Kader Abdolah – Q&A – Your questions please

Kader Abdolah, author of The House of the Mosque,  has agreed to an author interview.  The date is set for 24.02.2010.

I hope that all those who won copies in the giveaway a couple of weeks ago are avidly reading and have lots of questions because I want this Q&A to be a collaborative effort.  Anyone who has read the book or is interested in an Iranian author who now writes in Dutch can participate. Please don’t be shy!

The author will pick up the questions from this post on 10.02.2010 so we’ve got a week to put our interview together.

On your marks, get set, get posting!

Book Group: Poor Mercy – Jonathan Falla

What makes for a good book group read? Plot, character, literariness, something that allows for off-book discussion?  In that case Poor Mercy ticks the boxes.

In 1991 Jonathan Falla was employed by a British charitable agency in Darfur.  It was not a satisfying experience.  Good intentions are not enough.  After leaving charitable work, Falla spent the next decade distilling his experience into Poor Mercy.  It was published in 2005, one year after Darfur erupted into crisis once more.  The mistakes of the past had been repeated.

In charting the experiences of an aid agency team in Darfur, Falla exposes those mistakes,  the madness of the Western approach, the preconception that because they do not live and eat as we do, African quality of life is unbearable.  The futility of handing out aid and intensifying dependence instead of promoting independence.  At the same time, however, he shows the constraints of African culture that preserve the status quo – African women, in their way,  as guilty and barbaric as cynical and corrupt politicians and secret police. There are some very uncomfortable and dark chapters dealing with female genital mutilation and intertribal hatreds. 

Falla holds nothing back  – it is as it is.  No wonder then that the aid agency team is beleaguered.  Add to that their own incompetence and lack of common sense, it’s no wonder that the field director  - Xavier (saviour?) Hopkins continually compares his team with that of William Hicks who was commanded to fight what amounted to a suicidal campagn at the Battle of El Obeid in 1883.

It was a game he played with himself asking “In what sense am I lost today?”.  It might happen as he was driving through the streets  -sand pits, really – between endless blank-walled compounds without names,  numbers or signs. … Sometimes, he would be enveloped in mists of confused policy, a fog of impossible logistics, a blizzard of reproach and a deluge of conflicting interests .. At other times, the operations appeared quite hopeless, even in prospect.  Just as, Hicks, in September 1883, even before they had all marched out of Khartoum to  their deaths, must have surveyed his medieval, chain-mailed troops and said to himself, “We are lost before we start.”

For all that the novel contains moments of dark comedy.  How, and why, for instance is a boat stranded in the middle of the dessert?  There are also moments of  hope.  The novel devotes as much time to the experiences of enlightened and educated Africans  – both male and female. The lead African male, Mogga injures his hands in opening chapter.  His burnt palms,  reminiscent of Christ’ s stigmata, a recurring leitmotiv for the remainder of the novel.  The suggestion being that salvation must come from within – it is not something that foreign aid will ever achieve. 

Further narrative relief comes in the form of a love story which adds an affectionate note in an otherwise heartless scenario. Like much about the situation in Darfur, it is an impossible love, unable to break free of the shackles of its time and place. 

While Falla is uncompromising in his message,  I’ve probably made Poor Mercy sound more didactic than it is.  It’s an engaging read, at times disturbing, always thought-provoking.  And as a book-group discussion generator, second to none.

TSS: A conundrum ….

Three weeks ago or thereabouts the normblog posed this question:

You are going to some distant and lonely and low-tech place where you will have to spend the rest of your days, and you can:

- (a) either take 100 books you have already read and which you may then re-read without limit, those being the only books you will ever get to see;

- (b) or not take any of the books you have already read, however much you may love some of them, but instead have a free and regular choice from all the books in the world you haven’t yet read, to be supplied to you by the Mobile Library for Isolated Readers in Distant Places.

Would you go for (a) or (b)?

I didn’t send in my answer because I’m still thinking it over.  All those masterpieces I’d have to leave behind as opposed to all those masterpieces I haven’t yet read. I suppose that puts me firmly in the don’t know camp.   The results , which really surprised me, haven’t helped either.

 So I’m just going to have to put together a list of the 100 books I would take with me and see if that settles the matter ….

What about you?  Is this an easy decision for you to make?

January Sales, Other Excuses and Eager Anticipations for February

 I missed the UK Borders closing down sale.  90% off – would I have been able to carry my purchases home? 

So I decided that I was allowed to capitalise on the January sales.  Now before I show you my plunder, you need to know that it could have been so much worse.  I added another 36 titles to my Amazon wishlist – most of them, if not all,  are pre-publication. Frances at NonSuchBook the major culprit in adding to this list.  I find her book lust series awakens the – er- book lust in me! 

Anyway back to the January sales.  They were brilliant!  The Folio Society had a tremendous sales – bought 3.  The Book People are always good – I purchased a sumptuous parcel of books from them for buttons.  Oxford Press had a great sale  too!  But you know, once the dam is breached, the flood is inevitable.  So the announcement of the Three Percent list for best translation, the publication of the programe for Glasgow’s Aye Write literary festival,  Jean-Euphele Milce’s surviving the earthquake in Haiti and the launch of the Not The TV Book Group have all triggered unpremeditated purchases.  I’ve also received some lovely publisher parcels.  Thank you. I will read them all – still working on the talent of reading them all at once!

I’m not going to talk you through all my acquisitions – we’d be here till March.  I’ll just show you.

But first I will add a health warning.  Those on book buying embargos (and my husband) should look away now! 

The eagle-eyed will notice that there is a DVD at the summit of the middle pile.  It’s true and it’s a rare thing - the film of  Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day is better than the already fabulous book!  And at only £3.98  I had to have it.  Book to movie review to follow.

So how is the immediate TBR faring?  Of the 10 I listed in January, I’ve read three, then I veered off into another direction. (This is allowed – I read primarily for pleasure.)  However, anything that hits the immediate TBR will be read in 2010 and for February, I’m adding the following.  Vanessa and Virginia for the Not The TV Book Group, The Rapture for the TV Book Group, everything I bought in preparation for AyeWrite – The Mabinogion,White Ravens, The Ninth Wave and Shades of Grey.  Also some Tolstoy related material – The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy, Jay Parini’s The Last Station and something by the great man himself. This in preparation for the film release of The Last Station  on the 19th of this month.

As well as Part 2 of the new Tin Drum though I’m wondering what happened to my fellow readalongers yesterday.

Finally, last but by no means least, Kader Abdolah’s The House of The Mosque in preparation for the author Q&A now scheduled for Wednesday, 24.02.  I hope all giveaway winners have received their books and are busy reading …  I’ll put a post up later in the week for any questions you may have.  Please contribute – this Q&A is a collaborative effort.  Feel free to chip in.

And now I’m off because if this post has proved anything  - the life of a 21st century bookworm is a busy one!

TV Book Club – Week 3 – Where was he?

Someone tell me quickly why Gok wasn’t there?   I am, of course, wracked with guilt because of all the black  marks we’ve collectively allocated …… so no more of that …. let’s have a knock-out competition instead!  Only the permanent fixtures involved and that includes the editor. Gok, by his absence, the first casualty. 

Week 3 was, of course, the crunch week.  Had they listened to the feedback?  Jo’s new glasses – very nice. Emilia Fox, an Austen lover with no autobiography to sell.  The talk was about books and even more time dedicated to the title of honour.  And, everybody genuinely enthusiastic – apart from Jo, who simply couldn’t look through the eyes of a C16th woman.  But was that calculated? You’ve got to have a little dissent in the ranks to have a proper book club, haven’t you.  And you know what?  I may now read this book.

But I definitely want Kate Mosse’s bookshelves!

No voting this week as Gok defaulted and I’ve still to work out the mechanics of the new voting system.

Over to you, what did you think?

Banging on The New Tin Drum – Part 1

Just needed to get that out of my system as I have been unable to get the song out of my head this week and not just because of the fabulous drums.  I’ll come back to it later.

So, here we are.  I hope my fellow Tin Drummers are all present and correct and have enjoyed the first part of Grass’s masterpiece.  Is this your first time of reading?  Your second, third or even, as in my case, your fourth?  Which edition are you reading?   I have a number to choose from. From the top, the first copy I read in Munich in 1980. I remember it well – it took months and I was a full-time student.  It’s  grubby and foxed now, but it did survive a flooded cellar in Frankfurt in 1989, where many other volumes perished.  In the middle is the recently published new translation by Breon Mitchell. the edition that I’m reading this time round – although as we shall see, I’ve also been dipping into the third book in the pile – an omnibus edition of the complete Danzig trilogy translated by Ralph Manheim. 

I’m so pleased that all editions have retained that classic image of Oskar.  What do you make of him, his voice, his drumming?  Is it possible to believe anything he says, his first sentence beginning  “Granted: I’m an inmate in a mental institution …..”  It’s a surprising start to a book which surprises even on a fourth reading.    In 2005 when Grass prepared to run a workshop for the translators commissioned to retranslate the book to commemorate its 50th anniversary, he “reread The Tin Drum for the first time since (he’d) written it, hesitantly at first, then with some pleasure, surprised at what the young author of fifty years ago had managed to put down on paper”. The question is how surprised were you?

The inventiveness of this first section just amazes me.  It begins with the comic tale of Anna Bronski’s wide skirts  and ends with a lament – can’t you hear the drum beating – following the events of Kristallnacht.  But I run ahead of myself.  Back to chapter1.  I love that story and at least another dozen in this first section alone.  As each one began, my toes would curl in anticipation of the pleasure to come.  The hilarity of the disrupted Nazi meetings, the intrigue of the love triangle, the sadness of Herbert Truczinski’s back and the unstoppable disaster that is Oskar’s first day at school.  Which brings me to Alice Cooper or a lesson in translating technique.

Demnach beschloss ich keinesfalls beim Verlassen der Pestalozzischule: Mein erster Schultag soll auch mein letzter sein.  Die Schule ist aus, jetzt gehn wir nach Haus. (Grass)

Accordingly, when I left the Pestalozzi School, I was far from deciding that my first day should be my last, that I had my fill of pencils and books, not to mention teacher’s dirty looks. (Manheim)

So I had by no means decided, having left the Pestalozzi School, that my first day at school would be my last.  No more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks.” (Mitchell) 

While there is a rhyme in the original, it is not based on pencils, books and teacher’s dirty looks.  Manheim inserted these into  his 1962 translation. (10 years prior to the release of  School’s Out .) Mitchell has stayed with the idea but updated and strengthened it by using the well-known phrase from Alice Cooper’s iconic song of teenage rebellion.  It’s entirely appropriate for Oskar whose refusal to join the adult world is  affirmed by both his stunted growth  and his insistent drumming.  When he’s feeling aggressive, he unleashes his glass-shattering screams.

While Oskar’s aversion is entirely understandable – it is after all a world in which the forces of Nazism are in the ascendant – he is still a monster – isn’t he?  And Matzerath,  the Nazi, is quite a sympathetic human being.  It’s not at all straightforward.  Even the love triangle has layers of symbolic complexity.  Bronski, the Pole, loves Agnes, the Kashubian Pole, who is married to Matzerath, the German.   Agnes’s dilemma, torn between two lovers, reflects the dilemma of many torn between the two countries at that time.  The struggle between the two countries is never far from the page – count how many times the colours red and white appear – they are the colours of both Polish and Nazi flags and the lacquered paint on Oskar’s tin drum.  The question is – and it’s the final one I’ll pose for now – which country is he beating to a pulp?

 

Miss Thing – Nora Chassler

Some people read Hesperus Press, others Pushkin Press, NYRB and others are making their way through the Bloomsbury Group titles.  Add to that list novels published by Two Ravens Press and you’ve got me.  In fact, I’ve resolved to read all 6 of their 2010 fiction list! The thing is you never know what you’re going to get with a Two Ravens Press title – apart from a quality read.  The diversity in the styles of the titles I’ve read to date is extraordinary  and Miss Thing, title #1 for 2010, is nothing like anything I’ve read from them before for it’s an anti-novel of sorts.

The teenager on the cover is Andromeda, 16, left to fend for herself in a large apartment in New York. Her mother recently committed suicide by throwing herself out of one of the windows. Which makes it all the more inexplicable that gran is too busy leading her own life to take better care of her traumatised grandaughter. And so Andromeda begins a downward spiral which involves – well, lots of things I’m not going to disclose – but crucial to the plot is her projecting her need for love onto her not-next-door-but-across-the-courtyard neighbour, Sam. As in all good movies, their eyes met as they looked through each other’s window.

He too is a lost soul, enduring a miserable marriage. In fact, he’s married to an estate agent who’s incensed that Andromeda is allowed to stay in that huge apartment on her own. It’s prime estate and she would like to sell it (naturally). In fact, she begins a campaign to get Andromeda evicted and while she’s at that she evicts Sam from the marital home as well.

The narrative drive is driven by the question will the two not-love but lust-birds end up together? Yet don’t for one minute believe that this is a traditional love story. The signals are all in the telling. There are a number of narrators – Andromeda, Sam and Andromeda’s homeless friend, Frederico. The book is constructed from the writings of each character – we are told the materials on which each individual entry is written. These range from an artist’s sketchpad, a Mead notebook to hotel stationery or a card with a picture of two labradors on the front. . It’s almost as in Chassler is highlighting her debut novel as an exercise in writing – which I suppose it was. It’s a conceit entirely in line with the general quirkiness of the book and it may well irritate some readers, but not me.

Other things did though. Bad language for starters. Fortunately the authenticity of the narrative voices made me forget about that after a while. Neither am I sure about the ending which could be deemed insensitive, even though fully in keeping with the general unconventionality of the novel. While I can reconcile most things that grated, for the record, I’m not at all appreciative of the negative connotations given to my favourite colour, purple!

Another extremely rare phenonmenon – despite not feeling drawn to a single character – yes, not one – Chassler kept me reading to the end. In fact, I’d venture to say that the most fascinating character between these pages is Andromeda’s dead mother. Not just as a splattered corpse on the tarmac in a did she jump or was she pushed way, but as a human being. Andromeda’s memories bring her to life as does the sardonic voice of her poetry, a segment of which begins each chapter.

There’s only one safe summary of this book – it’s unpredictable. There is a happy ending, but I guarantee, not the one you’re thinking of!

TV Book Club Week 2 – How did they do?

As we suspected, no change in format.   I suppose we’ll see the results of our feedback next week – maybe?

In the meantime, let’s play again.  Don’t forget to leave a comment saying why you’ve voted as you did.

There’s a tussle for the gold star this week.  Dave Spikey’s hasty textual analysis (indeed, what is wet fire?) or Jo Brand’s aversion to the subject matter? Jo gets it – her views completely in line with mine.

No problems with the black mark.  Gok Wan needs to extend his vocabulary.  Not everything is gorgeous.

There’s no way I’ll be looking out for Blacklands but I do like the sound of  59 Seconds.

EDIT:  Was my friend Angela namechecked during the audience reviews of “The Little Stranger”?

TSS: What my books say about me

As a rule I don’t participate in memes but this one, which I first saw on Simon T’s  Stuck-in-A-Book, is so brilliant that I began reasoning that every rule requires an exception.  However, my books are scattered all over the house, although a couple of rooms have been declared non-book zones by the non-reader.  (He needs some space of his own, apparently.)  The question was how on earth to make this a random selection.  Then gaskella had another brilliant idea of using random.org to generate numbers relating to her librarything bookshelves. Perfect.  The deal was clinched and I then started worrying about the secrets that were about to emerge from the closet (because I decided not to cheat with the selection of 10 books) or that with over 700 unread books on my library shelves, random.org would pick 10 of  the great unread.   Nil desperandum as Willy Wonka would have said, it’s only a meme – and I am among friends, right?  Deep breathe.  Here we go. 

1.  Book 23 – The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Good start.  I can’t stand Sherlock Holmes.  He’s an arrogant, know-it-all.  I don’t like that there are no clues in the stories prior to Holmes explaining his deductions. And that breaks a cardinal rule of modern crime writing – that the detective should know no more than the reader. And while I’m at it, I can’t stand sycophantic Watson either!  So why, you may ask is this book (and for that matter another 3 volumes of Sherlock Holmes stories)  in my collection at all.  

 

They’re part of a collection.  From 1982 – 2008 , the Reader’s Digest published a 123-volume series of the World’s Best Reading - sturdy hardbacks with specially commissioned illustrations, which for the past  3 or 4 years I have been collecting, primarily from car boot sales and charity shops.  They cost buttons.   I now have 35 or so.  Only another 90 to go – although some titles don’t appear to have been released on this side of the Atlantic. 

2. Book 158 – Blacklist – Sara Paretsky 

We stay with crime for book 2. It’s no secret that I really enjoy a good crime novel and I’m sure this is one of those. It won the CWA Gold Dagger in 2004. I will read it because I’m working my way slowly through the dagger winners. I’m pretty sure that Sara Paretsky came recommended via the now defunct BBC Bigreaders discussion forum – my first online forum.  Can you / can I believe that that was 7 years ago?  I wasn’t Lizzy then – I was lifelong bookworm.  I then mutated into Lancastrian Nomad before transforming into the preraphaelite supermodel,  LizzySiddal.  Why I ask myself, for it is entirely subconscious,  do all my online IDs begin with L? 

3.  Book 307 –  Bridget Jones’s Diary  – Helen Fielding 

The book that launched a new, now done-to-death, genre, so maybe it has much to apologise for.  As do I.  If you were in Los Christianos, Tenerife, Xmas 1996, and witnessed a  great white whale on the beach, rolling around and roaring with laughter,  I apologise for ruining your holiday.  But I was having a great time reading this!

4. Book 390 – A Darkling Plain – Philip Reeve 

Why, since I loved the first three books in Reeve’s Hungry City Chronicles , have I not yet read this? Probably because I can’t bear the idea of such a good thing coming to an end.  Yet since Reeve published a prequel last year, which landed on my doorstep on the day of publication, I no longer have that excuse.  OK, the book has been promoted to my immediate TBR.  I also hear rumours that Peter Jackson is going to direct a 3D-film.  Please let that be true, then I can get really excited! 

5.  Book 473 – Dorling Kindersley – Geography of the World 

I’ve written before about my admiration for Dorling Kindersley.  This volume is one of a set I bought when my son began secondary school and, now that he has flown the nest, still retains its place in my reference box – because it you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you’ll know that  I also love to travel! 

6. Book 547 – Esio Trot – Roald Dahl 

 Oh, the irony.  Lifelong bookworm that I am, it was a blow to discover that my only child is dyslexic.  The novels of fellow dyslexic Roald Dahl were a source of great entertainment and encouragement through some very troubled school years.   He certainly kept us laughing! Some of my warmest memories are of reading his stories to my boy.  We built up quite a collection.

 7.  Book 1000 – The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne – Brian Moore

John Self of Asylum was instrumental in my first discovering Brian Moore. Then I got hooked and started a second blog, TheMooreTheMerrier, to chart my progress, and those joining me, on the journey through Brian Moore’s novels. I’m horrified to realise that it’s almost a year since I last one.  Doesn’t time fly when you’re blogging?

8. Book 1020 – The Loudest Sound of Nothing – Clare Wigfall

This book of award winning short stories was a gift and I’ve heard great things about it.  It was only last year that I hooked into short stories so its chances of being read have increased hundredfold.  Onto the immediate TBR it goes.  By the way, I love the simplicity and class of the cover design.

9. Book 1435 – The Road – Cormac McCarthy

A book I avoided for long and weary and then picked up as a result of a conversation at the Edinburgh Book Festival – my home from home  during the month of August. I was there when Cormac McCarthy was awarded the James Tait Black Prize for Fiction (even if he wasn’t).  For all its bleakness, it is an uplifting read and one of my books of the Noughties.  I hope the film does it justice.

10) Book 1780 – War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

How delighted am I that random.org chose this number!   For it gives me another opportunity to eulogise about the best novel ever written!  And a chance to show you my many editions.  I own a) a black Penguin, b) a three-volume Collector’s Library edition and c) a beautiful illustrated Folio Society edition (which is shelved along with its Folio Society brothers and sisters – well, they are the crown in my collection)

So why am I craving  a copy of this recently published new translation? 

Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout

Pulitzer Prize Winner 2009

I don’t normally start a review with a discussion of structure, but, when a book is described as “a novel in stories”, it’s a must.  What to expect?  A series of  interconnected stories making up a big picture?  Isn’t everything that’s not a linear narrative?    Is the subtitle there as a warning to those who don’t usually read short stories? If so, it’s unfair.  Because there is a linear narrative – one which tells the story of Olive’s marriage and family life.  Admittedly it’s interspersed with separate chapters – stories – in which Olive is only a subsidiary – but none the less influential – character. 

 These stories serve to flesh out the bones of the society in which Olive lives and to add context to her character, placing her outwith her family life and observing  her from different angles.  They also, highlight the tragedy of her life. She is a success in her career, the maths teacher everyone is afraid yet respectful of, a firm yet compassionate role model, capable of inspiring her pupils.  At home, however, she is a disappointed wife and a misunderstood mother.  So focused on her own ambitions for her only son (which aren’t necessarily bad) that estrangement is inevitable.  So involved in her career and her son that she can’t see the woods for the trees. Neither can the reader because the linear narrative is written mostly from Olive’s viewpoint.  So when she finally realises the role her husband played in her life, it is too late.  When her son delivers his verdict on her parenting skills, it is profoundly devastating.  Her thoughts are vivid, powerful and heartrending … and the compromises she makes to cope with her lonely old age, no less so.   No wonder this was my saddest read of 2009!

It seems then that the structure is highly effective, though perhaps in a way not envisaged by the author. Olive originally came to life in a short story.  A powerful character from the start, Elizabeth Strout has said she was felt that Olive would probably overwhelm the reader, had she remained the primary focus throughout the novel.  I understand the point even if I disagree.  Some of the stories in which Olive was a subsidiary character were a distraction, particularly when I had worked out not to get emotionally invested in anyone else.  I wanted to get back to Olive.  A difficult opinionated lady, no doubt, but as 3-dimensional flesh and blood as I’m ever likely to meet in the pages of a novel.

Additional material:
An interview with Elizabeth Strout and Olive Kitteridge