Category: Books in Translation

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Books in Translation

The Death of the Adversary – Hans Keilson

The Death of the Adversary Translated from the German by Ivo Jarosy

Five words from the blurb: masterpiece, dictator, Germany, Jewish, tyranny

Hans Keilson wrote this book whilst hiding from the Nazis during WWII. The narrator is a Jewish boy who witnesses a dictator rising to power. We see the way his life is changed by the increasing influence of this evil man. Although it is obvious he is referring to Hitler, the dictator is never named, giving the book a universal relevance.

The Death of the Adversary is so well written that I quickly gave up noting every profound quote that I found – there are original, powerful statements about the human psyche on almost every page.

People who ask what they should do had better do nothing at all. That is exactly the great misfortune, that they don’t know what to do but think they ought to do something. Those who know what they have to do and where they stand, act at the right moment; they act spontaneously, without having to enquire in advance what on earth they ought to do.

As you can imagine, the book gets progressively darker and more painful to read as the dictator’s power becomes greater. Some of the scenes were heartbreaking – the simplicity of the words a stark contrast to the complexity of the surrounding text.

They took the old people away.
My father carried his rucksack on his shoulders. Mother wept. I shall never see them again.

This is the kind of book where I wish I didn’t give ratings. It is clearly a masterpiece, containing powerful statements about evil, hatred and human endurance, but it is a book to appreciate rather than to enjoy. It contained very little plot and at times I found it difficult to motivate myself to read it. This is a book that requires effort and concentration and I have read so many books about WWII that I often struggled to focus on the complex sentence structures.

This is clearly one of the most important pieces of writing to come out of this period and if you are willing to put in the effort you will be rewarded with new ways of looking at the world.

Recommended to fans of deep, dark literary fiction.

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I read this as part of German Literature Month. Head over to Lizzy’s Literary Life and Beauty is a Sleeping Cat to find out about a wide range of German literature.

Categories
2011 Books in Translation

The Fat Years – Chan Koonchung

The Fat Years Translated from the Chinese by Michael S. Duke

Five words from the blurb: China, truth, memory, cheerfulness, world

The Fat Years is billed as “the notorious thriller they banned in China”, but closer inspection reveals that the fictional elements of this story are minimal and I think it can be more accurately described as a controversial exposé of the political situation in China today.

The book is set in the near future and revolves around a small group of people who realise that a month has disappeared from official records and no-one can remember what happened. The general population is suspiciously cheerful, seemingly oblivious to the situation. The friends travel around the country in search of the truth behind the strange event, uncovering numerous situations previously hidden from the public.

Initially I struggled to follow the plot because there were a large number of characters and many cultural references that I was unfamiliar with, but I persevered and after about 70 pages I began to understand what was happening. The more I read, the more impressed I was. The Fat Years is thought -provoking, clever and frighteningly realistic. This book was written a few years ago, but several of Koonchung’s predictions have already come true and the line between fiction and reality is incredibly small. There were several sections that I found unbelievable, but a quick bit of Internet research revealed that the events described had in fact happened.

The Fat Years does a fantastic job of explaining China’s place in the Global economy and provides an insight into their thoughts on the rest of the world. I admit that some of the financial aspects of the book went over my head, but some of the policies for bringing China out of recession were bold enough to give me real food for thought.

Twenty-five per cent of the balance of every National Bank savings account was to be converted into vouchers for use in China only. One third of these to be spent within ninety days, and two thirds within six months.

The book also explained the population’s thoughts on the political situation of the country.

…..in a moderately well-off society, the people fear chaos more than they fear dictatorship.

The ending was particularly profound and I’m sure I’ll be thinking about it for a long time to come.

The Fat Years won’t be for everyone, but if you have an interest in Chinese ideology or the financial influence of China on the world then this as a must read.

Highly recommended.

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Categories
1990s Books in Translation Novella

Breathing Underwater – Marie Darrieussecq

Breathing Underwater Translated from the French by Linda Coverdale

Five words from the blurb: coast, daughter, clues, looking, mistake

Last year I was amazed by the power of the novel, Beside the Sea, and so asked for recommendations of books with a similar level of impact. Breathing Underwater was suggested as a book that not only shared the themes of Beside the Sea, but also the power. I found it interesting to compare the two novellas and I think this pair would make an interesting combination for those studying differences in writing style.

Breathing Underwater follows a woman who walks out on her husband and then takes her daughter to the seaside. Her husband hires a private detective to track them down, but this isn’t a fast-paced chase. The events are very slow, with each scene intricately described.

She leaves the child on top of the dune. She feels something like relief, a pause; the intuition that she can leave her there, absorbed by the sea, eyes straining from their sockets; in the redundancy of the fishing poles, sinkers, floats, and even the buckets and shovels. She won’t rush down to the beach straight away, she won’t run off to drown in the waves; unlike logs blazing in fireplaces or outdoor bonfires, the sea does not make itself our friend, it doesn’t crackle within arm’s reach: you look at it for a long time before it dawns on you that you can touch it.

The book had very little plot and I often found that the surroundings were so well described that I forgot what was happening.

The reader is a casual observer of events, never quite understanding what will happen next or the reasons for the actions. This was a problem for me as it meant that I felt no emotional connection to the characters. The multiple narrators in this short book increased this sense of detachment.

If you enjoy slow, thoughtful narratives then I’m sure you’ll love this book, but I’m afraid the writing was too flowery for me and I don’t think it came close to matching the emotional power of Beside the Sea.

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Categories
2000 - 2007 Books in Translation

Absent – Betool Khedairi

Absent Translated from the Arabic by Muhayman Jamil

Five words from the blurb: Baghdad, apartment, bombings, arrests, honey

Absent is set in a crowded Baghdad apartment building and follows the lives of the residents as they endure bombings, arrests and the international sanctions of the 1990s. The central character is Dalal, a young woman who was abandoned at birth. Living with her aunt and uncle the three manage to avoid the worst of the poverty by taking up beekeeping. This book does a fantastic job of explaining the difficulties faced by Iraqi citizens,  as well as providing a fascinating insight into the problems of setting up a honey production business.

I join her at the window to share her amazement. The smoke from the bombing over the past few weeks has combined with the rain from last night, painting bars of loathsome solution everywhere. The local weather forecasters failed to predict the sudden downpour. Its smell is like a mixture of burnt engine oil and the stench of a rat that had died a while ago.

The book begins with a series of short passages, each describing a different unrelated scene. It was a bit like reading several short stories that happened to be set in the same place and I struggled to connect with it. It took about 40 pages for everything to become clear and for me to begin to bond with the characters, but once I’d managed to fit the pieces of the jigsaw together I was hooked.

I never formed an emotional connection to the characters, but I was intrigued by their lives; curious as to what would happen to them all. The writing/translation was of a very high standard and I loved the way that gentle humor was sprinkled throughout the text to lighten the mood.

My edition of the book also contains a short postscript, explaining the author’s motivations for writing the book. This added an extra dimension to the text and made me feel especially lucky to live in such a safe country.

This can never be described as an enjoyable book, but it is an important one. Recommended to anyone who wants a greater understanding of what the ordinary citizens of Baghdad had to endure at the end of the 20th century.

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How did I hear about this fantastic little book? Come back tomorrow and I’ll explain all!

 

 

Categories
2011 Books in Translation

The Last Brother by Nathacha Appanah

The Last Brother  Translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan

Five words from the blurb: boy, friends, island, prison, Jewish

The Last Brother caught my attention earlier this year when several of my favourite bloggers started to rave about it. I’m really pleased that I acted on their recommendations as this is a fantastic little book that deserves a wider audience.

This short book is very hard to review without giving spoilers and so if you are sensitive to them I suggest that you avoid reading all reviews and dive straight in. The blurb on the back of the book also explains the entire plot so I recommend that you avoid that too.

The Last Brother is set on the island of Mauritius and tells the story of Raj, a nine year-old boy, who has had a difficult childhood. His abusive father gets a job as a prison warder and this leads Raj to discover that WWII is being fought on the other side of the world and Jewish exiles are being shipped and detained on his island.

Now that I knew who was hidden there within the darknes of the pathways, knew the walls that towered around them, heard the sound of the grass beneath their feet, heard their singing in the evening, I viewed them with great sadness…

I had no idea that Jews were imprisoned on Mauritius during WWII so it was good to be educated about this lesser known piece of history.

The book was beautifully written; the prose simple, but engaging. I quickly connected with Raj and felt enormous sympathy for his situation. In many ways this book reminded me of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, but with a more realistic plot.

I liked the way the book was narrated by a 70 year-old Raj. This allowed an adult perspective to be given, whilst still allowing the childhood innocence to shine through.

My only criticism is that the book was very predictable.  I knew exactly what was going to happen from the beginning and I’d have liked a few extra snippets of information to add to the impact of the inevitable ending.

Overall this is a quick, easy read with an emotional undercurrent. Recommended.

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The thoughts of other bloggers:

…a powerful novel that packs a huge emotional punch. Devourer of Books

…a haunting novel which has been beautifully translated from the French. Caribousmom

It’s a beautiful treatise on the need for love and the scars inflicted by loss. S. Krishna’s Books

Categories
2010 Books in Translation

The Housekeeper and The Professor – Yoko Ogawa

The Housekeeper and the Professor Translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder

Five words from the blurb: maths, memory, affection, riddles, past

People have raved about The Housekeeper and The Professor ever since its release last year, but although I enjoyed reading it I wasn’t bowled over in the way most other readers have been.

The book centres on a maths professor with a short-term memory only eighty minutes long. He vividly remembers events from his past, but all new information is quickly forgotten. This means that the professor never recognises his housekeeper and she must reintroduce herself each morning. Despite this fact she becomes enchanted by him. He shows her the beauty of numbers and forms a strong bond with her son.

This is a beautiful little book, but I think its main charm is the way that it introduces a love for mathematics.

I ran my fingers over the lines of the formula, a long chain of numbers and symbols that flowed from one page to the next. As I followed the chain, link by link, the room faded and I found myself in a dark, silent place of numbers. But I felt no fear, certain in the knowledge that the Professor would guide me toward eternal, unchangeable truths.

The professor introduces prime numbers, perfect numbers, amicable numbers and many other basic mathematical concepts. The problem was that I was already aware of most of them and so they didn’t produce the magical sense of wonder that they have clearly induced in others.

The writing was simple and engaging, but it wasn’t as emotional as I was expecting. The overall feeling was one of tenderness and I think this is the type of book that you should read if you are in the mood something gentle and heartwarming.

If you can’t imagine enjoying a novel containing mathematics then I urge you to give this book a try, but if you already have a love of numbers it may be a bit too basic.

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The thoughts of other bloggers:

Characters, themes and a gently developing plot are perfectly blended. Fleur Fisher in her World

I would never have believed that mathematics could be so seamlessly woven into fiction that I hardly questioned its presence there. Erin Reads

The Housekeeper and the Professor is a very quiet, very subtle book. At the same time, it’s a page-turner, a book you just don’t want to put down. How often do you come across books like this? su [shu]