Author Archives: Melissa Beck

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About Melissa Beck

My reading choices are rather eclectic. I enjoy reading a wide range of books especially classics, literature in translation, history, philosophy, travel writing and poetry. I especially like to support small, literary presses.
May 6, 2016 · 12:44 pm

Review: Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything by Daniela Krien

My Review:
SomedayMy tour of post-Soviet literature continues with a book that describes the last few months of life in the German Democrat Republic (G.D.R.).  The story is told from the point of view of Maria, a seventeen year old girl who is trying to find her way in the world while living through some very tough circumstances.  This book has three important aspects to explore, the first and foremost of which is a coming-of-age storyline.  Maria is on the cusp on adulthood and has never had much guidance or supervision in her life.  She has never known her father very well because he keeps leaving on trips to Russia throughout her childhood.  She finds out that this distant father is about to marry a Russian woman that is Maria’s own age.

Maria’s mother is not someone she can rely on because of her constant sadness and depression that is the result of her failed marriage. Maria doesn’t hesitate to leave her mother’s home when she is given the chance to live with her boyfriend Johannes and his family on their farm.  For the first time in her life Maria feels at home on the family farm; as she begins to help with the cooking and the daily chores on the farm her life suddenly has meaning and value and she is genuinely happy.

The next aspect of the book, which is arguably the most interesting,  is the intense love story.  But it is not a love story between Maria and her boyfriend Johannes.  There is a man named Henner, a loner with a reputation for excessing drinking who lives on the farm next door, that attracts Maria’s attention.  Henner is enigmatic and handsome and although he is twice her age, Maria is inexplicably drawn to him.  Their love affair is passionate and intense and Henner is even rough when he makes love to Maria.

But Henner also has a tender side and as they spend time together he slowly reveals his story and his personality to Maria.  Maria knows that what she feels for Henner is true love and she is living a double life.  Maria has a much deeper and more mature connection with Henner despite their differences in age.  She is torn apart trying to decide whether or not she should leave the comfort and safety of Johannes, his family and their farm in order to try to make a real life with Henner.  Living with Henner as his lover will surely shock the whole town and Maria will be shunned for it.

Finally, this story is about a very interesting time period in German history as the G.D.R. falls and the country is once again reunited.  The contrast between east and west in the novel is stark.  Johannes has an uncle who, as a young man twenty years earlier, managed to escape to the west and get an education and work as an engineer.  When the uncle comes to visit Maria feels frumpy and backwards compared to the uncle and his western-born and sophisticated wife.  Maria is excited but also nervous about the anticipation of being able to experience all of the exotic things that the west has to offer.

This book is an intense and quick read that I highly recommend.  This was actually the first book I read from Maclehose Press and I look forward exploring more of their catalog.

About the Author:
Daniela Krien was born in 1975 in what was then East Germany and lives in Leipzig, where she is an editor and scriptwriter for Amadelio Film. Someday We’ll Tell Each Other Everything is her first novel.

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May 4, 2016 · 10:07 am

Review: Seeing Red by Lina Meruane

I received an review copy of this title from Deep Vellum Publishing through Edelweiss.  This English version of Seeing Red has been translated by Megan McDowell.

My Review:
Seeing RedOur senses are our most precious natural gifts because it is through them that we are able to experience the world.  At one point we have all probably wondered what it would be like to lose our hearing or our sight or our sense of smell.  In Seeing Red, we are given a vivid understanding, through the character of Lina, of what it is like to lose one’s sight.  Lina, a young woman attending graduate school in Manhattan and living with her boyfriend Ignacio, suddenly loses her vision.  She has been a diabetic all of her life and from what we are told about her medical history in the book, the blood vessels in her eyes have burst and have caused her blindness.  She knows that this is coming and the opening of the book is the moment at which her nightmare comes true.

The title is both literally and figuratively appropriate for the story.  Lina actually sees red as her blood vessels burst and block her vision; her anger at the loss of her most precious sense makes her severely angry, thus causing her to figuratively “see red.”  The tone and setting of the first scene in the book during which Lina and Ignacio are at a party are unexpected.  It is at this party when her site begins to fade and when she realizes what is happening she calmly asks Ignacio to take her home.  They stay at the party for a while longer and when they finally take a taxi home their ride is also rather serene.  But this is the last moment of peace because it is from this point onwards that her anger and her anxiety build.

I was not surprised to find out that the author herself suffered from an episode of blindness because of a stroke.  Her personal experience with the loss of her sight made the story all the more convincing.  There are so many aspects of her life to which she must readjust; Lina has to learn how to navigate the streets of Manhattan, to walk around her apartment without injuring herself, and eat at a table without knocking over drinks.   The author’s own experience with blindness gives her writing a unique authenticity that provides us with a comprehensive understanding of what it means to lose this sense.

It is very uncomfortable and upsetting to walk through Lina’s life with her as she is trying to adjust to her blindness.  One of the hardest aspects of this situation for her to deal with is the ways in which other people act towards her.  Ignacio, her boyfriend, is a faithful and loving companion.  He washes her eyes and changes her bandages when she has surgery, he goes to her doctor’s appointments with her and he even spends a month with Lina and her family in Chile.  But there are times when even Ignacio loses his patience because of  Lina’s clumsiness.

The episode that was the most memorable in the book is one that takes place while they are visiting Chile.  Lina carefully and meticulously packs her own suitcase by feeling each article of clothing and putting the heavier clothes on the bottom of her suitcase and the lighter items on top.  Lina’s mother, in an attempt to be helpful,  unpacks and repacks Lina’s entire suitcase.  This causes Lina to be emotionally distraught because, as she explains between bouts of yelling and crying,  she wants to do simple tasks her own way and not have to be constantly dependent on others.  It is difficult for her loved ones to attempt to help Lina but without making her feel helpless.

Seeing Red is disturbing and uncomfortable but so worth the read.  I hope that Meurane’s books will continue to be translated into English so I can read additional works of hers in the future.  Thanks to Deep Vellum one of my favorite small presses, for bringing us a wonderful selection of literature from around the world.  Please visit their website for more fantastic translated literature: http://deepvellum.org/

About the Author:
L MeruaneLina Meruane is one of the most prominent and influential female voices in Chilean contemporary literature. A novelist, essayist, and cultural journalist, she is the author of a host of short stories that have appeared in various anthologies and magazines in Spanish, English, German and French. She has also published a collection of short stories, Las Infantas (Chile 1998, Argentina 2010), as well as three novels: Póstuma (2000), Cercada (2000), and Fruta Podrida (2007). The latter won the Best Unpublished Novel Prize awarded by Chile’s National Council of the Culture and the Arts in 2006. She won the Anna Seghers Prize, awarded to her by the Akademie der Künste, in Berlin, Germany in 2011 for her entire body of written work. Meruane received the prestigious Mexican Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize in 2012 for Seeing Red. Meruane has received writing grants from the Arts Development Fund of Chile (1997), the Guggenheim Foundation (2004), and National Endowment for the Arts (2010). She received her PhD in Latin American Literature from New York University, where she currently serves as professor of World and Latin American Literature and Creative Writing. She also serves as editor of Brutas Editoras, an independent publishing house located in New York City, where she lives between trips back to Chile.

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May 2, 2016 · 6:30 am

Review: Oblivion by Sergei Lebedev

The first book that I read from New Vessel Press was Guys Like Me and ever since then I have sought out their books again and again.  I received an advanced review copy of this title through Edelweiss.  This title was published in the original Russian in 2015 and this English version has been translated by Antonina W. Buois.

My Review:
Oblivion I have been captivated by the plethora of post-Soviet literature that has been published just in the last year alone.  The theme that is the most haunting to me is the one of waste: all of those wasted lives, all of that wasted time, and for what purpose?  I remember the attitude towards the Soviets in the 1980’s with the “us”, the free American democracy, versus “them”, the oppressive Soviet totalitarian regime, propaganda.  It seemed that the Soviet Union wanted everyone to believe that, not only was their system the best in the world, but their people were happy and thrived under that system.  But recent post-Soviet books, like Oblivion, have proven that this ideal that their leaders put forth could not be further from the truth.

When Oblivion opens, the narrator is middle-aged and living in Greece.  He is reminiscing about his childhood back in a dacha in the Soviet Union.  The one character from his childhood that looms over and dominates every memory he has is a man he calls Grandfather II.  He begins with an ominous sentence that states it was Grandfather II who decided his fate and the course of his entire life.  Grandfather II was an old, blind man who moved into the dacha and about whom no one asked any questions.

There are hints in the text that Grandfather II has a shady past that somehow involved the horrible gulag system.  He is adopted by his neighbors, especially the narrator’s family, as a sort of kindly and innocuous grandfather figure, and thus his nickname.  But the narrator has a very different view and opinion of this man which is chilling and frightening.  There is nothing that Grandfather II specifically does that is cruel to the boy or his family.  But Grandfather II has a presence and a demeanor that evokes feelings of fear and dread.

The narrator is further haunted by Grandfather II when, as a boy of about nine, he is attacked by a wild dog and Grandfather II comes to his rescue by crushing the dog’s spine.  The narrator is brought to the hospital on the brink of death because he has lost so much blood.  Grandfather II, despite being an old man, insists that he give his own blood to save the boy’s life.  Grandfather II’s heroic act saves the boy but in the end his own life is sacrificed because he was too old and weak to give up his blood.

The narrator is haunted for the rest of his like that he has this old man’s blood pulsing through his veins.  He decides that he must go on a quest to find out more about his mysterious man’s past and this leads him to a mining town near the Arctic Circle.  The mining town is a pathetic waste and shell of a town that was once home to a prison camp where its inhabitants worked in the mine.  When the narrator arrives in this northern town the prisoners are long gone, but the remains of the camp are still an eerie reminder of this wretched and miserable part of Soviet history.  The narrator confirms that Grandfather II was a founder of this mining town and in charge of the prison camps.  The most disturbing part of this this journey, however, is when the narrator realizes what a cruel and inhuman person Grandfather II really was.  The saddest part of the narrative, for me, was learning about Grandfather II’s seven year-old son was also subjected to this man’s insistence on dominating and controlling everyone and everything in his life.

Finally, I have to say a few words about the densely poetic language that the author uses for his tale.  It took me longer than it normally would to read a 300-page book because the sentences were so masterfully created that I oftentimes found myself reading entire sections more than once.  There is a dream sequence in the middle of the book during which the narrator has a series of three dreams just before he is about to embark on his journey to the north.  This section could almost stand on its own as a poetic and metaphorical reconstruction of the oppression and unjust treatment that so many suffered under this totalitarian regime.

Oblivion is a haunting, intense, descriptive literary Odyssey that you will not soon forgot.  The language that Lebedev employs and the detailed stories he tells ensures that the experiences of life under Soviet rule will indeed not fade into Oblivion.

About the Author:
S LebedevSergei Lebedev was born in Moscow in 1981 and worked for seven years on geological expeditions in northern Russia and Central Asia. Lebedev is a poet, essayist and journalist. Oblivion, his first novel, has been translated into many languages. Lebedev’s second novel, Year of the Comet, is coming out from New Vessel Press in 2017.

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April 25, 2016 · 9:05 am

Review: The Inventors and Other Poems by René Char

This is my second review for National Poetry Month and is, once again, another unique volume published by Seagull Books.  The translator of this volume is Mark Hutchinson.

My Review:
The InventorsAs I first read the introduction to this volume, the piece of information that stuck out to me immediately was that Char was influenced by Heraclitus, the pre-Socratic philosopher.  Char imitates Heraclitus’ style of short and puzzling works as well as his theme of strife.  The pre-Socratic course I took in graduate school was one of the most challenging yet rewarding courses in my career as a student.  The Ancient Greek, which is fragmentary, is difficult to put together and even more difficult to analyze when one has come up with an English version. Heraclitus acquired the nickname “The Obscure” for good reason.  I had the same feelings, both of obscurity and difficulty, as I was reading Char.

The poems are in various lengths and some of the are not poems at all, but actually prose that still read like poems.  “Pontoneers” is an excellent example of a shorter work in the Heracletian style:

Two riverbanks are needed for truth: one for our outward

journey, the other for truth’s return. Paths that soak up their

mist.  That preserve our merry laughter intact.  That, even when

broken, are a haven for our juniors, swimming in icy waters.

I could spend a lifetime trying to unpack these few short lines and each time I look at them I find something different.  They are reminiscent to me of Heraclitus’ famous line about never being able to step into the same river twice.  But here Char reminds us of the ever-changing nature of our existence by posing two rivers and suggesting that what we experience, our own personal truth, may be different depending on which path we take.

Char struggles with the idea of existence and whether or not something of us serves in an afterlife.  Sometimes he comes across as a Stoic, such as in these few lines from “Loins.”

In taking leave of the world, we return to what was out there

before the earth and stars were formed; to space, that is.  We

are that space, in all its prodigality.  We return to aerial day and

its black rejoicing.

The Stoic idea that something of us, of our spirit, survives seems to be lurking in these lines.  But there are also times when I thought that Char leaned toward the Epicurean.  A line in “How Did I Ever Get this Late?” stood out to me as particularly Epicurean.  He imagines a deity that sets the human experience in motion but then steps back and has nothing else to do with its own creations.  The “Master Mechanic” watches his own chaos for his amusement:

In the immense community of the heavely clock

face, the Master Mechanic, it would seem, has greased the

motors and slipped away, chuckling, to amuse himself elsewhere.

This volume of poetry is nearly impossible to write a coherent review for.  The selections that are chosen for this edition are a sampling of the poet’s wide range of styles and topics.  Char’s enigmatic messages and obscure writing style are as difficult to unpack as Heraclitus.  But this is absolutely a volume that any lover of poetry will want to have on his or her shelf.  I find that the most challenging volumes of poetry are the most rewarding.

Finally, I have to say something about beautiful book jackets that are all designed by Sunandini Banerjee of Seagull Books.  Each volume is wonderfully colorful and captures the spirit of the poems contained within.

About the Author:
CharHe spent his childhood in Névons, the substantial family home completed at his birth, then studied as a boarder at the school of Avignon and subsequently, in 1925, a student at L’École de Commerce de Marseille, where he read Plutarch, François Villon, Racine, the German Romantics, Alfred de Vigny, Gérard de Nerval and Charles Baudelaire.

Char was a friend and close associate of Albert Camus, Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot among writers, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and Victor Brauner among painters.

 

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April 22, 2016 · 2:56 pm

Review: Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey

My Review:
B FarrarThe Ashby family has maintained their estate in the south of England for many generations.  The current family members who inhabit the estate are best known for their stables of beautiful horses.  Aunt Bee, the matriarch of the family, oversees the care of her ten-year-old nieces Jane and Ruth.  Bee supervises and runs the horse estate with the help of her niece Elenor and nephew Simon who are young adults.  Although to visit them for afternoon tea, one would believe that this is a happy and well-adjusted family, the Ashby’s have suffered some terrible tragedies.

The reason Aunt Bee has had to take over as parent for her three nieces and her nephew is that their parents died in a tragic airplane crash when Jane and Ruth were only a few months old.  Soon after the parents’ death, Simon’s twin brother committed suicide by throwing himself off of a cliff.  This second tragedy particularly surprised the family because Patrick was such a sweet and well-adjusted boy whom no one suspected was on the brink of taking his own life.

One day, a man walks into their life claiming that he is Patrick, the long-lost Ashby; he says that he didn’t commit suicide but instead ran away, assumed the name of Brat Farrar and spent the last eight years in America where he worked on horse ranches.  Aunt Bee is especially eager to believe Brat’s story and the fact that he looks like an Ashby helps to convince everyone in their immediate circle that Patrick is the long-lost heir.  The only one who seems skeptical about Brat’s identity is Simon.  It is Simon who has the most to lose from Patrick’s reappearance since Simon will no longer be the Ashby heir; the family fortune will revert back to Patrick who is the eldest son.

What I found most unique about this story is that Brat is supposed to be the bad buy in this story, the imposter, the crook.  But Brat’s story is very compelling and he is really not after the Ashby fortune.  Brat grew up in an orphanage and he has never had a family of his own.  When the opportunity to become part of an middle class English family presents itself, Brat’s desire for a sense of belonging and a place to call home prove to be a stronger temptation then the lure of money.

Brat is welcomed into the Ashby home and becomes a part of their everyday lives.  He is an expert horse trainer and he gets along especially well with Elenor for whom he develops more than sisterly feelings..  As he spends quality time with the family, he discovers through various clues that Simon has a sinister and mean side to him.  Simon’s reasons for being angry go much deeper than his disinheritance from the Ashby fortune.  I don’t want to give away too much, but the mystery surrounding Patrick’s disappearance and Simon’s involvement in it were very compelling plot lines and I finished the book very quickly.  I guess this would quality Tey’s book as a page turner.

Tey’s books are written in a classics and charming British style one would expect from a 20th century author.  Her characters are interesting in the sense that they are likeable but can be morally flexible.  Finally, the plot alone is reason enough to pick up this book.

I’ve also read Tey’s The Franchise Affair and enjoyed that book as well.  Has anyone else read any of Tey’s books?  I would love to hear about them.

About the Author:

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Josephine Tey was a pseudonym of Elizabeth Mackintosh. Josephine was her mother’s first name and Tey the surname of an English Grandmother. As Josephine Tey, she wrote six mystery novels including Scotland Yard’s Inspector Alan Grant.

The first of these, ‘The Man in the Queue’ (1929) was published under the pseudonym of Gordon Daviot , whose name also appears on the title page of another of her 1929 novels, ‘Kit An Unvarnished History’. She also used the Daviot by-line for a biography of the 17th century cavalry leader John Graham, which was entitled ‘Claverhouse’ (1937).

Mackintosh also wrote plays (both one act and full length), some of which were produced during her lifetime, under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot. The district of Daviot, nea Josephine Tey was a pseudonym of Elizabeth Mackintosh. Josephine was her mother’s first name and Tey the surname of an English Grandmother. As Josephine Tey, she wrote six mystery novels including Scotland Yard’s Inspector Alan Grant.

The first of these, ‘The Man in the Queue’ (1929) was published under the pseudonym of Gordon Daviot , whose name also appears on the title page of another of her 1929 novels, ‘Kit An Unvarnished History’. She also used the Daviot by-line for a biography of the 17th century cavalry leader John Graham, which was entitled ‘Claverhouse’ (1937).

Mackintosh also wrote plays (both one act and full length), some of which were produced during her lifetime, under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot. The district of Daviot, near her home of Inverness in Scotland, was a location her family had vacationed. The name Gordon does not appear in either her family or her history.

Elizabeth Mackintosh came of age during World War I, attending Anstey Physical Training College in Birmingham, England during the years 1915-1918. Upon graduation, she became a physical training instructor for eight years. In 1926, her mother died and she returned home to Inverness to care for her invalid father. Busy with household duties, she turned to writing as a diversion, and was successful in creating a second career.

Alfred Hitchcock filmed one of her novels, ‘A Shilling for Candles’ (1936) as ‘Young and Innocent’ in 1937 and two other of her novels have been made into films, ‘The Franchise Affair’ (1948), filmed in 1950, and ‘Brat Farrar’ (1949), filmed as ‘Paranoiac’ in 1963. In addition a number of her works have been dramatised for radio.

Her novel ‘The Daughter of Time’ (1951) was voted the greatest mystery novel of all time by the Crime Writers’ Association in 1990.

Miss Mackintosh never married, and died at the age of 55, in London. A shy woman, she is reported to have been somewhat of a mystery even to her intimate friends. While her death seems to have been a surprise, there is some indication she may have known she was fatally ill for some time prior to her passing.

 

 

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