A little Lumpen Novelita by Roberto Bolano

 

 

A little Lumpen Novelita by Roberto Bolano

Chilean fiction

Original title – Una Novelita Lumpen

Translator – Natasha Wimmer

Source – Personnel copy

It has been a while since I reviewed Bolano he is one of the most review writers on the blog I have reviewed seven of his works on the blog as I work through all short books before I go back and reread savage detectives and 2666 both of which I read before the blog. I still have the return and Amulet on my tbr pile to read. This particular book was part of a project to get ten latin american writers at the turn or the millennium to write a story set in Rome. This book has also been made into a film.

One morning the Bolognan and the Libyan left. I spent an hour, more or less, going through the drawers to see whether they’d stolen anything. Nothing was missing.

Even I couldn’t deny that their conduct had been impeccable for the five days they’d stayed with us. They always washed the dishes, three times they hade dinner themselves, and they didn’t try anything with mr , which was important. I could sense the interest in their eyess, in the way they moved, and the way they talked to me, but I noted their self control and found it flattering

Bianca is an innocent in many ways as this passages shows .

This is a typical work of Bolano in his novella writing as it is a patchwork of a book . The story follows a orphaned brother and sister in Rome . Bianca the sister narrators the story, it see them trying to cope with the loss of their parents as they have to start work. But then her brother appears with two criminals just known as the Libiyan and Bolognan ,  they start to work out a crime that the four can do . This involves Bianca become close to a man Maciste a blind former film star , but in a weird twist she develops a weird S&M relationship with the man she is meant to be finding where this former star keeps his money.

Maciste’s eyes- unlike my brother’s eyes and his friends eyes- weren’t innocent. He almost always wore sunglasses. But sometimes he would take them off and look at me or pretend to look at me. Then I would shiver and close my eyes and hug him or try to hug him, which was alway hard considering his size. One day the Bolognan said to me

“That bastard is messing with your head.Find the safe ansd let’s get this over with”

I was reminded of that look frank had in the film Blue velvet as he is watch by Jeffrey

This is one of the stories that has no crime but is a crime story the crime isn’t part of the story it is rather like what Tarantino did in his classic film reservoir dogs where the crime is never show just the the meeting before and the aftermath this is like that we see the four discussing the crime , Bianca taking a lowly and dangerous position as a cleaner come sex toy for the blond old man this remind me somewhat of David Lynch;’s character Frank Booth another man with illness  and unhealthy way with woman. This isn’t a masterpiece but another little piece of the mosaic that is  Roberto Bolano the writer. glimpse at what made him the great writer that he was in this work .Also his love of good and evil the paths people take in there lives which has been at the centre of most of his works and how poverty sometimes leads to the wrong paths in life just to survive whether in Rome or the streets of Mexico city say .

Have you a favourite short Bolano work ?

Tech problems and german lit reading

 

Well I have had a busy few days when I had intend to blog the simple matter of a new phone and  laptop turned into a three act drama. first off I was in line for a new phone as my contract was running out so , after much debate about which phone to get I decide to go retro and got the iPhone se as it was when I tweeted most with my smaller iphones much easier to use. which seemed a good idea so the other night I got home set it up and then decide I should blog. Next day as the gaps are getting further apart in my blogging of late. I decide it was about time to pull my socks up. I was mistaken a decision to update my new phone which then crashed sent me  into a spiral of what to do as I needed a pc, as my chromebook is a gem for blogging but as for ITUNES and word documents it is hard and as I have recently started my NVQ 3 in care and need to do most of the work on line I rushed out for a new laptop and hope that it will get me back on the blogging track as it isn’t lack of reading I am five books into the German lit month reading with some great short gems from seagull books and an epic former German book prize shortlist book. as for me I am happy to be back in the groove reading wise and hope to be in the groove blogging wise.Oh and my phone is now working ok thank goodness  What you been up too ?

Bohumil Harbal Too loud a solitude – Kick starter

 

I got an email from the makers of this project a film of the book Too Loud a solitude by the Czech writer Bohumil Harbal .link to the kickstarter page 

EW YORK, NY (October 11, 2016) – Award winning artist and short film director Genevieve Anderson (“Boxed”, “Sunlight”, “ola’s box of clovers”) will bring to life Czech author Bohumil Hrabal’s beloved novella Too Loud A Solitude (Příliš hlučná samota ,1976), marking her feature film debut and the first of Hrabal’s works to be adapted by an American director.  Hrabal fans worldwide are invited to support the project via the film’s Kickstarter campaign, which launched under the Sundance Institute’s curated page on September 27, 2016 and will run through November 1.

With a script by Alex MacInnis (This American Life, “Down to the Bone”), and visual effects supervised by Evan Jacobs (“Captain America”, “Ant Man”, “Avengers”, “Alice in Wonderland”). “Too Loud a Solitude” will utilize live action puppets, animation, stock photographs and footage to tell the story of a waste paper compactor within a police state who has acquired an education so unwitting he often can’t tell which are his thoughts and which come from his books.

Golden Globe and Emmy winner and Academy Award nominee Paul Giamatti is attached to lend his voice talent to the main character of Hanta. Producers Steve Gaub (“Beauty and the Beast”, “Unbroken”, “Oblivion”), Kelly Miller (“Forgiven”, “Y Tu Mama Tambien”, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), and Frank Rehak (Fulbright Fellow, Academy of Film & Photography – FAMU – Prague; Johns Hopkins University) are poised to begin pre-production in Spring 2017.

“The outpouring of support for this project has been amazing over the years,” said Anderson. “We have been working on this project in one form or another since 2004.” In fact, the crew was able to shoot a 17-minute excerpted version of the feature script in 2007, funded by the Rockefeller Media Artist Foundation, Heather Henson, and the Jane Henson Foundation.

Hrabal is widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of the 20^th century, and has had two novels adapted to film by director Jirí Menzel, including the 1968 Oscar-winning Closely Watched Trains, and six other film adaptations [see here for the source: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/feb/23/classics.culture ]. Hrabal’s poignant visual writing style has had wide-ranging influence on writers, including Philip Roth and Louise Erdich [see here: http://www.themillions.com/2014/07/the-academy-of-rambling-on-on-bohumil-hrabals-fiction.html ], and artists such as the Australian singer/songwriter Nick Cave, among many others.

Renowned contemporary video artist and collaborator Bill Viola describes Anderson’s work as follows:

“Watching Genevieve’s films, and the worlds they evoke, give me the distinct impression that I am seeing right into someone’s private inner world, a place where the characters and situations were the direct embodiments of the feelings for the events and not simply their visual, dramatic representations. This indicates to me that her impressive technical skill is in service to something else.”

 

Trysting by Emmanuelle Pagano

 

Trysting by Emmanuelle Pagano

French fiction

Original title -Nouons-nous

translators – Jenifer Higgins and Sophie Lewis

Source – review copy

I often think the most inventive books over recent years I have read have come to from French and her is another example. Emmanuell Pagno studied fine arts and then film studies and then became a teacher whilst in 2002 publishing her first novel she has so far written twelve books and has won the EU literature prize for her book The adolescents troglodytes. This is her first book to be translated to English .

I never used to feel at home in her apartment because it was so dirty. I’m very particular , and I don’t like there to be even a speck of dust around the house. she never washed her clothes, just kept wearing the same old things. She didn’t have a washing machine and seemed to know nothing of laundrettes.she never washed the floor or the bathroom or the toilet. Just sometimes she would sweep the kitchen, leaving the pile of dust pushed into a corner. I used to wait untill she was out and then do a spot of cleaning , because she got angry if i did so much as look at a sponge in her presence. I brought a vacuum cleaner over in secret. After a few weeks the apartment had started to look very different and she noticed . She threw me out , along with  all the cleaning products I had hidden behind the rubbish bin under the sink

I loved this I thought of Myself I was very cluttered when I met Amanda not as bad as here, but this has a saki like humour as well .

Well how to describe this book that is the problem , it is utterly brilliant but hard to describe it is like a pice of art in a way. An art piece of love a collage of pieces of love . those piece of love we all think are captured here there are small glimpse into unknown lives by just the way we look , feel , smell, act and grow together. Then we have the flip side those thing in love that are just strange such as photographing some ones toe clippings is that love or obsession that is a line that pushed . Other place there is sexual underpinnings in the piece like a wife taking her other halves  saxophone and damping its mouthpiece before playing it .

He wraps presents like no one else. Perfect parcels, for christmas or birthdays, neatly taped up, the paper smoothed by the assiduous flat of his hand, with ta fold positioned two-thirds of the way along the top side, as if he were ironing a crease into a shirt. That fold is his signature

don’t we all know when our other half has wrapped our gifts in a pile of gifts ?

these vignettes are like forgotten postcards to what we love , i follow a twitter account that has old postcards and what was written on them and this is like that almost some one went to the wall in Verona with the love notes and taken them down and edited to there is no identity to the writer other than the essence of love that drop of words that is love , obsession and sex . I said this is like a piece of art it is like Tracy Enim piece her bed for example said a lot about her and her life or the piece everyone I have ever slept with , this is a cut up of love lives with the names places and people removed . This is one of those books that a few weeks you have read it you will go back and check that or this was said in it a wonderful collection of vignettes on love.

Have you read this book ?

 

Winstons books from Spainsh nutella to french love

Well some new arrivals I start of with this interesting book about love , it is a collection of male and female voices on love no names descriptions but just thoughts on what love is for each of us . I finished this last night and it is a one of my favourites so far this year.antother interesting book from And other stories soon to be located in Sheffield ten miles from me .

Now I read the first part of this trilogy last year but I missed reviewing it Mallo in Nocilla expereicne follows what he did in his previous book Nocilla dream and that is walking a fine line between fiction and non fiction in what is true and untruth. A truly refreshing writer. from one of my favourite publishers Fitzcarrado editions.

Next up is The boy a story of a mother trying to find out what happened when her son is found dead on a school trip . How is it he  died.this  Leads to a snowy  night in  Bulgaria she has tracked down her sons teacher and the weather is closing in .The two woman alone in the middle of nowhere .

Then I brought four books on a recent trip to Derby with Amanda , I brought four books whilst the so clockwise we have the Lost daughter by Elena ferrante , yes I know but this is a stand alone novel follows a mother coping with her daughters going to live with their father .Then we have a life full of holes a story of a street arab as told to Paul bowles a story of a loner fighting his way out of poverty . This seems very unusual book to me. A Bolano novella A little lumpen novellita follows a brother and sister as they plan a crime with two criminals after their parents have died. Then we have thirst for love by Yukio Mishima a widow moves in with her father in law and then avoids his advances for her instead turns to a servant but is he interested ?

What new books have you got ?

 

 

Two green otters by Buket Uzuner

Two green otters by Buket Uzuner

Turkish fiction

Original title – İki Yeşil Susamuru, Anneleri, Babaları, Sevgilileri ve Diğerleri

Translator – Alexander Dawe

Source – review copy

It wasn’t so long ago when there wasn’t many Turkish novels available outside those by Orhan Pamuk was small , but this last couple of years a few more writers have appeared and a number of strong female voices from Turkey Buket Uzuner I would count in that group like Birgul Oguz and Ciler Ilhan that I have reviewed in recent years shining a light on the female experience of modern Turkish life . Buket studied biology and environmental studies before becoming a writer.

That year a lot of my friends parents got divorced, and we picked on each other in a way that only children can do . We’d say , “Yours aren’t divorced yet ? That’s so uncool, and then we’d laugh. These days I often run into those old friends of mine and nobody laughs about it the way we used to .

Those parents who were leaving hom at the time started up another trend : They’d move to “undiscovered” little towns and villages on the mediterranean coast. Sevin, my mom’s friend from college, was the first in our family to get divorced.Ner husband Semih, an electrical engineer, moved to Bodrum with a young actress and opened a restaurant

I connect with this passage as my own parents split and like Nilsu it was rare in this time for parents to divorce.

The book is the story of  one young womans life in the 1980’s Nilsu has lost her mother how has abandon her at maybe the most important point in her life the verge of adulthood. Her mother took off and this has left the young woman struggling to trust and vulnerable to the wider world at this point she meets the enigmatic Teo who is the leader of a green party in the Turkey . The two fall for each other but hold off on doing anything that is until Teo own mother takes her life and leads him to a downspiral with only Nilsu to help him out as the two draw closer and his political world becomes more turbulent. They try to help them get back to the calmer side of life and carry on with their lives .

“We can talk about Thoreau , Gandhi , Tolstoy and Schumacher “, he said , full of zeal, “but Lao-Tse was the grandfather of them all! Now there is Foucault , and maybe me!” around the same time Siddhartha was making waves in europe and thanks again to Ulla , Teoman got a copy- she still sends him books now and then – hut he knew how differently such a book would affect European Christians and Mediterranean Muslims.

This shows how when books get translated the power they can have over those that read them !!

This is a wonderful insight into how a young woman struggles to get by through in their own world especially in what in Turkey is a very Male oriented society add to the lix her involvement with the green movement at a time when Turkey was just getting over the last of a number of military coups that had happened during the 197o’s . A country that had decide to start looking to the west and is growing, but the green movement is the flipside of this growth. Nilsu and Teo are the new face of Turkey the fresh-faced willing to stand alone and willing to sand together finding strength together in the end as they stop each other from diving into the depths of despair .A great insight into Turkey at the time just as it is waking up to the world maybe and a great leap forward .

 

 

Nobel thoughts 2016

Well today is the day , we see who has won the nobel prize for literature. As ever I have been following the betting for the last week or so . Unlike other years the betting has been fairly stable and the names on the list the same as other years. The lead name this year is Ngugi Wa Thiong’o the Kenyan writer , he writes a lot about the colonial and post colonial times in his native land. I have reviewed him  . Then next on the list is Haruki Murakami , I still think it isn’t his time yet , I know others think it is but for me he needs to write that one defining book. Then we have Adonis the Syrian poet has been on the list for many years , I have once feature a poem by him about childhood. THen we Have Don Delillo has risen in recent days in the betting now for me he is maybe the best American to win ,he has written the book so to speak Underworld is a true epic , I have reviewed him once on the blog . The we have Jon Fosse I read him earlier this year and for me he maybe along side Thiong’o is the best place to be the nobel winner .his writing capture the feeling of modern Scandinavia . Well there we go , of course there is a number of outsiders as ever , now for me there is Javier Marias, Laszlo Krasznahorkai and Peter handke all writer that would be worthy winners but maybe not yet , but wouldn’t be shocked if they did win today.Then there would be the shock winner not translated into english yet , lets say Ulrich holbein for example.  So 11.45 today we find out have you thoughts ?

The tale of Aypi by Ak Welsapar

The tale of Aypi by Ak welsapar

Turkmenistan fiction

Translator – W M Coulson

source – review copy

It is rarer and rarer  these days I add new countries to the list of book I have read from list. So to add Turkmenistan is a nice addition especially as AK Welsapar is one of those rare writers that writes despite oppression from his own country where his writing has been banned since 1993 , he was also under house arrest for a year at this time . He was trained as a journalist in Moscow. It was in this capacity that he highlighted the environmental problems that where left in the central Asian area in the post Soviet era.

A few days later, when they next gathered on the same spot, the old men were finally compelled to discuss with each other what they had always avoided mentioning ; namely when they would relocate. Like it or not, this had to be resolved , before the problem forced its own resolution. Naturally, after quite a bit of beating around the bush, the council got underway . Hodja spoke his mind first .”Shipmates share their soul they say, and if we’ve gotta go , let’s not drift off one by one, but let’s pick a day and ship out together.”

THe men decide what to do when told to relocate .

This book follows a despite between the fishermen of a small village on the Caspian sea and the soviet regime that is wanting to oust them from their homes but also their way of life have been asked to relocate . One of this group the Araz , he use the myth of Aypi  of the title has decide he wants to fight for their way of life and to stand firm for their past and the myths they believe in. Like that Aypi a young woman who was killed unjustly and has haunted the men of the resion for many years . The book is a fight between small and large , good and evil , old and new . Will Araz save his way of life but also that of everyone in his village.

At the first premonition of dawn. Aypi’s ghost floated down from above and into the winding, dishevelled streets.As the sun rose in the sky to the height of a spear, the village , as it always did came to life. Like sturgeon in shallow water, people went back and forth leaving wakes behind them.

I loved the imagery of this short opening to a chapter about Aypi but also the village .

I loved the nature of this book of bygone times and also how people’s lives can change. for me it remind me of a story I heard many years ago . I worked in a day centre over 25 years ago and one of the ladies their had worked many years earlier, on the herring boat fleet as what was called a herring girl where she followed the fleets of boats fishing Herring up and down the east coast of Britain , LIke Araz and his friend this community had its own way of life. I often reflect on how similar fisherman’s lives can be around the world as it ends up as man against nature most of the time . This is a life that had been for many years the way of life for many girls from the north-east. This like Araz is a life that is dying out, well in this case had died out. This story is also a bigger story of violent regime trying to push people of their land also  destroying the  land and sea around them.A K welsapar is one of those writers that use a small story to paint a wider picture of the world around him and what he sees .Another gem from the Glagoslav .