My ambition this summer was to read extensively in Arabic literature. Eh, I did all right, but I will have to save Ibn Battuta’s Travels and the second half of Leg over Leg for some other time.
The Arabian Nights (14th c.), many hands – In the
great Hassan Haddawy translation.
I and My Chimney (1856), Herman Melville – Because I saw
the actual chimney last month. I thought
it was made up.
I, Claudius (1934), Robert Graves – Is this a book
for people who know Roman history, or is it a way to learn Roman history? I suppose both.
Herself Surprised (1941), Joyce Cary – Classic mid-century
British-adjacent novelistic eccentricity.
“I never saw Rozzie laugh right out in her life but once, and that was
when she lost all her money and her left leg in the same week” (NYRB edition, p.
96). Like I, Claudius,
interesting in the ways it is a novel pretending not to be a novel.
Laura (1942), Vera Caspary – I was almost irritated by the voice of the narrator of the first third of the novel. But then the narrator changes and there is a twist that completely changes the story - that moves me to an entirely different story - and everything was fine
The End of the Affair (1951), Graham Greene – Now that
I have read it I do not understand the reputation of this novel, likely related
to my puzzlement over that of Brideshead Revisited. I mean, characters debate theism. Am I supposed to take that seriously?
Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), James Baldwin – An
entirely different way to write a novel that is serious about religious belief.
Fountain and Tomb (1975), Naguib Mahfouz – Fragments,
some of which almost amount to stories, which thirty years after Midaq Alley
again depict life in one little corner of Cairo, this time largely from a child’s
point of view. Formally and
sociologically quite interesting. “But
that’s how stories are told in our alley” (96).
Set in the 1920s, the book is of course full of gangsters.
Hurricane Season (2016), Fernanda Melchor – Perhaps the
most disgusting book I have ever read, up there with Cormac McCarthy’s Child
of God (1973), but where McCarthy aestheticizes the language, shoving
signifiers of beauty against the appalling subject matter, Melchor lets the
ugliness spill over everything. I would
like to think of the novel as a fantasy, a horror novel, but I am afraid it is
also a Condition of Mexico novel – poor Mexico!
And the most outrageous, maybe the best, part was the last chapter, the
last three pages, a travesty of hope.
Telephone (2020), Percival Everett – Every Everett
novel I have read is some kind of balance or reconciliation of the postmodern and
domestic novel, and this one leans the most to the domestic side. It is the sad story of parents with a mortally
ill child. But it is also the most conceptually
radical Everett book I have encountered, an art object that attacks the idea of
a stable text.
PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy in the Islamic World (2016), Peter Adamson
POETRY
Selected Poems (1851-1901), George Meredith
Poems by Emily Dickinson (1859-80) – A chapbook
length selection sold at the Dickinson House in Amherst, well chosen by three
of the amazing house guides. It is worth
going to the Dickinson House just to meet the guides.
The Music of Human Flesh (1966-77) &
Adam of Two Edens (1989-95) &
If I Were Another (1990-2005), Mahmoud Darwish
IN FRENCH & PORTUGUESE
La vendetta (1830) &
La bourse (1832), Honoré de Balzac – I had read La
bourse (The purse) in English, but La vendetta was new, #46
in my reading of the Comedie humaine.
Almost halfway! I will never read
them all.
Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932), Louis-Ferdinand
Céline – Some notes back here. If only Céline
could read that Melchor novel.
Dia do Mar (1947), Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen
Vou Mudar a Cozinha (2022), Ondjaki – I’m Going to
Move the Kitchen, stories from Angola and elsewhere.
A Descoberta das Ilhas Selvagens (2024), José Pedro
Castanheira – The second self-indulgent diaristic travel book I have read in
two months by a Portuguese journalist, this time about a sailing trip to desert
islands belonging to Madeira. A great
book for the Portuguese language learner, full of useful vocabulary with strong
context and much repetition. That is all
I am asking for. Yes, the book comes
with its own bookmark.
How did your copy of Telephone end? When I reviewed it a few years ago, I hoped other readers would compare the ending they got to the one I got, but didn't find anyone else who read it until now.
ReplyDeleteI like following all your interesting reads. May September bring more.
ReplyDeletewww.rsrue.blogspot.com
Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI tracked down two of the three endings to Telephone. One ending is at a border crossing; the other ends in a hospital. Both are the kind of "almost an ending" endings Everett likes. I suppose the border crossing ending is a notch more hopeful.
The great conceptual, art world move is that the ending is almost the least of it.
But yes, if I ever find a copy with the third ending I will read it.
Oh, I am SO relieved to read your opinion of Hurricane Season. Truly a disgusting book if I ever read one, and yet everyone else on the International Booker Prize Shadow Jury loved it. “It’s so powerful…” and all that embracing of the horrific as if revealing it makes it palatable.
ReplyDeleteIn other news, I threw out the random thought of a Norwegian Literature Challenge, and you took me up on it. So, even if it’s just you and I, let’s do it! Any particular month better than another for you? Any thoughts on replacing the Japanese Literature Challenge with Norwegian? After all, things do come to an end.
I think November is a good time for Norway…then I can also keep the Japanese Literature Challenge.
DeleteI had a similar experience with Laura. It's risky writing a deliberately annoying character - almost as risky as Scott writing the deliberately boring Baron of Bradwardine! But I ended up really enjoying / admiring the novel and would have assigned it in my mystery class if I could have found an edition readily available up here.
ReplyDeleteAnnoying narrators do not normally bother me. They are legitimate artistic choices. But this one had me paging ahead in the hopes that he did not get the whole book. Thankfully, he did not! And there is certainly a payoff by the end. I can imagine that Laura would be interesitng to teach.
ReplyDeleteI am all in on the Norwegian Challenge. Septology, why not, why not. I take the ugliness of Hurricane Season as another legitimate artistic choice, so I mean it more as a description than as a judgment. But it was amusing, in a sense, reading it so soon after the once shocking, now tame and cuddly Céline novel. Less amusing in other senses - some of Hurricane Season is rough going! People who found it "powerful" should perhaps read Percial Everett's Erasure, although I doubt that would have much effect.