The Life of an Amorous Woman, by Ihara Saikaku

 

0811201872

New Directions, 1963

translated by Ivan Morris

402 pp

paperback

There are several different works encompassed in this volume, and the main reason I picked up this book was because I had decided one day not too long ago that I wanted to watch a movie on the Criterion Channel called The Life of Oharu (1952), and as I started doing a bit of pre-viewing research, I discovered that it was adapted from one of the stories in this book. Next step: I bought a copy.  While I actually read all of the pieces included here, my main focus was the story that  Saikaku wrote as Kōshoku Ichidai Onna (1686), or as the title translates it, Life of an Amorous Woman.  

Just a bit about the writing itself: according to the introduction to this book, Saikaku Ihara was the "originator and greatest exponent" of a genre of writing called ukiyo-zōshi  or tales of the floating world.  We are told here that it was a "bourgeois literature written mainly for the amusement and instruction of townsmen in the large commercial cities," first written in the vernacular kana language, (kana-zōshi) meaning that it was more available to and more widely understood by the literate masses.  As Wikipedia notes, it emerged as a "distinctly plebian form of literature," with its readership consisting "mostly of non-aristocratic residents of Japan's growing cities."    The content of  ukiyo-zōshi, according to the book's introduction, was generally full of  descriptions of the "colourful life of the cities and accounts of the popular actors and courtesans who inhabited the Floating World."  It also, "on occasion" tended to include "highly erotic content" as well as describing what went on in the licensed pleasure quarters of the time and other things of audience interest. 

from my copy of the book; caption reads "A Street in the gay quarters of seventeenth-century Kyoto."

Kōshoku Ichidai Onna begins with the arrival of two men at a hermitage, not the home of any sort of priest but rather "an old lady of noble visage... bent double with age."  The narrator has followed them there, and he hears the woman ask why they've come.   It seems that both are "hard put to understand love in all its divers aspects," and after hearing of her "great repute," they have come to "learn these mysteries." They ask her to recall her life story, "with all its wanton doings" and she obliges. Her story begins with her having been born into a life of privilege and having a presence at court, and the love affair that got her banished and her low-ranking lover executed.  As she gets older she must somehow navigate through a life that lands her in a variety of different roles including courtesan, concubine, servant, hairdresser and others up through the present moment, each a step down from the last.   

Using her story, Saikaku examines the transient nature of fortune, the rigidity of social structures and a society that both profits from and punishes women's sexuality.  The narrator here also has to find some way to maintain her own survival not only while she is young and healthy, but even more so as her beauty begins to fade and she grows older.   The irony runs deep throughout this episodic tale, and while the author offers his readers humor and wit, there is a true sadness at its core that makes this woman's story even more poignant.  There are times, however, that it is entirely cringeworthy; for instance,  at the court, our narrator is only ten when she begins to discover her own sexual feelings and twelve when she loses her virginity, and there are other descriptions of the same sort of thing here and there that made for difficult reading.   When all is said and done however, I couldn't stop reading, although someone should do a newer translation because this one is incomplete, with only fourteen stories selected from Kōshoku Ichidai Onna presented here.  Evidently at the time, the reasoning was that the "translator's aim" was evidently to provide a sort of "wide view" of Saikaku's writing and to offer a "better idea of his scope than would the translation of a single work."  Aarrgh. 

**********

from Criterion 

Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, The Life of Oharu (1952) is described at the Criterion website as "an epic portrait of an inexorable fall from grace,"  with the main character an "imperial lady-in-waiting who gradually descends to street prostitution."   Needless to say, it's as bleak as the novel and the director lets you feel every bit of the pain this woman endures for the length of the film.   It opens a bit differently than the book, with the narrator (here known as Oharu) out in the cold night trying to ply her trade as prostitute with no takers.  She eventually makes her way to shelter at a small temple where there are hundreds of images of arhats on display all around; there is one in particular that catches her eye, transposing into her first love at the time she had served as a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court and the banishment of Oharu and her family.     From there her story begins, taking her through the many twists in circumstance she will endure throughout her life before the action returns to the temple at the end.  While things do change from the book in the film,  what doesn't is that  she makes it to several points where she might actually be happy, only to have each  chance snatched away by fate or by someone else's interference.  As in the novel, she is both exploited and subjugated, heartbreakingly so, and yet somehow her inner strength continues.    I have to say, The Life of Oharu was a bit of a tear-jerker.  

I can certainly recommend both the book (although it is incomplete, there is enough there for coherence) and film, but bring a tissue for the latter. 

The Emperor, by Markenzy Orcel

9781803093666

Seagull Books, 2024

originally published as L'Empereur, 2021

translated by Nathan H. Dize

hardcover

read earlier

145 pp

I can't for the life of me remember where I first came across this book, but I'm definitely happy that I did.  I liked it so much that I recently  bought this author's The Immortals, also translated by Nathan Dize,  published in 2020. At this point I'd read anything else he's written or will write in the future.  Another excellent Seagull publication, for sure,  the sort of book that speaks to why I love translated fiction so very much.  

The main character of this story goes unnamed until closer to the end, and even then not actually afforded a name, only the initial P.  (as I will refer to him here).   The beginning of the book finds him sitting in his small room in Port-Au-Prince waiting for the police, with the evidence of his crime next to him.  He knows two things: one, he "asked for none of this" -- that he was just waiting for a bus --  and two,  that the knock on the door that just happened isn't the police, because "they don't open doors here," they just kick it down.  More importantly though (and somewhat cryptically for the reader, at least in this early section) he feels that 

"... even after the police arrive to beat me down, walk all over me, crush me and all the other things we alow only criminals to endure, before putting me in handcuffs and tossing me in their wagon on a one-way trip to hell," 

he will be able to find some kind of freedom.  

Very briefly, because as usual to tell too much is definitely to ruin the experience,  The Emperor is a novel whose beginning is also its ending, but the journey back to that small room and his search for freedom begins with the story of P.'s life before he gets to that point.  It starts with him  having been left on the side of the road as a small child, having only a vague recollection of 

"a hand caressing my cheeks, of a soft and broken voice that told me, 'Wait right there, sooner or later the bus will appear; get on board and let the bus take you far away',"

 and believing that his parents might have been among those who had given their children "up to nature" after a hurricane which had "ravaged the southern region of the island."  That particular story he will "never be able to tell," because he really has no idea of what actually happened. He does remember being taken to a lakou, where he acted as "restavèk, a slave, a sheep, an entertainer for the spirits, tasked with calling upon them" through his drumming, having to master the art at first but eventually developing a style as one which "awakened the dogs in me."  The so-called Emperor, who ended up taking control of the lakou, was the "only one to speak, the great pensive master at the centre of attention, at once the shepherd and the top dog, there, where time begins and the horizon ends."  In describing the Emperor as a shepherd,  P. continues the metaphor by labeling the people as sheep,  whose minds the Emperor had addled and crushed, while "diverting their gaze from reality."  Houses that were "planted around" the man's own dwelling were "not homes but narrow sheep pens, ajoupas, huts, used to corral an entire flock of absent souls, followers who are force-fed truths and falsehoods by the mystical master."   P. describes himself as "the imperfect sheep, the one who does not wait to be invited, to be told to go ahead and graze." The only person he trusts is the "very old sheep," whose ancestors had lived in the time of the Haitian Revolution,  who mainly stays silent but completely gets what's going on in the lakou.  It is a solitary life P. lives, and as he withdraws deeper into this solitude, his only true companion is his inner voice that he calls "The Other Within."  His years in the lakou are harrowing, but he does eventually manage to get away and find a life in Port-au Prince.  It is in this city where his crime occurs, with events in the capital taking us back to the beginning of the novel as he awaits the police.  By this time, the reader has a solid grip on why P. refers to his crime as having been "unavoidable."

 It doesn't take long for P. to realize that in moving to the capital he has traded life in one lakou for life in another,  with an employer who in his own way, is another corrupt Emperor figure, holding power over his employees,  and people choosing to read about what's happening in the newspaper ("the analgesic writings the watchdogs of the status quo use to brainwash us, to crush us, to jettison us all ...")  rather than to stick their noses outside "and attempt to change" things.   At one point he asks where people turn who are  "angry, who refuse to accept injustice and the sanctioned moral order," concluding that "We'd all leave if we could, every single one of us," to escape the "black hole" where they live. 

Orcel delivers with huge impact, building the story of not just one life, but that of a nation which has been plagued by corrupt leaders, failed institutions and violence, a world that "brings death to freedom."  I can't really do the novel the justice it deserves here, but it is both haunting, immediate and hugely relevant,  a story with writing that worms its way into your psyche and under your skin and makes you feel.  I can think of no higher praise.  Definitely and hugely recommended. 

Rodolfo Walsh's Last Case, by Elsa Drucaroff

 

9781739298937

Corylus Books, 2024

originally written as El último caso de Rodolfo Walsh, 2010

translated by Slava Faybysh

180 pp

paperback

 (read earlier this month)

Not all that long ago I got a news feed about the 2024  Warwick Prize for Women in Translation, and immediately downloaded the entire list of 148 eligible titles in thirty-five languages.  Some of these I've read,   so I went through and picked out an unread title at random.  It was this book, Rodolfo Walsh's Last Case, about which I hesitated at first because the title sounds like one of those mystery novels where authors use "real historical figures as sleuths" (from an article in CrimeReads) which has never really worked for me and come across as sort of cheesy.  But the more I looked at the synopsis, the more I found myself attracted because of the setting -- the military dictatorship of Argentina in 1976.  

In the author's Afterword, she notes that the idea for this book came to her while having her students read various works by Rodolfo Walsh.  One of these, "Letter to my Friends" as she says,

"in which he recounts the death of his daughter, it struck me that concealed within this extraordinary text lay subtle elements from which a full history could be imagined." 

Rodolfo Walsh was a crime novelist/detective story writer who went on to become an investigative journalist, an activist and eventually the chief intelligence officer for the Montoneros, who were, in a nutshell (and for this novel's purposes) left-wing Peronist guerillas active in  their opposition to the right-wing military dictatorship in Argentina.  His book Operation Massacre (1957) had broken new ground in (as a back-cover blurb of my copy from Seven Stories Press notes) "personal investigative journalism."  Walsh had also founded the clandestine news agency ANCLA in 1976 as a response to government censorship as well as the "Information Chain,"  which produced pamphlets of information  meant for "hand-to-hand" distribution."  In this story, the author imagines Walsh as a "protagonist living in those times, a detective, an artist and a militant," saying that he was "all those things" ... 

"doing what he always did, intervening in events the only way he knew how: as a detective in search of the truth."

Here, that search for truth is paramount as Walsh sets out to investigate his daughter's death.  

Walsh and his wife Lila  are at home visiting with their activist friends Pablo and Mariana who have come to announce their pregnancy.  During the visit, they are all alerted to the radio by the "Radio Colonia jingle."  The "dispatch" comes "from across the river in Uruguay," which offers "all the news that's prohibited by the Argentine military goverrnment" and details an attack at a house in Buenos Aires by the Army.   In that house were five people,  members of the Montoneros, "apparently shot dead."  Of the five, the only woman in the house was known to be María Victoria Walsh,  Rodolfo's daughter.   However, one eyewitness on the scene reported that she had not been killed, but had instead been taken prisoner, alive.  The four are completely in shock at the news, but Walsh holds on to the hope offered by the observations of the eyewitness.  Doing what he can to pick up any information, he visits the scene in disguise (evidently something he did often in real life)  to try to picture what had happened there and to look for any sort of clues that may have been left behind.   Getting Vicky's mother involved, she learns nothing from official channels, but there may be someone who can help.    Not too long after the news of his daughter becomes known, Walsh is asked for a meeting by a retired military colonel who offers to try to find out what had happened to her. As it happens, although on opposite sides, some years earlier Walsh had written a story about  Colonel König who believes that Walsh had "vindicated" and "understood" him for doing "what was right." *  There is just one thing he wants in return: if ever Walsh hears that the Colonel's own wayward daughter might be in danger, he will let König know so that he can takes steps to keep her out of the hands of the military.   This may sound like an uneasy alliance, but Walsh's disagreements with his fellow Montoneros and his growing concern over their changing tactics have left him with very few people he can actually trust. 

While it may be set up as a sort of detective story, Rodolfo Walsh's Last Case is a solid piece of historical fiction, set during one of Argentina's darkest times, and the author has captured the danger, the insecurities and the uncertainties of the period  as well as the fault lines that are developing among various sections of society, including Walsh's own Montoneros.  The green Ford Falcons slowly making their way through the streets of Buenos Aires are constant reminders of state surveillance, and anyone at any time could be in danger of being picked up, carted away and tortured,  killed or disappeared by government agents.   At the same time, the novel probes the psychological effects of people caught up in this maelstrom, as the author explores the internal contradictions of the main characters, which takes this book in a direction I did not expect.   Due to the subject matter it's a difficult story to read at times, but to her credit, Drucaroff never veers off into the sentimental, nor does she load the novel down with standard detective-story fare.

Considering I chose this book completely at random, it turned out to be powerful and compelling, a novel I couldn't stop reading, and one I can certainly recommend to readers who have an interest in this time period.   

***********

*You can read this story, "That Woman" at World Literature Today . 

The Owl Cries, by Hye-Young Pyun

 

9781956763508

Arcade Publishing, 2023

originally published 2012 as Seojjok supeuro gatda

translated by Sora Kim-Russell

299 pp

hardcover

(read in April)

I first came across the author when I read her novel The Hole a few years ago and I've been buying her books ever since.  That novel was absolutely chilling, not only in the telling but also in its implications once that last page had been turned.  Her latest novel, published last year is The Owl Cries, which like The Hole, involves a master of manipulation.  

It's the "off-season" for hiking in the forest where In-su Park is the current ranger, meaning that the forest is closed and no one is allowed in.   Used to turning people away, he is about to do the same to a stranger who arrives in a "nice jacket, with a dress shirt and tie," definitely "not an outfit for hiking in the woods." His boss had warned him that "radical environmentalists or ecologists" liked to show up at times, "to deliver canned sermons to the rangers."  But this man is not a hiker, nor does he fall into the environmentalist/ecologist category -- he is Ha-in Lee,  there to look for his older brother, Gyeong-in who had last spoken to him some six months earlier in a mysterious call in which Gyeong-in was sobbing instead of talking.   Their mother had heard from the brother as well, who could only say that "the owl was crying and the trees were attacking."  He is at the ranger station as a starting point,  because Gyeong-in had last been known to have worked there, prior to In-su taking the job.   Although Ha-in actually hates his abusive brother, their mother was "worried" and he felt it his "duty" to find him.   Questioning In-su Park, however, gets Ha-in nowhere, since In-su had only been in this job a short time and he knows nothing.   Ha-in makes his way to the small company town near the forest but no one there seems to know anything either, leaving him to question whether or not Gyeong-in had actually been there in the first place.    As the dustjacket notes, "when an accident and a death derail the investigation,"  the current forest ranger makes a discovery that helps him to decide that he really wants to know what happened to his predecessor, and sadly, he gets much more than he bargained for in the process.

Ha-in's search for his brother is what launches this story, which ultimately picks up the voices of the various people of this small village, each of whom for his or her own reasons have never left despite the severe bottoming out of  the economy there.  Very slowly, the truth of things begins to emerge as the reader begins to wonder what the hell is keeping all of these people stuck in this place, and what actually happened to Gyeong-in.  

I liked this book, didn't love it. What I did enjoy very much is the author's beautiful descriptions of the landscape and her portrayal of the monstrous (albeit very human, not supernatural) presence who looms over this story,  extremely skilled in the art of manipulation and the exercising of power,  preying upon others for his own purposes.  I love when authors spend time on examining psychologies and she is so very good at that here.   On the other hand, The Owl Cries didn't get tiptop reviews on goodreads or at any of the usual places, and I can sort of understand why. For one thing, whoever was in charge of the dustjacket blurb overdid it with the comparisons to "Stephen King, David Lynch, and the nightmare dystopias of Franz Kafka."  I know from reading about the author that King and Kafka are two authors whose work has been an influence on her own, but really, what is written here is overhyping the novel's content, kind of setting up false expectations.  (I keep swearing to myself that I will stop reading these  blurbs, but I do it anyway, and in some instances it is to my own detriment as a reader.)  And while I normally don't mind bleak, this book has absolutely no breaks in the darkness, and it is more than a bit on the murky side heading into the reveals so that even though answers came, for some reason the experience was less than fulfilling.  I know it's unfair to compare books, but The Hole was so bloody good that I supposed I expected more of the same here, and it was a bit of a disappointment when The Owl Cries just didn't measure up. I feel bad about saying that, but, well, there it is.  It actually killed me not to love this novel, but I can't help it. 

That's not to say someone else may not enjoy it; I'm a bit on the demanding side as a reader.  I'll try again with her Law of Lines which I haven't yet read, although it will be a while.

Confession, by Martín Kohan

 

9781913867652

Charco Press, 2023

originally published as Confesión, 2020

translated by Daniel Hahn

162 pp

paperback

(read in March)

Confession is not a long novel, coming in at less than two hundred pages, but its short length disguises the complexity within. It also has a shocker of an ending that completely rattled me for days after finishing this book.  Related in three interconnected parts, the author sets this novel timewise over three periods: before, during and after Argentina's military dictatorship that existed between 1976 and 1983.

Briefly, since to tell any more would be to utterly ruin the reading experience, the narrator of parts one and three is the grandson of a certain Mirta López, and as the novel opens, he takes the reader back to a time in 1941 when his grandmother was a young girl first becoming aware of her sexuality.  It begins with Mirta confessing to her priest at the church of San Patricio in Mercedes.  Sometimes, she says, she experiences a "powerful tremor, a kind of whirpool, only hot, in her stomach, in her whole belly, a thing kind of like a fever and a perspiration ..." that was only calmed by "squeezing her thighs together."   All of this happens whenever she sees the oldest son of the Videla family walking by her dining room window, either going to or from the train station.  He would come home from his school, arriving on Satudays and going back on Sundays, and Mirta waited for him by her window faithfully every weekend.  As her feelings toward the Videla boy intensify and grow more sexual,  the number of trips she makes to the confessional increase, but  her disclosures grow less candid than previously.   Eventually she realizes that she's confessing with "omissions," realizing that if God is "all-knowing" then He must also be all-forgiving.   Mirta goes on to marry, but not to the Videla boy, who married a year later when a lieutenant in the army at the age of 23.  Interspersed throughout this section is another entire strand dealing with the Rio de la Plata, which makes up part of the border between Uruguay and Argentina and upon the shores of which sits the city of Buenos Aires.   The significance of this second narrative strand is highlighted in the second part of this novel, which describes the actions of a group of people, all of whom have "adopted a new name" to create a sort of anonymity as they plot to "strike at the regime, and in as extreme a way as possible." Their plan had been hatched in July of 1976, with the ultimate goal of   "killing the tyrant."  The group's members work both on the streets and below them, trying to conceal what they're doing from prying eyes and from state surveillance, which is everywhere.  In part three, we are reunited with an elderly Mirta López in the present day, during a visit from her grandson at the facility where she now lives.  The author sets up this section brilliantly, as the  two play a card game called truco, the main complexity of which, as noted here, "lies in the need to deceive the opponent and avoid being deceived."   Her short-term memory isn't what it used to be, but she hasn't lost the long-term memory which during this game her grandson tries to plumb to get answers about what she knows about his father who disappeared during the military dictatorship.  Little by little, in between plays of the game, he is able to elicit information that will ultimately tie all of the pieces of this novel together into a unified and extremely painful whole.  

I am drawn to books set during the time of the military dictatorship in Argentina, and Confession left me absolutely stunned. It continued to haunt me for some time, and reflecting on it now brings back all of the feelings it produced the first time around.    Each section of this novel focuses on some aspect of secrets that are held, thoughts or deeds that are left unspoken, things that are both known and unknown -- and what happens when those make their way to the surface.   The author explores the continuing impact of the past on the present, most especially in the ways in which ordinary lives are often randomly caught up in or bound to history.    It is one of the best books I've read this year, and without hesitation I can definitely recommend it.   

The Birthday Party, by Laurent Mauvignier

9781945492655

Transit Books, 2023

originally published 2020 as Histoires de la nuit 

translated by  Daniel Levin Becker

439 pp

I've described this book to friends as a demanding novel due to its style, but once you get used to the way it is written, it becomes unputdownable. It's also a story that eventually began to  fry my nerves until the last page, and I have to admit that more than once I was beyond tempted to just take a peek to make sure everything came out okay.  I didn't, of course, but I really, REALLY wanted to.  

There are three houses in the small hamlet of La Bassée, two of which are occupied and one of which is empty and on the market waiting to be sold.  In one of these houses is the family Bergogne, consisting of Patrice, Marion and their daughter Ida; in the other is their older neighbor, Christine, who lives alone with her dog.  Patrice has carried on the same life he grew up with and had kept the family farm  "in the hands of Bergogne, as his father had wanted."  Marion works in a print shop in the nearby town and Christine is an artist, having left behind "the Parisian life" to able to "do some real work."   

The relationship between Marion and Patrice is somewhat strained; he is overweight, a meek and mild sort of man,  holding in check the violence that he knows is inside of him, the same that he witnessed in his father.  She is younger and more energetic, impulsive; she likes to go out dancing often with her friends,  which makes him feel as though she "prefers their company to his." He never asks about her outings, while she never volunteers anything about them or much else, really.   He does "everything in his power to be pleasant" with her, always worrying about things, especially that she could "leave on a whim" if he did say something.  It's a lonely existence for the two, relieved mainly by the presence of Ida, whom they both love very much and who stays at Christine's house after school while her parents are working.   Marion and Christine don't get along very well, with Christine making sarcastic digs at Marion which Marion answers with silence.   But it's Marion's 40th birthday, and Christine, Ida, and Patrice are preparing for a party he's giving her. While Patrice's invitation to her two work friends is a surprise that Marion knows nothing about, what transpires that evening will be completely unexpected by everyone.

The story covers two days in the lives of these people; in the first, the author allows his characters to go about their business of every day life while allowing the reader a glimpse into the tensions that exist among them,  while in the second he moves them into full-on crisis mode.    The action is slow and very controlled, with the narrative moving from character to character without wrecking the reading flow as the pressure intensifies from moment to moment.  The back blurb notes that the story is a "deft unraveling of the stories we hide from others and from ourselves," which it is in part, but I see it more as an intense character study examining lives that are already on the edge as they become pushed into a situation well beyond their control.  

Labeled as a "gripping tale of the violent irruptions of the past into the present,"  it's easy to understand why this book has been described by so many readers as a thriller -- it is definitely a nailbiter, and I have to say that the author does a fine job of leaving the answer to the key question of "why" all of this is happening until almost the very end, a factor that keeps the pages turning.  The Birthday Party may be frustrating for some people who like swift action, or who don't particularly care for long, streaming paragraphs, but as I noted earlier, once I got the reading rhythm under my belt I did not want to put it down.  I do think though, for reasons I won't get into here, that whoever decided on the title should have used the translated original, as it makes so much more sense and adds another layer of depth to the story as a whole. 

Recommended, for sure. 

Tomb of Sand, by Geetanjali Shree

 "A border, gentlemen, is for crossing." 

9781911284611

Tilted Axis Press, 2021; originally published as Ret Samadhi (2018)

translated by Daisy Rockwell

739 pp

paperback

It was the first paragraph that sold me on this story, which is highly unusual but it's what happened.  Here the author  reveals that "this particular tale has a border and women who come and go as they please," but even more to the point, that 

"The story's path unfurls, not knowing where it will stop, tacking to the right and left, twisting and turning, allowing anything and everything to join in the narration.  It will emerge from within a volcano, swelling silently as the past boils forth into the present, bringing steam, embers and smoke."

I sat back, reread at that initial paragraph and guessed right away that I had here in my hands something completely and refreshingly different.  Evidently I wasn't alone -- at the website for the International Booker Prize, the blurb for this book states that the author's "light touch and exuberant wordplay ensures that Tomb of Sand remains constantly playful -- and utterly original."  And while the word "playful" fits, this novel takes a rather serious and surprising turn in its last section, making this book a most welcome addition to the world of Partition literature, described here as having 

"helped generations to make sense of a period in the subcontinent's history that is quite difficult to fathom in its entirety."  

Tomb of Sand is, as translator Daisy Rockwell notes in her "Translator's Note," 

"a tale woven of many threads, encompassing modern urban life, ancient history, folklore, feminism, global warming, Buddhism and much more."

It is all that and more; it is also hands down one of the best books of my reading year so far and sadly, I would not have known about it except that it was longlisted for the International Booker Prize which it would go on to win, deservedly so in my opinion.  I can honestly say I've never read anything quite like it.  

An older, eighty-year old woman  (known mainly as Ma)  who is a mother, grandmother and now a widow, becomes seriously depressed at the death of her husband and decides that she will not be getting up.  Wrapping herself in a quilt, she remains in her room in her son's Bade's house, with her "back to the world, as though dead"  ignoring the rest of the family's pleas for her to get up.   She had, it seems,

"grown tired of breathing for them, feeling their feelings, bearing their desires, carrying their animosities. She was tired of all of them and she wanted to glide into the wall with a tremor ..."

Things begin to change though first with the arrival of a cane brought by one of Bade's children, known as Overseas Son, a CEO of the overseas branch of the company for whom he works.  At first, his grandmother remained unimpressed; but one day her other grandson Sid comes in to her room and sees her holding the cane "at a ninety-degree angle, eyes closed, still as a statue, looking every inch an otherworldly idol."  On the verge of laughing at this sight,  Sid hears his grandmother declare "I am the Wishing Tree," which, while she continues to remain in bed, has the effect of bringing into the house a host of people hoping that she'll grant their wishes. It isn't too long afterwards that "poof, she'd disappeared into thin air," and this is where the story truly takes off, as she is sought and found and returns not to her son's house, but to that of her daughter Beti.   It isn't long until Beti notices the reversal in their roles wherein "Beti became the mother and made Ma the daughter," and while Ma's presence tends to upset Beti's independent lifestyle, Beti also sees that it's a good arrangement.  As she notes, "When Ma came to my home she began to dream new dreams."   

One of the frequent guests at Beti's apartment is Rosie Bua, a hijra (often described as  "third gender"), who is very close to Ma with whom she shares  (unknown until further on in the story) a history.   One of Rosie's plans was to someday travel to Pakistan; when tragedy strikes, Ma decides that she will go for Rosie, dragging Beti and an old Buddha statue that his been in her family for years along with her on a trip that is plagued by problems almost right away.  

It is a gorgeous book, not only brilliantly written by its author but also brilliantly and skillfully translated by Daisy Rockwell, who says in her "Translator's Notes" that "to the translator, Tomb of Sand is a love letter to the Hindi language."  Noting that the author is fluent in English, she also says that Shree chose to write in her "mother tongue," relishing the "sound of words, and how they echo one another, frequently showcasing their dhwani," described as "an echo, a vibration a resonance."  It can be

"deliberate and playful, as in double entrendre and punning, an accidental mishmash of sameness, or a mythical reverberation."

Admittedly I didn't get all of the references and spent much time with my tablet on my lap while reading, but really, it just didn't matter to me -- I absolutely loved this book.  It is a great example of what a writer can do not just with story but also with language and storytelling;  above all it is a book about borders, physical and otherwise.  "A Border," as Ma says to a group of men in Pakistan, "is for crossing" and it is just a joy to read about how many borders this woman (and other people as well)  refuses to be confined or defined by as she comes into her own.  As the back-cover blurb notes, it is a "timely protest against the destructive impact of borders and boundaries, whether between religions, countries, or genders."  There is so much happening in this book that makes it pretty impossible to encompass in a brief post, but it is rare that I find something like this novel which, despite the tragedies here, is so very life affirming in so many different ways.  If you need the quick story fix you won't find it here; I'd recommend it to those readers who are willing to take a chance on something very different than the norm.  I feel so lucky having made my way through these pages; it's a novel I will never, ever forget.  

a quick BTW:  I've recently read that Tomb of Sand will be available in the US as of 2023, but I bought my copies (yes, I made an error and ended up with two)  from Tilted Axis Press and having forgotten I'd done that, I turned to Waterstones in the UK.   I'm beyond happy I bought my book when I did.  

Elena Knows, by Claudia Piñeiro

 

9781999368432

Charco Press, 2021

originally published as Elena sabe

translated by Frances Riddle

152 pp

paperback

(read earlier, in March)

  I bought Elena Knows last July, set it aside, and just recently took it off its shelf when I learned it is one of the books on this year's International Booker longlist.  The fact that it went on to make the shortlist was no surprise to me --  I'm a huge fan of Claudia Piñeiro's novels; I think I've read each one that's been translated into English and they've all been excellent.   I've also become a huge fan of Charco Press, a small publisher with a track record of great books, and Elena Knows is no exception.   

Elena's daughter Rita died on a rainy afternoon, found by some boys sent by the priest to ring the bells ahead of the 7:00 mass.  Her body was hanging by a rope in the belfry; her death declared a suicide.  But Elena knows that her daughter would never take herself to the church while it was raining; if she was there, she thinks, it must be that someone had "dragged her there, dead or alive."  No one will listen to her, not the coroner, not the police inspector, and not the priest, but she knows Rita would never have killed herself.  After all, "No one knows as much about her daughter as she does."  It had to be murder, but Elena knows she could never prove it on her own.

 The reason Elena can't do anything more about her murder theory is that she suffers from advanced Parkinson's, which she calls her "fucking whore illness," or "Herself," a disease that severely limits Elena's movements but not her mind, so 

"Even if she uses all the tricks in the book, she won't be able to uncover the truth unless she recruits another body to help her."

Believing that a woman named Isabel, whom she hasn't seen for twenty years but feels that she is someone who "feels the need to repay a debt" is the right person to help her discover the truth about Rita's death, Elena sets off across the city of Buenos Aires to find her.   The novel is divided into three sections, each corresponding to the timing of Elena's meds; she only has a certain amount of time during which her pills allow her legs to function.  Elena's life is measured in this way; not in hours but in intervals of medication.   Beginning with her second pill of the day, the story  captures Elena's difficult, painful but determined journey to find Isabel, while  flashbacks reveal her somewhat conflicted relationship with her daughter as well as the burdens not only of the disease on Elena, but also those taken on by caregivers.   As Elena faces the difficulties in navigating the streets of Buenos Aires (which are explained in  detail), we also learn just how difficult it is to navigate those bureaucratic agencies meant to help someone in Elena's condition.  While the going seems slow in spots, it's the final section that packs the major punch as Elena and Isabel finally meet and Elena comes to realize exactly what it is she doesn't know. 

Throughout the story, of course, it's also impossible not to ponder the mystery of Rita's death in the back of your mind.  As Dr. Fiona Mackintosh of University of Edinburgh notes in her Afterword to this book, Elena is presented as a very unlikely "elderly detective-heroine,"  an 

"objectionable and outspoken woman suffering advanced Parkinson's who stubbornly persists against the odds in investigating the death of her own daughter."

Yet as is the case in the other books I've read by Piñeiro, crime fiction is the vehicle by which the author makes astute observations on society, and in this book she raises, again quoting Mackintosh, issues that are "universal, timely and complex," including "the obstacles of a woman's right to control her own body, the myths and realities surrounding motherhood, the mental and physical constraints on women's daily routines, and the increasing challenges of an ill and ageing body."   In point of fact, bodies loom large in this novel.  There is much, much more of course, but I don't want to give anything away that might constitute a spoiler.  Let's just say that in a very big way, this book is definitely timely, and I'll go out on a limb to say that it's a necessary read, especially given what's happening here in the US at the moment.  An absolutely powerful story that overpowered me and made me cry (I'm sure because of the excellent translation by Frances Riddle), I would recommend this book to anyone.  I do hope Charco Press will bring more of this author's books into translation -- she is absolutely one of my favorite writers and has been for a long time. 

The Lost Village, by Camilla Sten

 

  read in March 

9781250249258

Minotaur, 2021

originally published 2019

translated by Alexandra Fleming

340 pp

hardcover

The first US edition of this novel came out earlier this year, and when it came to my door  I was beyond excited to get into it. It was that blurb that got me, you know, the one that says that The Lost Village is a "disturbing thriller" in which "The Blair Witch Project meets Midsommar."  I've never actually watched Midsommar (horror movies just aren't my bailiwick) but I had read several synopses and read through a number of watcher reviews so I sort of had an idea of what I should look for;  The Blair Witch Project I saw long ago. Oh, I thought, this sounds sooo good; the description inside the dustjacket cover made me feel like I had the perfect escape novel in my hands and I seriously needed that at the moment.  Later that night it was off to bed, nightstand light off, booklight on, doggie curled up at my feet;  ready to be simultaneously disturbed and thrilled.  

The first chapter sucked me right in.  It's August, 1959, and two policemen are making their way through the streets of Silvertjärn, "a village in the middle of the forest."  One of the two men noted that Silvertjärn  seemed like a

"pleasant, unassuming place, with dainty houses in even rows, a river meandering through the center and a white stuccco church spire that soared up over the rooftops, gleaming in the August sunshine,"

 But something is off -- there are no people anywhere to be seen.  At the village square, one of the men feels a "surge of relief" when he finally spots someone, but the relief is short lived when they discover a body tied to a pole, blood coagulating at its feet. Amid the silence that permeates the place, they hear the cries of a baby through an open window at the school.  Flash forward to the present, and Alice Lindstedt has decided to put together a six-episode documentary about Silvertjärn. It seems that her grandmother had once lived there, and Alice had grown up hearing stories about the village. Her grandmother, as Alice notes, "had already left Silvertjärn when it happened, but her parents and younger sister were among the missing."  Her documentary aims to answer the question of how the village could "just drop off the face of the earth."  The plan is for Alice and her small crew to head to Silvertjärn to "explore the village and film some test shots," hoping to entice potential backers with what footage they get; she also hopes to "delve into" a number of possibilities,  

"everything from a gas leak that supposedly caused mass hysteria and delirium, to an ancient Sami curse."

Arriving in the village, Alice and colleagues set up a base camp in the main square, and it isn't long (as the dustjacket cover blurb reveals)  until strange things begin happening. One of the group sees a figure in the darkness. Another is badly injured.  Alice starts hearing things that shouldn't be there, someone sabotages the equipment, the crew start to disappear.  As all of this is going on, Silvertjärn's past is slowly being revealed in chapters labeled "Then." 

All of this should have been right up my mystery/supernatural fiction-loving brain, but sadly, for me it wasn't.  It wasn't too long in before I decided that what's going on in the present has been the stuff of  any number of movies I've seen, so I had more than an inkling of where this all was headed. Honestly,  what stopped me from throwing in the towel here was that I needed to know what had happened in 1959.  There was no Blair Witch stuff going on here -- the little bit of film Alice had managed to shoot didn't amount  to a hill of beans. And the Midsommar connection is absolutely tenuous at best but you have to squint through the 1959 story to find it;  as she writes it, it had more of a NXIVM sort of feel. Even there though, my interest started waning, and I was neither thrilled nor disturbed.  When the ending arrived, well, let's just say the eyerolls came out in full.  I really wish I would give into my instincts and tell you why, but I won't.  Let's also just say that it was so over the top as to be completely unbelievable. 

This is another case in which the book and I did not get along.  First of all, I'm not sure what the author was trying to do here.  Is this meant to be a crime/thriller novel or is it a supernatural story?  Either way it just didn't work. It's like she tried to combine the two, which can be done and can be done well, but not here.  Second, that ending was just so far out there and raises a hell of a lot more questions than answers.  Finally, as I was reading it, I just felt like the author wrote this with an eye to a film or a tv series (complete with tearful reconciliation scene in the midst of all of the mayhem) and lo and behold, after I finished I discovered that pre-publication,  "tv and film rights have already been sold."  On the flip side, this is also another case in which the book seemed to have been well loved by everyone else, with a 4 average star rating on Amazon and high praise from readers at Goodreads and several reader  blogs.  I really really wanted to like it, but it's just not for me.  

Maybe she should have gone with the ancient Sami curse...

The Slaughterman's Daughter, by Yaniv Iczkovits

 

9780805243659

Schocken Books, 2021

originally published 2015

translated by Orr Scharf

515 pp

hardcover

The year is 1894, or the year 5654 as reckoned by the Jewish calendar.  In the latest issue of the paper Hamagid Mende Speismann reads a notice entitled  "Wife Lost," which stated the following:

"A woman went out in the second hour after midnight and has not returned since. All of our efforts to look for her in villages and towns, forests and rivers have failed. Her whereabouts are unknown and there's not a trace of her to be found...She has left her husband, five children, and miserable mother-in-law in despair in their village home."

Mende sets the paper aside for a moment before she reads the rest of the notice revealing that the missing woman is her sister, Fanny Keismann.   Mende lives in the village of Motal, in the Pale of Settlement,  the only legally-authorized territory in which Jews could reside "within the borders of czarist Russia."  Mende's husband Zvi-Meir had left his wife and children some ten months earlier,  and on her birthday, Mende tries to kill herself.   Fanny, a woman who wants to "mend the entire world," understands that it's not soul mending (tikkun) that Mende wants, nor is it really Zvi-Meir, but rather "she yearns for the authority of a husband and for the life of a wife" to make her life meaningful.   Fanny decides that she will take herself to Zvi-Meir in Minsk, to make him sign "a writ of divorce," and make things right.   Leaving her own home and her husband the cheesemaker, she slips out "in the second hour of midnight" determined in her mission.   She travels the seven versts from her village of Upiravah to Motal where the boatman, Zizek Breshov awaits to take her across the Yaselda river.  From there she plans to hire a cart and horses to begin her journey, and is surprised when Zizek, who "never leaves the Yaselda" follows after her.  Another surprise is in store when she realizes that he had not only hidden a wagon and two horses in some trees, but after helping her into her seat, he grabs the reins and "starts turning the horses."   

Thus begins Fanny's journey, and despite the potential dangers of being a Jewish woman on the road, she's not too worried.  She had been known since her girlhood  as "die vilde chaya," the wild animal,  learning and practicing her father's profession of ritual slaughtering.  Although she'd given up the profession when she married, she still carried a knife "tied to her right leg" as she had since childhood, always keeping it sharpened.  It comes in handy early on when she and Zizek come upon "a band of thugs" out to steal their cart and their horses; unfortunately this encounter results in the unwanted attention of the authorities who are sent to capture them.

Enter Piotr Novak, a district commander for the secret police (Okhrana).  Novak had formerly had a brilliant career in the military up until a horrific accident which not only shattered his leg but also "destroyed his life's dream."   When he learns of the deaths of the bandits, he is not inclined to take up the case, believing it should go to the regular police agency instead; that changes when he learns that the knife had been used in the way that "żyds slaughter animals."  While he thinks it highly unlikely, he believes that "this style of slaying" is "distinctive, and therefore sends a clear message: the Jews are responsible ..." and that "these murders might have been spurred on by an ideological motive, after all," and that perhaps he's "uncovered a new form of insurgency."  The chase begins,  and while Fanny and Zizek continue on their mission, they encounter a number of significant people, each with his own backstory and history that highlight not only the acts of individuals as opposed to the collective, but also how it is that, as Fanny notes early on,  "silent acceptance" allows for injustice and worse.   

The dustjacket blurb calls The Slaughterman's Daughter a "rollicking and unforgettable work of fiction," and the pursuit that begins just a short time after Fanny and Zizek cross the Yaselda certainly earns the "rollicking" description,  but it is much more:  an examination of an empire on the brink of tremendous change, a meditation on the meaning of freedom, a portrait of the Jews who have set themselves apart in a Russia that doesn't want them, sharing "the same soil but not the same world."  Most of all though this is Fanny's story, one of finding her way in the world and discovering who she is.  Yes, it's a bit long; yes, parts of might have been pared a bit, but I don't care. I loved this book, and it's one I'd continue to love even if the rest of the world hated it.  The Slaughterman's Daughter is so  refreshingly different, reminding me somewhat of an old-fashioned adventure story mixed with history, but one still very much pertinent in our own time.  

It's really, really good.  

Dead Girls, by Selma Almada

 

9781916277847

Charco Press, 2020

originally published as Chicas muertas, 2014

translated by Annie McDermott

146 pp

paperback

I read this back in November but have reread it in the meantime, and it was even more powerful the second time through.  Dead Girls is described on the back cover as being a work of "journalistic fiction," defined as 

"a form of nonfiction that combines factual reporting with narrative techniques and stylistic strategies traditionally associated with fiction," 

used here to great effect to tell a story of three femicides that occurred over a short, six-year period in the 1980s, during which time Argentina was "celebrating its return to democracy."  The author's first exposure to femicide was at the age of thirteen, when as she says, a "dead girl crossed my path," although she also reveals that it was earlier,  during her childhood in a small town in Argentina's interior, that she came to sense that "as a girl"  she was safe nowhere, and that  "all the responsibility for what happened to us was laid at our feet ... it was always your fault."   Not even the family home, "the protective family space,"  was safe, since violence could happen there as well.  That dead girl crossing the author's path was Andrea Danne (19),  who had been murdered in her own bed; the other two women whose stories she examines are Maria Luisa Quevado (15)  strangled, raped, body dumped,  and Sarita Mundin (20), a young mother whose body was discovered washed up on a riverbank.   As one might guess, this is not an uplifting story, but it is one that needs to be told.  Now. Today. 

Dead Girls chronicles the author's investigations into the deaths of these three women, whose murderers were never brought to justice.  Over the course of three years she meets and talks to their friends, family members, or to anyone who might have known anything about what had happened to them.  While some are willing to talk, in many cases she is met with silence and evasion.  She also combs through newspapers, reports, archives, while at the same time, reflecting on her own childhood and realizing that the topic of violence of women "was always there."  She remembers and discusses  conversations  about women in the neighborhood who were beaten by their husbands, or who were controlled by the men in their lives  to the point where, for example, wearing high heels was not allowed "because they were for whores," or  the wearing of make-up was forbidden.  As Ms. Almada says, these were discussions "grown women" spoke about "in whispers," while her mother talked about them "loudly, indignantly," before being told to be quiet (when children were present)  in code:  

"Careful, there's laundry hanging up ... as if saying those things were like saying dirty words, or worse, as if they were a source of unimaginable shame." 

While Dead Girls focuses on "three small-town girls murdered in the 1980s," their stories are set squarely within the wider context of  violence against women as she goes on to offer the names and brief stories of others who had met the same fate at the hands of men, as well as the  well-entrenched misogyny and commonplace violence that exists throughout the small towns in Argentina's interior.  This is not, as she also reveals, a new phenomenon, citing an account in a book that "catches her eye" about the case of a Polish girl from the 1950s who had the misfortune of having a boyfriend who was a "possessive, jealous and violent man." 

 In her Epilogue, before listing the names of femicide victims who died over the month's time  since the "new year began,"  the author writes that 

"In that time, at least ten women have been killed for being women. I say at least, because these are the names that appeared in the papers, the ones that counted as news"

leaving the reader to wonder about the ones who didn't count as news.  

As the back-cover blurb says, what she's written here is a "clear-eyed, multi-faceted account that has global resonance." While I recognize the huge importance of Selva Almada's book, at the same time, it's a very difficult book to read on an emotional level.  While reading it, I couldn't help  thinking of Fernanda Melchior's Hurricane Season  -- in both books the authors offer a look into the economic and social conditions in these small towns that help to feed that violence, but also acknowledge  that crimes against women are all too often marginalized by the police or the politicians who have the power to change things but allow these crimes to continue.   

It's a tough book, but so worth it, and it's one I can very highly recommend.  I can also recommend Charco Press, a small but ultimately awesome publisher.  

The Tartar Steppe, by Dino Buzzati

9781786891648

Canongate, 2018

originally published as Il deserto dei Tartari, 1940

translated by Stuart Hood

275 pp

paperback

"...perhaps I might be some use if there was a war. Maybe I wouldn't. Perhaps in a war -- but otherwise no use at all..."

Perhaps ironically, perhaps not, the first page of this novel starts on the day that Lieutenant Giovanni Drogo has "looked forward to for years -- the beginning of his real life."  I didn't fully appreciate the impact of these words until after I'd finished The Tartar Steppe and went back to the beginning before closing the book.

It is on this day that Drogo leaves the city to start his posting at Fort Bastiani, beyond which is desert:

"Stones and parched earth -- they call it the Tartar Steppe."

The soldiers at Fort Bastiani are there, it seems,  to protect against a possible incursion by the Tartars, who may have lived in the desert "Long, long ago..." but have not been seen since.   On reaching the Fort, Drogo realizes that he may have made a mistake, but was convinced to "put up with staying" there for four months.  Late at night, unable to sleep, he starts to question his decision wondering if somehow his superiors wouldn't let him go after the four months were up, unable to keep his thoughts from wandering to the possibility that he may have to

"stay up there for years and years, in this room, in this solitary bed."

He is warned by the brother of the Fort's tailor  to "see that you leave as soon as possible, that you don't catch their madness"  --    a "kind of illness" common among soldiers who believe that "Great things are coming and that "something must happen."   It is imperative, the old man tells him, to 

"Watch out...you will let them convince you, you'll end up by staying here too." 

Drogo refuses to accept this, believing himself  to be "an outsider, an uncontaminated spectator," who will be leaving them forever in just "four months' time." However, at the end of the four-month period, he's decided to stay, having become used to things and having 

"within him dull sluggishness born of habit, military vanity, love for the accustomed walls which were his home." 

As time goes by, he slowly becomes more entrenched at the Fort as he and the men there continue to wait for the "enemy to advance across the steppe, for one great and glorious battle." None of the officers ever utter the word war, as "in it lies their hope," and Drogo waits for "something different," something 

"truly worthy of him, so that he could say: Now it is over and I have done what I could." 

While all at Fort Bastiani continue to wait over the years, Drogo discovers that life in the city has "become completely foreign to him," that it is now "a world of strangers where his place had been easily filled."  His old friends marry and have families, while Drogo's opportunities come and he lets them pass.  Eventually he finds himself  unable to hold back the "mysterious flood" as 

"Everything goes by -- men, the seasons, the clouds, and there is no use clinging to the stones, no use fighting it out on some rock in midstream; the tired fingers open, the arms fall back inertly and you are still dragged into the river, the river which seems to flow so slowly yet never stops"

as his years of expectations fade away into years of emptiness, and as his life becomes no more than an existence as barren as the Tartar Steppe.    And it just might be, according to Buzzati, that Drogo may have been deluding himself all along;  he may just be "an ordinary mortal for whom only a mediocre fate is reserved." 

The Tartar Steppe speaks to a life of waiting and hoping for something that may never happen, walling oneself off from everything while hoping for that moment of  meaning in one's life.    It's a good thing I don't mind reading bleak, because this book is one of the bleakest.   At the same time though, it is a beautiful and haunting piece of writing and I'm absolutely kicking myself for having let it sit on my shelves forever.  This one I can very highly recommend, but leave the introduction by Tim Parks until the end.  

I loved this book. Absolutely.  

The Mystery of Henri Pick, by David Foenkinos

9781782275824
Pushkin, 2020
originally published as La Mystere Henri Pick, 2016
translated by Sam Taylor
270 pp

paperback

"This novel changed lives." 

My curiosity was more than aroused by the idea that Pushkin Press would be partnering with Walter Presents "for a series of timeless novels with strong international appeal."   The books chosen have been "handpicked" by Walter Iuzzolino himself, whose long-running Walter Presents has been a tv staple in my house for several years, even before the move to PBS in 2018, so there was no doubt that I would be buying this novel.  I've also preordered Walter's second Pushkin pick, The Second Life of Inspector Canessa, due out here in the US January of 2021. 

I admit to being a bit surprised as I started reading this book, as most of the time Walter tends to lean toward international crime.  The Mystery of Henri Pick, as I discovered, is much more on the lighter side than I'd expected.  At first it was a bit discombobulating not having the full-fledged crime/mystery novel I thought I'd bought, so I had to regroup, let go of my original expectations and move on.  Once I relaxed, the book became a fun read, albeit with a slightly serious edge.

In the small town of Crozon in Brittany, librarian Jean-Pierre Gourvec had set aside a space at the municipal library "for the world's homeless manuscripts," inspired by his reading of The Abortion by American writer Richard Brautigan.   After placing ads in trade magazines "inviting all authors" to bring their rejected books to his library,  writers throughout the country came to

"rid themselves of the fruits of their failure. It was a sort of literary pilgrimage. There was a symbolic value in travelling hundreds of miles to put an end to the frustrations of not being published."

Meanwhile, in Paris, Delphine Despero has gone to work for Grasset, hired as a junior editor for this publishing firm. It was in this context that she met and fell for a young, aspiring writer by the name of Frédriéc Koskas who later accompanied her on a trip to the home of her parents in the village of Morgat, near Crozon.  Delphine is curious after hearing about the library of rejected books, and after  the pair make couple of visits, Delphine takes one of the manuscripts, The Last Hours of a Love Affair away with her and becomes throroughly enchanted with it, ultimately deciding that it absolutely had to be published.  The book's author is one Henri Pick, now deceased, but who used to run a pizzeria in Crozon.  As the dustjacket blurb  informs, "The book is an immediate sensation, prompting fevered interest in the identity of its author."  Curiosity grows about Henri Pick, not just for the journalist who wonders how this pizza chef could write such a novel, but also for his family, who'd never even seen him pick up a book, let alone spend time writing.   The publication of Pick's work also sets off a number of "unforeseen consequences" which make up the bulk of The Mystery of Henri Pick, as it is definitely a novel that "changed lives." 

This book fortuitously arrived at a point when I needed something mind-refreshing, something on the lighter side, and the author threw a few hours of happy reading my way.    Author David Foenkinos noted that his book is "a playful reflection of the literary world,"  as well as a "tribute to books and literature and to the writers that have long been heroes of mine," and I have to admit that I couldn't help feeling rather guilty every time he mentioned a title that has been sitting on my shelves, sadly neglected and sadly unread.  The story is definitely "playful," and while I loved the literary references as well as the great love for books and literature displayed throughout, for my taste it goes too much into the private lives/soul searching of all of the characters affected by the publication of Pick's book, making it drag a bit in the reading after a while and sometimes turning toward the "cutesy" side which is just not my cuppa.  I also want to say that the dustjacket makes a lot of the "obstinate journalist," but in reality, he takes up far less space than I would have thought from the book's description.    But then came the ending which  I can only describe as completely unexpected and which I greeted with mental applause and a silent shout of bravo in my head.  Now to watch the film.

Overall, it's fun, it's lighthearted, and we can all use some of that happening in our lives at the moment. 

Hurricane Season, by Fernanda Melchor

9780811228039
New Directions, 2020
originally published 2016 as Temporada de huracanes
translated by Sophie Hughes
207 pp

hardcover


The discovery of a corpse floating in an irrigation canal near a small rural village opens this most harrowing novel.  The person known as "the Witch" has been killed;  the question of who is responsible and why is asked and answered here, but it quickly becomes apparent that this book is not just a simple murder mystery.  In Hurricane Season, the author explores the hopelessness and the violence that plagues this small village as well as the myriad forces that shape and perpetuate it.

  The narratives of four different but interconnected characters living in the village of La Matosa form the very core of this book, moving the story forward (although not always in linear fashion)  from their various vantage points.  Each one takes us somewhat closer to the crime as well as to an understanding of the character of the Witch herself.  It is telling that she remains voiceless here while her presence remains central to everything.  Since these stories happen to build from one another however,  any certainty you may have gained from one person is quickly shaken as seeds of doubt begin to creep into your mind with the next, often changing your perspective and understanding. Yet as they relate what they know (or think they know) about the Witch and events that may have led to her murder, taken together these accounts paint a grim picture of a more collective reality of life in the village of La Matosa, a place one character refers to as "the ass end of nowhere," a place where the inhabitants  have been passed by, ignored or forgotten on many levels.    What we find in their lives reveals much about these people, especially  their dreams of escape from a hopeless future while stuck in a society where abandonment, poverty, misery, and violence of all sorts never seem to end.   What's more, the institutions that could make a difference don't seem to work here:  families break down,  religion and superstition mingle into one and neither the government nor the law bring any sort of justice.

I have opted not to detail any of the plot since the less a potential reader knows about what happens here the better.  What I will say is that as truly bleak as it is,  I thought this novel was brilliant and unflinchingly honest on so many levels, and that as the dustjacket blurb says, the author did manage to "extract some tiny shred of humanity from these characters" that leaves room for empathy and understanding.  More importantly, the novel underscores a number of ongoing horrors plaguing parts of Mexico, including narcotrafficking, homophobic prejudice and violence, and especially femicide.

 I read an article about Hurricane Season a few days ago in which the author is quoted as saying about this book (you'll have to trust my translation here):

"Of course, it's a love novel, only the characters never find it. It's something you lack so much that you don't even know what's it like. And even if they find it, it doesn't matter, because what good if everyone is drowning, it's all fucked up."

Reading Hurricane Season made me very uncomfortable for a number of reasons, two of which I'll name. First, there's an overwhelming sense of hopelessness that pervades this book, and I'm left with the feeling that the future holds little resolution to the underlying problems that exist in La Matosa leaving things to continue on as usual.   Second, while I loved the writing style, the language is just brutal and raw; the author doesn't hesitate to use some pretty foul words and her portrayal of heartbreaking sexual abuse is just downright ugly.   Then again, I had to ask myself how someone could otherwise write a book that captures "the brutal force of male vice,"  rage that doesn't quit, and the sense of it all being so "fucked up," and I couldn't come up with an answer.