Category: Books in Translation

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2009 Books in Translation Other Prizes

Brothers – Yu Hua

Winner of France’s Prix Courrier International 2008, Shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008

Translated from the Chinese by Eileen Cheng-yin Chow and Carlos Rojas

I bought this book after seeing a wonderful review written by Frances from Nonsuch Book on the Lost in Transtaltion Challenge site, and I was very pleased that this book was brought to my attention.

Brothers is an epic story of life in modern China. At over 600 pages it was a daunting book to read, and took me over 6 weeks to reach the end, but it was well worth the effort.

Baldy Li and Song Gang are step-brothers, living in poverty in a small Chinese town. The book follows them as they grow up together, striving to make the most of their lives and bring themselves out of the cycle of poverty. I loved Baldy Li’s character – his entrepreneurial spirit warmed my heart and I was rooting for him throughout. As with all great characters he exhibited some flaws – his childish obsession with looking at women’s bottoms was very strange for me to read about, but I think it accurately reflected the thoughts of a teenage boy and so I felt that I understood him more as a result.

This book had many strange moments and contained things that you would never find in a typical western novel. One of the most enjoyable aspects of reading books from other cultures, especially Asian ones – is that you never know what is going to happen next! I don’t want to say too much about the plot, as I don’t want to spoil anything, but Brothers has it all: tragedy, comedy and a touching, complex plot.

Baldy Li lay on the floor like a dead pig, then crawled and sat in the entrance like a sick dog. His hunger made him let out a few wails, but crying made him feel even hungrier, so he immediately stopped. Baldy Li could hear the sound of the wind blowing through the tree branches and could see the sunlight shining on his toes. He thought to himself, If I could munch the rays of sunlight like stir-fried pork and drink the wind like a bowl of meat broth, then I’d be set.

It is easy to read, but it’s length means that I would only recommend it to those who have already fallen in love with Asian literature and are looking for something with a bit more depth.

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Note: This book isn’t for the prudish – it contained many sexually explicit scenes (including a very unusual section concentrating on hymens!) and some graphic violence.

I have never looked at the Man Asian Literary Prize 2008 before, but after the success of this book I am very intrigued.

Have you read any books shortlisted for this prize?

Do you love Asian literature?

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2009 Books in Translation Chunkster Other Prizes

2666 – Roberto Bolaño. Part 4: The Part About the Crimes

Steph and Claire are hosting a read-along for the highly acclaimed book, 2666, by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. The novel is 900 pages long, and divided into 5 parts. We are reading one part a month.

Here are my thoughts on Part 4: The Part About the Crimes

I loved Part 3, I felt that all the random, seemingly unconnected events of the first two parts were finally coming together. The end of the third section was such a cliffhanger that for the first time in this read-along I was tempted to dive straight into the fourth part. I had also read many reviews for 2666 which stated that all the action finally occurred in Part 4.

Unfortunately, Part 4 did not live up to my expectations, and I found it to be the weakest section so far.

As suggested by the title, this section focuses on the crimes. Throughout the first three sections we had heard snippets of information about the chain of women murdered in the town of Santa Teresa, but no specific facts. This section corrects that by giving detailed information about every victim. Almost every paragraph introduces us to a new victim, noting the month they were murdered, their physical appearance and the way in which they were killed. Instead of giving a voice to each of these unfortunate woman I felt that the repetition distanced me from each of them. The continual jumping from one person to the next meant that I didn’t connect with any of them, and they became of blur of names, dates and physical attributes.

I had been worried about the violence in this section, as several people had warned me about the graphic detail, but because I felt no emotional connection to the victims the violence did not bother me at all. Some of the descriptions were more brutal than others, but none of them affected me at all. In fact this entire section left me cold. It felt more like police notes than a novel and I gained little enjoyment from reading it at all.

I made a note of several quotes that I thought would be representative of this chapter and was interested to discover that they all sounded more beautiful and profound when taken out of context:

I’m talking about visions that would take away the breath of the bravest of brave men. In dreams I see the crimes and it’s as if a television set has exploded and I keep seeing, in the little shards of screen scattered around my bedroom, horrible scenes, endless tears.

It seemed as though being surrounded by the details of the crimes reduced the beauty of everything.

I am now apprehensive about reading the final section. I am really hoping that everything comes together in a complex and impressive way, as otherwise I think I will be disappointed by the book as a whole.

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Were you affected by the graphic violence in this section?

Are you looking forward to reading the final part?

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2008 Books in Translation

Voice Over – Celine Curiol

Translated from the French by Sam Richard

Voice Over was the latest choice for our book group, but while there was a lot to discuss, it wasn’t an enjoyable read for me.

The central character in the book is an unnamed woman who announces the train times at the Gare du Nord in Paris. The main theme appears to be her struggle to be noticed:

Her voice fills the entire station, soaring over the platforms, the halls, sailing into corners, crashing into glass walls. She is present everywhere, and yet no one recognises her.

She lacks self esteem, and so, in an effort to bring meaning to her life, she ends up in a series of difficult situations.

I felt little empathy for the woman; she seemed to bring all the misery on her self, and the majority of her problems could easily have been avoided with a little forethought. Despite the subject matter of the book, there is very little emotion. I felt distanced from the characters and so never connected with them.

The writing style makes this a difficult book to read. There is no speech and little to break up the writing, so you are often confronted with an entire page of words, which means a great deal of concentration is required. With effort, some insightful passages could be discovered:

Whenever she is in a park, she is always faced with the same dilemma. All those orderly paths overwhelm her. A park should be explored instinctively, without markers. But the walkways impose their fixed itineraries and lead to artificial crossings, which force one to choose different sections of the park over others. The only way to get to know the place is to follow the layout of paths, to explore them all without exceptions. At each fork, however, one of the paths has to be abandoned and might never be found again.

The pace of the book is slow and rambling. It is only 200 pages long, but feels twice that length. I would not have finished this book had I not been reading it for the book group. There are a lot of people who will love this book though – literary fiction fans will enjoy analysing the many layers contained in this book and, due to the number of things left unresolved, it makes a great discussion point.

Overall, I found this to be a skillfully written debut novel, but the lack of a strong plot meant it wasn’t for me.

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2000 - 2007 Books in Translation Nobel Prize

The Double – José Saramago

José Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.

Translated from the Portugese by Margaret Jull Costa

Blindness is one of my favourite books and so I have been keeping an eye out for Saramago’s other books ever since I finished reading it. Unfortunately I haven’t been very successful – they never seem to turn up!  Then,  last week I finally spotted one in the library.

The Double is the story of a history teacher who sits down to watch a rented video one evening and is shocked to discover that one of the actors is identical to him in every physical detail. He tracks down his look-alike and confirms that they are exact copies of each other – so alike that even their wives cannot tell them apart.

As with Blindness, Saramago’s writing style takes a bit of time to get used to. There are very few paragraphs and the words just seem to flow together at times, each page just packed with a sea of words:

Although he does not really believe in Fate, distinguished from any lesser destiny by that respectful initial capital letter, Tertuliano Máximo Afonso cannot shake off the idea that so many chance events and coincidences coming all together could very well correspond to a plan, as yet unrevealed, but whose development and denouncement are doubtless already to be found on the tablets on which that same Destiny, always assuming it does exist and does govern our lives, set down, at the very beginning of time, the date on which the first hair would fall from our head and the last smile die on our lips.

It doesn’t take long to adapt to his style though, and I quickly became caught up in this imaginative plot. It doesn’t have the pace or fearful adrenaline rush I experienced with Blindness, but it is just as thought-provoking. If it were possible, would you want to swap lives with someone? Would you feel threatened by someone who was identical to you in every way? What would you do to protect your identity?

I loved the ending – it was cleverly written and left me with lots to think about.

The Double isn’t in the same league as Blindness, but it  is a very good book.

Recommended.

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Is Blindness one of your favourite books?

Have you read any of Saramago’s other books?

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2008 2009 Books in Translation Chunkster

2666 – Roberto Bolaño. Part 3: The Part About Fate

Steph and Claire are hosting a read-along for the highly acclaimed book, 2666, by Chilean author Roberto Bolaño. The novel is 900 pages long, and divided into 5 parts. We are reading one part a month, for the next five months.

Here are my thoughts on Part 3: The Part About Fate

I loved this part – I found it so much easier to read than the first two. This section reads much more like a normal novel and I now have a fuller understanding of what is happening –  although I guess you can never really tell what Bolaño is up to!

This section focuses on Fate, a reporter sent from New York to cover a boxing match in Saint Terasa, the Mexican city plagued by a serial killer. Fate quickly realises that the killings make a more interesting news story than a boxing match and so starts to investigate them.

This section finally brings things together, connecting the characters so I can finally begin to see their purpose in the book. It was so satisfying to finally discover links between some of the seemingly random events of the first two chapters.

As usual the writing was beautiful. I could have picked quotes from just about every page, but I was struck by the repetitive mention of the sun. It seemed to have great significance within this chapter.

But the sun has its uses, as any fool knows, said Seaman. From up close it’s hell, but from far away you’d have to be a vampire not to see how useful it is, how beautiful.

They crossed the yard and the street and their bodies cast extremely fine shadows that every five seconds were shaken by a tremor, as if the sun were spinning backward.

When the sun comes up everything will be over.

This section was also had a faster pace than the earlier two and had a cliff-hanger ending, making this the first section where I have actually been tempted to dive straight into the next chapter. I’m resisting though, in the hope that the suspense will add to the enjoyment of the book.

It appears this book is improving all the time. I am really looking forward to getting into The Part About The Crimes. I have very high expectations for it. Let’s hope it can live up to them.

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Are you enjoying 2666 more now?

Can you wait a full month before beginning Part 4?

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Books in Translation Other

Weekly Geeks – Where in the World…

This week’s Weekly Geek task is to talk about travelling via books. I thought it would be interesting to compare where I have actually travelled, with my virtual travel through reading and see if there is a correlation.

So here are the countries I have visited:


and here are all the countries I’ve read about in the last year:

create your own visited country map

There are some similarities, but I was struck by the differences. I have never been to India, but I have read 5 Indian books this year. Japan and China are also favourite book settings for me, although for some reason I haven’t read any Chinese books in the past year – I do have one coming up soon though.

My main reading deficiency is in South America. The only book I read from this continent in the last year, and possibly the only one in my whole life, was The Bride From Odessa by Edgardo Cozarinsky. I am going to try to seek out some more South American books in the future.

Can anyone recommend any South American books?