I have just spent the most intriguing weekend in the company of P D James. (I was going to say delightful – but is that appropriate considering the subject is murder?)  The thing is when I’m under pressure, I  binge on cream cakes crime reading.   So when I saw this in the newly published lists, I simply grabbed it and gorged myself. (Book-buying embargo notwithstanding!)  Just one word of warning, this is the literary equivalent of that cream cake you gain 5lbs just looking at!  Let’s come back to the weight that my TBRs (both real and virtual) gained reading 150 pages of crime-related literary criticism ….

Need I introduce P D James, author of 18 novels, creator of the delectable Adam Dalgleish, and winner of numerous crime fiction awards?  I didn’t think so.  One of the undisputed queens of British crime fiction, her insights in the world of detective fiction are distilled into this slim volume of  8 chapters and a selection of hilarious crime-reading related cartoons.  She covers a lot of ground from the beginnings of detective fiction in the work of Edgar Allen Poe and Wilkie Collins through  the Golden Age of crime fiction right up to the contemporary scene (although coverage of this latter subject is somewhat cursory).  The history of the genre then coupled with a personal appreciation of  the most influential authors and her personal favourites.  Now we don’t always agree – I can’t stand Sherlock Holmes for example. But James does at least make me understand his significance - so my literary blindspot won’t be so quite so total from here on in … well, perhaps not.

At 89 years of age, James isn’t simply theorising about the Golden Age of Crime Fiction, she has lived through it.  So the chapters relating the 4 grandes dames of the golden age, Agatha Christie, D L Sayers (another of my blindspots), Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh are particularly illuminating.  I’m glad to report that she is much kinder to Dame Agatha in this book than she was when I saw her speak, rather mockingly, I thought, about closed group murder mysteries a few years ago.  (Yes, it was ironic given that I had just read James’s own, very good closed group mysteries The Murder Room  and The Lighthouse.)  In this volume, however, James discusses Christie’s strengths and weaknesses in an honest and balanced measure.  I’m glad that we both hold the innovation of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in high regard. (…. and the writing of my own favourites Michael Dibdin and Reginald Hill).

While the emphasis is very much on the British crime scene, there is an excellent chapter on American crime noir, examining the reasons why British crime-writing was soft-centred and American hard-boiled.   There is also much about the craft and choices that crime writers make in relation to setting, viewpoint and characters with James divulging some of the secrets and inspirations behind her own novels … and the progression of the sychophantic Watson character, a man who irritates me only slightly less than his “lord and master” Holmes.

Particularly enjoyable is the chapter “Critics and Aficionados – why some don’t enjoy them and why others do”.  Are you an Edmund Wilson who in 1945 published an essay entitled “Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?”  Or are you a W.H.Auden who wrote that his reading of detective stories was an addiction, the symptoms being the intensity of his craving, the specificity of the story and its immediacy?

Well, like Auden, I’m craving crime at the moment and so watch this space.  I haven’t had a crime binge for a couple of years but right now, I’m studying for a professional qualification,  so in my spare time,  I need easy reading, story, narrative pace and entertainment.  However, I’m of the opinion that crime fiction can also be literary.

So it’s now time to confess the books that have been added to my in-the-very-near-future-to-be-read-TBR as a result of spending a couple of days in the company of  P D James.

1. Emma – Jane Austen (This has never appealed but P D James assures me that it is a detective story!)

2. Phineas Redux – Anthony Trollope (Likely to be my first Trollope!)

3. The Moonstone – Wilkie Collins (Been meaning to read this forever.)

4. Something by Margery Allingham (About time I read her.)

5. Something by Ngaio Marsh (About time I read her too!)

6. The Continental Op – Dashiel Hammett (Perfect reading for my forthcoming trip to San Francisco.)

7. The 100 Best Ever Crime and Mystery Novels as chosen by H R F Keating …..

8. Crime fiction related cartoons at www.cartoonstock.com

I am not going to divulge how badly my book buying embargo has been busted during the last few days.  Let’s just say it’s criminal!

Stasi files (Courtesy of DanaMc at Flikr)

As a young man, Timothy Garton Ash travelled  to Berlin to study the cause and effects of Nazism.  Living in the divided city his focus soon shifted to the most recent German dictatorship – that of the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik),  East Germany to you and I. Choosing to live for a while in East Berlin, he soon attracted the interest of the Stasi. When the DDR crumbled 20 years ago, Stasi files that were not destroyed in the mad panic (not surprising as they which would stretch for 70 miles if laid out flat)  were made available for their subjects to inspect.  Many Germans chose, indeed still are choosing to take this opportunity, wishing to discover why they had been denied access to higher education, why they were passed over for promotion, why they had not been allowed to travel.   Discovering too the identities of those had betrayed them. As 1 in 6 East Germans were informers, the chances are that the betrayer was someone very close; parent, child, lover.  Can you imagine the emotional fallout and in The File, Timothy Garton Ash relates some such cases. For many the trauma continues long after the fall of the wall.

The main focus of The File, however, is Timothy Garton Ash’s inspection of his own file in 1992 and the interviews he conducted with those involved in its creation. It’s a very civilised read - in keeping with the civilised way in which Germany has dealt with the legacy of the DDR. (Compare it for example with the bloodbaths involved during the fall of other communist countries.)   The File does not wallow in the cruelties of the regime – so it’s not as sensational a read as Anna Funder’s Stasiland. It does, however, provide a fascinating insight into human psychology – the motivations of the informers and the justifications of Stasi officers including those at the very top. 

The openness with which the Germans are dealing with this is amazing.  At one stage in his investigations, Garton Ash suddenly wonders if he is known to the British Secret Service and whether a similar file exists on him over here … 

The File was first published in 1997.  It has been republished with an afterword to mark the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and in that afterword, Timothy Garton Ash makes some interesting observations.  In 1989 the political landscape shifted dramatically.  It did so again in 2001. What relevance have stories from the DDR with our post 9/11 realities?

Thirty years ago, when I went to live in East Germany, I was sure that I was travelling from a free state to an unfree one.  I wanted my East German friends to enjoy more of what we had. Now they do.  In fact East Germans today have their individual privacy better protected by the state than we do in Britain ….

… of course Britain is not a Stasi state … But if the Stasi now serves as a warning ghost, scaring us into action, it will have done some good after all.

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Giveaway results:

There were 4 entries for the Ash. 3 entries for Stasiland.

Random.org very systematically generated a winning  #1 for  the Ash draw and #2 for Stasiland which means congratulations are due to Sarah and Jen P! Please email me at lizzysiddal at yahoo.com and I’ll get your books in the post forthwith.

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(A quick post this week, simply because life is manic.)

Having recently enjoyed Citylit London and CityLit Berlin, it’s odds-on that I’ll be visiting Citylit Dublin, Paris and Amsterdam when they hit the bookshelves.

However, before that Lizzy is taking a BIG trip and with only a month to go, it’s time to get in the mood.  Las Vegas, San Francisco and Los Angeles, here I come!

And I need your help in compiling a virtual citylit volume.  Please recommend the must-reads associated with my destinations and even more importantly, tell me where the best bookshops are.  You all know there’s no better kind of sightseeing!

 … and he rode up the escalator to the first floor and selected a seat in the corner of the cafeteria with a view of the escalator and the small concourse

Never mind the escalator at London City Airport.  Following his reading at this year’s Edinburgh Book Festival, William Boyd had a mountain to climb.  Let me tell you why.  He read the first chapter, in which the protagonist is caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.  As was the style.  Boyd setup the scene well and then, at the climactic moment, inserted such a clumsy phrase that I had to suppress a disbelieving giggle.  Did Boyd really write that?  I’m going to quote it although it may not have quite the same effect if you haven’t been caught up in the action of the preceding 7 pages.

Without further thought Adam gripped the knife and drew it out, as easily as if from a scabbard.  It was a breadknife, he noticed, as a surge of released blood followed the withdrawal, travelling up the blade and wetting Adam’s knuckles, warmly.

“I’ll call the police,” Adam said and placed the knife down, unthinkingly wiping his dripping fingers on the coverlet.

“The file,” Wang said, fingers twitching, moving, as if tapping at an invisible keyboard,

“I have it.”

“Whatever you do, don’t-” Wang died then, with what seemed like a short gasp of exasperation.

Corny or what?  And I have so many problems with ”Wang died then”. 

I’m going to do the charitable thing and blame the editor.  Not the author because Boyd doubles as an author and a screen writer and I suspect that occasionally he slips between the two.  “Wang died then” in a screenplay, wouldn’t be misplaced.  It’s a stage direction.  In a novel, however, it’s too spare, sparse, flat, sudden.  As for the corniness, there are some chapter endings – dare I say it -  that Dan Brown would be proud of but which are not at all worthy of the writer of Brazzaville Beach and Any Human Heart.  You’ve got to wonder about that editor – or has Boyd got to the point in his career when his work is no longer edited? 

Rant over, let’s concentrate on its strengths. 

Ordinary Thunderstorms is very much a London novel with more than a passing nod to Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend in that the river Thames is central, almost a character in itself.  The novel also works well as a contemporary social history.  How would you survive in London without a dime? Which is the situation the protagonist faces while trying to stay ahead of an assassin desperate to silence the only witness.  This plot is very enjoyable - the cast of characters that Adam Kindred meets in homeless and socially-deprived areas of London are by turns eccentric, seedy, colourful, criminal.

That criminality paralleled, of course, by corruption in the City.  This narrative somewhat predictable, and when reading it I was always comparing it, unfavourably,  with John Le Carre’s The Constant Gardener.  However, I did enjoy the twist with regards to the health of the Chairman.  I thought he was being poisoned with his own medicine ……  I appreciated too the injections of moral ambiguity.  The hero doesn’t come out untarnished and the bad guy proves his humanity, although perhaps that final incident with the dog is a just too twee.

You see my problem here.  I start a sentence with a compliment only to take it back in a subclause.  Yet overall I enjoyed the experience.  It’s a competent thriller.  Just not as good as Restless.  

Would you look at the stats counter over there —–>.

We’ve passed the big 100,000  …… Let’s celebrate!

Thank you everyone.  You’re the best!

Willkommen, bienvenu, welcome. Fremde, étranger, stranger. Glücklich zu sehen, je suis enchanté, happy to see you.  Bleibe, restez, stay …

Are you singing along yet to the opening song of Cabaret – the film I first saw when I was 15 and which I think sparked my lifelong fascination with all things Germanic.  Anyway on the 2oth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, let’s travel virtually to Berlin with Citylit Berlin and I’ve been reminded of the film because the opening section in the book is entitled “Come to the cabaret …”  However, I think we’ll move swiftly on from tales of Weimar excess to something more relevant to today – the section “And the Wall Came Tumbling Down”.

Do you remember that day, 20 years ago?  I remember my disbelief.  OK, there were chinks in the Iron Curtain when I’d left Germany 6 months previously, but the events of 9.11.1998 were simply incredible.  The extract from John Simpson’s Strange Places, Questionable People tells of its almost casual beginning.

Transcript of press conference by Günther Schabowski, East Berlin, 9.11.89.

This will be interesting for you.  Today the descision was taken to make it possible for all citizens to leave the country though the official border crossing points.  All citizens of the GDR can now be issued with visas for the purposes of travel or visiting relatives in the East.

This order is to take effect at once.

Well, I don’t remember all those thousands standing in an orderly queue for visas when the wall was breached.  And it certainly didn’t happen as per Thomas Brussig’s fantasy.  (Not telling – you’ll have to get the book!)  For some their first steps in the West were anti-climactic, while others such as the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich were inspired to make highly-symbolic gestures.

While most were celebrating their newly found freedom, there was panic in the Stasi headquarters because this was the collapse of  “the perfect spy state”. (It has been estimated that one in 6 were informers.)

They shredded the files until the shredders collapsed.  Among other shortages in the east, there was a shredder shortage, so they had to send agents out under cover to West Berlin to buy more. (Anna Funder, Stasiland)

Berlin was chosen to receive the Citylit treatment because it’s a city based not on stability but on change. From the early 19th century:

Thousands of little houses in a chaotic spawl, a settlement overflowing its banks in the swampiest spot in Europe. The first splendid buildings were beginning to go up: a cathedral, some palaces,a museum to house the finds from Humboldt’s great expedition.
In a few years, said Eugen, this would be a metropolis like Rome, Paris or St. Petersburg.
Never, said Gauss. Horrible place! (Daniel Kehlmann, Measuring the World)

to the Weltstadt it is today. Robert Harris even describes the Weltstadt it might have become had Hitler triumphed.

The change continues. Who would have thought that Ostalgie would transform the humble Trabi into the vehicle of choice for a city safari or that the Berlin wall would be sold piecemeal as souvenirs.

In the last 20 years Germany has been coming to terms with its second 20th-century dictatorship and individuals with their own actions. In her 2004 Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction winning Stasiland, Anna Funder explores how both former resisters and Stasi-informers have reconciled themselves (or not) with their pasts. Tim Garton-Ash’s The File describes what happened when he read the dossier the Stasi had compiled on him and confronted his informers. If this subject is of interest to you, I have a copy of each to giveaway. Open worldwide. Just leave a comment (preferably in German!) stating which book/books you’d like to receive and the draw will take place next Monday.

Stacks of books were piled high all over the house – not just arranged in neat rows on bookshelves, the way other people kept them, oh no!  The books in Mo and Meggie’s house were stacked under tables, on chairs, in the corners of the rooms.  There were books in the kitchen and books in the lavatory.  Books on the TV set, and in the wardrobe, small piles of books, tall piles of books, books thick and thin, books, old and new. (Cornelia Funke, Inkheart)

So how does your house measure up?  I reckon I can tick about 80% of those boxes.  Although Mo and Meggie have missed a trick by not realising the value of under-bed storage space!

However, it has now reached a point where my reading couch has been invaded.  This simply cannot go on.

So 2010 will be the year when I don’t buy a single book I realise a lifelong ambition – I’m going to convert one room into a bona fide library.  Which room?  That’s subject to negotiation at the moment – my first objective is to ensure that it isn’t the smallest room in the house.

But I digress.

Bookpiles may be cluttering and dust-collecting but they are always welcome.  None more so than these.

2009 has been a bonus year for Germanophiles.  Is that due to the very special celebration that tomorrow will bring?  Or has the German Book Prize elevated interest in German literature in general?  However, there is such a flood of Germany-related / translated from German titles now available that I wonder if it is now possible to do a German-literature degree without actually reading the language.  Not that I am complaining.  As you can see I am capitalising on this bounty.

I think a short tour is called for. We begin in the Oxford corner – the pile back left.  Let’s start bottom-up because I know that you’re going to ask what The Oxford Companion to English Literature is doing in a post about the German counterpart.  It’s simply because the scope of the 7th edition has been expanded, not only to cover the contemporary English literary scene, but also much translated fiction.  So lots of illuminating entries about German literature.  I found the entry on Wertherism very helpful during my recent rereading of Goethe’s Sorrows of the Young Werther.  The scale of this book contrasts with A Very Short Introduction to German Literature at the top of the pile.  Not my favourite Oxford title to be fair.  It’s scope being literature from the pens of authors from Germany.  So no insights on my favourite Austrians, Schnitzler and Zweig,  or the Swiss Keller to name a few.  The middle of the pile is populated by a half-dozen recently-rejacketed Oxford Classics – gorgeous aren’t they?  Glad to see a healthy looking virtual German bookshelf here.  The books in my pile:  Gottfried von Eschenbach, Parzival and Titurel; Friedrich Schiller Don Carlos and Mary Stuart; E.T.A Hoffman The Golden Pot and Other Stories; and 3 titles from Kafka, The Castle, The Trial, Metamorphosis and Other Stories.  The final book in the pile is a recent historical study of Hindenburg.  It’s always fascinating to read about the conditions that led to the rise of Nazism.

The  pile back right has 3 recent publications from Pushkin Press.  Wondrak and other Stories and Confusion by bloggers-favourite Stefan Zweig.  (Needless to say I eagerly anticipate the arrival of his autobiography The World of Yesterday.) Books 3 and 4 from the top are from Haus Publishing:  Alex Capus A Matter of Time, made irresistible by comparisons with Daniel Kehlmann’s Measuring the World; Siegfried Lenz’s novella A Minute’s Silence arriving just in time for the November Novella Challenge.  Second from bottom is the latest in Dennis Jackson’s fine translations of the works of Theodor Storm.  I’ve had this for a while – saving it for a rainy day.   There’s bound to be one or two of those any day now.  Beneath that there’s another selection from the One World Classics German bookshelf, Goethe’s Elective Affinities.   Self’s Murder, the bottom book is the final thriller in Bernhard Schlink’s (yes, he of The Reader fame) trilogy.

The book standing back centre is the eagerly anticipated new translation of Günther Grass’s The Tin Drum. A seminal work, a masterpiece.  Would anyone be interested in a readalong?

We’ll discuss the front-centre bookpile tomorrow for two reasons:  1) this post is already long enough and 2) the books in it are relevant to the a city that will be partying a little more than it normally does … and Lizzy’s Literary Life may just party along.  In any event there are going to be some giveaways.

My latest business trip to London was mistimed.  A week after the clocks went back and British Summertime 2009 consigned to history, it was dark by 5:00 p.m.  Sightseeing on foot was postponed although I did manage a mini tour of London on the number 15 bus.  Through Marble Arch, down Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Charing Cross, The Strand, Fleet Street, Tower Hill etc.  Marvellous value on an off-peak travel card, but not exactly what I had in mind. 

Perhaps books like this are meant to be read cover to cover.  But that’s not how I approach them.  Sometimes I want to read the selections by a favourite author, or by someone I’m keen to discover.  Last week I wanted to read by theme and the organisation of this book is perfect for that, divided as it is into sections.   Last week’s sections of choice “Take the Tour” and “Old Father Thames”.

“Take the Tour” perhaps an obvious choice given the limited daylight hours.  There are 19 selections in this selection, 38 pages in total.  Reallife experiences include a young Margaret Atwood searching for budget accommodation, and Iqbal Ahmed never quite feeling at home in Hampstead.  Although the atmosphere is entirely different during Virginia Woolf’s stroll through Hampstead Heath.  And as for the London in which all the statues come to life, well I may one day find myself reading Will Self’s The Book of Dave!  For the virtual tourist, this was a satisfying section as I visited Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, The National Gallery, The British Museum … and not an aching foot in sight! 

I chose to read the section of “Old Father Thames”  because a) the offices I visited were located in the immediate vicinity of the river and b) the river is a central to many a London novel (e.g Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend and, indeed, William Boyd’s latest Ordinary Thunderstorms).  Of the 14 selections in this section I was fascinated by the two extracts from Clare Clark’s The Great Stink – a reminder that the Thames was once an enormous cesspit, responsible for more than one cholera epidemic.  From this section came the blog’s photo opportunity.

Of London Bridge:  When we reach the middle of the bridge, and discover the north bank spread there before us, the Thames seems hardly more than a country stream, a pleasure pond, beside the gleaming vulgarity, the harshness, the concentration of the new City of London, the square mile that is the financial heart of the capital and its true core of constancy.  (Extracted from A Writer’s World by Jan Morris)

I didn’t make it to the centre of London Bridge, but I did manage an early morning stroll to the centre of Tower Bridge.  And here’s the view back to the City.

If there’s any downside to this book, it’s that it is such a dangerous temptation to bookaholics.  Remember I only read two sections – I’m saving the rest for my next trip.  Even so I added 4 books to the wishlist: Tom Quinn, London’s Strangest Tales; Catherine Arnold, Necropolis; Clare Clark, The Great Stink; Stella Duffy, The Room of Lost Things.

Who knows what will happen when I read the remaining 8 sections!

So how did my two travelling companions fare on their recent trip to London – more to the point what kind of company were they for the solo business traveller?

Let’s start with a character analysis of Miss Pettigrew.  A fun-loving kind of lady, needing a slight push in the direction of enjoying herself.  But once the fun begins, she knows how to capitalise. And so it was that in the very mild autumn evenings of October 2009, Miss Pettigrew was great company whilst wining and dining outdoors at Covent Garden.

However, as those of you who have read her story will know,  a little vino makes the lady assertive.  She absolutely insisted that Lizzy visit her relatives in the Persephone Book Shop. A mad rush hour dash from Tower Hill to Notting Hill Gate ensued, arriving at the shop with 4 minutes to closing time.  The lovely-but-camera-shy Laura allowed us to take my time and browse to our heart’s content.

Clever girl, instead of making just one purchase, I made three. (Manja/On the Other Side/Goodnight, Mrs Craven)

Miss Hargreaves is a different kettle of fish altogether.  A crochety old dame, imperious at times.  A bit lot of a nightmare.  Beware of what you think.  It may just come true.  She’s not one to dash around London in a mad rush at all.   She may abominate fuss but, following her promotion to the aristocracy, she does insist on class.  Lady Hargreaves chose to visit the oldest bookshop in London, Hatchards, est 1797.  A distinguished shop in Piccadilly, booksupplier to the Queen.  A bibliophile’s dream with coves and enclaves and many bookish treasures to unearth.  Thankfully Lady Hargreaves is more disciplined than fun-loving Miss Pettigrew.  She kept her hands firmly on my purse strings and allowed only one souvenir purchase.  (Something special – a signed first edition of Louis de Bernieres, Notwithstanding, complete with Hatchards bookmark.)

Beautiful wooden banistered staircases entice visitors higher and higher. (There are 5 storeys.)  Fortunately there are idiosyncratic reading chairs, strategically placed, for those needing to catch their breathe on the way.   Lady Hargreaves chose to rest on a Rennie Mackintosh replica – even if it was a little past its heyday.  A chair fraying at the seams, dependent on the goodwill of others for its survival, like the lady herself, although I don’t think the chair will share the tragic demise of its fictional visitor.

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Miss Pettigrew Lives for A Day   (Full Review at Reading Matters)

Miss Hargreaves (Full review at Stuck-In-A-Book)

When Bibliofreak launched her latest challenge, I’m sure she was unaware of  Lizzy’s love of alliteration. Short story September is now a permanent fixture in my reading calendar.  Novella November is likely to become as irresistible.

I find novellas intensely satisfying.  Long enough to lose yourself in but short enough not to get repetitive. I’m still trying to discover at what point a short story transmutes into a novella and whether that is the same as a long short story.  But for the purposes of this challenge I’m going to define novella as a story that is between 60 and 140 pages long.

I read novellas all the time and I’ve read a few this year that I have yet to blog about.  It’s time to play catchup.

 Starting in Scotland with the King of Crime, Ian Rankin.  A Cool Head is what it proclaims on the cover – a quick read.  I picked it up for reading on the bus  and it served its purpose.  A fast paced thriller but the prose is much simpler than that used in the Rebus novels.  Possibly deliberately so.  Looking at the Quick Reads website, it appears that the raison d’etre of this series is to encourage those with reading difficulties to improve their literacy skills.  New titles are published annually on World Books Day offering a menu of short sharp entertainment and in the first four years of the project, 1.25 million copies have been sold. That’s no mean feat. Come to think of it, I read Minette Walter’s Chickenfeed a few years ago. Based on a true murder case, I remember it as a rivetting read.  One I would happily revisit.

Alice Thompson, who also chooses to write in spare prose,  has created an altogether more complex read in her creepy Pharos.  Well, it is subtitled A Ghost Story.  A shipwrecked woman is found on the beach and for some reason, the lighthousekeeper and his assistant choose not to return her to the mainland.  She has no idea why as she is suffering from amnesia.  Eventually the trio are joined by the lighthousekeeper’s sister … and a fifth being, a wild girl child who appears in strange places at strange times.  Why though does no-one wish the shipwrecked one to recover her memory and how much of what she tells can we believe?  What is certain, however, is that nothing good can come of her being on the island, setting herself against the established pattern of things.  It’s testament to Thompson’s skill with language that she has all the time in the world to rachet up the tension, notch by notch, until …. well, that would be telling! (Note: at 179 pages this is probably better classified as a short novel rather than a novella.  But who’s counting?)

And finally not one but three novellas in one Premio Cocito Monta d’Alba prizewinning volume.  Pietro Grossi’s Fists concerns itself with the transition to adulthood – the painful moment in a young man’s life when a future-determining choice must be made.  The first story is set in the world of amateur boxing and it is the most autobiographical of the three.  The second set in the countryside concerns two brothers who are given horses by their father.  The lessons they learn from caring for the animals and the decisions they ultimately make show the differences that personality can make on outcomes.  The third story is surreal with Kafkaesque undertones.  What would you do if your best friend decided to become a monkey?  Really – to act and behave like a monkey and completely renege on the responsibilities of being a human.  It may sound funny but this story has profound meanings locked within the superficial comedy of the premise.   Even though the masculine focus is necessarily predominant in these tales, they remain very readable.  Smoothly translated by Howard Curtis, I was absorbed, reading them one after the other without pausing.   Kudos to Pushkin Press for bringing another gem of European literature to our shores and a few more kudos for packaging them in such a lovely dustjacket.

A Cool Head  / Pharos  1/2 / Fists  1/2