Corylus Books Book Tour: The Butterfly House by Teresa Solana translated from Catalan by Peter Bush

Teresa Solana is one of those surprising literary discoveries that you want to keep close track of her works. Especially for someone so much interested in the intersection of politics, social struggle and individual destinies, following her work is always a pleasure for my brain keen to see patterns and track mysteries.

The Butterfly House, translated from Catalan by Peter Bush, is published by Corylus Books, and as usual, it is always a pleasure and a honor to be part of their literary events. I had the chance to read and review (almost) all of the books they published and I was never disappointed. 

The Butterfly House is a squat building in the district of Vallcarca in Barcelona, where the daughter of a middle class doctor and policewoman is about to fall in love with a nerdy boy in love with science, also escaping his similar - although more ´new money´ social background. But a murdered woman is found challenging the course of love. 

Norma Foster, the main woman character from Black Storms is in a delicate position professionally, as her daughter is entangled with a potential suspect. But for her, the challenges, so elegantly putting the life of almost each of the characters into a different perspective, are of personal nature as well, with her marital loyalty jeopardized by an affair. And she is not the only one facing such questions.

As in Black Storms, it is admirably how smartly Solana is inserting the characters into the social and political entanglement and how many of the current debates in the Catalunya part of Spain are seized through the dialogues and experiences of the characters.

Personally, I´ve felt that the ending was a bit hurried, as I expected more crime riddle delights, but I was clearly rewarded with the concise episodes of the plot and the character development, especially their moral (marital) dilemma. I am clearly in need of discovering more Catalan authors and topics.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own 

Rapatriement by Ève Guerra

Annabella, a Lyon-based student and poet, is estranged for her father for over two years, but his sudden death may request not only an organisational effort on her side - repatriation of the body from France - but also to face her own trauma and conflictual relation to him.

Awarded the Prix Goncourt du premier roman in 2024 for her debut Rapatriement - in my own translation Repatriation - the story is mostly focused on the place of memories and their distortion based on incomplete information and manipulation. Destroying one´s child trust in their parents based on manipulation and lies is breaking the becoming adult´s own trust as well.

It has a cruel direct poetic way - the author is also a poet, like Annabella - to cope with trauma, by describing the details of its installments. There is no reflection or critique on this, just the facts that adds on. The prose is taking non sequential turns with poetic notes reminding on the memory flow. 

Rapatriement is a story of daughters and fathers, with a very fine eye for the traumatic impact on mental wellbeing and life decisions. More than any other books, it helped me to better understand its impact only through the dialogues and external observation of the main character, without no further extranous explanation needed.

I felt though that it ends too fast, leaving me with the desire for more - words, story, character development.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Femme du ciel et des tempêtes by Wilfried N’Sondé

After reading and reviewing my first book by N´Sondé, which was very close from home because based in Berlin, I promised myself to read another one by this author, Femme du ciel et des tempêtes. I was interested for two reasons: one in the case of books in French being always the pleasure of reading something in French, the other of opening up the covers of a book without having any idea what to expect.

What I really liked about this book is the elaborated plot, with many fine tensioned episodes. An ancient mummy of an African queen is discovered in the Siberian tundra, leading to a conflict between local tugs interested in post-Soviet merciless economic expansion and a multi-disciplinary team of researchers called in by a local.

There is a lot going on, with various political and personal entanglements, and I loved the political thriller episodes. There is also a magic philosophical train of thought that is shared in the story, which I´ve found less convincing, nevertheless adding some interesting accents to the story.

It was clearly a slow read but well written, with some good thoughts about life and historical responsibility.

Rating: 3 stars

Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel

 

Esther Perel belongs to a world of cultural rafinement and relationship knowledge hard to replicate. I´m following her on various social media channels, I receive her newsletter and I will always think about her wise advice. 

Wise doesn´t mean conform though, as the recommendations she shared to the couples portrayed in Mating in Captivity - the 20-year edition, I had access to in the audiobook format, read by the author herself - demonstrate. It shows the power and the limits of the therapist, as well as the freedom that we may not be aware of that we own in overcoming our own limitations while expanding and honestly acknowledging our desires and uniqueness. 

I think this is a book not only every couple should read and discuss about, but also people looking for a meaningful relationship or at least for understanding why some relationships are simply not worth believing in. 

Relationships are always very hard work, and what we don´t see behind the smiles of a happy couple it´s a lot of work, on yourself, on your own values and personal and couple aims. Sometimes it´s impossible to overcome the differences - hence the need of a couple therapist - sometimes we are too selfish to look deep into the other person needs. But it´s always worth trying a bit more. 

Mating in Captivity may answer many questions but will also let yourself search for the honest answers.

Rating: 5 stars

Heute ist Mittwoch by David Albahari, translated into German by Mirjana and Klaus Wittmann

One of the biggest downsizes of my many literary intersts is that I often ignore the literary realms that used to mean so much to me long time ago. Authors from the Balkans is one of them, alongside with Hungarian authors.

But, step by step, this year I am trying to correct these omissions, aware nevertheless of the amount of literary information I have to catch up - while nurturning my relatively easy interests. 

My latest read - that happened earlier this July - was a short read by David Albahari, Heute ist Mittwoch - Today is Wednesday in my unrelated English translation - translated into German by the duo Mirjana and Klaus Wittman, who are translating from Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian into German. 

Wednesday is the day when the son is taking his ailing father to the checkup for Parkinson´s disease. Once an influencial member of the Yugoslav local administration, a dictator at home, the father is facing his mortality. It is a nostalgic and slow read, with a human perspective, and a philosophical take. It is nothing to like or don´t about this book, it has such a relatable human touch. 

I´ve read somewhere that for Albahari, who died three years ago, the family was the starting and ending point of understanding a society. I haven´t read anything by him - but would love to - and this take is clear in this short book as well. I may agree with it, especially when it comes to social and political interferences, although in other realms, this may not be necessarily true. 

I am having for a very long time a high interest in understanding at what extent we cannot escape the social and political causality, in democratic and non-democratic societies and I am not ready yet to provide a straightforward answer. Books like Heute ist Mittwoch helped me to advance my thoughts about it though.

Rating: 3.5 stars 

Random Things Tours: For Best Results Follow Instructions by Alastair Puddick

 

My friends and sometimes I too, we use a lot AI for daily decisions lately: when to buy, what to buy, is your life experience matching the job you want to apply, what colours are in fashion this season, where to spend vacations, what to do while on vacation...you name it. It feels safe and predictable having AI on your side, saving you from the trials and errors of late times. 

I am not a frequent reader of science fiction, but our times require a different literary approach. I´ve recently read that most of the AI minds nowadays do love science fiction, hence the futuristic take of our daily lives. Hence, my decision to also delve a bit more into the ambiance of this genre. 

For Best Results Follow Instructions by Alastair Puddick, an author I had the chance to introduce to my readers before, offered me a wise combination of thriller and AI excitement, against a philosophical background. 

Tom signs up for a AI Life coach that may help him have an easier life, as the artificial intelligence may take the most important decisions for him. It may be easy, indeed, and taking decisions doesn´t always come smoothly. But what defines us as humans better than our capacity - free will, some may say - to take decisions? In Tom´s case, the situations gets a bit more complicated, as it seems that the AI solution he was so much endeared to may actually act against his very interests.

I´ve got lost in the thoughts about a trend that I signed to willingly and by intellectual laziness. I loved how this book - through thrilling action and humour - may gently remind us about our human conditions, limited, indeed, but still operating within parameters of freedom. Unless, we willingly decide to limit our freedom. 

A recommended book if you are looking to think about AI and its consequences from a literary perspective.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Honey by Imani Thompson

That women can kill for fun, due to boredom or as a revenge, or all at once, it is no scientific wonder. Women can be as good or as bad as the male counter-parts and there is no need of feminist revolution or revelation to acknowledge that. But...it doesn´t mean that one gender or the other is supposed to enjoy a priviledge to kill. In real or literary life. Or that just killing is enough to make life more enjoyable.

Yrsa, the main character of Honey, the debut roman by Imani Thompson everyone is talking about, is initially starting to kill men for the sake of testing her PhD premises. She is a young Black woman, from a middle class family, studying to Cambridge, enjoying brunch with her girlfriends, no pressure to work menial jobs. Some of the men she is killing are exes, men who disappointed her or someone else, random dates. 

As an avid crime reader I would have expected some extra details about really preparing the crimes, and how she fails by being considered a main suspect. The writing flows, with some ideological intersectional snippets I may happen to feel where they are leading, but which I refuse to accept, from a simple non-ideological point of view.  Three years and I am sick to my stomach to digest the idea of ´those who we think are oppressors, are the legitimate tarket of individual violence´. IYKYK.

Seven years ago I´ve read My Sister, the Serial Killer and loved it for the sake of the story, without any ideological embellishments. This is how I love my fiction. 

PS: The cover is from the German edition of the book, and although I´ve read the book in the original English, I couldn´t resist to use this deliciously decadent image. 

Rating: 2.5 stars