German Literature was the great bludge subject of my undergraduate degree. Firstly, it wasn't taught in German, which is fortunate given that I speak barely a word of it (aside from schizer, but that's more from allusions in South Park to types of Teutonic porn). Secondly, it had the coolest, funniest lecturer, whose translation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is still the unrivalled standard in his homeland and who once entertained us with an hilariously mocking rendition of the Bavarian thigh-slap dance. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, I had already read half the books, including my all-time favourite novel, Franz Kafka's The Trial. The subject was, as I saw it, a chance for me to boast to a German native of my personal connection to my hero, even if years later it would prove to have been a load of hokum. But beyond the brilliance of Brecht, Borchert and Boll, despite the discovery of another all-time favourite, Heinrich Mann's The Man of Straw, German Lit was not a complete winner. There were a few dreary moments, not the least of which was Joseph Roth's unbearably drab supposed masterpiece The Radetzky March. Yeah, it was grand. It was sweeping. But most of all it was dull. I swore that I would never waste my time with Roth's treacly nostalgia for the Austro-Hungarian Empire again.
Then, recently, a strange thing started happening. People whose opinions I respected, and whose tastes have always been quite similar to my own, began extolling the virtues of the tragic imp. I had lumped him in with the verbose vomiters of the German old-school but, according to his ever-growing cheer squad, he was much more closely linked to the Walsers and Kafkas of this world. I was shocked. Nowhere in The Radetzky March did I see signs of malevolent, hidden forces crushing the average man. At no point was my mind, to use the vernacular, fucked. I did a quick search and was pleased to find that the majority of Roth's novels - and there were a lot of them (is there something about the name that makes an author so prolific?) - are short and so I figured it couldn't hurt to give him another try. Scanning a few blurbs, the one that seemed to have the instant appeal was Rebellion.
The novel starts off with a crippled organ grinder... A crippled organ grinder? Yes!!! This is already my sort of book. And it just keeps getting better. Returned from the first World War, where his leg was blown off, Andreas Pum is a hopeless beggar until he marries a fat, wealthy aristocrat (yeah, in German lit they are always fat) and gets a taste of the high life. All is going swimmingly for about ten pages until he is mistaken for a fake, wrongly considered the aggressor in the resultant altercation, decks a cop, and is thrown into jail. Through no fault of his own, the life of this simpleton-come-good turns to crap. And then he dies. Perfect!
Roth is cold and brutal about the societal winds of indifference that might just as well blow us over as lift us up. Rebellion is a cynical little gem, spiteful and pithy but kept in check by a true master. It has single-handedly changed my opinion of Roth and caused me to order almost his entire catalogue. Which makes me wonder whether I have to revisit some of the other German Lit disappointments - Fontane, Christa Wolff, some others I have chosen to forget. Perhaps it is wrong to base one's opinion of an author on a single work, even if it is held out to be their masterpiece. And now there is a deeper, burning question simmering in the backgound... Must I read another Dan Brown?
Frischin' For Luckies
on Thursday, April 28, 2011
Only a month or so after stumbling across Krakatit, a previously unknown (to me at least) book by one of my favourite authors, Karel Capek, it seems I've done it again. And this time it was even weirder. Every now and then I do an Amazon search to see if any 'new' books by my favourite obscure European authors have popped up in translation. Capek, Bernhard, Bjorneboe, Frisch, Hrabal, Lem. I know they all have works that have either never been translated or the English editions of which have long been out of print and so I hold out continual hope that spiffy new copies will magically appear in the field of search results. It is a generally fruitless endeavour. Once I found Capek's The Absolute At Large. Another time it was Bjorneboe's play Amputation. But for the most part I come up with bubkes.
Two days ago, for no particular reason, I did a search for Max Frisch and was glad to see a collection of his plays that I have not yet read. Naturally, I ordered them but, truth be told, it was a hollow victory. I don't really like reading plays. Stoppard aside, unless I'm watching them or acting in them I just don't see the point. My sudden inexplicable bout of Frischination had not been sated. Imagine my surprise, then, when I stumbled across a newly published, hardcover edition of a novella of which I had never even heard sitting on the shelf of the bookstore around the corner from my office. The very next day! Wrapped in plastic, no less!!
An Answer From The Silence, newly translated by Mike Mitchell (he of Kafka, Bernhard and Goethe fame), tells of young Balz Leuthold's quest to live at the very edge of existence. Leaving behind a fiancee and a lover, he sets off on a hike into uncharted mountain wilderness and disappears. Like always with Frisch, the narrative floats around in time and space, utilising flashbacks, shifting perspectives and sudden schisms between frivolous naturist ponderings and outbursts of intense despair. While Balz takes in the beauty of all that surrounds him, his fiancee and lover, forced to come together in the hope he might be found, must fashion an unnatural accord. In the great swirl of the narrative, Balz becomes something akin to Schrodinger's Cat, with Frisch seeming to posit that we might all be thought of as alive and dead until we rise above the challenge of merely existing. Balz's eventual reappearance is a hard-fought redemption. He has frostbite, will probably need his arm and foot amputated, and will have to sort out his love life. But, he is finally happy.
This short work, Frisch's second, has all the hallmarks of what made him such a great figure in modern philosophical literature. Resting on the twin Frischian pillars of existentialism and nature, it serves as an accessible, if discomforting, introduction to his longer novels or, for those of us who are already fans, a welcome alternative to having to read plays and pretend we like them. I'm now going to play in traffic.
Two days ago, for no particular reason, I did a search for Max Frisch and was glad to see a collection of his plays that I have not yet read. Naturally, I ordered them but, truth be told, it was a hollow victory. I don't really like reading plays. Stoppard aside, unless I'm watching them or acting in them I just don't see the point. My sudden inexplicable bout of Frischination had not been sated. Imagine my surprise, then, when I stumbled across a newly published, hardcover edition of a novella of which I had never even heard sitting on the shelf of the bookstore around the corner from my office. The very next day! Wrapped in plastic, no less!!
An Answer From The Silence, newly translated by Mike Mitchell (he of Kafka, Bernhard and Goethe fame), tells of young Balz Leuthold's quest to live at the very edge of existence. Leaving behind a fiancee and a lover, he sets off on a hike into uncharted mountain wilderness and disappears. Like always with Frisch, the narrative floats around in time and space, utilising flashbacks, shifting perspectives and sudden schisms between frivolous naturist ponderings and outbursts of intense despair. While Balz takes in the beauty of all that surrounds him, his fiancee and lover, forced to come together in the hope he might be found, must fashion an unnatural accord. In the great swirl of the narrative, Balz becomes something akin to Schrodinger's Cat, with Frisch seeming to posit that we might all be thought of as alive and dead until we rise above the challenge of merely existing. Balz's eventual reappearance is a hard-fought redemption. He has frostbite, will probably need his arm and foot amputated, and will have to sort out his love life. But, he is finally happy.
This short work, Frisch's second, has all the hallmarks of what made him such a great figure in modern philosophical literature. Resting on the twin Frischian pillars of existentialism and nature, it serves as an accessible, if discomforting, introduction to his longer novels or, for those of us who are already fans, a welcome alternative to having to read plays and pretend we like them. I'm now going to play in traffic.
David Foster Wallace's The Pale King: Tupac's Back Bee-yatch!
on Wednesday, April 27, 2011
David Foster Wallace has been a constant lingering presence in my adult reading life. That isn't to say that I'm obsessed with him like so many other people I know, but he always seems to be there, particularly at the major junctures. I started reading Infinite Jest at the commencement of my honours year at university and, though I read many other books while dipping in and out of it, that behemoth kept me company until the day I handed in my thesis. Indeed, I ended up dedicating the bloody thing to Wallace's masterpiece, much to the chagrin of many more deserving loved ones and acquaintances. Now, quite a few years later, The Pale King pops up just as I get my marching orders from my apartment. I am forced to move in with my parents until the new house is ready, an unintended consequence of which is the luxury of a few days straight reading. Three days, to be precise. No need to dedicate a thesis to this one.
I don't intend to bang on too much about The Pale King. Enough has been written in the blogosphere to make Wallace's own prolific body of scribblings seem like mere pamphlets. Nor do I intend to harp on about how his suicide in 2009 robbed the world of one the greatest literary talents of his generation. Frankly, it angered me, though not as much as the subsequent idiotic rush to print anything he might have jotted down. His Amherst undergrad thesis, Fate, Time and Language is now a must-have for Arts students everywhere. Except it is rubbish and should have been left in his adviser's filing cabinet. There Is Some Water, his 2005 lecture at Kenyon College, is slight and hardly important. And don't even get me started on Everything and More. It's starting to look like Wallace is the Tupac of modern literature.
The Pale King is, and demands to be read as, an epitaph of sorts on his writing career. It is the novel he had been working on for years before depression got the better of him. A relatively slight 560 pages - well, slight for Wallace, probably less so for Camus - it is about the IRS. Yes, that's right. 560 pages about tax. Now, I've read the Australian Tax Act. It is of a similar length. And it is the most boring collection of consecutive verbiage that I have ever encountered. Which means I approached The Pale King with considerable trepidation. Thankfully, Wallace's lyrical gusto had me overlooking the subject matter for the most part. Sure, there are bits that drag and bits that needed a rewrite or a good edit. But there are also large sections that just sing. Like the first Author's Note, about four chapters in, in which Wallace 'the author' intrudes to comment upon Wallace the character and the nature of autobiography. Brilliant. And like the Chris Fogel novella, probably the longest riff in the book. Infuriatingly boring and engaging at the same time. Then there is the chapter that, in my opinion, far outshines anything else in the book. Or anything else Wallace ever wrote. It is a protracted conversation between Shane Drinion, the most boring man in the office, and Meredith Baxter, the most (only) beautiful woman and it is simply breathtaking. Nothing I can say here can possibly do it justice.
The Pale King is unfinished, though I suspect it is far closer to completion than we have been led to believe. You may therefore choose to read it as a work-in-progress or, like Infinite Jest, a complete novel that ends abruptly without resolution. Choose the former and you have an enlightening glimpse into the working brain of a genius and will be left to wonder what the finished product might have been. Choose the latter and you have a spirited, sometimes spectacular act of literary ventriloquism on one of the most boring topics imaginable. When all is said and done, The Pale King isn't quite as great as some will have you believe but it is still worth reading even if only for Wallace's stunning wordsmithery (which, ironically, I don't think is a word). In that regard The Pale King towers above all the pretenders. And at least you won't be a total poser lugging it around. You listening to me Arts students?
I don't intend to bang on too much about The Pale King. Enough has been written in the blogosphere to make Wallace's own prolific body of scribblings seem like mere pamphlets. Nor do I intend to harp on about how his suicide in 2009 robbed the world of one the greatest literary talents of his generation. Frankly, it angered me, though not as much as the subsequent idiotic rush to print anything he might have jotted down. His Amherst undergrad thesis, Fate, Time and Language is now a must-have for Arts students everywhere. Except it is rubbish and should have been left in his adviser's filing cabinet. There Is Some Water, his 2005 lecture at Kenyon College, is slight and hardly important. And don't even get me started on Everything and More. It's starting to look like Wallace is the Tupac of modern literature.
The Pale King is, and demands to be read as, an epitaph of sorts on his writing career. It is the novel he had been working on for years before depression got the better of him. A relatively slight 560 pages - well, slight for Wallace, probably less so for Camus - it is about the IRS. Yes, that's right. 560 pages about tax. Now, I've read the Australian Tax Act. It is of a similar length. And it is the most boring collection of consecutive verbiage that I have ever encountered. Which means I approached The Pale King with considerable trepidation. Thankfully, Wallace's lyrical gusto had me overlooking the subject matter for the most part. Sure, there are bits that drag and bits that needed a rewrite or a good edit. But there are also large sections that just sing. Like the first Author's Note, about four chapters in, in which Wallace 'the author' intrudes to comment upon Wallace the character and the nature of autobiography. Brilliant. And like the Chris Fogel novella, probably the longest riff in the book. Infuriatingly boring and engaging at the same time. Then there is the chapter that, in my opinion, far outshines anything else in the book. Or anything else Wallace ever wrote. It is a protracted conversation between Shane Drinion, the most boring man in the office, and Meredith Baxter, the most (only) beautiful woman and it is simply breathtaking. Nothing I can say here can possibly do it justice.
The Pale King is unfinished, though I suspect it is far closer to completion than we have been led to believe. You may therefore choose to read it as a work-in-progress or, like Infinite Jest, a complete novel that ends abruptly without resolution. Choose the former and you have an enlightening glimpse into the working brain of a genius and will be left to wonder what the finished product might have been. Choose the latter and you have a spirited, sometimes spectacular act of literary ventriloquism on one of the most boring topics imaginable. When all is said and done, The Pale King isn't quite as great as some will have you believe but it is still worth reading even if only for Wallace's stunning wordsmithery (which, ironically, I don't think is a word). In that regard The Pale King towers above all the pretenders. And at least you won't be a total poser lugging it around. You listening to me Arts students?
A Feeble Excuse
on Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Apologies that this month is turning out to be something of a write off on B4BW. I'm trying to move house while ploughing through David Foster Wallace... A truly surreal experience. Full report next week! Also looking forward to reading through all 50 Penguin Mini Modern Classics in less than a month as well as finally sinking my teeth into some graphic fiction (having never progressed beyond GI Joe comics).
Fear And Self-Loathing In Paris: The Tenant by Roland Topor
on Sunday, April 3, 2011
Back in January I had a bit of a whinge about how my reading year had already been spoiled by the sheer brilliance of I. J. Singer's The Brothers Ashkenazi. Nothing, reasoned January me, could possibly hope to come close. Not to say I wasn't trying. I followed it up with The Border Trilogy for godsakes! But, as I fumbled my way through that and other supposed classics, hoping to find some spark of significance in their pages, I began to resign myself to eleven months of trashy magazines, vampire novels and pretty much anything written by Jodi Picoult. In other words, I was getting ready to give up on reading literary fiction altogether. Well, thank Franz I didn't because, in what can only be described as a random act of obscure reading, I stumbled across a work that has joined The Brothers Askenazi in my all-time top ten list. Take that, Women's Day Recommended Reading List!
Unlike with Singer's book, I have struggled to figure out how best to write about The Tenant, Roland Topor's nightmarish vision of big city alienation and paranoia. A month after the fact, I am still thoroughly disturbed by it. You may already be familiar with the story thanks to Roman Polanski's excellent adaptation, but chances are, like me, you will not have known it was based on a novel. As one friend put it, he had always assumed The Tenant was Polanski trying to out-Kafka Kafka. It is an interesting comment on the public's perception of the great auteur that the film is seen to have sprung from his mind, but it is precisely that perception which has relegated Topor to the shadows and denied him the critical attention he so greatly deserves.
The Tenant is a deceptively simple affair, depicting the mental collapse of Trelkovsky, a young man who moves into a new apartment following the suicide of its former tenant. From the outset, Trelkovsky senses something isn't right. His neighbours chastise him for the slightest of indiscretions. He feels he is being constantly watched. The neighbours try to involve him in a petition, possibly against himself. Worst of all, he feels the needs to change his ways in order to conform to their expectations of how a fellow tenant ought to behave. His descent into absolute despair, needless to say, is fast and spectacular.
Like the greatest works of Poe or Hitchcock, this is horror in its purest form, without the need for anything supernatural to scare the hell out of the reader. As Trelkovsky alienates everyone around him, as his paranoid conviction that his friends and neighbours are engaged in a dastardly conspiracy to actually turn him into the former tenant reaches an horrific crescendo, the book becomes as difficult to read as it is to put down. Indeed, the image of this haggard young man, fully dressed and made up as the young woman who had jumped to her death from his apartment's ledge, is even more harrowing than the denouement at the end of Psycho. And yet, I finished the book with a sense of euphoria, dazzled by the author's ability to toy so effortlessly with my mental wellbeing. Topor's trump card lies in the ending, where we are forced to reassess all that has come before and question it was real or simply a figment of Trelkovsky's shattered imagination.
I suspect The Tenant is the sort of book that lends itself to multiple readings and, as such, I'll definitely be back. I just may need a bit of time to recover before I do. Someone pass me the Picoult...
Unlike with Singer's book, I have struggled to figure out how best to write about The Tenant, Roland Topor's nightmarish vision of big city alienation and paranoia. A month after the fact, I am still thoroughly disturbed by it. You may already be familiar with the story thanks to Roman Polanski's excellent adaptation, but chances are, like me, you will not have known it was based on a novel. As one friend put it, he had always assumed The Tenant was Polanski trying to out-Kafka Kafka. It is an interesting comment on the public's perception of the great auteur that the film is seen to have sprung from his mind, but it is precisely that perception which has relegated Topor to the shadows and denied him the critical attention he so greatly deserves.
The Tenant is a deceptively simple affair, depicting the mental collapse of Trelkovsky, a young man who moves into a new apartment following the suicide of its former tenant. From the outset, Trelkovsky senses something isn't right. His neighbours chastise him for the slightest of indiscretions. He feels he is being constantly watched. The neighbours try to involve him in a petition, possibly against himself. Worst of all, he feels the needs to change his ways in order to conform to their expectations of how a fellow tenant ought to behave. His descent into absolute despair, needless to say, is fast and spectacular.
Like the greatest works of Poe or Hitchcock, this is horror in its purest form, without the need for anything supernatural to scare the hell out of the reader. As Trelkovsky alienates everyone around him, as his paranoid conviction that his friends and neighbours are engaged in a dastardly conspiracy to actually turn him into the former tenant reaches an horrific crescendo, the book becomes as difficult to read as it is to put down. Indeed, the image of this haggard young man, fully dressed and made up as the young woman who had jumped to her death from his apartment's ledge, is even more harrowing than the denouement at the end of Psycho. And yet, I finished the book with a sense of euphoria, dazzled by the author's ability to toy so effortlessly with my mental wellbeing. Topor's trump card lies in the ending, where we are forced to reassess all that has come before and question it was real or simply a figment of Trelkovsky's shattered imagination.
I suspect The Tenant is the sort of book that lends itself to multiple readings and, as such, I'll definitely be back. I just may need a bit of time to recover before I do. Someone pass me the Picoult...
The Joy of Premature Congratulation!
on Wednesday, March 30, 2011
What are we in, March or something, and already I'm talking about literary prizes?!? (I alternatively used exclamation and question marks here because I'm not sure which is grammatically correct.) Yes, the year has barely begun and we are already being slapped on the side of the head by the literary equivalent of two dead fish, those being the long lists for the most inconsequential awards anyone could wish not to win.
First up we have the Orange Prize. I know I'm going to anger many in litland by so labelling the book world's toast to female authors and I certainly agree that some marvellous books have actually won it but seriously, does it really need to exist? Aren't women adequately represented in the literary prize world these days not to need an aluminium plated token named after a pretty mediocre citrus fruit (or an even worse Telco)? I side with the likes of A.S. Byatt and Tim Lott - yep, I grabbed one from each gender camp - who see it as sexist and, in intellectual terms, degrading to women. Apparently Silvio Berlusconi is a fan and has offered to present the award so I stand to be corrected. Jokes aside, I feel obliged to point out that a few really good books have made the shortlist, and I truly hope they show up again when real prize time rolls around in September. Of particular note are Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch, The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht and Swamplandia! by Karen Russel. Take note team Booker and Pulitzer!
Speaking of the Commonwealth's most prestigious prize, the folks at the Booker Sausage Factory have not succumbed to Award Fatigue as I might have hoped but instead have announced yet another list. Following hot on the heels of the totally irrelevant Lost Booker and the hardly more relevant (but at least cute) Best of Beryl Booker, they have now rolled out the long list for the third International Booker Prize. Cue excitement. Or yawns. Hey, I'm a big Ismail Kadare and Chinua Achebe fan but neither really needed this particular trophy on their cabinet. The long list boasts many of the usual suspects. Philip Roth, because this would totally make his career. Su Tong, because already winning the Asian Booker apparently isn't enough. John Le Carre because... well... I got nothing. Anyway, stay tuned. May will bring the next Booker Prize announcement: The Booker Prize for Most Nominations Across The Various Booker Prizes. Sweet. I'm tipping McEwan.
One area of the lit world which is unfortunately on the rise but sorely lacking in the prize department is self-published e-literature. Thankfully one such author who clearly cannot write but is greatly deserving of a prize is the unintentionally hilarious Jaqueline Howett. After responding with grammatically incorrect vitriol to a blogger who reviewed her vanity-published e-book, she has hit the heights of internet superstardom. Anyone interested in laughing at the Kindle's answer to the big bang (though I would liken it more to a mass outbreak of dysentery in some huge area - say, sub Saharan Africa - with only one semi-functional toilet) should check out Big Al's Books and Pals at http://booksandpals.blogspot.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-jacqueline-howett.html. Congratulations Ms. Howett. You are the winner of the first and hopefully last Man Booker Prize For Completely Debasing Yourself And A Glorious Profession To Which You Claim To Belong In A Manner Even More Spectacular Than That Time Martin Amis Published Yellow Dog Or Elfreide Jelinek Won The Nobel Or Someone Thought Of Creating The Orange Prize. Sure, it's a wordy name for a prize, but at least it's grammatically correct!
First up we have the Orange Prize. I know I'm going to anger many in litland by so labelling the book world's toast to female authors and I certainly agree that some marvellous books have actually won it but seriously, does it really need to exist? Aren't women adequately represented in the literary prize world these days not to need an aluminium plated token named after a pretty mediocre citrus fruit (or an even worse Telco)? I side with the likes of A.S. Byatt and Tim Lott - yep, I grabbed one from each gender camp - who see it as sexist and, in intellectual terms, degrading to women. Apparently Silvio Berlusconi is a fan and has offered to present the award so I stand to be corrected. Jokes aside, I feel obliged to point out that a few really good books have made the shortlist, and I truly hope they show up again when real prize time rolls around in September. Of particular note are Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch, The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht and Swamplandia! by Karen Russel. Take note team Booker and Pulitzer!
Speaking of the Commonwealth's most prestigious prize, the folks at the Booker Sausage Factory have not succumbed to Award Fatigue as I might have hoped but instead have announced yet another list. Following hot on the heels of the totally irrelevant Lost Booker and the hardly more relevant (but at least cute) Best of Beryl Booker, they have now rolled out the long list for the third International Booker Prize. Cue excitement. Or yawns. Hey, I'm a big Ismail Kadare and Chinua Achebe fan but neither really needed this particular trophy on their cabinet. The long list boasts many of the usual suspects. Philip Roth, because this would totally make his career. Su Tong, because already winning the Asian Booker apparently isn't enough. John Le Carre because... well... I got nothing. Anyway, stay tuned. May will bring the next Booker Prize announcement: The Booker Prize for Most Nominations Across The Various Booker Prizes. Sweet. I'm tipping McEwan.
One area of the lit world which is unfortunately on the rise but sorely lacking in the prize department is self-published e-literature. Thankfully one such author who clearly cannot write but is greatly deserving of a prize is the unintentionally hilarious Jaqueline Howett. After responding with grammatically incorrect vitriol to a blogger who reviewed her vanity-published e-book, she has hit the heights of internet superstardom. Anyone interested in laughing at the Kindle's answer to the big bang (though I would liken it more to a mass outbreak of dysentery in some huge area - say, sub Saharan Africa - with only one semi-functional toilet) should check out Big Al's Books and Pals at http://booksandpals.blogspot.com/2011/03/greek-seaman-jacqueline-howett.html. Congratulations Ms. Howett. You are the winner of the first and hopefully last Man Booker Prize For Completely Debasing Yourself And A Glorious Profession To Which You Claim To Belong In A Manner Even More Spectacular Than That Time Martin Amis Published Yellow Dog Or Elfreide Jelinek Won The Nobel Or Someone Thought Of Creating The Orange Prize. Sure, it's a wordy name for a prize, but at least it's grammatically correct!
Portrait of the Artist as a Looney Tune: Perec's Short Fiction
on Friday, March 18, 2011
No author's photograph captures the essence of its subject quite like that of the Frenchman Georges Perec. I imagine many of you have seen it, but if you haven't I strongly suggest you pause here and check it out on the interGoogle. Yep, that's him staring out at you with the crazy hair of Einstein (or Don King), the pudgy face of Elmer Fudd and the almost psychotic eyes of Charles Manson. Quite the combination. In terms of appearance, he was the literary equivalent of Salvadore Dali. Come to think of it, his unbridled creative flair isn't all that far removed from the Spanish painter's either. The prime difference though, was that Perec worked within a constantly changing set of strict rules that he imposed upon himself and his work. Perec loved nothing more than the idea of writing as a functional experiment. Like his compadres in the Oulipo movement, he was obsessed with the confluence of deep theoretical mathematics and literature. Hence we have A Void, a mystery written without the use of a single "E", and it's sister volume Three, written with all the leftover E's and not a single other vowel. And then there's the micro-observation of his great masterpiece, Life: A User's Manual, and the imagined autobiographical dystopia of W, Or The Memory of Childhood.
Perec was never greatly in or out of fashion, but he suddenly seems to be experiencing something of a renaissance, at least in the publishing world. Two of his shorter works have recently been released by two different houses. So if you've always wanted to have a go at Perec but found the longer works a bit daunting, this might be your chance. But be warned. Bite size though they may be, each of these books conceals a razor blade making them far from easy to digest.
An Attempt At Exhausting a Place in Paris is exactly as the title suggests - a second by second experiential account of what Perec witnesses as he sits at a cafe watching what goes on around him over three days. It is repetitive, often nonsensical and almost unutterably tedious. Which, of course, is the point! The staccato form punctuates each minute observance with a slap, and you feel Perec's googly eyes darting from one thing to the next.. There is a degree of intrigue in the idea of the project which ultimately seems aimed at forcing the reader to accept just how dull life, when observed closely, actually is.
Of more immediate interest is the compelling, absurd and often hilarious The Art and Craft of Approaching Your Head of Department To Submit a Request For a Raise. Written in a single, seventy-page sentence this book is Perec's attempt to talk through a business flow chart, exploring at each step the two possible outcomes, one of which will send him back to the start, the other of which will allow him to progress. It is stupidly circuitous, but I challenge you to have a go at putting a complex series of ideas, as represented in visual form by single words and arrows, into a coherent narrative. To me, The Art and Craft... is a true triumph of the Oulipo movement, and certainly worth the short time you will spend zipping through it. The flowchart itself is featured on the opening page, and it is fun to flick back to see where Perec is up to at any given point. There is a playful sense of ridicule present too, with Perec making light of the knots into which we tie ourselves when approaching what we consider to be important life moments (in this case asking for a raise).
Perec was clearly nuts, but we as readers are all the richer for it. Fans will find much to ponder and enjoy in these slight volumes and newcomers to one of literature's most playful absurdists can whet their appetites without being clobbered by he author's characteristic obsessiveness. Just keep some brain candy on standby. You're likely to need it afterwards.
Perec was never greatly in or out of fashion, but he suddenly seems to be experiencing something of a renaissance, at least in the publishing world. Two of his shorter works have recently been released by two different houses. So if you've always wanted to have a go at Perec but found the longer works a bit daunting, this might be your chance. But be warned. Bite size though they may be, each of these books conceals a razor blade making them far from easy to digest.
An Attempt At Exhausting a Place in Paris is exactly as the title suggests - a second by second experiential account of what Perec witnesses as he sits at a cafe watching what goes on around him over three days. It is repetitive, often nonsensical and almost unutterably tedious. Which, of course, is the point! The staccato form punctuates each minute observance with a slap, and you feel Perec's googly eyes darting from one thing to the next.. There is a degree of intrigue in the idea of the project which ultimately seems aimed at forcing the reader to accept just how dull life, when observed closely, actually is.
Of more immediate interest is the compelling, absurd and often hilarious The Art and Craft of Approaching Your Head of Department To Submit a Request For a Raise. Written in a single, seventy-page sentence this book is Perec's attempt to talk through a business flow chart, exploring at each step the two possible outcomes, one of which will send him back to the start, the other of which will allow him to progress. It is stupidly circuitous, but I challenge you to have a go at putting a complex series of ideas, as represented in visual form by single words and arrows, into a coherent narrative. To me, The Art and Craft... is a true triumph of the Oulipo movement, and certainly worth the short time you will spend zipping through it. The flowchart itself is featured on the opening page, and it is fun to flick back to see where Perec is up to at any given point. There is a playful sense of ridicule present too, with Perec making light of the knots into which we tie ourselves when approaching what we consider to be important life moments (in this case asking for a raise).
Perec was clearly nuts, but we as readers are all the richer for it. Fans will find much to ponder and enjoy in these slight volumes and newcomers to one of literature's most playful absurdists can whet their appetites without being clobbered by he author's characteristic obsessiveness. Just keep some brain candy on standby. You're likely to need it afterwards.
The Power of the (Wrong) Word
on Thursday, March 17, 2011
As you would know by now, this here bookworm prefers to make his burrow in foreign soil. Consequently, I am always on the lookout for new and improved English versions of books that I have loved in the hope that somehow I might get to experience the work as the author intended it without having to take a crash course in every language imaginable. The other day I was in my favourite bookstore and was intrigued to see what appeared to be a new translation of Antonio Tabucchi's great novel of small-time political rebellion, Pereira Declares. Or should I say, in mid-1990's Prince style, "the artist formerly known as Pereira Declares"? Set in wartime Portugal, it is the story of an ageing journalist, living out his sunset years as editor of the cultural pages of a small-time Portuguese newspaper who meets a young wannabe writer and is drawn into the fight against the country's tyrannical, Nazi-loving regime. What begins as projected affection for a son he might have had becomes an ideological metamorphosis and, ultimately, causes Pereira to take drastic, reckless action of his own. It is a wonderful book about the small man's ability to make moral choices in an immoral environment and is well worth you taking the time to read. But that is all by the by.
What made me believe this was an altogether new translation was that the title has been changed from Pereira Declares to Pereira Maintains, which is supposedly a more accurate rendering of the original Italian title Sostiene Pereira. I, of course, wouldn't know. I don't speak Italian. Yet this seemingly minor change in the title (and consequently most repeated line in the book) completely alters the way we read the thing, especially in our understanding of the consequences of Pereira's final act of rebellion. The book ends with our hero trying to flee the country, having set himself on a path of almost certain torture and death if he remains. So, if Pereira "Declares", it suggests that he is bearing witness from abroad, that he did indeed escape, and that he is letting people know of the murderous activities of the Portuguese authorities. However, if Pereira "Maintains", it suggests that he was caught and he (or his legal representative) is telling his side of the story in a way that paints his actions in the most favourable light. The book becomes a plea for his life. There is also the possibility that it is being told by a member of the secret police or prosecutor, with an air of sarcastic disbelief. No matter what Pereira "maintains", we are invited to believe his fate is sealed. Interestingly, either translation suggests that we are hearing the story from an unreliable narrator but siding with one Sostiene rather the other will change whose unreliable retelling we are receiving.
Alas, readers of the original translation need not rush back. A quick look at the front leaf shows that this is not an entirely new version but merely (somewhat oddly for such a well-regarded novel) the first British edition. The translation is copyright 1995. Which means that, having decided that "Maintains" is the correct translation of "Sostiene" (my rudimentary latin suggests that "Sustains" is, in fact, the literal translation), the publishers simply did a "Replace All" job on the text and sent it off to press. They might have wanted to read through the thing though. On page 149, towards the end of the book, we find the sentence "The next morning, he declared, Pereira was awakened by the telephone." Fairly nondescript, I know. But I wish I could read Italian because I'm intrigued to see if Tabucchi uses a different word at this point, which might give that particular assertion some extra piquancy. If so, it becomes the only definitive statement in the whole novel.
The Pereira switcheroo has shaken my confidence in translations. One word, translated differently, can change the entire meaning of a book. Which gives me a sneaking suspicion that Anna Karenina was pushed. Who's with me on this?
What made me believe this was an altogether new translation was that the title has been changed from Pereira Declares to Pereira Maintains, which is supposedly a more accurate rendering of the original Italian title Sostiene Pereira. I, of course, wouldn't know. I don't speak Italian. Yet this seemingly minor change in the title (and consequently most repeated line in the book) completely alters the way we read the thing, especially in our understanding of the consequences of Pereira's final act of rebellion. The book ends with our hero trying to flee the country, having set himself on a path of almost certain torture and death if he remains. So, if Pereira "Declares", it suggests that he is bearing witness from abroad, that he did indeed escape, and that he is letting people know of the murderous activities of the Portuguese authorities. However, if Pereira "Maintains", it suggests that he was caught and he (or his legal representative) is telling his side of the story in a way that paints his actions in the most favourable light. The book becomes a plea for his life. There is also the possibility that it is being told by a member of the secret police or prosecutor, with an air of sarcastic disbelief. No matter what Pereira "maintains", we are invited to believe his fate is sealed. Interestingly, either translation suggests that we are hearing the story from an unreliable narrator but siding with one Sostiene rather the other will change whose unreliable retelling we are receiving.
Alas, readers of the original translation need not rush back. A quick look at the front leaf shows that this is not an entirely new version but merely (somewhat oddly for such a well-regarded novel) the first British edition. The translation is copyright 1995. Which means that, having decided that "Maintains" is the correct translation of "Sostiene" (my rudimentary latin suggests that "Sustains" is, in fact, the literal translation), the publishers simply did a "Replace All" job on the text and sent it off to press. They might have wanted to read through the thing though. On page 149, towards the end of the book, we find the sentence "The next morning, he declared, Pereira was awakened by the telephone." Fairly nondescript, I know. But I wish I could read Italian because I'm intrigued to see if Tabucchi uses a different word at this point, which might give that particular assertion some extra piquancy. If so, it becomes the only definitive statement in the whole novel.
The Pereira switcheroo has shaken my confidence in translations. One word, translated differently, can change the entire meaning of a book. Which gives me a sneaking suspicion that Anna Karenina was pushed. Who's with me on this?
Bridesmaid Revisited
on Saturday, March 12, 2011
So the folk over at Man Booker land have decided to run a poll on which Beryl Bainbridge book ought to win an honorary Booker Prize. The grand dame was nominated five times but failed to ever win the blooming thing, giving her the rather cringeworthy reputation as the perennial Booker Bridesmaid. 'Tis a pitiable tale. In 1973 she lost out to J. G. Farrell. In 1974 the cake was shared by Nadine Gordimer and Stanley Middleton, with Ms. Bainbridge left to nibble at the crumbs. It took another 15 years before she made her next appearance on the shortlist, only to lose again, this time to A. S. Byatt. Never one to be discouraged she was back in 1996. Yep, you guessed it... K.O.'d by Graham Swift. Master Georgie turned out to be her final Booker appearance in 1998 and, to be honest, she probably should have won. Given that the prize was doled out in consolation to Ian McEwan, who failed to win it the previous year for the very deserving Enduring Love, it beggars belief that any judge hell-bent on licking someone else's wounds would not give it to the poor dame who had missed out four times already. Alas, Amsterdam won the day, probably the least deserving of all six nominees. Bainbridge's final novel, According to Queenie, didn't even make the shortlist and she dropped off the perch in 2010.
Well, thank the book gods for good ol' fashioned guilt. In a genial pat on the back that some might see as more of a patronising slap in the face, team Booker want decaying Beryl to have the last laugh from beyond the grave. They are calling on us, Bainbridge's adoring reading public, to pick which of her wonderful books we believe ought to be handed the 'Best of Beryl" Booker (personally, I suspect they just fancied the alliteration). Needless to say, the winner will be bestowed the third lest meaningful Booker after The Man Booker International Prize and the Lost Booker Prize. At least Bainbridge can't possible lose this one. Results will be conveyed via Oija Board, crop circle or black forest nude communion on April 19. Head over to www.themanbookerprize.com to register your vote.
Well, thank the book gods for good ol' fashioned guilt. In a genial pat on the back that some might see as more of a patronising slap in the face, team Booker want decaying Beryl to have the last laugh from beyond the grave. They are calling on us, Bainbridge's adoring reading public, to pick which of her wonderful books we believe ought to be handed the 'Best of Beryl" Booker (personally, I suspect they just fancied the alliteration). Needless to say, the winner will be bestowed the third lest meaningful Booker after The Man Booker International Prize and the Lost Booker Prize. At least Bainbridge can't possible lose this one. Results will be conveyed via Oija Board, crop circle or black forest nude communion on April 19. Head over to www.themanbookerprize.com to register your vote.
An Explosive Discovery: Beers, Babel and Blowing Nuclear Chunks
on Thursday, March 10, 2011
My Czech cousin was just in town. He barely speaks English. I don't speak Czech. And yet we get on like a house on fire. Years ago, I visited Prague and we spent a rather hilarious evening downing Pilsners until he had to drag me home over his shoulder, stopping every five minutes to let me decorate the 13th century sidewalks with carrot chunks. It was one of the most enjoyable nights I can't remember having in my entire life.
Having just discovered VB, Ludvik is disappointed that I gave up the grog since we last met. I suspect he thinks less of me. Thankfully I still have my love of Czech literature to fall back on. The other day we got to talking about Karel Capek, probably my favourite writer from pre-War Czechoslovakia. I count his War With The Newts among my top ten books of all time. Ludvik likes it but insists Capek's true genius was best on show in "PovÃdky z jedné a z druhé kapsy". Except he didn't know what that was in English. He kept pointing at his hips. Our usually functional game of conversational charades had hit a wall. Cue Wikipedia. We scanned the selected bibliography and found it was Tales From Two Pockets, a wonderful collection of short detective tales that had been serialised in the Czechoslovak papers in the late 1920's and early 30's.
That is all by the by. What was most exciting for me was the discovery of a book of which I had never heard. On Wikipedia of all places! Somehow, Krakatit (An Atomic Phantasy), first published in 1922, had slipped under my radar. Perhaps it just hadn't been translated into English. Some further research revealed that it had indeed been translated, but in the late 1940's, and has been out of print since then. I instantly hopped onto Abebooks and searched for a second-hand English copy. It cost me nineteen bucks and arrived, sans dust jacket and a little worse for wear, five days later. Thank you interweb. Sometimes I do not hate you.
Now I know how people get all worked up about Kafka's prophetic abilities. But as much as I love ol' Franz, when it came to true prophesy, Capek was the man. With his brother Joseph, he invented the word Robot (in R.U.R. -Rossum's Universal Robots). He foresaw artificial intelligence and the advent of consumer society in The Absolute at Large. And in Krakatit, he pretty much mapped out the trajectory of the arms race that would only start ten years after he died and then go on to cripple the world for the better part of forty years. In the book, Prokop discovers a substance that even in the smallest concentrations can blow up entire cities. He calls it Krakatit. Governments and corporations vie for his affections, trying to get him to hand over its formula. When he refuses, it all turns rather nasty. Like all great Czech literature, Krakatit has its fair share of claustrophobic weirdness. Prokop teeters on the brink of insanity as each new conspiracy adds a layer to the one that came before. Yet, for all its intellectual rigour and narrative complexity, the book remains a fun, easy read. Capek wasn't just a litsnob's writer. He wrote for the people. He had an uncanny ability to make you laugh and think in equal doses, without ever questioning the incongruity that might seem apparent in less capable hands.
As a forewarning of nuclear power and the lengths people will go to control it, Krakatit has no equal. I know it will be hard to track down a copy, but if you can I really recommend you do. If any publishers are reading this (Catbird, I'm looking at you), bring it back into print. But in the meantime, for Capek virgins, check out the Penguin European Classics edition of War With The Newts or read RUR. If you want Capek in bite-sized pieces, read Tales From Two Pockets or Apocryphal Tales. Any of these books will be a great introduction to your new favourite writer!
Having just discovered VB, Ludvik is disappointed that I gave up the grog since we last met. I suspect he thinks less of me. Thankfully I still have my love of Czech literature to fall back on. The other day we got to talking about Karel Capek, probably my favourite writer from pre-War Czechoslovakia. I count his War With The Newts among my top ten books of all time. Ludvik likes it but insists Capek's true genius was best on show in "PovÃdky z jedné a z druhé kapsy". Except he didn't know what that was in English. He kept pointing at his hips. Our usually functional game of conversational charades had hit a wall. Cue Wikipedia. We scanned the selected bibliography and found it was Tales From Two Pockets, a wonderful collection of short detective tales that had been serialised in the Czechoslovak papers in the late 1920's and early 30's.
That is all by the by. What was most exciting for me was the discovery of a book of which I had never heard. On Wikipedia of all places! Somehow, Krakatit (An Atomic Phantasy), first published in 1922, had slipped under my radar. Perhaps it just hadn't been translated into English. Some further research revealed that it had indeed been translated, but in the late 1940's, and has been out of print since then. I instantly hopped onto Abebooks and searched for a second-hand English copy. It cost me nineteen bucks and arrived, sans dust jacket and a little worse for wear, five days later. Thank you interweb. Sometimes I do not hate you.
Now I know how people get all worked up about Kafka's prophetic abilities. But as much as I love ol' Franz, when it came to true prophesy, Capek was the man. With his brother Joseph, he invented the word Robot (in R.U.R. -Rossum's Universal Robots). He foresaw artificial intelligence and the advent of consumer society in The Absolute at Large. And in Krakatit, he pretty much mapped out the trajectory of the arms race that would only start ten years after he died and then go on to cripple the world for the better part of forty years. In the book, Prokop discovers a substance that even in the smallest concentrations can blow up entire cities. He calls it Krakatit. Governments and corporations vie for his affections, trying to get him to hand over its formula. When he refuses, it all turns rather nasty. Like all great Czech literature, Krakatit has its fair share of claustrophobic weirdness. Prokop teeters on the brink of insanity as each new conspiracy adds a layer to the one that came before. Yet, for all its intellectual rigour and narrative complexity, the book remains a fun, easy read. Capek wasn't just a litsnob's writer. He wrote for the people. He had an uncanny ability to make you laugh and think in equal doses, without ever questioning the incongruity that might seem apparent in less capable hands.
As a forewarning of nuclear power and the lengths people will go to control it, Krakatit has no equal. I know it will be hard to track down a copy, but if you can I really recommend you do. If any publishers are reading this (Catbird, I'm looking at you), bring it back into print. But in the meantime, for Capek virgins, check out the Penguin European Classics edition of War With The Newts or read RUR. If you want Capek in bite-sized pieces, read Tales From Two Pockets or Apocryphal Tales. Any of these books will be a great introduction to your new favourite writer!
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