One could be forgiven for thinking that Alfred Hickling, Guardian reviewer, fails to read at least some of the books he reviews. At best this is irritating but at worst it misleads potential readers so they miss out on some veritable masterpieces such as Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi [reviewed by Hickling in the Guardian Review, Saturday 6 August]. Tabucchi is a major Italian author whose book, published originally in Italian in 1994, sold 300,000 copies and was then picked up by Canongate Books, translated by Patrick Creagh and published in 2010 in Britain. It deserves better than Hickling's faulty summary.
The book is listed as a political thriller and it is, to a certain extent this, but it is more. It is set in 1938 Lisbon, six years after Salazar got into power and established a repressive, Catholic, fascistic dictatorship. Salazar was an admirer of Hitler and supporter of the Franco, anti-republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Dr Pereira, the eponymous hero, is an overweight, lonely man, a recent widower who talks to his dead wife's portrait and who eats vast quantities of omelettes aux fine herbes and drinks highly sugared lemonade. He is employed as editor of the literary pages of a low circulation Lisbon paper, the Lisboa. Censorship is of course rife and, though Pereira deplores it, he is also himself guilty of self censorship, rarely pushing the envelope, contenting himself with publishing translations of 19th century French novels. The closest he comes to rebelling at censorship is publishing the translation of a story by Daudet which includes the phrase 'vive la France' which brings down the wrath of the government and editor on him, Portugal being firmly opposed to France.
This changes however when he comes in contact with a young man, Monteiro Rossi, a university graduate with a first in Philosophy, who draws himself to Pereira's attention with an article on death and the soul which subject obsesses Pereira. He takes on Rossi to write obituaries for the files, all of which prove totally unpublishable but he continues to pay him even when he discovers Rossi is in fact a revolutionary organising volunteers and raising funds for the anti Franco International Brigade. The change is not sudden but rather is the theme of the book culminating in a catastrophe which does change Pereira's life for ever evincing a courage and commitment only hinted at to that point.
Tabucchi is a stylist in the postmodern tradition who writes with great thought if though somewhat at times enigmatic. The title is not lightly chosen as it is written in the third person in what is described as a testimonial style. The phrase 'Pereira maintains' is used continually giving the impression that one is reading a report drawn up by an interrogator - whether fascist or revolutionary we don't know. I like to think he is in the hands of the revolutionaries as, at one point, Rossi's girlfriend tells Pereira what a help he is being saying 'we of the cause will not forget it'. The book is littered with references to various authors - Rilke, Mann, Daudet, Marx, Pessoa and so on - none of whom are lightly chosen. Equally the characters Pereira meets or associates with are at times almost surreal, from the German Jewish lady with a wooden leg to the local priest, Fr Antonio, who is firmly opposed to Franco and, particularly, the waiter in his favourite cafe who supplies him with the international news on a daily basis. One day, the waiter, Manuel, in a rather perplexed tone, tells Periera that Portugal was mentioned on the news for the first time and that it was described as a dictatorship. He was genuinely upset to learn that he was living under a dictator!
Pereira Maintains has been made into a film though sadly it is only available in Italian with no subtitles. It clearly is highly regarded in Italy as representing almost a pastiche of how things were at the time of its writing just following the election of Berlusconi. Personlly I think it stands as a stark warning against the encroachment of the far right parties now growing in influence everywhere.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Jennifer Egan and 'A Visit from the Goon Squad'
You may have been noticing Jennifer Egan's name suddenly popping up in all sorts of places and not without reason. She has won the prestigious National Book Critics Award and Pulitzer Prize for her latest novel A Visit from the Goon Squad.
This is a most exciting novel - though it is not a novel as we know it. The author claims she was influenced by Proust and The Sopranos - a curious combination - in its writing. Certainly it is underpinned by conceptions of time and space. It is not a novel in that it does not conform to the usual narrative structure. The characters move backwards and forwards through time with large gaps in their development in a frequently dystopian world centred on the music industry in the States in the 70's through to future time. Egan is not shy of experimenting using different typefaces; narrative in the first and third person - and, even in one chapter, in the second; long footnotes in one section, text-speak and, most interesting, a complete chapter done as a PowerPoint presentation. This latter startles initially. It is written by the sister of a seemingly autistic young man who is obsessed by the length and occurrence of gaps in rocksongs and the nature of PowerPoint reproduces this thereby reinforcing Egan's conception of time and space. What seems to be a gimmick actually is a strong element of the novel.
The book concerns a disparate group of characters who interact spasmodically, sometimes with the main character, sometimes with their own stories and sometimes in a 'chain'. Memory is important and, at times, she leaps forward in order to go back. The cast is big and, at times, it can be difficult to remember who did what to whom. Basically, it concerns one, Bennie Salazar, who, with a group of friends in the 70's, starts a second rate punk band called The Flaming Dildos and then, in time, sets up his own record label and becomes a music producer. He employs Sasha as his assistant who has lead and goes on to lead a hugely varied life. Her significance is not only that it is her daughter that writes the PowerPoint chapter but Egan introduces her in the very first lines of the book and she is the last character referred to in the end. In other words she bookends the narrative creating a cycle within which the rest of the cast act and interact. In the course of the book, we meet the varied members of this cast whose lives connect and disconnect with Bennie and Sasha and none of whom are dull.
This is an important book and unique. It is not postmodern but rather post postmodern and the chances Egan takes pay off. It is fun to read and she brings both irony and romance to it. What appears to be unstructured and chaotic in fact reflects life as we do know it - even if few of us actually get to live at quite the pace of most of her creations. By the end of it, you can nod your head and agree, yes, there is both Proust and The Sopranos there.
U shld by it!
This is a most exciting novel - though it is not a novel as we know it. The author claims she was influenced by Proust and The Sopranos - a curious combination - in its writing. Certainly it is underpinned by conceptions of time and space. It is not a novel in that it does not conform to the usual narrative structure. The characters move backwards and forwards through time with large gaps in their development in a frequently dystopian world centred on the music industry in the States in the 70's through to future time. Egan is not shy of experimenting using different typefaces; narrative in the first and third person - and, even in one chapter, in the second; long footnotes in one section, text-speak and, most interesting, a complete chapter done as a PowerPoint presentation. This latter startles initially. It is written by the sister of a seemingly autistic young man who is obsessed by the length and occurrence of gaps in rocksongs and the nature of PowerPoint reproduces this thereby reinforcing Egan's conception of time and space. What seems to be a gimmick actually is a strong element of the novel.
The book concerns a disparate group of characters who interact spasmodically, sometimes with the main character, sometimes with their own stories and sometimes in a 'chain'. Memory is important and, at times, she leaps forward in order to go back. The cast is big and, at times, it can be difficult to remember who did what to whom. Basically, it concerns one, Bennie Salazar, who, with a group of friends in the 70's, starts a second rate punk band called The Flaming Dildos and then, in time, sets up his own record label and becomes a music producer. He employs Sasha as his assistant who has lead and goes on to lead a hugely varied life. Her significance is not only that it is her daughter that writes the PowerPoint chapter but Egan introduces her in the very first lines of the book and she is the last character referred to in the end. In other words she bookends the narrative creating a cycle within which the rest of the cast act and interact. In the course of the book, we meet the varied members of this cast whose lives connect and disconnect with Bennie and Sasha and none of whom are dull.
This is an important book and unique. It is not postmodern but rather post postmodern and the chances Egan takes pay off. It is fun to read and she brings both irony and romance to it. What appears to be unstructured and chaotic in fact reflects life as we do know it - even if few of us actually get to live at quite the pace of most of her creations. By the end of it, you can nod your head and agree, yes, there is both Proust and The Sopranos there.
U shld by it!
Red April
Sometimes the judges get it right! I was excited to read that the Independent Foreign Fiction prize was awarded to Santiago Roncagliolo which [to quote the Guardian] puts 'the 36-year old Peruvian author in a star-studded line-up of former winners, from Milan Kundera to WG Sebald'.
Readers of my blog may remember I posted a review of Red April last March and strongly recommended you read it!
Readers of my blog may remember I posted a review of Red April last March and strongly recommended you read it!
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Forgotten Waltz
Anne Enright has indeed lived up to the promise of caustic wit in her new novel, Forgotten Waltz, published by Jonathan Cape, a worthy follow-on to the award winning, The Gathering, and confirming her position as one of our great living authors.
In this book, she moves her dateline up and sets it in the flourishing tiger economy years but straightforward narrative is not Enright's literary style. By the end of the first chapter we know the bones of the story and the remainder of the book mulls backwards and forwards over an idea, the concept of adultery. The story is told in the first person by Gina Moynihan and in retrospect, in the harsh winter of 2009, harsh in weather and harsh in the now failing economy. She looks back to 2002 when she first met Sean, her lover-to-be, in her sister, Fiona's new posh house in Enniskerry. Through Fiona, Gina comes in contact with the new rich society who had the kind of parties 'where no one ate the chicken skin' and women who 'had the confused look that Botox gives you, like you might be having an emotion, but you couldn't remember which one' and whose husbands 'stood about and talked property: a three-pool complex in Bulgaria, a whole Irish block in Berlin'. Fiona has two children and Sean and his wife, Aileen, have a little girl who seems 'not quite right'. Gina then takes us through the progress of her affair with Sean and her failing relationship with 'the love of her life', Conor.
But to say that the novel is just the story of an affair is to do an injustice to Enright. Her skill is not only in the wit she brings to it but the surprising depth of thought and observation. There is pathos as well as humour. Her account of her mother's illness is haunting. She was a woman for whom 'illness was not something she allowed herself. It was so unattractive. And terribly hard on the skin'. And Gina's relationship with Evie, Sean's subteen daughter, is brilliantly and sharply told.
Enright is a wordsmith and her descriptions are precise and captivating. On just one page we sit around Fiona's 'witty formica table', we see 'a tight little herd of nine-year-old girls' and sit 'in the secret hum of his scent'. And she does sex well though Gina says she doesn't know if 'sex' is the word for it. 'We didn't talk much. Silence made it that bit filthier of course. And people do not speak, in a dream'. Enright has taken a theme as old as the hills and somehow makes it new and a concept to be pondered and reconsidered in a society no longer so sure of its moral values. She does 'dark' as well as the master of the genre, McGahern, but, unlike him, she has now shown she can do something quite different just as brilliantly.
I wondered about the title. Each chapter is given the title of an old love song like 'Will you Love me Tomorrow' 'Paper Roses' and so on and I tried to discover if 'Forgotten Waltz' was one but had no luck in my search. Perhaps someone out there has an answer.
In this book, she moves her dateline up and sets it in the flourishing tiger economy years but straightforward narrative is not Enright's literary style. By the end of the first chapter we know the bones of the story and the remainder of the book mulls backwards and forwards over an idea, the concept of adultery. The story is told in the first person by Gina Moynihan and in retrospect, in the harsh winter of 2009, harsh in weather and harsh in the now failing economy. She looks back to 2002 when she first met Sean, her lover-to-be, in her sister, Fiona's new posh house in Enniskerry. Through Fiona, Gina comes in contact with the new rich society who had the kind of parties 'where no one ate the chicken skin' and women who 'had the confused look that Botox gives you, like you might be having an emotion, but you couldn't remember which one' and whose husbands 'stood about and talked property: a three-pool complex in Bulgaria, a whole Irish block in Berlin'. Fiona has two children and Sean and his wife, Aileen, have a little girl who seems 'not quite right'. Gina then takes us through the progress of her affair with Sean and her failing relationship with 'the love of her life', Conor.
But to say that the novel is just the story of an affair is to do an injustice to Enright. Her skill is not only in the wit she brings to it but the surprising depth of thought and observation. There is pathos as well as humour. Her account of her mother's illness is haunting. She was a woman for whom 'illness was not something she allowed herself. It was so unattractive. And terribly hard on the skin'. And Gina's relationship with Evie, Sean's subteen daughter, is brilliantly and sharply told.
Enright is a wordsmith and her descriptions are precise and captivating. On just one page we sit around Fiona's 'witty formica table', we see 'a tight little herd of nine-year-old girls' and sit 'in the secret hum of his scent'. And she does sex well though Gina says she doesn't know if 'sex' is the word for it. 'We didn't talk much. Silence made it that bit filthier of course. And people do not speak, in a dream'. Enright has taken a theme as old as the hills and somehow makes it new and a concept to be pondered and reconsidered in a society no longer so sure of its moral values. She does 'dark' as well as the master of the genre, McGahern, but, unlike him, she has now shown she can do something quite different just as brilliantly.
I wondered about the title. Each chapter is given the title of an old love song like 'Will you Love me Tomorrow' 'Paper Roses' and so on and I tried to discover if 'Forgotten Waltz' was one but had no luck in my search. Perhaps someone out there has an answer.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Monsieur Linh and His Child
This slight novel - only 130 pages - is the third of the trilogy written by Philippe Claudel which includes Grey Souls and the inestimable Brodeck's Report. The thread linking the three novels - though Monsier Linh is more a novella - is survival, specifically the survival of war and the associated guilt of surviving.
Written with his accustomed lack of specificity which in itself contributes so much to the narrative lifting it from a simple story to the more involved realm of ideas, it clearly however concerns the French war in Indochina - modern Vietnam - and a city, possibly Paris or Marseilles. Monsieur Linh has lost everyone who knows him in his little bombed-out village with the exception of his grand-daughter from whom he refuses to be separated even for a minute. With great delicacy of language and economy of prose, Claudel chronicles his bewilderment in a city where he understands not a word of the language, finds the food unpalatable and is confused by the ministrations of the impersonal though benign officials caring for refugees from the war.
He meets then on a street bench the second character of the book, a Monsieur Bark with whom he establishes an extraordinary friendship given that neither understands a word the other is saying but rather rely on tone of voice and body language. Monsieur Bark is also bereaved - his wife has just died - and clearly finds relief in pouring out his heart to this odd refugee clutching possessively his little grand-daughter. It is a measure of Philippe Claudel's consummate command of language that we acquire an intimate understanding of the two men in such few pages. There is an astonishing dream sequence in which Monsieur Linh brings Monsieur Bark to his village and the contrast of the world he has lost with the bleakness of the modern city is a very powerful antiwar sequence. Monsieur Linh's one link to his vanished world is his adored baby grand-daughter.
The book has an extraordinary twist but even if you spot it coming, it in no way detracts from this brilliant and moving story. On the contrary, when I came to it, I immediately went back and reread the entire novella!
Written with his accustomed lack of specificity which in itself contributes so much to the narrative lifting it from a simple story to the more involved realm of ideas, it clearly however concerns the French war in Indochina - modern Vietnam - and a city, possibly Paris or Marseilles. Monsieur Linh has lost everyone who knows him in his little bombed-out village with the exception of his grand-daughter from whom he refuses to be separated even for a minute. With great delicacy of language and economy of prose, Claudel chronicles his bewilderment in a city where he understands not a word of the language, finds the food unpalatable and is confused by the ministrations of the impersonal though benign officials caring for refugees from the war.
He meets then on a street bench the second character of the book, a Monsieur Bark with whom he establishes an extraordinary friendship given that neither understands a word the other is saying but rather rely on tone of voice and body language. Monsieur Bark is also bereaved - his wife has just died - and clearly finds relief in pouring out his heart to this odd refugee clutching possessively his little grand-daughter. It is a measure of Philippe Claudel's consummate command of language that we acquire an intimate understanding of the two men in such few pages. There is an astonishing dream sequence in which Monsieur Linh brings Monsieur Bark to his village and the contrast of the world he has lost with the bleakness of the modern city is a very powerful antiwar sequence. Monsieur Linh's one link to his vanished world is his adored baby grand-daughter.
The book has an extraordinary twist but even if you spot it coming, it in no way detracts from this brilliant and moving story. On the contrary, when I came to it, I immediately went back and reread the entire novella!
Man Booker International Prize
I have disagreed with Carmen Callil from time to time both in her role as an author and that of publisher but this time my sincerest congratulations to her on the stance she has taken in resigning from the judging panel because of its decision to award the Man Booker International Prize to Philip Roth.
Granted that the shortlist for the prize was not earth-shaking with people like Philip Pullman, Marilynne Robinson, Anne Tyler figuring but Roth!! As Callil said, 'he goes on and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book. Its as though he's sitting on your face and you can't breathe'. Beautiful! Well done Carmen!
Granted that the shortlist for the prize was not earth-shaking with people like Philip Pullman, Marilynne Robinson, Anne Tyler figuring but Roth!! As Callil said, 'he goes on and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book. Its as though he's sitting on your face and you can't breathe'. Beautiful! Well done Carmen!
Monday, May 2, 2011
Round-Up
A quick round-up for any of you that didn't do the weekly grind through the papers!
Phillippe Claudel, author of the amazing Brodeck's Report, has a new novel out in translation, Monsieur Linh and His Child. According to the reviewers it is written with his customary lack of specificity that intrigues me and it is the second part of the haunting trilogy that concluded with Brodeck and started with Grey Souls. Anne Enright gets massive coverage for her new novel, Forgotten Waltz. This promises to be less dark than The Gathering but with plenty of her caustic wit, this one using the Celtic Tiger economy as her backdrop.
The Guardian persists with its genuflections to the gods of English writing with a panegyric of Christopher Hitchens by Martin Amis last week. One would almost be forgiven for thinking the Hitch had passed on and this was his eulogy. Or maybe Amis just wants the 'great man' to know what a sound fellow he, Amis, is. Amis quotes, at length, various examples of what he considers great witticisms by Hitchens, the 'rebel', as he calls him. It is a grave error to confuse witticism with plain rudeness. Far cleverer ripostes can be heard in any Dublin pub!
Phillippe Claudel, author of the amazing Brodeck's Report, has a new novel out in translation, Monsieur Linh and His Child. According to the reviewers it is written with his customary lack of specificity that intrigues me and it is the second part of the haunting trilogy that concluded with Brodeck and started with Grey Souls. Anne Enright gets massive coverage for her new novel, Forgotten Waltz. This promises to be less dark than The Gathering but with plenty of her caustic wit, this one using the Celtic Tiger economy as her backdrop.
The Guardian persists with its genuflections to the gods of English writing with a panegyric of Christopher Hitchens by Martin Amis last week. One would almost be forgiven for thinking the Hitch had passed on and this was his eulogy. Or maybe Amis just wants the 'great man' to know what a sound fellow he, Amis, is. Amis quotes, at length, various examples of what he considers great witticisms by Hitchens, the 'rebel', as he calls him. It is a grave error to confuse witticism with plain rudeness. Far cleverer ripostes can be heard in any Dublin pub!
I cannot pass over the brief dismissal of Damon Galgut and his book, In a Strange Room, by Alfred Hickling. This was one of the titles nominated for the Booker and is Galgut at his best. It is a departure from his normal stamping ground of post apartheid South Africa, being set worldwide from Greece to India and finally Africa. The narrator always referred to as ‘he’, in the third person but who not surprisingly is called Damon - a device popular also with Paul Auster - is an inveterate traveller who on each trip either meets or is joined by different characters. The very act of travelling has a curious meaning for him. He says at one point that ‘everything at times of transition takes on a symbolic weight and power. But this too is why he travels. The world you’re moving through flows into another one inside…’ So the reality of travel becomes fiction and memory. Borders are lines on a map but also drawn inside himself somewhere. Memory is a key factor in his writing and he refers to ‘him’, the traveller, as buried under his skin. He frequently claims he cannot remember some details, that there is a memory gap as if he were a travel writer not telling a story.
The book is divided into three sections titled the The Follower, The Lover and The Guardian. If one could have any quarrel with Galgut is that these sections might well, with editing, have worked almost better as three novellas. Tightened up to that format, they would almost have a ring of Zweig. However, in their present format what obviously links them is our narrator. True to his propensity for travel caused by restlessness when too long at home, he is further uncomfortable in any relationship that might tie him in any way. This can lead to a vacillation that at times makes one want to shake him but it is a state of mind that Galgut is very at ease writing about. At times, one almost feels one is back with the Good Doctor – also shortlisted for
the Booker - so maybe Galgut puts more of himself into his main characters either consciously or unconsciously.
The characters Damon meets and links up with on his travels are distinct and remarkable. It is a tribute to his skill that they stay in one’s mind long after the book is finished almost like old friends. Though in Damon’s case, none of them are destined ever to be old friends and his depiction of their foibles and idiosyncracies is
masterly. Galgut’s writing has justly been described as both powerful and hypnotic and I would defy anyone to read him and not feel a personal attachment to some of his thoughts.
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