The book of all loves by Agustin Fernández Mallo

The book of all loves by  Agustin Fernandez Mall

Spanish fiction

Original title – El libro de todos los amores,

Translator – Thomas Bunstead

Source – subscription

I took out a small subscription to Fitzcarradlo as I had fallen behind with their books over recent years. They bring out a lot more than they first did. I ewas pleased this was one of the books from them I was snet as I have been a huge fan of Mallo’s Nocilla trilogy . He is a writer who likes to play with what a novel is and test the bounds of fiction. So his latest book to be translated into English is about love, but as ever, it is also about the world ending simultaneously. Only Mallo could work both these ideas into a novel. Maybe we have a future Nobel winner from the Nobel stable of Fitzcarraldo are gathering.

It is animals, not us, who live in the prison-house of language, because they are not able to leave and stand outside it and think about it. This is only because it is impossible for them to access the ideas that surround words.A dog never crosses a road, because it does not know what a road is. This, among other things, is why dogs get run over. It isn’t that the dog fails to look both ways before crossing, it’s that it does not possess the idea of a road.Its gaze is another gaze, its crossing is another crossing.Hence the fact that an animal cannot give or receive love either. It’s not that it doesn’t love, it’s that its love is other.

(Language love)

One of the love aphorisms

 

The book has several different streams to it. There is a series of aphorisms around love, such as independence, parcel, and language love, to name a few, as it runs through the book. Maybe love is all that is left, one wonders, as maybe that connects to the other story around something called the great Blackout, an apocalyptic event on earth with a single couple left. This is where we get the third stream of the husband of the couple and an earlier visit to Venice he had made. This is a mix of thoughts about love and what makes love. A past love of a place and visit to Venice, an Alexa machine while there all have the traits of Mallo’s other works, he likes recurrent themes like love, tech, and place and adds to that a couple surviving the end of the world you have a book that breaks the bounds of what fiction is. A book that need to be read to be captured fully

VENICE (1)

Month of June, first foor of a palazzo whose foundations stand below the waterline of Venice’s Misericordia Canal. There is a room, and a high window with views across the domes of St Mark’s Basilica and across a sea that will shift in colour throughout the day. There is also a woman – a writer — who, were she to look up, would be able to see all of this, but keeps her eyes down instead, tapping at the keys of a typewriter. Her typing produces slight movements in a small snow globe containing a miniature version of Venice to her right on the desk, raising a layer of snow up inside the globe, where it swirls before falling across the plastic city, and the writer goes on typing, and on, while outside, in the real Venice, the Venice of tourists and water and stone, the June humidity ushers in an early summer storm. Now, as the sequence she is working on grows in intensity, the table turns quivering fingerboard and the snow rises in the globe, and again it rises, once more hitting the tiny glass vault and falling on empty palazzos and waterless canals. The books and papers strewn across the desk, all of them on one single subject – love – receive these blows without so much as a flinch. Inside the globe, a snowflake has just landed on St Mark’s Square,

A long passage and the first remembering a trip by the husband to Venice

Mallo is a physicist I am always drawn to C P Snow and what he said about the two cultures of Humanties and Sccience he himself crossed these two cultures as he was a fellow scientist come writer. But what Malo has done is not only cross the lines between the two cultures, he has dragged the theory of Snow and thrown it in a blender by adding Calvino, Twitter, modern tech and scientific mind, also throwing in a touch of post-end of the worldness in for good measure and produced a book that only some like him could.I feel he is breaking the barriers of what fiction its and making us as readers work through this myriad of versions of love as we also witness the aftermath of the great blackout whilst also trying to remember a distant holiday with a few unusual things happening it like a waking dream of a wim wenders film it is like what he tried to do in Until the end of the world capture so much in such a small space. Have you read Mallo?

Winston score – A may be the first of next year Booker international books ?

 

Some recent buys

A break from all things booker today. I’ll do a round-up of some books I got on two recent days out. First, as many of you know, My Mum’s ashes are spread in Macclesfield, and as it was recently Mother’s Day here in the UK, I went to take some flowers, and we had a couple of hours in Macclesfield. They have a small Waterstones. I always get a nature book from there as my mum loved Nature, and this time, I chose another from the Little Toller classic series.

This was an earlier work from the Children writer Michael Morpurgo about a farm he ran in the countryside for Farms for city kids at his farm in North Devon. I was torn between this and another in the series. I hope it will be there next time I go back. There is also a OXFAM small again but it has not often had any good books but this time I hit a nice selection of books.

First up the title of this book Kafka was the rage a memoir written by a former leading book critic for the New York Times book critic about his time in Greenwich Village when it was there hip place to be,

One that has been on my radar for a few years is the first part of four of Dorothy Richardson’s Modernist masterpieces, the Pilgrimage. I will watch over time for the other three parts of this series. dealing with the life of Miriam Henderson

Next up is another on the series of short story collection from Oxford university press this collection is set in Barcelona compiled by Peter Bush who also translated them all they range from Cervantes through Josep Pla and Juan Marse to Quim Monzo as one of the modern writers involved in this vibrant city. I have other books from this series.

Ever since I had seen this had come out from And other stories in a new edition, I was reminded I wanted to read more from Hines, best well-known for Kes, and the script for Threads, which I recently watched a terrifylng look at how a nuclear war would end up shocking as it was set in Sheffield. So I was pleased to see this old film tie on of the Gamekeeper on the shelf.

Amanda and I also had a nice day in Sheffield where they have a large waterstonmes. BNut as I had literally three days earlier brought most of the booker longlist as I need most lof the books I limited myself to three books from there this time.

First off was Butter by Asako Yuzuki. I have seen this posted a lot. It has a very eye-catching cover, a story of a female serial killer who cooked  for and then killed her men. She is interviewed by another woman as the two talk. The woman is interviewing and starts to see the world like the serial killer, an interesting-sounding book. I need a few new Japanese books as I read a lot of the ones I had at the start of the year

Then, another from Japan, a woman pretends to be pregnant for nine months. How will she get away with it and why? I liked the sound of this, and it has been on a lot of other blogs, so I wait and it will be reviewed next January, I think. A little forward planning from me. I also love the cover of this book.

Then this was the main book I had gone for as I am a huge fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I have reviewed six other books from him at the time of the blog. I was excited when I heard that his last novel had survived. He wanted it bin, but his sons kept a copy, and we have this story of a faithful wife who goes away on holiday every August and has an affair whilst she is on Holiday. It is strange as he mostly had male lead characters in his books. But illicit love is something he always tackled in his books.

What new or second hand has hit your shelves recently. Are you looking forward to the Marquez as well? It is a writer’s last book he wanted to be destroyed. Was it worth saving just to have it ?

That was the month that was Feburary 2022

1. Geography of an Adultery by Agnes Riva
2. The End of Eddy bt Edouard Louis
3. Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet
4. The Voice imatator by Thomas Bernhard
5. Marzhan ,mon Amour by Katja Oskamp
6. One in Me I never Loved by Carla GuelfenBein
7. Necropolis by Boris Pahor

I am on too 16 books reviewed on the blog which is just under my target of 100 reviews for the year I have currently read 26 book this year so am on target to read over a 100 books. I started my reading this month in France with three french novels two about aultery one real and told with a sparce use of emotions a more clinical nature to the affair in Riva’s Geography of an Adultery. Then in Jealousy we saw what could have been imagined affair in Robbe-Grillet novel that sees a husband glimpse on his wife and fill in the gaps. Then my other french book saw a hard childhood described from a son that is different to his family. Then we have Thomas Bernhard his flash fiction culled from news headlines remind me of ALexander Kluge somewhat, Then In Berlin we meet a podiatrist a writer retrains and sees a community through there feet. Then a divorce and an affair from two different eras are told in One I never loved. Then we ended the month with a powerful description of s[lovenian writer Boris Pahor and his time in c=various concentration camps as a prisoner then as a  medical orderly.My reading has slowed this month as it usually does I always race through books in the new year and then hit the wall. I have written a lot more words than this time last year as my reviews are slowly growing. How has your month been ?

Book of the month-

Necropolis is a powerful telling of the horrors of the Holocaust from the perspective of being a slovenian and the various camps he went to during the war. As I said it is a book everyone should read.

Non book event this month

It has been a very quiet month for me I am off work at the moment  so have been at home a lot we have had our usual walk in the peaks and trips to Bakewell and town for coffees. I have listen to a lot of comfort music mostly shoegazing which is a genre I love and bands like the cure and REM the sort of musical equivalent of comfort reading there is something reassuring in these bands also I drift away with the likes of Slowdive and My bloody valentine. I  also went for comfort tv things like new tricks also been indulging in youtube videos I like book tube but also vanlife, cottage core, productivity and  pen and stationary vlogs it is a rabbit hole that I hadn’t watch a lot til this last few months. Do you have comfort music ?

Next month-

Well it is Man booker  longlist time in March. I have read a few books  I think may be there that I have to review yet as I usually do in the weeks before. As we have 10 days to wait and see what will make this years list it is always a highlight of my year the longlist coming out and seeing what the Judges have chosen there is so many books out there it will be a hard call to chose just 12 or 13 books from the selection that is out there  I imagine. I am doing the shadow Jury  again. Which I will be doing again this year it is always a highlight for me as a reader and last year the chance to chat with everyone on line was amazing. As  for  the  blog Til the list is out it will be a mix of what I am reading  at moment and what \I have read including Grey bees by Andrei Kurkov which has been on my tbr since I was sent it last year and now seems the right time to read it I am also in the middle of The morning star I also would love to get a couple of Arab books in this month as it has been a while since I have reviewed any. I had tried to stop reading multiple books but I needed to read grey bees so made an exemption. from the 10th it will be what ever I haven’t read of the longlist and can get when the list is released I know in recent years there have been books not available when the list comes out which is annoying especially when I can’t get them. I hope to review a few more books this month. What are your plans for next month ?

 

Finally Holiday time

I have been missing a lot the last few months as I have just been running on empty two years of Covoid has been a lot. SO I have been counting down and now tomorrow Amanda and I finally get to have a long trip away we had a weekend away with family but this is our first break for over two years we had a couple of other plans curtailed due to lockdowns and restrictions over last year or so. So tomorrow we head north a last-minute change of destination we are going to Northumberland a place close to my heart as twenty-odd years ago I lived there for a couple of Years so when our plans change at the last minute a couple of weeks ago we opted for Northumberland. I even brought a guidebook as we look to do some new things this time we went a few years ago but this time we aim to do new things barring another day in Alnwick my old home town and home to the largest second-hand book shops in the Uk.  Barter books a shop that open when I lived there and had gone from the old waiting room of the station in Alnwick to the whole building over the years. This place was maybe the acorn of what I have become as a reader it was one of the first places I chanced on my reading experiences trying then unknown to me writers things like the Beats and some of my first translated writers. This was an age before the internet so a new writer was unknown to me as a reader no quick google search. A gem of a place. So a visit there it always feels like a rejuvenating experience. I have a pile of books with me and will be taking the laptop so may write a post or two if not I will be back and hit the ground running and reviewing in a little over a week. Has covid and the restriction hit your blogging or meant you can’t have a holiday? As we now face the world opening up again a=what are your plans moving forward

That was the month that was January 2021

1. The Catholic school by Edoardo Albinati
2. At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop
3. A luminous Republic by Andres Barba
4. Shipwrecks by Akira Yoshimura
5. Robinson by Aram Pachyan
6. Holiday Heart by Margarita Garcia Robayo
7. Schoolgirl by Osamu Dazai
8. 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
9. Kokoschka doll by Alfonso Cruz
10. The last days of Ellis Island by  Gaëlle Joss
11. 30th April 1945 by Alexander Kluge
12. The sand child by Tahar Ben Jelloun
13. With an unopened umbrella in the pouring rain by Ludovic Bruckstein

Well, I managed 13 reviews this month, and from 12 countries unfortunately there were no new countries,  no new publishers, but it’s been a while since I reviewed a book from Virago. The journey this month starts with the epic Italian story of a school and some killing then we went to the trenches and some African troops. A small child tells the tales of his medieval Japanese fishing village.  Then some strange children appear in the jungle. Then Modern Armenia is highlighted in a collection of short stories. Then we had the tale of a couple’s American dream falling apart. A day in the life of a pre-war Japan. Then the letters between a New Yorker and an old English bookseller. A series of vignettes take us to wartime Germany and the aftermath. The last week on Ellis Island sees the last guard reflecting on his time on the Island. The day Hitler shot himself is seen in 360 degrees from every angle. Then a girl is forced to grow up a boy to save the family money and lastly we see Sighet in Romania with tales of the Jews that lived there.

Book of the month

We have two winners here –

Firstly the tales of Sighet so touch me in this collection of short stories from a writer that has luckily been saved from oblivion and brought to us thanks to his son’s efforts to get his father’s voice heard.

Then 30th April 1945 is just so rich the multiple layer Kluge forms with his vignettes around the day Hitler shot himself. Kluge is a writer that likes to take a wide angle on his fiction the bigger picture.

Non-book related items

With us in Lockdown I haven’t brought a lot of records this month but spent most time listen back to old Uncut and Mojo cd I have got both these magazines for well twenty years so I have a lot of their CDs and have spent a couple of hours reading and listening to them most afternoons off work. Especially their Americana CDs. I am now on the last of my three nights tonight for this month at work.

Next month

I have already read a couple of books read ready so we shall be in Iceland and with a chess master to start with this month’s reading I hope to add a couple of Arab works this month. Then I will see where I wander knowing me it has been a while since I read a book from a new country so I think that may need to add somewhere new next month what are your plans for the coming month?

Winstonsdad top albums of the year

I spent this year buying more vinyl than other years a lot of the record store day records and a lot off either the record fair or monthly record fair so it was a mix of old and new but I have chosen 8 new albums from the last year and two reissues. They may be all fall under the rock indie umbrella.

SO in no particular order

1 . Tom Sanders – Only Magic a member of the various bands over recent years this came out late last year and got a lot of airplay on the Marc Riley show subtle acoustic songs haunting at times.

2. Porridge Radio Every Bad – I was reminded of riot girl and early punk bands with female singers with this band something unique ion the singers voice and almost a child-like wonder to the sings.

3 Robert Forester Danger in the past – One of the two reissues on the list this was his debut solo album from thirty years ago in fact last year his last release made the list. This features Nick cave backing band as the band. I missed this years ago which was a shame he is a singer I really love.

4. Pale Saints – The comfort of Madness – I think I mentioned this as an album when I was young I loved so when the reissue of this shoegazing classic came out on vinyl I had to get it the bonus of a Japanese only release issued for the first time in the UK it made a bonus year for this under known band from the shoegazing era.

5. Bob Dylan – Rough and rowdy ways – Well this is album … from a singer that has been around for over fifty years how can he still make great songs well the track Murder Most foul an epic song about JFK is maybe his best song since blood on tracks era Dylan.

6 Fontaines DC  –  A hero’S Death another band that feature last year this was their second album a bit more polished but still full of punk joy and Irish wit at times this is a band that could be huge or if they take it carefully the best regard band if recent times.

7. Destroyer  – Have We Met – Well when Dan Bejar said he had watched Wim Wenders films when making this album I had to get it a mix of indie and jazz like his other albums it is uniquely him a voice rich and dark at times.

8. BC Camplight – Shortly after takeoff another one I found via Marc Riley he has been around for a number of years this is his latest album the last of a trilogy of records he has made in recent years.

9. Bill Calahan – Gold – The former smog lead singer is another singer I came late to maybe ten years ago but this album is him at his best bittersweet songs Especially the track I pick here a story of a lost son.

10. Nick Cave – Idiot Prayer – simply stunning this solo reworking of his songs one of two records near the end of the year from him the other the litanies he wrote for a Belgium composer sung by various singers.

That is what I choose today it may change the been so many great reissues like the vinyl version of Cale/Reed’s songs for drella, the lockdown songs coming from Jeffrey lewis that Marc Riley had played. What have been your favorite records of 2020 what was you lockdown companions?

 

 

That was the months that was May/June 2020

1. The sad part was by Prabda Yoon
2. The brother by Rein Raud
3. Restless by Kenneth Moe
4. Mr Palomar by Italo Calvino
5. The hour between dog and wold by Silke Scheuermann
6. The End and again by Dino Bauk
7. I remember by Georges Perec
8. Obscurity by Philippe Jacottet
9. Tazmamart by Aziz Binebine
10. Grove by Esther Kinsky
11. A House in Norway by Vigdis Hjorth
12. M train by Patti Smith
13. A long way off by Pascal Garnier
14. Fate by Jorge Consiglio

 

I read 13 books in the last two months which saw me go from Thailand and a tale of modern Bangkok to Estonia and a revenge story. Then in Norway, a man tries to write a letter to a former love then Italy and an Italian man view the world in various ways. then sisters get to know each other than a former band from Slovenia. Then Perec from France finds a list of things he remembered. That leads on to a philosopher returning to see what has happened to his former master. Then a former Prisoner in Morroco in a top-secret prison. A widow goes to Italy and observes village life. A woman let her small apartment in Norway and then regrets it. Patti Smith talks about her life and then I read the last book published in his life by Pascal Garnier a regular on here. Then I finished in Argentina. I have visited 11 countries this last two months and passed a 1000 reviews.

Book of the month

Grove really touched me I have recently been struggling wife grief over my mums passing it was her birthday in June and the last three years since her passing have flown. I connected with the loss in this book but also the trying. to connect to place the Kinsky does so well.

Non-book things-

Well, I have listened a lot to the New Dylan Album. We have ventured a bit further than recent weeks to the peaks just parking and looking at views which given how little we have ventured out recently with all the Covoid thing.

next month-

Well its Spanish lit month that will be the main focus for July and then August. I will be starting with a leftfield choice!! what are your plans ?

11 not out Bloganiversary 11 years of winstonsdad

Well, it was actually a few days ago this blog turned 11 it has been a long journey recently I have slowed blogging wise but still am posting reviews. I hope to do more posts after this Covoid thing has passed. As for the state of the blog I feel I am settled I love doing reviews and these days mix review and personal choices more than I used. In the last eleven years, I have seen bloggers come and go and the world of blogging changes its quieter now as people use other platforms. But for me, it is still lively with those that remain like myself after a lot of years are like old friends. I maybe have less time to comment and spend less time on twitter than I once did but still love the buzz of a good week on #translationthurs hard believe that it runs its self as a meme ten years after I first suggested it. Moving forward more of the same I love it as much as I did when I started but in a more settled way than I once did. I  like to say thanks to all those Publishers, readers, bloggers, and book folk I have met through this blog or passed comment with blog-wise this blog has given me so many things I wouldn’t have done and hopefully have many new adventures in coming years.

Lampedusa by Pietro Bartolo and Lidia Tilotta

Lampedusa gateway to Europe by Pietro Bartolo and Lidia Tilotta

Italian Memoir

Original title –  Lacrime di sale

Translator – Chenxin Jiang

Source – review copy

Its take a while to get to this book. I did stat it when I was sent it last year but it got put to one side as I got caught with other books. Which was a shame as I was enjoying the few pages I had read? The book is written by Pietro Bartolo the doctor in the Island Clinic on Lampedusa. Where he has treated and helped many of the refugees that have arrived on the coast from North Africa. He was helped by RAI journalist Lidia Tilotta in writing this book.

One red shoe on Favaloro Pier. That one shoe and so many others like it lie there, scattered like pebbles in a trail thatleads nowhere, breaking off abruptly like the migrants”hope of coming ashore in a different world. Those shoes appear in my nightmares. So do all the little pendants, necklaces, and braclets on all the tiny bodies I examine. It is my job to unzip them, one by one, from those horrible green bags.

Pietro haunt by those dead childs bodies he has to see day after day.

The book is formed of a number of short memoir pieces as Pietro as he describes the world he lives in where he runs the clinic on Lampedusa. Where he has treated and seen most of the quarter of a million refugees that have arrived on boats to this small Italian Island over the last 25 years in a growing number. From the deaths hitting home in the second piece which talks about the one read shoe that he sees on the beach. For me, it evokes the famous words from Hemingway bay shoes for sale never worn. a single read shoe is all that is shown of a life lost at sea. Then we see his own life his father and the boats they took to sea in. Two women in another tale Faduma and Jerusalem one from Somalia and the other a younger one from Eritrea as he tells there tales Faduma 37 seems much older paralyzed struck by the emotional and mental trauma of her life. Then Jerusalem 15 thinks she may be with child but thankfully this young girl tyha\t thinks she is a woman isn’t. Each is touching brutal images a bay found attached to the mother still by the umbilical cord both buried with a teddy that Pietro had put in it. One man and his island trying there best to get the best care for these new arrivals but struggling under the sheer numbers at times.

Faduma: aged thirty-seven, Somali. Jerusalem: aged fifteen, Eritrean. The list grows longer. My USB drive fills up every day with names and faces of women, some of whom are adults, other little more than children. Mothers, daughters, wives. I catalgue their names and preserve their stories with merticulousness of an archvist.

I do this because I do not want them to be forgotten. I travel all over Europe telling their stories , and I want to give each of them the space they deserve. I do not want to leave any of them put. I hope their gripping tales will help people to understand what is happening . They have certainly helped me understand what has changed over the years, and what kinds of problems we can expect to confront.

The tale of two women and their world is what Pietro is trying to keep alive when he talks to people or here has written about them.

There have been a few books about the situation in Lampedusa but this one is very touching from a man that has been at the heart of the crisis that is facing Lampedusa. The mix of his own past and the present flesh out him and those near him. This is a man that has sen a trickle of people from around the world tries to enter the promised land of Europe via boats some not even getting there in overcrowded boats or just being too worn down by getting to the coast of North Africa. Form Africa and places like Syria. His clinic has been a become of hope but as the local mortician, he sees everyone as he records all the people he has seen over the years to his USB. A crisis that hasn’t really been given the full coverage of the Horrors they have to endure. I remember the shock of the Vietnam boat people ok the journey was long but these short journeys are so dangerous and the dream isn’t there for most. I

Jacob’s room is full of books by Susan Hill

 

 

Jacob’s room is full of books ( a year of reading) by Susan Hill

Lit memoir

Source – personnel copy

I think I saw a picture of this book on facebook a few weeks ago and was reminded how much I had loved her first Lit memoir Howard’s end is on the landing. Which I reviewed when it came out, a few years ago.So when I saw this followed a year of Susan’s reading. She is also a  reader that has previously Judge on the Booker prize. Susan Hill won the Somerset Maugham prize and is best known for Woman in Black and her crime series Simon Serrailler.

The hound of the Baskervilles is the best of all Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. Other people might pick other stories, and it is surprising, given their lasting and worldwide popularity, how few of these there actually are, though Conan Doyle wrote plenty of other things .

Sherlock Holmes has become not just a Victorian detective in a series of short novels and stories ,he has become one of those iconic literary figures who take on a life of their own, out of context of their books.

I agree with this , i love the lines about the Lord running and his heart bursting in Hound !!

Now like the earlier book we see a year of what Susan Hill reads, I found this an interesting insight into a reader’s life. But also I discovered a reader that like me at times can go off at a tangent like reading one spy novel then three more straight after that. Also the insight into how writers drift in and out of fashion, she mentions reading C P Snow a writer who I have been collecting his strange and brother series of novels, which have dropped out of fashion. There is also insights into books like Stoner those books that grow by word of mouth. Great, she mentioned Embers an old book that was also a huge word of mouth and a bonus a translation. She also rereads a number of book. Where she shows how books change over time and we view them different every time we read them.

During the Last Man Boooker prize I judged, we had heated arguments, and the Late Ion Trewin, most loved of bookmen, had almost to wade in and separate one or two of us.But when we had decided on the shortlist, we then asked him to tell us how many novels by woman we had selected and to give us the break down on which publishers had books on the shortlist. We genuinely had no idea about either because neither had been relevant.

The  last line got me they matter of sex of the writer not being relevant is spot on it is the words .

Now this is yet another lit Memoir , but I liked ita lot.  For me as a reader these type of books are almost like a palate cleanser between books or a spa break that leaves me refreshed for new challenges and discoveries. Now I do have one little quibble with Susan’s reading that is in a year of reading about a hundred books that only six of them were Translations, it was also noted that she lists a group of writers she hasn’t read Kafka, Pamuk , Knausgaard and Svevo among them she noes a lot aren’t english, but also all were male. I could write a list of female writers I haven’t read but I felt maybe she had lost something by not trying these writers especially Pamuk and Knausgaard both great chroniclers of their times and worlds. I also agree with Lisa who noted that there maybe has been a few to many lit memoirs in recent years. But this is a vibrant look at one readers life and one that has been inside publishing and books for most of her life so know’s what she likes , just love her to try a few more translations.