tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post6887554117766619234..comments2024-03-27T16:48:21.039-05:00Comments on Wuthering <br>Expectations: The climate of the Congo triggered a kind of dementia - I am puzzled by Bernardo Atxaga's novel about the Belgian CongoAmateur Reader (Tom)http://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-38866608156297949542013-01-30T09:49:28.088-06:002013-01-30T09:49:28.088-06:00Lisa, you anticipate my first objection. Basque C...Lisa, you anticipate my first objection. Basque Country was colonized by Rome!<br /><br />Do you think there is some sort of allegorical correspondence - Spain is Belgium, the Basques are the Congolese? I hope not. The ethical problem becomes much worse. Claiming other people's suffering as my own is disastrous.<br /><br />Perhaps it would help if I could see how Atxaga's "different perspective" is actually different.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-71124161403089353912013-01-30T05:27:15.839-06:002013-01-30T05:27:15.839-06:00Not as fancy as satirising PC theory, just holding...Not as fancy as satirising PC theory, just holding colonialism itself up to ridicule. Which of course has been done before, but not (as far as I know) by an author who is himself a citizen in a colony and therefore has a different perspective to either a colonial observer, or someone writing from a post-colonial perspective after the colonisers have departed. (You don't have to accept that the Basque peoples are being colonised by Spain, to acknowledge that some Basques think they are.)Lisa Hillhttp://anzlitlovers.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-83599776868567599222013-01-29T15:27:20.057-06:002013-01-29T15:27:20.057-06:00I think you have read a lot more about the Congo t...I think you have read a lot more about the Congo than I have - it is quite likely this novel would annoy you.<br /><br />I was on the alert for a storytelling / narratology angle, but heck if I see it. The style and structure is that of a well-made realistic "international" novel of our time.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-64406808459945567452013-01-29T13:09:03.791-06:002013-01-29T13:09:03.791-06:00Obabakoak was a post-modern novel, it's true, ...Obabakoak was a post-modern novel, it's true, but a post-modern novel whose primary interest was in the nature of pure story-telling. Not sure if that is helpful.<br /><br />I should read this book; I've read a lot about the Congo, and I think perhaps this would annoy the hell out of me.obookihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03885121629202810216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-20067144007697194942013-01-29T12:43:06.456-06:002013-01-29T12:43:06.456-06:00Maybe. Not quite, though.
Atxaga does take a mor...Maybe. Not quite, though.<br /><br />Atxaga does take a moral position on Leopold et. al., a conventional one. I think that is clear enough.<br /><br />The ethical problem is using the larger tragedy or crime to lend a false moral weight to an otherwise ordinary story. <br /><br />If the background is just the background the novel is just a second-rate thriller in an unusual setting. <br /><br />So, giving Atxaga credit, it must be about something else.<br /><br />The ethics of the "outsider" novel is a little different. These officers are the insiders, the criminals, the tyrants.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-43776702006394700162013-01-29T11:36:10.795-06:002013-01-29T11:36:10.795-06:00Perhaps the problem is that "the nightmare wo...Perhaps the problem is that "the nightmare world that was the Belgian Congo" is not what the novel is <i>about</i>; maybe the Congo is simply where the novel is set, and the novel is about the officer skimming profits to fund his mistress' seventh house. That this pettiness takes place against the backdrop of horrific events might be the point, maybe, that our own small evils are more important to us than the greater evils in whose shadow we live. Or something. I haven't read the novel. But I get the impression you want Atxaga to take some sort of moral position regarding King Leopold's private African fiefdom, but Atxaga refuses to do so because how the author feels about the Belgian Congo is beside the point. I guess. Sometimes a background is just a background.<br /><br />I am of course reacting this way because last year I wrote a book set partially in present-day Democratic Republic of Congo. Horrific things go on in the background, but the book is not about the DRC; it's about the foreigners (UN troops and NGO aid workers) who come to the DRC.scott g.f.baileyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05726743149139510832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-71642498588746262572013-01-29T10:00:40.651-06:002013-01-29T10:00:40.651-06:00Maybe there is no mystery and the book is just a t...Maybe there is no mystery and the book is just a trifle. A lot of work for so little consequence, then, because the details and the imaginative re-creation of the setting are convincing and consistent with what I have read elsewhere.<br /><br />Or there is a conceptual frame for which I am missing the referents, something like what Lisa saw, something about Basque culture or nationalism. <br /><br /><i>King Leopold's Ghost</i> is a masterpiece, although I do not doubt that there are other books on the subject of similar quality. Hochschild's book is as much about the <i>response</i> to the atrocities in the Congo, like a book about U.S. slavery that spends a lot of its time with abolitionists.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-13131111135031917052013-01-29T09:27:33.279-06:002013-01-29T09:27:33.279-06:00A friend of mine read this a really liked it.
Th...A friend of mine read this a really liked it.<br /><br /> The "mystery" that you present is intriguing. As someone who tries to dig for meaning I may enjoy the challeange of reading this. <br /><br />I wonder what Atxaga has about the book. I know that some authors are tight lipped about this stuff. However If he has opened up about the narrative it may be enlightneing. <br /><br />I have had King Leopold’s Ghost on my bookshelf for several years and I really need to get to that.Brian Josephhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15139559400312336791noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-12867604345529505352013-01-29T09:25:54.121-06:002013-01-29T09:25:54.121-06:00So far so good. Rise, that is certainly one quest...So far so good. Rise, that is certainly one question. I am approaching the book from the perspective that the reader has - is <i>supposed to have</i> - some significant knowledge of the human rights history of the Belgian Congo, and is supposed to be wondering why the background never moves into the foreground.<br /><br />The alternative is just too bizarre.<br /><br />Lisa, I read <a href="http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/04/29/seven-houses-in-france-by-bernardo-atxaga/" rel="nofollow">your review</a> but did not understand it. Satire of what? Post-colonial theory? You write that "there is always a sense that the colonisers will eventually get their just desserts." I did not find that in the novel at all. A few of the colonisers were killed in unusual circumstances, which is not the same thing.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-15571393358141899802013-01-29T01:48:06.453-06:002013-01-29T01:48:06.453-06:00Here's my review: I thought it was a post-colo...Here's my review: I thought it was a post-colonial satire: http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/04/29/seven-houses-in-france-by-bernardo-atxaga/Lisa Hillhttp://anzlitlovers.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-1703662037147019002013-01-29T01:17:38.533-06:002013-01-29T01:17:38.533-06:00Are you asking: Was Atxaga being indirect? I don&#...Are you asking: Was Atxaga being indirect? I don't have the answer. But the situation you painted reminds me of Chekhov going all the way to a forsaken prison island (Sakhalin) to write something <i>committed</i>. Is Atxaga here being intentionally "uncommitted"?<br /><br />To add to the related texts, someone alerted me about this Dutch tome <i>Congo: A History</i> by David Van Reybrouck. It's supposed to come out in translation this year (or soon).Risehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17446964640160585194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-49160032613339855552013-01-29T01:00:02.241-06:002013-01-29T01:00:02.241-06:00Having said that, our Shadow Panel did get a menti...Having said that, our Shadow Panel did get a mention on his web-site (in Basque) last year, so he's not all bad :)Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07546287562521628467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3383938214852108244.post-61257249060989977582013-01-29T00:59:00.946-06:002013-01-29T00:59:00.946-06:00Nope, none here. I was fairly disappointed with t...Nope, none here. I was fairly disappointed with this one - not sure that there was anything there really...<br /><br />My view on the matter:<br />http://tonysreadinglist.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/oppressive-in-every-sense-of-word.htmlAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07546287562521628467noreply@blogger.com