The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree, by Shokoofeh Azar

As I generally do prior to reading any book, I take a glance at the dustjacket blurb, both for the basic outline of what it is I'm about to read and for information about the author, as well as the translator if there is one.  I got a bit of a jolt this time around -- there's the normal  bit about the author, Shokoofeh Azar, saying that she moved to Australia in 2001 as a political refugee, but the surprise is that the translator's name has not been provided, "for reasons of safety and at the translator's request."  After reading what's in this book, I'm not surprised, but to the anonymous translator: thank you and well done. 

9781609455651
Europa Editions, 2020
originally published 2017
232 pp
paperback

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree  is, in a word, stunning.  As the Stella Prize Judges' Report said of this book, "the novel presents a richly woven magical reality:"

"Drawing on techniques of classic Persian literature, and recalling aspects of South American magic realism, Azar powerfully juxtaposes the beauty of Persian culture and mythology with the brutality of a political regime responsible for the destruction of so many lives." 

The story begins in 1979 and plays out amidst the backdrop of the Islamic Revolution, following the lives of a family from Tehran who become caught in its wake and decide to flee, wanting only to "disappear in silence."   They make their way to remote Razan, where the father, Hushang, sees the "calm eyes of the villagers" and knows they're at the "safe place where we were meant to be."  What they don't know at the time is that this place, where as the dustjacket blurb notes, they were "hoping... to preserve both their intellectual freedom and their lives,"  will not stay remote for long, as the revolution will eventually make it way there as well, nine years later in 1988.  As it happens,  in August 1988, at 2:35 p.m. Roza, the mother in this family, "attained enlightenment" as she sat "atop the grove's tallest greengage plum tree" overlooking the village.  Not so coincidentally, 1988 was the year of the "prison massacres" (which, as of 2018 the government of Iran had still not acknowledged);  it was the very moment of her own son Sohrab's execution, in which he was

"hanged without trial and unaware he would be buried en masse with hundreds of other political prisoners early the next morning." 

 The story is narrated by Bahar, one of the two daughters in this family, and reveals the impact that events during this decade had on this family.   The fact that she is a ghost (not a spoiler since it's also on the dustjacket blurb) is not so extraordinary in this book -- as the author stated in an interview at the LA Review of Books,

"People of old or ancient cultures sometimes seek the metaphysical solution for realistic problems. And it has nothing to do with superstition or religion. If you learn to look at these beliefs in the right way and deeply, you can find the roots of myths, and important and beautiful meaning in these beliefs."

In Azar's telling, the forests around the village of Razan are filled with ghosts as well as jinns and other spirits;  the village is plagued by different events including a black snowfall and an overflowing river of tears spilled from the eyes of ghosts, and Beeta, Bahar's sister, will go on to become a mermaid, among other sorts of mystical occurrences.  Quite honestly, it all seems perfectly natural to these people, which is why I didn't even bother to question these more fantastical elements -- here they are interacting with and dealing with their world in their own way. 

While it is often emotionally tough to read, The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree addresses not just the horrors of this particular decade but also what it takes in order to survive through the worst.  It deals with grief and loss, seeking and finding, life and love.  It is a most original and powerful book that I will probably never forget, almost dreamlike in the telling.    You will have to wind your way through the elements of magical realism to keep  a chronological eye on the narrative, but as you do so, savor the time you spend there.

Most likely not a book that everyone will like, but for me, it's now of one my favorites of 2020.  I loved this book.  Absolutely.

quick link: 12 Who Don't Agree: The battle for freedom in Putin's Russia, by Valery Panyushkin

9781609450106
Europa Editions, 2011
originally published as 12 nesolasnych,  2008
translated by Marian Schwartz
259 pp

Well, this was an oops. I didn't realize until I bought this book that it was nonfiction, but as it turns out, I started reading and couldn't put it down.  The subtitle for this book says it all.  The author features 11 people (with himself as #12) whose courage and determination for change led to a movement against the increasingly repressive measures of the Russian government. In this time of global spring, including our own Occupy Wall Street Movement, the book is extremely relevant.  Considering the politics involved, it was an intense read.  You can find my thinking about this book here.  Highly recommended.

You Deserve Nothing, by Alexander Maksik

9781609450489
Europa Editions/Tonga Books, 2011
320 pp.

"You do. The thing. Anyway."...You do the thing anyway. Yes. Yes. You do it in spite of fear. You do the thing anyway. No matter what. Because you have to. Because you know it's right. Because you believe in it. Because by not doing it you're betraying yourself."

I don't know why, but the last few books I've chosen to read have been on the dark side of reading; you know, those kinds of novels you definitely do not want to read while you're in a funk or while you're having a case of the blues or whatever (with apologies to Will Silver for that last word).  You Deserve Nothing is no exception -- it's a novel that long after you've finished reading will stay on your mind as you replay it in your head.  And to me, that is what makes a book good and rise well above the ordinary.  It is, unbelievably, Alexander Maksik's first novel, and if this is only his opening shot into the book-reading world, I can't wait for his second. 

You Deserve Nothing is a character-driven story,  told through multiple perspectives, centering around  one man, Will Silver.  Will is a 33-year old English teacher at the International Foreign School in Paris. He teaches a senior seminar in English -- a popular class where he introduces the students to existentialism in literature.  He believes that literature is "irrelevant" unless the questions which arise from it also have some impact on the reader's lives.  This point of view doesn't always sit well with the head  of the school, who feels that Silver's only job is to guide the students through literature and help them to understand it, without any challenges to their individual beliefs.  But Silver's seminar students, for the most part, love him. He's  that rare breed of teacher who lets his students know that their thoughts matter as much as those of the writers of the material he gives them.  Will finds it "the truest, rarest, sweetest thing" when the students are actively making connections and listening to each other, when there's a palpable enthusiasm among the students over what they're doing in that class, and when "they're all there together."   But at the same time, for Will, this coming alive is as he notes, all he has, and believes erroneously that  it's all that the students have as well.  Not all of Silver's students are so enchanted with him; one of his students, Ariel calls him a fake, knowing full well what's going on with him outside of class; and Colin, another member of the class,  senses something, but gives him a chance until the cracks start to show in Will's teachings.  Will battles with the strain between his public and private lives throughout the novel.

The other voices belong to  Gilad, one of Silver's seminar students, and Marie, a student at the IFS.   Gilad is the son of an American diplomat and lives a chaotic life, moving from place to place.  His father and mother live behind a facade  -- once the dinner parties are over, Gilad's father absuses his wife.  Gilad  looks up to Will in a hero-worshipping sort of way, and takes the lessons he learns about  from Will seriously, using them as a path toward his own self awareness.  Gilad sees Will as a champion for  living one's beliefs and acting accordingly, as "righteousness in a sea of ugliness"  but all too soon this will change as Gilad witnesses Will's failure to act at a crucial moment.

Marie is the beautiful daughter of wealthy parents; she avoids talking to her mother because her mother sees in her only disappointment -- she's not French enough, she doesn't dress right, and her mom leaves pictures cut out from fashion magazines on Marie's bed to make her point.  Although Marie is a student at IFS, Silver isn't one of her teachers, and Marie is highly sexually attracted to him and soon begins a relationship with him -- a clandestine one, or so Will believes. Her view of Will changes as  she watches Will lapse into inertia and become a "phantom," little by little, making all the right noises during a crisis, but ultimately slipping away in the long run.

You Deserve Nothing is an amazing book. The characters are realistically portrayed; the author  is equally able to capture the intensity of  a 33 year-old man in the midst of his own existential crisis and the pettiness  of a jealous, teenaged girl.  I'm always amazed when a male author  can write a woman's character so well; to capture the inner essence of a teenage girl in the throes of her first love must have been more difficult but he pulls it off.   Then there's the  sense of place that  is so well evoked that the streets of Paris come alive. For some Paris is a magical place, the city of light as it were; for others its streets are cold and unfeeling.

If life is the sum of all the choices a person makes,  there is also a divide between the decisions one makes and the courage to act on them, and this theme is well  emphasized throughout the novel, as is its concomitant  consideration of betrayal -- to one's self or to others.   You Deserve Nothing is a highly-intelligent work, sifting through these ideas as they apply to each of the main characters and to those in the world in which they all live.  What could have been just a mundane story is elevated to a level where the reader is left with several questions and a great deal of food for thought long after the last page is turned.   I most highly recommend this book; it's one of the most thought-provoking and intelligent novels I've read in a very long while. Simply put, it's amazing.

This review is cross posted at the Europa Challenge Blog.

fiction from the U.S. 

Hangover Square, by Patrick Hamilton

9781933372068

Europa Editions, 2009
334 pp
originally published 1941

Hangover Square is only one of a long list of novels by Patrick Hamilton.  Hamilton also wrote three plays, two of which were turned into movies and may be a bit familiar:  Rope, directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1948, and Gas Light, brought to the screen by George Cukor in 1944.  I've never read anything by Hamilton in the past, but after reading Hangover Square, that will not be the case in the future.  It was, in a word, amazing, and I can't remember reading anything even remotely similar.   The book examines one man's  tenuous hold on reality that is threatened by obsession, alcohol and illness.  It reads a bit on the noir side and would be equally good for readers who like that genre and  readers of literary fiction.

Opening Christmas of 1938, continuing on through 1939, the scene is Earl's Court, a small neighborhood on the seamier side of London. A small hotel room in Earl's Court is home to George Harvey Bone, the main character is this story.  Since his schooldays, George has had what he calls his "dead moods," where all of a sudden everything changes from normal to where "there was only himself -- his dreary, numbed, dead self."  George suffers from schizophrenia, and lately gets a "click" in his head when he's about to change. He goes into a state where it's like being at a movie where the soundtrack is missing, where people move about and do their thing but he's unaware of them. In this mode that he is surprisingly the most rational, a different George Harvey Bone, whose thoughts are clear as day.  He has trouble remembering what he was doing beforehand,  and he doesn't remember his actions or thoughts during these  dead moods when he comes out of them.  However, his main focus while in this state is trying to remember that there's something to be done -- and that is to kill Netta. 

George has an overpowering yet unrequited sexual obsession with the beautiful Netta --  she gets him to the point where "he could hardly breathe or think, in which he was choked by the mist of his sensous anguish."  She, on the other hand, uses him shamelessly when she needs money, or for other self-serving purposes.  For her, George is repellent; he's a pest, the butt of her set's cruel jokes, but he buys the booze and buys her dinner.   Time after time George tries to stay away from her, but he always comes back, even after realizing the truth about Netta, and even after a low and devastating blow during a trip to Brighton that would have sent a normal man packing.  He literally cannot help himself, even though his infatuation brings him only pain, loneliness and severe depression.

When he's not in a dead mood, George is  quiet, polite and sensitive, finds solace in a white cat and David Copperfield.  Netta and her friends  out  in the bars and pubs of  Earl's Court, where life is generally based on daily rounds of excessive drinking:

"When you met in the morning, all you talked about was last night -- how "blind"' you were, how "blind" Mickey was, my God you bet he had a hangover. ("Taking a little stroll round Hangover Square" -- that was Mickey's crack.)...And when you had a lot more to drink you felt fine again, and went crashing round to lunch upstairs at the Black Hart (the table by the fire) where you ragged the pale waiter and called attention to yourselves."

 George also drinks  heavily, although he's not pleased with himself and even notes that it's likely at the bottom of much of his unhappiness.  He  does the rounds of the pubs to be with Netta and drinks to mask his loneliness and pain of the hopelessness of the situation.   It's during these bouts of drinking when Netta and her friend Peter discuss their admiration of Hitler and Facism and their view of Chamberlain as a hero, views shared by many during this time period.    While wasting their days drinking,  rambling on about politics and denying the possibility of another war, George in his dead-mood time disagrees -- realizing that they had "turned their ignominious desires into beliefs."

But it's only during these dead moods  that he can cope with his obsession and make plans to escape it.  He picks up the thread of killing Netta each time, and imagines himself doing the deed and going off to Maidenhead, site of an earlier, happier time in his life.  George is not normally prone to violence, and his dead-mood episodes allows him to imagine things he would never otherwise consider.   There is no question that at some point George's divided self is going to overcome him, and  as the blurb on the cover notes, "one part of George must win out over the other, but which will it be?"  Sadly, this is but a  bare-bones outline; to give away any more would be to wreck it for others.

Hangover Square is an amazing book. While an easy book to read, it was a bit personally disquieting, not so much because of the ending but because I was so divided in my sympathies at the end.  It's one of those stories that makes you question your thinking, and I believe that the author had to have done this on purpose.  Once in a while you read one of those rare books where you're emotionally floored at the end; this is one of those.  There is absolutely nothing feel good or happy between the covers of this book, yet I was totally compelled to read it in one sitting -- it's that good.   George Harvey Bone and Netta will keep you turning pages, but in and among that story there is also a look at  social class, the interwar generation and their misguided ideologies, and the utter waste of productive, good lives as a period of peace is about to explode into a dark time of war.   I highly recommend this novel -- but don't read it while you're depressed.  It's one of my favorite reads for 2011.

posted also at the Europa Challenge Blog. 

my first post in the Europa Challenge

I've just posted my first review on the Europa Challenge Blog.  My inaugural entry is Total Chaos, by Jean-Claude Izzo, a novel of neo-noir crime fiction.  If you're interested, you can click the link and go on over. My focus throughout the challenge will be crime fiction since it's my favorite genre, although there are multiple participants who are reading every genre represented via Europa Editions -- in short, something for everyone. 

My review is also cross-posted at the crime portion of this reading journal.  If you like crime fiction and haven't been there, please go take a look. It's mostly my thoughts on various translated novels, especially from Scandinavia, but there are other countries represented as well.

Anyway, the first hurdle has been crossed, and my next entry will be Izzo's second novel in the series, Chourmo.

The Shadow of What We Were, by Luis Sepulveda

9781609450021
Europa Editions
2010
originally published as La sombra de lo que fuimos, 2009
translated by Howard Curtis
132 pp

"Brave people don't exist, only people who agree to go hand in hand with their fear."

In 1973, the Chilean military forcefully (and with the backing of the US) ousted President Salvador Allende  in a coup.  A military junta became the new form of government, and in 1974 Agosto Pinochet became the president of the country, remaining there until 1990. Immediately after the coup,  the junta banned all of the leftist parties that had been part of the Unidad Popular, the coalition of leftist parties that had backed Allende during his election and whose members served under Allende during his time in office. Luis Sepulveda, the author of The Shadow of What We Were, was active in the Allende government and was arrested in 1975.  The German Branch of Amnesty International worked for his release, but he was still under house arrest, from which he ultimately managed to escape and go to Valparaiso.  There he and a friend started a drama group to serve as a "cultural focus of resistance," and he was arrested and imprisoned again, this time for "treason and subversion." This sentence was commuted to exile for eight years, and supposedly on his way to Sweden, the plane had a layover in Buenos Aires, where Sepulveda escaped again, and began his period of exile.

The Shadow of What We Were is in part, the story of the shadows that linger from that coup some several decades later.   As the novel opens, Concepcion Garcia,  angry that she and her husband Coco Aravena are getting thrown out of their apartment because they were behind on the rent, begins throwing things out of the window. Unfortunately, a phonograph lands on a passer-by who dies. While Coco tries to figure out what to tell the police, the death of the man is a problem -- rather than being the cop that Aravena believes he is, the dead man is really a "specialist," sometimes known as "The Shadow," an elderly anarchist named Pedro Nolasco who is supposed to meet up with three men who are waiting for him in an old garage in Santiago. The three friends have hooked up again, via the internet; all had been in exile for their support of Allende's government and for their political views. They are back after having lived through torture, deaths of friends and family, years of exile, now ready to accompany Nolasco on one last mission.  As they wait for Nolasco, they talk about old times -- the 1960s and the years of political activism in Latin America,  Allende's presidency before the coup, the coup and what happened to each one of them as well as their families and friends, and now and then they mourn the loss of the old revolutionary zeal of the earlier days and of a Chile which they have trouble recognizing in its modern form.  As one of the characters, Arancibia, notes, "We aren't the Young Guard anymore:"

No. They weren't the Young Guard. Their youth had been scattered in hundreds of places, burned by electric prods during investigations, buried in secret graves that were slowly being discovered, in years of prison, in strange rooms in even stranger countries, in Homeric returns to nowhere, and all that was left were the marching songs that nobody sang anymore because those in charge now had decided that there had never been young people like them in Chile, that no one had ever sung The Young Guard, and that the Communist girls had not the taste of the future on their lips.

In and around the story of the three comrades, Sepulveda intersperses the story of the police investigation into the death of Nolasco.  Concepcion has told all to the police, while the ever-optimistic Coco Aravena, an old Maoist of the

 Marxist-Leninist Communist Revolutionary Party, Mao Tse-Tung Thought, Enver Hoxha Tendency, which was very different than the liquidationist clique that called itself the Marxist-Leninist Communist Revolutionary Party, Mao Tse-Tung Thought, Red Flag Tendency

is beside himself making up stories as to what actually happened to Nolasco, hoping the final version will sound convincing to the cops, but comes to realize something about himself in the process.

The Shadow of What We Were is only 132 pages long, but there is a great deal of food for thought packed into this book. It is a story about a generation of people who truly believed in a cause and did something about it, and who were persecuted for their beliefs.  It is also the story of one man who firmly believed that he was "the shadow of what we were, and while there is light we will exist," whose last mission rekindles that light in a handful of people.  Although the story is told in a slightly comic vein, the author is quite serious about revealing to his readers the horrors of the aftermath of the coup, and the effects of exile on those who escaped.  While there are some pretty gut-wrenching stories in this book, the conversations give the reader a quick but concentrated lesson in the myriad organizations of leftist politics, a brief look at Chile under Allende, and especially of the 1973 coup and the oppression that began immediately against the new government's perceived enemies.  This might be a definite drawback for readers who are not familiar with this time period, because everything is sort of packed in there all at once.  However, if you're interested in the history of Latin America, this is a great read. 

 Definitely not for the casual reader, but I'd recommend it to anyone who, like myself, is fascinated with Latin America's political history.

*Hygiene and the Assassin, by Amélie Nothomb

9781933372778
Europa Editions, 2010
Translated by Alison Anderson
original French title: Hygiene de l'assassin, 
   1992, Éditions Albin Michel
167 pp.

Hygiene and the Assassin probably qualifies for my "strangest book read this year" award (up there with Little Hands Clapping)  but at the same time, there's something unique between the covers of this small novel. The setup for the story is that a Nobel Prize-winning author by the name of Prétextat Tach is about to die.  He is the author of twenty-two novels, is extremely reclusive, and has never granted an interview over his long career. Now that he is dying (from Elzenveirverplatz Syndrome -- a long name for a rare cartilage cancer), Tach's assistant has granted a select few journalists the rarest of opportunities for an interview.  One by one they come in, tape recorders ready to capture every word, and one by one Tach makes proverbial mincemeat out of them and tosses them out.  But the meat of this book begins with the entrance of Nina, an intriguing young woman who isn't about to join her predecessors.  After only a short while, and after Tach makes a remark about enjoying watching people crawl at his feet, Nina offers an intriguing wager:

 You said something about crawling. I suggest identical stakes for both of us. If I crack, I'm the one who'll crawl at your feet, but if you crack, you'll crawl at my feet.  I like to see people crawling at my feet too.

Tach takes the bet, noting that he loves "squashing people," and that "humiliating pretentious airhead females" is something that brings him "extreme pleasure."  And thus begins the verbal fencing match between the two, which lasts for the book's remaining 74 pages. There is absolutely no redeeming quality in the character of Tach; he is one of the most odious characters ever imagined.  He's self-obsessed, feels he has risen above the rest of the world, cares nothing for the rest of humanity (especially for women).  But what makes this book work and work well is the often brutal repartee between Tach and Nina, as she manipulates the conversation which eventually leads back into his past -- but to say more would be to ruin it.


This book is not for everyone; it is odd and very quirky with a main character that is, quite frankly, a disgusting pig. If that doesn't bother you, it is one of those novels that will entice you with its beginning and keep you reading until the last page.  And although the core of this story consists only of dialogue, it is extremely well done -- it is not clumsy or out of step, and stays solidly grounded within the inherent qualities of both characters.  IMHO, this is the mark of a talented writer, but also of a skilled translator.

I would recommend it for those who want more of a challenge in their reading. It's often difficult, and there are many literary references that many people may not get, but which are important to an understanding of Tach's character. I spent a great deal of time on Wikipedia, but a lot of readers want a straightforward novel with linear plot, resolution and a clearly-explained ending.  For those people, this may not be the book for you. But if you're up for it, and want something unique, you'll enjoy it.

fiction from France