Lost Luggage by Jordi Punti

Lost luggage by Jordi Punti

Spanish fiction

Original title -MALETES PERDUDES

Translator – Julie Wark

Source – review copy

Jordi Punti is one of the rising voices in Catalan literature ,born in 1967 ,he moved to Barcelona to study  philology ,then went to work for a publishing house in Barcelona ,where he has worked translating writers such as Pennac ,Nothomb and Auster .He also writes poetry and in the newspapers regularly as well as novels and short stories .Lost luggage is his first book to be translated to English.

If we’re going to make progress we Christopher’s now need to return to carrer to Napols The first time we four brothers met in Barcelona , incredulous,suspicious and still dumbfounded by the revelations . Cristòfol showed us our fathers Mezzanine flat .

They start on their quest for Gabriel .

Well lost luggage as a title has a double meaning, the first comes from the main figure in the book. Gabriel a truck driver ,he was an orphan and went into trucking with his two friends he knew growing up ,after he left the orphanage .They literally on every trip the took in the truck around Europe, lost luggage  a box  Would disappear and the three friends divide them up all this was during the reign of Franco in Spain dark days indeed .The second meaning is lost luggage is what Gabriel left behind ,this is how we are introduced to him via his first son  Cristòfol the Spanish son and until this point when contact by the police that his father has gone missing ,he hadn’t seen him in 20 years ,he doesn’t know him to well has disappeared .This leads him to met three other  men called Christof, Christophe and  Christopher ,they are his half brothers his father had whilst trucking  .And are from Great Britain , France and Germany .So they meet not til this point,they were  unaware  of one another’s existence to this point  .All the more than they only have  slim facts from  their  respective mothers told them about Gabriel so the go on a quest to find him and learn about him .Along the way they become the Christopher’s like one and did his father ever got to Italy ? all this and more we find out .

Gabriel had learned to pace his relationship with his three equidistant women and three sons and ,like a good plate spinner ,he seemed to keep his cool .Of course ,the rules of the game were in his favour :he had his base camp in Barcelona ,where he lead a bachelor’s existence and ,thanks to removal work ,went to visit his famlies from time to time .

Gabriel described as plate spinner sounds right not easy what he did .

Well this book when it arrived reads like a headline from one of those women magazine” shock horror I discover my three half brothers with the same name “

the sort of thing you think oh no. I don’t want to read that .But no this is not that it is funny ,dark and at heart of this book is about how a moment of discovery can change the course of four lives for ever .We also get to the bottom of what motivate Gabriel to have these four children and why have they all got the same name ?Why did he run away from them ? Under all is the meaning of being lost whether boxes ,sons ,father ,mothers and living under Franco .Not overtly political we sense the wrongs of Franco regime .Punti as a Catalan a language that until after Franco wasn’t taught .This book is hard tom place in the cannon of Spanish fiction I ve read I think I need to read Monzo another Catalan writer to compare him too ,Like one of my favourite Spanish writers the Basque writer Bernardo Atxaga ,Punti shows how different the writing can be in Spain Catalan is language that developed separately to Spanish and one that seems to have a strong voice in its fiction if this book is anything to go out .

What can we read into the food served in the Dinner blog tour

I was asked to join the blog tour,very happy as it was one of my favourite reads last year and a book I feel people should get to know bettr ,anyway I thought a few words on some of the food served during the meal would be fun .I did review The dinner last year and Alan from words of mercury kicked of the tour yesterday any way lets look at the food .

 

The dinner menu

Starter

Crayfish with baby onions dressed in a tarragon vinaigrette

Main course

Fillet of Guinea fowl

wrapped in ultra thin german bacon

on a bed of lettuce

Desert

A parfait of home made chocolate and shaved almonds

and grated walnuts

Topped with our own Blackberries fresh from the garden

*

Starter

Well I look at the crayfish and thought two things about why it might be chosen .One that they are fish that live of clean the water around them and maybe that is a fore warning of what is about to happen in the meal .The other point is there not Lobster smaller and is the maybe a point is this about a small fish in a big world ,one of the brother is a politician and is he maybe a small fish not the big one he thinks he is .

Main course

The main course again has Guinea fowl, which like the crayfish is a smaller version of fowl that one would usually eat and why is the bacon German ? at this point the action round the table is starting to get heat up as the two brothers discuss what their they are there for I do wonder what Dave lamb would say as he saw the four people round the table discussing there sons actions .

Desert

Parfait is a hard dish to make as it takes time and care to master .Strange rather like the decisions the two brothers and the wives are making round the table if one step goes wrong the outcome will be completely wrong .Blackberries from the garden maybe shows that the politician brother needs to get back to the people and maybe have something everyone would eat like Blackberries we’ve picked up ourselves .

Well sure I’m wrong but thought a quick look at the foods the brothers and wives ate during the dinner .

Do you ever wonder about the food mentioned in books you read ?

Fellow blog tour folk

 

Share your thoughts online: @atlanticbooks #thedinner.

26th April Stu Allen:

29th April Tina Hartas:

30th April – Marion McGilvary:

Pedantic Press

1st May David Hebblethwaite:

2nd May Megan Wood:

3rd May Marcia Jarnell:

 

25th April Alan Bowden:

 

tops on the blog tour .

 

Ways of going home by Alejandro Zambra

Ways of going home by Alejandro Zambra

Chilean fiction

Original title Formas de volver a casa,

Translator – Megan McDowell

Source Review copy

I have read him before Kim from reading matters sent me The private lives of trees a couple of years ago ,I read it but never review it so with Spanish lit month  in July I decided to review this now and The private lives of trees .Alejandro Zambra is a Chilean born writer he studied in Chile  a degree in Hispanic languages  ,and currently teaches in Santiago and contributes to magazines and papers in Chile his first novel was describe stunningly as “The publication of Bonsai … marked a kind of bloodletting in Chilean literature. It was said (or argued) that it represented the end of an era, or the beginning of another, in the nation’s letters” in El Mercurio .

THE NIGHT OF THE EARTHQUAKE I WAS SCARED

But I also, in a way enjoyed what was happening .

In the front yard one of the house ,the adults put up two tents for the children to sleep in ,and at first it was chaos because we all want to sleep in the one that looked like an igloo

As I said halves scared /but enjoyed

SO we get to ways of going home it is one of those short novellas that seem much longer and deeper after you have put it down if you know what I mean .It’s a book of memory and halves .The book is in two section we meet a young boy in the dark days of Pinochet’ s regime ,but our narrator has a fairly normal life as it appears to him in fact if anything slightly boring ,but then there is an earthquake and almost like the Shibbolth artwork (the crack in the floor of the turbine hall of Tate modern Doris Salcedo a fellow Latin american ),out of this crack  of the earthquake appears Claudia a slightly older girl than him, we  sense our narrators immediate attraction and liking of this girl as he spies on her from afar but getting closer  ,they get to know one another and she gets him to look at her uncle to she what he is up to.No as quickly as she appears, no sooner  has her and her family disappeared from his life but he never forgets her  ,til they meet in adult life  ,he is full of remorse for the violence of the Pinochet years and how him and his family didn’t do a lot ,Claudia family did that is why she went ,find out how these two getting together changes our narrators life for ever .Also what really happened during those years though unspoken at times is always lurking in the background .

When I was a child I liked the word Blackout .My mother would come and get us and bring us into the living room.”In the past,people didn’t have electricity “, she would say as she lit the candles .It was hard to imagine a world without lamps , without outlets in the wall .

As an adult remembering the past .

I said this is a book of memories our narrator rather like my self ,ok I didn’t have a violent dictatorship ,but had a bad divorce of my parents a step father I didn’t get on with and a being clumsy skin and tall was a target for bullying .But now as I look back on my younger years these events thou there are second place to family holidays ,evening spent with friends ,day trips in fact all the best bits .I feel this is our narrators problem his is the reverse as a child to him it all seemed wonderful he almost blanked out the bad parts ,til they reappeared in adulthood .I also said halves well-being young /being old ,being safe /having to run ,being quiet like the narrators parents / speaking out like Claudia’s  parents ,moving on /not forgetting.Also the shadow of the dark days of being Chilean in the 80′s looms large in the background   .Zambra is a writer of true  style in fact that sparse writing style that yet seems fuller ,like Carver did in his short stories the novella has been worked to a delicate lace of words that thou fragile and thin is truly beautiful .

Have you read Zambra ?

Do you have a favourite Chilean writer ?

Brief loves that live forever by Andreï Makine

Brief loves that live forever byAndreï Makine

Russian fiction

Original title  Le Livre des brèves amours éternelles,

Translator Geoffrey Strachan

Source Review copy

I ve reviewed Maikne before on the blog twice before the life of an unknown man and Human love  ,so have said a lot about the siberian born russian that has made his home in France and now writes in French .He is also now being published by Maclehose press for the first time .So this is his latest collection I m not sure if its a Novel or a interlocking collection of stories my self .

All young lovers travel this road and all ,in their alarm ,have only one soloution :to put pressure on the limits our poor human bodies impose on us .We doubled the violence of embraces,seeking now the complicty of the sea at night ,now the solitude of water falls in the forest.

Love in the soviet era is grasped at for all it is worth

So as you see on  the cover art, you sense what this book is  about  before you  read this book well the  picture gave me a sense of something being  a  tale of past like the birds that fly away every year but are remembered .This book is at heart russian and about loss and love ,but also moments in life .The life in collection is that of Dimitri Ress ,now on his way out of life .But through these eight chapters / stories ,we glimpse the love in harsh times ,what love is how we view love from a child through growing to becoming an adult .All this is set against a backdrop of 60′s and 70′s Russia .We see the child in an orphanage ,via an older man who has come to see them able to touch the very beginning of communism as this man had met Lenin ,through a holiday affair ,a women visiting a grave in France ,the Afghan war Ress gets injured .The dark grim times I remember of Brezhnev  we saw in the west those news reports of what seemed a very grim place ,here don’t seem so grim at times and shows as ever love can win through rather like Nadas in Parallel stories love and sex or even the whiff of sex is all that remains given communism .The start of the book also remind me of the start of life of an unknown man as it is two men meeting and one telling his life to the other .The women he meets and loves and how he remembers them remind me at times of the lines from the film city slicker where Jack Palance talks about a women he saw but never meet and just the fact that he could she her outline against the sun ,this is how Ress remembers not the whole just the feel of the women .

At the time of our meeting almost thirty years ago ,these were the solemm word I believed were needed to sum up Dimtri Ress’s life:a revolt against a world in which hatred is the rule and love a strange anomaly .And the failure of God whose creation man is called upon to set to rights …

Near the end his friend sums up the man .

Well I love Makine  ,his books always strike a chord with me and this book has the classic hooks of his writing they are soviet russia ,love as in this case not always working out ,the struggle for a better life .Though he lives in France and has as I said before has written other books under an alias that made the French press think there was a new French talent but no it was Makine ,where as his own writing is distinctively Russian ,with a real sense of longing and asking ,but I do always sense hope in his works and ok it doesn’t always work out .I’m not sure how you describe the book a novel or episodic novel but it lingers with you after you’ve put the book down remember like a collection of old sepia photos you’ve just pulled from under your bed and gone through and tell some one Ress memories some how drift into your own .Just wonderful .

Have you read Makine ?

 

My Independent foreign fiction Prize shortlist 2013 Winstons choice

Well after the longlist was announced I quickly got two of the books I ve not read from my local Library ,then brought another and finally after my birthday I had enough too afford a Kindle and a voucher to get some books and got the Last two books from the longlist which early Monday morning I finished In praise of hatred .We from the shadow jury are busy giving our views on the list and compiling a shortlist .But as shortlist is announced tomorrow I decide to pick my personnel six books and then later in the week will share our shadow Jury shortlist .

Winstons shortlist

Satantango by Laszlo Kraznahoraki

SatanTango was one of my favourite books from the last year ,I felt his prose are like wading through Treacle sticky , very tasty and tough going ,but should all books be easy ?

Traveller of the century By Andres Neuman

Set in an imagined town in medieval Germany ,Andres Neuman showed why he is so lauded in Spain and Latin america .

A death in the family by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Maybe this is hyped or maybe not but I found the way he made the everyday and family life sparkle as never before ,grim at times but hey life isn’t a bed of roses .

Trieste by Dasa Drndic

Well I felt this ahd HhHH are similar both quite stylistic books Iread both last year ,but it was this one that I still think over and am still touched by more than HhHH .

Dublinesque by Enrique Villa -Matas

A Joyce fan by Vila-Matas is writes a homage to his hero and the city he was from Dublin .Riba is also in the publishing buisness what is not to love .

In praise of hatred By Khaled Khalifa

Well I’ve yet to review but this openss Syria up although set in the past one can see the horrors people have had to endure .So much it was banned there .

So there we go ,I ve read all the books thought over ,digested and absorb and this is Winstonsdad’s view of this year longlist and my Favourites I must admit this years jugdes did a stunning job choosing this years longlist ,I Know there isn’t a bad book on the list having read them all .

 

 

 

The last of the Vostyachs by Diego Marani

The last of the Vostyachs by Diego Marani

Italian fiction

Original title – L’ultimo dei Vostiach

Translator – Judith Landry

Source – Personnel copy on Kindle

Well I was surprised when Diego Marani name appeared for a second year in a row on the Independent Foreign fiction prize longlist .As last years book was very near to winning in my opinion ,so although I hadn’t read this one , I had it on my Radar to read at some point .So to Diego Marani , he still works for the European Commisson in the department dealing with translation .,he also writes a number of pieces for the culture section of the Italian Paper Il Sole 24 Ore.

Since that day Ivan had not uttered a word .He had carried on washing stones in the pool of icy water ,had split rocks with his pick axe ,had pushed the wheelbarrow along the steep ,slippery path ,had gone about all his work with lowered eyes ,had endured all manner of humiliation ,eating without looking to see what they poured into his mess tin ,getting up at dawn and going to bed at sunset with out a word .

Ivan in his Camp days .

So as before with his earlier book “” new Finnish grammar” this book is set around Finland and in particular its language . The action is actually all in Finland unlike New Finnish grammar .We meet a Linguist who is on a field trip trying to research trying to find the missing link in the development of the Finnish language (a language that only has connections to Hungarian and Estonian) .When out of nowhere appears a man Ivan this man was in the forced labour camps of the soviet era and hasn’t spoken for a number of years living in the back and beyond of Finland since his release for twenty years ,when he does speak its strange to Olga as he is the last member of the Voystach speakers an old language that links finnish to a number of other theories she has had ,this language links and is the missing link Olga has been looking for .So she packs this wild man Ivan has spent years in the wilderness to Helsinki ,what follows is a battle as She presents her results to a Meeting of Congress of Finno Ugric ,a Note professor tries to sideline her findings ,meanwhile Ivan isn’t really suited to the city and soon finds himself in trouble in the big city .Plus a number of creatures escape from the zoo and dead bodies appear .

Ivan woke up in a sweat .He sat up in his bunk not knowing where he was ,and gazed around him in bewilderment at the dimly light cabin .He was hungry and thirsty .He felt around ,on the shelves ,in the drawers of the bedside locker among the covers .He pulled on a handle found himself faced by a row of bottles ; there were also bars of chocolates.

Ivan struggles with city life .

So Like New Finnish Grammar and again the Finnish Language ,I can see the attraction to him I remember Michael Palin talking to Finnish people on a bus about their language in his series pole to pole and since then have been intrigued , as it is such a unique language and difficult to master with little connection to other European languages .I think this is the point that gave Marani a starting Kernel for this story” what if there is a language X out there ?” to fill in the gap in the history of Finnish ,rather like the constant clues for the stages of Human Evolution .This books differs from the last by him ,as it has a wit mainly due to the human condition, Ivan being a man out of water in the city ,the linguist trying to out do one another .The book has a thriller feel about it but a clever version of this genre with twists and turns the struggle between Olga and the professor and the man caught up in this the pawn Ivan .Also a lot of history of the region is involved mainly Russian rule and influence over the country and area ,We see this in the fact Ivan hates Russian being spoken .

Have you read this book ?

A handful of sand by Marinko Koščec

A handful of sand by Marinko Koščec

Croatian fiction

Original title To malo pijeska dianu

Translator Will Firth

Source – review copy

Every time a book from Istros books drop through my door ,I know for a fact I’m in for a treat so far this is my fourth books from every one as different as the one before but equally as brilliant as the one before so no to the book from Marinko Koščec ,He is a lecturer in French literature for the university in Zagreb .he works as an editor for the Sysprint publishing house and also teaches novel-writing .He has so far published five novel his novel someone else won a big prize in Croatia ,this book Handful of sand was nominated for the Jutarnji list award .

For as long as I can remember I’ve been a magnet for weirdos both for those who are kept at a safe distance with that label ,as well as people who live among us peacefully and pose no danger til something in them erupts, for no apparent reason and seem to need my proximity when it starts .

Haven’t we all felt like this at times ?

 

A handful of sand is a story of a romance between two people ,but is larger than that, it is  the story of two people ,but also living and growing up in the modern Croatia of the book  .The book is formed of interchanging chapters one from a male narrator the other a female narrator .The male narrator works in publishing  as a proofreader (we also see a number of mentions of translations into Croatian here ) we follow him from his  child hood through university to now working in publishing ,the ups and downs of a modern life loss, disappointments   ,his relationship with his parents ,the female narrative moves along a same path  to the male ,but it is the male story I associated with more ,what comes across is how do we get to where we are ? This book I said is a romance novel but instead of starting at the usual point we start a romance novel we start and the start and get to the starting point of the romance ,so as the book progresses we she the two unnamed narrators move closer in each others circles to each other .Til ?and then out again

Very soon ,perhaps while we were still standing there ,I knew I wasn’t imaging things ; although that couldn’t yet be true because truth still had to be woven ,weft for weft and warp for warp .I’D been irritated and disheartened so many times by those standard expectations that I just fulfil the stereotype and nourish it with my flesh

How often have you felt this upon meeting someone

 

I think the most important bit of information I discovered about Marinko Koščec  is that he teaches french Literature ,because at times this reminds me of existentialist writing the books is so much about detail as about why and who we are ,what makes us the person we are at a certain point which is of course the whole question behind existentialism . Marinko Koščec Has a dark wit as well a couple of times I even laughed out loud during this book .This book shows how precious and fragile love is between two people in Modern Croatia ,but this story is also a story every one can associate with even outside Croatia  .I not sure where the title comes from but I imagine sand draining out of a hand til you end up with two grains of sand left by chance and isn’t that what love is sometimes chance aren’t we all grains of sand waiting to end up together .I also wonder if it is an homage to the Waugh book a handful of dust,but as I read the book I just thought it was chance they had a similar titles .I must also mention that any one near london and book fairing it must see Istros books as they are running the Croatian book stand at the fair the first time a Balkan state has had a stand at the book fair

Have you a favourite book from the Balkans

Bundu by Chris Barnard

Bundu by Chris Barnard

South African (Afikanns ) literature

Original title – Boendoe

Translator Michiel Heyns

Source – review copy sent for iffp review

Well I must admit of all the books on this years Independent foreign fiction longlist ,this one came out of right field for me ,I was unaware of Chris Barnard and must admit haven’t read many Afrikaans novels from south africa .So this one has been for me a journey of discovery ,first to the writer .Chris Barnard ,studied art at the university of Pretoria in the fifties ,he then became involved with the Afrikaans writing group Die Sestigers a group of Afrikaans writers including Andre Brink (whom I have read ) ,Breyten Breytenbach (whom I have archipelago books collection by him they published a couple of years ago on my tbr pile ) and a few others .Any way they sought to voice their opions against apartheid from the Afrikaans point of view .Chris Barnard is also a well-known film and Tv producer in his home country ,his second novel Mahala is consider a south African classic ,he has written 18 books this was his last novel to be published in 1999 .

The Baboon troop had originally not really been part of my research .simply because quite a bit of my research had previously been done on every aspect of their feeding habits .But Eugene Marais’s more or less scientific writings on his observations of Baboons in the Waterberg had fascinated me ever since childhood ,even though initially it had been a romantic enchantment rather than scientific interest .

Brand tell how he got there

Well Bundu ,is set in Mozambique ,near the border with South africa in a remote part of the country ,in a small struggling Clinic ,we met them among them is pious nuns ,a drunken pilot ,the clinic volunteers and Brand `de le ray who is studying the local Baboons .During the course of the novel we see this group of people struggle as the rain have failed to come and we see how man is the same as the world around him when this happens we all need water and substance to survive ,along side this runs a love story involving Brand and someone from the clinic , as the tragic figures in this remote place are caught and waiting for much-needed help, are struggling to get by .Will Help get there ,how much have we in common with nature ? what is the aftermath of the war that happened between South africa and Mozambique .

Sister Roma and Sister Erdman were both out of sorts ,and I spent the rest of the day helping Julia and Vukile in the clinic .There was a child with what seemed to be a broken arm and I tried to devise a splint .I sterilized syringes and carried a wet mattress out into the sun and helped make beds and fed weak patients .I tried to steer clear of the smaller ward with the seriously ill patients .

The situations starts getting worse for the clinic all hands to the pumps .

Now this is a book that if it hadn’t been for the IFFP longlist I wouldn’t have picked up ,although vaguely aware of the Die Sestigers via Brink and Breytenbach .Barnard is different to brink but what shines through his prose is a love of the land and also how closely man is connected to the land we live on and the creatures around us .Strange I was reading this as I listen to Simon Savidge and Gav reads pod cast the other day about Literary fiction and Plot driven books ,well I must say this is one of the most plot driven books I have read in a long while ,also fast paced writing you can almost feel a speeding drum beat as you read drawing you ever near to the end of the book

Have you a favourite South African writer ?

Have you read many books translated from Afrikaans ?

Shadow man Asian

It is our great pleasure to announce the winner of the Shadow Jury’s Man Asian Literary Prize for 2012.

The four-member Shadow Jury has chosen Narcopolis, by Jeet Thayil.

Described variously by the members of the jury as a “strangely compelling” and “utterly, compellingly addictive” novel that “marries a beautiful prose style with some deeply unbeautiful subject matter”, this novel could not be further apart from our winner last year, Please Look After Mother, by Kyung-sook Shin. The fact that such different novels can win the same prize is a testament to the breadth and depth of Asian writing uncovered by the Man Asian Literary Prize. Full reviews of the novel are available at each participating blog.

If Narcopolis wins the Man Asian Literary Prize, it will be the first debut novel to do so under the new rules introduced in 2010.

The Shadow Man Asian Literary Prize Jury was formed in 2010 to promote the Man Asian Literary Prize throughout the world. It comprises four bloggers: Matthew Todd (http://matttodd.wordpress.com), Lisa Hill (http://anzlitlovers.com), Mark Staniforth (http://eleutherophobia.wordpress.com) and Stu Allen (http://winstonsdad.wordpress.com). In its first year, it correctly picked the winner of the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize, Please Look After Mother, by Kyung-sook Shin.

The Man Asian Literary Prize began in 2007 as a prize for unpublished manuscripts, though was revamped in 2010 to recognise the best Asian novel each year. The official Man Asian Literary Prize winner for 2012 will be announced in Hong Kong on Thursday 14 March 2013.

Silent House by Orhan Pamuk

Silent House by Orhan Pamuk

Turkish Fiction

Original title Sessiz Ev

Translator Robert Finn

Source – Personnel copy

Well I ve read four Pamuk Novels before this one and as is the case in the world of translation ,I’ve read them out-of-order of publications in Turkish I start with my name is read followed by Snow then Back to an earlier book Whit Castle ,then his latest the Museum of Innocence.Now this has arrived in English and was the second novel written by Orhan Pamuk , but is the ninth to be published in English and the first to be translated by Robert Finn .I have previously mention a lot about Pamuk in the other books I reviewed ,he is Turkeys best known writer and has won the Nobel prize for literature .This book is a double hit for me as it is the fourth from the Man Asian Short-list I ‘ve read but also the tenth book I ve reviewed from this year’s independent foreign fiction prize .

But tomorrow they’ll come and I’ll think again . Hello ,hello how are you ,they’ll kiss my hand ,many happy returns ,how are you ,Grandmother ,how are you ,how are you , Grandmother ? I’ll take a look at them .Don’t all talk at once ,come here let me have a look at you ,come close ,tell me what you have been doing ? I know I’ll be asking to be fooled and I’ll listen blankly to a few words of description!

Fatima the night before the hoards descend on here

So Silent House well the title is a bit of joke because this is anything but a book about silence or a silent house .The book is set in the early eighties a turbulent time in Turkey and we are with Fatima and yes at start as she await the hoards to descend (her extended family of grandchildren to arrive for the summer ).The family arrive one by one and each member of the family is like a jigsaw piece as they arrive we learn a bit more about the family ,but also about turkey as a whole as each one of her grandchildren represent a different face of turkey Faruk is the idealist a troubled historian ,the sister Nilgun that is part of a new elite in turkey with money ,a drop-out ,a right-winger ,As they arrive the hose becomes very vocal and the house becomes a micro version of The turkey of the time .The book is set in 1980 just a coup is in the offering .

It’s well after midnight ,but I can still hear them moving about what could they be doing down there ,why don’t they go to sleep and leave me the silent night ? I get out of bed ,walk over to the window ,and look down :Recap’s ;light is still on ,lighting up the garden:what are you doing there ,dwarf ? It’s frighting ! he’s so sneaky ,that one every once in a while I catch him giving me a look ,and I realize he notices everything about me , watching the smallest gestures ,

The house is loud and what does Recap the dwarf know ?

Where does this lie in the body of Pamuk’s work ,well it is very different as one would imagine with a second novel .The book is a book of voices but also a clever way of discussing the turkey of the time without Pamuk using his own voice as he uses the myriad of character in this book to show the troubles with in his own country ,but also to show how these troubles affect people on a personal every day level .The children also in there own ways show how politics effect people in different way , burying your head in the bottle ,being to rich too notice troubles ,joining a gang of fascists and following the latest causes .Then there is Fatima her self the sort of women that runs a large family in her ninties but has the respect of all and she also has a dwarf servant Recap .I did enjoy this more than I have recent Pamuk novels .Now the question is would this have been better published at the time ,part of me thinks yes then another part thinks it is still happening turkey is still a country with many faces and problems of its own and the book still shows how far they have come and how far they have to go .

Have you read this book ?

Do you have a favourite Orhan Pamuk ? mine is my name is red