Seven Years by Peter Stamm

Seven Years by Peter Stamm

Swiss fiction

Translator – Michael Hofmann

Original title – Sieben Jahre

Source – Library

Well Peter Stamm is one of those writers that has been on the edge of my radar and wish list for a for a few years now and after reading this has jumped to writers I want to complete .So Peter Stamm studied various subjects as diverse as English ,business information (?) ,psychology and Psychopathology ,He had worked in a psychiatric ward as and intern after this  .Before becoming a freelance Journalist and then on into writing in his early thirties .He has won number of prizes in Switzerland ,Seven years is his tenth novel and the seventh to be translated to English .

Meet Ivona ,said Ferdy .She’s from Poland .This is Rudiger ,and this -is Alexander .He was standing behind me ,I had to almost vertically look up at him .Have a seat said Ferdy .The women put her glass down on the table and next to it her tissues and her book ,which was a romance novel showing a man and a women on horseback .

Their first meeting and maybe a subtle hint at what is coming .

So Seven years is a spin on the old seven-year itch story ,a phrase that has been coined by Psychologist as the time a couple that has had a monogamous relationship is likely to stray and to  have an affair .So the couple in this book are Alex and Sonia ,they are described as a sort of trendy  hip middle-aged couple into the hip things  and image they are both Architects ,on the hip edge of this Sonia loves the works of the Franco /Swiss architect and urbanist Le Corbusier .So we she her going her and there to see his buildings .  So it is a shock when the third part of what becomes a love triangle in this book is Ivona she is a rather dull plain women from Poland that had come into Alex’s life a number of years before he started the affair with her then and we are being told how it happened  .What develops is a very strange and almost awful relationship Alex like the fact that Ivona is the total opposite to his wife and when she tries to make her self more appeal he makes her stay the same ,she top him appears as an object a thing he has to use not often as a person .Whilst his wife is going on about a new house and this and that .This happened in the past and is told with a cold tone at times giving an insight into Alex as maybe an emotional devoid man.

I had known her body in all its details .The heavy Pendulous breasts ,the rolls of fat at her neck ,her naval ,the stray black hairs on her back ,and her many moles .I knew how she smelled and tasted .How her body responded to touch ,I knew it repertoire of familiar movements ,but when I saw Ivona sitting there ,I had to acknowledge that I din’t know the least thing about her , that she was a complete stranger to me .

Sonia was a conquered land in Alex’s eye and Ivona was a woman of mystery .

I was looking forward to this on a number of levels I had heard how easy Stamm is to read ,he is the book took me a day and a half to fly through but then kept me thinking about it for the next week or so which was the other thing I had heard was  that Stamm is a writer that lies with you long after you have put the book down ,and yes he does .The other thing I really like is the fact it is a Hofmann translation I have always found his translation to be top drawer clean and unfussy style  ,with real sense that it isn’t a translation .So Alex and Sonia what do I make of them they struck me as very much like a typical English couple in the age group and tastes something of the yes they’ve read the books , like the right films but at the heart of the couple is a real void all the things in the world can’t make up for the fact they are quite shallow and really uninteresting people at the heart of it  I was reminded very much of the women from the film of Nick Hornbys High fidelity Charlie played by Catherine Zeta Jones ,who John Cusacks character describe her and her friends as being some one you like to be with but when you there with them you realise  they are actually quite vacant people   .Where as Ivona the Christian book seller is described as dull woman  but the more the book goes on the more she leaps off  the page .A real tale of love ,lose and marriage told with a subtle and careful tone by Stamm.

Have you read this book ?

Which Stamm would you suggest next for me ?

The Eleven by Pierre Michon

The Elven by Pierre Michon

French Fiction

Translators Jody Gadding and Elizabeth Deshays

Original title Les Onze

Source  Review Copy

Pierre Michon is one of the most highly regarded writers in France raised by his mother ,he studied literature at Clermount -Ferrand ,he then decide to join a travelling theatre company travelling .He entered the world of Literature at the age of 37 with the book small Lives ,a collection of interlocking stories looking at eight lives  also published by Archipelago .This book the eleven is his twelfth novel  and even thou it is a short book at just 97 pages it is one that Michon spent fifteen years working on .It won the French Grand prix prize from the French academy .

We know he was born in Combleux in 1730.
It is just upriver from Orléans with its visible church towers, and
it bathes gently on both branches of the Loire. Overhead of course
are those French Poussinian skies, which he rarely painted, and from
one steeple to the next following the levee the length of the river,
those islands, willows, rushes where as a child, one would have loved
to hide, and the sudden flights of birds. The Loire carried boats at that
time: and it is because of the boats, and what carried them, that the
creator of The Eleven was born on the shores of the Loire.

Corentin  early life and origins described

So the Eleven the title is taken from a painting a fictional painting that was supposed to have been painted during the height of the French revolution .The Artist Corentin is brought in to compile a painting the one of the title the eleven ,this  title refers to the eleven members of the  committee of .WE see how this painting was made from a number of angles ,we learn of the artist ,how he came to do the painting his thoughts whilst he is painting the paint ,the people in the painting .First Corentin this guy is a man who rose through the society he lives in, due to his talent as a painter .He rises  from his humble beginnings in Limousin region a rural area of France  .The committee well to mention a couple of names -Robespierre and Saint – Just two names that even I had heard of in regards the French revolution  .The struggle of Corentin in how he is to portray these men on the canvas with his feeling for them and how they want to be shown on the canvas .He is also comission to paint before this the mistress of louis XIV . So we see where his conflict comes from

Can you see them, Sir? All eleven of them, from left to right: Billaud,
Carnot, Prieur, Prieur, Couthon, Robespierre, Collot, Barère, Lindet,
Saint-Just, Saint-André. Unchanging and erect. The Commissioners.
The Great Committee of the Great Terror. Four point thirty by three
meters, a bit less than three.

The painting described and who starred in it

Corentin is maybe a representation of a number of artist that probably painted during the French revolution and how they maybe struggled at times with the art and the subjects they were painting   .Well as you see this is one of those French books that is very French(that sounds wrong ,I  mean in a publishing context ) I  can hardly see a British publisher taking a chance on a slim book about a fictional painting and painter  that has very little happen in it yet so much this is one of those books that makes you think .I was reminded at times of the Robles novel I read last year ,as this book has the same feel of themes on top of themes a web of ideas ,The eleven is rereader a book that I ‘m sure you get more from after every time you read it .The main theme is of course the connection between art and politics ,well the power of politics and politicians.I mean how often do we see the dictators round the world surrounded by images of themselves painting sculptures  .Also how often has art been used to capture a moment in time , I mean some of the most famous paintings from France  that I remember are paintings that fall in that category The raft of the Medusa being one of them also Delacroix liberty leading the people an image also from the French revolution  .We see the turmoil of the artist doing these paintings of these figures who hold the power but have let the power get to them .

Have you a favourite novel on art ?

Link to the publishers site .

Train To Budapest by Dacia Maraini

Train to Budapest by Dacia Maraini

Italian Fiction

Translator  Silvester Mazzarella

Original title Il treno dell’ ultima notte

Source personnel copy

Now Dacia Maraini is a name that always seems to be in the top ten when the odds for the Nobel literature prize are mentioned every year so when before Christmas I saw this in my local Oxfam I decided it was time to try her .So Dacia Maraini is an Italian writer her mother was a Sicilian Princess she was an artist and art dealer and her father was an Ethnologist and mountaineer ,The family fled Fascist Italy but end up In a camp in Japan til 1946.They return to Italy and Dacia lived with her father and was educated in well-known Florence school .She started writing age 27 in 1963 ,she had been married before that but was at that time living with the well-known Italian writer Alberto Moravia whom she spent time with til his death in 1983 .Well longer than usual Bio but I felt after reading her Wiki entry she has had a really interesting life .

How can that stone child have survived in that Ghetto ? Would he have had the strength to survive ? Was turning to stone a way of holding on ? And what if ,after all ,he had made it ? A boy has his life before him and it isn’t easy to break stone .

Amara musing after reading a letter from Emanuele

So to Train to Budapest well this is a novel of stories and two main plotlines ,mix styles and genres .So to break it up the main character in the book is Amara she is an Italian Journalist ,we join her on the train to Budapest she has been ask to write about the growing divide that is happening between east and west Europe post world war two  .This is 1956 and the Budapest itself  is heading to is itself heading to trouble as the brief freedom that is flourishing there is looking troubled .The reason that Amara took this job to write about Budapest is the second main plot of the book and that is the other main character in this book and that is Emanuele who was a friend of Amara when she was growing up they had both lived in Florence, then Emanuele family had gone to Vienna and this fallen foul of the Nazis .Emanuele story is told via the letter he had written to Amara during this time so you see the changing face of Austria the fact they have to wear stairs then can’t go here and there and then they are moved to The Ghetto the ? Well I leave that you to find out but at a point the letters to Amara ended and she is taking this journey to find out what happened to her friend  after that point and the people he knew and she did via the letters .Then you add to that a lovely half Jewish man that she meets on the train who’s  job sees him stepping in to be the father for people at weddings .Amara own war memories are mixed in as she take the journey things she will never forget .She also meets someone wanting to print letters from the Russian front .Will she find out what happened to her soul mate ?

The future opens before her like a precious flower touched by the first ray of the sun but still frozen on the branch ,Because spring is not yet here and the sun has deceived her .

The closing words so poetic .

Well this sounds complicated I can see you saying that but it works ,it is great musing on the world war two and how it affect just individuals not nations people also the echoes of the present (well 1956) Budapest and the situation in the Ghetto and for the Jews a sort of comparison of Communism and Fascism  ,with neither coming out on top .The pacing of the book works the sort of feeling of a train journey that feel of moving through the book but not  knowing you have done so .Dacia Maraini shows why she is a frequent Nobel favourite to make something so complex so easy to read and to stick with you long after I put the book down is very hard to do .This is one of those books you think why isn’t it better known it should be it is better than some similar books with less complex themes .

Have you ever read her books ?

Do you have a favourite Italian writer?

Memory of the abyss by Marcello Fois

Memory of the Abyss by Marcello Fois

Italian Fiction

Translator –  Patrick Creagh

Original title – Memoria del vuoto

Source – review copy

Well he we go its been five-year since Maclehose press started publishing their wonderful  books. I’ve been reviewing their books since the blog started ,so I came up with the idea of Maclehose press week ,to highlight the wonderful books they publish ,it also helping clear the backlog of books I ve read and not reviewed .So here we go with Marcello Fois  this is his second book to reach us in english .He is Italian writer ,playwright and screenwriter he studied Italian at the university of Bologna ,he then published his first book in 1992 aged 32 and has since published 25 books in Italian ,he has also written a libretto for an opera ,also episodes for an Italian TV series .

That he would be called Samuele was decided by Father Marci :

“Samuele was one of god’s knight .The fact is that every time the children of isarel failed to keep the covenant which they made with god which was honour him above all things.

Even his name has a mythical beginning

Memory of the Abyss is set in Sardinia  like an earlier book I read by Maclehose also set in Sardinia  from a female perspective  that was Accabadoa by Michela Murgia this book is told from a male perspective and roughly at the same time  ,So the book is set in Sardinia just as Il Duce has come to power and the main character is returning to  Italy after being in North Africa .This Guy  Samuele Stocchino is a well know Italian gangster ,what Fois has done is taken his return to Italy and his battle with the fascist forces and reimagined him as an almost mythical figure .We see him as a youngster enlist in the army go to North Africa to fight for the italian army against the natives .He returns disliking the empire italy has built ,but also still very proud of being Italian .He also hates what Il Duce and his fascist followers are doing to his homeland .Thus we see how this man takes on the authorities ,killing and genrally causing trouble as he does so the price on his head  grows as he ends up battling with just one figure from the regime who really want to get Samuele  ,but  his legend grows .So we see a mythical figure appearing from the pages a man of legend .

I saw Stocchino when everyone was saying he was dead ,and the Manai and Bardi clans and all their friends had paid for a mass and a new processional rob for the madonna ,embroidered by the nuns ,as well as jewels and a crown of solid silver .

Near the end his myth is huge he almost becomes a myth .

This book fits in the field of lack comedies dealing with war ,So the real life gangster Stocchino becomes like an Italian robin hood or kray twins where the fact he is a killer is overshadow by the fact he is fighting Fascism and trying to keep hold of an older vision of Italy he loved .The language of this book is very rich one imagines Patrick Creagh had a real task trying to get the beauty of Fois writing into English and I think he has succeed ,Fois imagery at times reminds you the richness you find in the Italian masters where you look and keep seeing more and more detail ,this is like that I kept finding myself turn back and rereading passages to get full beauty of the words .Yet again the feel of Sardinia is a world of old values and traditions fighting the changing world rather similar to the world of  Michela Murgia painted in the earlier Maclehose book I’d read also set in Sardinia .

The A26 by Pascal Garnier

The A26 by Pascal Garnier

French Noir fiction

original  title L’a 26

Translator by Melanie Florence

Source – Review copy

I mention a lot about the late french writers Pascal Garnier’s life in my first review of his debut in english translation .I would add this is the third book by Gallic  fiction ,I ‘ve been sent and I so pleased they did send me all three because Pascal Garnier was a writer that it is impossible to compare with any other writer ,he seems to be a true one-off .

Yolande could have been anywhere from twenty to seventy .She had a blurry texture and outline of an old photograph.As if she was covered in a fine dust .Inside the wreck of an old woman there was a young girl .

She had been in the house so long she hadn’t aged it seemed.

 

So when this his latest translation into English  fell through my door, two things flashed in my mind reading the blurb on the back first was hitch-hiker guide to the Galaxy (mainly the not wanting a road to be built which is of course the starting point of that book ),the other was league of gentlemen,the UK comedy series and the characters Tubbs and Edward ,they live together like Yolande and Bernard in this book and are also brother and sister .In fact that isn’t where the comparisons end Yolande has been stuck in the house since world war two ,it turns out she had a liaison with a german solider and that made her exclude post war so she got more and more of a recluse her only out look on the world is the little peephole or “arsehole on the world ” as she calls it .So since 1945 she hasn’t been out and now the diggers bulldozers are bearing down into her world (the exact time of this event isn’t clear but one feels it is in the last twenty years ,this would be about right as the road is a link from central France to the port of Calais and a lot of work was done to this road in the nineties as it is the main road people use from the channel tunnel .so does the road get built that is up to Bernard Yolande’s brother a retired train worker ,who himself is terminally ill (people dying or on the verge of death finding new lease of life is a recurring theme in Garnier’s books his other book how’s the pain that I read last year and will be reviewing next month also had a similar theme ) but this fight has given him ,a new darker lease of life defending his sister from the road builders .

As he was about to get back into the car ,Bernard felt as if someone’s gaze was burning into the back of his neck .The moon pierced the clouds like a cigarette hole in a black-hole curtain .As with Maryse ,the moon was full .Pure chance.But that wouldn’t stop them talking of a serial killer ,the full-moon murder .

What is he up too ?Bernard at night in the dark

Well as you can see another darkly odd piece of the French world ,this could almost be a documentary you see on channel Four “the French recluse and the road builders “.Garnier was a clever writer we see as little as possible apart from the main characters and the plot there is no fancy dressing in this story ,so all this is squeezed into a mere 100 pages .This book will to appeal to fans of League of Gentlemen I feel as I said this is a French cousin of theirs ,Yolande and Bernard are very much a French Edward and Tubbs .The great thing is translating his French wiki page  via google shows that in the twenty five years he was writing Garnier produce quite a few other books that will hopefully reach us in English . .

Have you read his book ?,

 

 

 

Sea of Ink by Richard Weihe

Sea of ink by Richard Weihe

Swiss fiction

Original title – Meer der tusche

Translator – Jamie Bulloch

Source – review copy .

So I come to the last of the year of  small epics by Peirene press .I’ve  over last week or two have  reviewed the other two books  in the series .This the final choice for last year  was written by Richard Weihe .Richard is a Swiss writer .He studied in Zürich and Oxford ,he has written a number of  very poetic biographies of artist ,he also translates poems and plays from American English .He also presented a Swiss TV series on philosophy .So to sea of ink not a non fiction bio but a Novella following the life of Chinese painter Bada Shanren .

Micheal Stipe sang about a perfect circle ,he of course meant a perfect circle of friends ,but Bada Sharen the star of the novella spent six years trying to just draw the perfect circle freehand .This novella is a study and insight into the man as an artist ,that man Bada Sharen is one of the most revered Chinese artist .He was also a poet and showed talent from an early age,We see the young boy move through his life training to be a pain ter a monk and nearing the end of the book a descent into madness .The book is structured in very short snappy chapters little glimpse into his life,his working style and why he painted that way  ,we also are treated to 11 of his pictures ,we see a change in his art through the pictures his early examples seem less assured .Bada was a man who sort perfection in his art and maybe let his life fall to the side at times due to this  .

Bada Shanren had become a master and young painters came from far and wide to show him their work and seek advice .They generally brought small gifts ,ink tablets from their Provence or jars of jam ,and he would thank them politely .These visits were punctuated long periods of silence ,when he would immerse himself completely in his work .

Bada Shanren at the height of his powers as a master artist

I struggled with this I loved Weihe writing style and would read his work again at times I was reminded of Thomas Bernard another writer who used art and artist in his work , in his novels but Weihe is a far more  minimalist compared to him in his careful use of words and just the bones of the story or the description of Shanren working on one painting .  Yet again Jamie showed what a great translator he is ,he work on love virtually one of my favourite books of recent years and has translated other books I’ve read and a couple on my tbr pile ,so to see his name as a translator is always one I know I ll get along with .Back to the book I think what the problem was is Bada Shanren himself I just didn’t click with him as a character I admired his art but  just couldn’t connect with him as a person. I may return to this book at a later date ,if I knew more about chinese art and culture maybe I would be more engaged .But this is a book for anyone that likes art or is artistic .

Have you read this book ?

Have you a favourite novel about art ?

The murder of Halland by Pia Juul

The murder of Halland by Pia Juul

Danish Fiction

Orginal title Mordet pa Halland

Translator Martin Aitken

Pia Juul is a Danish poet ,playwright and novelist ,she also translates books from English into Danish .She joined the Danish academy in 2006 and won a big poetry prize in 2011 for her collection radio theatre.This book won Danish banks literature prize a big prize in Denmark .

As I stood under the shower ,I suddenly realized that I had seen his coat and briefcase in the hall .He hadn’t left the house at all .Turning off the water .I called out to him nothing .The silence made me anxious .

Bess finds something isn’t right the morning after Halland is murdered .

The murder of Halland is a crime novel, but it is not the normal detective novel you may expect with the murder and detectives at the centre not in this book it is told from the point of view of Bess she is the wife of Halland in the title of the book is her husband who has been found murdered . The book follows what happens after that event .His body was discovered in the main square of the small town they live in . So Bess has to try to cope with his death and how it happened this make her to start to see those around here in a completely new light .Bess is a writer by trade so she starts to work out what happened between her and Halland and dealing with her own grief ,we start to see that every thing in their marriage isn’t as clear as it was first seems and many things had been Kept from Bess in the past .A refreshing change and twist on the normal crime novel

When’s the funeral ?

“Funeral ?” the concept seemed beyond me .

“Won’t there be one ?”

I felt like saying , ” how should I know ?” stupid but true .I supposed there would ne a funeral .But what was I meant to do ? how did one go about getting people buried ?

Bess struggles to cope at first .

Well the second in peirene’s year of small epics books and the first crime novel well that said ,it isn’t a crime novel in the true sense of the word .In fact more some one trying to fathom out what lead to the crime . A sort of paint by numbers to fill in the last bit that will be who killed Halland ,but as Bess goes along filling in the gaps she uncovers much more than a murder .The one book I’d compared it too after I read it was a south american novel by Horacio Castellanos Moya and his novel The she devil in the mirror ,in which a friend comes to find out what happened after the murder to find out what happened ,that story also had secrets in the background like this book did .I had found this one of the cleverest crime novels I ve read because you don’t have an idea who killed Halland and in a way the discovery of the murderer plays second place to Bess discovering what her life really was and how she has been hidden away from truths .Another book mention on the cover is Umberto Eco’s “The name of the rose “on the cover ,I can see the comparison with this book and Eco’s crime based books where the discovering of what went on takes a whole new angle and leads to wider discoveries usually .Well as I said with the first in tis series yesterday another gem from Meike and after 300 plus books I finally read a book from Denmark .

Have you read this one ?

What type of crime fiction do you like ?

Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard my 300th review

Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard

German title Holzfällen: Eine Erregung,

Austrian fiction

Translator – David McLintock

Source – library

Well after reading the corrections earlier this year ,I felt I need another fix of him before the year was out ,so when this had appeared in the library system I ordered it in .So I said a bit about him in my post earlier this month so I ll add this gobbit .In his last will ,he had banned all future productions and editions of his books within Austria for the remaining length of the copyright .This dislike of the system of arts and appreciation of arts within Austria is apt for this book .

While everyone was waiting for the actor ,who had promised to join the dinner party in the Gentzgasse after the premier of “The Wild Duck ” ,I observed the Auersbergers carefully from the same wing chair I had sat in nearly every day during the fifties , reflecting that it had been a grave mistake to accept their invitation .

Our narrator sat at the start of the book .

The arty types of Vienna have just been to the Burgtheater to see the latest production a version of the Henrik Ibsen play “the wild ducks “(Which opens as a dinner party is about to start rather like this book ) .So the arty folk all arrive at the Ausbergers house awaiting dinner and the chance to meet the star of the show .We meet our Narrator he is sat in a wing backed chair .we know this as it is frequently mentioned .The narrator is by his opinion an outsider of the group have recently returned to Vienna .So as the nights go on we see the actor ripped apart by the guests and the whole art scene in Vienna dissected piece by piece ,this is interrupted as the narrator adds his own feelings on this as well .The evening moves on and as the drink flows the arguments and observations grow stronger .

At this point the actor suddenly started recounting anecdotes ,the kind of theatrical anecdotes that always go down well in Vienna and provide life support for many a Viennese party that would otherwise be in danger of dying of paralysis .Most Viennese parties are able to survive for a few hours only because of these anecdotes .

Parties can dive into boredom our narrator tells us

Well this is what I love about Bernhard intense prose that just drag you in you feel as thou you are the narrator ,he is a writer but maybe not the best or maybe not as well thought of as he should be either way you feel this in some part this is Bernhard himself thinly veiled .It is in a lot of ways about how you view art to appreciate it or pull it apart at the seams and seemingly pull talented people apart because of minor flaws .I was reminded as I read this of one particular episode of Frasier where Niles and Frasier were meant to go to the theatre to see a famous actor but due to a mistake end up spending the show outside due to the own pretensions not letting them loose face and end up meeting and talking to the star even thou they missed the show completely .You feel in this book you are in a room of Austrian Nile’s and Frasier’s ,they would slide in so well with the crowd in the book .I think this is my favourite by him and maybe a good place to start with Bernhard as it isn’t overly long .Oh and fitting choice to be the 300th review on Winstonsdad

Have you read this book ?

From the diary of a snail by Gunter Grass

From the diary of a snail by Gunter Grass

German fiction

Translator -Ralph Manheim

Source –  personnel copy

Well it’s here again German lit month and this is my first offering a Gunter Grass I have reviewed cat and Mouse by him Before ,so won’t say much about him ,He has won the Nobel prize for literature  in 1999 and is known for quite outspoken at time and being  controversial as well his latest following comments about Israeli  .But he has also campaign for social reform and the social democrats in Germany .This is where this book from the diary of a snail .

This book seems a very personal book looking into Gunter Grass back story ,he was quite close to Willy Brandt (at time he meet he was starting to campaign to be chancellor of Germany ) so from 1961 Grass had worked for something called the political election forum of German writers .This book in the main part follows the narrator that is part of Brandt’s election team as they follow the election of him as chancellor  ,this is also coupled with a story of a Jew during the second world war  in the home city of Grass in Danzig .I ve also wondered a about Willy Brandt from the time I spent in Germany I know how well-regarded he was almost mythical so some glimpse I got by this book where interesting .Also another view of Danzig during the second world war was interesting his great trilogy is also based there but was from a German perspective , not a German Jewish perspective like this book .The title is also a view of how politics work slowly like a snail but also is maybe symbolic we see slugs and snails crop up through out the prose .

For me the election campaign began in a drizzle on the lower Rhine .In the Kleve town hall I spoke on “twenty years of federal Republic ” a speech which afterwards lost weight in some towns ,put a topical fat in others ,and never came to a full stop .

Early on read this and knew I d love it as I lived in Kleve for a year

So after the book visiting a town I had lived in I was gripped .I am a fan of Grass not the man himself I do find he is someone the maybe like the myth of himself and also to be in the public eye a lot .But this has all the classic marks of his writing the Danzig war setting is a theme that has cropped up in a lot of his books ,as has social commentary a book ,like “my century ” also touched these subjects .Maybe not the book to begin a journey with Grass as it is complex but it is also a personal book with the strong first person narrative in the present well the Brandt campaign you feel this is grass himself not a character ..Grass has since published two vols ‘(in english ) of an autobiography the third to come some time soon but due to the nature of the book a dictionary of Grimm’s words that tally to Grass life it will be a while to translate . I shall be reading peeling the onion part one of the collection soon and will see if the character in this book is Grass .

Have you read this book ?

Do you think Grass is maybe a bit outspoken ?

The confidant by Helene Gremillon plus Helene’s favourite books

The confidant by Helene Gremillon

French Fiction

Translator – Alison Anderson

Source review copy

Helene Gremillon is a French writer born in the late seventies  ,she studied both literature and history at university ,she then worked for le Figaro the French newspaper .This was her debut novel ,she is now a full-time writer ,she lives in Paris with the well-known French singer Julien Clerc.

I got a letter one day ,a long letter that wasn’t signed .This was quite an event ,because I’ve never received much mail in my life .My letter box had never done anything more than inform me that the sea-was -warm or that the-snow-was-good ,So I didn’t open it very often maybe once a week.When I hoped a letter would change my life completely …

the opening of the book and how it does for Camille .

So the confidant has two timelines in 1975 we see Camille ,who has just dealt with her mother dying .When she happens on some letter among the effects for the funeral .These letters make up the second time line coming from France the dark clouds of the second world war are in the background of this letter ,but this letter is not sign so it draws Camille in to who was this person sending this letter to her .but then the following week another letter arrives on a Tuesday and then every Tuesday Camille gets more info from the past  ,we start to find a love story in pre war and then world war two France Louis and Anne story of love comes to Camille across time .But then they are separated by war and we see Anne,she meets a baron and this innocent young women is drawn into a world or jealousy and revenge ..Also a child that Anne had  to help a childless couple during the war .Meanwhile part of this story starts to ring bells with Camille back in 1975 .

Dear Camille

With those words in my heart in my throat .Oddly it was at that moment I knew I was Louis .I unwrapped the brown paper.Inside was an exercise book .I opened it

Louis handwriting ,as always ,more cramped and more vigorous ,but this time ,writing someone else’s words

One of the notes Camille’s gets later in the book .

This novel may appear to be on the surface similar to other books over the last couple of years I mean the dual storyline in  different times has appeared in a couple of books over the last few years .I review the tiger wife which in some ways have similar sort of feel to this book  as it is about secrets , families and love .It is also easy to compare to various books in recent times that have been runaway success that have involved the second world war ,books such as suit Francaise ,the reader and alone in berlin books that open the personnel lives at war .But  in a large way this is a French book at its heart complex and deeper than it appears on the surface .It’s about secrets and what people will do to cover the truth up ,also about love between two people .Motherhood is another theme in this book ,also the modern question of surrogate motherhood ,which we see as a modern question is really an age-old question .I found this a complex but rewarding read that shows the best of French fiction also a wonderful twist on the Epistolary form of novel as half the book is made up of letters  .I was going to be doing an interview with Helene but with recent events I didn’t get time but she has kindly told me her six favourite books .which are below -

Belle du Seigneur by Albert Cohen
A love story to enchant the romantic at heart.

Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson
The last very good thriller I read.

Medea by Jean Anouilh
A text of stunning beauty which revisits what is for me one of greatest ancient myths.

An Anthology of French Poetry, which is always good to lose oneself in…

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
The loss and despair of an extremely brilliant little boy, who lost his father in the 9/11 attacks. For me, completely original writing.

The Notebook by Agota Kristof
A trilogy about the lives of two twins, a short, effective and sharp story. Poetic and despairing.

Many thanks for Helene for sharing her favourite books .I will be try the Cohen at some point .This is part of a blog tour for Gallic books this week

Monday was Davids post

Tuesday was Novelicous which had Helene writing room pictured

today well its me lol

Thursday tomorrow is cornflower books .