Random Things Tours: Livingston Unfound by Mara Benetti

´Stripped to its bare bones, life can be simple´.

 

Yes, I know that right now travel, and subsequently travel writing in general, is going through a dramatic challenge, which should consider the constantly changing nature of the travel regulations and health-related aspects. However, we are considering those restrictions from the very limited point of view of our - mine, for sure - life which depends so much on Google Maps and beautiful selfie-locations. We want to travel to see beautiful places, exotic corners and floating breakfast trays. (Nothing wrong with that) But in our hurry to catch the colourful beautiful sunrise or sunset, we ignore more often the people living in that land, their struggles and for sure, their histories. Will the new post-post-Covid travel indulge the travellers into peace and a pace which suits more the human need of empathy?

Livingston Unfound by Mara Benetti is a work of literary fiction mostly set in the city of Livinston (Izal) in the Eastern part of Guatemala. Monica, the woman character, is on her own, in the 1980s, on a mission to discover a land and its people she mostly heard about through theoretical encounters - like books or academic classes. Caught in times of turmoil and political change - the Cold War was a bloody playground in Central America those years - Monica is a candid observer of social challenges and, most importantly, she is able to get in touch with local people and discover the diversity of cultures and languages.

Although it has the format of a travelogue, Livingston Unfound is mostly a book about people connecting, people with relatively various background and histories, that are creating friendships and enmities. I´ve found very interesting the interactions between Monica and other foreigners, as well as with the local people and the connections she is able to build. For the travel writing part, it offers an inspiration as it switches the spin from a predominantly consumerist perspective to a more human-focused narrative. From an adventurer - ´Ah una adventurera, entonces´ - she succeeds to be considered as ´one of us´, a human curious that is there to better understand the world.

The book is inspired by the adventures of the author herself. With a degree in Latin American Studies and Anthropology, Mara Benetti went alone for two years in Central America and then returned in the 2000s, in a Guatemala that changed significantly, including in its own perception of the minorities living on its territory.

In times when many of us - particularly the frustrated writer of those lines - travel mostly from our chairs, set in the front of the computer - books like Livingston Unfound prepares for a different take on travel, more empathic using creativity as a tool to bring together people and cultures.

Rating: 4 stars

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

German Book Review: Annette, ein Heldinnen Epos by Anne Weber

 

I haven´t advanced too much through the shortlist for Deutsche Buchpreis 2021, with some notable beautiful exceptions though, and for sure I haven´t get yet into the right mood for reading the winner book, but now I know for sure that the book that won the previous edition was definitely one of the best contemporary books with a historical topic I´ve read in German in the last 5 years or so. 

Annette, ein Heldinnen-Epos - Annette, a Heroine Epic Poem in my own English translation of the title - by German author and translator Anne Weber was a revelation for me. First, for the temperately bold form chosed for writing the novel: an epic poem which visually may look like an classical poem, of the kind created during the Middle Ages, by unnamed authors. A historical epic poem set in the troubled times of the WWII and the period afterwards, in France and North African Algeria and Tunisia. There are no rhymes or verses, but simple prose, however, the ´epos´ is there to remind that we are offered a story which is first and foremost out of time.

Annette, the main and most important character of the novel was inspired by a real person, the Résistance fighter Anne Beaumanoir. Beaumanoir - who wrote her own Memoirs as well, covering the period 1923-1956, We wanted to change the life/Wir wollten das Leben ändern - is still alive, two years short from 100, living in the South of France. During the WWII, she saved and protected Jews in Brittany and therefore she was named by Yad Vashem ´righteous among the nations´, a title offered to the non-Jews who helped and protected individual Jews to escape the Shoah. She further fought on behalf of the Front de Libération Nationale in Algeria against France and therefore sent to prison.

Withough being a memoir or a historical story, Annette, ein Heldinnen-Epos is first and foremost an investigation into the credo of a woman aware enough to realize the failures of the Soviet Union gulag but nevertheless convinced that there is a social justice that one should fight for. A social justice that may lead to the freedom of the oppressed, although this may lead to the temporary loss of the individual freedoms. (´Für die Freiheit Algemeins, eines fremden Lands, hat sie die eigne Freiheit aufgegeben uns aufs Spiel gesetzt´). But the people, as a sum of various individuals, will Annette met only after she will be released from prison, when she is finally encountering the men and women of the land, while she is practising her medical skills, after the independence of Algeria. 

The oppressed of the world, those in need of freedom, do they need being liberated? What is the price of not giving up on other people´s freedom? Does it help to fight on behalf of those unseen and eventually passive citizens who aren´t so keen maybe to fight for themselves?

The book ends with a short commentary of the Myth of Sysyphus, in the interpretation of the Oran-born Albert Camus. In that moment when he is lifting the stone up to the top, even shortly before he has to return to bring it back, Sysyphus is free. Free because it is his own will to continue to carry our stone. Our existence is that stone. Fighting for other people freedom is one of those heavy stones that you either carry on with or not. Annette/Anne, and many others like her, chose it with a pure brave heart.

Rating: 5 stars

Book Review: Tomb of Relics by JF Penn

 

The 12th book from the eventful Arkane Series by the NYTimes and USA Today bestselling author J.F.Penn, Tomb of Relics is a journey through the darkness of religious relics black market and organ trafficking. A very odd but valid combination.

I was glad to meet again agents Morgan Sierra and Jake Timber, as usual on a mission to save the world from the danger of all kinds of religious extremism. This time, they are not only encountering dark characters trying to re-enact various macabre religious representations but they are also encountered a strange creature, a scarrier version of Dorian Gray. 

As usual, J.F.Penn novels are very well documented, the contexts and mentions of facts and historical events being based on an extensive bibliography covering various domains: history, anthropology, psychology, history of religions, architecture. 

From dangerous jewellers with killer instincts to former Balkan wars combatants and secret security units, Tomb of Relics is a short yet eventful story. The historical/background information is well balanced by the fictional story, full of spectacular twists and dramatic changes. The pace is alert, the reader is took on an emotionally drained adventure which ends maybe too fast. The brevity of the story acts in this case against as there are a couple of possible directions that are unfortunately abandonned. I would have love to find out more about many of the side characters and story details, including Zale Radan and the Breton Biomedical endeavours.

Tomb of Relics offers to the readers enough details to be read as an autonomous story, but continuing with the rest of the books from the series is a great way to spend the rest of the year.

Rating: 3.5 stars

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

My First Elena Ferrante Book: My Brilliant Friend

 

It took me a very long time until I considered reading anything by Elena Ferrante, particularly because I am very often skeptical when it comes to popular books. In a way, I wished that Ferrante books are receiving the time stamp which make them an reliable and serious literary success. 

Many years and published books after, I decided that it is about time to start my own Ferrante adventure. For now, I´ve started with the first book from the Neapolitan Series, My Brilliant Friend, translated from Italian into German by Karin Krieger. 

What impressed me from the very beginning was the relatively simple narrative construction, filled in with a story with a strong social accent. It is build around a friendship between two girls, living in a poor Neapolitan neighbourhood in post-war Italy. The country is slowly building up itself, but the wealth is slowly arriving in this part of the country, marked by strong social prejudice, and an outspoken level of aggressivity within families. Children and particularly women are the easiest target of the men/fathers anger, for reasons that may pertain to impudence. For Elena and Lila, the two girls whose voices are reflected into the story either as young girls or as mature women looking back to their childhood episodes. 

The friendship between the two girls is build up through hardship of everyday life, their parents efforts to stop them from going to school, their sexual awakenings and desire to settle down, through marriage, relationships with men. In this violent environment, where old grudges from the time of the last war are still persistent, the violence being the answer to a wide range of personal and professional unhappiness. Although it may look despicable, for a very long time, those relationships between children and parents were for a long time predominant, particularly among socially disadvantaged categories. 

Both the ambiance and the characters are well built, with an authenticity of their own, that can be easily placed withing a geographic realm and time. For this stage of discovering the Series, it was enough for opening my literary appetite for the rest of the series. Also for reading more by Ferrante, this very popular Italian writer in translation.

Rating: 3 stars

Ruslan from Marzahn

 

Unless you are Wladimir Kaminer, it is not easy to write with empathic humour about Russians in Berlin, Russians in Marzahn, particularly. Marzahn, this piece of nostalgic DDR, with its funny German slang and gang culture and, indeed, its Russians, some left from the time of the Soviet Army friendly residence.

Sebastian Stuertz tried his hand writing about Ruslan, a funny actor with an oncle about to offer his son a Kalashnikov to play with. Also, they drink vodka those Russians. In addition, Ruslan performed naked on the stage, with his parents, and the oncle in the public. There is a dog called Pushkin and another one called Putin. Also, it seems those Russians are going to the Catholic church, a possibility, but most likely not necessarily, as most of the Russians are belonging to the Eastern branch of Christianity. Although the story is funny, it is not relatable and the jokes are rather jokes-about-how-Russians-in-Marzahn-are-supposed-to-behave. I am sure they can much better. The characters mostly look like puppets who are expected to behave in a way that the author believe a Russian in Marzahn may behave but end up as cartoonish stereotypical figures.

What really makes a difference in this case though, is the interactive and high quality of the audiobook. The text is read by actor Shenja Lacher which is fluent in Russian with music created by the author himself - a very good choice. From many respects, the audiobook setting kept me interested into the book until the very end. Otherwise, with the print version in the front of me, I would have very fast gave up, no matter how high the interests of improving my German are.

Rating: 2 stars

Random Things Tours: The Soul Catcher by Monica Bhide

 

In time of crisis, we need stories. When we are looking for a change in life, stories can inspire us. When our heart aches, stories can save our soul. In our fast forward society, we praise way too little the storytellers, those wizards of words that can completely change your life with the touch of a magic word. 

Personally, I think the best of the magic is the one created through words. How else can one explain that super power of putting words and then words and then sentences together creating inspiring stories that move your soul and heal your body?

The award-winning Monica Bhide is one of those gifted people beautifying the world through her stories. An unique story teller, she can create worlds and characters that stay with you through the good and the bad times. The reader is transposed in an universe where pain and love and the happy and the heartbroken all sip from the water of beauty. Either she is writing about beautiful recipes or about the search for love, Monica - in full disclosure, she is a very dear friend of mine whose friendship is a blessing I am grateful for - makes the world a better place, a place of beauty and kindness.

Her latest book, her 11th, The Soul Catcher is unique in both literary approach and individuality. A novel in stories, it follows the lives of ordinary people facing end-of-life situations. Set in modern India, the real India the author knows so well through her regular travels not that imaginary India from the simplistic travel listicles, the novel is built around Yamini Goins, the ´Soul Catcher´ that can transport souls from one body to another in order to save lives. 

I am interested in spiritual ideas but I am very careful with my choice of fiction books on such topics. Life is what we made out of it, especially from those life threatening, life challenging moments. I am completely against living in denial in a pink cloud dreaming that everything is fine and will be fine. Sometimes things are not going well, and this is also life. More likely real life. The Soul Catcher is one of my favorite books of this year for its profound take on life and human behavior, showing how our wishes and desires - for prolonging our life, for instance - may eat out our soul, may distract us from our path in life. 

Yamini is for me the most important character in the book as she is torned between using her gift and the heavy weight of the burn-out of actually having to do it. The events she is part of do offer her reasons to think back and reflect about her experience, doubt, stop and eventually start over.

The Soul Catcher is a very challenging read, requesting the reader´s full attention and dedication, and leaves you with a basket full of questions and serious thoughts about life, its limitations and blessings in disguise. There is strength in our human fragility and this is an important truth that literature, among other things, should be a reminder thereof. 

A special mention to the book cover which is outstandingly beautiful and elegant. 

Rating: 5 stars 

Random Things Tours: A Walk in the Dark by Gianrico Carofiglio

 

Italy has an impressive number of crime fiction writers, not necessarily because there is some everyday life inspiration that one cannot ignore. Not all Italian books deal with Mafia but there are many talented Italian writers unfortunatelly not enough translated into English. (My shame though for not keeping up with reading in Italian which I manage pretty well).

A Walk in the Dark by Gianrico Carofiglio publiashed by Bitter Lemon Press is an example in this respect. Carofiglio himself has an inspiring professional journey. An anti-Mafia prosecutor and former MPs he is a successful novelist with novels adapted for television. A Walk in the Dark (Ad occhi chiusi in original), for instance, was a top bestseller in Italy for a year and a half.

The book is part of the series featuring the police inspector Guido Guerrieri, a very relatable character with a complex way of relationing with other humans, particularly women. As it was my first book from the series, I did not encounter any difficulties in reading and understanding it, but I would be curious to follow this characters in other adventures as well (hopefully in the original Italian language).

The task Guerrieri has to solve right now is related to the case of a woman stalked by an ex-boyfriend who happens to be the son of a powerful local judge. While trying to bring the culprit to face responsibility for his violent behavior, there are the fine distinctions of the Italian society he is about to face or even fight against. The slow pace of the story, which flows naturally, out of timely although very much suited to the way in which life actually flows gives enough time to the reader to connect to the story but also understand its small details. It creates an intimate ambiance and dialogue between the writer and the readers, as well as outlines the relationship between the characters.

What I particularly loved from the style point of view is the journalistic way of telling the story, which makes it almost a real crime story. The small sentences are concise and expressing adequatelly the tension and the sense of emergency of some of the episodes.

A Walk in the Dark, translated into German as Reise in der Nacht, is my first encounter with Carofiglio´s writing, but definitely not the last. As I am interested in exploring more Italian topics and discover more Italian voices in the next months, this book is an important step forward towards reaching my bookish goal.

Rating: 4 stars

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

Random Things Tours: The Bookseller´s Secret by Michelle Gable

 

1942. London. Estranged from her husband and family - on whose there are at least a Nazi, a communist and several fascists -, in her early 20s, Nancy Mitford, a successful writer in the making, decided to start anew. She starts by taking over the Heywood Hill bookshop. 80 years later there is another woman looking for a change that loves Mitford´s writings. However, it seems that there is a lost manuscript authored by her that a young American woman is searching for.

The Bookseller´s Secret by NYT bestseller author Michelle Gable is based on the adventurous life - that kind of adventures one is experiencing during hard times like a World War - of the successful novelist Nancy Mitford. I will try not to delve too much into the story as such, which has some very interesting turns and the perfect recommendation for a real book(ish) reader, but I would love to talk a bit more about the way in which the novel is built from the literary technical point of view. 

This novel which moves back an forth from the WWII times to our times and back again to the Second World War reads as a piano piece perfectly played with two hands. It is not symmetry between various fragments of the story, but it looks like those fragments, sometimes representing different time lines do complete and compete each other. One fragment in one timelines is shortly answered by another from the other timeline. It is a fascinating game of words which makes the story even more enjoyable.

The most visible characters in the story are women and they are profiled not only through their individual actions, but also as their solidarity and empathy. Reversing the usual narrative, men, like Le Colonel, the mysterious French man who encouraged Nancy to follow her dream as a writer, can be also an inspiration and a support for women. His presence is a welcomed apparition in this gallery of empathic, supportive humans. Maybe, indeed, books do help to become better humans. 

The Bookseller´s Secret is a captivating read, not only because it is set around a book mystery. It has its own life and a beating bookish heart hard to forget. At least for now.

Rating: 4.5 stars

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

Rachel´s Random Resources Blog Blitz: Horsing Around by Lexi Rees

 

From the author of BElieve in YOUrself comes another entertaining activity book, this time aimed at young boys and girls who love horses. Public confession: I adore horses from a very early age and sorry not sorry I was a pony girl, that kind of stereotypical spoiled girl, that´s it.

However, as I was starting my horseback riding practice, there were not too many books around aimed at nurturing the love for horses, except Black Beauty. Horsing Around is more than that though: it is an activity book, aimed for 7 to 11 years old horse lovers.

What I particularly loved about this year long activity book is the diversity of topics covered as well as the excellent time management tools offered to the children. Contrary to many very modern theories encouraging playing and carefree days, I am one of those parents convinced that a very organised schedule early in life, with a diverse set of activities to be performed every day is very helpful later in life. Equally important is also to acquire the habit of journaling and evaluating your activities as it helps to develop critical thinking, improve your daily performance and eventually helps understanding and learning from failures. 

Horsing Around has all those minimal requirements to create healthy habits by offering efficient time management tools. For instance, part of the regular evaluation there is a section: ´What went well´ during the weekly horseback training. Automatically, after a couple of weeks and months, it creates those good conscious habits to be pursued in the case of other activities as well.

In lockdown or not, your active children will find a lot of activities to keep their mind busy, besides the regular feedback and journaling of their weekly practice. There are colouring pages - of horses, of course -, trivia, an ´amazing maze´, horse-related jokes, information about horse clothes and how to wear them, even an exercise about how to ´design your own cowboy boots´.

The diversity of information and the way in which it is introduced to the readers makes it into an useful book for anyone trying to improve their English vocabulary.

Not less important is the beautiful graphic content and the ways in which it matches the wording.

Horsing Around is a great choice of a present for the holiday season. With the New Year just around the corner, it is about time to inspire your little ones to start it right, the right stepping pace. 

Rating: 5 stars

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

German Book Review: Im Menschen muss alles herrlich sein by Sasha Marianna Salzmann

 

´Im Menschen muss alles herrlich sein´ is a quote from Uncle Vanya by Chekhov. It means ´Every thing in a person´ must be glorious´. This second novel by Sasha Marianna Salzmann currently theater writer at Gorki Theater in Berlin was shortlisted for the Deuscher Buchpreis 2021. 

From the 1970s, to the Perestroika times and 2015 it brings into the forefront women born and raised in the then Soviet Union, their experiences and their life after living the country for moving to Germany, part of the policy of opening towards people of Jewish origin during the ruling of Chancellor Kohl. Until now, as far as I know, only Lena Gorelik approached this topic in her romans but the focus is mostly on being Jewish and Russian in Germany without extensively covering the previous elements of identity built up in Soviet Union/Russia.

The story in itself is the most important element of the novel. The narrative flows, the characters are following it by uniting their voices into the unique voices of the story. The two women friends and their children do bring together pieces of a puzzle whose shape is not necessarily regular or predictable. It is the flow of memory that dictates the story. As it is the story that matters, the characters are not always readable and one may need some extra details - which are missing - to properly understand them. But in the overall planning of the narrative, such detail seems to be less important.

Although I was interested in the story, I had more expectations in terms of connections between different events and complexity of the narrative. The author´ storytelling fails to fully reach its potential which is a pitty for the current story, but nevertheless made me curious to check Salzmann´s next novel, hopefully soon.

A special mention to the cover which, as many German covers I´ve had the chance to notice recently, is outstanding in terms of creative rendition of the narrative in just one image.

Rating: 3 stars

Guest Post: Putting the Pen to the Paper By Khanh Ha

After sharing my review on A Mother´s Tale by Khanh Ha, part of the book tour promoting the collection of short stories based in Vietnam, my latest contribution is a guest post by the author himself, about his writing process and how he put together the anthology.

How This Collection Was Put Together

The short stories in this collection go back as far as 2013-2014. Over a span of eight years, I have written about thirty stories, all published and several of them having won fiction awards. A few years ago, I had thought of putting them together in a collection. That thought entertained me for a while and I left it there for my busy schedule of writing a novel. After the novel was completed, I revisited the idea of the short-story collection. I asked myself, what stories should I pick? I took time to review the stories and found a number of them sharing something in common—a motif. The mother-and-son love and its heartbreaking loss. I decided to use those stories as the mainstay of the collection for their common thread. Then I was faced with another question: What other stories should I bring in to round it up? In the end I chose four stories, namely, “A Bridge Behind,” “The Leper Colony,” “The Red Fox,” and “The General Is Sleeping.” In them you have the mother-and-daughter love and loss, the grandfather-and-granddaughter love and loss, the father-and-son love and loss, and even the boy-and-the red fox love and loss relationship. So, there is a common baseline for all the eleven stories and that’s the genesis of this collection.

The Great American Novel

Today I read a fellow author’s post on this subject. She wondered if the desire to write “The Great American Novel” has been superseded by the desire to write the next million-dollar bestseller. She asked, “Is Anyone Really Writing the Great American Novel?”

What makes a novel great? Frankly, a novel can be set in any locale, real, or imaginary like the Yoknapatawpha County from which William Faulkner created his fictional worlds. Even more frankly, to be great a novel has to be literary. I never know any great novels in the genre of Sci-Fi, Romance, YA, or that sort. Why literary? Because literary fiction deals with characterization more deeply, more intensely. Not to mention the power of its descriptions of moods, scenes, and human characterization. Don’t yawn! Read The Sound and The Fury, especially the first two chapters on Benjy and Quentin, where human minds verging on insanity were skillfully wrought to the point of surrealism. Read Paris Trout by Pete Dexter. I felt a tingling in my spine just following this Trout character around. If you are taken over by such a villain in a novel, like Trout, or Lester Ballard in Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God, then that novel must be literary.

But I don’t think any writer would intend to write ‘The Great American Novel” when he conceives the thought of writing. Any writer who says “I want to write the great such and such novel” is illusionary. A novel that can successfully examine human flaws and humiliation and racial bigotry usually transcends any locale it’s set in and becomes a global recognition in the literary world. It could be set in Pago-Pago as in Rain by W. Somerset Maugham, or in a small Cajun community in Louisiana as in A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines; but these works rise above their locales to become classics.

But don’t concern yourself with such a lofty ambition to write “he Great American Novel.”

Every day when you sit down to write, try to stay true to yourself.

And if you still obsess about writing a classic, be merciless on yourself as if you have just been told by a demon: “Most live writers do not exist. Their fame is created by critics who always need a genius of the season, someone they understand completely and feel safe in praising, but when these fabricated geniuses are dead, they will not exist.”—Ernest Hemingway

So, do I want to write “The Great American Novel?” No. Just write!

One Tip for Writers

What makes a story interesting?

It’s the scenes. Each scene must have drama. Or it must set up drama. But more importantly, you have to be excited about the scenes you write. If you don’t feel excited about them, do you expect your readers to get excited when they read them?

Scenes that don’t have much drama are filled with trivialities, tepid dialogue, which neither shows much about characterization nor advances the plot. Consequently, they don’t sustain the story line. What is the most frequently cited reason by agents and editors for their rejection of a manuscript? The pace or intensity flags in several places. In other words, the story fails to hold interest.

Whenever you start struggling with a scene, the next thing you do is try to get through such a scene. Then, unavoidably it will be there like a blank sheet in your manuscript. Many writers tend to write certain scenes for the sake of keeping the story alive rather than vitalizing it. They hope readers would read everything they wrote. Many writers spend so much time and efforts in researching the materials for their stories, and consequently they fall victim to these materials. When too much of researched information appears in a story, it’s non-fiction taking over fiction. The story bogs down. The readers start skipping pages. A skilled writer, on the other hand, uses his researched materials judiciously. He only uses tidbits of such information in places where they belong. He uses them where they can enhance his characterization, the pacing of his story line, the mood of his chosen scenes.

Next time when you don’t feel like getting up in the morning to face a lukewarm scene, ask yourself: does it really belong?

Photo source: Goodreads

Book Review: You are Eating an Orange. You are Naked by Sheung-King

 

You are Eating an Orange. You are Naked by Toronto-based Sheung-King is more than a sad story of getting out of love. Actually, to be fully honest, the love story is less challenging and especially for millennials has a known patern: a long distance relationship set in different locations around the world. 

´The world is an oyster they say´ and this international couple - he, a young Cantonese translator, living in Canada, she, a beautiful Japanese living in Asia, a kind of influencer - has dates in Taiwan or in Hong Kong or in Prague. But there is something that does not work in fact, and they sound and seem different, living at different paces. They fill the silences with stories, stories he is telling her; their interpretation of the stories is the proof of their incompatibility, even when it comes to the speed of telling the story they are on different wave lengths. She escapes any attempt of settling down, he is so much in love with her.

´I am waiting. I am in love´. What about being then and there at the same time?

But there are more references than the folktales: She is reading Kundera, the Unbereable Lightness of Being which for me is one of the most revealing story of end of love. There are references to Murakami, the popular Japanese author who is inspired, among others, by Beatles´ songs. There are frequent references to ´Orientalism´, especially that condescendent part of perceiving the ´otherness´ in purely exotic terms, as it does not have the right to exist in itself. The end of the story chapter, which happens to sound like the end of the love story in general ´Kafka´s guide to love´ is a fine outline of the limits of love and its transposition in foreign places. There are also edgy ´artistic´ interpretations of Buddha as a luxury decoration item by a German artist who was inspired after visiting Bali.

The story is a first person account, with the man observing her - unnamed - and their relationship fading away. But it sounds that sometimes, brought in a foreign soil, our relationship with the world is distorted as well. We may be loved and love, but we are out of the words for living the love. 

As I had access to the book in audiobook format - with an inspired, unforgettable rendition by actor Kenny Wong - but in a printed/digital format I would have had access to a throughout list of references and possible annotations regarding some of the sources mentioned in the book.

You are Eating an Orange. You are Naked is one of those reads that makes you aware of so many nuances and intellectual details of our everyday life and perceptions. Love is a pretext to get to know the world through different eyes. May be a literary reference for this point of view too...

Rating: 4 stars

Book Review: Childhood by Tove Ditlevsen translated into German by Ursel Allenstein

Childhood as a joyful, happy, comfortable, free of pain and evolving in an almost perfect family friendly environment is representative for a very small amount of people around the world. Particularly decades ago, growing up as a child in a Europe at the brink of wars, industrial revolutions and economic and social changes was far from being any where close of a Disney storytale.

The memoir of Tove Ditlevsen, one of the most famous Danish authors, who died by suicide in 1976, reveals serial realistic memories of growing up in Copenhague, as a second child of a working class family at the beginning of the 20th century. The first installment of the Copenhague Trilogy - which includes Childhood, Youth, and Dependency - is a candid yet thoughtful account of her beginning, until the age of 14 - shortly after the confirmation age.

I had access to the book, translated into German from Danish by Ursel Allenstein, in audiobook format, read by the actress Dagmar Manzel which offered an excellent rendition in terms of emotional interpretation of the content. 

The earliest memories start at the age of 5 and will be updated until the age of 14, when she is about to get a job as a literary contributor but her poetry is rejected because of its loaded erotic content. Besides the inerent sociological aspects of the writing - her father was a communist and therefore have been often left jobless, the times of social and economic insecurity, the gender-biased treatment of her and her brother etc., Ditlevsen´s account has the power of freeing her. Those memories of memories are a reflection of her changes, expectations and observations about her feelings and her body. As for this first part of the memoir, she is more adding up the observations than filtering the reality through sharp rational categories. Given the role of the writing at this stage, adding up words contributes to creating that feeling of freedom that may be at a certain point a counter-point to the sadness and dramatic way of reading the world.

Childhood is a book with strong social and socialist roots, realistic and politely direct. It does not break limits or aims at changing the world, but cannot avoid sharing the reality as it appears to her through her life experience and those of the people around her. 

Personally, I am curious about the rest of the trilogy as well and I am glad that I had the chance to start it somehow.

Rating: 4 stars

Book Tour: A Mother´s Tale & Other Stories by Khanh Ha

 

´When the explosion splintered the bridge and chopped it into the turbulent river, the old man sat by the roadside in the rain and wept´.

Besides stories from eye-witnesses, intimate literary stories, particularly short stories, do help to re-imagine a world. Particularly a world at war, with itself, the others and the rest of the world. I appreciate war-set novels, but I believe that short stories convene the best the brevity and spontaneity of the war episodes. Because a war is not a long timespan, but instead it is made of short installments and episodes, experiences by both the attacked and the attacker, as well as the ´collateral´ viewers and potential victims.

A Mother´s Tale & Other Stories by Khanh Ha are literary stories inspired by the War in Vietnam. There are snippets of the everyday life during the war, individual encounters with the war giving a voice to local characters, simple humans entangled in the nets of a conflict brought upon them. There is a before and after a certain incident or conflict, which enters smoothly the everyday language and vocabulary. The environment is stamped by war traces which frames life, making up memories and formative experiences. ´The air smells of gasoline fumes´.  

The stories do have their own pace and dynamic, in sync with the everyday reality turn of events. I personally appreciated the multitude of the points of view reflected in this collection, from the children to the military men, the mothers and fathers. Thus, an extensive coverage offers itself as an alternative testimony.

Maybe with so new conflicts on the raise, we may easily forget the Vietnam War. However, collections of short stories like A Mother´s Tale...are here as a reminder of the pain and suffering and long trauma a war, any war, leaves in the individual and collective memories. 

Rating: 3.5 stars

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

Beginners. A Refreshing Journey

 

One of the things I love the most in life is learning: new skills, new languages, new technologies. I hope I will never stop. Lifelong learning not only determines the brain plasticity but also helps the brain to acquire new information that can improve our immunity and even offers us the chance of new professional endeavours - with equally positive effects on our wellbeings.

Beginners by the American journalist Tom Vanderbilt explores the settling of new habits, through a year-journey during which he tried to understand what really means to be the perfect beginner.

The inspiration to further explore this topic was her daughter, from the toddler years - when one experiences the ultimate learning experience until during the school years, when there is a different amount and quality of the information shared and acquired. ´In learning along with our children, by tackling things together as beginners, sharing the pratfalls and little triumphs, we can actually teach them one of the most valuable lessons of all: Just because you´re not immediately good at something does not mean you won´t eventually get it´.

Vanderbilt experiences various beginner´s immersion: chess, surfing, choir singing, drawing. Each of those classes do affect his worldview but also put into motion segments of the brain or muscles rarely used otherwise. My favorite shared experience concerns singing as it reveals how important voice - and the way in which it is built into our throat - is for our identity. 

´When we expand the self, we can see more´, and our brain - ´the novelty seeking machine´ - is taking the advantage of it. And when the brain is doing good, the rest of the body is also doing good. Your immunity is better, the heart and the lungs. Novelty triggers the brain to learn no matter the age and the professional background. Of course novelty should be introduced in short steps and without necessarily complicating everything. However, if a skill is to easy to learn it may not be worth your time anyway.

Beginners is sharing stories that you need to hear before embarking on a new experience. As many may have taken new classes during lockdowns, it explains why keeping your mind open and ready for intellectual changes is lifesaving. Practice without the pressure of outperforming is as important as doing volunteering work. It put the survival mood on hold while allows the body and the mind to flourish.

It is a recommended read if you are planning to start a new year - or maybe spend a partial lockdown - in a creative way. With such a life view, there is nothing to lose.

Rating: 3 stars

Book Review: Winter in Sokcho by Elisa Shua Dusapin translated by Aneesa Abbas Higginsa

 

I did it again! Second day in a row, I´ve read a book originally written in French in the English translation. This time was on purpose as the translation by Aneesa Abbas Higgins of Winter in Sokcho by the Korean-French Switzerland-based Elisa Shua Dusapin just won the National Book Award 2021 for translation. Considered by The Guardian one of the 10 Best New Books in Translation, it won over translations of books like Planet of Clay by Samar Yazbek or When we Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut. 

From the ´words in translation´ point of view, I did not feel like I am reading a work which was originally written in another language. The text flows faultless and it is a pleasure to read it.

The action of the novel takes place in Sokcho, a city in South Korea, 60 km. away from the border with North Korea. The unnamed narrator, a young woman in her 20s, returned there after university studies in the capital city of Seoul. She is working in a motel, almost empty during the winter months, in the city where she was born. Her mother works in the fish market and she never met her father, a Frenchman. When suddenly a tourist arrives, a Frenchman that may be of her father´s age, who is set to stay in Sokcho indefinitely, her world seems to change in violent outbursts. It is the fascination of someone/something new that challenges her otherwise uneventful daily schedule. It does not mean that something will happen between her and the foreigner - they may go eating in some places, he is talking with her a bit about his life and work as an illustrator, they talk about Normandy from where he is from, Monet, Maupassant...

´Okay. Tell me what you want me to look like´.

The subrreptitious element of surprise, as an existential deviation - mathematically sizeable - of the routine, is better reflected into the body. The narrator is overstuffing herself only for throwing up afterwards as a reaction of the body to the new - new thoughts, new people, abandonment of routines. It´s like the seismic wave of change is hitting lastly and the most violently the flesh of the body. But the same body is expected to look good, perfect, refined and sculpted through plastic surgery (South Korea is considered the center of beauty industry in the world). Her soon to be ex-boyfriend is into it. Her mother smelling of fish recommend it to her. Her aunt too. Maybe she is thinking about it as well. 

Winter in Sokcho is evocative and raises questions about how do we project or are projected into other people´s lives. It is also a book about solitude and loneliness of the body and the soul. 

I personally loved the cover too, which looks like a stereotypical travel billboard which suits any beach destination, no matter the country or the specific location.

The story of Winter in Sokcho does not necessarily resonate with my literary expectations but it´s well written/translated and do have that necessary troubling effect which has the potential to put under question your daily reality and routine of the mind.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Book Review: Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir translated by Sandra Smith

Intro: Can I pinch a bit myself? Me, practically a no one, with no literary training, I am reviewing - although for a very very small audience - sure 1, hopefully at least 5 -, Simone de Beauvoir? That Simone whose books were my inspiration for my rebelious teenage years. The Simone de Beauvoir whose Tous les gens sont mortels or The Third Sex or The Mandarins were my bread and butter and the red wine of my teenage years. I even dreamed one day to have a life partner so smart and famous like Sartre - not the case any more. Who I am to scribble out in the air my thoughts and bits of self-made literary criticism? I asked the wind. No one, comes the answer back, but still do it because it´s your mission to write and there is nothing else you can do better, anyway.

Inseparables translated from French by Sandra Smith, a story of a teenage friendship inspired from a real-life female friendschip, by Simone de Beauvoir was published this September, 35 years after de Beauvoir´s death. I rarely read French novels in translation but I was so eager to get this particular novel that I made an exception. Smith who translated, among others, all the books by Irène Némirovosky as well as Camus and Maupassant, offered an excellent English rendition that reads as fluently as an original version.

The novel was initially finished in 1954. De Beauvoir made no secret in have written it, as she mentions in her memoirs of having showed it to her lifetime companion, Sartre, who ´held his nose´ after reading it. She recognize herself that the novel is not worth publishing it and ignore it. 75 years later, her adopted daughter and companion for over 25 years, Sylvie le Bon de Beauvoir in charge with her literary legacy - who wrote the postface of my edition adding some letters exchanged between Simone and the female inspiration of the character of Andrée - discovered it and published it. 

Is this fair to risk such a publishing decision? Although there is no explicit mention in de Beauvoir´s will regarding the publishing of this book, doing it without the explicit agreement of the author may affect the literary legacy as such. Maybe a critical, annotated edition will be important in order to create the proper context and eventually avoid a negative reflection on her literary works. Was she really convinced that Sartre´s rejection was deserved or just accepted it for intellectual connivence reasons? We would definitely not have the answers to this questions, and one can speculate that Sartre tried in fact to belittle her - and probably he did it more than once - but as for now, that´s all we have, speculations...

But we have something else as well, which is Inseparables, labelled in France as ´a tragic lesbian love story´. A short - around 200 pages long - book about the friendship between Sylvie, a shy Catholic schoolgirl, and the rebelious Andrée Gallard. They met - in the book - as they were ten and stayed friends until Andrée´s death of encephalitis shortly after her 21st birthday. The model of this friendship was inspired by Simone de Beauvoir´s own relationship with Zaza, Elisabeth Lacoin, who died of the same malady as a young woman. Andrée´s fiancé, Pascal, is inspired by Maurice Merleau-Ponty, another important existentialist French philosopher at the time.

For me, personally, the book was a pleasure, my Proustian Madeleine as the style and the topics, as well as the approach in building the story and the characters reminded me of the times when I couldn´t wait to find my voice - as a woman and writing-addict. The meeting between the conventional - Sylvie - and the unconventional - Andrée - and the efforts towards outliving a social system based on caste and prestige, inamovible and rigid, is a typical feature of many novels written at the time, particularly by women. De Beauvoir herself developped such topics in her memoirs and novels. 

Reading such novels with the eyes of the 21st century, used with literary complexities and fine constructions of stories and characters may lead to the conclusion that books like this belong to the past. Many of the constraints and approaches of the characters, women characters, are obsolete and awkward and there is no fine style take to be found. 

However, a contextualisation of the story - in terms of mentality and social evolution - may prove that although maybe Inseparables is more ´intimate´ than a literary achievement, it is a novel shaped according to the classical literature matrix which does have something to say to an out-of-time audience. About women, about love, about what we expect from each other. 

Rating: 3.5 stars (but stars are largely relative in this case)

Book Review: Adas Raum by Sharon Dodua Otoo

 

My sudden interest in reading more and more books in German this year was a rewarding experience. It may be my enthusiasm of discovering so many authors, young women authors to be more specifically, but I am tempted also to say that the last years - five or so - marked an important moment in the development of a new literary trend. More about this in a different post, maybe, as I do have many more interesting German books on my TBR.

My latest experience, Adas Raum by Sharon Dodua Otoo is exquisite especially in terms of story construction. Think about, for instance, about small delicate beads coming up together in the most ingenious ways. A story made up of small stories, united through objects and details that one should be very careful to seize. Forget about inter-textuality. Adas Raum is focused on covering different angles and fragments of stories coming together for the sake of the story, and not as a demonstration of technical virtuosity. 

The women characters of the book, all called Ada, do come and sometimes go from different parts of the world and centuries: 15th century Ghana, UK (Ada Lovelace, for instance), KZ Buchenwald in Germany, Berlin/London/Accra. They are connected although individual in their complex life experience shared. Connected as women, as belonging to certain timeframes, as mothers. One should not be apologetic for pledging an important cause, as anything connected to identity politics. One needs to offer examples and content to such politics and storytelling is the more natural way to do it. Here resides the extraordinary strength of Adas Raum, in the inspiration offered through simple stories. 

I was fascinated while reading the first half of the story, hungry to discover not only the connections but the next installments of the story. The second part, which is more settled in the contemporary times and do make perfect sense within the rest of the story, has a lower intensity both in terms of construction and of ideas. It gives more space for thinking and enjoying the flow of the story as it comes.

Adas Raum is an essential contribution to the discussion in the German language and the German-speaking realm in general about the intersection between being a woman, different and Black, through the specific historical interactions. It is a serious conversation, pondering the details of the dialogue while offering substantial elements for understanding and further discussing the contextuality. 

The discussion about race and women of color is surprisingly young in Germany and the German-speaking space in general. Books like Adas Raum are forcing the public discourse not only to acknowledge the existence of such topics but offers at the same time the content for the public conversation,

Rating: 4 stars

Random Things Tours: Psychopaths Anonymous by Will Carver

 

´People are stupid.

Psychopaths are not. Usually´.

Meet Maeve ´a functioning alcoholic with a dependence on sex and an insatiable appetite for killing men´. Sounds tempting? Would you have such a girlfriend? A girlfriend introducing herself: ´My name is Maeve, and I´m a psychopath. It has been four weeks since the last kill´. Actually it can work, only try not to check her freezer, you may find some corpses stored there.

But the thing is that she is not alone and just creating a gathering of likeminded people sound as a great plan. A survival plan for some, the death for others. Psychopaths Anonymous is her project, but it should be kept secret for obvious reasons. But it is not such an easy task and while keeping it away from curious eyes, there may be some collateral victims along the way. 

Psychopaths Anonymous by international bestselling author Will Carver published by Orenda Books is one of the most hilarious books I´ve read this very busy bookish year. The writing makes your laught to tears, with a high dose of self-irony and cynicism. It is not funny, but hilarious, that kind of hilarious that the world deserve it sometimes. Why should life be taken so seriously, anyway?

The story is told by Maeve who is clearly talking so much - I´m the last person in the world to complain about someone, anyone talking too much anyway - but she is the character with the stronger literary consistence. An unforgettable character anyway, although I may be careful with someone like her in real life. In fact, all the characters in the book do have a liveable literary personality and even though the narrative is not always necessarily going somewhere, the main actors do really bring the salt and pepper into the tale.

Psychopaths Anonymous is for adventurous readers with a special sense of humour. I definitely need to see the movie based on the book. Would be very much worth the effort.

Rating: 4 stars

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

Book Review: The Woman in the Purple Skirt by Natsuko Imamura translated by Lucy North

 

The story of the woman in the purple skirt is told by the woman in the yellow cardigan. Late in the story we will be disclosed their personal details, even their names. Until the very end of the story though, they will be mentioned by their clothing details which may be not necessarily a permanent feature, but somehow label the characters in a certain way that make them socially visible.

The Woman in the Purple Skirt by the multi-awarded author Natsuko Imamura - translated by Lucy North - is unusual in the way in which the characters interact. They are not only lonely, but the perfect sociopaths too. The woman in the yellow cardigan is obsessed with the woman in the purple skirt: she follows her, knows everything about her habits (very few), her daily schedule and will even indirectly help her to get a job as a cleaning lady in a hotel. Although they will meet only shortly before the end of the story, only to dissapear from each other´s life for ever, the obsession is so creepy that feels threatening and existentially intrusive and disturbing.

But not the woman in the yellow cardigan should the woman in the purple skirt be afraid of, but the men and their greediness: the man who gropped her in the bus or the hotel director who took advantage of her. Although clumsy and awkward, there is a certain women solidarity which may excuse the initial creepiness. 

Communication is the weakest point of the characters. They not only ignore each other as existential creatures, but they have no idea what should do when facing each other. What words to use, how, why. You see someone, how should one connect with? Voyeurism is the indirect way to getting to someone, even though that someone will never acknowledge your very existence. 

The pace of the story is unequal, but I loved the smart twists in the end, conferring a certain - most welcomed - dynamism to the account.

The Woman in the Purple Skirt is an unsual book, hard to categorize and not an easy story but offering an immersive experience on the other side of the communication wall.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Book Review: No One is Talking about This by Patricia Lockwood

 

Patricia Lockwood turns of words and senteces is beautifying social media experience. From crumbs of words and emoticons she tied together a bundle of disparate beauty. In No One is Talking About This - shortlisted for this year Booker´s among other many mentions and accolades - I felt rolling again and again in a loop of wonderlands made of words. 

´Her most secret pleasures were sentences that only half a percent of people on earth would understand, and thatg no one would be able to decipher at all in ten years´. That´s a pretty good semiotic challenge in the 2.0 world, I think. There is a high poetry of her statements in the book - two parts, made of different paragraphs on random topics, shaped on the equally random ways in which we may write and think under the pressure of the social media - called ´portal´ in the book. But although there are dramatic topics - as per their definition not per the Lockwood´s interpretations, there is the absurdity of the everyday life which remains - Lockwood is not the first and not the last to mention this, and such observations were inspiring literature long before Twitter and Instagram took over out time - no matter if free or not; think about Dadaism, for instance - which at least had an equally powerful visual representation of the words. An example mentioned in No One...: ´(...) the video of a woman with a deformed bee for a pet, and the bee loved her, and then the bee died (...)´.

Many of us - me included - are often living in a simulation of reality, where one can write about no matter what, no matter when, even if there is no one reading it. But the creative force is stronger than its limitations. 

I was mesmerized by the first part of the book. I felt like I couldn´t live any more without those twists of words and about the storyteller - a she-, first person oriented account. But then, 100 pages or so later, there is the second part, which is supposed to be more serious and with a higher human impact - as it deals with the dead of a sick child - inspired of the author´s own experience - and the tone is the same and it is about time for me to figure out the emptiness of word juggling, with no other take outside, words-words-words (beautiful words, still). 

It looks as it was a switch from the general topic to a particular tragic event in the life of the storyteller but there is only the frame that changed as the take is the same. It´s like you have in back-off the same voice with no inflections or changes of tone, no matter what is the topic approached - how to make scrambled eggs, surviving a hurricane or terminal illness. This is the moment when the charms from the first part did not work for me any more. 

Still...that beautiful wording...it will be long until I will find another ´Millennial´ book with such a poetic strength.

Rating: 3 stars

Rachel´s Random Resources: Erma Does the Math by Ann Strawn illustrated by Anisha

 

How could I resist a book about mathematics? Particularly, about women that love mathematics and even practice it for a job? Ann Strawn´s Erma Does the Math ticks those fine boxes aimed at mathematics´ lovers and even more as it introduces a strong Black American woman, the author´s great aunt, Erma Tynes Walker.

Erma Tynes Walker worked alongside with Katherine Johnson at the Flight Analysis Department calculating flight trajectories for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Missions. Between 1943 and 1980 - times during which segregation policies was in place - she worked as Human Computer at Langley Jet Propulsion Lab in Hampton, Virginia.

Aunt Erma in the book is long retired. When Tameka is visiting her elderly aunt, she is happy to share with the little one the beauty and practicality of mathematics. Both those aspects are unfortunately largely ignored in the daily teaching process of mathematics, turning this very interesting mind challenge into a very isolated, dry activity. In fact, we are using mathematics - this applies also to those who may not like it - on a very regular basis: from basic price calculations to the time counting one needs in order to be in time on different occasions or the temperature update from one system to another, among many others.

Erma Does the Math is a reminder of the place of mathematics in the everyday life while cherishing the memory of a brave intelligent Black woman.

The writing style is accessible and appealing to a curious first grade(s) audiences. Both characters are relatable and empathic. The short questions at the end of the book may help both parents and educators to better structure a post-reading discussion.

Personally, I have not been impressed with the illustrations and felt that the book deserved probably a better visual representation. 

Rating: 3.5 stars

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

German Audiobook Review: Velvet Dreams/Träume aus Samt by Ulrike Renk

 

Träume aus Samt by the popular historical fiction writer Ulrike Renk, the last installment of the trilogy following the fate of a Jewish family exiled from Germany to the US during the Nazi times is a slow paced historical novel with a romantic touch. Read in German by the actress and singer Yara Blümel it make it into an useful reading for anyone with a medium to advanced German language knowledge.

Although it is part of a trilogy, (at least) this last part can be easily read as a stand-alone. Personally, I was interested in the book for very clear language reasons, but also into the rendition of the topic and the literary construction as such. 

I´ve did my best to like the book but my final conclusion was that was a nice try but not at all my cup of historical fiction tea. First, the character look very average and there is hardly anything that may make them outstanding - as human beings, in the first place. The details of the family life in America do not create an authentic environment, particularly from the point of view of the timely situation, during WWII, among other Jewish refugees. The pace is slow, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but most of the time, it does not seem to go anywhere; it´s like you are sitting on the other side of a window to someone´s living room and observe the coming and going of people, following their daily schedule, but nothing of particular importance. It can be in Washington DC or in Chicago, or in Berlin or in Moscow. Simple daily facts may look the same no matter what. For the real life it can be recomforting but it does not work at all for a novel.

For a relatively exigent reader of historical fiction, Träume aus Samt was not the best possible choice but at least it helped me to maintain my German at an appropriate level.

Rating: 2.5 stars

Corylus Books Blog Tour: The Commandments by Óskar Guðmundsson translated by Quentin Bates

 

This year I was offered the chance of discovering many Nordic, particularly Iceland-based ´Noir´ writers, and my revelation was that every one of the books I´ve read do have a particular approach on this very difficult genre. Nor only that compared to books belonging to other geographical areas, the reader may encounter many more women characters, not only as victims, but equally as investigators, but the choice of topic and its development are very different. 

The Commandments by Óskar Guðmundsson, translated by the indefatigable promoter of Icelandic writers Quentin Bates, the newest publishing achievement of the courageous Corylus Books that I´ve introduced to my readers on several occasions already, confirmed my assumption. I will further explain why.

In a village close to the Arctic Circle, the local priest is the victim of a violent murder. Salka Steinsdóttir, a former police detective who returned to the peaceful countryside in order to recover from a traumatic family episode, is in charge with the investigation. There are personal encounters which may interfer which may distract her, but just for a while. Her policewoman habits are stronger than love, a proof of her strength of character and resilience.

There are hints about the reasons of the crime from the very beginning, and the reader may be convinced sometimes that justice was delivered, although in a relatively non-conventional way. However, the story is more complex than that and within this predictable framework, the author creates suspense and introduces unexpected twists. 

Approaching a topic of continous actuality - mainly the cases of sexual abuses among the members of the Iceland clergy - The Commandments is a dark depiction of raw feelings, driven by revenge and wounded by abusive behavior tolerated until the social pressure became too strong to keep hiding everything under the carpet. The matter-of-factness of those involved, particularly the priest, is part of the moral ambiguity pertaining to some of the questions raised by the book. 

This unique take on crime writing makes this book, as a representative of Iceland Noir, a very strong literary contribution to the genre. For many, Iceland may sound as a happy place, where nothing bad can happen - except some banking collapse once in a while. It makes the reader curious to see the country beyond the travel listicles and stereotypical Nordic Lights recommendations. Although in a very dark way, it makes the country and its story real and enticing. 

A special mention for the cover, which resonates fully with the Gothic ambiance of the book.

The Commandments is intended to be the first installment of a series featuring Salka Steinsdóttir and I can´t wait to read more by Óskar Guðmundsson. 

Rating: 4.5 stars

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

Book Review: How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

´How glorious it felt to be powerful´.

´No one has the right to take from us that which the Spirit gave our ancestors´.

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue is a novel of a rare complexity both in terms of topics and on the characters and narrative constructions. The book is very different in terms of approach and tone - and sense of humour - from Behold the Dreamers but it´s unique and complex on topics that are becoming more and more embraced by the literary realm: ecological disaster, abusive exploitation of resources, the mixture between colonial money and local corruption. Such topics are becoming more and more featured in literature those days, as the urgency of taking appropriate measures at political and social level are required. 

The action is taking place in a fictional African village set in a fictional African country led by ´His Excellency´. The Americans and the European Masters are dealing with him - a former military, with a leopard hat one of the many Mobutus of the continent, sharing the profits, while in the local settlements affected by the company plans children are dying, and the air and the waters are polluted. First it was the rubber, now it is the oil, always a curse of the resources, an occurence within Africa - but not only - take, for instance, the case of some Latin American countries as well, such as Venezuela. The individual names of the characters - Nubia, Lusaka, Tunis, Konga - reverberates specific geographies and political entities.

The dystopian feature of the location where most of the book is placed is symbolic for the overall situation of Africa. It is ´that´ Africa that the ´white man´ is considering at a very general level because more than the resources and their distribution, it does not matter too much. The only country mentioned is America, as a source of both evil and inspiration - particularly for further revolutionary actions to be pursued for gaining the freedom. 

The story is told through collective - ´the children´ - or individual voices of the villagers. Thus, one may find out not only about the fate of different characters, but also about the events unfolding within a timeframe from 1988 until 2020. From the beginning until the end, there is a story of a failure. Some may dream of revolution and even partially plan it, but the local conjectures, the human weaknesses and the improbability of winning against an impressive ´imperial´ structure do not allow it otherwise. In the end, the village itself will be destroyed, as it was not enough to have its children killed by the poison they were drinking and breathing. The dissapearance is official and irreversible.

Lost generations, lost chances, erased future. In the end, all goes in ´the land beyond´. The aims were violent, indeed, but they only brought more violence. The anger remains, the failure persists.

For me, it was a very long read, that took me a couple of good months to finish. I needed to think about the details, to understand the prose and connect with possible realities. Now, as I am finally done, I feel ready to continue my investigation into the literary interpretations and insertion of such urgent contemporary topics. 

The social and political critique in How Beautiful We Were is poignant. The fictional tools are used creatively to create a story with an inner pace of an old times epos. This is how the memories are saved, through stories, elegiac remainders. 

Rating: 4.5 stars