we are splitting the giveaways into two batches. The first, this one, is a goody bag designed to complement the first half of the month during which we’ll be reading novellas and literary novels. It’s hosted by Lizzy, so if you are interested in winning one of the following books, make sure to visit her blog soon.
The first two novellas are courtesy of Pushkin Press, the next two are offered by Haus Publishing. The only novel among the titles, The Bridge of the Golden Horn, is my contribution.
Burning Secret – Stefan Zweig (1913)
Set in an Austrian spa where a lonely twelve-year-old is befriended by a charming and enigmatic baron. As the boy gradually becomes infatuated with him, the older man heartlessly brushes him aside to turn his seductive attention to the boy’s mother.
Fear – Stefan Zweig (1913)
Irene Wagner has been married for eight years and is tired of her bourgeois and predictable existence as wife and mother. She starts an affair with an up-and-coming young pianist but finds herself being blackmailed by her lover’s former mistress. Irene is soon in the grip of an astonishing fear.
A Minute’s Silence – Siegfried Lenz (2009)
The delicately paced structure of Lenz’s novella begins with the memorial ceremony for a popular young English mistress, Stella Petersen, seamlessly alternating between this scene and eighteen-year-old Christian’s memory of a summer love affair with his tutor. They keep their mutual attraction concealed at school and as the season goes on the lovers continue to meet discreetly. Tragedy strikes when Stella goes on holiday with friends, sailing around the Danish islands. As the yacht returns to Hirtshafen at the end of the trip, a storm breaks. Before Christian’s eyes his beloved is flung overboard and fatally wounded. Lenz was twenty or thirty pages into writing A Minute’s Silence when his wife of fifty-six years died. Grief-stricken, he suffered from a serious bout of writer’s block and it seemed he would never finish the novel. With the passage of time, Lenz found that he could write again and complete this tender love story. Despite the obvious distance and difference of Lenz’s own long marriage and the brief, youthful passion of Christian for Stella, Lenz has wrought a well-aimed response to Auden’s famous request: ‘Tell me the truth about love.’
On the Edge – Markus Werner (2004)
When the cynical divorce lawyer Thomas Clarin finds himself at a table on the terrace of the Bellavista Hotel beside Thomas Loos, an eccentric, ageing philologist, hey strike up an unlikely conversation. Soon Clarin’s questions tease out stories from Loos’ past, and as both men slowly reveal more of themselves they are forced to question their opinions on love and life. The men are opposites; they intrigue and repel each other. But as the mystery of Loos’ past deepens, we begin it wonder if all as it seems.
The Bridge of the Golden Horn – Emine Sevqi Ozdamar (2002) The Bridge of the Golden Horn is a coming-of-age novel, a sentimental education that is also a political, cultural and intellectual one. In 1966, at the age of 16, the unnamed heroine lies about her age and signs up as a migrant worker in Germany. She leaves Istanbul, works on an assembly line in West Berlin making radios, and lives in a women’s factory hostel. But this novel is not about the problems of assembly line work – it’s a witty, picaresque account of a precocious teenager refusing to become wise, of a hectic four years lived between Berlin and Istanbul, of a young woman who is obsessed by theatre, film, poetry and left-wing politics. These are sometimes grim years, particularly in Turkey, but they also have a hope and optimism that seem almost unimaginable today.
Tabucchi Week is already over and I wanted to thank all of you who joined, read along, wrote reviews, commented and read other’s posts. I’m really happy that it was quite interactive and people visited each other’s blogs. There were quite a few very interesting discussions. I’m also happy that those who joined who didn’t know Tabucchi found an author whose work they want to continue exploring and those who knew him felt like returning to an old friend. I enjoyed the two books I chose a great deal and I’m also glad that I have discovered a few new blogs.
What I also loved was that many of the posts showed how wide Tabucchi’s range is and that everyone can find something else in his books. Quite a few people have read Pereira Maintains but every single post was completely different and highlighted other things, something I’ve rarely noticed when many people read the same novel.
Once more – Thank you so much for participating.
Below are all the participant reviews again (they are also in the intro post). In a few days I’ll set up a page which will allow to find the posts more easily. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the last author week I’ve hosted and knowing that I like a bit of a theme the next week will most probably also be dedicated to an Italian writer. No worries, though, not before next year.
I’m so pleased that I can finally announce that German Literature Month is returning. Mark November in your calendar and join Lizzy and me for the occasion.
While we focused on countries last year, this year we are structuring the month around genres and literary formats.
Week 1 (November 1-7) Novellas, plays and poems Week 2 (November 8-14) Literary Novels Week 3 (November 15-21) Genre Fiction – Crime, Fantasy, Horror, Romance Week 4 (November 22-30) Read as you please
We chose that sequence so that Judith’s previously announced Bernhard Schlink Week (November 11-17) would span both literary novels and genre week. So if you read something by Schlink this month, you can partake in two blogging events for the price of one. Cunning, don’t you think?
2012 is also the bi-centennial of the birth of the Brothers Grimm. We can’t let it pass without a Brothers Grimm Readathon. So we’ve put that in the calendar from 22-26 November.
My Literature and War Readalong of Gert Ledig’s The Stalin Front will bring the month to a close on the 30th.
I’m looking forward to another wonderful month with lots to read, discuss and discover. Please join us.
Looking for inspiration? Why don’t you browse through last year’s discussion or the German Literature Month 2011 page. You never know what you’ll be inspired to pick up.
Like last year there will be giveaways. Additionally I’m planning on doing a series of introductory posts during October.
A few years ago I was on a trip through Spain and stopped in Sevilla. It was the beginning of August and incredibly hot. Most Spanish cities have rivers but you wouldn’t know that if you visit in summer because they are dry. A very peculiar sight for someone from central Europe. The heat was scorching and I was out sitting in a park, it was only 9 a.m. The park’s sprinklers were on and the moment the water hit the asphalt, it turned into mist. So not only was it hot but quite humid. I had not specific plans but just wandered the city and stopped in parks, bars, restaurants and spoke to people. I haven’t done a similar trip in two years but when I started reading Tabucchi’s Requiem. A Hallucination it was exactly like being on my own, without specific plans and just immersing myself in a new place. The place in this case wasn’t Sevilla or any other Spanish city but the capital of Portugal, Lisbon. It’s equally hot in the book as it was on my trip and this catapulted me back in time. I realize I’m writing a lot about myself instead of writing about Tabucchi but there is a reason. I’m trying to put into words why this author means so much to me, why I love his books although they often, like in this case, are rather descriptions of a quest than a real story. There is just something I can relate to on a deeper level than with most other authors.
Since I’ve just read more than one Tabucchi in a very short time, I was reminded of one of the major themes of his work – the quest. His characters,be it in Indian Nocturne or in Requiem, are always looking for someone. Sometimes the person is real, sometimes the person is just some sort of magnet which attracts the narrator but what he really is looking for is himself.
In Requiem the nameless narrator finds himself aimlessly wandering through the sweltering city of Lisbon. He thought he had an appointment with someone at midday but the person didn’t show up and so he’s left on his own for another twelve hours as the meeting will take place at midnight instead. The person the narrator will meet is the famous writer Fernando Pessoa.
The narrator seems to be dreaming with open eyes, no wonder, after all the book is subtitled “A Hallucination” and we follow him from the park to a bar, to the cemetery, to a restaurant, a hotel, an abandoned villa and finally to another restaurant where he will dine with Pessoa. On his meanderings through the hot summer city he will meet people who are dead already, people from his past, people who still exist and some who never existed.
While this may sound confusing, it isn’t because Tabucchi is a very descriptive writer and the book is more than anything else an homage to Lisbon and everything the city represents for Tabucchi. This includes the people, the food, the music, the atmosphere. As dreamlike as the story may be, it is on the other hand described in an amazingly realistic way and you have the feeling to be there and explore the city through the eyes and the other senses of the narrator. It is an atmospherical and sensual account at the same time.
It seems that one of the things Tabucchi must have liked the most about Portugal was the cuisine. He mentions numerous dishes and recipes in the book. It’s interesting because most of the dishes are poor people’s dishes. Things they cook with leftovers. A frequent ingredient is bread. I have never eaten Portuguese cuisine and to be entirely honest it’s not likely I will as they include a lot of ingredients which I do not eat but it’ still interesting and the way the food is described you can almost taste and smell it.
Requiem is a complex book and can be read in many different ways. To fully appreciate it, I would have to read it once more. There were a few things that struck me during a first reading. The love for Portugal and Lisbon, the quest-like search. The admiration for Pessoa. The mysteries and complexities of life. Memories, dreams, illusions.
What I liked best is that reading Requiem felt so much like exploring a city as a traveller not so much as a tourist. When I’m a tourist I might visit all the places you “have to see” but when I travel, I let the city guide me. The city and it’s people. There will always be someone in a foreign city who will show you something which is worth discovering. A hidden street, a secret corner, a bar to which only the natives go. It’s this type of exploration you will encounter in Requiem. It’s a book for those who do not mind getting lost, knowing very well that they find a world worth discovering on their way.
Tabucchi’s love of Portugal and Lisbon was so intense that he wrote this novel in Portuguese stating in the foreword that no other language, other than maybe Latin which he didn’t master, seemed appropriate.
Tabucchi mentions Portuguese music and this reminded me of the wonderful singer Misia and her fados. Her videos are all visually compelling. This one was directed by John Turturro.
While finishing the book I discovered that the book has been made into a movie by Swiss filmmaker Alain Tanner. The movie is in French/Portuguese. I’ve attached it. You can watch the whole of it on YouTube. I’m not sure it exists with English subtitles but it’s possible.
Beauty is a Sleeping Cat 