A Different Kind of Bookish Wrap-Up

I can vaguely remember myself exactly one year ago. Content, after a very eventful year, full of expectations from myself and the others, sickly caught in other people´s nightmares. I was moving on, the right foot in the front of the left but things were not right though. I had a moonshine smile and no one was around me to warn me that some things may not be completely right with me.

And life continued to go on. I was planning my trips, enjoying weekends away and writing about it, pursuing my parenting goals and getting distracting by peculiar dating. I was randomly reading about a new virus and reminded bravely that I survived SARS in Asia a couple of years back so nothing to fear about. I kept having respiratory arrest once in a while but at the end of every bout, that were becoming more and more frequent, I was congratulating myself for surviving it. I was in pain but the Ibuprofen was helping me and was grateful for the rarer moment when I was pain-free, able to fully breath and in full control of my body.

Day after day, my situation and the world´s peace of mind were rapidly deteriorating. By mid-February, I was caughing and was unable to walk more than five minutes without taking a break. News about people who were starting to die because of the COVID 19 were more and more intense. I gave up going to the office any more and started working from home, because my physical strength was almost nonexistent. I was losing weight, and I needed a very long time to reach my apartment on the third floor. 

Meanwhile, I kept reading and reading and learning a new language. My intellectual activities were keeping me distracted from the abyss I was slowly and almost willingly drowing. In the long nights when I was unable to sleep because of the pain and the constant sweating I always kept the tablet near my bed. I kept taking notes and was seriously evaluating my German writing skills that were slightly improving. 

Mid-March I was hurried to hospital, with a slim 20% chances of survival. I haven´t been informed by the prognosis but it was common sense that by delaying with almost one year a proper investigation into the cause of my sickness I was slowly killing myself probably because I was too much in love with myslelf and unable to understand and accept what was going on with me in the last four years of stress and pressure and more or less real scenarios so similar with Not Without My Daughter scenario, only that the action was taking place in a different country and I was a little bit smarter than the woman protagonist of this movie/book. 

What mattered the most in the time between March and April was how to get back to life. What kind of life was expecting me? For how long? How I was about to survive me and my son? From the hospital bed, I was chatting on WhatsApp with my beautiful friend Monica Bhide who kept sending me words of encouragement and bookish inspiration. I was not able to talk again yet, and no one knew for sure if and when my voice will return, but writing was always my second nature so I kept writing and communicating with the doctors and nurses with pen on paper. Shortly after waking up at the ER, I requested my laptop and tablet and kept in touch with the outside world. But more importantly, I was reading book after book, measuring my long days and the intervals between the early morning and early evening checkings through the books I was reading. Yeah, finally I had enough time to read and catch up with authors outside of my comfort zone and I was grateful for it.

Gratefulness was my state of mind: grateful every morning for the beautiful panorama from the 19th floor of the Charité over a Berlin whose streets were empty during the lockdown. Grateful for the generous nurses that were taking care of me and were bringing me extra expensive creams for my dried hands and were massaging my died muscles, for the short ergotherapy exercises, even for the painful waiting to get my MRT and other radioactive checkings. 

After one month, I was released for a couple of days, and was finally reunited with my little family, walking the streets, doing some shopping and finally reading from my bed. My smile ceased for a long time being a cartoonish facade hiding my feelings and disappointments. I was able to smile from the bottom of my heart, because I was on the right way, and surprisingly for everyone, I was recovering faster than anyone expected. Living in the world of the intellect distracted me from realizing how serious my problems were, indeed, but right now, by strengthening my spirit my body was slowly recovering from the trauma as well.

While in hospital, I was able to keep a limited touch with my freelancing work, while being offered a full-time contract. I was waking up around 5.30 - a habit that I keep until now - and scheduling various activities - book blogging being by far one of the most important. April was by far the most productive reading time of the year and book blogging month so far, and it coincides with the most intense recovering period. 

By end of May, I was treated ambulatory and as the Corona lockdown was eased, I was fully back to life: my treatment continued but I was integrating my medical schedule into my daily busy working and parenting life. My travel was supposed to be kept on hold this year, I was fully aware of it, but at least I was convinced that I will survive until the next year and able to get back on the road again. 

Reading was filling those moments when I was longing for far away countries and places. This year, more than ever, I was discovering more and more authors outside the white Western world. I was getting lost in beautiful poetry, with more favorite poets added to my list of beloved authors, like, for instance, Forugh Farrokhzad. 

Another important achievement of this year was the increased number of movies I watched: especially through MUBI and Amazon Prime, I had access to films that kept me intellectually distracted with new images and feelings, and outstanding film directors. 

For a long time, I skeptically avoided audiobooks, because I was considering myself unable to connect to book other than through the written word. My hunger for knowledge was bigger than the prejudices: listening to books - I started with nonfiction and political books, easier to watch, but right now I am able to follow literature as well - I was smartly using some dead times while doing various administrative works or organising the house. I especially insisted to listen to German-speaking books because, I will never be happy enough with my German. Meanwhile, I started learning just another language, while finally getting some extra freelancing gigs in Spanish, Italian and Portuguese - and grateful about the time my mother - of blessed memory - spent insisting to learn those languages.

Month after month, book after book, my situation was improving until people that met me first in March had to check twice if the person they have in the front of them is the same me. My voice is back - another medical surprise for many - but I prefer to think twice before saying something. It´s a decent recognition that words do have such a lethal power in our lives that sometimes can instantly kill someone. 

My recovery process meant also that I had to leave many people behind. I know they are much better without me as I am happy to be out of their story. This is how I´ve learned to appreciate those people that I let enter my life for the rare character feature of being themselves. And here is my favorite love-quote of the year: ´Loving someone just because of who they are as a person is rare, rather than mainstram media has led us to believe. Often, we´re propelled to love people because they fit, if not perfectly, comfortably, into what we need at that point in our lives´ by the author of Pizza Girl, Jean Kyoung Frazier. 

I am grateful for reaching this point in my personal and professional life. All my beautiful failures I went through were just an encouragement to keep walking - and reading- in order to be ready for this beautiful moment. I am looking further to the next 12 months with no other plans than living and loving and reading. It´s enough for now.

Movie Review: A Time for Drunken Horses directed by Bahman Ghobadi

 

One more movie until 2020 is officially gone. In just a couple of days I will dearly miss those days when I am doing nothing but searching for new movies to watch, crossed which book to read first and trying to find some time for writing my reviews. Soon, way too soon, I should be back in the business and there is nothing I can do about it. Except, as usual, get the best of each and every moment of my troubled life.

A Time for Drunken Horses belongs to the realistic branch of the Iranian cinema, with a pronounced social outline. The film director, Bahman Ghobadi, worked once as an assistant for Kiarostami - that I used to love a lot because I was completely ignorant about other significant voices - is of Kurdish origin. This movie is considered the first Kurdish film ever produced in Iran and it is inspired of the life in a marginal village at the Iranian-Iraqi border.

Movies with a social topic can be done beyond any ideological bias. The focus on a given reality that the artist is describing realistically does not need any matrix. I am not a Marxist, the opposite of a socialist, but I always find inspiration in social everyday life topics, both in my writing, the books I am reading or the movies I am watching. 

In A Time for Drunken Horses, five orphaned children in a poor Kurdish village at the border are fighting to survive the everyday life. Life or death are irrelevant, survival is the daily challenge. There is so much strength and fragility in the way in which those children are coping naturally with their situation. The children actors are excellent players and bring so much depth to the movie. Their kindness and solidarity in a world of adults that is using them without regrets and second thoughts is moving. I felt both sad and morally invigorated after watching this movie, because it shows the simple human struggles that we may not expect so dramatically experienced by little children. 

I watched the movie on MUBI, which proved to be in the last weeks a precious source of quality movies featuring outstanding film directors from all over the world.

Rating: 4 stars

Movie Review: Farewell Amor directed by Ekwa Msangi

Farewell Amor, the debut by Tanzanian-American Ekwa Msangi who is also a writer and a producer, is top on the list of the best movies I´ve watched this year. 

Reunited after 17 years, separated by the Angolan war and the immigration of the father to America, the family of three is together again. The long years of separation changed everyone, but love unites them. The accomodation doesn´t go always smoothly, but they are trying to write a new story of life and love, starting with what unites them: dancing. 

It´s a relatively easy story, but it concentrates enough human tension, love and longing to keep you interested during the whole duration of the movie. Each and every one of the characters are challenged to cope with their own shortcomings and small or big betrayals, to reponder their relationship and validate what keeps them together. Do the roots planted in this relationship that resisted 17 years without a direct physical contact keep them together once reunited in America? Are values stronger than the disparate feelings?

Farewell Amor is a beautiful story of human resilience and fragility, played simply yet genuinely by the actors. One may not (always) need big events and dramatic encounters to raise the interest. Often, everyday life stories are more than enough to beg a return to the intensity of human life. 

The movie was released this year at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie is available on MUBI, I have access to for free via my scribd subscription. 

Rating: 4.5 stars

Listening to Arabic Poetry in French

 

Maybe this year I was not very successful in more than half of my endeavours, but at least I succeeded in reaching one goal: reading more poetry, both in original and in translation. For the end of the year, I offered myself another gift of poetry, while listening to the Anthology of Arab Poetry, as audiobook, in the French reading of the French-Moroccan baritone of Jewish origin David Serero.

The book is relatively short to listen to - around 30 minutes - and covers an impressive time amount - ambitiously, it promises from the origins until the current times. It´s an ambitious aim limited by time and definitely subjective as a personal choice. I was particularly pleased by listening to a translated poem by the Iraqi poetess Nazik al-Malaika whose works are not easy to find for the non-Arabic reader (an edition of a bilingual Arabic/English translation of her poems was recently published and will be happy to get my eyes and the soul on it soon). 

Traditionally, France has a good amount of literate Arabic-speakers therefore biased or not for cultural reasons, I may embrace faster a French translation instead of translations from non-Natives to other languages. 

This collection may be just a grain of sand but it does good to a late winter evening of a year like no other. I´ve listened to the audiobook more than once and would probably do so again and again a couple of times. 

Rating: 4.5 stars

Book Review: The Door by Magda Szabó

How estranged may I be from my Central and Eastern European origins for not reviewing and writing too many authors from this intellectually rewarding part of the world? I hope that next year will help me to return to a realm that I used to love and hate so much many springs ago, because sometimes too cruel to be true...

I was familiar with Magda Szabó for a long time as a literary name, but haven´t been able to return to a predictable geopolitical-literary setting for a long time. I do speak Hungarian well and I have a healthy connection to my Hungarian heritage, particularly from the intellectual point of view, through writings of Pétér Esterházy (who even autographed a translated version of his monumental Celestial Harmonies), Pétér Nádas, György Konrád or Imre Kertész and even the complicated László Krasznakorkai. Somehow, I´ve ignored Hungarian women writers and I am still trying to figure out whose fault it is/was. Every time I was back to some Hungarian literary figure, it was always a man´s world. And me, I´ve stop way too early from exploring it in its all small and big details anyway.

The Door is my first direct encounter with her work, and hopefully not the last (I´ve seen many of her books were translated into German as well so it may help to improve my language skills as well). I had access to the book in the English-translation, as an audiobook read by the British actress Sian Thomas whose voice was an excellent choice. 30% of the reason I keep up with the book - whose completion took me a couple of weeks - was because of the affectionate voice of the reader, which suits so well the story itself.

The main storyteller is a writer - probably an alter ego of the writer herself, whose name is mentioned only in the last part of the book, in its diminutive form, Magdushka). Shortly before the story starts she was allowed to write again - we are talking about a Hungary under communism - and she is living together to her writer husband in a village. As her intellectual and social assignments diversifies, she needs a househelper. Then, she meets Emerence, with whom a 20-year complex relationship develops. Emerence is more than a household help, she turns into a practical, mundane alter ego fo the writer, challenging her and creating a variety of situations outside the writer´s intellectual comfort zone. It is a complex relationship that goes far beyond the usual categorization of two women belonging to two different mental lanes and upbringing. For me, it has to do with the very role of the writer and the intellectual in a society, the denials and the deceits. Translated into a very specific historical and political context - which unfolds permanently cinema-like in the background: the Horthy years, the Stalinist years, the censorship, the 1956 ´Revolution´ (with quotes because personally I think that unfortunatelly those events did not change anything revolutionary, except the wave of persecutions against intellectuals and the number of Hungarians who had to leave the country) - it defines the very condition of the Hungarian writer and intellectual at the given historical time.  

I´ve finished the book a couple of days already, and keep thinking about it. Although it belongs to a specific context, The Door is more than a Hungarian story. It belongs to the register of books dedicated to intellectual struggles and stories and the subtle art of the writer make it valuable beyond its time. I can only hope that in the next weeks and months will be able to share more stories authored by writers from this geographical realm that the more I am isolated from - due to the current travel restrictions, among others - the more I long to connect.

Rating: 4 stars 

Book Review: Before the Coffee Gets Cold. Tales from the Café

Some topics and genres simply cannot get tolerated by my writing stomach, no matter how much I try, and I try, and I try...One is the science-fiction genre which I approach highly cautious. Once in a while it may happen to like some books written in this vein, but I don´t remember exactly which one was the last that I really enjoyed. The other one has to do with time travel that my very mathematical and practical mind simply cannot cope with easily.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold. Tales from the Café by Toshikazu Kawaguchi is a sequel of a previous book featuring a café where one can visit under specific conditions in order to turn back in time to meet for a limited amount of time the loved ones who died. One of the condition is that those loved ones have visited the place previously. Another is that the visit is short, just ´before the coffee gets cold´. As in the case of many nostalgic time travel books, one cannot do anything in the past in order to change the course of events.

The book - which I had access to in audiobook format - includes three stories of longing for beloved relatives that disappeared in tragic, sometimes brutal conditions. At the beginning of each a short round up of the Café´s infolvement with time travel is repeated which does not make too much sense. Also, the writing is relatively easy and simple, and this is not a compliment, but I can only perhaps blame the translator.

As for the topic, the way in which the stories were written did not appeal to me at all. There are a couple of moral dilemma of the characters, especially when it comes to sharing aspects of the daily life and the decisions took - and some lies surrounding the circumstances of the people who died. But, otherwise, everything there is anything really impressive or literary significant about the stories and the topic.

As someone who lost a couple of very significant people in my life starting with an early age, I never had the feeling, urge or need to want to meet them again though. Life is short, try to humbly appreciate the presence of other humans in your life but why things are happening and how and why those we love are disappearing out of our lives is not a reversible process. Thinking this way is a very good protection against despair and helps to move further on with my/yours too/ life. I don´t want to change anything from my past, just want to live every moment of the present in its genuine uniqueness. 

Rating: 2 stars (The evaluation covers both the writing, as convened through the translation) and the topic
 

Matchmaking, Indian Style

´Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match...´

Long, but not so long time ago, I wasn´t aware that matchmaking - through a traditional knowledgeable matchmaker - may be a way of getting married in other communities than mine. Me, I´ve been there: preparing a CV with stronger credentials than a job application - who cares in a job application how learned are your family members four or five generations before? -, getting a list of features I want to see in my future husband, how many childrens (´Gd´s will´ is not the right answer in this context, no matter how religious you are, you have to say at least 6), if you are willing to support his religious studies or...well, there are so many other details to figure out. And then, the moment when from the huge mountain of CVs - who decreases with age - you pick up a couple of them, and you proceed to the next step: meeting him, together or separately from his/her family. And there are also those hours or days or even weeks after the first meeting with that one that decides to not proceed further to another date. Traditional dating can be heartbreaking and very emotional and some pray more and some cease to pray at all, but there are happy matches and unhappy couples that may divorce but also children - 6 or more or less - whose birth is the result of that meeting that was the result of the careful work of a matchmaker.

And there is Indian Matchmaking, a series of movies on Netflix I just finished to watch (this is how I am spending the end of the year vacation time so expect many more movie reviews soon). It features the resilient and diligent Sima Taparia from Mumbai who is crossing the Ocean to help young people find their right match. Her clients are well educated, with a very stable income, successful, young and beautiful and looking to start their next chapter of their life. 

Matchmaking is a tough job and Sima uses once in a while the help of a face-reader and a horoscope reader and prays a lot for a successful outcome for her clients. Sometimes she sends her clients to see a life coach or therapist or she is using the help of other matchmakers, with a different, more diversified database of customers. In the Indian culture, there is the concept of Nimit, a mediator, a person who is destined to bring two persons together and Sima is dutifully belonging to this category. She is realistic, keeps a sense of humour no matter what but equally mean enough when some of her clients are just too much. But 

The movie is in fact a reality show, with Sima´s clients and their parents - oh, especially their mothers with a clear plan to see their children, particularly boys, married - followed in real-life situations. I love to watch the deeply human part of the individual stories shared, the pain of previous failed relationships, the excitement of looking for something new, or the awkwarness of meeting someone completely out of your game.  

Even not necessarily interested in the dating game, there is so much to learn from this movie about society shifts and generational expectations, the truth and dare about real love and relationships, that are not necessarily born out of pure, wild, genuine love. My favorite part is the short snapshots with people married for over 30 years or even 50, old Indian couples who married for completely other reasons than love - mostly because those were the society expectations and their parents wanted it so, but still are gently together sharing a life of love. Despite the awkwarness of the traditional dating process, there is always hope for love and sometimes, there is a destiny that brings to human beings together. Full of hope for my own love life, from the bottom of my broken heart, I trully hope so.

 

Book Review: Tree of Life by JF Penn

´It´s time to end the Anthropocene, the age of humans´.

I rarely follow book series because in my bookish experience, they are rarely equal. It may take a couple of mediocre installment until the real geam of the book is revealed and I don´t have that much time anyway.

The Arkane series by J.F.Penn is my exception. I can´t wait for the next book as from a volume to another, there are always extraordinary adventures in the world of religious fanaticism taking place. It explores the worlds beyond our everyeday life, where religion truths are split into thousands of thruths, offered as take-aways for the daily apocalypse. With every book, there are old secrets and rituals revealed and the race against the machine of the Arkane Institute representatives to stop the world from collapse. 

In Tree of Life, the 11th book from the series, Morgan Sierra and Jack Timber are tracing an attempt to recreate/localize the Garden of Eden. The daughter of a mining industrialist who wants to restore the Earth meets a fanatic Christian order who owns a seed that can recreate the Garden in different parts of the world. 

The story has complex layers and the plot is spreading in different directions, creating suspense while creating a space for the intellectual and philosophical discussions. ´While Morgan certainly understood the devastation that humans did on the face of the Earth, they also achieved wonderful things in conjunction with nature´. The Garden of Eden is a dream and searching for it on Earth, beyond the simple biblical meaning, was a current concern among the religious orders of the Middle Ages (J.F.Penn offers at the end of the book a vast bibliography of sources she consulted in writing this book, among which Jean Delumeau´s History of Paradise, an excellent reference in this respect). But it might be that the dream is not always replicating a reality, any kind of reality. 

In the book, the Garden, which is found this time on the highest peak of Sahand Mountain, in Iran, close to the borders with Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan ´was no manicured lawn with pruned trees and tamed flower beds as depicted in every artistic rendering of Adam and Eve in Paradise. This was an underground rainforest, an abundance of color and growth, teeming with life. This was Nature unbound´. 

Tree of Life is skillfully balancing the ideas with the thriller action and there is so many discussions and ideas to think about, from the natural longing of humanity for perfection and peace in the middle of the nature, to the eco-terrorism and religious fanaticism based on obscures references which obliterate, willingly or not, the specific contexts and nuances. 

For me this is probably one of the favorite from the series, but I cannot be sure to settle too soon, at least until the next book is coming out.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the author in exchange for an honest review

Book Review: Muslim by Zahia Rahmani

´When guns, war, beards, verbs, deaths, bombs, meat, words, shouts, women, children, tears, theft, hate, lying, stupidity, vulgarity, ignorance, rape, skin, soliders, crying out, snapping of the jaws, disdain, abjection, infamy, destruction, and ignorance invaded, I was scared´. 

´Are you one of us?´

Zahia Rahmani, one of France´s leading art historians and fiction writer, accounts in Muslim, the second book of an autobiographically inspired trilogy about the intricacies of her faith and language. I´ve read it in the English translation as I didn´t want to wait until will get my French language copy from the French Institute. I felt the pressure of reading it - and I did in one short installment, as the book is relatively short - as every time when I am brought back to thinking about French, my language of a country. 

She grew up speaking Tamazight, a language of the Berbers. ´I was born into the world in a minor language. A language that was passed on orally, a language that was never read. We called it Tamazight. A Berber language that throughout the incursions of history was guarded tightly by its people for what it knew. For the people of the Atlas mountains, in the regiony of Kabylie, in the Areos mountains, where the Mozabites and Tuareg lived, it was in their language and in their traditions that islam was introduced´. In France, it was the French language, that took her over, a jealous possessive kind of language that does not accept equals or betrayals, even if she is not the first choice. ´She takes you, guides upon her, seduces you, then, if she thinks you´re unfaithful, she insults you in every way possible. It´s narcissistic, but it´s her capriciousness that gives you power. That´s no chance of irreverence with her. Above all else, don´t doubt her benevolence and her intentions. No other language is allowed. She´s very jealous´.

In Zahia Rahmani´s world, languages are competing for taking over the human soul. The human soul longs for its home built up on words. When the words escape and the languages are hit, there is no home. The human soul longs for a home. Language has a life and desire of its own and it may return when it wants to, as a haunting ghost. ´Why did I stop talking my language several months after I left Algeria, and why then did it come back to me ten years later´? You cannot cut a language out of your life, divorce it, obliterate it completely. Following a language and renouncing another is more than a cultural choice, is a life-and-death choice, both for the soul. ´I was born into a minor language and escaped from a distant nowhere where that didn´t want me´. 

But there is more to the identity than the words, that are taken away anyway. ´I don´t know what the word ´nationality´ means. It filled me with anxiety´. 

There is the assigned religion too. A religion that is at home no. 1 distorted through foreign influences - ´The rigor of Saudi Arabia was the new law of the land´ - and whose belonging is negatively attributed at home no. 2. There is the general assumption of what a religion, any religion should be, and how it´s assigned followers must behave in both private and public circumstances. ´For me, I think of God as a protocol, an agreement among people. But the rowdy crowd barred the road in front of me. So, ´my´ God? They simply brought him down from heaven for me´.

Zahia Rahmani writes so simple tragic truth. It´s an empathic prose, decently desillusioned, but decided to share the truth and the pains. This is the safe space where public intellectuals meet.

Rating: 4 stars

Book Review: The Fox by Sólveig Pálsdóttir

´Don´t go too far from the house and don´t spend too long outside. People can lose their lives and there are lot of foreigners who have died of exposure in Iceland. They get lost in the dark and simply freeze to death, and it´s a dreadful way to go. Yes, and watch out for foxes. They can attqacl people. Once there was a man who feel and broke his leg outside in storm, and a fox chewed his foot right off´.

Iceland is associated - more than my beloved Switzerland - with pristine landscapes and sky reflecting lagoons, an invitation to self reflection and serenity. But too much isolation in the middle of the nature - which is way different than the human projection of it - is a pressure the human fragility can hardly cope with.

The Fox by Sólveig Pálsdóttir, translated by Quentin Bates himself a writer of crime fiction based in Iceland, was recently published by the courageous new edition house Corylus Books offering also a fine selection of Romanian Noir in English translation. Bringing talented authors of crime stories to the English audiences is a remarkable project and I will keep this edition house under the radar for the time being, both for the literary and the geographical selection. 

The book is like no other I´ve read recently. The tension and suspense are insinuating surreptitiously while describing serene landscapes. The inevitability of the evil nested here and his further extension may be surprising at the first sight. In fact, the erratic human emotions mirror the uncontrollable force of natural phenomenon.  

A Sri Lankan-born resident of Reykjavik arrives in a remote part of Iceland following a job offer at a beauty parlor. Once landed here and convinced that she was duped, she is trying to find some temporar work. An offer to clean at a farm owned by a weird mother-son duo comes with the perks of free lodging. But there is nothing like a free lunch as the two, plus the owner of a hostel with a shady past that actually brought her there, are part of a complex operation which involves drug dealing as well as bizarre belief into ´elf women´ and ´hidden people´. 

25% into the book one may not be sure where everything is heading, although this isolated farm calls for ´noir´ - a bit cliché, I know. The mixture between imagination and reality is so well stirred up that far into the reading, the sipping may be lethal. The suspense is built up skilfully and only the introduction of new characters - such as the policeman on a leave, again a bit cliché - create a bit of diversion, enough until the next story threshold. 

The tension and suspense do not always correspond to an equal development of the tensionate and suspenseful story as such, and the additional episodes created around the main plot are distracting and not always matching. The end is too precipitate and ordinary compared to the rest of the story.

However, The Fox - that has an outstanding book cover - was worth the reading ride and made me curious about the literary life in Iceland.

Rating: 3.5 stars

 

Movie Review: The Whistlers directed by Corneliu Porumboiu

The last time I watched a Romanian movie it was about the endemic corruption in the country. The everyday life struggle to survive amidst the pressure of various authorities and small bureaucrats for their share. 5 here, 5 there, and your meagre monthly salary is gone paying for what you naturally deserve - like being released an official document or, the worse nightmare, for a normal medical service. Hence, the movies with a big success on the outside markets treating this topic. Personally I think it is about time - for 20 years already - to make movies about something else like love, heartbreak, death and love again. But actually, some of those movies threating about corruption are so good...

It happen to know more about Corneliu Porumboiu than he being a successful film director of international fame and I was always impressed by the personality of this young Romanian artist. La Gomera - The Whistlers - is Porumboiu´s fifth movie, produced the last year both in Romania and France. I watched the movie on MUBI part of my scribd monthly subscription. 

Half-black comedy, half-drama, La Gomera is a mafia story: about policemen and other law&order authorities playing hard with those they are supposed to catch, for the price of thousand of dollars even millions. The policeman Cristi even travels to Canary Islands to learn a secret whistling system in order to organise a spectacular escape of a mafia person in Romania. There are no regrets and things are prepared in cold blood. The policeman comes relatively from a place of wealth, lives alone, relatively modestly, so why does he needs the money for? Hilariously, everyone is watching and being watched however the perversity of the system is so that everyone escapes because they know how to oil it. 

Porumboiu turned this everyday drama into a tragi-comical movie, with various intertextual references to local and American movies. It´s a movie packed of action, absurd change of situations and an overall good play of the actors, although I may not be able to single out one or another of the actors. None plays bad, actually. The eclectic musical background deserves an extra mention as it amplifies the despair and put into perspective the ridiculous fate of the characters.

Hopefully, one day will come when there will be sucessful Romanian movies about love, heartbreak and love again. By the way, just found out they have parliamentary elections today, but at a first sight, I rarely see some hopes for a change.

Rating: 4 stars

Everyday Life Magic

 ´Give the people what they want, yes, but why not give them something truly amazing´.

Graham Swift writes with a medical precision. The words is at their place and together they create a world that cannot fail the rules of magic design. When I´ve seen his name on the cover, I couldn´t resist the temptation to grab the book, Here We Are, as I knew that no matter the topic, there will be some beautiful wording to enjoy.

Set in a timeline that covers the WWII years in the UK, but also the performing arts scene at the end of the 1950s until 2009, this short book is a story about a three magicians, Jack and Ronnie and Evie, their assistant. It´s an everyday life story of their shows, interactions, disappearances and tricks. Evie, now in her mid 70s, reminds it, but what exactly does she remember? How can she cover facts that were not lived by her, just shared parsimoniously and anyway, subjective interpretations?

It is an elegant game of memory sharing and memories telling in this book that supersedes any clear plot which is almost non-existent. The story goes on, although unsure where it goes and why it is told. It is a matter of writer´s choice who wants to bring to life specific characters and their timelines.

This is one of the reasons why it took me so long to read the book who is less than 200 pages. I didn´t feel involved in the story at all, although definitely appreciative of the writing. I didn´t feel that I really matter, as a reader and I didn´t want it necessarily but the little everyday life is so self-centered and the ´we´ from the title misleading. Which make my reading experience mixed, although worth the effort.

Rating: 3 stars

Women Without Men: A Novel of Modern Iran

I rarely read a book and watch the movie one after the other, but in this case, it was a very interesting experience, as both the book and the movie maginifies the ideas and meanings.

THE BOOK

Women without Men. A Novel of Modern Iran by Shahrnush Parsipur is a cruel read. That world, of a modern Iran, is not safe for women. Men are temperamental, demanding, mean, cheaters, abusers, absent. The women from the book try to escape or face them. There are times of change, as the events are taking place with the 1953 coup against the prime minister Mossadegh in the background. In the book, this is just the context, but women´s fate is not necessarily influenced by the events. Out of time, they are the victims.

´Unfortunately, it is still not a time for a woman to travel by herself. She must either become invisible, or stay cooped up in a house. My problem is that I can no longer remain housebound, but I have to, because I am a woman´. The women before being without men are deeply sad and overwhelmed by an emptiness that has no clear cause. They cannot be emancipated because there is no word for what they want. Not yet. One of them turns into a tree that should grow up when watered with breast milk. 

´A sane person does not turn into a tree´, said the man, the green thumb gardener. At least a tree can breath free.

´They embraced the morning glory. The morning glory wrapped its foliage around them and they all rose to the sky in a puff of smoke´. The sanest way to disappear by necessity. No need to read through a miraculous alphabet here. There is a loveless world here.

For writing this book, Shahrnush Parsipur spent 4 years and seven months in prison. Since 1994, she lives in USA. The book is banned in the Islamic Republic since the mid-1980s.

THE MOVIE

Creating a movie after the book lasted 6 years and was done by the USA-based Iran-born visual artist Shirin Neshat together with the author. The movie lasts 1h36 and is available on Amazon Prime, part of the monthly membership. For obvious reasons mentioned above, the movie could not be filmed in Iran, but in Casablanca. 

What the book is lacking in terms of visual appeal, the movie made justice. The silent, word-free nature inuendo is speaking straight the language of sadness and overwhelming emotions. Words are not needed any more.

The movie is also more political than the book, with a stronger echo and a clearer contextualisation, but also with grotesque situations that are not obvious in the book. 

I cannot tell which one is the best, but I am glad I took the chance of following one after the other, as there are details in the movie which are not clear unless one´s read the book. 

I do have another book by Shahrnush Parsipur on my TBR but I would prefer to wait a little bit until I digest all the strong impressions from Women Without Men.

Book Tour: Hector´s Perfect Cake by Lily Clarke

Instead of putting a lot of pressure on our children to be perfect, we rather teach them how to accept failure creatively.

We, as adults, we have so much to learn from children books. I mean not only when reading in a new language, but learning the lessons from the short yet meaningful stories. 

Hector´s Perfect Cake, written and beautifully illustrated by Lily Clarke, is my latest example in this respect. The funny Hector is decided to impres his Granny with a perfect birthday cake. Suddenly, he realised he is out of peanut butter. After a race against time, he was lucky enough to get one precious jar but...the destiny wanted it otherwise and as he stumble over in a puddle, he should face the reality: the cake will not be perfect, after all. However, he goes on and surprisingly, his Granny is happier than ever with the cake. The other guests find it good too. Therefore, his mission was perfectly accomplished, without the peanut butter. 

I love the message of the book as myself I am far from being a perfectionist. Actually, I enjoy sometimes learning from my mistakes which I´ve found more inspiring then my random perfect works. Taking life as it is and teaching children to do their best, without struggling to be The Best helps so much for their further development. Life is too short to waste your time and your life looking to have everything perfect. 

The message of Hector´s Perfect Cake is easy yet meaningful and the illustrations are enjoyable and relatable to preschool children. My son is in love with both Hector and his story, and fully agrees that a cake is good, even without the peanut butter.

Lily Clarke graduated Physics and is currently an innovative consultant in Cambridge. This is her first book but hopefully not the last one as she shows a lot a talent, both as a children writer and illustrator.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of a Book Blog Tour, but the opinions are, as usual, my own.

Book Review: Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan

When I say that I am looking for an easy read, it does not mean that I can easily tolerate a read which is not good written or has a captivating story. I don´t always understand myself though how come that I keep reading until the very end a bad book...

I enjoyed previous books by Kevin Kwan - although not equally - for more than the literary reason. I am interested in representation of non-white, minorities in literary realm therefore I was following several directions in the book. 

Sex and Vanity is following a slightly different path: mixed families - Asian and European - in America, their struggle to play the white card and their fantastic alliances into big WASP-ish families and their familiarities with royal highnesses from all over the world. There is a kind of accepted craziness of the characters´ and their everyday life, including the puppy yoga (a yoga session in a room filled with puppies. ´They´ll be frolicking ariund your mat and licking you in the face while you´re in downward dog´. Great, it seems there were so many things that changed since I visited America the last time that I don´t regret for not getting to know). 

First, we meet Lucie Churchill - mother of Asian origin, father from that Churchill family - who´s flirting at a high-class wedding in Capri with a cute guy, George, from a rich - but just rich - Asian family with houses all over the world and a mother with no fashion sense, yet a generous person. A couple of years later, Lucie is about to get married with an outrageously rich social media obsessed guy. She meets George again randomly and she starts to have doubts about her feelings towards her fiancé. 

The story is not bad, and I´ve read more than one kind of story, but didn´t like the writing at all. The developments of different part of the stories are just not matching up together, the dialogues are bland and very boring - I mean, nothing against talking about jewellery or nice dresses, but do it with style, not like a vilain with a close to minus IQ - the characters are not developed. There are also some anti-semitic references about the ´visitors´ and there is a character, a ´Prussian Jew´ Mordecai who is a ´von´ and ridiculous. No idea what such appearances were really necessary.

Overall, not the kind of book I was expecting to spend my late Saturday evening with. 

Rating: 2 stars

Crazy Rich Asians. The Movie

I do not refuse myself the pleasure of watching a movie made after books I liked. The diversity of genres I love gives me the freedom to enjoy once in a while a very relaxed weekend evening watching a movie that may not be oustandingly artistic or deeply philosophic but still worth my time.

I made no secret in enjoying the books from Crazy Rich Asians series by Kevin Kwan (right now I am reading his latest book which is not placed in Singapore, Sex and Vanity and hopefully will be able to publish a review within the next hours). It is a world of glamour with Cinderella settings which may not reflect your everyday life Singapore - Sarong Party Girls by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan sounds more realistic  - but it makes justice to the Asian-based characters who are no more those stereotypical self-made immigrants in America out of the boats. 

The 2-hour movie that I watched on Amazon Prime is directed by Jon M. Chu and is considered the first modern story with an all-Asian cast in 25 years. Initially offered as a deal by Netflix, it was produced by Warner Bros, with main settings in Singapore. However, there are Asians and Asians and there were critical opinions about some actors from the distribution, as not representing fully the base of the books., For instane, the British Malaysian actor Herny Golding was distributed as Nick, and the Japanese-British-Argentinian Sonoya Mizuno as Araminta Lee. From the point of view of the diversity features and the distribution, the movie makes a difference and hopefully it is not just a beginning.

From the artistic point of view, there were some good and bad parts. The women play usually good, especially the Mafia-like aunties. Nick´s sister, Astrid is a complex character, as in the book and by far my favorite. Rachel Chu, Nick´s ´commoner´ fiancée, the university teacher, was my least, and not because I don´t believe too much in Cinderella stories (I wonder if there are man equivalent´s of the story, but in my experience, those are not going too well either): she is weak, lacking self-awareness and naive. However, the scene of the Mahjong game with Nick´s mother recovered some of her honour, although not completely.

Last but not least, the fashion selection is exquisite. It was worth watching the movie for the fine selection of outfits signed by designers like Missoni - oh, that Missoni dress - Elie Saab - my favorite no matter what or Alexander McQueen. A special note to the jewellery too and the stylish men. 

No regrets for watching Crazy Rich Asians, the movie. Life should not always be highly complicated, dramatic and torned between contradictory intellectual positions. Even if I don´t believe in Cinderella stories anyway...

Rating: 3 stars

A Life Filled with Love Tastes Much Better

I am so grateful for my flexible schedule that allows me to take a 1h30 break from work when I need to divert my attention to some exquisite emotional stories.

I am becoming a trustworthy follower of MUBI movie recommendations lately and I couldn´t be happier. I am able to use this service as part of my scribd.com subscription and I couldn´t be happier about it. Both services helped me tremendously this year to expand my sources of inspiration far away in the world, in a year where international travel was out of sight. 

I may be familiar with some Singaporean literary voices and delighted about it, but I had no idea what to expect from Eric Khoo, considered the main engine behgind the revival of Singapore film industry. Ramen Shop (Ramen Teh) is my first movie by Khoo and also my first on a Singapore topic.

The film was presented to the Berlinale and is a Japanese/Singapore co-production. 

Masato, a young man living in Japan whose father suddenly died, returns to Singapore where he lived until 10 to trace his family story. The story has a conflictual potential from the beginning, as her father was killed during the Japanese occupation - a topic still elegantly dismissed - therefore her mother will decide to cut any contact with her after they getting married. 

But a life filled with love tastes much better and Masato decided to get his Singaporean family back. From his uncle, he learns to prepare Bak Kuk Teh and will finally, after such a terrible emotional struggle, wins her back.

Ramen Shop is such an emotional movie, with crescendos built up through the long exposure of the images. When it comes to food, the impressions are exquisite and I felt more than once being transposed into the foodie story, feeling the smells and tasting the broth. In this movie, memories do have a taste and a smell, similarly but more intense than Proust´s Madeleines. There is such an elegant game of emotions in this movie, when love is shared and tasted but never explicitly showed. 

The actors do have such a genuine direct play, especially the grandmother that may bring to tear even the most insensitive hearts. 

Overall, is such a good movie and I can wait to read and discover more about Singapore through - at least for now - my next home-based cultural adventures.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Neujahr or Parenting is not Easy...

A family with two children from Göttingen is spending the New Year of 2017/2018 in the popular German destination of Lanzarote in the Canary Island. It is a classical family: mother, father, two little children. Both parents are working, from home, she is highly paid, there is no financial pressure. Children are in child care during the day. Everything seems to be just fine. Perfectly fine. 

However, the pressure towards being fine is having its price for the husband, Henning. He shows signs of burn-out, both psychological and physical. He has panic attacks and needs air - both practically and symbolically. Once in Lanzarote, he remembers an episode he experienced many many years ago, when on vacation with his own parents and her sister. An episode that has to do with a different kind of parenting and family pressure. Maybe after that he will see things differently. 

Juli Zeh is a very popular author in Germany that I´ve long heard about but only now had the chance to get familiar with, through the audiobook of Neujahr. The topic of the book may be boring - I am not a big fan of parenting, I mean I am doing parenting every day but don´t feel like spending my literary time reading and thinking about it - but it´s a new angle and way of seeing that she outlines in the book therefore it ended up by captivating my attention. 

Indeed, the parenting projections nowadays, particularly in Germany, where the social state allows a higher flexibility  - at least in some part of the country - may be very hard on parents. The expectations are high, from kindergarten onwards and parents with more than one child and a heavy job would end up sooner or later by feeling the burn-out. You are requested to be present in the life of your children, but also to outperform at work. The babysitting culture is not encouraged and therefore some traditional local parents will insist to do it all on their own. Things changed from the sociological points of view in terms of parenting and the expectations too. Parents staying at home for having more time to play with their children was unthinkable one generation ago. Children used to play with other children, not with parents, when nowadays, in Germany at least, parents do have enough time to take once in a while a day off to spend full time with their children. I don´t know what is good and what not, but I only notice that things are very different from the time when I grew up. 

Hence, the pressure that the poor Henning - he is the main voice of the story - feels heavier and heavier every day. The feeling of running in a circle, like a headless hamster, is real and I´ve appreciated the book for creating the right ambiance. It´s also outstanding that, such a casual topic was so good written. 

At least for the German language skills, I would keep reading more by Juli Zeh. I´m glad I was curious enough to listen the book until the very end. There may be sometimes perks of getting out of the literary comfort zone.

Rating: 3 stars

Animation Movie Review: Teheran Tabu

Tehran, city of sin...at least if you are a woman...

Teheran Tabu, an animated movie by the Germany-based Iranian film director Ali Soozandeh left me with such a sour taste. Through very realistic characters, the movie shows the cruelty of double standards. 

Here is the cleric who takes girlfriends, or the corrupt officials and the women in need of virginity surgery for various reasons. There are hungry men and clumsy men and men of sin behind the turban of the faith. Victims are always the women whose existence depends on those volatile men. No matter in how much sin they are swimming, they can do anything they want. Women may have the absolute freedom in death only. There is no other hope.

It moved me near tears, this movie. The only way to survive in this Absurdistan is the kind women solidarity and mutual help. No matter what circumstances. Accepting each other and refusing to judge each other.

Besides the inspired illustrations, I also enjoyed the music background, modern rhythms with local creative touch.

Rating: 4 stars

Movie Review: E-Horror Stories from the Dark Web

Saturday movie evening: completely randomly chosing on Amazon Prime a movie about a topic I am usually passionate about: dark web and hacking stories. Because the Internet changed so much everything, including what we mean when we think about horror stories, for instance.

Unknown User: Dark Web is a suspenseful movie which starts like a random game. One guy brings home from the bar where is working a computer to have a professional tool for an app that may help him better communicate with his deaf girlfriend. The computer was left a couple of month ago and no one reclaim it so he considered it worth taking it at home.

While working up his way to the computer and installing his own features, he finds a folder with the darkest of the dark web. He shares the information with his friends during a group-Skype call and the frightening details are revealed little by little once he is exploring the Facebook account of the presumed owner of the computer. Suddenly, the guy himself is hacking into the computer and live, one by one, the friends are killed. The e-horror story unfolding is, actually, part of a live game enjoyed on the dark web. 

The movie is mostly static, taking place in the front of the screens. I haven´t noticed any outstanding playing on behalf of the actors, but the script is really entertaining and with fantastic twists. Was worth watching it, although some scenes are highly violent and with sensitive content.

Rating: 3 stars

A Mystery Like No Other

This year was maybe not as I expected to be, not at all, but I least I am happy to have the chance to read more than I ever planned and discover interesting voices from all over the world.

The multi-awarded Turkish author Zülfü Livaneli is my newest interesting read. I´ve met this famous author - at least in his home country - through a German translation of his novel Schwarze Liebe, Schwarzes Meer and instantly fell in love with his storytelling art. 

Basically, it´s a mystery novel, as the story revolves around the search for the killer of a controversial localite lady, murdered after a lavish party. The events are taking place in a remote village near the Black Sea Coast, and the main storyteller is a recluse retired architect. He was apparently close to the victim, but how close it´s left to the mystery surrounding his life and the facts he is talking about. His main account is shared with a young journalist lady from Istanbul that was dispatched to research the case. 

The surprises are to come at the end, when it seems that the facts he was talking about - that included some suspense political adventures for love in Chechnya, USSR and the then Soviet Republic of Belarus, including about a twin brother, were actually the result of his imagination - and of a mental disorder. However,  the end of the book doesn´t bring the solution to the murder and all we assumed we know is, in fact, just dust in the wind. 

The book has many interesting observations and thoughts about love and life, especially about love which I deeply enjoyed. On the other hand, the story is evolving at a great extent around the storyteller and his adventures, but misses more than once the connection with the crime and the victim. 

However, I really enjoyed the philosophical and literary creativity of the book and would search out for more books about this very interesting author, probably in German too.

Rating: 3 stars 

Story of a Pizza Girl

There are books you cannot fall in love with at all - neither the characters or the writing is appealing - but it reveals some new facts about your surrounding reality. And this may be enough at a certain point.

Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier - that I had access to in audio format, read by Jenna Yi, with a good soothing voice - was considered a must-read of this summer with exciting reviews coming up in the last months. As usual, my curiosity easily beats my emergency TBR (with more than 20 books as for now, to finish until the end of the month), therefore I spent half of yesterday early morning and late night listening to the book.

Let´s start with the good news. It´s good written, with everyday life kind of accounts from a 18 yo pizza girl, 11 weeks pregnant and randomly attracted by a customer lady who orders pizza with pickles for her son. There is an absurd surrealism of the everyday life that literature can catch through writing. And the unnamed character of the Pizza Girl is a good representative of this relatively new literary trend featuring anti-heroes, especially women. 

The nonchalance of being of this girl reminded me of other women authors I´ve read lately like Sayaka Murata or Ottessa Moshfegh. Or maybe Ruth from Good bye, Vitamin too. Those characters are deeply anchored in the present, they live the moment at its fullest but easily become the victims of their lack of involvement in their own lives. 

The Pizza Girl is caught between need and want, confusing love with feelings that she cannot control, taking over her life. Her monotonous storytelling sings the song of her life which she seems to take as it is, walking with the flow of emotions and incertainties. 

And this is why although I may like the writing, I feel no personal - emotional and intellectual - connection with the character. I am grateful that through my recent reading I´ve come out to know such characters and their flow of thinking, but personally, I don´t feel attracted for this emotional train de vie. But I am glad that my literary encounters help me to know and discover my limitations as well.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Little Buddha is Searching for Love

There are so easy and normal things in life, like love who are so much analysed and searched and researched about. And even more dreamed and talked about. Somehow, things may be easier.

Der kleine Buddha und die Sache mit der Liebe, by Claus Mikosch - that I had access in the audio format, read by Heidrun Warmuth -, part of a series featuring the adventures of the little Buddha is a short story about searching for love. Comically, the little Buddha does not know himself what love does it mean, but once asked by a lonely man about it, he starts a journey searching for it. 

There is anything new about love that one will find out in this book, just some wise reminders that there is not only one definition about love and once found it is not necessarily there to stay. One may find a person to love and loved by, but there is no ownership of a person. Sometimes one may look for love his/her whole life, while forgetting to love oneself. Some are too weak to live other person free. People who expect other people to make them happy when they are deeply at war with themselves. Hence, the worned out classical line ´love yourself first´ which I find so normal and natural but apparently not everyone does it. 

Maybe it is good sometimes to wait and figure out what you are looking for before searching for love. Or start your journey and enjoy the ride. Or, love your life and the blessings of the day and keep living. Love is beautiful and to love someone is a great feeling but sometimes it is not enough to make you, and the other person happy. Life facts...

The writing is fine, with some easygoing construction and a good German hearing experience for those chosing the audiobook version.

Rating: 3 stars

Book Review: To Be a Man by Nicole Krauss

I am not a big reader of short stories. I have often attention span and therefore I prefer to focus on novels and long stories. 

I was impatiently waiting for Nicole Krauss short stories debut: To be a Man. She is one of my favorite American authors and I am fascinated by her storytelling. No matter what, her stories cannot go wrong.

I had the book in audio format, in the reading of the author and this added an extra layer of excitement to my reading experience. To Be a Man includes ten stories, mostly with a Jewish background, unfolding in different part of the world but with references to Israel and America. 

There are stories told by women about men: husbands, lovers, brothers, fathers, rabbis, children. The man, as a subject of study and analysis and introspection, which doesn´t happen too often literarily. For me, a very interesting topic to think and write about. There are stories of trauma, distorted or reshaped memories, stories of longing for a ´home´ and soul searching. Average topics of everyday life told in diamond-crafted stories that each and everyone can easily turn into a novel in itself. Which is a big achievement of the author but leaves the reader in a limbo of expectations and broken hopes.

My waiting for getting my hands - in this case, my ears - on the book was fully intellectually rewarding.

Rating: 4 stars

Book Review: Hijab and Red Lipstick by Yousra Imran

Sometimes, I have difficulties in explaining to, otherwise honest feminists, that yes, wearing a very red lipstick is more than a policy of making my body/face pleasant, but equally a sign of genuine feminist attitude against and not favorable to the patriarchy.

Hijab and Red Lipstick by Yousra Imran is not an easy read about girls wearing hijab and playing with the rules set by their male guardians - father and brothers and other male relatives. Actually, it has to do with hijab too, but it´s more than that and it´s the merit of the writer to bring up the complexity of the women religiosity in Islam. 

Sara is born in a British-Egyptian family. Her mother is a convert to Islam, her father a practicant Muslim of Egyptian origin. Together with her sister and two brothers, she is moving from NW London to the Emirates where her father was offered better professional and financial opportunities. In practical terms, for Sara and her family, it means a stricter control and a more religious pressure to conform, as his father was following a strict Wahhabi-oriented version of Islam. 

She is trapped in a world of extreme violence and abuse - physical and verbal, from her father, brothers and random guys she is dating. Rape, constant hiting on behalf of her father, verbal abuse from her brothers and father, Sara is living a double life, when she has to lie when she wants to go out on a party and where meeting a man is a family affair. 

In this world there are double standards operating, when it comes to girls and boys: ´A young man can clean up his act and become a good Muslim and find a wife, even if he messes around for a bit. But if a young Arab woman gets caugh dating, her reputation will be ruined forever´. 

When Sara will be raped by a man who apparently belongs to the royal family his parents are reacting in a completely awkward and non-emotional way. They don´t offer any emotional support and are not even trying to defend her, as in fact she may be the cause of what happened to her...

However, guys can be trapped as well in abusive parental relationships and they are too under the pressure of following the rules their parents, especially their fathers, do request them to obey. However, there is not happening because there is an universal religious obligation but because in many cases, there is a mixture of tradition AND religion that distracts and detour the everyday religious practice. In the end, after many misadventures and hardships, Sara will find herself and reconcile with her religious and feminine identity: ´I´m not a better Muslim woman because of my hijab and I´m no worse of a Muslim woman because of it. I´ll continue to wear my hijab with red lipstick. I´m finally free´.

Although I´ve find some parts of the book unbearable - because of the situations presented - I enjoyed the book which I´ve read in one long sitting. There is so much to learn about different manifestations of Muslim identities and I am glad there are so many diverse voices that are telling interesting stories lately.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

When Good Reading is not Enough: From a Low and Quiet Sea

Once in a while, it happens to read books that are so beautifully written but with stories I do not relate to at all. Or without a clear story in the mesmerizing, attention-catching sense of the word.

The prose of From a Low and Quiet Sea is like no other I´ve read in the last months. Crafted sentences with chains of words generating dramatic worlds in their own right. For me, it was my first encounter with Donal Ryan and I was definitely sorry for not discovering his beautiful writing earlier.

The book is relatively short, less than 200 pages, with an equally easy narrative structure. It includes three relatively independent stories, featuring three men: Farouk, a medical doctor and a refugee from Syria, Lampy, an Irishman working in a nursing home as a driver and John, another Irishman, of an advanced age reviewing his past deeds. Characters from the stories are reunited in the last story closing the book.

The opening story, featuring the drama of Farouk trying to figure out the fate of his wife and daughter, dead by drowing during crossing the sea, is one of the strongest and coherent of all. His struggle to accept the denial as a reality is extraordinary told with a strength that cannot be forget easily. After this strong start, I´ve felt that the intensity and relevance of the other stories relatively limited. The exceptional structure of the characters and of the phrasing remains but the stories do not move anyway. They are like moments of lecture turning round and around with no chance in sight to create a story, just monologous snapshots of everyday life. As for the ending, although it was a good idea to create a connection between the stories, it did not equate the opening. Unfortunately, because it´s such a great writing. Or mabye it is me, that I am hungry for stories well told, so hungry that sometimes I may tolerate a mediocre writing for the sake of it.

Rating: 3 stars

 

Stories from Tehran. 1979

Do not wish for a revolution...All those times of dramatic changes, when black turns to white and white turns to red, bloody red. Those times when breaking up is as deep as the wound of a sharp knife stuck into your heart. Those times when parents are no more parents and children are turning into judges of their parents. Please, do not pray for a revolution...

I´ve started to read Der Standhafte Papagei. Erinnerungen an Tehran 1979 shortly after my first book by Amir Hassan Cheheltan - which I´ve read in the German translation by Jutta Himmelreich. I acknowledged that this first encounter was fine, but far from being outstanding as the historical thread took over the story itself.

However, my second book of this author, who resides currently in Tehran, offered a completely different reading experience. Set as a succession of short stories, with characters maintained from an installment to the other, this book features the events and the people during the period preceding and during the installment of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 1978-1979. The political characters of the times, the Shah and his generals and the SAVAK (the terrible domestic secret service) are flipping in the front of the eyes of the residents of Tehran, who, themselves, are directly affected by the changes. Take for instance, Mr. Firuz, with his shop of alcoholic beverages is targeted by the revolutionaries, among which his own son. Plus a Papagei - parrot, in English - which is standhaft - unwavering, in English. The only one who doesn´t change its feathers during those times when tomorrow is such a faraway unknown journey.

When the Islamic Revolution took over Iran, Cheheltan was 22 and now, 40 years later, he was able to share its stories. Which is such a grateful experience, as it displays so many interesting human insights and accounts relevant for the very specific case of Iran as well as for understanding the impact of revolutions on everyday lives. 

Rating: 4 stars

Why the Americans?

Asking why Americans are killed in Iran, when innocent Iranians themselves are killed by the religious regime is a rhetorical question. Killing is motivated by hate, which becomes lethal when the motivation behind the act is based on religious self-righteousness.

Undertitled ´A novel about hate in 6 episodes´, Amerikaner töten in Tehran (Killing Americans in Tehran) by Amir Hassan Cheheltan (which I´ve read in the German translatiom from Persian by Susanne Baghestani and Kurt Scharf) is a story about serial killings of American citizens in Iran. Some are very important with high diplomatic and military rankings, some are simple people caught in the web of the political events that earthquaked Iran in the last century. 

There are around 60 years of history unfolding, through which individuals are trying to make their way, but some simply will not succeed. Because hate and misunderstanding is bigger than everything else (like love or mutual understanding, and tolerance).

The question: Why Americans and not...Russians or Armenians or...French...may have different answers. There is a forthcoming book that I have on my TBR for the next weeks - forthcoming in January 2021 - that may bring more light into my interpretation on the events: America and Iran: A History: 1720 to the Present, by John Ghazvinian. But even without reading this historical account, one may easily notice that Iran and America seems to love to hate each other. A fascination for young people looking to find their freedom out of the borders of the Islamic Republic and a hateful political partner, depending on the colour and mood of the successing American administrations (at least, Americans are offered the chance to change their ogre leadership while in Iran people are put to prison when they protest fake elections). 

But enough about politics, let´s talk about the book. Amerikaner töten in Tehran has actually a lot of politics and political history and sometimes it is hard to follow the literary construction which got lost into the folds of the facts. The book was written in Persian for a potential knowledgeable audience about, for instance, the Mossadegh story. I am personally fascinated about writing about historical events in a literary context but it´s always very hard to keep the right balance. In the case of this book, I´ve felt a couple of times completely absorbed in the facts as the literary events seem to be put on hold. 

Amir Hassanb Cheheltan lives in Tehran and is the recipient of several writing scholarships and residencies. He haven´t published in Iran for over a decade for reasons that has to do with the censorship and pressure on free minds that are so dangerous for this regime. 

Next on my reading list is another book of his, translated into German from Persian, an account of stories of everyday life during the 1979 Revolution, Der Standhafte Papagei. Looking forward to it.

Rating: 3 stars