Month: March 2011

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2010 Books in Translation Novella

Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman – Friedrich Christian Delius

  Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch

Five words from the blurb: Rome, German, woman, war, daydream

Beside the Sea was one of my favourite reads last year and so I am always keen to try books from Peirene, a wonderful new publisher.

Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman is set in Rome and follows a young, pregnant German woman as she walks through the city. It is 1943, but the war seems a long way away. She feels safe as she daydreams about her baby, but she slowly realises that her husband isn’t in the same environment. He is in Northern Africa and there is a good possibility that he will not return to see his child.

The book is very unusual in that it is written as a single 125 page sentence. Unfortunately I failed to warm to the writing style and it irritated me throughout the book. I longed for a full stop and thoughts about how nice a chapter break would be began to occupy my mind. The endless sentence gave the book a rambling feel which stretched my tolerance to breaking point. The addition of a few full stops would have done a lot to improve an otherwise beautifully written book.

….in any case it was better to keep quiet, and as a woman it was even more important to restrain oneself, how quickly an idea or thought can escape one’s lips, improvident words could help the enemy, The enemy is listening!, she had learnt, or it might be dangerous on a personal level, there is the weapon of silence and the weapon of words, she had learnt with the League of German Girls, and as she preferred to remain silent anyway, especially if she was not confident of her thoughts and her faint doubts were not assuaged, she knew what she had to do, to trust patiently in God, and continue undeterred along her path,…

With words these profound I think it is important to take the time to pause and reflect, but this was impossible given the structure of the book. My problem with the writing style was quite sad, because some wonderful ideas were buried under the gimmick.

Another problem I had is that nothing actually happens. The entire book consists of one scene in which a woman walks across the city, reflecting on her life.  I’m afraid I like my books to have a plot and so books that give an isolated insight into a woman’s mind do little for me.

I know a lot of people love this book, but it was too experimental for me.

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I seem to be the only one who doesn’t love it:

….my favourite of Peirene’s titles so far, and possibly the most convincing narrative voice I have read for a very long time.  Stuck in a Book

What the author does quite cleverly is to create a mood where time feels suspended. Novel Insights

….a mesmerizing work. Caribousmom

….a meaningful and original glimpse of the mind of one women during the Second World War. Iris on Books

Categories
Orange Prize Other

Who will be longlisted for the 2011 Orange Prize?

The longlist for the 2011 Orange Prize will be announced on the 16th March.

The prize is awarded to the woman who, in the opinion of the judges, has written the best, eligible full-length novel in English.

As today is International Women’s Day I thought it was the perfect time to predict which books might make it onto the list this year.

Here are the 20 novels that I think will be selected next week:

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We Had it So Good by Linda Grant

The Birth of Love by Joanna Kavenna

The History of History: A Novel of Berlin by Ida Hattemer-Higgins

When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman

Five Bells by Gail Jones

Room by Emma Donoghue

The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud

True Things About Me by Deborah Kay Davies

Mr Chartwell by Rebecca Hunt

Great House by Nicole Krauss

The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna

Annabel by Kathleen Winter

Sex and Stravinsky by Barbara Trapido

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O’Farrell

Mr. Rosenblum’s List by Natasha Solomons

 

The London Train by Tessa Hadley

The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst

The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

Which books do you think will make it onto the Orange longlist?

Have I missed any obvious contenders?

Categories
2011

When God Was a Rabbit – Sarah Winman

When God Was a Rabbit is the story of a brother and sister growing up in England during the 1970s. The family seem to be a magnet for literary themes – with everything from paedophilia, murder and terrorism affecting them. Initially I worried that too much was happening, but I quickly realised that this book isn’t meant to be realistic. The ridiculous number of tragic events meant that it was impossible to take anything seriously and so the mood was far lighter than should have been possible given the amount of suffering taking place.

I found myself laughing as someone was kidnapped and rolling my eyes at the mention of cancer, but I was also moved by many of the events – especially those towards the end of the book. This combination of humour with dark themes is difficult to achieve and I was very impressed.

My father’s Evening News was handed around in a quiet daze. All vital signs were missing and so his Atheist family had agreed to turn off the life support machine.

“Christ that was quick,” said Nancy. “What were they doing? Saving electricity?”

“Not funny Nancy,” said my mother hiding her face. “Not funny at all.”

But even I saw my father laugh and my brother, and Jenny Penny swore that she saw my mother laugh as she looked up from her hot chocolate. She loved moments like that. The inclusiveness of family. I guess because she had none.

I especially loved the beginning of the book – the childhood innocence added to the charm. Naming a pet rabbit “God” is something only a young child can get away with, but I loved the way it allowed for all sorts of profound statements to be sprinkled through the text.

“And so at Christmas, god finally came to live with me.”

I’m sure that some people will find this sort of thing distasteful, but I loved the originality.

The book was easy to read and had a gripping plot. I can see it being a big hit with book clubs as I’m sure it will generate a lot of discussion.

The enormous number of themes in this book should have been a recipe for disaster, but somehow Sarah Winman managed to make it work. Recommended to anyone looking for an entertaining, original book that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

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Categories
Blogging Other

Publishing Events, Jean Auel and World Book Night

When I began blogging I never dreamt that it would lead to the events I’ve been lucky enough to experience recently. The past few weeks have been particularly exciting and so I thought I’d take the opportunity to let you know what I’ve been up to.

A Celebration of Women’s Fiction

Pan Macmillan invited me to attend an evening celebrating women’s fiction.

Pan Macmillan Night
I'm in green, at the back, in the middle of the photo.

I felt a little out of place as the event focused on chick lit, but I met up with Elle from Trashionista and I enjoyed learning about the world of UK Romance blogging. I hadn’t heard of her blog before, but it made me realise how little interaction I have with bloggers from different genres. I’m going to make the effort to familiarise myself with a wider range of bloggers (especially on Twitter) as we all share that passion for books and have many of the same issues with blogging, reading and balancing the two.

The night was very glamourous and several celebrities were in attendance. Unfortunately I’m very unobservant and so failed to spot any!

I came away with copies of two books:

 

Emma Donoghue’s Room was also being promoted that night and so I was able to let people know how wonderful it was. I don’t think that was necessary though – copies of her book were flying off the shelves and lots of other people were raving about it too!

It was a lovely evening and I felt very spoilt.

Author Speed Dating

You may have already seen that Chris Cleave mentioned this event on the Guardian blog. Sceptre invited several bloggers to meet a wonderful group of authors in central London. I was particularly excited to meet Andrew Miller and Chris Cleave, two authors I love (if you haven’t read their books then you really should). I was also introduced to many new-to-me authors including Jenn Ashworth, Jill Dawson and Giles Milton. 

Me with Andrew Miller
Me with Chris Cleave

 

I got to talk to a group of three or four authors for 20 minutes before moving on to another set. They let us know about their new books and I explained a little about my life as a blogger. I have never felt more like a celebrity and was embarrassed by the attention lavished on us. Time flew past and the whole day was very special. I’m looking forward to reading the books written by these authors when they are released later this year.

An Evening with Jean Auel

Last Monday I headed to The Natural History Museum in London to hear Jean Auel talk about her Earth’s Children series. I found her fascinating. She was in conversation with palaeoanthropologist, Professor Chris Stringer, and I was impressed by how knowlegable Jean Auel was about the life of early humans. She has been deeply involved in archaeological research since she began writing the series 30-years-ago and seemed to have a close relationship with those in the field.

I loved hearing her talk about her trips around the world to visit important archaeological sites and was impressed to learn that she has tried most of the techniques mentioned in the books herself. She didn’t stop at making snow caves and starting fires, but even went as far as tanning leather using the brain of the animal. It is always nice to know that the facts in books like these are based on thorough research, but I’m glad she is the one squashing brains and I only have to read about them! If you ever get the chance to listen to Jean Auel talk then I highly recommend that you go.

World Book Night

For World Book Night I gave away copies of A Fine Balance at my son’s school. It was a wonderful experience! I was worried that people wouldn’t be interested in a literary chunkster, but they seemed genuinely delighted to receive a copy. The great thing was that it became a catalyst for conversation about books. By the time I’d finished giving away my copies all the little groups of parents/teachers were talking about books. I could hear people recommending a whole range of different genres to each other and I think that this conversation about books was the most important aspect of World Book Night. I’m sure that many people will read books based on the recommendations they received and if that is the case then WBN can be declared a success.

Categories
Other

A Fine Balance is the best book ever written!

Photo credit: Ben Garrison, Flickr

A Fine Balance is my favourite book. It is set in India in the mid-1970 and shows how the lives of four ordinary people are overturned by the Emergency, a period of political turmoil and violence.

It brings the country to life, enabling you to feel what it was like to live in the slums, struggling to survive each day.

Photo credit: Ben Garrison, Flickr

But it also shows life in the beautiful, rural areas.

Photo credit: Shayon Ghosh, Flickr

There is violence and death, but there is also love and an endless feeling of hope that warms my heart.

Photo credit: Sistak, Flickr

A Fine Balance has everything that you could ever want in a book:

  • fantastic characters
  • an exciting plot
  • vivid descriptions of a different way of life
  • fascinating facts
  • an array of human emotion

I’m going to be giving out copies of A Fine Balance in my local community for World Book Night. I really hope that I can help to bring the magic of this book to a few people who wouldn’t otherwise have come across it.

If you’d like to know more about the book then please take a look at the profile I created on Book Drum.

Categories
Other

Read or Reject #3

My New Year’s Resolution is to give up on books that aren’t outstanding. I don’t want to miss out on a gem that happens to have a poor beginning, so I hope that you can help me sort the wheat from the chaff.

Should I continue reading any of these books?

Singing in the Shrouds by Ngaio Marsh 

I foolishly allowed myself to run out of audio books and so grabbed this one from the shelf without doing any research. I hadn’t read any Ngaio Marsh before, but wanted to experience one of her classic crime books. This one is a murder mystery set on a ship. It struggled to hold my attention from the beginning, but I can’t decide if this is due its unsuitability as an audio book or whether I’d have the same issues with the print version. It was slow, felt very dated and the characters were quite irritating. Do you think the print version would be any better?

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Snowdrops by A D Miller

I ordered this book from my library after seeing several people raving about it on the Booker forum. It had been described as a Russian thriller similar to Child 44, but apart from the fact they are both set in Russia I couldn’t see any similarities. Snowdrops has a strange writing style where things are written in Russian (and then translated into English in brackets). It had a very slow pace and nothing had happened when I gave up at about the 80 page mark. My problems with the book probably only indicate its suitability for the Booker. Perhaps I’ll re-read it when it makes the shortlist?

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli

I know that a lot of people really loved this one and so I’m quite sad to be going against the grain. It started off well, but after a gripping first chapter I began to lose interest. I failed to warm to the characters and the plot didn’t do enough to grab my attention. I’m afraid this is another victim of my harsh new rejection policy.

Other books I dipped into, but failed to finish:

The Still Point by Amy Sackville

The Financial Lives of the Poets by Jess Walter

Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman

Tony and Susan by Austin M. Wright

Was I wrong to give up on any of these books?

Is there magic lurking in the final pages?