My suitcase simply isn’t big enough – a conundrum and a competition

Possible Travelling Companions

As you can see, I’ve been collecting again.  Oh, that’ll do nicely for my German trip … and that … and that … oh, that too.  If I packed them all, there’d be no room left for clothing.  What is a bookworm to do?

The good news is  the problem has been solved with bookworm and suitcase now on their way to Berlin.   5 days from now I’ll be landing in Frankfurt am Main and a few days after that to a 3rd undisclosed destination.  Rather than tell you where it is and which books eventually became my travelling companions, I thought it was time for a competition.  There will be a prize for the most correct (or the closest) answers when I return.  A souvenir from Germany – hopefully book related.  A surprise for you and me both!

So, without further ado:

1) How many books in the bookstack  did I take with me?  No further clues other than I’ll be away for 12 days in total.

The candidates stack up from the bottom as follows:  98 Reasons for Being – Clare Dudman; Cecile – Theodor Fontane;  A Most Wanted Man – John Le Carre;  Berlin Tales  – Short Story Anthology;  Inkheart – Cornelia Funke;  What I Saw – Joseph Roth; Funeral In Berlin – Len Deighton;  Top 10 Berlin;  CitySpots Frankfurt; Grimm’s Fairy Tales; Die Leiden des Jungen Werther (The Sufferings of Young Werther) – Johann Wolfgang  Goethe.

2) Which were they?  Have you any idea why?

3) How many of the books did I actually read – in whole or in part?

4) How many book purchases did I make while I was away?

5) From the bookstack can you identify the mystery third destination?

(Competition open worldwide.  One entry per entrant.)

Of course, you’ll have to guess at most, if not all,  of this.  I don’t know all the answers myself at this moment.  To be revealed in two weeks time.   Happy reading until then! 

Should you be stuck for something to read in the meantime, I recommend one of these – Lizzy’s Top 5 Reads of 2009 to-date.  (In no particular order).

Grace - Alex Pheby

Dear Everybody – Michael Kimball

No Word From Gurb – Eduardo Mendoza

Home – Marilynne Robinson

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie – Alan Bradley

The Wall Jumper – Peter Schneider

It was icy. -21, if I remember correctly. January 1980. Berlin at the height of the Cold War was a very chilly and at times forbidding place to be. To the right a young Lizzy shivering at the bottom of the Russian War Memorial in Treptower Park, burial site of 15,000 soldiers who died during the liberation of Berlin at the end of World War II.

 It seems incredible to those who grew up with the most tangible manifestation of the Iron Curtain that there are/will be generations for whom the Berlin Wall (13.8.1961 – 9.11.1989 ) is nothing other than a footnote in history.  The Wall which divided Berlin, families and two world views, was built to stop the inhabitants of East Germany, DDR, defecting en masse to the West.  In the words of Peter Schneider:

The ring around West Berlin is 102.5 miles in length.  Of this, 65.8 miles consist of concrete slabs topped with pipe; another 34 miles is constructed of stamped metal fencing.  Two hundred sixty watchtowers stand along the border ring, manned day and night by twice that many border guards.  The towers are linked by a tarred military road, which runs within the border strip.  To the right and left of the road, a carefully raked stretch of sand conceals trip wires; flares go off if anything touches them.  Should this happen, jeeps stand ready for the border troops, and dogs are stationed at 267 dog runs along the way.  Access to the strip from the East is further prevented by an inner wall which runs parallel to the outer Wall at an irregular distance.  Nail-studded boards randomly scattered at the foot of the inner wall can literally nail a jumper to the ground, spiking him on their 5-inch prongs.  It is true that long stretches of the inner wall still consist of the facades of houses situated along the border, but their doors and windows have been bricked up.  Underground in the sewers the border is secured by electrified fences, which grant free passage only to the excretions of both parts of the city.

Fearful yet fascinating.  While Schneider’s short 139-page novel  contains much reportage, its prime concern is with the way the inhabitants of Berlin adapted to their unique circumstances.  There are people born in West Germany who move to Berlin because it was a trendy place to be.  There are East Germans who have defected to West Berlin in search of freedom and there are those who have chosen to stay in East Germany because they are convinced that the bounty of the West is just a mirage. The discussions between this wide mix of outlooks thought-provoking.  Schneider’s focus isn’t outrage at the monstrosity of the wall which is a simple fact of life to his characters.  He’s more interested in exploring the boundary between the state and the individual.  Where does the state end and the self begin, he asks.  How far are we conditioned by the place we are born in?  He demonstrates this by citing varying examples of how the same news event was reported in the two Germanys.  Or for example, this:

The Wall is hard to find on a city map in West Berlin.  Only a dotted band, delicate pink, divides the city.  On a city map in East Berlin, the world ends at the Wall.  Beyond the black-bordered, finger-thick dividing line identified in the key as the state border, untenanted geography sets in.  This is how the Brandenburg lowlands must have looked at the time of the barbarian invasions.

Schneider’s detachment from the outrage allows him to inject wit and humour,  to indulge in the absurd, and incorporate many anecdotes of those who “jumped” the wall simply for the hell of it!  It also allows him to show that we, humans, don’t need repressive governments to build boxes for us.  We’re quite capable of doing that, on many levels, for ourselves.  A theme, which reduces the Wall to a metaphoric allusion and, now that it is gone, ensures the continued relevancy of his novel. 

20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I have to admire the prescience of the following:

It will take us longer to tear down the Wall in our heads than any wrecking company will need for the Wall we can see. 

Anyone who remembers the amazing events of November 1989 will know that it didn’t take all that long to destroy the physical wall and with it the DDR (German Democratic Republic). How long though did it take to reunify Berlin and Germany emotionally, psychologically and spiritually?  Is that process complete or do Germans still differentiate between the “Westlers” (Westerners) and the “Ostlers” (the Easterners)?  I look forward to finding out in Berlin next week.  One thing’s for sure, 28 years after my previous visit, I’m going to find a very different city.

The Wall Jumper – Peter Schneider  1/2

——-

Berlin – 1 day and counting.

From the Oneworld Classics German Bookshelf

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed 2 novels from Alma Books (Child’s Play, Dear Everybody) earlier this year, it was only a matter of time before I sampled something from their OneWorld Classics imprint, specifically something from their German literature shelf.  Click here to enter a proverbial sweetie shop. But where to start?

I have previously bemoaned the fact that for my German literature degree I read not a single female author. (It was 30 years ago – maybe the syllabus has changed since.) Thus did Annette von Droste-Hulshoff’s novella, The Jew’s Beech , the only female offering on the OneWorld Classics shelf, rise to poll position.

Based on true events involving two murders in a Westphalian logging village, this novella contains many gothic plot elements: murder (one involving an axe to the head), domestic violence, madness. A prodigal son. Mistaken identities. Written in 1842, it’s often marketed as a prototype for European crime fiction. While that may be true, I found it stronger as a social documentary depicting the smallness of the village mind with disturbing hints of anti-semitism. And an independent woman who believes she can change a tiger’s spots …. It’s bound to end in tears.

I didn’t really connect with this story. I’m unsure why.  Maybe it’s because it was my first 19th century read for almost a year.  The prose felt antiquated.  The symbolism of the tree forced.  Maybe it’s that old bugbear of mine – novels written by poets.  Poetic language that fails to flow in prose because it’s trying too hard.

My second pick from the OneWorld Classics German bookshelf is also based on true events although you might be forgiven for thinking its inspiration is Shakespearian. Gottfried Keller’s A Village Romeo and Juliet are two children whose families fall into feuding over a piece of farm land. Such is the ferocity of the feud that the families are both ruined. It is only at this point that the erstwhile childhood friends form their romantic attachment. Of course, it cannot be and while the end is inevitable, it approaches with a dignity and grace that is truly beautiful. None of the overwrought drama of Shakespeare’s equivalent.

Keller is Swiss literature’s foremost proponent of poetic realism. The poison of the feud, the growing attraction and the joy/despondency of the lovers are all portrayed vividly. There’s no doubt that these people are flesh and blood. Blended in the mix, however, is the symbolic character of The Dark Fiddler, a threatening character in childhood, a tempting one in adolescence but one whose temptations are to be resisted, even as the couple elope and party in an inn called “The Paradise Garden”. Such innocence.  Only in the 19th century.

The Jew’s Beech 1/2

A Village Romeo and Juliet

—————

Berlin – 3 days and counting ….

Julia Franck – The Blind Side of the Heart

Following in the steps of the Prix Goncourt and the Booker, the German Book Prize was established in 2005 to promote contemporary German literature around the world. There have been 4 winners to date: 2 male, 2 female. Interestingly the two titles by female authors have been translated into English. The inaugural winner, Arno Geiger’s Es geht uns gut (We’re doing fine) has yet to be translated and, I suspect, it will be a while before the 2008 winner, Uwe Tellkamp’s 1000 pager Der Turm  (The Tower) appears on British shelves. I, therefore, made a start on this prizelist with Julia Franck’s 2007 winning The Blind Side of the Heart. Why? Because it’s set in Berlin and, by now, you all know where I’m heading next week!

The first point to note is that the English title The Blind Side of the Heart bears no resemblance to the German, Die Mittagsfrau(Lady Midday). I’m glad of that because the passing reference to Lady Midday, a figure from Slavic mythology, is slightly baffling. The Blind Side of the Heart, on the other hand, is a recurring thematic refrain in a novel that concerns itself with those who have cut themselves off emotionally. None more so than Helene, who in the tumultuous days following World War 2, flees Berlin with her 7-year old son, only to abandon him on a railway station platform.

Such is the shocking conclusion of the prologue. The concern of the main body of the novel is the explanation of why and the success of the novel depends on whether Franck manages to turn Helene from the mother from hell into an understandable and sympathetic personage. 

 For the defence:

a) this pattern of emotional abandonment is one which Helene has experienced more than once in her life. Her own mother, her first fiance, her second husband. Abandonment that is sometimes cold and calculated, sometimes circumstantial – always damaging to Helene’s self-esteem. At one point Helene says: “something like me isn’t supposed to exist at all”. 

b) the timeframe.   Helene is unfortunate to live through both world wars.   Defeated not only by the opposing armies but, particularly the second time around, by her own side.  There’s hidden Jewish blood in her veins.  Fortunately she finds a champion in Wilhelm, a Nazi, though one who is willing to take chances for the woman he loves until the wedding night throws up something completely unexpected and, thereafter, the downward spiral spirals ever downward …..

c) details in the epilogue which show prove that the mother’s heart isn’t quite so blind as at first appears.

For the prosecution:

a) should a child bear the blame for the circumstances of his conception?

b) should a mother ever inflict such emotional wounds on her offspring, even when she believes her actions are for the best?

c) details in the epilogue which show the length of the mother’s abandonment.

All of which points to deferring your final judgement until you’ve read the epilogue which, if you can believe this, is even more shocking than the prologue.   Don’t, however, skip the middle section.  Though not as intense as its frame (and, therefore, sometimes rambling), it nevertheless contains the drama of World War I, the Weimar Republic, the rise of the Nazis and the defeat of World War II.  The primary focus being on the effect on the individual  and the family.  Yet the metaphorical level is ever present.  The experiences of Helene and her family are also the traumas of Germany in the first half of the 2oth century.  Read it and weep.

———————–

Berlin – 5 days and counting ……

The Murder Farm / Ice Cold – Andrea Maria Schenkel

With only a week to go to touchdown in Berlin, it’s time to start indulging in all things German.  Let’s start with a real treat – some award-winning crime.  The Krimi-Preis is the biggest award for German-language crime writing and Andrea Maria Schenkel is the only author to have won in two consecutive years.    Both books have been published in English by Quercus and both are fictionalised versions of true stories.

As far as mysteries go, the 2007 winner, The Murder Farm,  isn’t that tough a nut to crack.   So no plot spoilers apart from saying that the crime concerns the massacre of a family of 5 and their house servant at a remote farm in Bavaria.  The main interest lies in the narrative method.  Schenkel mixes up straight 3rd-person narrative, witness statements and religious poems.  The result is that the full picture gradually emerges as each piece slots into its allotted place in the jigsaw.  A jigsaw that reveals the identity of the murderer,  the dynamics in the murdered family and the social macrocosm of a defeated post-war Germany.  It’s bleak and at 192 pages very much to the point.

Schenkel reuses and refines this technique in her 2008 winner,  Ice Cold.  The result is  truly (no pun intended) chilling. Just look at that dustjacket. Set in 1930’s Nazi Munich, the opening section is a memo from the authorities denying that the serial murderer, Kalteis (Ice Cold), was ever a party member, because, as we now know, no good Nazi would ever commit such heinous crimes (!).  The second section depicts the final hours of the man before he is guillotined.  It takes just 17 seconds from him leaving his cell until he registers the swish of the blade.  All this contained in the first 5 pages.   The question is have the authorities got the right man? 

The experience of Kathie, a young girl who leaves her rural home for the rapidly souring promise of city life, is interspersed between the serial murders for which Kalteis is executed.  Has Kathie moved to the wrong place, at the wrong time?  Will she end up as just another victim?  Kathie’s story, besides adding tension, allows Schenkel to detail the social landscape of  the working class in 1930’s Germany.   It’s not pretty.  And neither are those murders which are sordid and very disturbing.  This is prose which gains power through its brevity and a novel that is most definitely not for the fainthearted.

The Murder Farm  / Ice Cold

—————
Berlin – 7 days and counting ……

Andrew Kaufman – All My Friends are Superheroes (… and one is an e-ticket buying superheroine)

New theories abound in this post.  The first is contained in the post’s title and more on that later.  The second is that it is no longer a challenge for a book to snuggle its way into my TBR stacks, the real challenge now is for it to be read.   So how did Andrew Kaufman’s novella claw its way to the top.  John from the Book Mine Set, blogging champion of Canadian literature,  put out a call for everyone involved in the second Canadian Challenge to read just one more Canadian book before the end of June in an effort to notch up the awe-inspiring total of 1000 Canadian reads in the past 12 months.  I think that’s a fantastic achievement and I wanted to be part of  it.   This brings my total to 7 Canadian reads in the last twelve months, which by John’s reckoning makes me a British Columbian.  That’s absolutely fine as it brings me to Vancouver, which in a very neat segue, is the final destination in Kaufman’s novella.

The central premise of  All My Friends are Superheroes is that most people have a superpower.  Not X-men style, more determinators that distinguish them from the rest of humanity.  Such as the Frog-Kisser.

The Frog-Kisser was in high school when she first discovered her power.  Dating the captain of the football team has left her drained and unfulfilled.  That’s when she discovered Brian, the head of the debating club, and her latent powers emerged.

Blessed with the ability to transform geeks into winners, she is cursed with the reality that once she enables this transformation, the origin of her initial attraction is gone.

It’s Tom’s fate to meet and, like everyone else, fall in love with the Perfectionist.  He’s a lucky guy.  She reciprocates and they marry.  Unfortunately one of her exes, Hypno, attends the wedding and, before Tom can stop it,  renders him invisible to his new bride.   The story that unfolds is of Tom attempts to undo Hypno’s spell; a tender tale, that reflects on the bridal pair’s romantic histories and their own courtship.  Interspersed with superheroes of all shapes, sizes and talents.  Smiles, laughter and cynicism.  Tears too, as it becomes clear that the Perfectionist is  also suffering deeply.   Tom has no superpowers so undoing the “spell” is no easy task..  Finally the Perfectionist decides to leave her lonely life and move to Vancouver.  If Tom doesn’t solve the puzzle by the time the plane lands, he loses his bride forever.

This is perhaps the most original read of 2009 to-date.  Entertaining, yes.  Quirky, absolutely.  A bit of a stress-buster, if truth be told.

I certainly need to meet the Stress Bunny.

If you arrive at a party and suddenly find yourself completely relaxed, there’s a good chance the Stress Bunny is there.  Blessed with the ability to absorb the stress of everyone in a fifty-foot radius, the Stress Bunny is invited to every party , every outing.

Her power originates from her strict Catholic upbringing.

For I am Lizzy cast from the don’t-know-what-day-of-the-week-it-is mould. (Surely that qualifies as a self-defeating superpowers)  Tuesday 22.6.2009 anyone?  You’re all too kind to point out my error including Ang, an e-ticket buying superheroine who flew to my rescue and has secured my seats at Edinburgh Book Festival.  (Yours too, because Lizzy will be reporting once more from the front rows.)

WonderAng, you truly deserve to be decorated with a blue cape!  Until I find one, however, my copy of All My Friends are Superheroes is  yours, should you accept it as a token of my gratitude.

TSS: Literary Pics: Tick Tock said the Croc

Detail at J M Barrie House, Kirriemuir

‘Smee,’ he said huskily, ‘that crocodile would have had me before this, but by a lucky chance it swallowed a clock which goes tick tick inside it, and so before it can reach me I hear the tick and bolt.’

Peter Pan and Wendy – J M Barrie

EBF 2009: On preparation, publication and walking the dog

The Edinburgh book festival progamme has arrived.  The wishlist drawn up. Budget finalised. Everything in place for the assault on the internet  the day tickets go on sale. (Tuesday 22.6.2009) It would be if I hadn’t been called away on business next week.  Irony of ironies – I’m spending 3 days at a computer conference with no personal access to the web or the EBF box office.  The phone lines will be jammed for days – I’ll have no chance of getting through in my 30-minute lunch break.  Time to call in the business continuity plan – more commonly known as paper and pen.  I shall submit a paper order by snail mail and hope that the box office processes it before all the tickets have been snaffled by the online EBF ticket-buying junkies.  You know and I know who you are and, though I am snarling,  please don’t take offense.  It’s just that my stress levels are high!

Cue peptalk.

The Voice of Reason

Lizzy, you’re a punter.  Your stress levels are miniscule compared to

a) those who have been organising the Edinburgh Book Festival for the last 12-months

b) publishers who have brought forward publication to coincide with the EBF.

Lizzy Siddal

Frodo

That’s true.   I was talking to Sharon Blackie and David Knowles of Two Ravens Press when in Ullapool a few weeks back.   I asked them about an average day on their book-publishing, sheep-rearing, poultry-breeding croft on the shores of Loch Broom.  Days which start  at the ungodly hour of 4:50 am to feed the poultry.  In  lambing season (as it was then) the next task is to check the welfare of  the lambs and the remaining expecting mothers.  Once the dog, the gorgeous, lovable,  Frodo,  has been walked,  the two humans can sit down to “porridge and battle plans” at 8:00 a.m.  Of course, that was then.  I see from their croft-related blog Tales from Green Willow Croft that they’ve now added an apiary.  I do wonder how Frodo’s coping with all those bees around his snout.  Should he be in need of a rescuer …..

The Voice of Reason

Lizzy, you’re digressing.  This is not a dog blog.

Lizzy Siddal

OK. OK.

So it’s now 8:00 am at Green Willow Croft and thoughts are turning to literature.  Sharon is a third of way through writing her second novel for which she has received an arts council bursary.  It must be finished by October.  “It will be”, she said, unphased by yet another deadline.   When not writing her novel, she turns her attention to the TRP prose catalogue – editing, copy editing, designing covers, marketing.  David, whose own poetry collection, Meeting the Jet Man, was recently shortlisted for the Scottish Arts Council of the Year award, reviews  poetry submissions and looks after the business arm: accounts, production problems, supply chains, online orders.    The hitches are numerous.  The trials and tribulations of a small Scottish publisher often documented on the Two Raven’s Press Blog.

Out of the blue a call comes from the EBF inviting a TRP author to present.  The catch is that publication of the novel, originally scheduled for October, must be brought forward by 2 months to take advantage of the opportunities this presents.  It’s not some  novella-like creation either – only the longest novel TRP have published, an epic of risk-taking proportions, 262,000 words, a novel that larger publishers have decided is too long for the contemporary market.

Little of the pre-publication work was done at the time, but the TRP team of two went into action to edit, typeset, copyedit and proof this work in the space of about 6 weeks.  Fortunately the novel already met TRP exacting standards for literary fiction.  The author understoods the TRP ethos.  (David described the relationship between TRP and their authors as “getting married with sales targets”).    Amazingly everything got completed in the new timeframe .  Sharon has read the book multiple times, David once.   All that remained was the jacket design and production of the finished article.  Distribution of review copies and voila!  After compressing what normally takes 12 weeks into half the time, the publishers can now sit back and take a well-earned break for, oh let’s be generous given that there is a lamb due to be born at any moment and an adorable dog demanding more exercise, a whole 10 minutes!

Sharon Blackie and David Knowles

The novel, Joseph’s Box by Suhayl Saadi, will be published on July 31st but is now available directly from Two Raven’s Press website.   More details on the novel at http://www.josephsbox.co.uk

As a reader, all I need to do is order it to read before the event at the Edinburgh Book Festival on 27 August.  Suhayl Saadi is, according to Sharon “an excellent book festival performer”.  A must-see event then …. assuming the EBF box office processes my paper application before all tickets are gone.

Pina

The Voice of Reason

Lizzy, you’re winding yourself up again.  Go read a book and remember you don’t have to publish it.  Even better why not de-stress with a dog. Your adorable pooch,  Pina,  awaits.  Just look at the smile on her face!

TSS: Literary Pics – The Clyde’s Most Majestic Daughter

Cora Linn in full spate

This is  the 90-ft drop of Cora Linn, immortalised as “the Clyde’s most majestic daughter” by William Wordsworth.   I have unfortunately been unable to track down the poem in which he said this.

He was visiting Lanark with his sister Dorothy and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.  Extracts from Dorothy’s journal suggest that Coleridge may have given more than a helping hand to Wordsworth’s attribution.

Cora Linn is the largest of 4 waterfalls, collectively known as The Falls of Clyde.  Contemporary audiences may view them as Wordsworth did, in full spate, only on allocated days of the year.  The needs of the Bonnington hydroelectric powerstation (the first in Scotland) takes precedence on others.  Well worth a trip if you’re in the area and as you are, virtually at least, here’s Bonnington Linn, in full spate also.

Bonnington Linn in full spate

The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite – Beatrice Colin

Another 3 weeks and I will be in Berlin …. only impatience has (once again) got the better of me .  I have travelled, early and virtually, courtesy of Beatrice Colin, born English, living in Scotland, with a fascination for Germany and its history.  Tick so many of my boxes and a book is destined for the top of my TBR.  The only surprise is that this one has has taken so long.  The book had passed me by completely until Simon of Savidgereads raved about it.

Set in the first half of the 20th century, Lilly’s life starts the way it continues  …. colourfully.  She is the illegitimate daughter of a cabaret dancer.  Her father a baron.  By the age of three, she is orphaned as both parents are shot:  her mother in a crime of passion, her father by her murdered mother’s lover.  She is then fostered by a couple who have lost their own child but eventually she lands in an orphanage.  All this by the age of 3!

And so it continues.  Lilly’s life is populated by a cast of colourful characters although she herself is more mousey and conventional.  Her friend, Hanne, is the one who runs off to the front line to – er – service the soldiers.  Lilly stays at home in Berlin to starve it out.   Bad luck is her constant companion as she overcomes one setback after another.  After the war Hanne returns with a sackful of  money and pretensions of becoming an actress.  But it’s Lilly on whom fortune eventually smiles and finally her life become luminous.  But will patterns of the past be repeated?

The entertainment factor is high although the constant repeated pattern of peak and trough does at times become slightly predictable and, at times, mawkish (in a Dickensian way).  That said the twist at the end is quite brilliant! 

German history,  particularly that of Berlin,  is central – World War I, the  Spartacist rebellion, the decadence of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism all loom large but  are skillfully woven into the fabric of the plot so that, at no time,  is the reader confronted with an academic history lesson.  The 20’s and 30’s were the heyday of the silent movie.  Colin pays tribute to this era in which Lilly becomes a successful actress by inventing a series of movies in which Lilly stars.  I’m no movie buff but I do recognise a spoof of Metropole when I read it.  I suspect there’s much more research and cleverness  in these fake film scripts than I can give Colin credit for.

I must also mention the delightful photographs that accompany the start of each section.  Again even though I don’t fully understand their significance (apart, once more, from the still from Metropole, recognised not from the film but from a Queen video!), they add colour, atmosphere and context  and are indicative of the care and attention that has been invested in this well-researched novel. 

 1/2

It’s not often that I read an author’s bibliography.  It’s even rarer that I invest in some of the works listed.  In this case I have done both.  The book on the left is now in hand and will accompany me on my trip to Berlin.  I hope too that it will provide inspiration for a series of literary pics. The book on the right is now a must-own but proving to a challenge to track down at an affordable price.  All suggestions welcome.