Winner Dutch Audience Award 2009
Translated by Sam Garrett (Interviewed here.)

4 adults meet for dinner in a swanky restaurant. Two brothers and their wives. The elder brother is a politician, well-known, used to calling the shots. His younger brother, the narrator, resentful of all that brings with it. It soon becomes clear that this is no recreational appointment – there is something unpleasant that the two families must confront ..

…. a deeply disturbing crime committed by their children. (And one based on a real case.)

The criminals thus far remain unidentified by the police, and, indeed, the narrator isn’t even sure if his wife knows. He is sure, however, that his brother, the politician, does know and has decided that the time is nigh for decisive action.

So, as they take their seats and procrastinate their way through the courses, continually interrupted by the maître d’hôtel and his high-faluting upselling of the dishes served,

These are Greek olives from the Peloponnese, lightly doused in first-pressing, extra-virgin olive oil from Sardinia, and polished off with rosemary ….

undercurrents exert their drag, nerves begin to fray and barely concealed animosities surface. When the politician, supremo of the dramatic public gesture, reveals his intentions, all hell breaks loose.

Interwoven with the conversation at table is the history of what has been happening at home since the awful event – all from the viewpoint of the narrator. Turns out, in his preoccupation to protect his wife, he unwittingingly developed a blind spot and that the wives aren’t attending this dinner to simply provide polite conversation.

And in an another twist on people not being what they seem, the ever-increasing polarised views of the narrator give more than one pause for thought.

I started this review suggesting that its subject is no laughing matter. That’s certainly true but the narrative voice is so superbly jaundiced, outraged and entertaining that it’s impossible not to. Neither have I ever had my moral compass so thoroughly subverted. How far would you go to protect the ones you love? asks the front cover. Think you know? Read this and think again!

For those who don’t know Bernie Gunther, he is a one time Berlin cop, forced into the SS during the Hitler years. When I last left him, he had somehow managed to get himself branded a war criminal and was on a boat fleeing to Argentina along with more infamous members of the Nazi hoi polloi. The thing about Bernie is that he is a basically good guy, resolutely and vehemently anti-Nazi, but with shades of moral ambiguity. I’m never quite sure whether I believe all his protestations of innocence, because in the present he shows a ruthless streak which can be disproportionate to current circumstance.

All he wants to do is outrun his past but, in A Quiet Flame, seeking sanctuary and an Argentinian passport in the age of Peron, it’s unlikely that people will let his sleeping dogs lie. So when a young German girl goes missing and another is found sadistically murdered, he is enlisted as a gumshoe by the Argentinian secret police. Simultaneously he is approached by the beautiful Anna and asked to find out what happened to her missing Jewish relatives. His motivation for taking on this case – one that will bring him into mortal danger because the Argentinian government just relish foreigners hunting for their disappeared: “It’s not that I love Jews,” he says, “it’s that I love anti-Semites just that little bit less.” (And he can’t say no to a pretty girl!)

The murder echoes an unsolved Berlin case from 1932 – something horrible and seedy which is matched by something just as bad in post-war Argentina. The past mingling with the present is a staple in the series. Its purpose as Bernie jumps out of the frying pan and into the fire, from Argentina (A Quiet Flame) to Cuba (If the Dead Rise Not) before being extradited back to Germany to face a potential war crime trial (Field Grey) is to show the amorality of political dictatorships, be they left or right wing. Forgive me for the misquote here but this is from memory of an audiobook “A rat, be it black, brown or white, is still a rat” muses Bernie at one point in Field Grey.

He might be talking about political dictatorships and even the Amis themselves (it’s their pretence of civilised behaviour that sticks in his throat) but during Field Grey serious questions begin to arise about Bernie’s moral rectitude. Given that most of the novel is the account of Bernie’s war, his not always innocent time on the Eastern front and his incarceration in a Russian PoW camp, it can’t really be called a thriller. But it is intriguing to discover how Bernie survived when so many others did not. Kerr takes some huge risks here: a) trying his readers’ patience, particularly if they had come to this expecting a thriller and b) risking Bernie’s reputation. There’s no way he can always be cast as a victim here. As for the final twist, it left me speechless and for the first time willing to cast an adverse judgment.

I need some time to digest this before moving onto #8 – not only to answer the question whether all is fair in love and cold war but because I was finding the cumulative effect of all this political corruption overwhelming. I also need a break to steel myself because if Bernie has been jumping from frying pan to fire up to now, something tells me that he’s just landed in an inferno.

A Quiet Flame  / If The Dead Rise Not  / Field Grey

The book takes us back to London in the early 1950′s – evidence of the war still abundant, particularly in the shabbiness of London district, Pimlico, and the bombed-out church that is the centre of the spinster, Mildred Lathbury’s life. Mildred is an excellent woman, single, devout and happy to help with fundraising through jumble sales and church bazaars. She is also – as she takes some pains to point out – not like other famous literary spinsters, Jane Eyre and Anne Elliot. This doesn’t refer to her looks or age because like them she is rather plain and let’s say past the first flush of youth. No, she is happy in her singleness and her limited but protected life

… which is proceeding as it should until her equilibrium is upset by the vicar getting engaged to the glamorous widow Allegra Gray and married couple, Helena and Rockingham Malory moving into the flat below. Suddenly there is disorder and chaos in Milldred’s life as she finds herself cast into the role of confidante. Allegra causing all kinds of upset between the vicar and his spinster sister, Mildred’s best friend, Winifred. The Malorys’ marriage is strained and on the verge of breakup due to the wife’s independent streak and love of the unfortunately named, Everard Bone. The husband’s charming flirtatious nature doesn’t help either. Mildred with no experience of life finds herself cast into the role of counsellor. How does she deals with these crises? In thoroughly British fashion.

I was so astonished that I could think of nothing to say, but wondered irrelevantly if I was to be caught with a teapot in my hand on every dramatic occasion.

She offers tea and sympathy, taking a more active role only when prevailed upon to do so. Yet there is much prevailing of Mildred in these pages. The assumption being that because she is unmarried and alone (no parents, no siblings either), she has plenty of time to be at everyone’s beck and call. And given that assertiveness probably wasn’t even n the dictionary in the 1950′s, she rarely says no and allows herself to be putout more often than not. In so, doing, however, she proves herself a rather astute observer of those around her, her insights far superior to those of the learned members of the anthropologist society that Helena and Everard belong to.

Not that Mildred is aware of that. She’s also blind apropos what others think of her. The question is does she realise what Everard Bone is up to? The ending is left open but I suspect the off-the-page ending isforeshadowed by the opening sentence:

The conventional romantic novel ends with marriage.

Pym’s playing with the form, subverting readerly expectations and inverting Austenesque tropes. Is Mildred a reluctant busybody (Emma)? I see an awful lot of Darcy in Everard. Sly satirical wit on every page and I enjoyed the outrage caused by seemingly innocuous deviations from normal, expected behaviour. But most of all, I loved the change in Mildred brought on by the drama of these few months and the prospect of what she calls a full life. Just goes to show – it’s never too late to feature in a Bildungsroman.

The amazing thing about this poem is its comedic tone. Admittedly it formed part of Ernst Toller’s 1935 comedy No More Peace, but, by that time Toller was in exile in London, having fled Germany for his life along with other left-wing friends, declared enemies of the state by Nazi Germany. Can I assume that Toller wrote this comedy before the mysterious death of Dora Fabian, his lover and fellow exile and, therefore, before the hopelessness of their unequal fight against the Nazi state became undeniable? Dora’s death, the trigger of a downward spiral into depression that ended in Toller’s suicide in a hotel room in 1939. Not sure if that is a historical fact but it’s certainly portrayed that way in Anna Funder’s 2012 Miles Franklin Award winning novel, All that I am.

The novel recreates the life of the left-wing German exiles, people who were allowed to stay in Britain on the condition that they reneged on further political activity. The British government of the mid-1930′s wanted to keep the peace. It simply did not want any uncomfortable facts uncovering about Hitler’s regime. Even when that implacable regime sent its assassins to foreign lands to rid it of its opponents. The exiles were damned if they did and damned if they didn’t. And so with extraordinary courage, they continued their attempts to bring the truth of Nazi Germany to light.

The spy song above is quoted at the start of Part II of Funder’s novel, by which time it is no longer comedic but claustrophobic. Who knew that the Gestapo spread is tentacles so far, so soon? I certainly didn’t. In fact I was completely unacquainted with this period of history and so this novel was a constant surprise to me and as the net tightened around the historical cast, I felt their fear, admired their courage and groaned at the inevitable betrayal(s).

Let me name some of the characters: Ernst Toller, Dora Fabian, Hans and Ruth Wesemann, Mathilde Wurm. Google searches ( I couldn’t resist) revealed the fates of those people but Funder’s re-imagining of their lives put me under their not always admirable skins …

… once I’d got to grips with the structure. What took me some time to work out was the timeline of the dual narratives which both focussed on the figure of Dora Fabian.  Ruth Wesemann is looking back from her death bed in Australia in 1991 while Ernst Toller, in the grip of a deep depression, does the same from the Mayflower Hotel in California in 1939. Once I’d got my bearings, I raced through the pages.

I’ve made a note to return to this one day to pay more attention to Ruth’s philosophising on her own mortality; a strand of the novel subsumed on first reading by the sensational events of the past.

I read this for Caroline’s Literature and War Readalong.

Rodoreda’s novel is reputably the best Catalan novel ever written. First published in English as The Time of the Doves, in – if the reviews on Amazon are to be believed – an execrable translation, Virago Press have commissioned a new one by renowned translator Peter Bush, which reads beautifully

Natalia is a working-class girl with working class expectations: love, marriage and a family. Engaged to someone who doesn’t excite her, she is swept off her feet during a street party in Diamond Square. I’m not going to judge Joe by modern day standards but this error in judgement causes no amount of grief. Dearie me, the things women used to put up with! Anyway, following her heart rather than her head, Natalie marries him heralding “the time of the doves”, a time when her life and her home are overtaken by the doves that Joe decides to breed.

The political situation is just background noise in this domestic drama until Joe and his friends leave to fight the left-wing cause. Natalia is left to survive with two young children to feed and it is hard – not just for her – but for everyone in Barcelona. And yet, as the doves leave Natalia’s home, she gains a measure of self-esteem and independence previously unknown and once the war is over, she finally finds happiness in an unexpected place.

Politics feature only as they affect Natalia’s life. And she is such a passive character – her voice is matter of fact, non-judgmental. Actually simple and annoying to my way of thinking. But it is not what the author intended. Natalia is depicted as a woman of her time, the salt of the earth, and I should know better than to impose 21st century values on 1930′s Spain.

Recommended for those who loved Maria Barbal’s Stone in A Landslide.

Translated by Nick Caistor

The Planeta Prize is the richest prize for a single work of fiction in the world. The prize is worth EU 601,000!!! And I cheered mightily hard when Eduardo Mendoza won it 3 years ago. Mendoza was the first Spanish novelist to be added to my completist reading list and that was due to my guffawing my way through No Word from Gurb. So it’s no surprise that I dropped everything when this little beauty dropped through the letter box.

Anthony Whitelands is the eponymous Englishman, an art historian who is looking to make a name for himself. The discovery of a lost master would do it. So when he is invited to value a Spanish aristocrat’s private collection, he accepts the assignment with more hope than certainty. Actually that’s a bit unfair. Anthony loves Spain; the Prado is his second home; Velazquez, possibly the love of his life, and with Spain on the brink of Civil War, this may be his last chance to visit for some time.

A few weeks later: Anthony had come to Madrid to value a paintng, but without knowing how seemed to have become a collision point for all the forces in the history of Spain. He has unwittingly marked himself as a Falangist sympathiser, the Spanish authorities are keeping a close eye on his movements, as indeed is his own embassy. The Communists have, for some reason, marked him for assassination.

This would be funny, if it weren’t so serious. And it would be serious, if I cared about Whitelands as a character. But I’m afraid not. He is a libertine, an opportunist and a bit slow on the uptake. He’d love to be a player, but he is played, well and truly, by all and sundry.

It’s funny how a title can change the focus of a read. The English title, legitimate given the content, is obviously designed to appeal to the English readership. The Spanish title, Riña de gatos, is literally translated Cat Fight, and places the emphasis firmly on the political shenanigans of 1936. The book is populated by historical figures of the time amongst them Antonio Primer de Rivera, leader of the Falange and, of course, Francisco Franco. If the naive Anthony Whiteland thinks he can herd these cats, then more fool him.

The tone remains ironic and good-humoured throughout what may, on the surface, appear to be a rattling good adventure. Those seeking the darker seams of history will find them, albeit hidden in the analysis of the art works that are central to the plot. For instance, there is a recurring motif of Whitelands confronted with Titian’s Death of Acteon. Never a favourite of his but as time goes by, it unsettles him more and more.

This is the moment when Diana, taking revenge on Actaeon for surprising her as she bathed naked in the woods, transforms him into a stag. Thereafter his own hounds attack and kill him. In the painting Actaeon is still visibly human but the transformation is in progress. It is the moment of no return. As a metaphor, this may apply to Whitelands, who may have observed something that is too dangerous for him to know. It also applies to Spain herself, depicted moments before she begins to rip herself to shreds. It’s just a question of which political dog is going to take the first bite.

Firstly a new – if somewhat unlikely – location. Bongo’s night club, underneath the arches on Cowgate, more importantly directly beneath Edinburgh Central Library. OK, so maybe not such an unlikely location after all. Secondly, The Itinerant Poetry Library, to be joined, books borrowed and returned on the night. The selection on the table representative of 21 EU countries.

The Itinerant Poetry Library

Thirdly, the stars of the evening ….

from left to right: Kirsty Logan, Anikó Szilágyi, Martin Reiner and Peggy Hughes (moderator)

Kirsty Logan, whose debut collection of short stories, The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales, has just won the Scott Prize and will be published by Salt in November. On the night she read, A Floating House in a Fleeting World, a bittersweet story of a holiday romance in Japan. (Available online here.) She was at some pains to ensure we understood it was not autobiographical.

Anikó Szilágyi’s Hungarian translation of Alice in Wonderland will be published later this year by Evertype Press. When asked to explain why Alice needed another translation, Anikó pointed out – quite passionately – the failings of previous efforts. She concentrated on the poetry and even though there were no Hungarian speakers in the audience, we could still tell exactly what was wrong when she read out the Hungarian version of 2009. As for the 1928 edition in which the tea-drinking Mad Hatter becomes the wine-loving drunken brushmaker – say no more, the lady has a point.

Martin Reiner from the Czech Republic treated us to his short story, Angel of Destruction, in which a young child recounts the day of the Russian invasion. (Available online here.)

The story was published by Two Lines Press, a publishing house to note by those interested in translated fiction. Kirsty Logan’s story was published in the first edition of Ekto, an on-line multi-lingual quarterly.

Books in the limelight where they belong

I made the final discovery for this evening on the book table to the right of the stage. It was an Edinburgh Review entitled, Made in Poland - a fortuitous find, just in time for Polish Literature Month in June. So that came home with me …. then I remembered. I won’t have time to read it. I’m off gallivanting again – to places where German is spoken and that brings me back to where I started this post. I do like circular structures.

EDIT:  Just noticed Polish Literature Month has been moved to October.  All’s well that ends well.

Admittedly it took me a couple of chapters to get into but then there was no stopping me.

It was the hardback cover that put me off.   I was expecting some kind of sloppy romance.  Well, the romance is there but this is a very English comedy of manners set in a snobbish, rascist Sussex village (fictitious I presume) in which an upstanding Major falls unexpectedly in love with the Pakistani proprietress of the corner shop.  Yet this man is no liberal.  He’s very proper and very upper middle class.  Suffering from the recent loss of his brother, it is an act of kindness that makes him fall for Mrs Ali, but at 59 he is no longer sure of himself and his vulnerabilities and insecurities as he woos his lady makes him a very appealing character.  At the same time, his preoccupations and machinations to ensure the return of a family heirloom to his possession show him not to be quite the perfect specimen that some ladies in my group believe him to be.

The romance, while gentle, is galvanising and devisive and enables the author to explore preconceptions and prejudice on both side of the racial divide .  Major Pettigrew’s middle-age romance is contrasted with that of a younger pairing- their relationship also the subject of disapproval from the Muslim family.  Serious issues such as the submissive roles and sacrifices females are expected to make in traditional Muslim families are seamlessly woven into the plot.  So too are issues that cast unfavourable light on English values: the snobbishness and racism of the golf club: the materialism of the upper middle classes and those wishing to make the right connections to further their careers.

This novel certainly makes its readers think, but there’s no heavy-handedness.  In fact, it is very, very funny.   I’m not going to quote anything.  I suspect you have to be there in context to be surprised by some of the extremely witty one-liners. But I laughed out loud on more than one occasion.

It’s not perfect.  The resolution to the Abdul Wahid thread is – shall we say – rather over the top.  Too dramatic to get with the rest of the novel.  Perhaps Simonson had her eye on potential cinematics?

Minor niggle really.  I laughed, I cried at the happy ending and I completely forgot about the rubbishy wet weather outside.  Just wish I’d read it sooner.

Scope
I never got to grips with Hugo’s scope, deciding that existence, the world, French history, politics and culture might just cover it and it’s a sensational achievement – it certainly caused a sensation. They were queuing in the streets for it on publication. Braddon’s novel, taking its cue from the same murder case as The Suspicions of Mr Whicher has been tagged the most sensationally sensational of the sensation novels (John Sutherland). Surprisingly the two novels share a significant theme – the class struggle. In both instances the downtrodden working classes are seeking upward mobility and in both cases, the heroine achieves it by marrying a rich man. What does that say for all that bloodshed and revolution? It’s not the way to attain riches in Hugo nor is it the way to retain them in Braddon.

However, the scope of Braddon’s novel is significantly smaller than Hugo’s but at no point did my eyes glaze over due to lack of interest.

Les Misérables 0 Lady Audley’s Secret 1

Genre
Can Les Misérables be pigeon-holed? Literary fiction tick. Historical and philosophical treatise tick. Romantic fiction tick. Comedy (yes, think Gavroche). Tragedy (Fantine, for sure, but it was Gavroche who made me cry). Fantasy (I don’t think I ever believed in Jean Valjean.) Work of genius tick.

Lady Audley can be easily classified. Sensation novel tick. Crime fiction tick. Feminist call to arms? Let me get back to you on that one.

Les Misérables 1 Lady Audley’s Secret 1

Wordiness
All 19th century novels are wordy compared to the 21st century norm. But why tell a story in 300,000 words when you can take 530,982? Yes, I reckon a good 200,000 words could be lopped off Les Misérables without affecting the plot or even its briliance too much. That’s probably why most translations are abridged.

The male narrator of Lady Audley’s Secret is a garrulous pompous so-and-so at times but he never induced in me a wish to throttle him. Sometimes less is more.

Les Misérables 1 Lady Audley’s Secret 2

Lead Females
To answer the question I posed earlier. I’m not one for reading 20th or 21st century values into 19th century novels, so I remain unconvinced about the feminist reading of Lady Audley’s Secret, in which Lucy Graham’s amorality is seen as the decisive action of a self-empowered female. Nah, I much prefer her as a selfish, murdering psychopath. I’m pretty sure that if Braddon’s pen had had the license of the 21st century, Lucy Graham’s wickedness would have been much more overt.

That said I wish that Hugo could have given Cosette a personality. Biggest disappointment of the book for me. That the girl, who finally made a stand for her relationship with Marius, so quickly reverted to a simpering conventional spineless beauty and effectively deserted the man who had saved her from her dreadful childhood.

Les Misérables 1 Lady Audley’s Secret 3

Quality of writing
There were passages of Les Misérables that simply soared; passages that I will quite happily return to when I’m looking for something to marvel at; the Battle of Waterloo; Gavroche and the kidlingtons; the battle at the barricade.

Braddon’s pen never reaches the same heights.

Les Misérables 2 Lady Audley’s Secret 3

Longevity
A strange one this, given that both are acknowledged classics from 1862. By longevity I mean the one that’s going to live longest and most clearly in my mind. Hugo takes this point too. Perhaps all that wordiness and repetition played in his favour after all. I won’t forget the brilliant bits nor will I forget the irritating bits. None of it has faded. It’s four months since I finished and there’s not a week goes by without something bringing Les Misérables back to mind. People tell me that’s the sign of a good book.

Les Miserables 3 Lady Audley’s Secret 3

So it is I declare a respectable draw. This is a big surprise to me because I will happily tell you that I hated Les Misérables and loved Lady Audley’s Secret. Which just goes to show – sometimes I shouldn’t believe a word I say!

Gone Girl first came to my notice in a number of Best of 2012 blogging lists.  I must read that, I thought, expecting to be completely blown away by it.

Well, it didn’t happen – at least not until the second half.  After the twist, which, of course, I can’t tell you about.

So I find myself n a bit of a dilemma.  I can tell you that the first half was spoiled for me by
the wife’s voice.  It just didn’t feel credible.  Something didn’t add up; there was a whole subtext missing.   And that was true as became clear in the second half.  After that I couldn’t stop reading.

This is the story of an utterly miserable marriage, of a power struggle, emotional blackmail and the basest manipulation. The battle of the sexes was never uglier, though it is a pretty uneven fight.  When one of the participants is a fully-fledged sociopath, there can only one winner.

On another level the author is also manipulating the reader through many, many lies of omission.  My sympathies waxed and waned towards both husband and wife, and at one point I decided they deserved each other.  But then two unconscionable events occurred and my sympath-o-meter swung decisively to one side.

I realise this “review” is on the cryptic side. Deliberately so.  Those who have read it will understand.  I don’t want to give anything away to those who haven’t as the plot is utterly sensational and the smallest detail is hugely significant.  But for the sake of my memory, I’m ending with a clue.

The Maiden caught me in the Wild,
Where I was dancing merrily;
She put me into her Cabinet,
And Lockd me up with a golden key.

(From The Crystal Cabinet, William Blake)

 and an addition to my completist reading list!

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