Book Review: How to Pronounce Knife by Souvankham Thammavongsa

 

Souvankham Thammavongsa was born in a Lao refugee camp in Thailand and further on was raised and educated in Toronto. The multi-awarded debut collection of short stories How to Pronounce Knife is mostly inspired by the everyday life of Laotian immigrants in the West.

´They´d had to begin all over again, as if the life they led before didn´t count´.

A life lost in words. Words translated, mispronounced, betrayed. Life that prefers to be wasted for the sake of the children´s future. A much better future, but of an unclear shape. In any case, a future where the words do make sense. There is beauty and betrayal and people taking over their cities, houses and humble workplaces. 

The stories are not equal and some are more interesting than the others. There is a nostalgic tone which pertains most of them, but there is no nostalgia for the world as it was, but for the world that couldn´t be. Because of the second hand language or the immigration, or just for being trapped in a hopeless situation. 

Most of the characters and main storytellers are women - girls, old ladies, wives, mothers, nail parlor beauticians.lovers and again mothers. I liked the simplicity of the prose, with a refined wording which allows the story to shine, to produce strong memories to the reader, with an impact similar to a real encounter. 

Also equally important is that this collection of short stories open a window within the Laotian society and culture which is almost never present in the English-speaking literature.

Rating: 3 stars

My August Movie Selection

Summer is almost over - at least here, in Berlin - and I tried to keep myself as busy as possible this August spending time outdoors and exercising. Although my TBR got slightly better, as I can easily read quietly on a bench while watching my son in the playground for hours, too many hours, my stuck of movies was relatively modest. I succeeded to watch some good, thoughtful movies, mostly in German, and I am happy to share my thoughts.

Reise nach Jerusalem directed by Lucia Chiarla

Source: anghor.de

I may confess that I´ve picked up the movie based on the title without any idea about what it is all about. In any case, I was expecting it to have something to do with Jerusalem which is not literally, but that ´Jerusalem´ seen as an expectation - but there is also a Jerusalem syndrome. 

Reise nach Jerusalem by Lucia Chiarla is the peculiar story of Alice, a 39-year old graduate of literature fighting to survive in Berlin as a mostly unemployed. She is the mother of all bad lucks and she is so typical for this city unfortunately. Feeling unfit professionally, living in a bubble of kitschy magic and grateful poverty is what I actually don´t like about this city which is otherwise great. The film offers a different view into a city which was labelled by a former mayor as ´poor but sexy´ which is far from it. Poverty is never sexy, comrades.

The Accidental Rebel (Nur ein Augenblick) directed by Randa Chahoud

Source: https://www.eastwest-distribution.com/

The Accidental Rebel by Randa Chahoud is probably my favorite film of the month. Directed by the Berlin-born Randa Chahoud created a very strong story played excellently by the actors, particularly Mehdi Maskar. Karim, a Syrian-born refugee living a carefree life in Germany, returns to Latakia hoping to save his brother caught in the anti-Assad movement. What he expected to be a short visit lasted for a couple of months as he is forced to fight on behalf of the resistance, during which he is becoming a father and his relationship with his lonely wife is put on trial. It is a movie about normal people forced by the game of circumstances to face extraordinary circumstance. This story will stay with me for a very long time.

The Reports on Sarah&Saleem directed by Muayad Alayan

Pertaining to the same topic - average humans under political circumstances - was my next watch: The Reports on Sarah&Saleem by the Palestinian film director Muayad Alayan. Inspired by true events, as almost everything that inspire arts in the Middle East, it is the story of an average affair that turned into a security threat. Saleem - Palestinian - and Sarah - Israeli Jew are having an affair, out of curiosity or/and boredom. But Sarah´s husband is a top military official in the Israeli Army and Saleem´s wife family is involved in various underground activities and their actions are putting into motion problems that are no more just an extra marital adventure. A special mention to the beautiful play of the Nazareth-born actress Maisa Abd Elhadi.  

Frau Stern directed by Anatol Schuster

Frau Stern by Anatol Schuster played by the late Ahuva Sommerfeld is a tragi-comical story about defying stereotypes of getting old. The film is at a great extent inspired by Sommerfeld´s own life experiences - among others, she also moved to the hipster Neukölln in her mid-70s - and is a gentle story about a woman who even may have enough of life, still wants to get the best of it, while hanging up with very young people and relieving the stress smoking weed.

Crossing the Bridge by Fatih Akin

I want more music into my life but as part of a greater society story which connects social changes with history and unique personalities of the musicians. Crossing the Bridge by Fatih Akin was an excellent choice in this respect as it features The Sound of Istanbul as one rarely encounter. It has nothing to do this sound with belly dancing - which is mostly of Egyptian origin and it is culturally appropriated by white people anyway those days - but reveals an impressive selection of bands and styles. Actually, Istanbul is a ´rock city´ and there is so much to learn about the sources of inspiration and uniqueness of the music movement in Turkey. 

Basmati Blues directed by Danny Baron

I am not ashamed to declare my love for Bollywood films - and romances, but Basmati Blues directed by Danny Baron has some trendy ecological touches which make it more eventful. While on a mission trying to introduce gennetically modified rice on a large scale in India, a young scientist is falling in love with a local guy who is against the plans of the big agricultural take over. It was a bit too longer for me, and it´s also a half musical but overall it´s an average entertaining film.

All Three of Us directed by Kheiron

Inspired by his father´s story, All Three of Us directed by the French-based Iran-born humorist Manoucher Tabib aka Kheiron has a lot of tragi-comical irony for life situations that are far from being funny. The film director´s father, Hibat Tabib was an active member of the Iranian communist party whose life was in danger both before and after the Shah. Fleeing clandestinelly the Iran after the mullah took over the country he settled in France with his wife and son, all of them trying to find their place in a new world. Is a funny story about being uprooted against your will and how to make the best of it, no matter when and where - including in prison.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy directed by Tomas Alfredson

I am not a lover of John Le Carré - who inspired the movie - but I do appreciate an interesting Cold War spy story and this is what this movie is all about: finding a Russian mole on the top of the British intelligence. Well, it seems some Brits can never renounce their open love for Mother Russia... The film is elegant, diplomatic, secretive and well informed. It is rather neutral, not the usual bad boys versus good guys as during the peak of the Cold War, with a focus on the complexities of the allegiances and the multitude of interests at stake during those times.

That´s all for now, but my stack of films of September is already waiting for me. Can´t wait to share my next selection...

Book Review: Tante Eva by Paula Bomer

 

A retired nurse, Tante (the german word for aunt, auntie) Eva is living in the Eastern part of Berlin, shortly after the Berlin Wall come down. She is lonely in a landscape - both as a concept and as a way of living - she does not recognize any more when skinheads are shouting on her and her former Stasi lover is turned into drug trafficker. Her life was not easy but she was trustful to the German Democratic Republic by default. There is a sister in America who betrayed her once and a niece coming to Berlin with a serious drug addiction. 

I am interested, among many many other things, in books written by non-Germans authors set in Germany but in the case by Tante Eva by Paula Bomer the execution and some very embarassing errors disappointed me. 

Let´s start with the worst. There are a couple of dialogues in German, unfortunately without a translation which will definitely render difficult the reading for many of the non-German readers in this world. This is not such a big problem, but some of the sentences sound awkward when are not copy pasted from a previous edition of the Google translate app. For instance, : ´Ich muss ein Shower nehmen´ (transl. ´I have to take a shower´).

Back to the story though. What I liked the most about Tante Eva was her love for jazz. There are not enough women that love music, especially jazz and music is not too present in literature nowadays therefore I was charmed but this connection. I was less charmed though by the fact that there are so many sparkle of potential stories all over the book and some interesting characters that they are lost in a narrative which is mostly plane. It´s like the characters are too heavy to carry on therefore they are domesticated in a very banal story that is completely wasting its potential. 

And that´s all I can say about this book. I was stubborn enough to keep reading until the end, but maybe I should be more careful with my precious bookish reading time.

Rating: 2.5 stars

My Women in Translation Book Review: My Bird by Fariba Vafi (trns. by Mahnaz Kousha and Nasrin Jewell)

´Maman says that everybody has a bird. When the bird flies and lands somewhere, it calls out for its owner to follow´.

A couple, a woman and a man living on different temporary timelines. He, he is focused on the future, dreaming to move one day to Canada. ´When the future is in Amir hands, it can take any shape´. She, the storyteller, she is rather focused on the present, which involves taking care of the children, exchanging letters and calles with (mostly) women relatives. 

My Bird by Fariba Vafi, translated from Persian by Mahnaz Kousha and Nasrin Jewell, is a shortly over 100 page-long, made of a succession of short installments. There are mostly home-based accounts, told by the woman-narrator, who despite being in control of the story she is less clear as a character compared with Amir, her husband, as well as her late father, mother, sister, children etc. In addition to the long list of family members, there is the sounds and breaths and colours of the neighbourhood - not the North of Tehran, frequently featured in literary works, but a less significant one, probably more normal and affordable for the average Tehran resident. ´The neighbhorhood has became like a gigolo who wears sunglasses and slicks his hair back, but his shoes are always old and torn´.

The story is about love and the lows and deceived expectations of relationships, maybe also about the search for a love that defies the clear social and political limits imposed in the nowadays Iran. ´Perhaps love is inside us. I think that love is a visa you can go anywhere and live there´. And no, the book does not take any political stance but offers an insightful slice of the everyday life of a woman in Iran. It may sound suffocating sometimes and self-centered and the story does not have a linear structure but nevertheless there is a story to be told, read and heard there.

I´ve found the translation inspiring and as made by native speakers reflecting the inflections and complexities of the Persian language. For me, this book is, unfortunately, my only contribution to the August series of Women in Translation but I promise to cover more beatiful works written by women and translated into English - or French, or German, among others - in the next weeks and months. 

Rating: 3 stars

Corylus Books Blog Tour: Resilience by Bogdan Hrib translated by Marina Sofia

 

Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkan area is very underrepresented in the English speaking literary realm. Obviously, the topics relevant for this geographical part are covered at certain extent, but the success stories - aka, the bestsellers - are mostly authored by writers who are getting their information second, third etc. hand. Especially for the thriller - particularly political - and crime genre, the characters are copy-pasted from a story to another, mostly black-and-white characters and definitely portrayed in a very patronized way. There may be not so many good things going on there and corruption is rampant and there are huge differences between those you meet in London or Paris or Dubai and those living in the countryside, but it takes a life and a bit to really know your own country of residence so how can one properly cover a country visited a few times and without a deep knowledge of its politics and history and language.

But this happens to many areas, except most of Western Europe and North America. Africa, Middle East, Asia? One can reduce easily to 2-3 sentences most of the contents of the books written by non-local authors covering those regions so frequently present in the new flows so less really understood. Maybe the idea of the objectivity building-up outside your living box is not so relevant when it comes to literature after all.

There is a chance though to correct this mis- and under-representation: translate local authors! Take the advantage of the many talented people who left those countries and regions and that can offer to otherwise curious Western audiences good chunks of authentic testimonies. 

My frustrations, at least when it comes to Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans is the presence of courageous edition houses like Istros Books and Corylus Books is to bring back those countries on the literary map, in their diversity and contradictions and complexities but first and foremost, unique literary tresure. You know, there are very talented people in those countries writing good books for centuries, what about reading them? The same for Kabul, Mosul, Lahore, Cairo or Isfahan. The online environment and the globalisation helped to connect readers and writers in a more genuine, direct way. And created more opportunities for translators of so-called ´less spoken´ languages to use their skills for bringing to light great books.

I had the chance to connect with Corylus Books in more than one occasion and was never disappointed. An edition house brought to life during hard times of the pandemic promising to offer to crime and thriller readers with some (geo)political interests too, the best of Eastern Europe, European and Nordic authors it´s a great aim, but very ambitious given the very hard competition on the market. The market pressure is good in a way, as it pushes the stakes very high while allowing to succeed only the very good books. And, when it comes to books in translation, the art and knowledge of the translator is more important sometimes than the original author´s prodigy.

Resilience by Bogdan Hrib has the big luck of being translated by the very talented Marina Sofia. Being native in a language does not guarantee a successful career as a translator, particularly of literature. Being an educated intelligent native in a language does it, and the translation she made out of Resilience is brilliant enough to demonstrate. Actually, you don´t feel any moment that the book was in fact a translation and for me, a hobby translator myself, is the highest proof of a successful linguistic transfer.

And now, let´s talk a bit about the book. Set in Romania, after the Brexit, in the world when political cyberterrorism can change borders and influence elections. It´s sad how much right Evgeny Morozov had with his Net Delusion...Romania, a NATO and EU member, keep being a country of contradictions, struggling to overcome its geographical and geopolitical challenges. But there are some real people too, and Hrib has the talent of creating real people in a real world that we may acknowledge but in a very dire, unempathic way. Once you have the people with their lows and sparkle of genius the way we see their world changes too. His local depictions of different locations is so vivid that brings all those places in your world - and oh, as I was reading the book in my living room, how much I wished I was instead in Caju by Joseph Hadad (a very famous and talented Israeli chef based in Romania) this Friday. 

Stelian Munteanu is a journalist and editor which is requested by a man with dubious connections to investigate the dead of her daughter, a young Romanian diplomat posted at the cultural institute in London. While tracing the dead, he is stirring a storm - of bullets sometimes - which endangers the life of her wife and brings up serious security challenges such as a separatist movement aimed at uniting the Moldova part of Romania with the country Republic of Moldova (warning: Great does not always bring Greatness) - fuelled with cash brought in bags from the Eastern border. The political and geopolitical concepts are sometimes difficult and additional searching is often needed, but this strong background makes the book stand alone as authentic, local and complex. The characters are interesting, hilarious - the evil Ionescu, the spy, is...well, that kind of new-capitalist spy people in that country refuse to talk about because you don´t know who´s listening, childish and some very seriously interested in their job. I am glad that there is no clear dichotomy between the good and the bad and there are so many colours in between. Like in life, particularly life in a country who went through a complex transition. 

I wished the Gologan character - the dark web connection with a penchant for selfies - is a bit more developed. Somehow, he is important with his mission to encourage sedition via social media, but he cannot grow up as a personality revealing itself along the way, as there are many more people who are busy to move in the story, and his role is relatively simple.

Also, for someone not familiar with all the historical personalities whose statues are popping up in the story, a couple of details may be useful. I was also thinking of a map of the two main locations featured in the book, the capital city of București and the eastern city of Iași.

Personally, I will heartly recommend this book to anyone looking for some good political thrillers from the Eastern borders of Europe. Crime and corruption may be high there, but so is the level of talent and, as anywhere in the world, it´s good to have a look at all sides of the coin.

Rating: 5 stars

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

Book Review: How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones

How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House by Cherie Jones is my first novel by a Caribbean writer featured on my blog. Set in the tourists´ ´Paradise´ of Barbados at the end of the 1970s-beginning of the 1980s it is mostly a violent story of women survival and darkness. In terms of local history, it is a time of increase of the number of travellers, including men and women looking for some recreational sex and low-paid excitements. 

It is mostly a world of white people ruling with their money and privilege the majority of locals fighting with poverty and day-by-day survival. Out of them, the women are at the same time the strongest and the most affected by all those changes, the breadwinners and the target of the random or regular outbursts of hate and anger from the impovershed, precarious men. 

The novel starts with a story transmitted from a woman to another about what happens to girls that disobey their mothers. All of the women featured - Mira, Lala, Wilma - did take at a certain moment in their life a brave decision. Even a wrong decision of marrying a certain man is brave because it involved a risk but nevertheless a personal decision. The Barbados featured in this book has little to do with the glossy image of the listicles featured in the influencers posts. And so it´s the way in which some of the tourists themselves see Barbados: ´It is not like they say in the magazines, the tourist tells the newspaper, these people are still like savages´. It is a world of gigolos, drug dealers, armed robberies, prostitution and corruption. As a touch of authenticity, there are dialogues in local dialects.

But first and foremost, it is a world where women are always at risk. Risk of murder, violence, abuse. Their married - or relationship - lives are, like in the case of Lala, a suite of ´existing and remembered injuries´. The descriptions are vivid and powerful, outlined by perceptive observations. There are different points of view and voices in the novel, which complete each other´s story while adding elements of their own that may or may not match the big narrative. The author´s voice is distant, slow-paced yet wordsmitten, strong enough to allow a certain direction of the story in a less obvious way.

Beyond the geographical novelty, How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House was a revelation of a very serious writer with a strength of her own which should write more. Can´t wait for her next book.  

Rating: 4.5 stars

Random Things Tours: Watch for Me by Martin Bodenham

´Seems the system has a hard time accepting that men can be the victim of stalking´.

If I have to describe the feelings overwhelming me after reading without a break Watch for Me by Martin Bodenham, this is: intense. Heart in my throat, I was following the misadventures of the otherwise easygoing realtor Tom, the victim of Ali, a spoiled girl who lost any grip of reality.

Tom had a very ´mundate´ family life, with her wife of almost 20 years and their teenage daughter until he started to assist Ali, the daughter of his longtime family friends, half his age, in her search for buying a condo. Mostly a reflective, business- and family-oriented person, happy with his lot, is put on trial in unexpected ways by a brilliant yet sick to the bones, criminal mind. 

With accents and turn of events that reminded me of John Marrs, the book has a perfect construction of the story, which plays hard with your nerves. The wall of misunderstandings and abuse is growing up Tom seems to lose any chance of getting out of the nauseating story. ´My world was spinning out of control, and I was powerless to stop it´. Taking the full advantage of ´innocent until proven guilty´, Ali is stirring a series of events that are about to destroy every single stone from the life Tom built for him and his family. And no one, especially the police representative are there to hear or assist him. 

The victims of stalking know that sooner or later, the more they are left alone and not took seriously, there is a deep feeling of desperation which are stronger than the will to fight. Tom annoyed me more than once as I was expecting him to be more proactive and rely on legal help against Ali. Why did he not record the discussions they had? But, at least, he does it right when he is keeping his sister updated, sharing with her the last events. Communication is very important when it comes to being faced with abusive behaviors, as keeping all for oneself is like a worm digging dip into the soul with no chance of rescue. 

Personally, I would have been more curious to understand Ali´s personality, eventually her reasons, medical and family history. It would have balanced at a certain extent the fully-packed action of the book with a well define character features. Maybe it would have divert a bit from the overall overwhelming darkness of the story.

Watch for Me ends up in a very domestic mode, with things back to normal, but after all, Tom and his family where a very average case until Ali stormed into their lives and it makes sense to end this way, but after so much action, I wanted more. That´s me, I know.

Besides of its literary virtues, Watch for Me is also an useful guide for anyone coping with stalking, no matter the gender. Indeed, there are humans among us that are not feeling well, and there is no reason why we should let them turn us into their obsession, but we should never give up. Most importantly, never accept you are alone and hopeless in the front of the evil, any kind of evil. 

PS: I am so proud of myself to have been guessed early on that something will go wrong with the DNA sample...But, as my blog readers already know, I read a whole lot of crime and thriller books...

Rating: 4 stars

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

Book Review: Erste Person Singular (First Person Singular) by Haruki Murakami, translated by Ursula Gräfe

 

I must confess that I have a complex relationship with Murakami´s writings. As I was preparing to spend one year in Japan, I started to read more Japanese literature and Murakami was recommended as more Westernized but because I abhor Beatles, I rejected most of its literature. Also the dreamlike girls disappearing, eventually looking for a sheep didn´t resonate with my literary choices. At the time, I was told that one needs to reach adulthood to understand Murakami. Since then, I aged a bit and I´ve read more Murakami but his nonfiction such as What I Talk about when I Talk about Running and particularly Underground about the 1995 sarin gas terrorist attack in the Tokyo underground appeals to me. This is exactly what the hardcore fans of Murakami will disagree with.  

Searching for some commuting reading and permanent German learning, I´ve picked up the semi-autobiographical collection of short stories Erste Person Singular - a translation into German of First Person Singular by Ursula Gräfe.  

Even for someone who´ve read just a couple of books by him, there are a lot of sources of later fictional writings, especially the disappearing women and the volatility of human relationships in general. The time is diluted with minutes dropping slowly as the notes of a slow jazz song. In the realm of imagination it is very possible that Charlie Parker not only played Bossa Nova but also recorder a vinyl on it. Words do give power to dream and open the gates to layers and layers of imaginary worlds. How it is to live in such a state of world admiration, never giving up to feel instead of logically translate the movements of the souls? I don´t know and probably will never know therefore I am not necessarily Murakami´s audience, although I do my best to be part of it sometimes.

Another important aspect of this short collection are the memories of Japan in the 1960s and the impact of the world turmoil on a society still long way to recover after the WWII.

The German translation flows seamlessly. An additional element of praise is the beautiful cover, fluid and indefinite as the world of a dream in colours.

Rating: 3 stars

Random Things Tours: S.H.E.L.L. by Chris White

Even if I would not have children, I will enjoy reading children books, no matter the age. As I took myself a class in children writing, I know how difficult in fact is to write for children, even more difficult than for an adult audience, because you, the adult writer, should be able to write and think again differently. Being inside the mind of a child is not a regression, but instead a challenge to our simplicity. As adults, we are in fact reducing, one by one, the complexities and questions about life to a couple of habits we practice most of the rest of our lives. Writing for a young audience is a ticket for returning to a world of wonder. And so is reading children books.

Personally, I rarely read a science-fiction book and this since early in my literate life. The only Jules Verne collection I really enjoyed and even read more than once, was Around the World in 80 Days, as a prescience of my life on the road. But I adore to challenge myself therefore, I was more than delighted to have given the chance to read a midgrade story, S.H.E.L.L by author and illustrator Chris White whose works can be admired on VeggieVampire.com - I could have just add the link but why not give me the chance to mention this hilarious name...those days, even the vampires are becoming vegetarians, you know...

S.H.E.L.L. has illustrations - which look, as expected, out of this world and do have a weird sense of humour - but also have characters like Crab Magga - that ´Makes a Ninja look like an overweight hippo´ - or president Obaaama. A bit of mystery, a lot of adventure and a gang of strange - for us, the boring adults - creatures on a mission to save the galaxy from many bad things, among which the lack of sense of humour (can I have a mission dispatched to where I am right now, please?). It is easy to follow, although the pace is very fast, and hard to put down but I am glad this is just the beginning of the series - Episode 1. The Horse Awakens; more to follow (soon, I hope). 

My son is still too green for the story - but he loved the illustrations and was a bit concerned about the characters as I had to share with him a couple of details about the adventures; I had to give an adult explanation for  - but I strongly recommended it to my English-speaking friends with children of an appropriate age for the book. Meanwhile, I am waiting selfishly to enjoy all for myself the rest of the series. 

Rating: 4.5 stars (I can give a 5 in a whim but I am not the target group anyway, so I better keep it humble)

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

Book Review: True Love by Sarah Gerard

 

I keep reading books by and about millennials because I am one of them and I recognize myself in some of the characters, but most of the time, there is the same story told over and over again, but writers with an obvious talent but lacking some diverse sources of inspiration. 

My latest adventure in lost millennials is True Love by Sarah Gerard. Nina is a multi-tasking student of literature, succeeding in her academic encounters, but with a bad taste in men, with a disfunctional family, with a mother who is part of a polycule that she doesn´t like, who is having a lot of bad sex with men who may be or may be not in a relationship, with a co-dependency problem and paid a minimum salary, self-harming herself and refugiating in the bathroom for reading or writing her novel. Her living arrangement is mostly peculiar and even had bed bugs - although for some NYC standards it is not such a terrible news. 

´I signed up for trauma counseling because I felt something had happened to me, although I was unable to articulate a single event. Others in the group shared stories of incest, combat, rape, dead children´. She doesn´t have anything special to do, does not want to change the world - and it is not a problem with that, there is not such an existential requirement - but she is like a ghost running in the shadow of her nakedness desperate for a physical touch. Therapy is an important activity in the life of the characters, especially Nina, and after all it makes sense as we are in America, an America about to vote for Trump. An activity made mostly by default because in fact it does not seem to help too much or at all. 

The book is an ´I´-story. Nina is deciding, mostly impulsively, who will stay and what she will do with her own body. Her empathy stops where her desire starts, but in a very emotional, hormonal way. There is no grown-up restraint or second thought that maybe the other person would be affected or hurt. But mostly life is a random experience. A sad YOLO refrain which keeps repeating over and over again, with no direction, No expectations but a lot of disappointment. 

Good writing, an awesome cover, but it breaks my literary heart to have to deal with so many variations of the same character. Empty, selfish and so so so boring. Boring, that´s the key word.

Rating: 2 stars

Random Things Tours: The Gathering Storm by Alan Jones

´Mama, why are we Jewish?´

I am very careful with my selection of historical novels set in WWII, both as a reader and as a reviewer, but The Gathering Storm, by the Scottish author Alan Jones  was an inspired choice. 

First and foremost, it´s a massive book: 800 pages that are decently packed with historical details and nonfiction information. Mostly based in Kiel, in the Northern part of Germany, The Gathering Storm - first from what the author calls Sturmtaucher Trilogy - follows the destiny of Nussbaums, a Jewish family, in the service of the Kästners, a family belonging to the highest military elites of a Germany who not only does not want to acknowledge his Jews but plans to completely annihilate them.

It is not an easy topic, both to think, read and write about. The past, in different re-readings and interpretations, still permeates, more or less aggressively, the present political discourse, in Germany and elsewhere. By outlining the story of a simple Jewish family, like many who strongly considered themselves rightfully part of the German nation, to end up murdered for the only reason of being born Jews, this book is a fictional testimony of the audacity of evil. But it also dilutes the danger of a black and white label and introduces characters with a consistence of their own, which may not give up in the face of the evil. 

Based on five years of intensive research, the book creates a local ambiance both in the descriptions and the dialogues. Particularly the dialogue and the ´British Mandate of Palestine´-Germany exchange of letters are a good example of how a honest and genuine fictional approach can create a good story which follows a certain historical matrix while adding creative content to the various episodes created. Most probably it helps to be less involved emotionally and personally in a specific story.

I am very curious to read the rest of the trilogy as well, following the next war years, as well as the unfortunate course of events for the Jews in Germany and elsewhere. Especially for history fiction lovers, this book is a great read and despite the discouraging amount of pages for this first volume, reading it is really worth it.

Rating: 5 stars

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

Random Things Tours: No Honour by Awais Khan

´Love is not a sin´.

 

What comes first: Love or Honour? What honour means anyway? Whose honour? Who decides what and especially whom has honour and whom not?

No Honour by Awais Khan is as precise as a cold judgement about honour could be but with the pace and intricated intrigue of an old epic tale. The action is taking place between the Pakistan capital city of Lahore and the village realm dominated by ancient justice concepts according to which children born out of wedlock should be drown in a bucket full of milk and women stoned, humiliated or/and simply drown into the river, preferably by their own fathers. A world made by men against women who are disposable material, that can be sold to a brothel for a pouch of heroin. 

The story alternates between the accounts of Abida, the 16 years old who left her village to follow her husband to Lahore and her father, Jamil, who started an incredible journey to find her. They are surrended by a cruel world, translating its frustrations and harsh life into a vocabulary of abuse. A world where women are expected to be hit and men are taught that hiting a woman is how they maintain their honour. ´My father says that all men beat their wives. They need to be beaten or they can end up forgetting their place´. There is no religious reason or excuse outlined to do so, there is just the social reflex who is followed blindly. But in a turn of events that reminded me at a certain extent of Jia from The Khan, there are the women who, in the end will settle the chaos and will take the risk to end the injustice. There is no honour among thieves.

Despite the rough cruelty and blind hate and the stench of addiction which dominates most of the story, a realism which is with such a precision painted with words by Awais Khan, there is place for love, pure love of Jamil for Abida. Part of the realism of the story are also the complexities of the characters, which may be sinful, traditional, despicable to each other but still preserving a pinch of kindness. In a way, besides following the many events unfolding, there is the very nature of the characters who is equally an element to take into consideration. 

Another aspect which made me interested into the book has to do with the diversity of Pakistan, both culturally and linguistically and after reading it I was interested in finding out more about the Saraiki language, used in the part of the country where Abida and Jamil are originary from. The ambiance of the book is create through language, by using local words and expressions. The amplitude of social problems Pakistan has to deal with, in addition to human rights abuses, particularly the honour killings, as well as the widespread drug addiction are not new, but writing books inspired by such circumstances can only raise awareness and empower women as well to not give up their fight for a decent, honorable life.

I´ve read No Honour in one sitting as both the story and the intense writing, as well as the topic were so entincing that I simply couldn´t stop until the end. It´s a memorable book that will stay with me for a long time, for all the good and bad reasons. 

Rating: 5 stars

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

Random Things Tours: The Vixen by Francine Prose

´Sartre says our country is sick with fear´.

Simon Putnam, a young student of literature, graduate in Folklore and Mythology is in the middle of a publishing crisis which involves a CIA shadow war in the ´Red Witch-hunt´ America. A novel by a glamorously photogenic divalike unknown writer with the title The Vixen, the Patriot and the Fanatic promises to save a dying publishing house. 

The story he is supposed to edit is based on the tragical story of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, sent to the electric chair for supposed spy activity on behalf of the Soviets portrays Ethel as a seductress whose sexual achievements are aimed at saving the fate of the American Communist Party. But his mother knew Ethel personally, and he has his own thoughts about the whole story. But perception is everything and it is important for the political narrative to perpetrate this terrible image of a traitor, as both a woman and a Jewess. 

There are so many intelligent layers of this fantastic book. Reading it - slowly first, a bit faster only to come back again to some paragraphs and even full chapters - I felt the magic of the literary journey that the likes of Paul Auster promises. Lately, it was The Last Book of Adana Moreau who made me at least as happier as Auster´s books. It has to do with the story within the story, a book which is in fact the main character of the main book. For me, it gives hope and projects expectations for the power that the written word and books in general still have on human lives and destinies. Giving life and consistency to literary characters, beyond the power of the writer requires magic writing, for sure.

But besides the strong literary inter-textuality, The Vixen (the word refers to ´a female fox´ but also, by extension,  ´a sprinted or fierced woman´ by Francine Prose is inquisitive about the dynamics of the much-blamed (for many serious reasons) publishing industry and its game of inequalities in favor of the priviledged ones (which are rarely non-white, women or belonging to minority groups). But the publishing industry and the books we are offered to read are part of a much bigger reality. A realm where lies are an anthropological artifact. ´Lying seemed unavoidable: social lies, little lies, lies of omission and misdirection´. You have them all, in just a modest sentence. 

The fiction, the historical fiction, the novels and the media do align sometimes in a game which may be articulated from outside the narrative. As we are talking the 1950s in America and the fear of a nuclear war at the gates of America, nothing was fully innocent. Not the soft power dispatched overseas - not bad to have all the jazz and movies rolling over in the post-war Europe, but this was not innocent either - not the military power aimed to strengthen the allies against the Reds. If I would have live at the time, would have been for sure a dedicated star-and-stripes supporter, but I am convinced that the fate of the Rosenberg was a grotesque simulacrum. But you need a lot of strength and information and convinction to cope with the everyday acting game.

Simon Putnam is searching for the truth about the manuscript and it comes to naturally as one may expect from someone who took a ´Mermaid and Talking Reindeer´ class. ´Narrative turns on those moments: The shock of finding out, the quickened heartbeat when the truth rips the mask off a lie. The friend who is our enemy, the confidant revealed as a spy (...) They delight the child inside us, the child who wants to hear a story that turns in a startling direction´. And he did well and did found out where the story was heading, but this was not the end. Simon´s life went on and entered the ordinary human routine. This is what usually humans do, no matter how gifted they are, they survive even the hardest knock of having meet a genius. Survival is always stronger than the search for the truth. This is what most probably happened in the Rosenberg case. They were supposed to offer an example to settle the Red vs. Freedom narrative when actually things were not so clear. Definitely, it was better to not deal with the Soviets, but should a Jewish woman - the only American woman killed by the US Government for a crime other than murder - pay the ideological price tag for it?

The Vixen is a novel with a geometry-like construction of the narrative. It has humour and intellectual irony and opens up moral fields of discussion which covers not only political topics but editorial - writing-related - subjects as well. Like, for instance, should ambition be stronger than conscience? Should the search for the truth - in fiction - undo the aspiration to success and recognition? Actually, should fiction be the ultimate goal of writing, even if there is a topic that once had its own life and reality?

All those questions and the story-within-the-story and the beautiful writing are the reasons why I am so in love with this book. Also, the cover deserves a mention: the last picture of Ethel and Julius before being set to the electric chair, a passion shared nonchalantly in the front of the cameras, that was brought to us in the many colours of our distorted or diluted perception.

Rating: 5 stars

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

Book Review: Problems by Jade Sharma

 

Maya, of Indian-American descent, has a dope habit - in the US dope refers to heroine, while in its UK acception it has to do with marijuana - and lives in NYC with her husband Peter which has a big alcohol problem. This is at the beginning of the one-chapter long book of Problems by the late Jade Sharma. 

We know she is called Maya a couple of pages into the book. She often feels empty and therefore is pushing hard experiencing extreme feelings, particularly through various sexual encounters. ´I like it hard´ is the motto of her playing down her sexuality. The act in itself - no matter how hard - ceased to matter as it operate at a certain extent as the dope. The more, the better, but only because the intensity got lost into the moment and although it gives a certain feeling of excitement and general comfortable wellbeing it is evanescent. It goes away so fast. Sadly fast. 

´I didn´t know. I was a marriage. Marriage is boring, and sometimes you want to kill the person, and sometimes you feel the truth of a million clichés about having one real partner to grow old with when the world is cold and full of strangers. But most of the time, I didn´t feel anything´. Sex and any kind of physical contact in general should be brutal and dramatic because only such experience may make her alive sometimes. 

The whole book of Problems is a long monologue of Maya´s interogations into her own lack of complete feelings, and this includes also the fragments when she is objectivising herself, with the detachment of talking about oneself at the third person. It is a recurrent reflection, an interesting switch of the narrative that otherwise would have been, maybe, a bit too bland (at least for my taste).

Maya is just one of the many literary characters of the last couple of years, launched on a search for nothing. Although I either don´t like them or not want to deal with them at all, I may recognize in them sometimes fragments of me, sometimes shadows of friends or generational encounters. I feel irritated about sharing the world with some of them, but they are real and it´s not my business to evaluate their existence. They already have their own Problems. 

It seems the more I read such books populated with such characters the more tolerant towards those characters and stories I am. Not sure how all this will end up, but I have some introspective reasons to consider when I am analyzing those books.

The writing is raw and rough and there are small stories that do not match the big story or are not intended to anyway. But it is a short read which concentrates enough tension and confusion to make you survive until the end of it. 

It´s just bad that Sharma died in 2019, at the age of 39 and therefore unable to go further this debut novel.

Rating: 3 stars

Random Things Tours: Clothes...and Other Things that Matter by Alexandra Shulman

´Buying is simply a monetary transaction. Shopping is a whole other ball game´. 

Clothes are social and anthropological codes to be read in plain sight. They say stories about a person some of them true, some of them not, but still stories. In the human intricacies of a life, clothes are more than a fabric and a tailored shape. They are not even a price tag, no matter their market value. First and foremost, clothes are...things that matter.

As British Vogue longest editor-in-chief, Alexandra Shulman was directly connected with the clothes/fashion industry, in Europe and abroad. It was long before the online shopping and the chains selling fashion items virtually, without offering the pleasure of touching and trying it before making a choice. We buy while commuting or when there is nothing else to do, and shopping has an impulsive dimension, but online, there is the very experience which is lacking. 

Her memoir, Clothes...and other things that matter is a nostalgic account of the memories connected with pieces from her wardrobe. The proustian Madeleines for Alexandra Shulman are hanging up in her cupboard and are out to tell their stories. And there are so many interesting testimonies her clothes are sharing: from media insights to upper London luminaries meetings until the dresscode in time of Zoom (good news: I am not the only one always wearing a red lipstick on my online professional video calls).

The stories are both entertaining and meaningful, the kind of accounts that will make you think and creatively push you to reconsider some of your relationships with the clothes you buy, wear or give away. Fashion is not frivolous, but a sign of the times, a lesson in mentality and historical encounters.

Besides red lipstick, I also love fashion and fashion writing and Alexandra Shulman´s book was a perfect afternoon companion. It is a book that may slightly change your perspective on things, all things clothes, I mean. Now, I am back in my closet trying to figure out what my dresses or shoes may say about me and my life. Especially those pieces that I inherited from my late mother or aunt who loved to be much more stylish than me. 

Rating: 5 stars

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

Book Review: The Khan by Saima Mir

´But this was a city of contradictions: nothing was black and white and no one´s loyalties were straight forward´.  

On one literary side, you have representations of non-white women, of South-Asian/Middle Eastern background, mostly Muslim as victims, that in order to get ´liberated´ from oppressive families and husbands - that they were not allowed to chose themselves - they have to run away, become secular, modern, deny their upbringing. And there is Jia Khan.

It was so much buzz lately around The Khan by award winning journalist and writer Saima Mir that I was a bit reluctant to get involved in the conversation. I said to myself that maybe I better wait a little bit until reading and sharing my opinion, in order to take distance from the pressure of the public opinion. But I am also an impulsive reader and I prefer to do what I want when I want no matter the circumstances so I´ve spent a full night and an early morning delved into the story.

The sudden murder of Akbar Khan, the head of a British city´s biggest organised crime ring lead to a wave of clashes for local supremacy between the Pukhtun predominant group and the newest white - Polish - group. There is a clash of gangs that will be lead by his daughter, Oxford-graduated and seasoned barrister Jia. 

Jia is the most important character in the story, with a personality finelly created through her interactions with the big cast of characters, from everyday people, some of them in deep need of financial support, to those with whom she shared secrets and blood. Through details and fine descriptions the events and characters are brought to life and the scenes are created in a very direct realistic way. There is a crescendo of actions which culminates with the final confrontation, but the limelight is on Jia - her strength, ambitions, wild independence and power to play the men´s game to change the course of events to her advantage. 

The immersion into the British race policies and their failure is part of the background noise which nurtures and creates movements such the Jirga. The gap between the priviledged and the havenots, based simply of the geography of their families. The range of motivations multiplies the various possibilities and introduces nuances instead of the usual judgemental interpretations.

There are no sides taken in The Khan, but facts of a conflictual reality and a raw fight for survival and Jia is mostly the center of all these. With a trained cold heart she is assuming a bloody mission in the hope of a challenge. She is not opressed, not trying to break free. She is born free and she acknowledges the privilege of her mind in a world that does not want to see her.

The story was optioned already by BBC Studios and has a great visual potential. It will only amplify the message of the book which is a great literary spin that blows up the usual stereotypical interpretations and mindsets. 

After all, following the literary trends is not such a bad idea.

Rating: 5 stars

German Book Review: Ministerium der Träume by Hengameh Yaghoobifarah

 

If I have to find one single reason for the troubles I´ve got myself into by starting to learn German, and all those years when I had to look like I don´t understand when I am told that I make a lot of mistakes - ´and you say you have an academic degree´ - or that my speak with an accent and who cares to remember all those bad things about my German skills, that is for the sake of being able to read good books in the original German language. The standards are set very high though after reading Ministerium der Träume by Hengameh Yaghoobifarah that I´ve included on my list of German-speaking writers to follow after reading the collection of essays she coordinated Eure Heimat is unser Albtraum. 

My current interest is to read books by young people about burning contemporary topics. Age may not matter when it comes to dating but for many many subjective reasons I am interested to read what people from my generation and younger have to do about life, city, Berlin, the universe and Nazis. Among many other things.

Ministerium der Träume follows the story of the two Iran-born sisters Nushin and Nasrin. Nushin´s death, in what the police describes at first as a car accident, has the appearance of a suicide, but the story is more complicated than it looks. Her queer sister, Nasrin, the legal guardian of her sister´s daughter, the stormy teenager Parvin, will pursue the truth and while searching for the circumstances of the supposed accident, old friends are back and friendships from decades ago are revisited. 

The details of the story, the writing as well as the relationships between characters and the way in which the story develops, all are so carefully crafted that it is really hard to leave the story. The author is playing a marvelous chess both with the characters and the readers but it is such kind a game where one may really want to be used. Moving forward, even blindly, is an assumed decision one may be offered the chance to take.

In the logic of the story, mentions about the many neo-Nazi attacks against foreigners all across Germany - tell me some other writer who does it - Pegida, and the anti-immigration opinions, also among the authorities, comes along very naturally. The novel has the feet steady on the ground of the everyday German reality, but uses the opportunities creatively to create in the smallest details a world of the mind in itself. 

I may read and review many other books by German authors in the next weeks and months but will be hard to equal the strong impression of the Ministerium der Träume. I can only hope that the book will be soon translated into English to offer the chance to non-German speakers to enjoy a generous slice of the literary cake of contemporary Germany.

Rating: 5 stars

`BElieve in YOUrself´

 

BElieve in YOUrself is the activity book that will help your midgrade children learn how to cope with the everyday school challenges but also to grow up elegantly while accepting who they really are - which means not perfect, joyful, lazy or just not in the mood to do certain tasks today. Through daily exercises and practice, spread between very useful scientific observations and facts, your child - but sometimes the parents too - could create goal tracers and better ways to organise the time and the school week in general.

Planned as a diary, with illustrations - just fine, in my opinion, but I am usually aiming at very complex sophisticated kind of visuals anyway - and a couple of smart activity games, this activity handbook is written in an accessible language while using various psychological and therapy tricks and inspiration. For instance, one may find colouring sheets, easy yet smart brain games, games of words etc. Practically, it covers both creative and mindful activities, with different degress of difficulties and aimed at developing a wide array of skills requested not only for school activities and interactions, but for the everyday life social spectrum.

It is actually a good thing as this background gives structure and direction to an otherwise hectic life that no matter how much you - as a parent - would love to organise, cannot be done only one way. Thus, the children are encouraged to move on with their to-do-list while being in control of their timeline.

For me, the part where an overview of the skills and interests as well as any other exercise that may lead to accepting who you really are, are my favorites. It is the most important exercise in learning to love and respect yourself which eventually will lead at a respectful and empathic relationship with your immediate environment. 

BElieve in YOUrself by Lexi Rees and Sasha Mullen is the ultimate back-to-school gift for your children or their friends too as it keeps the brain into the freedom, joyful mood while setting up the next chapter of busy school life. 

Rating: 4.5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of a tour organised by Rachel´s Random Resources but the opinions are, as usual, my own

Prozac Nation Memories

 ´You don´t need drugs, Elizabeth. What you really need is close, caring relationships. You need to trust somebody. You need to think people are okay´.

´Depression was the loneliest fucking thing on earth´.

Prozac Nation is one of the most deeply depressive books I´ve read in a while. Sadder as it is a memoir, not a work of fiction and testifies the pains of Elizabeth Wurtzel, trapped in her own body-and-soul pains as fighting with chronic depression since the young age of 12.

Depression is a bad bird: there is nothing that will make you happy, and the explanations based on chemical disbalance and deficiency are not fully reliable. Although the proper therapy was discontinous, mostly for financial reasons, the drugs were her constant companion. ´At first, the idea was to get me going so I could respond to talk therapy, but now it seems clear that my condition is chronic, that I´m going to be on drugs forever if I just want to be barely functional´. After various drug trial, she ends up fully depending on Prozac, the second most commonly prescribed drug in the USA. I don´t know which are the favorite prescriptions of doctors in Germany, for instance, or in other parts of the world, but I remember how my mother, of blessed memory, used to take fists of various drugs that turned her catatonic, mostly detached from everything and everyone, with very very short intervals when she was slightly responsible to her immediate reality. As Wurtzel will mention too, ´Mental health is so much more complicated than any pill that any mortal could invent´. 

This description of her frequent state of her body and mind are very familiar with my observations about my late mother too: ´When I am this depressed, every small activity is a body blow, and I feel knowcked out and somnambulant all the time´. Cultural norms prevented me to ever ask my mother what was going on with her, and often took her distant cold behavior as a failure of our relationship when in fact, her relationship with the entire world was completely distorted. 

Deeply affected by the divorce of her parents and an absent father that preferred to constantly avoid to take full responsibility of his parenthood, Elizabeth sunk into a dark wave that never ended since. ´Sometimes, I get so consumed by depression that it is hard to believe that the whole world doesn´t stop and suffer with me´. She was brave enough to put into words her whole suffering, helping among others those coping with relatives or loved ones to understand what they are going through. 

By default, outsiders people may consider depression associated simplistically with madness as a source of creativity, a bohemian label only those few gifted are experiencing. In fact, it´s nothing like that. ´Depression is such an uncharismatic disease, so much the opposite of the lively vibrance that one associates with madness´.

I had Prozac Nation on my TBR for a long time but for very personal reasons I tried to avoid it. Reading it also took me a couple of good weeks, as I just needed to take a break from the everyday black diary. It hurts to read about it - she writes very empathically yet simply - and to figure out that, inf fact, there is nothing one can do than embrace with love and understanding someone going through such an ordeal. But who does possess infinite love? It´s so hard and we are so limited and selfish, especially when we deal with someone irreversibly affected by depression.

There is also a movie based on the book that I promise myself not to watch. For now, it was enough, I may need to take a break for a while from psychological books and therapy stories. It is not an easy burden to carry, especially when we start to understand things but it´s very very late say ´good bye´ or just ´I love you´. 

Rating: 5 stars

 

Random Things Tours: Dead to Me by Pamela Murray

 

One of the main gains of the many lockdowns and other adventures in bad health I had to go through in the last 12 month is my rekindled love for mysteries. Any kind of them: from the hausfrau turned into a serial killer to the political thrillers populated with characters rotten by bad intentions and corruption to the bones. No matter the language and the country, how long or how short - hint: the longer the better - I will happily put my worries aside and got myself entinced in the search for the culprit(s). The only condition: good crime novels, please, with great entangled reasons and a big cast of characters.

Dead to Me by Pamela Murray is my top crime book of the week. And it was not the only one I´ve read this week. But this book, was such a journey and the change of events are surprising in their entirety. Plus, the lovely couple of detectives Burton&Fielding - a couple in real life as well - is the salt and pepper of a search for the truth.

Maria Turnbull dies suddenly on her way home, after a girls night out which involves a short visit to an astrologer. Maria had a previous heart condition but the coronarian results are in fact showing something different and it involves poisoning. Maria is not the only victim as there are more corpses discovered in the following days. All cases seem to have an astrological hint and are connected with the first victim. 

So many pieces of the puzzle, many possible culprits, but what is the motivation. The details are spread all over the Manchester-based story and the more one advances into the mystery the more complicated it becomes. Personally, I had in mind several possibilities but was not expecting the extent of the final revelation.

What I liked even more, was the constant smart exchange between Burton and Fielding, always an intellectually pleasant experience which is an important asset to the story. 

I´ve read this book in one long seating and I can´t wait to read more adventures in revealing crimes by those interesting investigative couple. The only thing that I´ve found a bit clumsy was the encounters with the media. I can understand that no authority or public institution loves to be under the pressure of the media, but the inspectors looked too openly hostile and unprepared for the press conference and seem to partially understand the importance of the media for a healthy society. 

Rating: 3.5 stars

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

Random Things Tours: Soul Sisters by Lesley Lokko

I rarely read historical novels because my standards for this genre are different than in the case of other genres. As a partially historian by training myself (the other part is political science), I prefer the rough nonfiction on historical topics, aware of the difficulties of historical-related reading and writing. There is so much fiction in the so-called historical writing than I better focus on splitting the truth from the fictional material permeating the nonfiction. However, lately I´ve grown interested in using a larger historical context, at a great extent recognizable in its general temporal milestones, like big events or historical milestones, to insert fictional characters and stories.

Soul Sisters by Lesley Lokko has a massive promise. Set between Edinburgh and South Africa, it covers an impressive timeslot: 1921-2010. Almost a century of personal histories on the background of a dramatic political trail of events. 

Two ´soul-sisters´, Jen and Kemi and the challenges of one man Solam Matsunyane, which promises a lot and is keen to upgrade the heritage of his black South-African elite to whom he proudly belongs. Entrailed in love stories and emotional relationships with the two, he is in fact looking for more than a wife or a girlfriend. His aim is to find the wife that will be an asset, accompanying his political ambitions. 

In the geography of the book, Solam is one of the most complex characters, both as a big player in his life and the story, but as a strong complex personality. His actions and endeavours are influencing at a bigger extent the course of the story as well as the life of the other characters, and he is doing it either with grace or through the force of his stubborn nature. 

The other characters are important as well, and do have their own stories to tell, although at a great extent shadowed by Solam. The sisters´ deep emotional versatility is another interesting thread which individualises the storytelling at a bigger extent. What I particularly liked about the characters in Soul Sisters is the reflective nature of the characters who keep asking questions while trying to build their own life.

The writing is charming, taking the reader through different periods of time as a journey through times seen through different eyes. 

The author, Lesley Lokko is a Ghanaian-Scottish architect by training, with a long ist of academic and literary achievements. After this first encounter with this writer, I would definitely be interested to read more books by her. 

Rating: 4 stars

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

The Possible Lives

 

From the moutains of Lebanon, the member of the maronite - Christian - community, at the age of 13, is sent to Rome to study theology. It is the beginning of the 17th century and Raphael Arbensis - the Latined variant of his original name of Roufeyil Harbini - is exposed not only to the intensive fight of the Catholic Church for countering the Counter-Reform but also to the newest scientific discoveries and theories.

Growing up a young adventurer, with the world his oyster, Arbensis, dressed in Western outfits, travels the world and confers to princes and emirs, saves Westerners took hostages by Oriental pirates and is received with due respect for his knowledge and language skills which buy him prestige and a social status. He writes books of historical philosophy and fornicates and will end his days back in the mountains of Lebanon, surrounded by his wife, a Lebanese too, Mariam, and their 4 children.

Des Vies Possibles by the popular and prolific Lebanese writer Charif Majdalani, which I´ve read in the original French language, reads easily as a historical novel. A short one, with a strong character and a story briefly compressed. The story is split between different short life episodes, each with the potential of a life in itself, many including various historical and philosophical observations. 

The main character, Roufeyil Harbini aka Arbensis has a story bigger than life and I was partially disappointed to not be offered a longer story, with more content and probably less philosophy. His outstanding status has a symbolic meaning as well, as he is a successful representative of the Orient who was able to emulate the West, hiding his Orientalism - not only through the name change. Indeed, he won a place in the history of those who make history, but only because he lived his place which is out of the main historical trends. It is a relatively easy take but if there would have been more story, it would have look less easy. 

For sure, I am interested to read more books by this author and explore more about the literary Lebanese identity in next posts. Des Vies Possibles was a relatively acceptable introduction to this realm.

Rating: 3 stars

The New Gabriel Allon Series: The Cellist by Daniel Silva

 

For a good couple of years, every mid-summer I am not only waiting to enjoy the warm sunny days, but I am also waiting for the next book by Daniel Silva. I don´t have too many predictable moments in my life, but his books are always a fix, enjoyable over a long summer day, or two.

The series centered around the veteran Israeli spymaster Gabriel Allon combine excitement, suspense and stories where fragments of immediate geopolitical reality are fictionalised.

The latest, his 21st, The Cellist is taking place in the immediate Corona-hit reality, where there are discussions about the virus and masks and vaccinations, but this does not deter Russian spies to spread their poisonous agents all over the world, but especially in London. The Russians are more present than ever and the Mossad in this depiction seems more interested in deterring the old Cold War foes than the mullahs from Tehran. Indeed, there are a couple of references in the book to them, including the killing of Mohsen Fakhrizadeh but cutting up the ties of the Kremlin laundromat is a more important task. Putin and his vicious ways are the focus of most of the story, with some late hour episodes involving the last moments of Trump´s administration.

I love stories packed with contemporary political references more than I can admit, but this time, more than ever, the context takes over the story. There are more back-off references than actions that may put them into context. There are many characters, a few from the other stories, but many new ones. Gabriel Allon himself seems to turn too sentimental, revealing so many details about various connections and operations, only charmed by a young German-born cellist. Arkadi, Putin´s best friend is also too sentimental for his KGB rank. 

Despite the many ups and downs, I´ve listen to The Cellist (vividly read by actor, producer and director Eduardo Ballerini) in a couple of short sittings, interrupted only by the everyday work emergencies. Nevertheless, I am waiting for the new Daniel Silva already, but really hope that will take a spectacular, less nonfiction-oriented book. After all, I am reading news all round the day and the night, what I miss is a good work of fiction based on all those stories. 

Rating: 3.5 stars