Monthly Archives: April 2015

Review: The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain

I received an advanced review copy of this title from Gallic Books.  It has been translated from the French by Jane Aitken and Emily Boyce.

My Review:
The Red NotebookIf you found a purse in the street with no identification in it what would you do with it?  Would you take it to the police? Would you throw it away?  When Laurent finds an expensive woman’s purse in the street that contains no wallet, all of these questions run through his mind.  He finally decides to take the purse to his apartment and see if he can find any information about its owner.  His decision to not throw the purse away and try to find it’s rightful owner says quite a bit about Laurent as an honest and sentimental character.

What Laurent does find inside the purse are very intimate details about a stranger’s life.  This unknown woman has placed pictures, a keychain with hieroglyphic script, and special rocks in her satchel.  Most importantly Laurent finds a red notebook in which this woman was recording her most private thoughts.  Laurent decides he must find this woman because he feels that, through his perusal of her mementos, he has gotten to know her and has developed a fondness for her.

The purse belongs to Laure who, at the very beginning of the story, has been hit on the head and mugged.  The thief takes her purse, removes everything of value from it and dumps it on the street in Paris.  Due to the trauma to her head Laure spends two weeks in the hospital in a coma.  When she wakes up and remembers the theft of her purse, it is the loss of her personal items that bothers her the most.

The book is suspenseful because we never know if Laurent can manage to put enough clues together to find Laure.  It is actually his teenage daughter, who at first appears to be a selfish little brat, that helps her father find Laure.  We know from the details given throughout the novel that Laurent and Laure are lonely and have been for quite some time.  They both also have a love of books.  So if they do manage to find each other they are obviously a perfect match.

THE RED NOTEBOOK is uplifting, heart-warming with the just the right amount of drama. I recommend it as the perfect novel to enjoy while you are sitting outside on a sunny spring day.

About The Author:
antoine_laurain150x200Antoine Laurain was born in Paris and is a journalist, antiques collector and the author of five novels. The President’s Hat, a charming fable set in the Mitterrand years, was awarded the Prix Landerneau Découvertes and the Prix Relay in 2012 and is published in English by Gallic. It was a Waterstones Book Club book and ABA Indies Introduce pick in 2013. Antoine was chosen to represent France at European Literature Night 2014.

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Review: The Collected Poems of Proust

For my next installment of reviews for poetry month I decided to tackle this dual-language edition of the collection poems of Proust.  It was published in 2013 by Penguin and I bought a copy of it myself.

My Review:
Proust PoemsThese poems are a glimpse into Proust as a human being and not Proust the serious novelist.  The poems were collected from a wide variety of places, including letters to his friends, journals and notes, and some were even scrawled on scraps of paper or envelopes.  We often envision Proust as the asthmatic, shut away from society as he labored over his major work.  But these poems reveal to us a funny, playful, intelligent man who fully engaged in life and embraced all of its wonders.

It is rumored even when Proust was alive that he was homosexual.  The poems reveal a man who was definitely struggling with his sexuality in a time period in which homosexuality was completely unacceptable.  In the poem that opens the collection he writes to Daniel Halvey:

For what is manly mockery to me?
Let Sodom’s apples burn, acre by acre,
I’d savor still the sweat of those sweet limbs!
Behold a solar gold, a lunar nacre,
I’d…languish (an ars moriendi of my own),
deaf to the knell of dreary Decency!

There are also amorous poems in the collection written to women, such as “Lines to Laure Hayman” in which he recollects her beautiful form.  Another poem is written to an actress whom he saw play the role of Cleopatra.  These lines imply an admiration of the woman that goes beyond friendly recognition of her performance:

You have surely dethroned the Egyptian Queen
You are at once artist and work of art
Your spirit is deep as is your regard,
‘Though no beauty like hers was never seen.

The sentiments in the poems jump from love and friendship, “Love draws from the heart a scent of roses,” to loss and agony, “So tired of having suffered, more tired of having loved.” These lines represent the waves of emotions Proust rides and jots down as he is living his everyday life.

Proust is also petty, bawdy and even vulgar. In one poem he writes:

They say a Russian, may God preserve his soul,
Managed to rouse a flutter of sensation
In Ferdinand’s leathery, tanned, and well-worked hole
By slipping in up to the hilt his brave baton.

In a few of the poems written to his friends his instructs them to burn the poems after they have been read because the poems contains some unflattering verses about aristocrats within their social circle.

There are 104 poems in the collection in total.  None of them are very long which is appropriate as they are meant as little messages to friends in letters and oftentimes casually written on scraps of paper.  The notes in the back of the book are very helpful in understanding to whom the poems are written and what their relationships were to Proust.  For a amusing glimpse into the candid world of this famous poet I highly recommend perusing this dual-language edition.

About The Author:
ProustMarcel Proust is a French novelist best known for his 3000 page masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past or In Search of Lost Time), a pseudo-autobiographical novel told mostly in a stream-of-consciousness style. Born in the first year of the Third Republic, the young Marcel, like his narrator, was a delicate child from a bourgeois family. He was active in Parisian high society during the 80s and 90s, welcomed in the most fashionable and exclusive salons of his day. However, his position there was also one of an outsider, due to his Jewishness and homosexuality. Towards the end of 1890s Proust began to withdraw more and more from society, and although he was never entirely reclusive, as is sometimes made out, he lapsed more completely into his lifelong tendency to sleep during the day and work at night. He was also plagued with severe asthma, which had troubled him intermittently since childhood, and a terror of his own death, especially in case it should come before his novel had been completed. The first volume, after some difficulty finding a publisher, came out in 1913, and Proust continued to work with an almost inhuman dedication on his masterpiece right up until his death in 1922, at the age of 51. Today he is widely recognised as one of the greatest authors of the 20th Century, and À la recherche du temps perdu as one of the most dazzling and significant works of literature to be written in modern times.

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Review: The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov

I received a review copy of this book from Open Letter Press through Edelweiss. This book was originally written and published in Bulgarian in 2011.  It has been translated into English for this edition by Angel Rodel who won a PEN Translation Fund Grant in 2010 for Georgi Tenev’s short story collection. She is one of the most prolific translators of Bulgarian literature working today and received an NEA Fellowship for her translation of Gospodinov’s The Physics of Sorrow.

My Review:
Physics of SorrowIn The Physics of Sorrow  the story of the narrator, Georgi, and his family are told through the lens of the ancient Greek myth of the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull creature that inhabits the dark tunnels of a Cretan labyrinth.  The story itself feels like a labyrinthine journey which the author leads us through; we feel like we are groping around in the dark, never sure towards which style of writing the author will lead us next.  Sometimes we encounter a story about the narrator’s grandfather, at other times we are launched into a tale about the narrator himself.  Short stories, anecdotes, memories, pictures and even lists are presented as part of the narrative.

Gospodinov uses the story of the Minotaur from Greek mythology to highlight three themes in his book: abandonment, isolation and misunderstanding.  Jorge Luis Borges, in his short story “The House of Asterion,” provides us with the Minotaur’s perspective of his dwelling and his pathetic hope of eventual redemption.  The Physics of Sorrow expounds on Borges’ characterization of the Minotaur as a creature who is worthy of sympathy and whose half-human, half-bull form are certainly not his fault.  At some point in his young life Asterion, the Minotaur, must have been abandoned by his mother and placed in this dark, isolated and lonely labyrinth.

Georgi grows up in Socialist Bulgaria, which itself is an isolated and lonely place.  The author points out that before 1989, 80% of Bulgarians had not left their native country.  Georgi’s parents have good jobs, but due to the strict controls by the government on housing, his family lives in a cramped basement apartment, their own type of dark labyrinth.  Georgi tells us that because of his enclosed childhood dwelling he is afflicted with the “Minotaur Syndrome.”  Left alone from the age of six in this basement apartment he must fend for and amuse himself until the adults come home at the end of a long day.

Abandonment and isolation are situations which Georgi’s grandfather struggles with first in the story.  At the age of three he is almost left behind by his mother at a mill and not until they are half-way home does one of his seven sisters realizes that he is missing.   I held my breath at the vivid description of the toddler’s abandonment and thought “hurry up” as his sister raced back to gather the distraught and afraid little boy.  The grandfather,  who later fights in World War II,  also has one of the toughest choices to make in the novel: which of his two sons should be abandon because he cannot live with and raise both of them.

Georgi has an issues with intimacy and he can’t seem to truly get close to a any woman. His fear of intimacy is part of the reason that,  shortly after his daughter is born, he falls into a deep melancholy.  At his doctor’s advice he travels around aimlessly and Europe itself becomes his labyrinth where he trudges from city to city and hotel to hotel trying to shake off his extreme gloominess.  He abandons his family to try and save his sanity but he ends up isolating himself from the world even further.  After he leaves his family, Georgi moves back into his boyhood home in the basement and now, living in this dark labyrinth all alone, the minotaurizing of himself has become complete.  At the end of the novel he tries to use the language of quantum physics to describe, sort out and even deal with his sorrow.

The greatest lesson we can take from The Physics of Sorrow is one of empathy and compassion.  At one point in the book the Minotaur is put on trial and given his day in court to defend himself against the charge of being a violent monster.  He is half-man and half-human and therefore never able to fully fit into to any society, man or animal.  We must also show compassion for characters like Georgi who, growing up under a totalitarian regime,  lost some of the most basic freedoms we take for granted in the West. This book shed a whole new perspective for me on the story of the Minotaur and the country of Bulgaria which, to be quite honest, I have never really given a second thought.

About The Author:
Georgi G.Georgi Gospodinov is the author of Lapidarium (a collection of poems, 1992) – National literary prize for debut book; The cherry tree of a nation (a collection of poems, 1996) – Annual prize of the Association of the Bulgarian writers for book of the year; Natural Novel (a novel, 1999) – Special prize in the national contest “Razvitie” for modern Bulgarian novel; And Other Stories (a collection of short stories, 2001). He is the co-author of: Bulgarian Crestomathy (1995); Bulgarian Anthology (1998). He works and lives in Sofia.  Follow this link to read an interview with Godpodinov about The Physics of Sorrow: http://bombmagazine.org/article/453046/georgi-gospodinov.

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Review: Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus

I received a review copy of this title from The New York Review of Books through Edelweiss.  As my regular readers know, I am a big fan of their line of classics.  For more information on their titles visit their website: http://www.nybooks.com/books/imprints/classics/.

My Review:
PrometheusI have to admit that when I found out that the translator of this ancient classic drama is not himself a classicist and does not know Ancient Greek I was rather skeptical.  After reading the introduction to the work, however, I began to come around to the idea that Joel Agee was capable of giving us a modern rendition of this play while making it accessible to a 21st century audience.  Agee describes his process of consulting older, literal translations as well as consulting experts in Ancient Greek philology.  The result is an impressive translation of one of the oldest Greek dramas in existence.

Prometheus is a Titan and in Zeus’ fight against the generation of Titans, Prometheus knows that Zeus will reign supreme and so Prometheus wisely takes the side of the god of thunder.  Yet, after his defense of Zeus, Prometheus betrays him by stealing fire for mankind.  As his name in Greek tells us, Prometheus is literally “forethought,” he knows what will happen before anyone else.  So we might wonder why Prometheus chose to steal fire from Zeus and gift it to humans if he understands perfectly well that his punishment from Zeus will be long-lasting and most severe.

When the play opens Prometheus is being chained to a rock by Hephaistos for his crimes against Zeus.  Zeus is about to destroy man and create a new race of beings when Prometheus gives these pathetic humans the gift of fire.  Fire allows them many things, including warmth, food, light, and civilization.  Prometheus becomes the champion of civilized societies, artists and those who fight against any form of tyranny.

One of the most interesting aspects of this play is the fact that Zeus himself is not a character and never speaks a word.  Zeus’ thugs, or henchmen, which include Kratos (Power), Bia (Force), Hephaistos and Hermes speak on his behalf.  The Chorus in the play is a group of water-nymphs, the Oceanids, who are horrified at and sympathetic to Prometheus’ sufferings.  The other female in the play, which I have always found to be an interesting choice, is Io who also explains her path of suffering which is caused by Zeus.  Io and Prometheus commiserate with one another and Prometheus, even though he is tortured, still manages to give Io hope about her own situation and her release from torment.  It is Io’s progeny who will ultimately be responsible for freeing Prometheus.

Prometheus Bound is not the most action oriented of the early Greek dramas yet, it is one of the more thought-provoking: Is Prometheus the champion of mankind who opposes all manner of tyranny or is he a dangerous revolutionary who challenges the authority that is necessary to maintain order and justice?

Thanks to the New York Review of Books Classics series for providing us with another great translation of a classic.

About The Authors:
Aeschylus (525 BC–456 BC), the first of ancient Greece’s major dramatists, is considered the father of Greek tragedy. He is said to have been the author of as many as ninety plays, of which seven survive.

Joel Agee is a writer and translator. He has received several prizes, including the Berlin Prize of the American Academy in Berlin in 2008 and the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize for his translation of Heinrich von Kleist’s verse play Penthesilea. He is the author of two memoirs—Twelve Years: An American Boyhood in East Germany and, more recently, In the House of My Fear. His translation of Prometheus Bound was produced at the Getty Villa in 2013. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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Review: Young Skins by Colin Barrett

In I received an advanced review copy of this collection of short stories from Grove Press through Edelweiss.

My Review:

Young SkinsThis collection of stories is a bold glimpse into the daily struggles of young people trying to carve out some type of existence in their small Irish town.  The rural Irish town of Glanbeigh is short on opportunities but has plenty of pubs and nightclubs in which the local population can get into lots of trouble.  The opening lines of the collection perfectly capture the setting and the mood of each story:

My town is nowhere you have been, but you know its ilk. A roundabout off a national road, an industrial estate, a five-screen Cineplex, a century of pubs packed inside the square mile of the town’s limits.  The Atlantic is near; the gnarled jawbone of the coastline with its gull-infested promontories is near. Summer evenings, and in the manure-scented pastures of the satellite parishes the Zen bovines life their heads to contemplate the V8 howls of the boy racers tearing through the back lanes.

I am young, and the young do not number many here, but it is fair to say we have the run of the place.

In the first story, “The Clancy Kid,” Jimmy is sitting in a pub nursing a hangover from the previous night’s festivities by sipping a beer.  In his state of intoxication the night before,  Jimmy has also had a tryst with his ex-lover, Marlene.  We learn later in the story that his feelings for her run deeper than he is willing to admit.  Jimmy’s friend Tug, the town bully, helps him get the lady’s attention in a most unusual way.

“Calm with Horses,” is more of a novella than a short story that is included in the collection.  Arm and Dympna are making a living in this small town by dealing drugs and Arm is the “muscle” of the operation.  Even though he makes a living through the use of violence, Arm does have a softer, more understanding side which comes through when he is taking care of his autistic son.  At several times throughout the story he tries to help other people out of their miserable situations; but it is this unwavering and even naïve support of his friend that leads to Arm’s own downfall

In “Diamonds,” the main character tries to move away from his small town but he finds nothing but work in a pub which exacerbates his status as an alcoholic.  The details in these stories, which are oftentimes omitted in the brevity of short stories, makes the tales brilliant.  For example, it’s not the loss of his job, relationships or health that drives this character to straighten out his life.  It is the death of his beloved cat Ruckles, who accidentally ingests some of the narrators drugs, that forces him to reexamine his life.  And we are deftly reminded of Ruckles former existence throughout the story.

The principal at his former high school offers the narrator a job as a groundskeeper which position comes with housing and a small stipend.  The principal is cleverly called “The Sentimental Authoritarian” because he has a romantic nostalgia for the past but also demands that the main character do his job properly and stay sober.  But, ironically enough, after he meets a woman at an AA meeting, his tenuous grasp on sobriety immediately goes out the window.

The prose, the flawed characters and the ugly, yet realistic setting are all characteristics which make Barrett’s writing intense and vivid.   YOUNG SKINS is a must-read for those who love short stories and contemporary Irish Literature.

About The Author:
Barrett, Colin (c) Lucy Perrem 2013Colin Barrett was born in 1982 and grew up in County Mayo. In 2009 he completed his MA in Creative Writing at University College Dublin and was awarded the Penguin Ireland Prize. His work has been published in The Stinging Fly magazine and in the anthologies, Sharp Sticks, Driven Nails (Stinging Fly Press, 2010) and Town and Country (Faber and Faber, 2013).

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