CLASSICAL READS: Death in Venice/Der Tod in Venedig by Thomas Mann

My next installment of CLASSICAL READS is a book I wanted to read for a very long time: Death in Venice/Der Tod in Venedig by Thomas Mann. Mann was an author I admired in my late teenage years and I´ve read most of his books. I loved The Buddenbrooks as I used, and still have, a weakness for books with a social and sociological background. Until now though, I´ve read everything in various translations, therefore my latest ´classical´ was not only a literary challenge, but also a linguistic novelty.

Der Tod in Venedig is a novella that can be easily read within two hours or so. However, I wanted to spend a bit of more time with the text, therefore it took me few days until I was happy with my understanding of the text and ideas.

Let´s talk language though: I´ve seen reviews by native speakers complaining that it is empty and sophisticated on purpose. It could be, but let´s do not ignore that this book was published in 1912. Nowadays, we write and read today in shorter and plain sentences. At the time, literature was a priviledge of the few, therefore it appealed to a very specific category of readers. Unfortunately today, the long and complex sentences in German are rather reserved for highly bureaucratic texts. Inside jokes put aside, if you are reading Proust - another important name on my CLASSICAL READS list - the style, vocabulary and sentence structure is far from the register used in TikTok book reviews. Those were the days.

Back to the novella now: Set in Venice during the 1911 cholera epidemic - that Mann himself experienced while visiting there - it follows Gustav von Aschenbach, a fictional famous author in his 50s, visiting on Island Lido. His stay turns progressively into a deadly obsession as he sees the perfectly beautiful 14-year old Tadzio, who is visiting with his Polish family. The young man is the perfect projection of the ideal of beauty as per Plato´s Phaidros. 

The ambiance and the various locations are described in the smallest details, literally transporting the reader in the 1900s Venice. There are both visual and atmospheric, reflecting at certain extent the emotional troubles Aschenbach is himself going through.

Echoing another novella by Mann, Tonio Kröger - where the main character is progressively acknowledging his status as an artist - Death in Venice is clearly discussing ideas about the role of the artists, as well as his hidden aspirations and aims. Physical beauty therefore is stirring passions, although there are good reasons to compare the novella with Lolita, the gay version, despite the attraction being in Mann´s case purely platonic. I´ve seen some critics mentioning Mann´s homosexual tendencies, but need to read more about it maybe.

There is also a movie inspired by the book by Visconti I haven´t watched yet. 

I have mixed feelings about this novella: reading it was definitely a welcomed linguistic challenge, but from the point of view of the topic as such, not too much. The Buddenbrooks remain my favorite Mann´s work. 

On the other hand, I will hopefully be able soon to read and review soon some relevant critique and biographical books about Thomas Mann that may bring more personal details into picture.

CLASSICAL READS: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

At the end of the last year, I´ve proudly announced my new reading project: CLASSICAL READS. It is a project in the making for many years, but half-way abandoned due to the lack of time and the many reading temptations I am giving up to during my day. 

My post was supposed to push my commitment and determine me to follow a plan. Which partially happened, as I set up a list and read some books from the list, but still unable to spend enough time reviewing it lately.

But now I am happily breaking the ice and posting my first - hopefully not the last - post from my round the year affair with classical reads.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a short - less than 50 pages - novella published in 1892 in The New England Magazine. A bit over ten years later, the author will explain why she wrote the story, largely but not completely inspired by her own story. 

The protagonist of the novella, a woman, writes about her life during a ´retreat´ in a summer home aimed at restoring her mental health. The first person account describes her struggle with the lack of intellectual stimulation, while being forced largely to limit her daily schedule to home-based activities as per the doctor´s advice. And the under-stimulated brain will find her remedy in a Gothic fantasma of women hiding under the decayed wallpaper in her bedroom. 

The world the character belongs to - as the author herself - is a world with strict gender roles and with ´diagnosis´ that are far from following a scientific pathway. Instead, doctors are trying to maintain the social and gender-based distinctions, which was a generic tendency in women´s mental health until few decades ago.

The book raises issues relevant until today and the discussion is always interesting for several aspects. 

From the literary point of view, the episodes of the wallpaper ghosts are the best in terms of the visual effects of the descriptions. I was able to see the shadows and the aparitions from behind the wallpaper in the front of my eyes, hence my reading and re-reading of those passages more than once.

It was a short yet thoughtful read I am glad I had the chance to read it. It just opened up my interest to advance through my classical reads and happily share it on the blog as well. 

The Dilemmas of Working Women by Fumio Yamamoto translated by Brian Bergstrom

Forget all those women ending up doing nothing with their lives by purpose that we encounter so often in the English-speaking literature. The Year - only one! - of rest and relaxation. The women giving up their career, mothering, shopping and the fancy man without a plan in sight. Japanese women did it in books many years before - Sayaka Murata is one of the many examples that come to my mind right now. They are freely having tantrums in convenience stores, avoid men, are spending the life in their home without doing anything at all. And this is perfectly anti-system fine. 

I had those thoughts while reading the brilliantly disturbing short stories finally published in English by Fumio Yamamoto, translated by Brian Bergstrom (whose end note helps the reader more than in one respects). First and foremost, have a look at the cover! I can look at it for hours and always finding new ways to create stories based on the character. It relates perfectly the feeling builds up inside of you while reading the five short stories from the collection.

Each of the women exist within their own realm. Men and in general the masculine breed - either partners, fathers, children - is there to create trouble, discomfort, to unsettle. Although they gravitate within the traditional social and economic system, they tend to operate following their own anti-capitalist gravitation rules: no jobs, loafing around, ´unfit for society´. 

They may also try to cool down their volcanic anger when returning back home from family assignments, before the night shift to make ends meet and watch their husband cooling down on the sofa with a beer in the front of the TV. 

Women are always the main characters, also when they may not be the direct storyteller. It is less about ´voice´ than about ´presence´, although absent from the existence as such.

It´s a literary delightful and subversive read as it may make you think: why not turning the alternative into mainstream?

Rating: 4 stars

Random Things Tours: Little Addictions by Catherine Gray

We all have our own little addictions: the chewing gum, that small online game we play to ´kill time´, playing with our hair, that special brand of chocolate or just the jelly. Do we need this? Are we aware why do we follow such habits? Can we live without it? Each habit can be built within one month, and un-learning some of them it´s possible. But as long as we don´t understand the root of those addictions, we cannot advance; we just keep repeating the same pattern, with a different content. Or addiction.

Little Addictions by bestselling author Catherine Gray is doing exactly this: trying to understand the cause and eventually the remedy. Gray is both the author and the subject of the stories, as she is trying to examine her own addictions, their roots and the comfort they bring with. Most importantly, it shows some examples about how one can be free. Free of all those pleasant sins. (I really loved the book, but I must confess I am not ready myself to part ways with my beloved morning cardamom coffee).

I´ve found the book informative, reflective as well as written with humour and understanding. If you are looking to change something in your daily life this year, this book may give you some inspiration. 

Rating: 5 stars

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

Rachel Random Resources: The Heart-Shaped Box by Lucy Kaufman

 

I had the chance to talk about Lucy Kaufman more than once, and her novella Don´t Forget the Crazy was a shocking surprise. Hence, my interest in continuing with her other writings - whose covers do also deserve a mention. 

Her latest, the first from The Carousel of Curiosities series, The Heart-Shaped Box maintains the same tensed psychological ambiance with characters moving at the border between sanity and insanity. 

Set in the Victorian Sussex, it starts as a Romantic relationship, with Smith overwhelming Constance with presents, but the bows and lids do lead to unfathomable obsession games. The novella may be relatively short - a bit over 50 pages - but it is perfectly created to surprise, shock and keep the reader glued to the story. A psychological dark story that is worth every single second spent reading it without a break.

If you are looking for a bit different love tale, incredibly well told, this novella is a recommended read. It will stay with you for a very long time. Hopefully, there are more installments from The Carousel Series as I really cannot wait to get entranced into the next works by Lucy Kaufman.

Rating: 5 stars

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

Rachel Random Resources: Faking the Grade at Glenbriar High by Margaret Amatt

 

Who says love is easy to find, but as long as we remain open for it, it may arise from the most unexpected places. 

The characters from Faking the Grade at Glenbriar High by Margaret Amatt, an author I´ve reviewed on my blog few months ago, is built into impossible relationships. Clara is in love with someone who just gets married with someone else. Sam is a single dad with a very complex and complicated family story. All of them are working at the same school, interacting with each other but their stories may intertwin differently. When Clara accepted to ´fake date´ Sam for the one who stole your heart wedding, it didn´t sound romantic at all. But love may find its way to the most distant hearts.

I got convinced - although hardly - about the story between the two. The author gives space to both characters to grow and build their interest, while explaining their circumstances and challenges. It is not an easygoing story and this pledges in the advantage of the story that sounds relatable.

I liked how it gives love a chance, but not to any price. I also liked the local ambiance, particularly among teachers. It also raises so many important questions regarding adult dating, especially when children and second families are involved.

Rating: 3.5 stars

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

La vie sans fards by Maryse Condé

I am very much into memoirs these days, and nonfiction in general, but I love when I am getting my eyes on a literary memoir. Maryse Condé is an author I will definitely discover more of it in the next months, in addition to what I´ve already read about.

La vie sans fards - A life without Make-up, the plain translation from French, but the book was published in English under the title What is Africa to me? - is a late memoir of her wandering around the world, particularly within the African continent, looking for love and personal meaning. 

The account is literally without any embellishments: during her frequent moves from one country to another: France to Guinea, to London, to Senegal, to Ghana. From one trip to another, she may carry some or all or none of her four kids. There are affairs, abuse, dictatorships, a failed marriage, friendships. A life unfolding that may lead her to who she became. She is learning new languages, new wordings, ultimately turning into a writer.

The natural way to share her story is an important testimony of the times she went through, the people she met, recent history, especially political, in many of the countries she experienced.  Personally I´ve found shocking the ways in which her children experienced her decisions, being left behind to various acquaintances or friends, or being abusively kept away from her due to the moods of some of her lovers. But this belongs to her becoming as well.

The book starts when she mets her longtime husband and translator, the Englishman Richard Philcox who will stay on her side until her death in 2024, at 90. 

Books like this helps to understand the inspiration for her books, that she started to publish from her 40s. It will help me to a better view of her works that I hope to be able to add to my reading list soon.

Rating: 4.5