The Queens of Sarmiento Park by Camilo Sosa Villada

The Queens of Sarmiento Park by Camilo Sosa Vilada

Argentine fiction

Original title – Las Malas

Translator – Kit Maude

Source – personal copy

I often think I don’t read enough LGBT lit, but when I come across some great books in translation, I always get them, and this is one that caught my eye in the last few months. I love the cover but I loved the story of the writer’s own life. This is mirrored somewhat in the novel, a story of a boy that becomes a woman who starts to dress in her. Mother’s clothes in her teens. Then as her father had said, she ended up on the streets but has written and been a voice of the transgender community in Argentina; this is the story of those she saw alongside her in the streets of Cordoba Camila Sosa Vilada writes for the stage and also been an actress in several films. She is a leading voice in the trans community in Argentina.

THE TRAVESTIS walked from the Park to the area by the bus station at a remarkable pace. They were a caravan of cats, hurried by circumstance, their heads down to make themselves invisible. They were going to Auntie Encarna’s house.

The queerest boardinghouse in the world, during desperate times it had offered shelter, protection, succor, and comfort to an endless stream of travestis. They were going there because they knew it was the safest possible place for them to be, carrying the baby in a purse. One of them, the youngest, worked up the courage to say what they were all thinking.

“It’s a cold night to spend in jail.”

“What?” Auntie Encarna demanded.

Her house is a refugee to them all

The book is one of those great books that walks the line between fiction and memoir, an inspiring and touching piece of autofiction that chronicles the lives of the Felloow Travesti. The women that hang around Sarmiento park at night, our narrator, a fictional version of the writer herself takes us into this world of short skirts and those woman selling themselves at night in the park a family of their own these are their tales from finding a baby. How they end up there from a. the male nurse that becomes Nadine at night, the group revolves around Aunty Encarna. This character reminds me of when, many years ago, I read Anna Madrigal as a character the sort of central hub around these characters’ lives. The sort of heart of the group Aunty Encrna takes them down and out like the deaf girl Marie or the baby boy that sets off a chain of events. This shows the highs and lows of this world with mental health issues suicide at the heart of it and the hopelessness of some of their lives. Camila’s own story is at the heart of the book, her journey and the way she ends up as one of the found family of Sarmiento park.

BEFORE I met the travestis of the Park, my life could be summed up by my childhood experiences and the instinctive transvestism I began when I was still just a girl. Until I met them I was completely lost, I didn’t know any other travestis, 1 didn’t know anyone like me. I felt as though I was the only one in the world. And in my daytime world, in the university, the halls of the Faculty of Social Communication, and later the Theater Department at the Art School, that was certainly true. My

whole universe was the men and women I met at college and the tricks I turned at night.

Camila’s own young years when she first saw the world of the park at a distance

I hope this makes the Man booker longlist. It is a powerful book that looks at a group of people with very little written about trans working girls of Latin America. She brings their lives and their world to life as I say, some of the characters, significantly Aunty Encrna jump off the page as Camila’s own story this is a piece of autofiction in the classic sense. It has the beauty and violence of this world, the comradeship and found a family that is formed in situations like this from worlds like Maupin’s Tales of the city that captures a community like this and at its heart has two characters in Aunty  Encrna alongside Anna Madrigal are cut from the same block of wood. I was also reminded of the tv series set around Bradford’s red light district and the same sense of a found family of women interacting together. It was great to see this being made into a tv series as it feels it would work as there are so many little stories in this book Have you read this book?

Winston’s score – A – a recollection of a world of violence and sex and those we take on as a family.  when we have to be ourselves in a hostile world!

Seven Empty Houses by Samanta Schweblin

 

Seven Empty Houses by Samanta Schweblin

Argentinan  fiction

Orignal tile – Siete casas vacías

Translator – Megan McDowell

Source – Library book

This is the third book I have reviewed from Samantha schweblin. It is the first I have really connected with as a reader before I got them and why people loved them but it hadn’t been a total bowl over for me. The other books my fellow readers on the shadow just seemed to have connected with more than myself. She has been on the Man booker list with her three previous books, so it I thought it was a good idea to read her latest just in case it made the longlist. This is a collection of short stories. As with her other books, it has a dark side to her stories. Samanta Schweblin lives in Berlin and has written five books. One of them is currently being filmed by Netflix. So let us enter the Erie unsettled stories she has given us.

My mother, who was in the process of getting out of the car, freezes a moment and then drops back into her seat. I’m worried because night is falling, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to get the car out in the dark. The forest is only two houses away. I walk into the trees, and it takes a few minutes to find exactly what I need.

When I get back, my mother is not in the car. There’s no one outside. I approach the front door of the house.

The boy’s truck is lying on the doormat. I ring the doorbell and the woman comes to open the door.

“I called the ambulance? she says. “I didn’t know where you were, and your mother said she was going to faint again.”

The opening story of the mother and daughter None of that.

A mother and daughter head out in a car. Where they end up in the middle of nowhere and end up on a posh estate and the. other goes into a house. The mother starts to wander around the house as though drawn by some spirit and things just go strange as the oddness of the actions. Then the longest story in the book breaths from the depth. The story has a classic hook to it in the newcomer in the area when a single mother who moves next to her and her longstanding husband. They lost their sons many years ago. But Lola gets weary when her husband is drawn to the young boy next year all this is back as Lola’s health is waning. But who is this neighbour why does she feel familiar at times she is fat but there is something there. elsewhere people are caught between homes. A teen strips and redress in some underwear. I loved this collection.

The list was part of a plan: Lola suspected that her I life had been too long, so simple and light that now it lacked the weight needed to disappear. After studying the experiences of some acquaintances, she had concluded that even in old age, death needed a final push.

An emotional nudge, or a physical one. And she couldn’t give that to her body. She wanted to die, but every morning, inevitably, she woke up again. What she could do, on the other hand, was arrange everything in that direction, attenuate her own life, reduce its space until she eliminated it completely. That’s what the list was about; that, and remaining focused on what was important.

The opening of the longest story in the book breath from the depths

I loved the stories especially the short ones like when the mother and daughter head into the village in the middle of nowhere. Then into the backyard of the house and into the house itself. When she is drawn to a sugar bowl the story has such an undercurrent to it the sense of something more to it. Like Lola, I was reminded at times of the Pinero novel that made this year’s Booker list. As it had a similar feel to the character of a person in pain and with. A lot in their life. This collection uses the usual hooks in Horror fiction, strange places, haunted feeling houses, and people on the edge. But I think what She does so well is making the normal everyday humdrum characters. Seem just enough off-kilter and odd to be believed and not over the top. I love the cover art for this book. We have to ask ourselves will this make the longlist again , I think it may do the only reason it may not is if they want to give other writers a chance to make the longlist. Have you read any of her books?

Winstons score – +A Finally loved one of her books.

 

Artforum by César Aira

 

Artforum by César Aira

Argentine fiction

Original title – Artforum

Translator – Katherine Silver

Source – Personal copy

I had read one other book by Aira it seems it is the one most people read it is An episode in the life of a landscape painter. That was in 2016 and I had brought a few of his books but they just went on to mount TBR and I think with them being short I had just never got to them so when I saw it was on the Moose on the gripes podcast last month I decided I would listen to them chat about him as he is a writer I felt I should have read more of as ever Trevor and Paul’s sheer joy grabbed me so what did I do I went and ordered two more book that would make six books I have to read and I choose this to start with as it seemed short and also a book about obsession appears I tend to be a flighty obsessive Itend to deep dive in and out of things so I will thing of a band I loved order loads cds and vinyl listen to them then be on to something else. Like many of his books it follows a man that lives in Corona Pringles. He has been drawn to getting and discovering the art magazine Artforum.

WHEN I MADE THE TRANSCENDENT DECISION to take out a subscription, I thought that all my problems were over. It wasn’t easy, I had to overcome the internal resistance of the primitive economist that I was, who didn’t buy anything if I couldn’t hold it in my hands and pay with banknotes I pulled out of my pocket. I had never taken out a subscription to any magazine, and it was strange that I hadn’t subscribed to Artforum until then, not only because it was my favourite magazine but because of how difficult it had always been to procure.

He takes the plunge and decides to subscribe to his favourite magazine

 

This is a quest a man’s quest obsession for a square Magazine (I was reminded of archipelago books here they are always on the whole square editions and always collectable ) He has spent years trawling shops overseeing and wanting this Magazine from America he in the ends even subscribes and he does that dance which I think many of us, well I know the is it here yet dance has the postman got it and then there is an added dimension he feels the postman may steal and sell the magazine to the book stalls and he laments that over time he had brought copies of art forum from there then he hears of some that have died and his collection is in a shop this reminds me of the weekly flick through records my local record shop does it has all the new second-hand records and if I see that one I may one I can’t wait to get there to get it myself. Then as it seems to happen a lot of books by Aira from what Trevor and Paul said there is a sudden change of tack and suddenly we are talking about a broken clothes spin (peg we would call it) this leads him to Claes Oldenburg therapist that made giant everyday objects. What happens when it stops coming?

WITHIN THE DAILY ROUTINE OF THE HOUSE-hold, small inexplicable incidents also occur. Why did it happen, why didn’t it happen? Nobody knows. All we know is that something happened. What?
Well… so many things! Something is always happening, and it’s difficult to set one incident, one anecdote, apart. How to know what deserves mention? One should talk all the time, or remain silent forever. The trifles that feed innocent chatter sink into the subsoil of the silence of the responses. Sometimes a chance repetition insinuates a meaning.
“Another clothespin broke! What bad luck!”
“I’ll fix it.” (I thought that the spring that connects the two halves had gotten detached.)
“No. It broke. It can’t be fixed.”
“Throw it away!”
“Throw it away!”

Then we discover a broken clothes peg almost like a chapter from another book had fallen in this book.

I loved this short novella I am someone that so gets obsession with something as I have a little of that and also that feeling of wanting something I think this is something that has changed in my lifetime and maybe what he has caught here is a lost world in the future what he captures is that going through racks looking for that lost copy that lost record that whatever, which is something I n the click and get off the modern world we are losing. So I am thankful that I decided to listen to Mookse and gripes podcast I m sure you all do but if you don’t subscribe they just make you a reader who really wants to discover and revisit books. We follow a man’s obsession and get drawn into his world for a short time will it come today or not? How often have I waited for that book to arrive or that record etc. Do you have obsessions or go down a rabbit hole? Have you a favourite book by Aira ? where should I go next?

Winston’s score – +A rediscovering a writer you think you may love

Mona by Pola Oloixarao

Mona by Pola Oloixarac

Argentine fiction

Original title -Mona

Translator – Adam Morris

Source – Personal copy

So I start this year’s Woman in translation month with a talented Latin American writer. That I have also been featured on this blog before on the blog. when I reviewed Dark constellations by Pola Oloixarac a couple of years ago. She was one of the hugely talented writers that were picked in the Granta list of young Spanish writers in 2010 (is it that long ago, so many great writers have come from that list. This is the third novel she has also written for the New York Times and Rolling stone in the past. Last year she won a writers award at the Hay festival. This satire on being a writer but also an insight into the Lit world in its way as we follow Mona as she heads to Sweden to see if she has won a prize. She is also a female writer of colour so she is something of a novelty at times when she arrives in a small village in Sweden.

TWO hundred thousand euros, thirteen finalists, one winner. Hailing from all four corners of the earth, the finalists convened for the Great Meeting: Sweden’s most prestigious literary festival, held to commemorate the legacy of Edmond Virgil Basske-Wortz, Alfred Nobel’s best friend. And if she won? She’d ditch Stanford for good and make straight for the jungle, penetrating deep into
the forest until she lost herself in the wetlands of the Brazilian Pantanal. If you moved to the Pantanal, you could survive on a hundred dollars a year and then use the rest of the money
treating all the infections and diseases you’d contract. You could easily spend the remainder of your life in the jungle–because you wouldn’t last long! Great idea! Silenced on her phone, Antonio’s voice prattled on in her head. Airplane mode was ideal for guys like him, the ones who felt the need to comment incessantly on her life.

The prize as she heads on the plane to see if she wins.

I said this has a twin storyline(it is more looking back at why she has certain marks on her body) it has in the fact that along the way events in Mona’s life are mentioned, we meet her as she like me prepares for a flight (I am not a fan of flying I don’t drink of taking drugs but can connect with how you may want too) she sits by the window. But hey has she a newish Peruvian writer been put up for this prestigious writing prize in Sweden the most important writers prize? The Basske-worth prize is somewhere between the booker and Nobel and she is heading to see if she has won. Where when she arrives she mixes with the other writers that are up for the prize. I did wonder whom she had based these characters on, I think most successful writers go around the world meeting fellow writers and I imagine this has a little of some of the people she had met over time. They are mainly mentioned as where they come from. alongside this, we have Mona looking at herself and some off the marks we see on her body and the violence connected with them. Also, Mona is a woman that likes sex from masturbating on the plane to cam sex and other things that litter the book.

That night, Mona dreamed of a black body of water ascending from the lake, carrying with it a silent cargo of dead animals drowned by the tide. The dark liquid entered through the keyhole and took her by surprise in bed as it spread across the floor. The chair clattered against the desk,knocked into it by the current. The windows were open. Something was watching her from outside, panting. Better not to scream, she thought, or the hungry beast prowling around out there will come in and find me. She woke up shaking, drenched in sweat.

A wonderful description of a nightmare that Mona had

The book is an insight into the fickle world of books and how it is sometimes who you are more than what you write that makes the judges pick you. Mona is an example of this world. But as we follow here down the rabbit hole of being involved in a prize and the writers there. I love to know which writers she has based the cast of characters we meet in the book ( who are they in real life), I laughed as some who have been to a few prize ceremonies over the years weren’t like this was Wirth the backstabbing but it is interesting meeting writers in a more social setting like the old IFFP  were I could share a cigarette( shows you how long ago it was I haven’t smoked for a number of years) with a number of writers that were up for the prize it was great meeting writers like this in a relaxed event. But for a big prize like this one, it must be hard I look at the old booker videos and wonder if the writers are more competitive. Also the loneliness of being a writer. Also, the very go round of ego and prizes. This is a book that is different to the other book by her I had read by her which shows she is a writer that is developing I will be reading her next book for sure. Have you read her?

Winstons score – A – lifting the veil on literary prizes alongside sex and violence from the main character.

Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro

Elena Knows by Claudia  Piñeiro

Argentinean crime fiction

Original title – Elena sabe

Translator – Francis Riddle

Source – Review copy

I have often looked at books by the Argentina writer Claudia Piñeiro her books were previously brought out by Bitter Lemon press I have one on my shelves All yours which I have had on my shelves for a couple of years but when this arrived from Charco Press a publisher whose books over recent years.  I have really enjoyed it. The new book also mentions she is one of the most translated writers from Argentina and also has won awards for crime and lit fiction.  I decided it was time to read a book by her and with the mention of Thomas Bernhard on the back of the cover and a quote from his book Gargoyles at the start I knew this was the right book to start. The book is set over the course of one day as a mother tries to find out what happened to her daughter.

The trick is to lift up the right foot, just a few centimetres off the floor, move it forward through the air, just enough to get oast the left, and when it gets as far as it can go, lower it. That’s all it is Elena thinks. But she think this, and even though her brain orders the movement, her right foor dosen’t move forward through the air. It does not lower back down. It’s so simple. Nut it doesn’t do it So Elena wits and waits. In her kitchen. She has to take the train into the city at ten O’clock; the one after that , the eleeven O’clock, won’t do because she took the pill at nine.

She captures Elena’s struggle to move through her Parkinson’s

Elena is in her sixties and has Parkinson’s the book follows the day. The book follows her medication regime so we see how the symptoms of the disease mean this day will be a real ordeal for her so as the tablets help ease the pain she has she heads out across the city.As Elena does this she fills in the parts of Elena’s life. She has set out to find out what happened to her daughter Rita a devout churchgoer that was found hanging in the church she used to go to but it had been stormy and raining that day and she never went in storms as she had a phobia of lightening These and other things around her daughters’ death that aren’t just right. And she feels the police who opened and closed the case quickly saying it was suicide. She found out that her daughter had a connection to a woman Isobel a friend of the two of them whom she hadn’t seen in 20 years and this is what the day is about to find out what she had to do with Isobel and can she find some more out about Rita. Will it answer the questions she had? will she learn more and why did Rita end up at the church?

From the start Father juan was one of the least willing to talk about it, repeatedly deflecting Inspector Avellenda’s attempts to meet with him. Either you’re not insistent enough on Father Juan takes you for an Idiot, Inspector You’re not saying I should add him to the list of suspects are you Elena ? i already told you, you have the obligation to investigate all possible theroies Elena waited for the right time,, not too close to the daily masses, or the hours reserved for confessions, or to siesta.

Such a tight window to talk with dfather Juan what had the church to do with Rita’s death ?

This is the afterword is an attempt to relaunch Piñeiro as a more lit writer which this book is at its heart is a question that are larger than Rita death of the Church and the country the book was written just as the laws around Abortion changed in Argentina when the book came out in 2007  maybe that was something to do with it but you need to read the bok=ok. Know the question of Bernhard it is mention there is a style of writing like his and there is Elena journey has pacing like a Bernhard novel I think of something like his book which also takes place over a period of time and there is also a bitterness driving Elena to discover the truth of what happened. As her books from what I read have a crime element but also a large dollop of woman and Issues and social Issues. I will be reading her other book for next year’s Spanish lit month as her is a perfect crossover for both the second month of Spanish lit month and Woman in Translation month. Have you read her other books ?

Winstons score – B+ A great intro to a new writer to the blog

 

Elegy for Joseph Cornell by Maria Negroni

Elegy for Joseph Cornell by Maria Negroni

Argentinian fiction

Original title -Elegia Joseph Cornell

Translator – Alison A. deFreese

Source – personal copy

Here we have another great female writer from Latin america the Poet Maria Negroni had translated the bio of the artist Joseph Cornell written by Charles Simic. She had won a Guggenheim award and a pen award for her poetry as one of the best books when it was translated into English. What she has done is a tribute and elegy to the artist that defies genre it is prose biography poetic all in one almost like his boxes where a collection of found pieces that fit together when put together. Another gem from the Dalkey archive literature series who else would bring out a book that is only 90 pages long and probably is less than that when the space in the book is removed.

Notes for a short Biography 1

The man loved getting lost in the city in which he lived. He was born at 1:13pm. From a blue heart insofe a seashell that someone had left in a hotel room. We know that his mother loved to playing the piano and that his father sold fabric, that several children lived in the house – including one that was paralytic – and that they all played together on Utopia Parkway. These were earthly games with the semblance of prayers – as are all games – and children threw themselves into their play as if they were magians and trapeze artist or flea trainers in the mythical circus of their yout. The children had grown now, and the man worked alone in the basement.

The first of a number of small bio snippets the reference to his brother he looked after all his life and the solitary adult he became

This is a collection of vignettes poetic pieces that flow between a bio of Cornell life snippets such as his love of wandering the city he loved New york comparing him to other great Flaneurs such as Baudelaire, Nerval, and Proust.His single solitary lifestyle a man that to many was an enigma.The grey man of New York a solitary figure wandering the streets, The second thread is around his paintings and his avant-garde films. The little vignettes that either describe the film or are an ode to those famous pieces of his like Children’s party, the Aviary A third thread is a tribute to his collecting items a list of things he owned. This is one of those books that is hard to describe itis a tribute to a unique man with a work that is a patchwork of styles.

The Duchamp Dossier

It’s a cardboard box in which, for years, Joseph Cornell collected small keepsakes from his friendship with Duchamp, The box contained 117 items of various types. The French artist empty tobacco pouch, two cleaners for his famous white pip, a napkin from Horn & Hardart(one of those automats that was all the rage in the 30’s and where they almost certainly met), letter, photographs, postcard of the mona lisa, several yellowed notes in his handwritin, gallery posters and even dry cleaning receipts which reveal Duchamp’s unusal habit of sending evertything to the dry cleaner, even sock and handkerchiefs

The box was put on display for the first time in 1998, on the occasion of the Joseph Cornell/Marcel Duchamp: In resonance exhibition held in the Philadelphia Musuem of art.No one can explain how Cornell managed to acquire such “Mementos”

A piece about a box , but  nod to his habit of eating junk food all his life such as Automat cafes

I was aware of Cornell mainly through reading up on Jonas Mekas the last few years a filmmaker Avant Gardelike Cornell that knew Cornell and inherited his work when he died. At the heart of this book is the man Cornell a man who wanders New york finding collecting items to use art at some future point. The book is a journey a walk through his life but we only pick a few snippets of his life this is his box. The box for Joseph Cornell is a collage to the man a mix of style and genres. If you like Cornell this will appeal to you if you are a fan of experimental fiction this would appeal to you.

Winstons score – A+ these are the gems I write this blog for books that challenge us as a reader and defy genre !!

 

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed By Mariana Enriquez

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez

Argentinean fiction

Original title – Los peligros de fumar en la cama

Translator – Megan Mcdowell

Source – Personal copy

I’m back on with the last few Booker International prize books with the shortlist been announced yesterday, the shadow jury will announce our shortlist in due course. One of the things I have really enjoyed the last few years is the emergence of a new generation of Latin American writers and in that, we have a lot more female writers to read than there were when I started Winstonsdad. This is the second collection to be published but as is the way in the world of translated literature this was actually the first book of stories to be published by Marian Enriquez. She studied journalism and Rock Journalism and was a fan of Stephen King and HP Lovecraft when growing up.  Both masters of the Horror short story. She has also written four novels her last won one of the Major book Prize the Herralde Prize.

I found the bones after the rainstorm that turned the back patch pof earth into a mud puddle. I put them in a bucket. I used for carrying my treasures to the spigot on the patio where I washed them. I showed them to Dad. He said they were chicken bones, or maybe even beef bones, or else they were from some dead pet someone must have buried a long time ago, Dogs or cats. He circled back around to the chicken because before, when I was lttle, my grandmother used to have a copp there.

What are the bones who are they ?

This collection opens with a Will Oldham quote which to me was a sign I would like these stories. When the collection opens with the spirit of a dead baby after the bones are found by a granddaughter in the grandmother’s garden. These stories all hark back to those dark years of the Junta and Dictatorship. So we have teen girls using an ouija board to try and talk to those they have lost. I loved the opening of this story as it mentioned the Band Slayer who my best friend is a huge fan of this is a nod to those classic horror genres of teen girls horror films and Metal music a nod to the times. Then I was reminded of a book I read earlier this year by another story in the collection when those children that disappear start reappearing which reminded me of the Novel A luminous republic which had a group of list children suddenly reappearing this is another classic horror story and movie. The rest of the stories all have classic nods to the horror genre and a look at the times they are set in especially the abuse of Girls which crops up in a number of the stories a powerful collection.

At that age there’s music playing in your head all the time , as if a radio were transmitting from the napoe of you neck, inside your skull. Then one day that music starts to grow softer, or it just stops.When that happens, you’re no longer a teenager. But we weren’tthere yet, not even close, back when we talked to the dead. Back wthen, the music was at full blastand it sound like slayer, Reign in blood .

We started the Oija board at Polack’s houser locked in her room. We had to do it secret because Mara, the Plack’s sister was afraid of ghosts and spirits. She was afraid of everything – man, she was a stupid little kid.

The last story in the collection.

Like the later collection Enriquez, she is a master of the Horror Genre I used to read a lot of Stephen King stories in my teens and she has lifted the lid on the dark corners of the human souls and the darkest of times in her homeland this is like a collection of testaments to that time this is a theme I see cropping up time after time in a lot of literature from Argentina it seems the time has come to look back and try and piece apart what happened. This isn’t a collection that sits easily with the read no it is dark and brutal at times may be less polished than her later collection it is still worth reading. A mix of the macabre, folklore, and the dark of the times. Let’s hope her novel is as good when it comes out next year in English Our share of the Night the one that won the Herralde Prize.

Winstons score – B+  a dark collection

A Musical Offering by Luis Sagasti

A Musical Offering by Luis Sagasti

Argentinean fiction

Orignal title – Una ofrenda musical

Translator – Fionn Petch

Source – Personal copy

When it comes up toward the man booker every year I try to buy a couple of books. That I feel may be on the longlist. This is the first I have brought to read. It is the second book the Charco press has brought out from Luis Sagasti. I was a huge fan of his first book so don’t know why I haven’t got to this sooner but you all know the quandary too many books too little time and I can be such a firefly in my reading habits buzzing brightly from place to place. Sagasti is a teacher now he was a curator at one point as well as a writer and art critic.

The most famous performance of the Variations, a feat not unlike swimming across the magellan Strait, is by the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. In fact, he recorded two; between them stretch twenty-six years in the life of a planet. The first version is as urgent and flamboyant as Baroque music permist, and was taped in 1955, when Gould was just twenty-three years old, The second is a recording made shortly before he died from a stroke at the age of fifty in 1981. For all his ggenius, Gould couldn’t escape the fate of the wise; the slower pace of the later version is that of someone who knows we only leave a circle before taking the first step.

Gould was also used as a character in  a novel by Thomas Bernhard.

I must admit before I review this I am no classical music fan I do have the Goldberg variations I had brought them after I watched the film 32 short films about Glenn Gould a number of years ago. So I was pleased that this book had chosen one of the few pieces of classical music I have to listen to more than once. The book like his earlier book is a collection of interconnection short stories that all interlock like one of those puzzle balls made of wood where they interlock to form a complete the stories range from just a couple of pages to two longer stories. The opening story the main one about the Bach work is about how it came about as a harp piece to ease into sleep the count that was Bach benefactor. This leads into digressions of Glenn Gould the Beatles connections between them both this is a book with no real plot but you can not put it down. Other stories range from a massive organ that sets off an avalanche over the village of HimmelHein. A rift of Silences from Ligeti work through the works that lead up to Cages 4 33 of silence where the silence is always different due to the setting then the lack of silence on the Beatles interlocking back to the other stories.

The funeral March composed for a deaf man , by Alphonse Allais , could well be a forerunner of 4′ 33′, though it is more like a painting than any other art form, as the silences are not even marked on the score. Unlike Cage’s piece, the march was not intended to be performed.

Allaishad created a series of monochromatic works. firsr communion of Anameic girls in the snow of 1883 would appear to predate Malevich’s white squre. But total silence can’t be possible there, not with such a figurative title.

A art piece that was a music core that was similar to Cage’s 4′ 33′

I am a huge fan of most of the books the Charco have brought out. I know I tend to be positive about most of the books I read but this is one of those I put in the class above everything If I did a letter score it would be mostly B’s or C’s for what I read but this is an A+ in the time I have blogged if I get two or three of these a year I am happy this is one of those books that fire the brain makes you root out the album you not listened to for a long while or want to rewatch the film about Gould also I had my Beatles CDs on today. The Bach piece has been in a Bernhard book and The Richard Powers book the Gold Bug Variations. Sagasti’s works are often compared with Sebald or Flights both mentioned in connection to Sagasti. But for me, I was also reminded of the Nocilla trilogy and another Spanish book I read last year Glass eye. Both of which like this mix fiction and history together which for me is a mix I love it’s like a mixtape to get it right takes time and thought to get the right mix of stories is harder than you think. Anyway as I said earlier here we go my first score. Have you read this or any other titles from Charco press that have you enjoyed?

Winstons Score A+

The Imagined Land by Eduardo Berti

The Imagined land by Eduardo Berti

Argentinean fiction

Original title – El país imaginado

Translator – Charlotte Coombe

Source – personal copy

I have had this on my shelves a couple of years and when I was looking for something that maybe had a love story or romance at its heart this struck me as a contender. It is written by the French-based Argentinean writer Eduardo Berti A cultural Journalist based in France he was elected to the Oulipo group of writers being the first writer from Argentina to be elected to the group. He also works as a transxlator he=aving translated works from Alberto Manguel and Romesh Gunesekera. He has published 15 books of novels and short stories over the last thirty years.

ON the first day of the new year, my father was in such a good mood that he was hardly recognisable; he was usually so moderate, so restrained. He saw that there sun, that the air was fresh, and there wa no threat of clouds on the horizion, of the “corner of the sky” as my grandmother used to call it. This all seemed to be a good omen, since nothing was more desirable for the chu-yi than a crystal clear dawn, Shortly after, at midday, he reminded ius enthusiastically that in the evening we would be joined for dinner bt tje family of his friend Gu Xiangong, who lived about a two hour drive away by car from our city. This was a dangerous ambigous distance

Thy had three daughters the visits why are they coming to visit the family.

This book is set in CHina pre reveloution in a small city we view the life there through the eyes of Ling she is 14 and nurses her grandmother as she says her parents don’t trust him to nurse her. The Grandmother is old and has a great collection of old books that she  has read to her grandchildren especially her granddaughter. The book are to be taken out to stp insects eating them she is told by her father this is something that Ling does herself as her brother isn’t bother this isall part of some old ideas and pratices that her father has that make them seem out of time to those around them. But when pone day they are visited by a local family as there daughter Xiaomei as her brother future bride but the young 14 year old ling is dumbstruck by the beauty of this girl and then decides to befriend her as the two meet in the park over time. This is also intersped with Ling talking with her grandmother who has now passed about what she is feeling and her grandmpther spirit is a guide for her. The two girls discuss going ona run , her brother admits he is in love with a different girl will she be found a husband were will the love take them all and what do the do to follow there parents wishes.

Give me your hand, said Xiaomeri, and I did

Interlacing her fingers with mine, she formed one hand using both out hands and guided it  into the basket. We clumsily grabbed the first piece of paper within our reach.

Xiaomei unfolded the paper to reveal a melon

We will have lots of children,Ling ! she said, laughing.

We laughed even more, however, when before we saiud goodbye, she unfoilded all the pieces of paper to tecveal the drawings melons, melons, nothing but melons.

The two girls grow close as they meet in a park !

If you have followed this blog for any time you know I am a huige fan of fiction set in villages or small city that have a real sense of place  as they have that air of being caught in amber in at times and here is a village that is looking far back to tradition in the values like buying a blackbird the book starts with a blackbird and ends with the vchaning as the bird seller isn’t in the ,market anymore the book is set in the twenties and follows ling to the edge of the reveloutin through the Japanese ocupation. It is obvious as I read in an interview with Berti this China in the book is a mix of real and inmagined China the china of the west the way we like to view it but I was remind fo the documentry channel four showed years ago Beyond the clouds which showed small villages that like this city had got lost in time. That had like this place missed the call of time touched by the modern world like when Ling talks about watchiong films especially of the silent film star Ruan lingyu who died young but was called the Greta garbo of China for the emotions she showed in her film. Ling says Xiaomei is even more beautiful this is a tale of the first love not sexual but of attraction and the blossoming of a young girl struggling with who she is !! Then there is her and her brother struggles to conform with their parents and try and keep the family traditions and values alive. If yoiu like books like Reef where coming of age is mixed with the scenery of a place and spirt this mixes the spirit of the small village. Ann interesting book of a place long gone from a new writer to the bog Have you read anything by Him? Happy Valentine’s day all !!

The Desert and Its seed by Jorge Barón Biza

The Desert and Its Seed by  Jorge Barón Biza

Argentinian fiction

Original title – El desierto y su semilla

Translator – Camilo Ramirez

Source – personal copy

This is a modern classic from Argentina the late writer used his own family life as the bases of the story. His own father Raul Baron Biza a writer and Politician that was in a middle of a divorce with his mother when he threw acid over his mother this is the bases of the story which is told from Jorge’s point of view. He worked as a journalist and in various publishing houses. He translated Proust. His life was touched by tragedy his mother they had to flee to Uruguay as they opposed the Peron regime . His fathe mother sister and ultimately Jorge himself all commited suicide.

Eligia’s naively sensual face began to part with its contours and colours. beneath the original features, a new substance was emerging: not a sexless face, as Aron would have wanted, but a new reality beyond the the necessary resemblance of a face. Another genesis had begun to happen – a sytem of unkown laws

Just after the inital attack her face is meling just before one of the lawyers rush her to the hospital.

The names have been changed Aron is meeting his wife in 1964 as they try to reach an agreement over the divorce. Eligia arrives and Aron throws acid in her face this is where the book opens and Mario her son arrives at the ER to see the horror that be fell his mother at the hands of his own father we arre told tha tAron ran off but later shot himself as he wouldn’t have coped with being imprisioned. The novel folows the mother and somn around the world as they seek a way to mend the mother face painful operations the pain is told early on as his mother is restrained by her wrists to stop her doing more damagfe to her face this is told as we also see there homeland of Argentina falling apart as it stumbles from one disaster to the next. His mother fate at one point he looks at one of those great Arcimboldi the artist that made his pictures of objects his most famous works had veg bu this one was made up of meat and fish. A feeling of his mother face being a patchwork of various surguries and attempts to sort it out.This book shows the horro but also the detacted nature of there relationship he cares for her but there is a lack of empathy and pathos at times he cares for the body of his mother but her soul maybe not so much.

My lace at the table faced animage from the sixteenth century that I could never imagined on my own. The frame had a metal plague that read “The Jurist” Under a cloak with a fur collar was an embellished vest with embroidedflowers and a thick golden chain – a sign that the subject was on the emperors good side – but the coin on the chain didn’t have an inscription or any figure. Underneath the waist coat, where one would expect to see the body of the subject covered by a shirt three thick volummes were visible one over the other, dry and soporfic, I imagine. The ruff was made of paper sheets, and a black cap covered the head.

All these elements, represented very natrually, framed the strangest face I have ever seen in my life.It was composed of plucked chickens arranged in such a way that a wing formed the eyebrows ridge, a thigh made up the cheek, and a small chick passed for a massive nose. A fishappeared fold onto itself, so thats its mouth was also the mouth of the subject, while its tail simulated a beard.

A face made of various parts is maybe a remind of his mother face.

Well this is a classic a slow burn story of a mothjer and son but also the aftermath off facing your own fathers actions this is his own story like they say in a lot of dramas only the names have been changed. Biza was an art critic hence the Arcimboldi and a few othe rpainting mention I alway thought of the vicious image of Bacon’s faces when I imagined his mother. This is a tragic story as we know that everyone in this book took there own life the main characters from Aron shooting himself then a decade or so later his own mother took her life as she couldn’t cope withthe horror that was her life and then his own sister and laterly Jorge only a few years after he had finished this book. How do you find words to capture this he does the nature of surgery on his mother but also the changing up and downs of his homeland at the time are  caught. A gem have you read this book ?