The Europa Challenge Blog

Stacia Reviews THE NUN by Simonetta Agnello Hornby

2012-02-20T08:54:00.000-05:00

The Nun by Simonetta Agnello Hornby

Well, just a few chapters into The Nun, Iwas reminded of one of perks of historical fiction: finding out new facts aboutdifferent times & places (& sometimes things that are still true). Thebook opens in Messinain 1839 during the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Afterpoking around a bit, I found out this annual religious procession still takesplace in Messina;there are various photos & videos posted online. The machine used in theprocession is a huge, pyramid shaped creation that includes rotating partsdepicting the sun, moon, and various angels. During the time of The Nun,apparently real infants were used to portray the angels -- seven or eight hoursin the hot sun, rotating high above street level....Of course, these days,infants are no longer used and statues are in place instead. This is just oneof the neat history tidbits I've picked up from this book. If you areinterested, here are a few links that show what I'm referencing:

http://www.thoughts.com/backpackernews/la-vara-festival-in-messina-sicily(photos)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9bBBgeZ65o&feature=related(video)

Do you find yourself researching things(photos, maps, videos,...) when reading historical fiction? If so, this lovelynovel will be a delight for you with its meticulously-researched historicaldetails. The book moves at a languid, meditative pace (completely in keeping withthe ideas of nuns & monastic orders). Each piece of the story is like a shardof colored glass – a beautiful, intricate detail (of life in a convent,of life in an Italian town in the mid-1800s, of life in Italy duringtimes of turmoil) that meshes & unfolds with other pieces to create akaleidoscopic view of a small window in history. I think the setting & theperiod details are the stars of the story. Recommended for lovers of historicalfiction.

New York Times Book Review Today and 2 Upcoming Events in Boston

2012-02-12T10:08:00.002-05:00

Congrats to EE on a great write-up in today's New York Times Book Review for Audrey Schulman's Three Weeks in December. The review definitely moved the book up in my TBR pile! You can read the review here.

And I found out today that there will be two events with Schulman in the Boston area soon:

Tuesday, February 21 at 7pm at Brookline Booksmith with author Leigh Stein, and
March 2 at 7pm at the Harvard Book Store.

Stein's novel The Fallback Plan is out recently from Melville House, another great small press.

Anyone up for a Boston area Europa meetup at one or both?

Marie C. Reviews THE GIRL IN THE POLKA-DOT DRESS by Beryl Bainbridge

2012-02-08T00:00:00.000-05:00

The Girl in the Polka-Dot Dress, by Beryl Bainbridge. Published 2011 by Europa Editions.

Well, I guess it had to happen sooner or later- I read a Europa I didn't like.

At first I thought I was just going to DNF The Girl in the Polka-Dot Dress, celebrated British author Beryl Bainbridge's posthumously published novel about two strangers on a road trip to California just before the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. The first time I tried to read it, I found it dull and confusing. Bainbridge tells the story with less than the minimum exposition; heavy on dialogue and internal monologue, we don't know much about why an American widower Washington Harold and an English girl named Rose are looking for one Mr. Wheeler. Little by little, we find out some, but I was still left with more questions than answers.

So I put it down for a while and picked it up again, determined not to be defeated. And I wasn't, at least in the sense that I finished it. I still don't understand much about what happened. I wonder if this minimalist style is typical of Bainbridge's writing; this is the first novel of hers I've read. Whatever else you can say though, it's definitely not for me.

I did enjoy some things about the book. I liked the gentle accumulation of detail and her strange relationship with Harold. I liked the contradictions that often occurred between what one of the characters says and what he or she is thinking. And their rambling adventures and the people they meet along the way have a darkly comic picaresque quality that is kind of fun. On the whole though, not really one for me. Maybe you'll have better luck!

This is my second Europa of 2012. I'll probably read The Nun next.

FTC Disclosure: I received this book for review from Europa Editions.

Josh Reviews God on the Rocks by Jane Gardam

2012-02-07T15:13:00.002-05:00

I will write a post about this book and not simply on how amazing Jane Gardam is.
I will write a post about this book and not simply on how amazing Jane Gardam is.
I will write a post about this book and not simply on how amazing Jane Gardam is.
I will write a post about this book and not simply on how amazing Jane Gardam is.
I will write a post about this book and not simply on how amazing Jane Gardam is.
I will write a post about this book and not simply on how amazing Jane Gardam is.
I will write a post about this book and not simply on how amazing Jane Gardam is.

Awww darnit, I can’t! Jane Gardam is simply amazing. Generally I am more than happy to allow everyone to have their own opinions on books I review on this blog, but not this one. And not this author. God on the Rocks has everything one could possibly ask for. Humor. Heartbreak. Redemption. Family. Sacrifice. Love. Regret. Class struggle. Drama. I could go on for pages. Gardam’s post WWI set novel examines a cross-section of life in a coastal England town inhabited by characters Dickens himself would be proud to populate his novels with. Quiet Ellie, brave Margaret, repressed Mr. Marsh, brassy Lydia and the rest will stay with you long after you finish this rather slim work.

Using the ultra-scientific “How long does this make my metro ride to and from work feel” barometer, I give this book a solid rank of “may the metro break down and take forever to get home.” The plot, such as it is, bounces back and forth in time revealing key events in the lives of its characters exposing their vulnerabilities and truths in such a heartbreakingly humorous way that the sting is sharp and soft at the same time. One of my favorite aspects of reading Gardam is the manner in which she takes the upper and middle classes, upends their stereotypes and delivers a subtle yet scathing indictment of high society without robbing that society of its humanity. This passage from page 76 is just one example:

‘Father. He is not clever like Charles and Binkie, dear. He’s not educated like them. He has always lived here, you see. He’s never lived anywhere else.’
‘Do you have to leave a place to be clever?’
‘I believe you do in a way…It’s because I never went away that no one here will ever think I’m clever. Charles and Binkie went to Cambridge.’
‘What’s Cambridge?’
‘A place for clever people.’

Gardam saves some scorn the religiosity of Englanders post WWI as well, painting many of its most religious as its most troubled characters and those free from religion are its most lucid and centered. The intersection of morality, religion, class and real life provides much of the story’s plot progression and finest moments. However, to leave Ms. Gardam’s attention to detail and period description would be an offense to this wonderful woman. The propriety and pomp, the manners and behaviors of a society in flux come through in ways that allow the setting and dress of the scenes and characters to reveal as much as the dialogue and plot.

Ms. Gardam had made a fan of me long before God on the Rocks, with Old Filth, The Man in the Wooden Hat and The Queen of the Tambourine. This was the first of her books that I had read (though it was written in 1974 I believe), to include so many various first-person perspectives. Honestly, I could not pinpoint one main protagonist. I highly recommend this and the other Europa Editions works by Jane Gardam. One could reach Espresso level reading just her four alone and would be hard-pressed to find a bad apple among the bunch. This is my second Europa of 2012, putting me at Ristretto level with many more to come! Up next I need to re-read Between Two Seas for my book club this month and after that I’m tossing around either Three Weeks in December or Kerrigan’s Little Criminals.

Stacia Reviews Four Europas!

2012-02-06T11:29:00.002-05:00

I want to welcome new Challenge participant Stacia; she doesn't have a Google account so I'll be posting her reviews here on her behalf. She's got four to start off with- wow! Welcome, Stacia!

In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut:

Ifinished In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut. Wow. The book centers on afictional character, yet Galgut refers to him as both 'he' and 'I' at variouspoints in the text, making it feel like it's really not fiction at all, butrather autobiographical. It also makes you feel close to the main character,then very far away, & back again. Galgut doesn't use traditionalpunctuation (quotes, question marks), but it fits perfectly w/ the flow of hisnarrative.

The prose seems simple enough, telling 3separate stories of a South African backpacker's travels in the world & thepeople he encounters/is with/drifts away from on these trips. He's an astuteobserver of humans, himself especially, & has a fine touch at conveying themyriad emotions of travel, meeting others (some good, some bad), the loneliness,the musings of someone traveling alone w/ no specific schedule or destinationin mind. Overall, there is a melancholy tone to the book, yet it's riveting,simple, and straight-forward at the same time.

I love to travel, though I've never really donebackpacking per se. Reading this book makes me wish American culture in generalembraced this idea more (which seems so prevalent in many European countries& various other countries as well). It's not just a journey to a place,it's a journey through oneself.

Zeroville by Steve Erickson:

I loved, loved this surreal, funny,unsettling, unique musing on movies, good vs. evil, the nature of man vs. God,dreams vs. reality,.... This book has a few of the funniest, most absurd (in agood way) scenes that I've read in a long time. And, it's a perfect read in therun-up to the Oscars.

Broken Glass Park by Alina Bronsky:

AlinaBronsky does a superb job with writing in a teen's point of view. Sascha (themain character) is tough, tender, smart, acid, & painfully realistic. Herstory is both heartbreaking & funny as it blows by you at a breakneck pace.(However, there is one point where the pacing changed somewhat & it threwme to the point that I flipped back a couple of pages, thinking I had somehowskipped a page or two....) An unflinching look at an immigrant life lived onthe fringe, surviving violent circumstances, moving forward (sometimesbackward) in spite of it all....

Hygieneand the Assassin by Amélie Nothomb:

Pretentiousrepartee. I realize that was a main point of it, the irony of it, but it doesnot necessarily lead to an enjoyable read, imo. Meh.

HRO's 2012 Europa Challenge

2012-02-05T08:41:00.000-05:00

I've been debating for over a month about whether or not to sign up for this challenge. I already have so many books that I plan to read this year that I don't think it's possible I'll really get to them all. And I failed at this challenge last year. But I'm fascinated by Europa publications, and I already own several that are getting all dusty and whiny on the bookshelf.

Soooo...I have decided that in 2012 I am going to be a cappuccino-drinking passport-holding Europa Reader. (What that means is I am signing on for the Cappuccino Level, which is six books. And I'll be doing the Passport Holder Specialty Challenge, which is "books from different countries or original languages.")

My idea is to read one book from each of seven continents/regions: North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, South America, and the Middle East. This is based on either the book setting and/or the author's nationality.

My tentative reading list is as follows:

North America/USA: Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine
Europe/Greece: The Jasmine Isle by Ioanna Karystiani
Asia/Sri Lanka: Mosquito by Roma Tearne
Oceania/Australia: Sorry by Gail Jones
Africa/Rwanada: Three Weeks in December by Audrey Schulman
South America/Chile: Tierra del Fuego by Francisco Coloane
Middle East/Israel: Love Burns by Edna Mazya

This is also posted on my blog, Only Orangery.

Deb Baker's thoughts on Margherita Dolce Vita by Stefano Benni

2012-01-31T19:20:00.002-05:00

In 2012 I plan to read one book from Europa Editions every month. I started the year with Margherita Dolce Vita by Stefano Benni, a novel first published in Italy. This book includes many of my favorite things: social commentary, sharp wit, a strong-but-quirky heroine, and elements of magical realism.

Margherita of the title is a teenager, overweight, creative, and acutely observant, especially when it comes to the foibles of her family. She has a younger brother who reminds me of Jason in Foxtrot (a math genius, mad about video games), an older brother who prides himself on being a soccer hooligan, a father who tinkers with old bikes, cars, and other junk in a shed in the yard; a grandfather who claims to enjoy telepathic communication with the younger brother and dances with a ghost several nights a week; a mother who lives for her soap opera and is an avid green stamp collector and frugal cook who can recycle anything into her meatloaf; and a smelly, funny looking mutt named Sleepy.

When the book opens Margherita observes a mystery: where the open skies once allowed her a view of constellations of her own design, all is dark. Something is blocking her view. It turns out to be a black cube — the high tech futuristic home of her new neighbors. As the family gets to know the neighbors strange things happen: her older brother cleans up his act, switches soccer allegiances, and fawns over the beautiful daughter; her dad’s junk disappears and he goes into what Margherita suspects is nefarious business with the new neighbor; Mamma gets beauty treatments and gives up her beloved green stamps; Grandpa is an accident and moves to a care home; and Margherita discovers the new family has an unstable son they’d rather keep hidden.

To add to her troubles, the Dust Girl, a war ghost who lives in the meadow behind Margherita’s home, seems agitated; Margherita falls for the mysterious son and finds the secret behind all the changes in her family’s life. With her younger brother’s help, she tries to investigate the “business” and find out why a farmer has died, an immigrant friend is in danger, and the gypsies have disappeared. The book’s climactic ending is anything but tidy. In fact I sat in stunned silence for several minutes, contemplating what had just happened. Benni tells a wicked funny story, but in a chilling way.

I’m realizing as I look over this that I read about Patrollers in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (vigilante groups terrorizing newly freed slaves during Reconstruction), Snatchers in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (vigilantes rounding up “mudbloods” to turn in to Voldemort’s puppets at the Ministry of Magic), British Movement thugs in Red Dirt Road (thugs sympathetic to British Movement fascism who terrorized people of color in the UK), and Rage of God (an anti-immigrant anti-Roma vigilante group and DB International (a government contractor that sows fear of terrorism in order to drive demand for its work) in Margherita Dolce Vita. Perhaps it’s time for some more uplifting reading?

For more on what I read, check out http://bookconscious.wordpress.com/, or my musings from the late-night college reference desk at http://thenocturnallibrarian.com/.

bibliosue's Thoughts on Treasure Island!!!

2012-01-24T20:33:00.001-05:00

This novel has a very interesting premise -- a young woman (unnamed), recently graduated from college and rolling through a succession of dead-end jobs reads the classic novel Treasure Island and decides to use it as the manual to re-invent her life, using the novel's Core Values: Boldness, Resolution, Independence, and Horn-Blowing. As I am always interested in stories that might inspire me to embark on my own life-changing adventure, I read with a notebook at my side; ready to write down any nuggets of wisdom I would come across.

Alas.

It's not that the protagonist does not pursue adventure. There's plenty of it, though mostly of the unintentional kind. And she is certainly motivated by those Core Values. But to me the motivation didn't lead to anything concrete and positive; and perhaps it's because I'm older and (ahem) more mature that I just became more and more frustrated with her and wanted to just yell GROW UP ALREADY. My attention quickly re-focused to the much more entertaining supporting cast of characters: her parents, older sister, her former boss, her best friend, her ex-boyfriend; many of them seemed to exemplify the qualities the main character was pursuing.

At least the book was fairly short (172 pages), and the writing incredibly witty, otherwise I probably would have given up on this book once my impression of the main character turned negative. Maybe I'm just not in the right age group to properly appreciate the heroine's efforts. Had this been my first Europa novel, I might have been somewhat put off by checking out their other titles; so if you have not read any Europa titles (and why haven't you) I would not recommend starting with this one.

Wendy reviews From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus

2012-01-21T20:43:00.000-05:00

I picked up From the Land of the Moon at the library on Thursday and read it in one sitting this morning. At just over 100 pages, the slim book contains a lot of emotion.

The "I" in the book tells family stories -- mostly about her unusual paternal grandmother, thought by neighbors and relatives to be quite mad but loved deeply and well by her husband, but also stories about the other women in her family. She is also plagued by kidney stones, and is sent to a spa on the mainland for a rest cure. I love the idea of rest cures, and wish I had been born when they were more common.

This is a beautiful, poetic story. The idea of romantic love and its value is examined from many angles and is perhaps even turned upside down. The sex is quite graphic, and while tasteful is not quite the right descriptor, it is inoffensively told.

After completing my 2011 challenge, I set aside Europas for a while, but I've become a lifelong fan. I hope to stumble upon another soon.

My Europa Challenge 2012

2012-01-18T23:50:00.000-05:00

I'm going to join the Europa challenge in a more official way this year. I'm going for the Espresso level challenge, because I am pretty sure I have four books just in my house alone that would accomplish that.

My own book blog is Not New For Long, and I will be crossposting there.

My provisional list will include:

An Accident in August, by Laurence Cossé
Little Criminals, by Gene Kerrigan
Treasure Island!!!, by Sara Levine
The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, by Alina Bronsky

Of course, I'd like to read another Jean-Claude Izzo, Massimo Carlotto and a first Lucarelli.

And will this be the year I finally master The Elegance of the Hedgehog?

Only time will tell my friends--only time will tell.

Marie C. Reviews MOFFIE by Andre Carl van der Merwe

2012-01-17T13:31:00.001-05:00

Moffie, by André Carl van der Merwe. Published 2011 by Europa Editions.

It's been kind of a while since I read a book that blew me away like Moffie did. It's a searing, heartrending story about a young white South African man called up for national service and hiding the fact that he's gay.

The kind of opposition that the main character and narrator, Nicholas, faces, is almost a little difficult to understand in the liberal bubble I live in. His father is a hyper-masculine chauvinist. His mother is more sensitive but cowers behind her husband. His father pressures him relentlessly to be conventional and successful, beats him when he steps out of line, ridicules him endlessly. Being nonathletic or artistic is bad enough; if Nicholas were unsuccessful his father says he would pass him by on the street. But if Nicholas were gay, a "moffie" in South African slang, his father says it would be "the end." Nicholas doesn't even want to know what his father means by that. The army is the solution, according to his father, the thing that will make a man out of his unsatisfactory son.

When Nicholas enters the army he enters an environment even more ruthless and punishing than his home. But it's in the army that Nicholas meets gay friends, falls in love, and comes to believe in himself. He encounters unspeakable brutality, scarring tragedy and horrors beyond his imagination, but he also learns about loyalty, friendship and bonds that will last a lifetime. He also learns how to use his religious faith to get him through the trials of army life and how to move forward with pride and confidence.

Moffie is the kind of book that tears you to shreds only to piece you back together. A longish book that reads like lightning, it's not perfect; the tone can be a little overwrought at times, and there are a couple of unlikely coincidences that are poetic in their way but maybe unrealistic. That's okay. The narrative alternates between Nicholas' army time and his childhood, showing how he became the man he is, and ends on a dual note of horror and hope. An intense, demanding book, Moffie should be required reading not just for LGBT-interested readers but for anyone. If you're doing an LGBT- or African-literature challenge this year, I urge you to add Moffie to your reading list. I think it may have replaced Broken Glass Park as my favorite Europa and it will certainly show up in my top reads of 2012. What a book!

It's my first read of 2012 for the Challenge!

Josh Reviews Of Beasts and Beings

2012-01-12T16:52:00.008-05:00

Of Beasts and Beings is my first foray into the Tonga Books side of Europa. Truly, it will not be an easy book to forget. As one who has studied international development, the facts and statistics about African life are not unknown to me. The personal stories and struggles too, I have read and I have struggled with. Arrogantly, I approached this second novel by a Zimbabwean schoolteacher with almost a tourist's sense of curiosity. Holding quickly disabused me of such notions. Of Beasts and Beings is a TOUGH novel. Zulu, similarly was a tough novel, but has nothing on this. Embarrassingly, when the jacket talked about a "post-apocalyptic African Republic," I thought how many African states in their past or even today face difficult circumstances such that post-apocalyptic might not be much of a change. For those who easily suffer what some call white man's guilt or possibly worse for those who never have, Of Beasts and Beings is going to provoke some thought.

The book itself is brilliantly written. Holding has an eye for detail and scrutiny that make each of the two stories come alive. The grit, cruelty, despair and violence of the first come through with as much clarity as the privilege, confusion, frustration and revelation of the second. The specific country is never mentioned and many details of the characters are left unanswered, to the point where as the book finishes the fates of every character is not fully revealed. While the jacket comments suggested a surprise ending, I found myself experiencing other thoughts and emotions more than surprise. Guilt, remorse, aversion and sympathy all took their parts, but ultimately I found myself feeling as defeated as our narrator.

Holding's particular views on Africa and its future are not particularly optimistic, though perhaps these feelings may extend more towards his own country and less towards the continent as a whole. Parse it as much as you want, it still comes out to be one downer of a thesis. Those in power are either ignorant of their role in perpetuating a system that leaves some to abject poverty and death and others to lavish lifestyles or they are aware of their role in the perpetuation yet powerless to stop it. The rest of those outside of the privileged in power are left to struggle as best they can to eke out what existence they may.

Sometimes I will go to GoodReads and see what others have thought of a particular book, especially when it happens to be a controversial or difficult one. About a third of readers on the site simply said they could not get through this book. I see where they are coming from and I understand it. I won't say Of Beasts and Beings will leave you with a smile on your face or even a tear in your eye. Its damage is simply not that external. If you can finish it, if you let Mr. Holding finish the thought he's trying to make (and it does not truly flesh itself out until the very end) I think you will find this book leaves behind quite the internal impact. Like a scar, this book may open up thoughts, guilt and dark places some readers may just as well leave be.

Deb's reviews of Rancid Pansies by James Hamilton-Paterson & The Woman With the Bouquet by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

2012-01-06T16:50:00.005-05:00

Hi all,

As promised, here are the reviews of my final two "Ami" level reads of 2011. You can read about the rest of my crazy December reading at bookconscious. Happy New Year!

In December, I read the third Gerald Samper book by James Hamilton-Paterson, Rancid Pansies. This one seemed as if it wasn’t going to be so funny when it opened — Gerald is living in England with friends, recovering from the loss of his Italian home in an earthquake. After getting good news about the sale of film rights for his last book, he prepares one of his horrid (and horrifying) gourmet conconctions for a dinner party and ends up inadvertantly poisoning the guests.

Shamed and distressed, he returns to Italy, along the way deciding his next project will be to write the libretto for an opera about Princess Diana. Whose name can be anagrammed into Rancid Pansies. His old neighbor Marta is back (her disappearance in the previous novel, Amazing Disgrace, was due to a gig writing a movie score in Hollywood) and agrees to write the opera’s music. Several other characters from the earlier books appear as the hilarious plot unfolds.

I thought this was the most satisfying plot of the three Samper novels, again a farce, but with a tighter story line that really moved along. It may also have been the funniest, although I thought Cooking With Fernet Branca and Amazing Disgrace were also very funny. The scene in which Gerald has a cameo in the opening night of the opera playing Prince Phillip had me laughing out loud. And wishing the BBC would produce a mini series if they haven’t already.

The Samper trilogy were from Europa Editions, and was the thirteenth book in my 2011 Europa Challenge. I was going for fourteen, which was the Ami level. I reached my goal with another story collection, The Woman With the Bouquet by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. I liked the first story in the book, “The Dreamer of Ostend,” a love story with a mystery, in which the narrator isn’t sure what’s real and what’s fiction. And the title piece, which tells the story of a nurse who blossoms into her true self only after a blind patient convinces her she is beautiful.

For the 2012 Europa Challenge I’m aiming for Cafe Luongo Level, which means reading twelve Europa Editions. I have my first of the year, Margherita Dolce Vita by Stefano Benni, checked out of the library and am looking forward to getting started.

2012 Book List and Book Club

2012-01-05T14:59:00.001-05:00

Good afternoon everyone, I am so excited for this year's challenge! Having achieved Amante last year, the only logical goal to shoot for is the Luongo level this year. In addition, Marie and I are cooking up some fun themed challenges (hint: the first one may have an International crime aspect to it). I thought I would share my personal Europa list for the year as it stands:

1. Treasure Island!!!, Sara Levine
2. The Nun, Agnello Hornby, Italian
3. These Dreams of You, Steve Erickson
4. Three Weeks in December, Audrey Schulman
5. I Hadn't Understood, Diego De Silva
6. Divorce Islamic Style, Amara Lakhous
7. Utu, Caryl Ferey
8. You Deserve Nothing, Alexander Maksik
9. The Goodbye Kiss, Massimo Carlotto
10. Total Chaos, Jean-Claude Izzo
11. Little Criminals, Gene Kerrigan
12. From the Land of the Moon, Milena Agus
13. The Girl in the Polka Dot Dress, Beryl Bainbridge
14. Timeskipper, Stefano Benni
15. Margherita Dolce Vita, Stefano Benni
16. Rondo, Kazimierz Brandys
17. The Goodbye Kiss, Massimo Carlotto
18. The Art of Losing, Rebecca Cornell
19. Of Beasts and Beings, Ian Holding (reading now).

So far, so fun! If I get through these, I will have read 50 Europa Editions in total by the end of the year....

In addition, my book club is focusing almost solely on Europa Editions again this year, with The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, Between Two Seas and These Dreams of You lined up for January, February and March respectively. I hope, with their permission, to post as many of our discussion round-ups on the blog as well. Although, I feel like a few, such as my friend Harlan, may join up for the Challenge too! Here's to another great year of exciting books, insightful reviews and a shared passion for in-depth reading.

Europa Challenge 2012

2012-01-01T00:00:00.000-05:00

Start your engines! Europa Challenge 2012 is on! Welcome new participants, and welcome back veterans of the 2011 challenge. I can't wait to read about what you're reading about this year!

Here are the levels:

Ristretto Level (2 Europas-just try a little)
Espresso Level (4 Europas-a little more)
Cappuccino Level (6 Europas)
Caffe Luongo Level (12 Europas)

More information can be found at the 2012 Challenge page linked above. I'm going for Caffe Luongo Level but I'm going to try to surpass it. What are you going to read?

Marie C. Reviews Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine

2011-12-30T21:08:00.004-05:00

Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine. Published 2011 by Europa Editions.

Okay, so I miscounted and I still needed one more book to complete Amante Level in the Challenge. I'm glad I realized this yesterday or else I'd be up the creek and it would be too embarrassing to start a challenge I couldn't finish myself.

Luckily I had Treasure Island!!! in my TBR pile; a hilarious comic novel, I read it in a day and just did not want to put it down. The narrator, an unnamed 25 year old woman, isn't an unreliable narrator so much as a mad narrator. Unreliable narrators typically have a reason for the deceptions and half-truths they unleash on the reader; an unreliable narrator is often in control of the narrative and is covering something up, or making a case for him or herself, or telling the story a certain way for a particular reason. This narrator is simply delusional and appears to have no idea or concern about how she comes across either to the reader or to her longsuffering family and friends.

She starts out as a somewhat typically aimless young adult, working a demeaning job (at something called the Pet Library) and trying to figure out her place in the world. It's not working for Nancy, the Library's owner, and the narrator proves her point by stealing money and buying a parrot, who she then abuses flamboyantly. She is equally abusive to her patient and loving boyfriend Lars, her parents and her sister, all of whom love her and all of whom become her victims in one way or another. She becomes obsessed with the classic Stevenson novel Treasure Island and tries to live according to her interpretations of its lessons with disastrous results.

Is this woman likeable? No, but she's hilarious. Full of self-pity, endless self-serving justifications and boundless illusions, she's nonetheless pitiable, lonely, and searching for love. She just doesn't know what to do with it when it comes her way. I laughed my way through all 172-odd pages of this quickly moving, addictive little pageturner. Read it when you need a good long chuckle on a day when you're not feeling too judgemental. It'll do you some good.

Okay, now I've completed Amante Level!

Book Review from Col Reads: Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio

2011-12-29T16:58:00.005-05:00

With 2012 making its slow but inexorable march from “future” to “present,” people start to ask book bloggers the inevitable question: “What were the best books you read in 2011?” I don’t really want to say yet, since I like the idea of not knowing the answer until December 31 – you never know which book will be “the” book. But I can say this: the surprise book of my year, and the one I’m recommending to everyone who will listen, is Amara Lakhous’ Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator at Piazza Vittorio.

This book rocked my world.

The premise is simple. One man is dead, and another is missing. Both are residents of a rundown apartment building in an immigrant-trending neighborhood of Rome. The police, not surprisingly, believe the missing man is the murderer. But can that be? The residents of the apartment building can agree on absolutely nothing – except that Amedeo, the missing man, is not the murderer.

The book is entirely told through “evidence” in the form of transcripts of police interviews, followed by entries into Amedeo’s personal diary relating to that witness. Interestingly, the evidence actually reveals more about the witnesses than the suspect. We do learn that despite his flawless Italian, Amedeo is not Italian at all – he is an immigrant like so many of the others in the neighborhood. In fact, his name isn’t Amedeo at all, but Ahmed Salmi. And we also learn that there is something in his past that he absolutely does not wish to discuss.

It becomes clear that Amedeo has befriended a wild and quirky cast of characters. There’s an Iranian chef who loathes pizza to the point of distraction. There’s an apartment manager whose main purpose in life seems to be keeping the temperamental elevator at Piazza Vittorio clean – by keeping everyone from using it. There’s Amedeo’s Italian wife who seems unwilling to ask too many questions. There’s a little old lady who seems to like her dog more than the people in her building. And so many other people from so many different places and walks of life, all with a different idea of who killed Lorenzo Manfredi, a local tough guy known as The Gladiator.

The many emphatic and strident points of view presented in the book resemble nothing so much as dinner with a big, boisterous family – each member pushing their own version of some seminal familial event – while directing you to pass the wine! The reader takes on the role of bewildered but polite guest, trying to understand what actually happened, and wondering who is the most believable person at the table. (Seems like the nice, quiet friendly guy with great manners, but how do you know?)

This book is acerbic and sweet in turns. The characters are drawn broadly, and in some cases quite comically. The mystery delivers, but in an almost incidental way. I got so caught up in the characters that I was far more interested in what became of Amedeo than who killed The Gladiator. I would highly recommend this one for mystery lovers, although it’s a very non-traditional mystery. And I’d also recommend it for lovers of literary fiction and translated fiction.

This finishes my commitment for the 2011 Challenge -- I am a Europa Ami! I have to hand it to the folks at Europa for putting together a truly unique and diverse portfolio of titles. I have only begun to scratch the surface, so I will definitely be back for 2012. I already have my eye on the new Lakhous novel for the 2012 Europa Editions Challenge. Thanks again to Marie at The Boston Bibliophile for hosting.

Book Review from Col Reads: The Elegance of the Hedgehog

2011-12-28T11:41:00.003-05:00

How quickly do we form our impressions of others? How dependent are those impressions on the way someone appears? What determines whether or not we simply interact with another person, or truly form a connection with them? It is when Muriel Barbery’s The Elegance of the Hedgehog explores these deeply human questions that the novel is wonderfully successful.

Madame Renée Michel works as a concierge for an upscale condominium in one of Paris’ most elegant neighborhoods, and occupies a small apartment in the building. The building’s other residents include the upper crust of French society: food critics, members of Parliament, government ministers. To the building residents, the widowed Madame Michel appears in every way a model concierge: aging, ugly, unfashionable, and a bit dim. But in reality, Madame Michel is an autodidact, voraciously reading everything she can get her hands on. She spends her time off seeking out great books and great art. But she conceals her erudite nature from the resident of 7, rue de Grenelle, believing that her job is safer if the elites she works for believe she is not trying to reach beyond her social class.

But a few people in the building see through Madame Michel’s ruse. Portuguese housemaid Manuela, Renée’s one true friend, knows that beneath her crusty exterior Renée is a person of great passion – even if she doesn’t guess the depths of her friend’s thirst for knowledge. The newest resident in the building, wealthy Japanese businessman Kakuro, recognizes a line from Tolstoy that Madame Michel carelessly inserts into a conversation. And Paloma, the all-seeing 12-year-old daughter of high-minded French socialists who make time for every cause save their family, notices the intelligence in Madame Michel’s eyes, and senses a kindred spirit. Madame Michel’s interactions with these individuals, and the lessons we can draw from them, are truly surprising and inspiring. It is significant that all of Madame Michel’s friends come from outside of French culture, including Paloma, the only French member of the bunch, who does her best to place herself outside of what she sees as a hypocritical order. This is, no doubt, a part of Barbery’s treatise on the French social system, which makes up a significant portion of the book.

And that, unfortunately, is where the book fell down for me. Barbery was trained as a philosopher, and a great deal of the book comprises essays on the nature of being, moving and knowing, as experienced by the characters of Madame Michel and Paloma Josse. Some of these pieces are quite interesting, such as her discussion of Dutch still lives. But in other parts of the book she opines on topics like phenomenology and aesthetics for chapters at a time, without drawing any interesting conclusions. As with Alexander McCall Smith’s Sunday Afternoon Philosophy Club series, at those times I had the distinct feeling I was being schooled, rather than entertained. Also, I’m no expert in French sociology, nor am I a Marxist scholar, but I am pretty sure there are worse examples of classism on the planet than modern day France – even if there is a lingering elitism that the fifth Republic has yet to address.

Still, there is so much to like about this book. There are some laughs and some extraordinarily tender moments. I will probably never look at a camellia the same way again after reading this book, and that’s a powerful thing. I particularly loved the incident when Madame Michel and Monsieur Ozu are leaving for dinner, and the wealthy ladies of the building have no idea that the woman on their new friend’s arm is their concierge: they simply don’t see it, because in their world it simply can’t happen. Barbery captured the moment perfectly.

I hated the ending of the novel – no quibbling about that – but it didn’t ruin the book for me. (It did cross my mind after reading it that I wouldn’t enjoy having dinner with the author, but that was just an idle thought, and not an issue I’m likely to face any time soon. However, it should signal how very much I thought the ending was somehow mean-spirited). Lovers of literary fiction, translated fiction and philosophy should definitely have this book on their TBR lists – although I imagine many of them have read it already, considering the extraordinary success of the novel around the world.

This is my third book for the Europa Challenge 2011. My last review, of Amara Lakhous’ Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio will appear here on the Europa Editions Challenge site this week – but I’ll hold off posting it on Col Reads until my buddy Jess at Desperado Penguin is ready with her review. I am already looking forward to the 2012 Europa Editions Challenge. Thanks so much to Marie at The Boston Bibliophile for hosting!

Marie C. Reviews The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante

2011-12-28T07:18:00.002-05:00

The Lost Daughter, by Elena Ferrante. Published 2008 by Europa Editions. Translated from the Italian.

A divorced Italian woman, an academic, goes on vacation to a beach resort; she rents a small house and stays by herself. She spends her days between the beach and small bars and cafes. She reminisces to herself about her life as a mother and her relationship with her daughters. She meets a loud, obnoxious family on the beach, a mother with a small child surrounded by relatives. The little girl loses her doll, and the narrator commits a senseless act of cruelty.

As one reviewer put it, The Lost Daughter reads like a psychological thriller. The narrator struggles with highly ambivalent feelings towards her children as the encounter with the family she meets on the beach stimulates feelings and memories and causes her to reflect on her own life. The prose is tough and uncompromising; this is no sentimental Mother's Day card of a book. The narrator has a lot of anger towards her daughters and towards herself. Though she loves her daughters, she has no illusions either that motherhood was a garden of roses, or that her daughters' childhood was.

The Lost Daughter is the kind of edgy, hard book that Europa specializes in. It takes a subject about which much has been written and casts a new light on it, or at least a light seldom shone. Not being a mother myself I can't say how well mothers will relate to it, but I have a feeling that somewhere this book will resonate with anyone who's loved anyone, not just mothers and children. It's about the dark side of love, the underside of it if you will, and it will challenge the reader to confront dark feelings of his or her own. It's also a very quick read, suspenseful and gripping, that will keep you turning the pages, and keep you thinking once you've put the book down.

~~This is my last book in the Europa Challenge 2011 and I've completed Amante Level!~~

Marie C. Reviews Total Chaos, by Jean-Claude Izzo

2011-12-27T09:18:00.003-05:00

Total Chaos, by Jean-Claude Izzo. Published 2005 by Europa Editions

Total Chaos is a noir as well as a love letter to author Jean-Claude Izzo's hometown of Marseilles. It's also the first in his famous Marseilles trilogy, three novels starring police officer Fabio Montale, a down-and-outer investigating the links between the deaths of his childhood friends Manu and Ugo and the rape and murder of Leila, a young woman whose father came to France from Algeria looking for a better life. Leila was the family's hope, a success story getting her degree in Paris with a bright future ahead of her. She was also dear to Montale, and her death send him into a tailspin.

Izzo treats the reader to loving descriptions of Marseilles along with its people, a mix of European immigrants and their descendants, speaking their own French patois and mixing uneasily with new immigrants from North Africa. Racial tensions make up the baseline pressures of the investigation and of day to day life; Montale must navigate a difficult path between Marseilles underworld, his colleagues in the police and the disaffected youth all around him.

I really enjoyed Total Chaos, more so than most of the crime fiction I've read in the past couple of years. It's gritty and violent and dark, but it also has a lot of heart. Montale loves three women, and each woman has her own sad trajectory, her own story of the way her life has been changed by Marseilles. Montale doesn't so much choose between them as accept what life is going to let him have, and in the end though their lives are colored by tragedy; most of all, he loves Marseilles. His musings are beautiful and a little poetic, just like the book.

This book counts towards the Europa Challenge! Soon I'll have my final review and complete Amante level.

Helen on "Fresh Fields," by Peter Kocan

2011-12-26T17:37:00.000-05:00

News from the MentalHealth Summit at the University of Chicago as well as theChicago News Cooperative’s excellent coverage of mental health services cuts inIllinois in the pages of The New York Times coincided with my reading Australian writer Peter Kocan’sautobiographical novel, “Fresh Fields.”

In 1966, as a teenager, Kocan tried and, fortunately,failed, to assassinate Australian labor leader Arthur Calwell. Though he wasfound to be a borderline schizophrenic and sentenced to life in prison, most ofwhich he spent in a mental hospital, he was pronounced cured and released fromcustody after ten years. He began writing in prison and is now an acclaimedwriter, having received a number of literary awards as well as obtainingadvanced degrees.

“Fresh Fields” is the prequel to Kocan’stwo novellas, “The Treatment” and “The Cure,” which I reviewed earlier. In it, he depicts the descent of a fourteen-year-old boy, to whom he refers only as "the youth," into insanity. (I've posted a fuller review over on my blog, Law and Conversation.) By the end of the novel, it's clear the youth has become so disturbed that he's going to explode. In the novellas, Kocan describes the same character's experiences, which are clearly his own, in a prison for the mentally ill. His stories and personal history made mewonder to what extent isolation causes people to develop mental illness. And, though it still carries a stigma, mental illness hastouched most people’s lives. I admire Kocan and all those who are bringingtheir experiences out of the closet.

I'm crowing over exceeding my original goal for the 2011 Europa Challenge! I set a modest goal for myself of reading 4 new Europas to become a Europa Amie. Though I didn't read enough to become a Europa Amante, I did read more than enough - 8 in all - to become a Europa Haver. I'm signing on for 2012, again with a modest initial goal: Espresso level of four, though I feel pretty confident that I can at least achieve Cappuccino status. I didn't love every Europa book I read; see my review of Chad Taylor's "Departure Lounge" for an example of one that didn't work for me. But I found the experience of reading critically and writing about the flaws as well as the strengths of these books a good exercise. And, as I noted in my review of Taylor's book, I loved reading a story set in a faraway place.

Anna reviews Broken Glass Park

2011-12-18T14:46:00.001-05:00

Broken Glass Park was Russian-born German author Alina Bronsky's first novel, and while it's not the black-comic masterpiece that is The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, it shares with that book an unforgettable, fully realized, fully habitable voice. Here, it's teenage Sascha Naimann, a Russian immigrant to Germany struggling to deal with her mother's violent death at the hands of her stepfather. She's filled with helpless rage and guilt--but she's also smart as a whip and fiercely protective of those she loves, notably her half-brother and -sister, who've lost not only their mother but the father who shot her. A confrontation with the editor of a newspaper that published a supportive interview the killer leads to a relationship with him and his son that shifts unsettlingly between familial and romantic. Bronsky writes Sascha's raw, conflicting emotion, her simultaneously jaded and naive view of the world, and her understandably dark sense of humor with the ease that only comes with great talent--the kind that makes me want to learn German so I can see how much more amazing it is in the original. But since that continues not to happen? Much thanks to Tim Mohr and Europa for bringing Ms. Bronsky into my world!

(Original review here.)

2011 Europa Amante, looking ahead to 2012 (Deb)

2011-12-15T15:38:00.004-05:00

Earlier this week, I wrote down which Europa Editions books I'd read in 2011, thinking I had one more to go to reach Amante level, and discovered I'm already there. I guess I'm a Passport Holder as well, since the books are from several countries, although there is some overlap.

Here are the 14 books I read to reach Amante:

The Hottest Dishes of Tartar Cuisine (Bronsky)

A Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio (Lakhous)

Chalcot Crescent (Weldon)

Concerto to the Memory of an Angel, The Most Beautiful Book in the World, and The Woman with the Bouquet (Schmitt)

Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat (Gardam)

Gourmet Rhapsody (Barbery)

French Leave (Gavalda)

Tokyo Fiancee (Nothomb)

Cooking With Fernet Branca, Amazing Disgrace, and Rancid Pansies (Hamilton-Paterson)

I will aim for Caffe Luongo level for 2012 (12 Europas). Looking forward to it!

Most of the above are reviewed at my blog, http://bookconscious.wordpress.com/ -- I'll post the last few at the end of the month, as well as here at Europa Challenge.

Anna reviews Treasure Island!!!

2011-12-11T11:30:00.000-05:00

I would never have believed that this year I'd read a book with a despicable, oblivious first-person narrator somehow more hilarious than The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine. But Treasure Island!!! is that book.

Said narrator (huh, I didn't even notice she's never named) is a spectacularly aimless 25-year-old who happens to pick up a copy of Stevenson's classic pirate tale when her teacher sister leaves it behind in disgust ("I hate a book with no girls in it") and is blown away by the contrast she finds with her own life:

When had I ever dreamed a scheme? When had I ever done a foolish, over-bold act? When had I ever, like Jim Hawkins, broke from my friends, raced for the beach, stolen a boat, killed a man, or eliminated an obstacle that stood in the way of my getting a hunk of gold? I, a person unable to decide what to do with my broken mini-blinds, let alone with the rest of my life, lay on my bed, while in the book's open air, people chased assholes out of pubs and trampled blind beggars with their horses. You needn't have a violent nature to be impressed with animal energy. If life were a sea adventure, I knew: I wouldn't be sailor, pirate, or cabin boy but more likely a barnacle clinging to the side of the boat. Why not rise, I though. Why not spring up that very moment, in the spirit of Jim, and create my own adventure?

Awash with the power of nineteenth-century children's literature, she derives what she believes to be the Core Values of boy-hero Jim Hawkins' character--BOLDNESS, RESOLUTENESS, INDEPENDENCE, and HORN-BLOWING--and resolves to put them into practice immediately.

The problem, though, is that she's a terrible person: narcissistic, backbiting, capable of truly great feats of self-justification. Thus her exercise in BOLDNESS begins at her part-time job at the Pet Library (exactly what it says on the tin: an animal rescue that allows its inhabitants to be borrowed and returned by patrons) as she asserts her selfhood by just not doing the nasty duties she doesn't want to do. She then uses what she assumes to be petty cash her boss has hidden in the back room to purchase a parrot--a Yellow-Naped Amazon named Little Richard--and while she's shopping for the bird, vandals wreak havoc at the Library. Summarily fired, she proceeds methodically to destroy the lives of everyone around her, remaining blissfully, hilariously oblivious to the carnage in her wake.

I'm a sucker for voice, and oh such a glorious voice has Treasure Island!!!: pointlessly smart, Waugh-ly arch, articulate and funny and mean and instantly compelling. Definitely my favorite new novel of the year.

(Original post here.)

Anna: Oh hey, I'm totally on board!

2011-12-11T11:23:00.000-05:00

Hullo folks. Just discovered this blog whilst idly researching whether Europa has a subscription service (alas, no), and realized I'm right on track for Ami level this year! Could not resist the opportunity.

Brief bio: I'm a bookseller at Posman Books in Grand Central Terminal, cat lover, desultory knitter, complainer, half-elf ranger.My taste in fiction runs along the knife edge of "genre"; I'll take killer prose over great story, and voice over either; and I don't believe "serious" equals "depressing." I blog at Muse at Highway Speeds, and tweet @ragesinggoddess.

And here's what I thought of Alina Bronsky's The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine:

If you've ever described your sense of humor as "sick"? You must have a go at Hottest Dishes, whose first-person narrator Rosa is one of the most obliviously despicable black-comic protagonists ever. I mean, in the first chapter alone, she forces her pregnant 17-year-old daughter (whom she hates anyway, because she's sullen & ugly) to undergo several attempts at a home abortion...none of which are successful. But her granddaughter, Aminat, turns out to be the apple of her eye, and she determines to win her beloved little girl the best life imaginable, no matter who she has to crush to do it. Vain, nasty, abusive, and often deluded, Rosa is also hilarious--a true feat on Bronsky's part! Yes, this one I Liked. Because of the LOLs, and then the sudden shocks as I re-remembered that I was being entertained by a monster. Also, maybe I should track down some recipes.

Deaprture Lounge

2011-12-08T17:41:00.002-05:00

Departure Lounge

Chad TAYLOR

173 pages

Published by Europa Editions in 2006

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

This book was ok, with a few interesting turns, but I expected more out of it. When he was a kid, one of his school mates disappeared. The story goes back and forth between this event, and later on in life, when as a thief, he breaks in houses and tries to collect information leading to understand the mystery of the disappearance of his friend.

Once again, I tried to get a decent book published by Europa Editions to finish this challenge, and without having to request any from my library. Sounds like I could have made better choices.

With this, I conclude my Europa Editions Reading Challenge: I managed to read 4 boosk published by Europa editions, but unfortunately, the most interesting ones were the ones I read BEFORE the offical date of the Challenge!

And as the experience was not too great, I will stop doing that type of Challenge based on publishers; I prefer to focus reading challenges on contents and authors, rather than publishers.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

A young New Zealand woman mysteriously disappears. The lives of those she has left behind intersect and form a captivating latticework of odd coincidences and surprising twists of fate. This is contemporary urban noir at its stylish and intelligent best. [Europa editions]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chad Taylor was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and is the author of five novels (Pack of Lies, Heaven, Shirker, Electric and now Departure Lounge) and his short stories have been widely and internationally anthologized. He was named by Listener as one of New Zealand’s 10 best novelists and The Guardian in England likened him to Paul Auster. He currently teaches creative writing at Auckland University.

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In A Strange Room

2011-12-08T17:13:00.000-05:00

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS BOOK

I did not enjoy this book. First, it was confusing, at the beginning I was not sure he was the follower, or the guy he was following was the follower. I’m sure the ambiguity was on purpose, adding to the feeling of confusion of the main character throughout the book. Plus, it was too gloomy, and too focused on his confusion and feeling of loss, too focused on his inner dark journey than on the countries he goes through aimlessly. I was trying to get books from my library published by Europa editions without having to request them, but this was not a too happy choice.

WHAT IS IT ABOUT

In this newest novel from South African writer Damon Galgut, a young loner travels across eastern Africa, Europe, and India. Unsure what he’s after, and reluctant to return home, he follows the paths of travelers he meets along the way. Treated as a lover, a follower, a guardian, each new encounter-with an enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers, a woman on the verge-leads him closer to confronting his own identity. Traversing the quiet of wilderness and the frenzy of border crossings, every new direction is tinged with surmounting mourning, as he is propelled toward a tragic conclusion.
In a Strange Room is a brilliant, stylish novel of anger and compassion, longing and thwarted desire, and a hauntingly beautiful evocation of life on the road. First published in The Paris Review in three parts, one of which was selected for a National Magazine Award, and another for the O. Henry Prize, In a Strange Room was shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize. [Goodreads]

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Damon Galgut was born in Pretoria in 1963. He wrote his first novel, A Sinless Season, when he was seventeen. His other books include Small Circle of Beings, The Beautiful Screaming of Pigs, The Quarry, The Good Doctor and The Imposter. The Good Doctor was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Dublin/IMPAC Award. He lives in Cape Town

REVIEWS BY OTHERS

Much more positive than mine:

“This is a wise and brilliant book.” –Times

“A beautiful book, strikingly conceived and hauntingly written, a writer’s novel par excellence without a clumsy word in it.” –The Guardian
“Galgut’s powerful writing is honest and insightful, polished as it is to a marble-like perfection.” –The Globe and Mail [amazon]

But another reviewer, Jenny, on Goodreads, has the same opinion. Read her review here.

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original review here

Alina Bronsky's The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine

2011-12-07T08:16:00.004-05:00

When I dislike the main character in a novel, I usually don’t like the novel. So how can I explain my fascination with Alina Bronsky’s The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine? Rosalinda represents all that is wrong with motherhood – she constructs her relationships with her daughter and later her granddaughter completely strategically, always thinking how she might benefit from their interactions. She’s seems almost completely unaware of how she is viewed by others. It’s totally over-the-top. Which is probably why she’s makes such a compelling unreliable narrator.

Rosalinda is inordinately proud of her Tartar heritage (which comes along with a host of folk medical remedies that are truly hilarious). She’s proud of her beauty and youthful appearance (especially her shapely legs, which she believes men swoon over). She’s proud of her family (or at least she believes she could be, if they’d simply do as she tells them). Her lack of self-awareness has benefits, as she walks around Russia and later Germany convinced of her own important place in the world, even if she’s cleaning someone else’s toilets – or rifling through someone else’s private papers.

Of course, her megalomania has disastrous effects on the people in her life, especially on her daughter Sulfia, who can never quite escape Rosalinda’s sphere of influence and therefore misses every chance at happiness with her own daughter, Aminat. Aminat herself watches Rosalinda with a keen eye, and the reader has the impression that she’s just waiting for her chance to act – she reminded me of a mouse eyeing a big, Persian cat, just waiting for the cat to lower it guard enough for the mouse to make its move.

What Bronksy gives the reader with The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine is a true tragicomedy, which succeeds only because Rosalinda is so totally outrageous that it’s funny, in a thoroughly disturbing way. It reminded me of Voltaire’s Candide, but without the main character’s growing realization that perhaps everything wasn’t alright with the universe after all – despite tragedy after tragedy, Rosalinda remains convinced of her own omnipotence from start to finish. This book really worked for me, although I can see appreciate that it might not work for everyone. With a good sense of gallows humor, I think the reader will enjoy the novel despite their feelings about the narrator, a pretty interesting feat for Bronsky to pull off, in my opinion.

I was planning on this being a weekend cooking post, but after reading the novel, it doesn’t seem right – the only thing foodie about the book was the title. The semester ends on Friday, so I’m still hopeful I can finish up a couple of the challenges I have lingering before then. If only I had some little elves to do my grading for me, so I could just read my holiday break away! And catch up on my reviews! I'm way behind over at Col Reads!

Marie C. Reviews Days of Fear by Daniele Mastrogiacomo

2011-12-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

Days of Fear: A Firsthand Account of Captivity Under the New Taliban, by Daniele Mastrogiacomo. Published 2010 by Europa Editions. Translated from the Italian by Michael Reynolds.

Sometimes I wonder if there aren't certain parts of the world that should just, you know, be avoided. This book is about what happened to three men who made it their mission to go to the places no one really should, to bring news and information to the rest of us. It is a testament to survival in the face of violence and hatred.

Italian newspaper reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo was kidnapped by Taliban soldiers along with his driver and translator on March 5, 2007, while on the way to interview a Taliban leader. Days of Fear is his memoir of his harrowing fifteen days in captivity, recounting his day by day movements and the fates of his two companions in a flat, matter-of-fact style:

Everyone is awake when I open my eyes on the morning of our ninth day of imprisonment. I have kept track of the days: it is Tuesday, March 13. My wrists are still in chains, but the tiger balm has done me good and eased the pain. I leave the barn with Sayed [his driver] and Ajmal [his translator]. Our feet are chained, we walk with small steps, rocking side to side a little like ducks. Our captors are gathered around a large fire lit by the farmer. They talk loudly, yell excitedly, as joyful as ever.

His captors initially believe that three are spies; they vow to execute them but then decide to negotiate a trade for Taliban prisoners held by the U.S. and the British. Mastrogiacomo recounts in aching detail the moves, the long nights, the physical and psychological pain he endures along with Ajmal and Sayed. Mastrogiacomo is injured when he's captured; he has a gash on his head from the butt of a Taliban gun and this wound will cause him seemingly endless worry for several days as medical attention is virtually non-existent and he and his co-captives sleep in barns and caves.

With extensive experience in the region but little Pashto, Mastrogiacomo must rely on Ajmal for all communications between himself and his captors, but as their captivity wears on Ajmal wants less and less to talk or to encourage Mastrogiacomo to talk. Soon Mastrogiacomo understands that those in the outside world are aware of his situation and working for his freedom, but progress, and news, both so painfully slow, cannot come fast enough. His isolation will weigh ever more heavily as events take a tragic, horrifying turn.

When all is said and done, I was left breathless and with an overwhelming sense of the sheer futility of all these three men had to endure. Their captivity seemed to have accomplished exactly nothing; most of the personages involved were killed during or after the kidnapping, and even Mastrogiacomo's rescue was fraught with danger as he was nearly recaptured on his way back to Italy. Days of Fear is a breathtaking, unforgettable book and anyone who appreciates a free press should read it today.

Two more to go to Amante Level!

Josh reviews Deep in the Brain and A Novel Bookstore

2011-12-02T16:57:00.001-05:00

It’s Amante time! I had planned on reviewingThe Companion and A Novel Bookstore, but I just finished Deep in the Brain. It’s more recent than The Companion and I think it is a more unique read for the blog so you’re getting that instead. In addition, I find that the two books both say something very deep and powerful to the reader, more so than perhaps The Companion did.

A Novel Bookstore may just be my favorite Europa Edition to date. I know that’s a bold claim, but I stand by it. The book is the snuggie of novels, if that snuggie was made of the best novels ever written and decorated with mystery and romance. Cosse’s work follows the opening of a new bookstore in Paris dedicated to selling only the “best” novels (picked by a secret committee each tasked with selecting a set number of works). The opening of the bookstore’s backstory is engaging; the activity after it opens is exciting, frustrating and dangerous all at once. To say more about the plot is to ruin the tapestry Cosse weaves.

Deep in the Brain takes us into the mind of Helmut Dubiel, a college professor diagnosed with early Parkinson’s at 46. As one not familiar with Parkinson’s, the symptoms and diagnosis thankfully came across as human and personal, not as a textbook. Dubiel is a remarkable narrator and human being. His observations about himself and of society in general were nuanced and deep, devoid of pride. I came away knowing two things- this man is braver and stronger than I am and I do not ever hope to contract Parkinson’s disease.

As deep as Dubiel takes us into his own mind and the world of medicine and disease, Cosse matches him by taking the reader deep into the world of literature. The sheer number of titles mentioned, their connections, their meaning and their beauty had me wishing I were keeping a list of everything mentioned. On the other hand, to stop and write them all down would rob the reader of the inherent pleasure of immersing themselves into Cosse’s world.
Fear not, there is a website associated with the book that does indeed list every book sold at the Good Novel.

Where Cosse takes aim at the dearth of good literature being produced and the mass production of inferior works created for monetary gain and that cost the author no part of their soul, Dubiel’s critiques come from a distinctly more personal and slightly more scary place. He questions the nature of disease in modern countries—what it means, how we treat incurable disease, how friends and family, men and women all respond to the most visible signs of disease and the knowledge of another’s illness. This is not to say that either work focuses too heavily on the negative. Rather, they both focus on the strength and benefit we all derive from the highest of ideals and the noblest of causes: life and literature (are they not interconnected?).

Dubiel highlights the strength and bravery of the human soul as he fights, accepts, treats and eventually comes to peace with his illness and the life he has in front of him. Cosse’s characters show us the fruits of perseverance and the inner reward that sometimes replaces the outer flash. They show us what people driven at any cost to achieve a goal that is good, pure, and unselfish can do amazing things.

Friends of mine have alternately loved or not been able to finish A Novel Bookstore. I can understand that, the novel’s pace is not for everyone. One friend even said, “I just read 100 pages of that book last night. Nothing happened. Literally, nothing happened. They just talked and talked and talked about books!” So fair warning, there are stretches of this book where the plot is secondary to the discussion, the dissection and the adoration of great literature.

I hear the critiques and in a sense, I agree. At its best, the work pays homage to literature and to why we read. At its worst, it comes across as the literary equivalent of name-dropping just how well read or well cultured the author is. However, I don’t care. I loved it. It was like taking a bath in books and reminding me why I read.

I’ve not recommended Deep in the Brain just yet to anyone, only because I have just finished it. Put these on your holiday list, whether you plan to snuggle up next to fire while it snows or just as an excuse to get away from the hustle bustle of parties, family, travel, and crowds. As these two reviews close out my Amante level, I would like to sign off my last post of the year with an excerpt from A Novel Bookstore, reminding all of us why we read. Happy Reading everyone, I can’t wait to see what the end of the year has for our reviews and for next year’s challenge! Feel free to join me in my Crime novel themed Challenge…

“We have no time to waste on insignificant books, hollow books, books that are here to please. We have no time for those sloppy, hurried books of the ‘Go on, I need it for July, and in September we’ll give you a proper launch and sell 100,000 copies, it’s in the bag’ variety. We want books that are written for those of us who doubt everything, who cry over the least little thing, who are startled by the slightest noise. We want books that cost their authors a great deal, books where you can feel the years of work, the backache, the writer’s block, the author’s panic at the thought that he might be lost: his discouragement, his courage, his anguish, his stubbornness, the risk of failure that he has taken. We want splendid books, books that immerse us in the splendor of reality and keep us there; books that prove to us that love is at work in the world next to evil, right up against it, at times indistinctly, and that it always will be, just the way that suffering will always ravage hearts. We want good novels.” – A Novel Bookstore, by Laurence Cosse.

The Most Beautiful Book In the World, Tokyo Fiancee, French Leave, & Cooking With Fernet Branca, reviewed by Deb Baker

2011-12-02T09:17:00.009-05:00

I'm getting close to my goal of reading fourteen Europa Editions books by the end of 2011 for the Europa Challenge. In November I read another short story collection by Eric-Emannuel Schmitt, The Most Beautiful Book in the World. I read Concerto to the Memory of an Angel earlier this year.

Schmitt's stories are full of grumpy people who serve as foils for the grateful human beings who bring his themes to fruition. And I think his theme in The Most Beautiful Book In the World is that what we humans spend an awful lot of time yearning for what we actually already have. If we'd quit complaining and look around, we'd see it. Miserable people aren't very mindful, but in Schmitt's hands they are generally entertaining.

My favorite stories in this collection include: "The Intruder," which is just heartbreaking; "The Barefoot Princess," ditto; "Odette Toulemonde," which the author adapted from his film of the same name; "The Forgery," which kept me guessing; and the title story, about a gift women in a gulag make for their daughters.

Schmitt endears and amuses, his characters stumble and fumble and delude themselves but nearly every tale includes redemption or realization as well. A few stories aren't about people who are miserable out of habit or character but really have an illness or other trauma. Even those are hopeful. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and look forward to another Schmitt collection in my "to read" pile: The Woman With the Bouquet.

Another Europa editions book I read in November was Tokyo Fiancee by Amelie Nothomb. This is a quirky short novel about a Belgian girl who becomes engaged to a Japanese boy while living in Tokyo. It touches on the oddities (to Westerners) of Japanese culture, the formalities and rules which dictate social and even family life there, and the strangeness of being an ex-pat.

The girl, also named Amelie, enjoys the boy's attentions and his romantic, almost chivalrous delight in her, but doesn't really want to get married. In the middle of a lot of romantic wooing, the book veers into a touch of magical realism in two separate mountain scenes. I won't spoil it but I will say I found it slightly confusing and wasn't always clear on why Amelie was miserable.

She's not a loveable protagonist but in this case, that didn't ruin the book for me. Because she's young and somewhat impetuous, I could believe the story; one thing that confused me is that while this is fiction, the main character not only shares the author's name, but also bits of her biography. Both are Belgian but born in Japan, and at the end of the book Amelie flies to Japan for a book tour for what was Amelie Nothomb's first novel.

So is this autobiography, fiction, or some hybrid thereof? Does it matter? It kind of did to me -- somehow it would be different if a real person had the experiences Amelie did. On the other hand, I had heard the ending would surprise and it didn't. To me it seemed that Amelie did exactly what the book had been leading her to do.

So, I enjoyed this strange little novel on the whole, but was left wondering what I'd just read. Except that this book was about someone who was miserable being happy in the conventional boy-meets-girl-they-fall-in-love sense. But ends up happy all the same. Got it?

I'd been waiting for French Leave by Anna Gavalda, also from Europa Editions, to be available on interlibrary loan. This was a quick read, sweet and funny and True, in that Gavalda really captured soemthing of the essence of being human. It's the story of adult siblings who play hooky from a family wedding and visit their brother who wasn't able to attend.

They spend the day and night remembering together (and I love how they don't all remember childhood the same way, which is one of those little details that rings so true to life), hanging out, being silly, leaving their relationships, work, and responsibilities behind. I really enjoyed this book about letting the cares of the world go and being a family.

The family dynamics, the tensions and dramas, are finely rendered. It's a touching read. It's pitch perfect -- I could picture Garance, the sibling who tells the story, as she spoke, young, a little bit wild and flip, messy but pretty. Carine, the sister-in-law, is a classic I'm-not-happy-unless-I'm-miserable type who badgers everyone around her. And, there is a loveable stray mutt who plays a role in the story -- making a furry friend is always a good way to leave your troubles behind.

I'm now reading the Gerald Samper books by James Hamilton-Paterson (all three are from Europa). I read Cooking With Fernet Branca last weekend and laughed aloud. I'm about halfway through Amazing Disgrace and am wondering exactly where our hapless hero is going to end up next.

Gerald Samper is a British ex-pat author of sports biographies. He lives on a hill in Tuscany where he creates foul sounding gourmet dishes he is inordinately proud of, and sings opera (again a point of great pride) very badly. He is forever grousing about his Voynovian neighbor Marta, who turns out to be a composer who parodies his yowling, and complaining heartily about the narcissistic, vapid subjects of his biographies.

Samper loves himself and loves to complain, and he's the perfect male lead for these farces. In the first book, he blames Marta for making him drink Fernet Branca, a strong Italian liqueur, but in her chapters, she blames him. Their back and forth, including a wacky scene in which Samper nails himself to the fence he is trying to build between their properties, and their parallel struggles with their creative work and the crazy people they have to deal with are hilarious.

The minor characters in Cooking With Fernet Branca include a great Italian film director who seems a little loopy, his sports car driving son, a fast-talking realtor, Marta's Voynovian family members, including a brother who lands an attack helicopter on her hillside, and the leader of a "boy band" who visits Samper and turns out to believe in UFO's. Hamilton-Paterson is that perfect combination: avery good writer who also does comedy well, and I am really enjoying these books.

So, I'm up to eleven Europa books in 2011. I hope to hit Amante by New Year's Eve! Two of those will be The Woman With the Bouquet (Eric-Emmanual Schmitt) and Rancid Pansies (James Hamilton-Paterson), which I have already checked out from the library. Fellow fans, what should I read as my final 2011 Europa challenge book?

Deb Baker

bookconscious

The Nocturnal Librarian

The Most Beautiful Book In the World, Tokyo Fiancee, French Leave, & Cooking With Fernet Branca, reviewed by Deb Baker

2011-12-02T09:17:00.005-05:00

So, I'm up to eleven Europa books in 2011. I hope to hit Amante by New Year's Eve! Two of those will be The Lady With the Bouquet (Eric-Emmanual Schmitt) and Rancid Pansies (James Hamilton-Paterson), which I have already checked out from the library. Fellow fans, what should I read as my final 2011 Europa challenge book?

Steve reviews You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik

2011-11-23T23:21:00.000-05:00

Though packed with up-to-date existential concepts and moral quandaries, You Deserve Nothing is in many ways a deceivingly light, enjoyable read. The prose is straightforward, & the characters are engaging and not too edgy, the kind you expect to find at a multinational though mostly American prep school in Paris.

Each section is titled by the name of its narrator, of which there are three. The most central and active protagonist is Will, who is often paired up with Mia, as they are both young and empathetic English teachers. But he is extremely charismatic and committed to his classes, the kind of teacher who “changes his students’ lives,” as we are repeatedly told.

The other two narrators are students at the school: a troubled loner named Gilad, who has transferred in from Riyadh, and benefits from Will’s challenges to finally come out of his shell, both in class and dealing with his bullying father. The third narrator, Marie, is also a bit unformed, but Will’s influence on her will be more problematical, perhaps just because she is not in his class but engages him on a personal level.

There are two pivotal events, which, though happening onstage, seem random and morally unexplored, both during and after. This parallels Camus’ The Stranger, which has been much discussed in some of Will’s class episodes, and one could claim You Deserve Nothing is a re-writing of The Stranger.

The psychological, moral, and thematic impact of the pivotal events are what reverberate back through all that has come before in the book, and the manipulative ability of Will as narrator undermines the ability of readers to be unbiased judges. But the issues it raises in plain and straightforward manner are ones that all can and should ponder in light of one’s preconceptions. “Literature,” as Will tells us, is irrelevant unless its questions have some bearing on the lives of the readers.” [p. 157]

Josh Reviews Between Two Seas

2011-11-21T15:18:00.003-05:00

Between Two Seas is the second work by Carmine Abate I have read this year, the first being The Homecoming Party. Perhaps it was the mixed feelings I had about the earlier book, but I felt that Between Two Seas was a far superior book. The book is told through the perspective of Florian, the grandchild of two extraordinary men whose lives took divergent paths, and discusses themes of emigration, family, culture and pride. I enjoyed Abate's flowing descriptions and lush, detailed settings particularly. As fall has descended upon Washington DC I had a few days of oppressive Southern Italian heat to keep me warm.

I find that the trickiest part of writing a convincing family saga is bringing the reader 100% on board. Sure, some novels need and thus use a more detached observer's distance to show the bigger picture the author is creating. Novels such as Between Two Seas, conversely, need the reader right up as close as they can be, to feel invested in the characters and the family. What I loved about this book is the way Abate incorporates so much of the environment and landscapes of Calabria, Italy and Hamburg, Germany into the mood and structure of the plot. Characters unto themselves, the two locales exert a push and pull upon the characters so forceful the reader cannot help but feel it as well. Combined with the expert way his characters evolve, react and engage one another I quite honestly found myself more involved than I had expected to be with Between Two Seas.

The transformation of Florian from child to adult, full of confusion, revelation, disappointment, freedom and responsibility to both himself and his family powers the plot forward. This does not mean it is an altogether linear work. Flashbacks and tangents abound. For those invested, these serve as nuggets of gold revealing more about individual characters and their motivations. For those not yet hooked, I can see where the asides and back story could serve as distractions. In a similar vein, if the reader is one who favors proof over faith the relationship between Giorgio Bellusci and Hans Heumann may come off as contrived and there merely to place the other characters into the same universe. It is a friendship where little is required or given yet much is gained, an odd arrangement to be sure. Yet, how many of us have that one friend that we could hear from out of the blue after years of quiet and pick up right where we left off?

I recommend this for your holiday travel. As we head home or host our respective family and friends, Between Two Seas is a great reminder of the joys, pains, freedoms and responsibilities we all receive from those closest to us.

I'm finished my reading for Amante! I just need to post my reviews for A Novel Bookstore & The Companion, hopefully both to come this week- two of my favorites I've read since July....

Marie C. Reviews Tokyo Fiancée, by Amélie Nothomb

2011-11-20T17:25:00.001-05:00

Tokyo Fiancée, by Amélie Nothomb. Published 2009 by Europa Editions. Translated from the French by Alison Anderson.

Amélie Nothomb's autobiographical novel Tokyo Fiancée tells the story of a young Belgian woman named Amélie who travels to Japan to work as a language teacher. She meets a young man named Rinri and the two embark on a sweet cross-cultural romance. Told from her point of view, Amélie learns about Japanese culture through the eyes of her admirer, and about herself as well.

The narrative style Nothomb employs is somewhat dry and matter-of-fact; young Amélie is a little self-centered but likable enough. She struggles with low-status work and tries to save money, and in her spare time she enjoys the attentions of her wealthy lover. When the romance ends, she soothes herself with some platitudes but gives nary a thought to the broken heart of the man she leaves behind. And he makes it easy on her.

I have to admit this was not my favorite novel because I do like to like the person I'm reading about but Tokyo Fiancée is still a worthwhile read, especially for those interested in learning about Japanese culture. It's the kind of book that puts forward its point of view without trying to seduce the reader; Amélie doesn't seem to care if you like her and she doesn't see anything wrong or questionable about her narcissism. It simply never seems to occur to her that there is any other way to look at her story, which makes her an unusual and memorable character. I'd recommend Tokyo Fiancée to readers looking for something different, for a book you haven't read before. Nothomb is a challenging and unusual writer, and readers looking for an in-your-face experience would do well to check her out.

This counts towards my goal of Amante level for 2012!

Troubling Love; Elena Ferrante

2011-11-09T22:28:00.001-05:00

4.5/5 stars

Troubling Love is my third book by an Italian author, who goes by the pseudonym, Elena Ferrante. The other two books, The Days of Abandonment and The Lost Daughter, also published as Europa Editions were a treat to read. All three books were translated from Italian, by Ann Goldstein who did a great job.

Troubling Love, packs a punch, beginning with the opening sentence...."My mother drowned on the night of May 23rd, my birthday, in the sea at a place called Spaccavento, a few miles from Minturno. "

Told from the POV of Delia, the 40+ year old daughter of the late Amalia. While waiting for her mother to visit her traveling from Naples to Rome, Delia receives several strange telephone calls from her mother. One indicating that a man was following her and wanted to wrap her in a carpet, and then another saying that she was going to have a bath. She was discovered floating in the sea, wearing only a lacy and expensive bra, the type of undergarment that her mother would not normally have worn.

Early on the reader learns that when Delia was young, her mother's absences caused Delia much anxiety, as she would stare out of the window endlessly waiting for her return. As an adult, Delia and her mother had a rocky relationship. When her mother would come for a visit she would reorganize her daughter's home to her own liking, causing friction between the two. At her mother's funeral, Delia feels relieved about not having to worry about her 63 year-old mother any longer --she doesn't shed a tear at her funeral, like her two sisters did. Amalia's husband, who she had been estranged from for many many years, did not attend the funeral.

After the funeral, Delia goes to her mother's "dirty and ugly" 4th floor apartment, and begins to look around. She sees several more things that make her wonder about what her mother had been doing the days before she died. Her mother was poor and she typically dressed shabbily; a frugal woman, yet why did she leave the water running in her apartment, and what was that expensive men's shirt doing in her drawer, and what about her other odd possessions?

Delia becomes obsessed with finding out more about her mother's life, and how she died, and in the process she unearths more of her own painful childhood, growing up in an abusive home. Each step along Delia's journey while searching for the truth, her behavior becomes increasingly bizarre, and at times it seemed as if she was hallucinating. Yet how valid are those memories from our past, especially when people tend to repress painful happenings?

Probably even more so than the two other books by this author, Troubling Love is an emotionally charged, at times - sexually raw, and cringe-worthy story. It's not an easy story to read, even though it is just 139 pages, but once you've begun you will not want to put it down.

Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery

2011-11-04T11:50:00.003-04:00

I revisited the charming apartment house brought to life by Muriel Barbery in The Elegance of the Hedgehog in her second novel, Gourmet Rhapsody. This book quietly grew on me. If you’ve read The Elegance of the Hedgehog, you may recall one of the residents of the Parisian building is a restaurant critic, an influential but arrogant man named Pierre Athens. As Gourmet Rhapsody opens, Monsieur Athens is dying, and he is maddened by the faint remembrance of a flavor he can’t quite identify.

Barbery cleverly tells the man’s life story through an interweaving of his own memories and the thoughts of his family, friends, and neighbors. Even a statue in his study weighs in, along with his favorite cat. Each chapter brings readers closer to discovering what Athens is trying to recall, of understanding his ego and the path of emotional destruction he has left in the wake of his hedonistic life. The shifting points of view are delightful; if the whole book were told in his voice, you’d want to toss it aside in in disgust.

I will say Barbery gives the man a way with words. Take for example this passage, in which he describes tasting sushi for the first time: “Yes, it is like a fabric: sashimi is velvet dust, verging on silk, or a bit of both, and the extraordinary alchemy of its gossamer essence allows it to preserve a milky density unknown even by clouds.” Or later, “Life exists only by virtue of the osmosis of words and facts, where the former encase the latter in ceremonial grace.”

In other words, he tells the truth (or his perception of it) and tells it slant. Towards the end, Athens declares, “The question is not one of eating, nor is it one of living; the question is knowing why.” I think that would make a marvelous philosophy dissertation topic. If I ever go back to school, I’m on it.

That was my 7th Europa book in 2011 -- I made Haver! 2012, here I come. Join me at my other blogs, Bookconscious and The Nocturnal Librarian, and happy reading, everyone.

Josh Reviews The Father and the Foreigner

2011-11-02T16:25:00.003-04:00

Moral ambiguity. Escape. These ideas so much of what entertains, scares and intrigues us. Whether I'm reading a John Irving novel watching Dexter, sympathizing with a manipulative doctor or a serial killer, the idea or moral ambiguity is what allows me to inhabit the shoes of individuals so very different from myself. De Cataldo's The Father and the Foreigner gave me a front-row seat to these feelings and the effects they can have on an individual.

Diego and Walid share the experience of being devoted fathers of seriously ill sons. Their sons are the center of their world. In Diego's case, this has allowed him to let everything else in his become peripheral including his job and his wife. In Walid, he finds an exotic surprise-a life. Risk, intrigue, exotic and new experiences. In Walid, Diego tastes the freedom of something new and possibly dangerous. In a manner reminiscent of A Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, De Cataldo includes examinations of immigrant life and attitudes on race and culture in modern Italy.

From Diego's observations (though not neccessarily his opinion on foreigners):
"In popular fantasies and resentments, painted Gypsies, clever Moroccans, dignified Indians, chattering South Americans, pallid Poles, and very black Equatorial Africans were only a single undifferentiated personification of the Different Foreigner...They were hated. They had turned Italy into a racist country."

From Walid's conversations to Walid:
"You Westerners! You always put everything into your compartments! Who said it's a celebration? For you, when it's a celebration it's a celebration. And that's it. When it's work it's work. And that's it. When it's sorrow it's sorrow. For us, on the other hand, celebration, work, sorrow are all one thing. So when men work or suffer too much, that calls for a good party."

Diego and Walid's relationship grows and strengthens, showing Diego what he might have been missing for so long in the form of companionship and the relationship he could be having with his son. The plot is almost ancillary to the development of character. Diego's questioning of how far he will go to maintain this connection of brotherhood he shares with Walid takes him into those gray areas that make for such great reading. Situations where internal debate about what we would do in the same situation while simultaneously hoping we never encounter them in real life. Where we hope we do the "right" thing, but not 100% sure we could pinpoint exactly what that is.

I enjoyed this book on several levels, but especially for its restraint. Sensuality, violence, brotherhood, fatherhood, responsibility and choice interplay in such subtlety that I never felt guided or shown. Every development was organic and seamless. Scenes where more detail would simply be more detail were almost non-existent (side note: I do love detail for detail's sake in books. I loved The Novel Bookstore and I love almost every John Irving book, and those all could be argued as books that exist simply for detail's sake). Some may dislike The Father and the Foreigner for that reason, if you look for more than De Cataldo is showing you may not find what you are looking for. Think a play staged with a minimal set- the focus is solely on the actors. This was an interestingly deep short read- my 11th on track for Amante this year.

Announcing the 2012 Europa Challenge!

2011-11-01T07:01:00.001-04:00

The 2012 Europa Challenge is on!

The 2012 Challenge will run from January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2012.

After listening to your feedback and taking a look at participation over the past four months, I've revamped the levels and challenges:

Ristretto Level (2 Europas-just try a little)
Espresso Level (4 Europas-a little more)
Cappuccino Level (6 Europas)
Caffe Luongo Level (12 Europas)

Like last year we'll be offering the following specialty challenges:
At any level, you can qualify as

A Connoisseur, by accepting the Perpetual Challenge;
An Expatriate, by choosing books from a single country or original language;
A Passport Holder, by choosing books from different countries or original languages.
You can also do the Tonga Challenge, and devote yourself to reading Europa's new line.

Love Challenge
Sélim Nassib, I Loved You for Your Voice

Edna Mazya, Love Burns

Elena Ferrante, Troubling Love
Massimo Carlotto, Bandit Love

Creature Challenge Benjamin Tammuz, Minotaur
Alicia Giménez-Bartlett, Dog DayWolf Erlbruch, The Miracle of the Bears
Edwin M. Yoder Jr., Lions at Lamb House.
Roma Tearne, Mosquito

Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog

And you can create your own challenge themes and book lists, which we'd love for you to share.

Movie into Story -- Odette Toulemonde

2011-10-30T20:20:00.002-04:00

A few weeks ago I posted about Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's story collection The Most Beautiful Book in the World, which is absolutely fantastic. At the end of the collection, Schmitt writes a postscript about how the stories came into being; he wrote them during free moments while directing a film Odette Toulemonde, for which he also wrote the screenplay. During what he calls this "clandestine writing", he also decided to adapt the film's screenplay into a short story, which is included in the collection.
I very much enjoyed the short story, about a woman and her relationship with her favorite author (of course it's not as simple as that); and I was thrilled to see that the film was showing on TV5 Monde last week If you have the chance to see the movie, I highly recommend it in addition to the short story.
What I found interesting is that the story and the screenplay have different endings, and they both seemed to work. In his postscript, Schmitt makes sure we know this is intentional:

... anyone who is interested in both the cinema and literature, and who becomes acquainted with the two versions, will notice above all their differences, for I really did try to tell the same story using two languages, and unequal means: words in this case, and animated images on the screen.

And if you were curious as to the origins of the cover of Europa Editions' release of the collection:

It comes from the film, Odette Toulemonde.

Josh reviews "Everything Happens Today" by Jesse Browner

2011-10-26T23:57:00.004-04:00

Marie and I must be on the same wavelength, since when I logged in to post my review she had just posted hers. I hope that the two reviews can be taken together; in an effort to do so, I will begin by saying that I agree 70-80% with Marie's review. If you haven't read it, do so first.

Wes is a teenager growing up in New York City's Greenwich Village. He has a rather unique life. Depending on your view, some might call it blessed--others might view it more tragically. Distant father, sick mother, difficult and challenging school and assignments. This book chronicles the events of one very fateful twenty-four hours for our young protagonist. Everything Happens Today is a book I so wanted to love, after all I had won it in the giveaway from Europa and to dislike it would be the epitome of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

But here's the rub. I can't say I loved it. Mind you, I can't say I hated it. Marie described the book as a more privileged version of another work. I completely agree. Universality is a most difficult idea to communicate through literature, akin to grabbing fog. Some books succeed--The Chill, The Cider House Rules and in some ways A Novel Bookstore do so quite well each in their own way-- in universal themes despite the inherent uniqueness of their story. Others, like this, lose their universality in their narrative and description.

If I was reading this as a person raised in a low-income home, or as one raised in a less-developed nation, this book would royally piss me off. His mother has a form of multiple sclerosis that most likely would have been misdiagnosed or treated in a lower income or even middle class family. His mother's family money has enabled them to pay for a nurse 6 days a week while his father is a university professor. Wes is attending a well-known private school (on scholarship) that in this society pretty much guarantees him success later in life. He's stressed in part because THIS IS THE ONE DAY A WEEK HE HAS TO TAKE CARE OF HIS MOTHER- an act that entails all of bringing her pudding and sitting with her.

I get that we all have our burdens. I get that all of our burdens challenge us in different ways, but Wes' character--while intriguing in that teenage male stream of consciousness sort of way--never brought about any sympathy from me. I was like "War and Peace!? You're reading War and Peace as a high school assignment! Gimme a break buddy, and you took copious notes throughout? Puh-leeze!"

Browner's prose and narrative is fine, his detail and knowledge are clear and deep. There are passages that show a brilliance of descriptive analysis and his plot moves along sufficiently quickly that I very much wanted to find out what happened next. I naturally now want to watch Bob Ross re-runs for inspiration and happy trees because of this book. I do not however, want to throw this book out for everyone I know to read. It needs a reader of correct age and maturity to gleam its more meaty nuggets of truth and like Marie, I feel I may be out of range or maybe just out of touch with the problems of Greenwich Village white families to invest too heavily in this one.

Marie C. Reviews Everything Happens Today, by Jesse Browner

2011-10-26T21:19:00.002-04:00

Everything Happens Today, by Jesse Browner. Published 2011 by Europa Editions.

When I started reading Everything Happens Today I wasn't sure I was going to like it. It's the story of Wes, an affluent highschooler in New York City, and his various angst and problems. The story takes place over the course of one Saturday, the day after Wes has lost his virginity to the school flirt, a girl named Lucy. Wes has a number of problems. Although he has slept with Lucy, he's in love with a standoff-ish redhead named Delia. His mother is chronically, terminally ill, and it's the nurse's day off. His father is alienated from the family. And Wes feels responsible for the well-being of his beloved little sister Nora. On top of that, he has a paper to write, dinner to cook, and a dog to walk.

The book sort of comes across as a more-privileged version of that other teen-boy angst book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Browner's book lacks the other book's profanity but there's still plenty of sex and drugs, not mention angst. As Browner charts Wes's interior life in vivid detail, the narrative also covers exactly what happened the night before, which is not what we're lead to expect at first, and the history of his relationship with Delia. A somewhat typically self-absorbed teenager, Wes's perceptions are not entirely accurate, as we come to see as we get to know the characters. Wes becomes more sympathetic as his understanding of these people sharpens. By the end, Browner brings into the story a sort of gentle wisdom, chiding Wes but still very affectionate towards him.

I have a feeling I am not the ideal reader for this book. I think it would appeal more to readers closer in age to the protagonist for one, and to fans of young adult literature more in general. Up to the minute in terms of social and technological references and brimming with the energy and urgency of youth, Everything Happens Today has the potential to be a coming of age cult classic but I have to admit teen-boy-angst is not my own favorite subject. So it's another book where I'm going to leave it up to you. I think it does what it does well and I think fans of these kinds of books will enjoy it.

I'm still on track for Amante Level!

2012 Challenge and Our Poll

2011-10-24T00:00:00.000-04:00

So, the poll results were pretty definitive and I won't be making any big changes as far as scheduling posts or moving the discussion group off of GoodReads. I know time is tight and we don't have time for every social network (neither do I!) but you all also have the option of posting discussion topics here if you want, or on GoodReads for that matter. If you feel strongly that the discussion posts should be posted on both this blog and GoodReads, you are free to start any conversation you'd like here. And if someone has a suggestion about how to schedule posts or manage something differently, I'm all ears.

Now that we're heading into the home stretch of 2011, I thought it might be time to start thinking about the 2012 Challenge. I know I'm up for continuing and I hope you are, too.

I was thinking of revising the challenge levels- simplifying and changing the names of the levels. I know this is totally dorky but I thought we could maybe do Ristretto Level (2 Europas-just try a little) Espresso Level (4 Europas-a little more), Cappuccino Level (6 Europas) or Caffe Luongo (12 Europas). Is this silly or do you guys like it? I'd like to encourage more people to take part by setting more modest goals. At Caffe Luongo Level you'd still be reading 1 Europa a month and you can always do more if you want.

I'm also thinking of eliminating the special challenges since it seems like no one's doing those. Which is fine. These things are works in progress. You try things, you see what works, and you try new things.

Or, we can keep things the way we did for 2011. What do you think? Whatever you think, I want to thank you all for your enthusiasm this past few months and I hope you'll want to stick around for 2012!

Josh Reviews Sorry by Gail Jones

2011-10-21T16:28:00.003-04:00

Gail Jones is someone I would like to meet, I think. I had been putting off her novel, "Sorry," for some time in favor of flashier, darker-seeming works in my Europa collection. Having finished the book a few days ago, I can say with ease that if Sorry is on your to-read list--move it up! Jones' narration, her use of language and symbolism and ability to tell a story blew me away. In a style reminiscent of the bleak landscape she initially presents, Sorry's characters and plot reveal themselves to be a land rich with history, culture and the unknown.

She writes, "Perdita calmed herself by remembering the eyes of the large kangaroo: they were so lustrous and calm, so intrinsically lovely...Intercepting guests that might have had this message: the world is also still and calm and without collisions; the world is also these fond, benevolent presences, fur-warm and comforting, wanting nothing, silent," (p. 47). Expanding upon a simple encounter in such a way to draw you in close enough to smell the kangaroos and simultaneously tie in the symbolism is an art that Jones has mastered in this work.

The most mundane and banal of everyday acts take on new meaning for Perdita in a world where she feels adrift and disconnected. A passage on page 78 details the joys that those who read find over those "booklessly broke, those word-deprived, craving, caught in dull time" ensconced a measure of pride and despair, strength and pity in simply one paragraph. A zig when the reader expects a zag, you don't feel quite as good for those who can read as you expect with all the praise she heaps upon them; nor do you feel quite as judgmental as the characters do for those who cannot.

I won't speak much to the plot, as the layers exposed as the pages (200+ that fly by) turn deserve to be discovered anew by each reader. Suffice to say, Perdita encounters tragedy and friendship, love and neglect (not where you would expect) to such varying degrees throughout the novel that each relationship's development serves to drive the narrative. So deep do we become entrapped in Perdita's viewpoint, her first experience in a strip mall made me feel like I had never been to one either.

"In the life of a every child there are times in which the symbolic gains more weight and magnitude, when childish thing, and their comforts, are put away, and there form the intuitions and understandings that ground the later adult. These are known only in retrospect, just as the gist of any tragedy is apparent only at its conclusion." (p. 99) Perdita's budding adulthood becomes shaped by events outside her control and outside her ability to escape.
I could fill pages with selections such as this. Ms. Jones has already done so. Her examinations of the events that shape the adults we become and the forces that crush the child inward while pulling that adult out struck me for the universality, despite the fact that I think few people grew up in remote Eastern Australia in the Second World War as British ex-pats with the rag-tag crew Perdita does. Her experiences are unique, her conclusions universally discovered.

It cannot be without consequence that the works of Shakespeare, with its iambic pentameter, figure so heavily into this book. The measure of pace of the book flow in a similarly natural manner. I could gripe that upon first read I did not understand the timing of the changes between the first and third person narrative, but that would comparable to complaining about one cloud in a clear sky.

This is beginning to run longer than even I would personally want to read. I’ll stop here and conclude with saying that I highly recommend this book. I feel like it may slip under the radar, and advise against letting it go under yours.

The Days of Abandonment; Elena Ferrante

2011-10-21T11:38:00.001-04:00

Lately I've found myself returning to authors that I've enjoyed in the past. Elena Ferrant is one of these authors. Here is my review of her book, The Lost Daughter, in case you missed it previously. In The Days of Abandonment, the title pretty much says it all. A short novel (188 pages) but, with a story, and an intro that packs a wallop.

"One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me. He did it while we were clearing the table; the children were quarreling as usual in the next room, the dog was dreaming, growling beside the radiator. He told me that he was confused, that he was having terrible moments of weariness, of dissatisfaction, perhaps of cowardice. He talked for a long time about our fifteen years of marriage, about the children, and he admitted he had nothing to reproach with us, neither them nor me, He was composed, as always, apart from an extravagant gesture of his right hand when he explained to me, with a childish frown, that soft voices, a sort of whispering, were urging him elsewhere. Then he assumed the blame for everything that was happening and closed the front door carefully behind him, leaving me turned to stone beside the sink."

What follows is the story of a 38 year-old wife and mother with two young child who begins to unravel, losing all sense of normalcy in life with this unexpected announce from her husband Mario. Of course, Mario’s confusion is just an excuse, as there is a 20 year-old woman in the picture which is revealed early on. The new woman is actually a student Mario had once tutored, and then began to see on the side. He told his wife the affair was over, when in fact it was still going on.

Olga was once a writer, but she traded her dreams of becoming famous for marriage and motherhood, and after 15 years of comfortable routines, she finds herself totally helpless with what has just happened. Once Olga kept a spotless house, cooked gourmet meals, her home is now in shambles, her children and even the family dog , Otto are neglected. She spends her time in desperation, writing letters to her husband – not even knowing where he is staying. She spends a lot of time analyzing what and when things started to go wrong in their marriage. She experiences, many of the stages of “death and dying” –denial, anger and rage, a bottomless pit of depression before she moves on to the final stage of acceptance.

She has a hot and heavy sexual encounter with an older man, Carrano, who lives in her building, which could shock some readers. It’s descriptive, complete with foul language and some remorse afterward. A sad incident involving the family dog occurs, and there is incident when Mario comes over to see the children and she invites him to stay for a meal that really left me chuckling. After several months of watching her own life spiral downward, Olga gradually begins to accept the fact that life as she one day new if will never be the same.

This sparse book was so well written. It was translated from Italian, and the words just flowed so well. It’s an additive read, told from Olga’s point of view, which worked perfectly; she was a believable protagonist The story’s ending was hopeful . I invite you read this book, and to go inside the mind of, “a woman scorned. “

Marie C. Reviews Poisonville by Massimo Carlotto and Marco Videtta

2011-10-19T07:16:00.001-04:00

Poisonville, by Massimo Carlotto and Marco Videtta. Published 2009 by Europa Editions. Translated from the Italian by Anthony Shugaar.

I know I said that I'd probably never read another Massimo Carlotto book after the downer that was Death's Dark Abyss but something about Poisonville just pulled me in (and I liked Death's Dark Abyss but, well, read my review). Anyway, this second visit to Carlotto's corrupt, messed-up world was less violent and sexually disturbing than the first, and offered up a fun mystery, too.

Set in an economically-struggling northern town beset by corruption and ruled by a closed-in class of aristocrats, a young lawyer from a disgraced family is found dead along with evidence that she's been having a degrading sexual affair. Francesco is her fiance and the scion of a respected legal family; he is first a suspect then the self-appointed lead investigator into her sordid death. Along the way he must revisit the scandal that ruined her family, expose various secrets and confront some very uncomfortable truths about the things and people he holds dear.

I figured out who the killer was pretty quickly, I will admit, thanks more to my soap-opera training than to any deductive skills. Like a good crime novel, Carlotto and Videtta include a colorful cast of extras, like Giovanna's plucky best friend, her crazy ex and his controlling mother to liven up the proceedings. Carlotto and Videtta try hard to make the book about something bigger than sex and scandal by tying Giovanna's death to local pollution, corruption and sex-trafficking activity that has absorbed nearly all of the city's elite. But at its heart, Poisonville is good trashy fun that crime readers of all stripes will enjoy, right to the very bitter end.

I read this for the Europa Challenge and for Jenn of Jenn's Bookshelves Murder, Monsters & Mayhem Challenge. I'm still chugging along towards Amante level!

12 Who Don't Agree, by Valery Panyushkin

2011-10-17T07:39:00.000-04:00

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

"...you live by your conscience, as the saying goes, you protest when you need to protest and you don't bow or grovel before the powerful. And one day you see that you have taught your little girl to protest."

Before I start on my thoughts about this book, I would like to thank Europa Editions for publishing it. Otherwise, I may never have picked it up and that would have been a shame. Keep it up, find more stories like this one, and carry on. Please!

In 12 Who Don't Agree, Russian journalist Valery Panyushkin gathers together the individual stories of several Russian dissidents, linked together in various ways, especially as participants in the March of the Dissidents of 2007. The first of these protest marches was in held in Petersburg, and was only one of a series of planned events prior to the presidential election of 2008. Their intention was to call attention to their opposition to the social, political and economic policies of then president Vladimir Putin. During the first march, which was considered a "success" by its organizers (including Garry Kasparov, Russian dissident and former world-chess champion), the authorities called out the OMON (a police special forces unit), who reacted with violence against some of the protestors, but before the march was over, according to one observer, a "crowd of 10,000 had broken through the police cordons onto Nevsky Prospect... a human river as far as the eye could see, ... friends and comrades in arms free, strong, and dissenting." While much of the violence was officially blamed on the organizers, provocateurs hired by the regime took their place in the crowds, holding signs and stirring up trouble to make the protestors look bad. And all of this after the fall of the Wall and the end of totalitarian rule. Supposedly.

Panyushkin's book offers the experiences of eleven people, who for their own reasons were affected by, or became victims of gradually worsening government policies and repressions. For example, there's Marina Litvinovich, who worked at the Fund for Effective Politics, where she read and summarized the news each day. By reading between the lines and by putting together all of the various information campaigns, she discovered how things really worked. Eventually she figured out that she could help influence the "secret course of events," and began putting together a summary which ultimately became "Information Threats and Ways to Resolve Them," where she would give advice. Her job: navigating between the the personal interests of officials and the country's interests. She began attending meetings between her boss, Gleb Pavlovsky (who had once betrayed a comrade to the KGB on the basis of his "forbidden books") and Yeltsin's chief of staff Voloshin, offering advice on how to handle official publicity. She drew up lists of topics for directors to cover on Ukranian television and even directed Putin's public appearances once he became the president. And this is where the trouble began. During the Kursk incident of 2000, Putin was on vacation as men trapped in the sub were clanging out SOS signals against the sides and their wives and mothers waited for someone to do something. Marina's advice was to go the see the families and offer some moral support. But this tactic backfired -- instead of his presence offering assurance, they turned on him publicly, in the face of reporters. This incident led to a change in policy: the president would from then on maintain silence during any disaster. When the hostage situation developed in the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow in 2002, Marina discovered she was no longer needed, especially after the Russian forces dealt with the situation by piping in some unknown chemical agent to subdue the militants but managed to kill over a hundred innocent people as well. To handle the information situation, the NTV, the last independent political channel which actually covered the Dubrovka incident, got a new director, and information began to yield to propaganda. Her career was basically over, and she ran several campaigns (PR and political), but as she began to understand why it was that all of her clients were failing, that behind it all were the politics and underhanded policies of those in charge of the country, she'd had enough, and began to manage the campaign of dissident Garry Kasparov.

And then there was Beslan, 2004, and the terrorist occupation of a school where over three hundred teachers, parents and children were taken hostage, many of them killed as government forces launched an assault on the school. That incident killed trust in the regime for a resident, Vissarim Aseyev, a deputy of the district legislative assembly. Vissarim (Visa) was the first civilian on the scene after hearing gunshots from the direction of the school. He worked tirelessly to help any of the families who had lost children or other relatives, and did what any human being would do in the situation. But he reached his breaking point during a protest by a grieving group of women calling itself the Mothers of Beslan along the highway. They stood there with signs, demanding, among other things, an international investigation into the circumstances of the terrorist action and the response of the government, and they figured that the investigation such as it was was being conducted so that no one in authority would end up being held responsible for the deaths of their children. It was cold outside; the women were freezing, and Aseyev, being a good citizen and understanding their grief, called a friend to have a tent sent over along with food and hot tea from different cafes. Soon others began to join the protest, but it was still on a small scale. On day three, after being warned that the protest was illegal, the Deputy General Prosecutor, a "representative of Federal Power" came by and starting yelling at the moms to stop. Stating that it was "indecent" for the mourning women to be standing there holding signs, he also berated the men who had joined them, saying that if they wanted to sort things out, to go make war on the nearby people of Ingushetia. Aseyev couldn't believe his ears -- was this official actually proposing a war? Things only got worse. He was called to the Beslan prosecutor's office, who told him that he needed to take responsibility for this illegal protest, or his friend who had supplied the tent would get into trouble. Criminal charges would also be brought against him. As the author notes, "Now he was truly opposed to the state."

There are nine more stories along these lines, all of them dealing with the gradual erosion of freedoms, human rights violations, threats, and other events that made these protests necessary as these individuals (and others) began to realize that "...we had returned to the Soviet Union, to a life we knew. When, no matter who you were, you could not have any effect on the regime or rise to power." These narratives also deal with the government's efforts to crack down on any form of public protest, as well as measures taken to edge out any real political opposition to the Kremlin, including censorship of opposition viewpoints and changes in the election laws. Did you know, for example, that in Russia, it's illegal to have more than one person picketing at a time? Add another person and you're violating the law, with jail time as a result. And did you know that there are people hired by the Kremlin to come up and stand with a solitary picketer, which ends the picket and makes the picketer a criminal? And now that another round of elections are coming up, and Putin is planning to run, well, the world should be watching. And then what happens with the protests come to a halt altogether?

If you are politically inclined or are interested in the state of human rights around the globe, this is a definite must-read that gets well beyond news stories we listen to with only half an ear (if at all, since it's not about us). The book starts out a bit slowly, but as Panyushkin gets through the intrigue, the political plays, injustices and protection of oligarchical interests of the government, he also gets into the hearts and minds of these eleven people as they try to find a vehicle for expression and change. He often exercises humor that doesn't belie the seriousness of what he's saying. Sometimes the narrative gets a bit bogged down and I found myself going to the internet for dates, etc., but for the most part, it's easy to read and to understand. Definitely and most highly recommended.

Michael Reynolds Answers Your Questions

2011-10-14T00:00:00.000-04:00

We're very lucky to have Europa's support of our blog and recently, Europa Editions Editor in Chief Michael Reynolds agreed to answer a few of our questions about the new Tonga line of books.

What was the inspiration behind the new Tonga imprint? What's it all about? How did Alice Sebold get involved in the project? What's her role?

There’s one answer, really, to these two questions. The inspiration for Tonga Books came to Europa’s owners, Sandro Ferri and Sandra Ozzola, and to Alice one evening while drinking in the Fairmont Hotel, San Francisco. The imprint was named in honour of the room in which they were doing this drinking, the venerable Tonga Room. As Alice tells it, she even had a Tonga Itch, the bar’s trademark cocktail, in hand. I wasn’t there, but I can picture the scene… It is of utmost importance to this dramatic recreation that one thing be clear: all players were on their second, possibly third, cocktail…. Sandro and Sandra express their desire that Europa publish more American fiction as part of our overall publishing program, and, in the same breath, bemoan the difficulties of attracting first-rate American writers to Europa, a publishing house largely known at the time for its publication of works in translation and novels by UK writers. What we’d need, they say, is some way to broaden the connotation associated with Europa, a hook that will appeal to American authors and agents. Alice agrees, and as she raises her hand to order another Itch, she comments on how much great work there is out there, by talented and committed authors, work that is shunned by the big houses because it represents too much of a risk. A successful writer like her can blurb a manuscript, or suggest a writer to her publishing house, but beyond that it’s not easy for a published writer to help her unpublished colleagues. Though she wishes it were otherwise.

Then, as the next round of drinks arrives, there is a moment, one of those inspired moments when suddenly a solution appears, rising fully formed and luminous out of the mists of the Tonga Room’s indoor rainstorms.

I remember seeing Sandro and Sandra a few days after that. They were bleary eyed from the long flight back from California to Rome (or perhaps from the many more cocktails had in the tonga room that night). How was your trip to see Alice, I asked. Good, they said on the way to their desks. Oh, and we founded a new publishing house.

The new publishing house became an imprint, and the imprint became Tonga Books.

I don’t think any of this could have happened if it had not been for the friendship and trust that exists between Sandro and Sandra, and my colleague Karin, who also works for Europa, and Alice. Theirs is a very special relationship, all the more so because it grew out of a professional relationship—Sandro and Sandra publish Alice’s work in Italy. Things done out of friendship seem to get short shrift these days, as if they lack seriousness or professionalism. But I can’t think of any better reason to do something, or any better recipe for success, than doing something out of friendship. Surely it’s the best way for anything to begin.

Alice’s role has been fundamental. Her name has leant Tonga prestige and garnered attention that it probably wouldn’t have had otherwise. She drafted the illustration for the logo. She wrote the press release announcing Tonga. She acquired books. And she edited them. Her generosity has been boundless. And her eye for talent has been exceptional. She has fantastic taste.

I understand that the Tonga line is meant to have an edgier tone than the traditional Europa Editions line. However I find that a vast selection of Europa Editions titles do not fail in that department. Is the distinction between the two lines more a question of nationality of the authors than anything else? If someone picks up a Tonga title then they know they're getting Europa quality but not necessarily European authors, is that it?

Yes, Tonga is certainly focusing on English language authors, in most cases American ones. Europa has published American authors in the past and will continue to do so. But Tonga is doing only these authors.

As far as the edginess of Europa titles goes, and Tonga’s claim to an edgier edginess, I suppose you’re right. I’ve never quite thought of it before but I suppose many Europa titles easily fit the description “edgy”— Broken Glass Park, The Companion, Izzo’s books, Carlotto’s noir, Ferrante’s Days of Abandonment, many others. I think the difference is that when dealing with American authors the “edginess” quotient is often also the reason why they don’t fit into the programs of big trade publishers, where the general approach is that a book can be anything it wants as long as it doesn’t hurt sales. Edgy = commercially risky. But you really can’t live up to your mandate as an indie publisher if you’re not dong commercially risky titles every now and again. If we don’t do them, who will?

The situation is slightly different with our European authors, because, however edgy authors like Bronsky, Carlotto, Izzo, Ferrante, and company may be, they are also bestsellers in Europe. Maybe, I’m not sure, readers are more receptive to edgier work in Europe.

What kind of response have you been getting from readers so far?

You Deserve Nothing, Tonga’s first book, was published a month ago. It’s been on the IndieBound bestseller list since it was published. The response from booksellers and readers has been tremendous. Here is a book that is edgy, and whose edginess led to it being refused by a number of trade houses, but which is now getting loads of critical acclaim and selling very well. In short, it’s a publisher’s dream! Proof not only of Alice’s editorial acumen but also of the fact that quality writing is quality writing, no matter what else it is. What matters is the quality.

What are some upcoming titles in the Tonga line?

Next up for Tonga is Of Beasts and Beings by Ian Holding, perhaps the edgiest of Alice’s edgy acquisitions. Then, right around the holidays we’re publishing Tonga’s first comic novel, Sara Levine’s Treasure Island!!! which has been described as “hilarious” (Karen Joy Fowler) “outrageous” (Philip Lopate) “awesome” (David Wain) and “slightly deranged” (Marcy Dermansky). Then, there’s Wichita by Thad Ziolkowski coming up next summer, a book Susanna Moore described as “a wise, funny and haunting story of our time.”

It’s really a privilege to be involved in the publication of books of this caliber. I have the authors to thank for this privilege, of course, but also Alice, who brought these terrifically talented people to our list.

Michael, thank you so much for taking the time to respond to our questions! We really appreciate your time and this great information.

Our Approach to Group Blogging

2011-10-12T13:38:00.002-04:00

So, this is my first time running a group blog. Some of you may know that I modeled this blog on the Complete Booker Challenge blog, of which I'm also a participant.

Lately some of you have expressed some reservations about the way we're doing things here- some frustration with the fact that sometimes we have 2 or 3 or 4 posts in a day and then go for a few days without any posts. Some folks have asked me if there's another way to do this- scheduling posts, for example, maybe giving each participant a day of the week on which to post, or something.

What do you think?

There's also been a question raised about having discussions on GoodReads rather than here on the blog. I like having a GoodReads group for three reasons:

It's good publicity for the challenge. We have found participants through GoodReads, which is a large and vibrant social networking site for readers.
The discussions don't go away. If we had the discussions here, the posts would cycle out and become difficult to find.
The discussions are all in one place. See above.

I created a poll on the right hand side for you to vote. On regulating posts, if you vote "Yes, using some other method" please comment here with more detail.

This is YOUR community blog so I want to know what you think. I'm reposting this to GoodReads so you can comment here or there. I won't make any changes without your say-so.

Thanks to you all for participating.

A Tale of Two Voices and One Marriage

2011-10-09T23:33:00.005-04:00

I recognize that a few have already spoken of these two books on this blog, and I want to begin by saying how much I have enjoyed reading those posts and seeing how these two books have impacted others as they have myself. This post is by no means a replacement or substitute for those prior posts, nor is it meant as an improvement upon them. I hope to add to the conversation surrounding these two wonderful, moving works.

Old Filth and The Man In the Wooden Hat left me speechless, struck quite literally to my core. Alone, they are portraits of two individuals captured in the most poignant and integral moments of their lives. Together, they show the duality of even the most intimate experiences. My heart broke for her passion even as it struggled to understand his distance. Filth's devotion to his wife, somewhat free of desire as it may be, is touching. How can one love when they have never truly been shown how? His seems a life pushed by hard work, luck, circumstance and stability. Hers, an altogether different beast. Her life is marked by her decisions- some that free and others that bind. Her heartbreak and loss- and subsequent attempts to reclaim her sense of self- took The Man In the Wooden Hat to another level for me. Combined with certain themes in The Queen of the Tambourine that echo those in that work, it leaves one to wonder how much of Ms. Gardam's work is drawn from inspiration in her own life or that of one close to her.

Filth himself proves curmudgeonly and disarming. His faults and flaws, explained as the books progresses, come to be seen not only as hindrances but somehow as unique tragedies in and of themselves. Solitude in many proved his solace and his shelter. She, the lady who would always somehow need more than Filth could give her could never be satisfied with a life such as that. I am not an apologist for Filth. She deserved more, certainly and in her own way found more as well. How much fault one can ascribe to Filth is up for debate. When one's capacity for love and affection are hindered in so many crucial ways, how much is left to give to another?

To write Old Filth alone would have been a masterpiece few authors could replicate. To attempt the daunting task of both a companion piece as well as a re-telling of events readers already know (or think they do) seems like either the utmost of arrogance or the most eloquent stroke of genius. Luckily, the the latter won out. Ms. Gardam manages to capture the truth resting in the individuality of us all and the motivations that drive us forward and keep us in place. I cared so deeply for both characters and wish for more insight into their lives. When she suffered, I was next to her. When he blindly pushed forward in his career, I was with him even as part of me stayed with her. When he rushed home to her, when he mourns, I was there. I woke up in that tree house with her.

If you have not taken the opportunity to visit this love pair of books, I urge you to do so. They compliment each other so extremely well that reading just one would leave the reader without the whole story, even if they felt that each work does an admirable job showing us each character. I have never read such an honest and intimate portrayal of marriage and commitment or loss and discovery.

Trailer for Everything Happens Today

2011-10-08T13:38:00.000-04:00

"Everything Happens Today" read by Jesse Browner from grahame weinbren on Vimeo.

A Could've Been World for a Should've Been Sister

2011-10-06T15:57:00.003-04:00

Chalcot Crescent's premise alone intrigues. Fay Weldon creates a life and a world for the sister she almost had; yes I had my own Atonement style flashbacks as well. Thankfully, Ms. Weldon took me far from such a premise and gave me a completely re-imagined and re-constituted world. I read this in a hot tub over my last two nights in Iceland while the other half slept off driving stick shift over glaciers (each of us enjoying time to do the things we don't get to as often stateside - sleep and reading) and the contrast between the mountains of Iceland and the bleak streets of Weldon's England fascinated.

It is enough to say that capitalism has not saved us from ourselves in Chalcot Crescent and the world as we know it today has fallen apart to be replaced with isolationism, fear, famine and destruction- fertile ground for dictatorial style governments.

Sounds like a fun read so far? Take that alternate twist and add in a heaping scoop of familial drama and soap opera like romances spanning three generations. Sometimes I stop keeping track of characters, especially when the authors insert them more to drive the plot and less to establish a character. This book does not allow for such passive reading. Yes, there are characters who never fully form except to either give birth to or father the children whose actions take over Ms. Weldon's (the almost-was) life. However, other characters come through more fully and their impact on the story and its direction is profound.

The character Ms. Weldon herself is a hoot. She's witty and smart and successful. She's curmudgeonly, unforgiving, petty and proud. She remembers absolutely everything and regrets more than she may let on. I wanted to sit with her, I wanted to shake her a few times and I was genuinely nervous for her too! Her interactions past and present may not always be what we as readers would have done (or maybe they're exactly what we did) and even though she may have her detractors, I think Ms. Weldon ends up with our respect if not our admiration.

Chalcot Crescent brings you in with its ingenious details about a world we may not be too far from and keeps you hooked with its human characters, their struggles and their fears. Thinking about my earlier post today and my thoughts on De Luca's anchor of justice in Carte Blance, Ms. Weldon (the author and the character I guess) too lives in a time of unrest, uncertainty and violence. Like De Luca, the character of Ms. Weldon makes her choices and pushes forward with her own anchor- family. That term may not mean the same thing or the same people at the end as it did in the beginning, but it definitely anchors this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend this as one to put on your lists!

Anchors Aweigh

2011-10-06T10:53:00.003-04:00

Carte Blanche is my second foray into Italian noir following Death's Dark Abyss. The body count may be higher in Carte Blanche, but I felt that in some ways Carte Blanche avoided (for better or worse) the bleakness of Death's Dark Abyss. I will certainly be reading the second two novels in Lucarelli's De Luca series. Lizzy did a great job a few days ago with the series as a whole so I will not step on her toes there- check out her post!

De Luca is the best kind of character. He surprises, he frustrates, he pursues he keeps the reader guessing while building a rapport. I felt less like an observer and more like a fellow policeman on the case with him. And what a case! What begins as a "simple" murder case quickly becomes complicated. You have the competing interests of 16 different police forces, multiple political factions and fractious family ties. On top of all that, there's this little conflict soon to be known as World War II raging just north. None of this helps De Luca in his search to find his man. None of this is able to breach his stoic non-plussed non-political veneer either.

Death's Dark Abyss took violence as a bomb, showing the reader the inescapable ripples violence brings to all involved. Carte Blanche goes the other way. There may not be a way to avoid or control violence, but there may be a way to survive it. De Luca is sleep-deprived, unkempt and haggard, but he is determined to to find justice no matter the cost. His drive for justice keeps him sane and in some respects shelters him from the insanity going on around him. His actions and outbursts may come across as crazy to some, but upon closer look they serve as ventings against a system being pushed and pulled by so many opposing forces that each man must find his own anchor is he's to survive.

That anchor to me was the central tenet of the book. Based on the author's foreword, I feel that De Luca is representative of so many in Italy at this time. I can imagine that though their anchors may have been different, their origin and their need was the same. It made me question what my anchor woudl be if I had to endure such times. I can't wait for the next chapter in this trilogy!

Under the Teenage Tuscan Sun

2011-10-06T08:56:00.002-04:00

Morning everyone! I have two reviews I will post today. Both are shorter works, clocking in around 100 pages or so each. First up is The Chill, by Romano Bilenchi, is one that I have had on my shelves for a while and read last week. It took some time and reflection, but this one- like a good red wine from Tuscany- has some great legs.

The wine comparisons don't stop there. Like big red wines, this book needs some time to breathe. It reads quickly, almost too quickly for such a short book. Before you know it, you're done. Immediately after finishing the book, my impressions were positive but shallow. Nothing about it sent me down any long roads of reflection. I'll try to avoid any plot synopsis since giving too much away here could ruin the book, but suffice to say Bilenchi shows the reader the experiences of one young man as he comes of age in Northern Tuscany in the 1950's.

The experiences are so detailed, so nuanced that upon finishing the book, I found little to relate to in this character. A week later, from a distance, the events have a more rounded universal quality. How many of us remember our first death? The pain of losing the first childhood friend? With all the white lies we tell out of civility or respect, do we not all still remember our first deceit? The shame, allure and wonder of an individual's sexual awakening? Bilenchi brings all of this and more to the reader in a way that manages to be both personal and somehow not.

Looking back, I find that I enjoyed this much like I came to enjoy great Tuscan wine. At first, I couldn't bring myself to get into the Super Tuscan rush so many were enjoying. I preferred my Vernaccia and my Chiantis without the blending- my unique individual grapes. Now, I find that I can appreciate the Super Tuscan for what it is, a blend of many grapes that reaches what some might call a more universal palate. Bilenchi's book may seem like the story of one young man, whose experiences in Italy connect solely to his location and time. If you let yourself become that young man, I think that you will find something more. He is you and he is me and he is the person next to you on the train, in the next lane over. His experience is the universal shift from child to adult.

Pondering posterity

2011-10-05T13:47:00.006-04:00

Half of the book HYGIENE & THE ASSASSIN [1992; translated 2010], by Amélie Nothomb, consists of the dying blowhard, Nobel-Prize-winning novelist Prétextat Tach, browbeating a series of insipid journalists for the usual reasons. The second half is his stirring repartee with Nina, a female journalist who has actually read his books and exposes Tach’s bizarre metaphysics & Nina’s own agenda.
Playful & well-imagined, a self-reflective novel about a novelist examining his own oeuvre, entertaining in coy ego displays. But unless I missed it, the last 2 pages seem to negate the author’s very purpose … which implies a deeper purpose. Hmmm; maybe: this was her debut novel, but she has gone on to publish 20 others.
Translated by Alison Anderson, whose work on Barbery's two novels was equally delicious.

Curious about Europa's new Tonga line?

2011-10-05T00:00:00.000-04:00

Well, editor-in-chief Michael Reynolds has graciously agreed to answer your questions! If you're curious about the whats, whys and hows of Europa's new line of books, now's your opportunity to get answers from the source. Send your questions to the moderator (me!) at europachallenge@gmail.com by Monday, October 10, and I will send a representative sample of 4-5 questions to Michael and post the whole Q&A here on the blog.

Thank you Michael for doing this!

Marie C. Reviews Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio

2011-10-04T07:43:00.001-04:00

Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, by Amara Lakhous. Published 2008 by Europa Editions.

Sometimes you start reading a novel thinking it's pure comedy, and then it turns out to have some darker themes going on just under the surface that make you think a little harder than you expected to- and you enjoy a book all the more for it. Such is the case with Clash of Civilizations in Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, a short Italian novel about an apartment building in Rome, where people from all over Italy and all over the world find themselves living together. Or not living, in the case of the dead guy in the elevator.

Author Amara Lakhous tells the story from alternating perspectives, making Clash of Civilizations one of those fun books where we get to see the characters from different points of view, learning about their foibles and ways of thinking. A sad man who talks to the pigeons becomes, from another point of view, a potential drug dealer or terrorist; a woman who loves her dog a lot is, through a different set of eyes, a high-maintenance fusspot. And so on. But who is that pesky dead guy, and how did he get there? After a certain point we catch on that these are no idle narratives; the speakers are speaking to someone; they're being interviewed, and their unnamed interlocutors are trying to find the whereabouts of Amedeo, their neighbor, a man they all believe to be a Roman but whose story is very different, and very sad.

A Clash of Civilizations is a lively portrait of Italy as non-Italians seldom think of it- a diverse, multicultural center of world civilization, with tensions between Italians and non-Italians but also between folks from different parts of Italy. We see regional stereotypes play out alongside more predictable racial or religious ones, and how people cross signals and misunderstand each other, even when each person is entirely confident of their own point of view. It's fascinating and fun, but there is a darker side too. Some of these misunderstandings are tragic rather than funny, and there is more than one ruined life in the wake of it all.

So this is a book that will make you laugh at first, but then it will make you think, too. It reads quickly and it's very engaging, and it's a great choice for the literary fiction reader looking for edgy European fiction with a comic sheen. Lakhous has a new book coming from Europa this winter, and after reading Clash of Civilizations I'm definitely going to be on the lookout for it.

This keeps me on track for Amante level! For September, I'll be reading Poisonville and Everything Happens Today and maybe another one.

The De Luca Trilogy - Carlo Lucarelli

2011-10-03T14:15:00.004-04:00

Hello fellow Europa Editions fans. Lizzy from Lizzy's Literary Life here. I know I'm joining the party a little on the late side but here we go, 3 books all at once. 75% of my 2011 target! I'm back on track.

The seed for Lucarelli’s trilogy was a chance encounter with a man who had spent 40 years in the Italian police force between 1941 and 1981. This is how Lucarelli's describes this man's career.

He had started in the fascist political police, the OVRA, a secret organization the meaning of whose acronym was never known with certainty. As an "ovrino", he told me, his job was to tail, to spy on, and to arrest anti-fascists who were plotting against the regime. Later, still as an ovrino, he was to tail, to spy on, and to arrest those fascists who disagreed with fascism's leader, Benito Mussolini. During the war, his job went back to tailing, spying on, and arresting anti-fascist saboteurs, but toward the end of the war, when part of liberated Italy was under the control of partisan formations fighting alongside the Allies, my strange policeman friend actually became part of the partisan police. As he was good, he told me, he had never done anything particularly brutal and the partisans needed professionals like him to ensure public order and safety. Naturally, his duties included arresting fascists who had stained themselves with criminal acts during the war. Several years later, when, following elections, a regular government was formed in Italy, our policeman became part of the Italian Republic's police; his job, to tail, to spy on, and to arrest some of those partisans who had been his colleagues and who were now considered dangerous subversives.

If proof were ever needed that truth is stranger than fiction, there it is. Had Lucarelli made De Luca’s career as torturous, he would have been accused of absurdity. As it is, De Luca’s career is grounded in the facts above. The trilogy begins in Carte Blanche during the final days of World War II and the allied advance through Italy. The Damned Season continues in the months immediately following and the third part, Via Delle Oche, is set in Bologna against the backdrop of the 1948 national elections. Commissario De Luca is a talented detective whose tainted background constantly threatens to derail him. Once a fascist, always a fascist, his opponents cry. Never a fascist, responds De Luca. Always politically neutral. “I’m a policeman. It’s my job and I’ll take sides with anyone who let’s me do my job.” His actions bear this out, but is it enough to claim that he never got his hands dirty, never brutalised anyone when his office was so close to the interrogation cells that he could hear the victims' cries?

De Luca compromises himself in other ways. He is not adverse to involving himself sexually with females closely associated with the crimes he is investigating. And when he wishes to assert himself, he can strop with the best of them. This usually involves him sweeping everything off the nearest table or desk. As a result he is not entirely likeable. Yet his talents as a detective make him a sympathetic character and I worried on his behalf.

Particularly during the second instalment, The Damned Season, when, on the run with false papers in northern Italy, he is recognised by a partisan, turned local policeman, and coerced into helping resolve a particularly brutal case in which a whole family has been massacred. De Luca is on a knife edge throughout. Masquerading as an engineer, his legendary investigatory skills, which he must employ to prevent him being turned over to the Allies, are most likely that which will give him away. The suspense is palpable, even though we know he gets out of this alive, due to there being a third book.

He reappears in that assigned to the vice squad in Bologna in 1948, still dogged by his past. When a man is found dead in one of the city’s brothels, the authorities are quick to explain it as suicide. While the man hanging from a rafter does have a noose around his neck and an overturned stool beneath him, his feet don’t reach the seat when the stool is righted. “Normal enough that a hanged man grows a little longer if he’s left a while,” De Luca quips. “But I’ve never heard of one getting shorter.” True to form De Luca refuses to look the other way even when it becomes apparent that the evidence indicates the involvement of local politicians and the police force. With the elections looming and new agendas to be protected, the question is whether De Luca will get his man before the old agendas catch up with him.

These books are classic noir. Matter of fact, action-packed, with little to no character development, for which we should be grateful as it’s a challenge keeping up with the turbulence of the historical period. For that reason it is important that the books are read in chronological sequence. De Luca’s personal story adds further moral ambiguity and suspense into the usual police procedural mix. When photographs of a black-shirted De Luca come to light, that ambiguity intensifies and the time finally arrives to answer the questions that have been threatening since book 1. An entirely fitting finish to the trilogy. Firstly it is amplifies the air of moral doubt and uncertainty that has pervaded the books and secondly, it leaves this reader wanting more!

Carte Blanche / The Damned Season / Via Delle Oche

Old Filth and The Man In the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardam

2011-10-02T00:46:00.003-04:00

An author whose books plumb the absolute depth and breadth of her characters’ humanity, baring every foible, every wound, until she exposes the core goodness beneath slightly cracked but stolid exteriors is Jane Gardam. I am absolutely in awe of her powers. I read God On the Rocks last winter, and thought it was magnificent. In September I read Old Filth and The Man In the Wooden Hat and I think Gardam accomplishes in two short volumes what it takes Anthony Powell twelve books to say in A Dance to the Music of Time. (Not that I discount the beauty, majesty, and genius of this great work — I am just saying Gardam is absolutely as good and these two books blew me away).

I’d really recommend you read Old Filth and God On the Rocks together, because they are parts of a whole story of the marriage of Sir Edward Feathers, a raj-orphan (child of parents serving the Empire in Asia, shipped to England as a very small boy to be schooled) and Betty Feathers, who survived the occupation of Hong Kong during WWII. Gardam’s novels capture their marriage in large and small details, their friendships, their tragedies, their indiscretions. The books are also a portrait of those faithful servants of the British Empire who matured in the post-war years as everything they knew, everything they’d been raised to inherit and rule, was changing.

As with all great literature, the beauty of Gardam’s books is that you don’t have to be a part of the culture she’s talking about to identify with these characters, to admire and love them, to find yourself sympathizing tremendously. One thing that’s especially remarkable about this pair of novels is that I found myself ultimately siding with both Edward and Betty, if there was any side-taking. And Gardam repeats some scenes in the both books, from different perspectives, so I wonder if in fact she too was rooting for both of them and felt she needed to tell both stories?

Another hallmark of a great book for me is that not only are the main characters alive as I read, but also the minor characters. These books are filled with an intriguing supporting cast, and even when a character appears only briefly, Gardam makes him or her walk right off the page into your mind’s eye. The range of human experience and emotion she covers is amazing — family identity and expectation, social standing, national and cultural identity, post-war and then post-modern cultural change, the influence of early childhood in shaping the psyche, longing to belong, longing for love, the jumble of love and commitment and duty and habit that is a long marriage, maternal instinct or its lack, friendship and rivalry, the impact of retirement and old age, the quirky criss-cross and parallel ramblings of shared memories. I simply loved these books.

These were my 5th and 6th Europa reads in 2011 -- one more to Haver level!

You can check out what else I read in September at bookconscious.

An Accident in August, by Laurence Cossé

2011-09-28T20:58:00.000-04:00

If you were in France or at least in Europe on August 31, 1997, you probably remember how all the news focused for weeks on the event leading to Lay Diana’s death.

In this book, Laurence Cossé uses the accident but with a very smart and original twist. Not sure this ever showed up in the news back then, but her basic theory for the plot of the book is that the fast driving drunken chauffeur crashed into the bridge because he tried to avoid a car which was unfortunately too well respecting the speed limit in that area – which is extremely rare, as you know if you have ever driven in those Parisian areas and in the périphériques. (If you are looking for a sense of danger and adventure, try it!)

So the book is about...

Please go here to read my full review.
You will also find my new "I love France" meme in that post. I encouraged you to use my Mr Linky to link there any post you would have related to France.
Emma @ Words And Peace

The Most Beautiful Book in the World by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

2011-09-28T08:00:00.000-04:00

I am by no means an expert about books, especially about books in translation; but since I do read a lot I am often asked by friends and colleagues to suggest something to read. If I am ever asked to suggest a book in translation for someone who has not read one before, I will tell them to pick up The Most Beautiful Book in the World. Immediately.

Though the title of this collection comes from one of its stories (side note: they are referred to as novellas, but their length suggests short stories to me), it is an apt description for the entire book. Each story is quite different, but all of them are engaging and - for me anyway - take you from happiness to sadness and back again all within a few pages. Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt does an amazing job of creating interesting and identifiable female characters as well. Several times I found myself in a story, because I could completely relate to the situation being faced.

I can't claim a favorite story in this book because I really and truly enjoyed them all. The good thing about a short story collection is that you can dip in and out as you have time; but I raced through all eight in an afternoon, and I know I will return to them.

Highly recommended.

Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, by Amira Lakhous

2011-09-27T21:10:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd share this pre-Europa Challenge Blog review I wrote all the way back in 2008, mainly because I'd like to introduce more people to this fine novel:

Okay, this is either the third or fourth time I've tried to write about this novel by Algerian-born Italian resident Amara Lakhous. The book, put out in English translation by Europa Editions, first came to my attention in one of the threads over at Adrian McKinty's blog The Psychopathology of Everyday Life in a comment from Marco, who I am also indebted to for showing all of us how to make a link.

Marco started the ball rolling by saying:

We have mentioned big/plural/diverse cities,immigration,progressiveness vs insularity -one of my favorite novels of recent years,Clash of Civilizations over an Elevator on Piazza Vittorio deals with all these things,and has just been translated into English.

As an American, and maybe even more particularly as a Californian, my view of the vastness of Rome has to do with both its physical scale and its reach back into various layers of historic time. So I was not really prepared to encounter a European story of immigrants and exiles, which feels much more familiar here than the story of Romulus and Remus. Also, I think we tend to see Italy as far more 'unified' than it really is. The people in this book who figure as 'foreign' may be no further away than Naples. I want to say that Southern Californians would not prove so exotic to us in Santa Cruz, but in fact, much of the life of the Central Valley would seem very strange indeed.

This story revolves around a murder and a suspect. It spoils nothing to say that the suspect is one Amadeo, and that all the cast of characters have their own different take on him, often completely at odds with the others. A quote fairly far into the book, but again giving nothing away says: "Amadeo maintained that Italian-style comedy represents the highest level of Italian creativity because it emphasizes paradoxes, combines tragedy and comedy, humor and serious criticism." This is in fact the style of this book, and if that description sounds intriguing to you than you should enjoy this.

A personal note: Not too long after reading this novel I found myself shouting up the stairs at my fellow tenant, through the barrier/mediation of the property manager, a man covered in tattoos but also carrying a little lapdog. Our dilemmas and differences were as trivial as those of the characters in this book, and yet our lack of communication as profound. A little dog figures prominently in Clash of Civilizations as well. Perhaps there is always a little dog somewhere, emblematic of we know not what.

Marie C. Reviews You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik

2011-09-27T07:01:00.000-04:00

You Deserve Nothing, by Alexander Maksik. Published 2011 by Europa Editions.

"We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal of that which others have made of us" - Jean-Paul Sartre

How can I begin to describe You Deserve Nothing, Alexander Maksik's novel and the first novel to be published in Europa Editions' new Tonga imprint? It's a coming of age story in a sense about all three characters from whose varying perspectives the story is told- Will, the teacher in his mid-thirties who still thinks and acts like a teenager, Marie, the teen girl with whom he's having an affair, and Gilad, his student, who idolizes him. Actually both teens idolize Will, as do many of his students; he's supposed to be one of those charismatic teachers who set their students' souls on fire.

Will is a teacher at a high school in Paris and much of the book takes place in Will's classroom. Maksik uses the classroom discussions about God and philosophy as a pretext to examine how different personalities interact with each other. There's Colin, a tough Irish kid with a chip on his shoulder, and Hala, an atheist who goes up against Abdul, a religious Muslim who seems to take everything as a personal affront. There's Ariel, the pretty girl used to using her looks to get her way, and Gilad, the troubled diplomat's son who's spent his young life traveling the globe with his parents only to settle in Paris and make of Will a role model of decent manhood.

Under the surface, though, Gilad's globetrotting life and storybook family stands in radical opposition to the chaos underneath. Ariel is Marie's best friend, but their friendship is one of those toxic high school codependencies made up of combat and competition more than affection. Ariel sets her cap at Will, or Mr. Silver as he's known professionally, but it's the frumpier, less confident Marie who wins her way into his bed. Their relationship, devastating in its psychological accuracy in many ways, still plays out like a fantasy version of a professor-student romance- rainy nights in a cozy apartment, dressing up in his shirts, spaghetti with sauce and passionate sex. Meanwhile Gilad looks to Will for a different kind of guidance and both Gilad and Marie wind up disillusioned.

You Deserve Nothing is a terrific and challenging read in many ways. It's a story about people trying to figure out if they're really the people others have made them out to be; is Marie really the mousy, unattractive girl her mother thinks she is, or the sexpot she sells to Will? Does she truly love Will or is the relationship a means to an end for her, a way to prove something to her beautiful mother and sexy friend? Is Gilad going to fail at manhood like his father? Sometimes in life we're attracted to people because they confirm our vision of our self; what do Gilad and Marie's feelings about Will say about them? Does Will deserve all this hero-worship? I found his relationship with Marie to be deeply disturbing because it's so obvious how he takes advantage of her, even if he doesn't realize it himself, and his relationship with Gilad is just kind of sad and pathetic in its own way, too. Both plot- and character-driven, and shot through with a lovely sense of the city in which it's set, I enjoyed this challenging, winning book and I think it would be a wonderful, off-beat choice for a book club, as well as a great book for readers of literary fiction.

I got to meet Maksik at a recent event at Harvard Book Store. His reading was much better than my photography!

This book counts towards my climb to Amante Level!

When you find the one, never let her go

2011-09-26T16:05:00.001-04:00

Minotaur intrigued me from the jacket info. The premise of a man falling in love with a woman he never meets, except through letters and the the effect this has on their lives had me interested, the format of the story even more so. When an author uses a writing or narrative structure simply to use it, often the reader feels like the story was sacrificed for said structure. With Minotaur, I did not find that to be the case. Tammuz pulls off the difficult task of not only singling out the story of each character, but also of showing their connections. The backstory of each endows the reader with a deeper understanding of where they come from and why they take the actions they do.

Alexander Abramov's quest to find the woman of his dreams begins at such a young age. His connection to music leads him to believe that the only person who will ever be the one for him is the person he can share the magical third sphere with. However, it takes him a little longer than expected. I love that it's his story that we hear last and hers that we hear first. Her story, while intriguing, is more often than not simply background for the male characters to spin their lives around. For the record, I don't write that as a negative. This young woman must have some kind of something going on, because not a man in this story can help themselves. They don't just fall for her. They can see no other objective.

That aspect makes me laugh a little, think a lot. How often have each of us either been in or known someone else who has been in such a situation? For our young lady, she has no such illusions per se of there being a one and only one. She sees the levels of attraction, desire and love like all of us, but feels no need to hold out indefinitely for her ideal even if she knows the ones in between may pale in comparison to her mystery man. Abramov, on the other hand, has his marriage of convenience and need due to cultural and other social mores in his home country. The reader never mistakes this for a choice, but a necessity. Abramov is single-minded as he grows older in finding the woman he has been searching. The other characters similarly focus all of their energies on this woman.

When Abramov finds her...oh my, it's like thunder, lightning, hunger and need all rolled up into one. Leading him to write to her. Constantly. At first, our young lady is surprised. As the years (yes, years) go by, she realizes that this mysterious man might be the love of her life. If she could ever meet him. Unlike Abramov, she refuses to wait around no matter her feelings. You may think this is giving away the plot; you would be wrong. This is the skeleton around the interactions of four individuals occur, to conclusions both sad and tragic. I think Tammuz, although he may have his characters question the existence of just one person to be the match for each of us, has his own answer already decided. Our heroine may even change her mind before all is said and done.

The format was great. Each character's story starts further back than the one before, so it takes a little longer each time to get back to the events that open the book. Each time, I was kept in the dark about when and how that would occur. It was extremely effective, keeping me on the edge of my seat throughout. This is a great read and a fun one, but it is one that most importantly deserves your thoughts as well as your time. For the reader going in with their thinking cap on, Minotaur presents you with some tough questions about what love is, and what love requires.

Social Media Update

2011-09-24T00:00:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to let you all know that we have a GoodReads group going for the Europa Challenge. You can find it here:
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/51016.Europa_Challenge
I hope you can come by and join in the conversations. I hope it will be a great place to talk off-blog about what we're reading and what we're interested in.

Liberty and I are evaluating the effectiveness of the Challenge Twitter account. What do you think? Do you think that we need it? I'm not sure and I want to know what you think about this. Thanks for everything and for all your participation.

Feel free to either comment on this post or email me privately if you don't want to make your comments public.

There Goes the Neighborhood

2011-09-23T13:47:00.003-04:00

They say hell hath no fury than a woman scorned. I have always thought that statement was somewhat misogynistic. Plenty of men that I have seen have done some pretty awful things when scorned. Moreover, it kind of blankets over the underlying issue behind someone's anger. "A Kind of Intimacy," by Jenn Ashworth tackles these issues and the societal prejudices we hold towards that group so easily classified as the "Other."

This book in some ways parallels "Queen of the Tambourine." Both books come from British female authors, both look into the goings-on of middle and upper-middle class British citizens and both delve into the mind of complex female character who may be a few books short of a Bible all the while keeping the reader right behind the shoulder of the protagonist. That this is Ms. Ashworth's first effort and it draws such easy comparisons to an established voice of British lit bodes well for her literary future.

Our main character starts out innocently enough. Fresh move, fresh start, new neighbors- everything appears normal. Much of her inner thinking (over thinking) is symptomatic of anyone who does not fit society's perception of normal. Her difference is her size; Annie is extremely obese. However, I feel that this is just her particular "otherness." It could easily be replaced with being gay, having a different skin color, a physical handicap etc. As time and months go on, Annie pulls the reader into her world and her mind- though the difference there is minimal. Annie's mind notably alters the world she sees. The reader serves as another of Annie's neighbor, though one who has the benefit of being next to Annie all the time.

Slowly, Annie's delicate underpinnings of sanity fall away. Her actions quickly become apparent for what they are to her neighbors. By themselves, they would make Annie quite the villain by the book's end. Ashworth does not take that route; instead, she layers in Annie's back-story. She shows a girl who became a woman without anyone to show her how to do so, surrounded by men who alternately ignore her and exploit her for her size. We see that Annie is not a monster by choice or by disease. Annie is a product of her environment, conditioned by her years of torment. Wounds are not always inflicted with words, weapons and fists. Silence and shame ultimately prove just as damaging as the rest.

Humor pops in and out (I think there is an inherently British tendency to show that even among the highest tragedy and drama humor can be found), but don't expect "A Kind of Intimacy" to offer you a hug at the end or some consoling words to commend you for getting through. It is a tough book, an intelligent and entertaining book, but above all, it is a thoughtful book. The reader questions what sane and crazy mean and wonders if, somewhere along the way, a single action taken by someone in Annie’s life might have changed everything for her. Annie may not be redeemable character, she remains difficult to condemn as well. I think, above all, she endures as an all-too-real human character.

Helen on "The Treatment and The Cure," by Peter Kocan

2011-09-21T14:35:00.000-04:00

Australian writer Peter Kocan’s “The Treatment and The Cure” is a compelling two-part window into the world of those who have been adjudicated as criminally insane.

Kocan knows what he’s talking about: he gained his insights after being convicted of the attempted assassination of Arthur Calwell, leader of Australia’s Labor Party, in 1966. Still a teenager, he was sentenced to life in prison. After ten years, most of which he spent in a psychiatric hospital, he was released. Since then, he has written a number of books, including fiction, poetry, and drama, won many Australian literary awards, and obtained not only a college degree but a doctorate.

Published in 1983, “The Treatment and The Cure” is an unusual second-person narration depicting a sensitive and quite sane-appearing young man terrified of the prison asylum to which he's consigned, in which both guards and medical personnel are by turns either professional and compassionate or arrogant and vindictive. The administration of medication and electroshock therapy is particularly frightening, since, from the narrator’s point of view, they’re often ordered for reasons that at best make no medical sense and at worst are purely punitive.

Some of Kocan’s best writing describes the charged and chilling atmosphere inside the hospital, where the narrator must analyze at an extraordinarily high level the most subtle nuances of others’ behavior and his own options for responding in order to navigate his confinement successfully. Simply asking for a clean spoon at lunchtime results in the narrator’s reassignment from the best table, with other inmates who actually pass the salt when requested and engage in civil conversation, to the worst one, with patients who throw food and can’t even talk or understand. Much later, on hearing that the narrator likes to sit and think, a staff doctor reacts “Zat is not so healthy, eh?” A couple of pages later, the narrator explains why, no matter what, the same doctor will scrutinize and interpret any reaction or answer at all from inmates to support diagnoses of mental illness.

Indeed, the narrator appears far saner and more rational, not to mention more intelligent, than any of the staff at this prison hospital. The only thing I could have wished for would have been some additional insight into how the disturbed youth who was plotting a murder in the flashback in chapter 2 transformed into the seemingly sane, reliable narrator who not only is in touch with his own and others' psyches but also loves and writes fine poetry. But that's not even a quibble: Kocan's story drew me in from the first page and didn't let me go until I'd finished the book.

If Kocan’s other works approach this early example, he deserves far wider recognition, including, dare I say it, Man Booker consideration. This book, which won the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award for Fiction, would make fine reading for judges and lawyers as well as doctors who deal with the mentally ill, and is a nice addition to Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in the canon of literature that deals with mental illness. I'm looking forward to reading Kocan's "Fresh Fields," in which he tells the story of a disturbed youth who's similar to the narrator in "The Treatment and The Cure" before he committed the act that landed him in prison and hospital.

Giveaway! Everything Happens Today, by Jesse Browner

2011-09-21T00:00:00.000-04:00

Europa Editions is offering a finished copy of Everything Happens Today, by Jesse Browner, coming out in October. The giveaway will be open until midnight, September 28 (a week from today) and it's open to the U.S. and Canada. Fill out this form to enter and good luck!

I'll announce a winner on or around September 30. Europa Editions will send the book to the winner directly!

Here's the trailer: http://vimeo.com/29368579

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Homeless in France

2011-09-20T15:25:00.006-04:00

This book simply broke my heart. From the jacket, I went in expecting ups and downs. Being a translated French novel, I expected few punches to be pulled. In a sense, I was ready for the punch in the stomach. I never saw the kick in the back coming.

Rico is at once a character to pity, a character to admire and a character to question. His journey from Paris to Marseilles combines heartbreak, humanity and struggle- I was left more grateful for the smallest things in my life than ever before. Like hot showers. His physical appearance notwithstanding, Rico emerges as a hero of sorts, the solitary man beaten down in life, but not in spirit. He chases the dreams of his youth so to speak, when the life he knows in Paris as a homeless man dies with his friend.

Along the way, he finds kindness where he least expects it, cruelty in response to fear and misunderstanding. Stripped of everything, Rico clings to his pride and his memories as if they are precious gems. He feels himself fighting harder and harder to keep less and less, a feeling many of us can relate to. I found myself alternately rooting for him, hoping against hope for some positive change, and commiserating to the point that I wondered if giving up might not be the best thing for Rico.

A Sun for the Dying had me fighting to keep reading at times, with the detail of the author combined with the atrocious nature of the events unfolding becoming almost too much too handle. I didn't, and I was rewarded for it.

Some key passages I enjoyed:
- p. 66, Everyone judges by appearance, whatever they say...Poverty scares people.

- p. 119, They weren't two men from the same generation anymore, they were two men from different worlds, with nothing in common.

- p. 201, Looking at the sea, you know, I understand how much life I have in me. There's nothing on land. The land is ugly. Nothing changes there. It's as if everything is dead. Even the people...

- p. 216, We always think dreams are more beautiful than real life.

What did I take from this book ultimately? Life is hard. Money and success mean nothing without the real human interactions to go with it. Those human interactions are what remind us we are alive.

Crazy is as crazy does

2011-09-20T13:02:00.006-04:00

This is not the first Jane Gardam novel I have read, though it is the first our book club read. Prior to the Queen of the Tambourine, I discovered Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat. I was moved and I was impressed. On their own, they are moving books about unique characters with utterly realistic ups and downs. Taken together, the experience deepens and the relationships become all the richer for it. One thing I found that carries over from those books into the Queen of the Tambourine is the shared experience between our lead female characters (without delving into spoilers). With that as my background, I found myself excited for the Queen of the Tambourine, and wholly unprepared for the epistolic nature of the book.

Unprepared as I was, I quickly fell into the rhythm of the writing and the cadence of the speech. Eliza is at once a frustrating, likeable and sometime pitiful character. The people that surround and support are often as ephemeral as Eliza's own grip on reality, which caused quite the kerfuffle among my book club. Some found the back and forth, sometimes repetitious, nature of Eliza's mind (the real narrator) to be frustrating and confusing. Others opted for a more go with the flow attitude and found themselves feeling as crazy as Eliza must. As this is not a watch from above with an omnipotent eye style story instead opting to put you right next to Eliza, as a reader the clues available to determine what's real, what's imagined and what's simply a combination involving some form of exaggeration can be difficult to tease out.

The droll British humor of the upper middle class comes through in Eliza's observations of and interactions with her neighbors and friends. At times biting and caustic and other times understanding, but chiding the use of humor peppered among the sometimes all-too human and heartbreaking situations keeps the book from bringing you too far down. Gardam's life experiences obviously inform her opinions and her outlook on life.

To me, drawing from other works by Ms. Gardam, she communicates a belief that life is going to be challenging, hard and often out of our control. Sometimes the best we can do is react as best we know how and weather the storms until something better comes along while finding enjoyment wherever we can, even if it is only in our head.

I loved the crazy feeling Eliza sucked me into. My life is more planned and orderly than I would like, and the experience of someone who managed a halfway functional life with a mind that couldn't always be trusted was intoxicating and new. I understand the complaints from some that reading the same event repeatedly can be tedious and for those inclined to always be more aware than the character (that's definitely me sometimes) I highly recommend letting go with this book and letting Eliza take you along. It's worth the trip.

Intro and my Europa Challenge books

2011-09-20T10:53:00.012-04:00

Good morning!

My name is Josh and I am a Europa fan to the point of near snobbery for other books. I came across this Challenge through GoodReads and can't wait to share and read about our experiences with these wonderful books. I live in Washington, DC and run a book club that reads one Europa Editions book a month. The combination of universal human stories with different and sometimes challenging cultural locations and contexts has proven very rewarding.

Like many others, my Europa journey began with "The Elegance of the Hedgehog." I waded through "Zeroville" and "The Have-Nots," then really hit my stride this year. Amazon has proven to be a treasure trove for me, and I have been reading up a storm this summer! In no particular order, here is my Challenge list thus far, I will add my reviews in the coming weeks.

"The Midnight Choir" by gene Kerrigan
"A Sun for the Dying" by Jean-Claude Izzo
"Minotaur" by Benjamin Tammuz (reading now)
"A Kind of Intimacy" by Jenn Ashworth
"Death's Dark Abyss" by Massimo Carlotto
"The Queen of the Tambourine" by Jane Gardam
"The Companion" by Lorcan Roche
"Clash of Civilizations Over an elevator in Piazza Vittorio" by Amara Lakhous
"The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine" by Alina Bronsky
"Twelve who Disagree" by Valery Panyushkin (reading)
"Chalcot Crescent" by Fay Weldon
"A Novel Bookstore" by Laurence Cosse

I have read several others as well, but before July of this year.
Looking forward to posting and discussing!

Josh

Marie C. on The Hedgehog Movie

2011-09-19T09:39:00.001-04:00

So, I went to see the Hedgehog movie this weekend. I know for a lot of us (myself included) The Elegance of the Hedgehog was kind of like the gateway book to Europa Editions- it was the first one a lot of us read and the book that got us hooked. If you read the book, run don't walk to see the movie- it's so good! Here's a link to my review on my movie blog. It was really terrific! The theater where I saw it in Cambridge, the Kendall Cinema, also gave out free mini posters so I got to take home a little souvenir! And of course you all are more than welcome to either link to your own reviews or publish a full review of the movie here on the challenge blog.

Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson

2011-09-15T11:40:00.000-04:00

Whatever else we can say about James Hamilton-Paterson, he is a very funny man. If you ever found yourself in the Italian countryside gazing at the villa next door and wondering who lives there and who, for gosh sakes, is coptering in and out, after reading this novel, you may very well decide you don’t really want to know. It may be entangling, and may, after all, be the end of all you hold dear.

Gerald Samper, British biographer to the rich and famous, buys an old villa in need of repair in Tuscany’s Apuan Alps region. He is told, as is his nearby neighbor, that the owner of the nearby villa is rarely in residence so his quest for privacy and solitude is guaranteed. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, the resident of the villa he can see from his own is none other than a well-to-do refugee from a Soviet republic, with all her entangling connections.

Samper likes cooking, and we are treated to recipes inspired by the abundant local produce, but dreamt up entirely within the convoluted confines of Samper’s own twisted mind: Mussels in Chocolate, say, or Baked Pears in Gorgonzola with Cinnamon Cream, Lampreys in Sherry, Alien Pie, which features smoked cat mixed with baby beets, nasturtium leaves, pureed prunes, and green bacon...or my personal favorite, Tuna Stuffed with Prunes in Marmite Butter. But Samper deprecates (with good reason) the specialties his neighbor offers him, delicacies delivered direct from the former Soviet republic of Voynovia. As described by Samper:

”…brightly colored voynovian objects that were delicate to the same extent that traffic cones are. There were awesome pellets like miniature doughnuts wrapped in candied angelica leaf and injected with chili sauce. Others looked like testicles set in dough. I gathered these were pigeon’s eggs and couldn’t catch her name for them although the phrase that came to me immediately was Christ on a Tricycle. Spearmint eggs?”

But this book is not about cooking, despite the title. It is about living the good life in Tuscany among other artists—writers, musicians, filmmakers, realtors--magicians of all stripes. And what of Fernet Branca? It is a digestif concocted in Italy that, given as a gift to the new arrivals of Le Roccie, is purchased a second time to return the courtesy, and becomes a central feature of the misunderstandings among the residents and visitors there. It is described in Wikipedia as having the flavor of “black-licorice-flavored Listerine."

Paperback, 288 pages. Published September 1st 2005 by Europa Editions. ISBN193337201X (ISBN13: 9781933372013)

This book counts towards the 2011 Europa Challenge. The Bowed Bookshelf: Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson

Nancy's Review of You Deserve Nothing, by Alexander Maksik

2011-09-14T12:41:00.000-04:00

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 between what Will says and what will does, or doesn't do. 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 formal dinner parties are over, Gilad's father abuses 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 is not one of her teachers, and a mutual, sexual attraction develops between the two, leading to a clandestine affair.

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, teenage 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. The strongest character, however, is Gilad, who grows right before the reader's eyes. 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. It is complex but at the same time highly engaging and challenges its readers to question themselves and their own thinking. Simply put, it's amazing.

Helen on "Departure Lounge," by Chad Taylor

2011-09-14T09:32:00.000-04:00

From the glaring mistake on the jacket copy to theunsatisfying and unclear ending, New Zealand writer Chad Taylor’s short, grittynovel left me confused.

The story centers around and is narrated by a petty thiefnamed Mark Chamberlain, who’s afflicted by anomie that the author evidentlywants us to understand stems from the unexplained disappearance years earlierof a high school friend and squeeze, Caroline May. (Note to whoever wrote thejacket copy for Europa Editions: the thief is MARK, not GREG—Greg is theARTIST, who’s not much more than a walk-on. Jacket copy matters: because of whatI now know was an error on the inside front flap, I spent the first half of thestory wondering why the other characters were calling the thief “Mark” andanticipating that at some point the story would reveal that he was using analias, which, of course, never happened. As I wrote a while ago, I wassimilarly confused by a misleading plot characterization on the jacket copy for“The Girl on the Via Flaminia.” Surely neither author nor publisher wantsreaders to start out confused?)

I’m all for excising unnecessary verbiage and showing overtelling, and Taylor is good at both in the short, terse sentences of his story.But I could have used either a bit more showing or some good, old-fashionedstoryTELLING to fill in the story’s gaps.

Much of the momentum from the book’s powerful beginning, inwhich Mark plays pool with Rory Jones, a slimy real estate developer and speculatorwhose apartment he then robs, goes to waste, since Jones never reappears andTaylor never connects Jones with the rest of the plot. (Note to Publishers Weekly: Jones is NOT Caroline’s father—he just happens to live in the samebuilding as Caroline’s now-deceased parents.)

Taylor neither shows nor tells us why Mark and Caroline’sother surviving friend, Varina, remain so affected by Caroline’s disappearance.We get hardly any idea of Caroline’s personality, and, from the narrative, Marknever did, either. Taylor never reveals what, other than proximity, formed thebasis for the friendship between her, Mark and Varina. Maybe she wasmore than an inconsequential adolescent booty call for Mark, but I didn’t getthe feeling that she rose to the level of a lost love, either.

At one point, about halfway through, Taylor seemed to beleading the reader to conclude that Mark and Varina knew why Caroline hadvanished. I eagerly read on, only to find that that wasn’t the case. Taylorclearly wants us to understand that as adults, notwithstanding that their liveshave wildly diverged and they haven’t been in contact in many years, Varina andMark retain some deep connection. I guess that’s supposed to be because ofCaroline, but Taylor never shows or tells us enough about their teenagedinteractions to justify that conclusion.

Late in the narrative, Mark says “I had stepped into otherpeople’s lives and walked through their homes, but I hadn’t been looking fortheir secrets: I had been checking on mine. I had been looking for Carolinesince she left us all.” Mark’s insight into what’s going on within himselfcomes on the heels of Varina’s remark to him, “After all this time we’reexactly where Caroline left us. And that’s the problem: we’re all still in love.”Those are nicely turned sentences, and they sound as if they’re supposed to beprofound. Unfortunately, Taylor never gives us enough background to understandwhy.

Though this short novel didn’t work so well for me, it alsoprovides material for praise, and I’m not sorry I read it. This noir story—agenre I haven’t sought out for reading—held my interest throughout. BecauseTaylor so effectively got into Mark’s head as he explained the work and mental processes of a thief,I became really uncomfortable as I read it, wanting to take this fictionalcharacter by the shoulders and shout at him, “Stop! What are you DOING withyour life?!”

Indeed, Taylor is a skillful writer, and I’d expect thathe’ll only improve with practice. Furthermore, the book is a fine opportunityfor those of us on the other side of the planet to read a novel set inAuckland, a rarity in US libraries or bookstores, and get a sense of thatfaraway city; once again I find myself renewing my gratitude to Europa Editionsfor bringing more international writers to US readers. And Taylor’s novel hasput me on track to the Europa Haver level! I’ve now read “Heliopolis,” “CookingWith Fernet Branca” (still to be reviewed), “French Leave,” “The Girl on theVia Flaminia,” and “Departure Lounge,” for a total of five EuropaEditions books since accepting the Challenge, surpassing my original,deliberately modest, Ami goal.

Fellow Challenge participants and others who have read“Departure Lounge,” did you like it better than I did? Did I misssomething? Can you help me appreciate it more?

Death's Dark Abyss, by Massimo Carlotto

2011-09-13T17:34:00.000-04:00

We often think of noir in terms of the American literary scene, but I'm not sure if anyone hits the true depths quite like those who write around the Mediterranean. I was going to say the Italians, but in fact my last visit to European noir was the trilogy by Jean Claude Izzo, who was part of the Italian immigrant community in Marseilles, but was, by nationality, French. You might think that the Italians would be a little too sunny for noir, but you would be wrong.

Carlotto's novel is about as bleak as it can get. I'll try not to spoil the first few pages for you, but let's just say that a jewelry robbery goes very horribly wrong and ends in a terrible crime, which leads one of the robbers to end up in jail for this crime, while his accomplice gets away.

Flash forward fifteen years and a man who's life was ruined by this fiasco receives a letter from a lawyer requesting that he help the incarcerated robber be pardoned on compassionate grounds. Although at first the man refuses, gradually it occurs to him that the imprisoned man might be manipulated into leading him to the accomplice, who has never been caught.

I think the book is a great introduction to noir, because it runs counter to many of our more usual assumptions about what makes a good tale. Neither criminal or victim are exactly what you would call role models, but both have a lot of energy and the stakes are very high. One question that the book raises is whether there can be atonement for horrible crimes. I remember being a bit dissatisfied with Ian McEwan's take on this in his own book, which even takes atonement as its title. Basically, he says no. I think this book provides a slightly different answer. I think what Carlotto would say is that there is no easy atonement. You'll have to read the book to find out why I think the qualifier is important.

An Accident in August by Laurence Cosse

2011-09-12T08:00:00.002-04:00

In probably the most well-known traffic accident of history, Princess Diana, her boyfriend, Dodi al Fayed, and their driver were killed when their Mercedes crashed in a Paris tunnel. The paparazzi ruthlessly stalking the Princess were blamed for the accident, but what if there was another cause? What if a car driving slowly in front of the Mercedes spurred the driver to try to pass it, in turn losing control of the car? This is the scenario speculated on in Laurence Cosse's latest novel translated into English, An Accident in August.

The young woman driving the slow moving Fiat Uno, named Lou, knows she was in an accident in the tunnel as she was returning home from work late Saturday night, but it is not until the next day when she hears about Diana's death that she realizes the implications of her leaving the scene. Video surveillance in the tunnel eventually reveals the existence of a Fiat Uno in the crash scene, and the search begins for the car and its owner. Lou makes some impulsive decisions in her effort to avoid association with this global news event.

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect of this novel, as I didn't want to read a re-hash of a 14-year old news story. But I was pleasantly surprised with the direction Laurence Cosse took the story; sure, Diana's death is the crux of the plot, but the story is essentially about Lou's escape, not only from the accident's aftermath but from her unsatisfactory life as well. And her flight at times reads like a thriller; especially when she encounters a shady car repairman who has visions of the dollar signs Lou's version of the story can bring.

Recommended.

I am giving away a copy of An Accident in August on my own blog. Comment here if you would like to enter!

Troubling Love by Elena Ferrante (Aleta)

2011-09-12T01:38:00.001-04:00

I finished Elena Ferrante’s Troubling Love, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein, a few weeks ago but have had difficulty verbalizing my reaction to this short novel. Following a middle-aged woman’s quest to discover the mystery around her own mother’s mysterious death, Troubling Love is raw and direct. The story delves into the psyche of a woman, Delia, who witnessed her parents’ abusive relationship as a child while she is grieving the loss of her mother. As she uncovers details about her mother’s death, she also learns more about what she experienced with her family years ago. At times in the story, the identities of mother and daughter are muddled, subtly demonstrating the cycle of abuse. Also, often I wasn’t sure if I was reading as an objective narrator or through Delia’s eyes; I found myself thinking, “She just lost her mother. Perhaps she’s just grieving. Perhaps things aren’t as they seem”.

While I can’t say that I enjoyed reading this book, I certainly appreciated its unique style. Ferrante succeeds at creating a suspenseful plot, and as I started finding clues to illuminate how and why the mother died, I really wanted to keep reading until I had an answer. It seemed to me that Delia, along with other characters, were always on the move; Ferrante builds suspense in this way. I felt often out of breath on Delia’s behalf, who was always walking briskly down an Italian alley or up the apartment stairs or running onto a crowded train. At times, I found this confusing and distracting from the main plot, but for the most part, I think this technique really built the mystery.

Troubling Love is book 4 in my Europa Editions Challenge. Up next: You Deserve Nothing by Alexander Maksik.

Also, I saw "The Hedgehog" this weekend in Seattle. I've written a brief reaction on Sensory Sweetness.

Wendy's Review: Total Chaos by Jean-Claude Izzo

2011-09-09T07:48:00.001-04:00

The end of Total Chaos, the first book in Jean-Claude Izzo's trilogy, came too soon for me. I just shut it last night before bed, and already, I miss Marseilles.

Nancy reviewed the book back in July; her summary and praise of the story is spot-on. As you can read it yourself with just a click of the mouse, I'm going to skip summarizing the plot here.

Reading the novel is a delight. Izzo (via translator Howard Curtis) says the things I'm sure I've thought myself, or haven't thought yet but know to be true, like "Why was it so difficult to make friends once you were past forty? Was it because we didn't have dreams anymore, only regrets?" and "Days are only beautiful early in the morning. I should have remembered that. Dawn is merely an illusion that the world is beautiful. When the world opens its eyes, reality reasserts itself, and you're back with the same old shit."

The narrator, Fabio, is a man of big appetites. As is the case in many a good read, his great love has eluded him; the lesser loves are legion. He drinks so much that at the end of the book I found it hard to believe he could walk, much less face down bad guys. And, of course, there is food:

"Celeste made better aioli than anyone I knew, except Honorine. The cod was desalted just right, which is rare. Most people leave it to soak for too long, and give it only two soakings. It was best to soak it several times. Eight hours the first time, then three times two hours. It was also a good idea to poach it in simmering water, with fennel and pepper grains. Celeste also used a particular olive oil to give the aioli a 'lift.' It came from the Rossi mill, at Mouries. She used others in cooking and in salads. Oils from Jacques Barles of Eguilles, Henrii Bellon of Fontvieille, and Margier-Aubert of Auriol. Her salads always tasted different."

In the book blurbs, Izzo is justly praised over and again for his descriptions of Marseilles, one of the largest ports in Europe. Marseilles is as important as any flesh-and-blood character to the action. The setting, in many ways, drives the plot.

Izzo writes in a way that sometimes left me disoriented. A chapter would begin in the middle of an action and then would circle back to a place I would call the beginning. Until I learned to trust the author, I worried that I wasn't reading as closely as I should. I wonder if the style is unique to Izzo or if it is conventional in French fiction. Also, I must agree with Nancy: in a few key scenes, coincidence plays too large of a role for my taste.

While I'm glad I read Total Chaos and will recommend it to lovers of crime fiction and Francophiles alike, I'm in no rush to read on in the trilogy.

Marie C.'s Review: Minotaur, by Benjamin Tammuz

2011-09-08T06:30:00.004-04:00

Minotaur, by Benjamin Tammuz. Published 2005 by Europa Editions.

Minotaur is a strange little book. Roughly speaking, it's the story of a woman named Thea as seen through the eyes of the men who love her at different points in her life. There's G.R., her ill-fated fiancé, a privileged young man who meets her at a party after admiring her from a distance. And there's Nikos, a Egyptian of Greek descent, a scholar who falls in love with her in England and wins her with stories of the Mediterranean. But through it all is one Alexander Abramov, an Israeli spy obsessed with the young woman, sending her letters and haunting her footsteps for years.

I have to admit this is one of the more unusual books I've read lately. The book is divided into four parts; for the first, we stick with Thea's relationship with Abramov from her point of view, then, little by little, we see how this man has infiltrated himself into every aspect of her life. They never meet, at least not as far as she knows, but he remains a palpable presence in her life until his death. Subsequent chapters cover her other lovers until the final chapter which focuses on Abramov's life's story and we learn what has made him this way.

I read the book knowing it was about a certain type of obsession and hoping to see some insight into the minds of the partners in this relationship-of-sorts. Benjamin Tammuz explores Abramov's character in detail, but Thea remains an enigma. I found it to be an absorbing and relatively quick read, suspenseful and intricately plotted. It's definitely difficult to put down, especially when the narrative turns to Abramov and his fascinating story. It's a fine, substantial novel that literary-fiction readers will enjoy, something pretty different from a lot of what's out there.

It's book 4 of 14 on my way to Amante level.

Review: The Shadow of What We Were

2011-09-07T00:41:00.002-04:00

The Shadow of What We Were

by Luis Sepulveda (2010)

I have read a lot of 20th/21st century Latin American literature. That it surprises me should no longer surprise me. I was expecting to read a somewhat serious reflection on life post-exile, the story of men returning to the country which they had fought for. And I did get that. I expected to find a touch of humor to undercut the tension. What I found instead was a healthy current of humor and a touch of tenderness.

Sepulveda tells the story of a group of men who are coming together for one last revolutionary act. Reunited by Pedro Nolasco, "The Shadow," they come together to recover a secret stash of money left behind by the corrupt government that controlled the country in their younger days. The day is July 16, and it is the anniversary of the first bank robbery in Chile, carried out by Nolasco's grandfather and his companions. He wants to memorialize his grandfather and end his career as a folk hero of sorts on a high note. It is not something he can do alone, however.

On the way to meet his comrades, together again after more than 30 years, he meets with an unfortunate end. To honor his memory, the friends carry out his plan. The circumstances of Nolasco's death and his accidental murderer are the source for some of the humor in the novel. The rest comes from the observations of its characters, the unique way they have of telling their stories. Their carefully chosen exaggerations are born from the passion they feel for their cause and their nostalgia for the days when they felt as though they were making a difference.
A few of my favorite lines:

He would have liked to reply that you never come back from exile, that however hard you try it's an illusion, and absurd attempt to live in a land you have kept in your memory. Everything is beautiful in the land of memory, nothing bad ever happens in the land of memory, there are no quakes and even the rain is pleasant in the land of memory. The land of memory is Neverland. (p. 34)

I don't know what I think about Robin Hood, he was English and history tells me that most Englishmen aren't so noble. If he robbed the rich to give to the poor I'll endorse his cause, but I think they told us the story all wrong and the guy's name was Hobin Rood and he robbed the poor to give to the rich, which is a very Anglo-Saxon custom. (p. 81)

I think that, perhaps, one of the reasons that the novel stands out to me is that it reminds me of another work by another Latin American writer living in exile. It has the same sort of renewed innocence that comes with age that Gabriel Garcia Marquez's shows in his novella Memory of My Melancholy Whores. The men in both books are imperfect. They take somewhat extreme actions in an effort to recapture a bit of their forgotten youths. In both cases, I would say they succeed.

When I am their age, I hope I have it in me to do something a little crazy. And I hope that someone takes the time to write it down.

*This book was provided by the publisher for review.
*The review also appears on my blog, Indie Reader Houston.

Stiliana's Review: Elena Ferrante's The Days of Abandonment

2011-09-06T16:13:00.005-04:00

Elena Ferrante, The Days of Abandonment. Europa Editions. 2005.

Ferrante’s second novel continues the daring plunge into the female psyche, which we saw in her first novel Troubling Love (Europa Editions, 2006). The Days of Abandonment explores the humiliation, physical and emotional, that a woman can inflict on herself. The novel is structured as the interior monologue of Olga, the outwardly perfect mother and wife, whose husband all of a sudden leaves her for another woman. But it is not this actual – and unexpected – act of abandonment that the text pursues; it is Olga’s gradual abandonment of her senses, her body, and her womanly and motherly behaviors that the novel narrates in a painfully sharp way.

The novel opens as Olga’s husband, Mario, announces he is leaving her. At first, Olga is able to hold her world together, remain calm and scrutinize her fifteen-year marriage in search of explanations. But the more she revives the past, the more the present escapes her. At first, she manages to maintain her composure, the measured speech and rational behavior of an intelligent woman and a devoted mother. But as she internally struggles with her husband’s betrayal, her body and mind begin to betray her too: her hands tremble, her fingers forget how to unlock the front door, her speech lapses into shrieking, her words morph into obscenities.

Even though the novel narrates several months of Olga’s life, the bulk of the text zeroes in on a single day – the day when her mind and body reach the lowest points of self-humiliation and abandonment. It is the day when her son, Gianni, has high fever and keeps throwing up in his bed; when her daughter, Ilaria, has to constantly stab her with a letter opener so that Olga can focus and attend to the sick boy; when the dog, Otto, dies amidst the malodorous mess of its own incontinence; and when Olga, still in her nightgown, herself pees and poops in the park. It is also the day when she begins to regain her senses.

Ferrante’s language is as acute and lucid as the shard of glass that cuts Mario’s mouth when he tastes his favorite soup Olga has prepared as a way of enticing him back. Ferrante’s vivid, visceral imagery stabs us with its unashamed clarity: we picture Olga’s still beautiful body defecating in the park, we see her slap herself until her nose bleeds and the blood stains her nightgown, we follow her as she removes her make up or obsessively washes her hair. We follow her as she examines her past – her sexual relations with Mario, her talent and ambition to write sacrificed to her husband’s career, her efforts to be the perfect mother and wife. Most of all, we watch Olga observing and analyzing herself – from the pimples on her chin to the memory of the abandoned Neapolitan woman who haunted Olga’s childhood.

But despite our intimate vision of Olga’s body and mind, she never appears vulgar or vile. She emerges from the days of abandonment a stronger woman, a woman who can fend for herself and her children, a woman who can love again. As a storyteller, Ferrante deftly incites our curiosity, the (almost voyeuristic) desire to see how far Olga will go into her breathtaking descent before she can recover and spring back up. And in her sleight of hand, Ferrante sets up a little mystery along the way – who is Mario’s mysterious lover?

Memory To the Concerto of an Angel, Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, and Chalcot Crescent

2011-09-02T22:55:00.006-04:00

In August I read three more Europa Editions. First, I finished Concerto to the Memory of An Angel, by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, which I received a preview of at ABA’s Winter Institute last January. I absolutely loved this book and want to read the rest of Schmitt’s translated work.Concerto is a book of four novellas, with a wonderful section at the end called “A Writer’s Logbook,” where the author includes anecdotes about his creative process and some of the backstory behind his book. For the same reason I love hearing an author talk about his or her work, I really enjoyed the logbook section. And, I found it charming that Schmitt welcomes the reader into his process, in a way.

I had the sense as I read that the stories, while not linked explicitly (no common characters or settings), were linked in spirit and theme. In fact, one thing I really like about Concerto is that it’s a story collection that really has its own over-riding narrative arc — everything fits, no story seems to be out of place, and they tell a bigger story when read all together. The logbook confirms that these stories share, for one thing, “Rita, the Madonna of lost causes, saint of the impossible . . . .” Schmitt says, “Saint Rita tells no stories, but through her, stories are told. ” Schmitt writes of the power memories and secrets have to harden or transform people, the redemptive effect of love and human understanding, the “ambiguity of goodness: what appears good to one individual provokes the misfortune of another. . . .”

I enjoyed all four novellas, but my favorite is “The Return,” about a man who finds out at sea that one of his daughters has died, but not which one. The rest of the story is almost entirely his thoughts as he deals with the news, and his intentional analysis of himself as a father. While each story is tinged with sadness or anger or fear, every one of them includes some sort of redemption that makes the collection an uplifting affirmation of the human spirit.

Amara Lakhous‘s Clash of Civilizations Over An Elevator In Piazza Vittorio is also a book about the way the same experience can impact people differently; it’s a book about perceptions, prejudices, and stereotypes. Both funny and sad, this short novel takes places in an Italian apartment building and nearby. Different characters tell their sides of the story when one of the residents is murdered. Identity, character, and culture shift before our eyes as we meet the neighbors through different narrative threads. Lakhous's own experience as an immigrant in Rome adds to the authenticity of the voices.

This book reminded me of an art house film — I could picture the characters addressing the camera with their stories and grievances. Lakhous blends social criticism with humor and a dash of mystery as the book reveals the ways people judge and misjudge each other, the assumptions they make, the things they misread, even when they think they know each other well. While Clash is an interesting look at multicultural contemporary Italy (intriguing to read as Europeans struggle to decide whether multiculturalism is a failure), it’s also a book with universal appeal because of the comedic misunderstandings. Even the characters felt universal — some of you may know an old lady who is overly attached to her little dog. Or a mico-managing tenant who leaves notes in the elevator about civilized behavior.

Finally, I read the absolutely brilliant Chalcot Crescent by Fay Weldon. Set in 2013, the novel imagines a world that has gone through a series of financial disasters (not only the Recession, but also the Bite -- a scary thought as I contemplate my own tanking savings), causing massive cultural and civic upheaval so that England is now run by NUG (the National Unity Government, made up of sociologists and shrinks), whose main task is to keep the ever shabbier populace fed.

The heroine of Chalcot Crescent is Fay Weldon’s actual sister, Frances, who her mother miscarried. Fay Weldon imagines her as having lived a long, successful life as a feminist novelist. Frances is matriarch of a complicated family brewing with resentments and issues. As the book opens, her grandson is sitting with her as she avoids the bailiffs, who are knocking on her door, presumably to repossess the house. Or are they?

In the course of the book, Frances writes a hybrid fiction/memoir manuscript, as she speculates about what is going on — right in her own house — when several of her grandchildren and her best friend’s grandchild meet in Chalcot Crescent to plan a coup as part of an underground protest movement. Meanwhile, her son-in-law is rising in prominence in NUG in part because of his skills as a stem cell researcher (NUG has to create National Meat Loaf somehow), and Frances also writes about her daughters’ relationships with men and with her. The reader is never sure what Frances has worked out and what she is fabricating — at one point, neither is she.

Frances reflects on her own life with humor and grace and a fair dose of attitude, from her childhood in New Zealand to teen years in post-war London, through the turbulent decades of her adulthood, filled with personal drama and public success. The book is scary in that the dystopian aspects don’t seem all that far fetched. The absurdity of the situation — an old woman trapped in her home, which she can no longer afford because of the collapse of the consumer driven economy, while her grandchildren dart through the community potato patch in order to elude government cameras, is delicious.

I'd already read The Hottest Dishes of Tartar Cuisine earlier in 2011, so I've reached Ami level. Haver, here I come! I have two of Jane Gardham's books checked out from the library, and plan to look for the recommendations several of you left in comments on my introductory post. Check out all of my musings on reading at my blog, bookconscious.

The Girl on the Via Flaminia, by Alfred Hayes

2011-09-02T17:04:00.004-04:00

It would be easy to dismiss Robert, the US soldier in Alfred Hayes’s short “The Girl on the Via Flaminia,” as a typically clueless American abroad. Sure, Robert is naïve. But focusing on his flaws would not only be stereotyping--every bit as objectionable when applied to us Americans as when applied to those of any other nationality--but also would be to miss the forest for one tree: with the possible exception of a British sergeant and an Italian woman named Nina, all the characters, American and Italian alike, display a form of tunnel vision.

Weary of sharing a barracks with seventeen other soldiers in Rome as World War II is winding down, Robert asks Nina, an Italian woman who’s having an affair with an American officer, if she could find a room for him somewhere and another young woman to play the part of his wife in his off duty hours. She contacts a friend, Lisa, who assents to the arrangement.

For Robert—and for Nina—it’s a simple business transaction where everyone should benefit. He’s completely up front about who he is and what he wants. Unlike Nina’s paramour, he doesn’t pretend that he has any higher military or civilian status than he does, nor does he profess any interest in marrying Lisa. He intends to treat and compensate her well, considering the circumstances. Italy is in ruins, food and shelter are scarce, and Italians do what they must do to survive. For many, if not most, that means swallowing their pride and even compromising their morals. Robert sees his offer, which includes food, shelter, and some entertainment, as a good one. So does Nina.

A business transaction it is, but for Lisa, it’s not at all simple. She agrees to the arrangement, she says, because she thinks nothing matters anymore and because all Italian women appear to be taking American soldiers, who are more flush than those from other Allied countries, as lovers. With no money, no other relatives or friends who can or will help her, and no marketable skills, Lisa has no meaningful options. But Italians who see her with Robert make it clear, through looks and actions alike, that they understand what she has done and despise her for it. Perhaps even worse, Lisa despises herself.

The room Nina finds for Robert and Lisa is in a flat in an apartment house on the Via Flaminia near the Tiber River. As you leave the house, go one way and you’re at the river; go the other, and you’re at the Piazza del Popolo, in the heart of Rome. Assisted by a young maid, the flat owners, Ugo and Adele Pulcini, serve eggs and wine in their dining room in the evenings to Allied soldiers who stop by. Nina has been staying with them and, as part of her rent, sharing the coffee and food that the Allied officers she goes out with give her. She’s moving out, though, to follow an American officer to whom she says she’s engaged, even though she knows he has a wife back in the US. The Pulcinis’ sullen, hostile son, Antonio, described several times as a “boy” even though he’s served in the Italian army, also lives there.

Lisa makes it clear from the beginning that she loathes playing house with Robert. She participates in the real-life play only because she has no other way of getting food or a roof over her head. That’s true of Nina and the signori Pulcini, too, but they view their compromises, and Lisa’s, as merely doing what they have to do in order to make the best of a bad lot.

Not so Antonio, who makes his hostility to the Allied occupying forces and to his countrymen who have, in his view, sold their honor to foreigners, glaringly obvious. At first, he idolizes Lisa, who he’s told is married to Robert. He views her as an exception to the general rule of Italians’ selling out to the foreigners. When he learns she, too, has compromised, she falls in his estimation from Madonna status to whore. Yet Antonio never appears to reflect on his parents’ actions, nor on his own situation, which would be considerably less comfortable without the money and supplies that his parents receive from the despised soldiers and fallen women such as Nina and, now, Lisa. His parents, likewise, have chosen to accept the fairly obvious lie that Robert and Lisa are married. Later on, when the Roman police give Lisa a summons for prostitution without being registered, signora Pulcini exclaims that Lisa would have had no problems had she chosen an Italian instead of an American—a patently illogical assertion.

Hayes’s narrative takes place over just a few days’ time. Though Robert doesn’t understand Lisa’s overt hostility, it starts to dawn on him that the play he’s arranged has real life consequences just before the police arrive, when he and Lisa are talking about love and the absence of it in their arrangement. I had to read that part a couple of times, because the jacket copy speaks of their “passion” for one another. I didn’t detect any passion at all; Robert says he likes Lisa, and Lisa says she thinks she hates him. I don’t think she really does, though she does despise herself and, like Antonio, the compromise she’s made for survival.

At only 147 pages, “The Girl On The Via Flaminia” is a quick read. I was surprised that such a fine writer as Alfred Hayes, who wrote it in 1949 and died in 1985, is virtually unknown today; I’d never heard of him. Hayes, whose style reminded me of Hemingway at the beginning, does a fine job of showing and not telling.

Congrats to Colleen!

2011-09-01T21:00:00.000-04:00

Colleen of Col Reads is the winner of the Europa Challenge's first giveaway, a copy of Alexander Maksik's new book You Deserve Nothing. Congratulations, Colleen, and thanks to everyone who entered.

Looking over the entries, I noticed that two-thirds of folks who entered are not members of the challenge. I love this because it shows that lots more folks are interested in Europa Editions! I hope some of you decide to join us. Don't hesitate to email the moderator if you have questions about the challenge or would like to join. You don't have to join the blog to join the challenge and you can post on this blog if you don't have one of your own. Either way we'd love to have you!

An Accident In August by Laurence Cossé

2011-09-01T11:48:00.003-04:00

Review by Jennifer from The Literate Housewife Review
Lou, sitting in her car in her garage, cannot believe what had just happened to her. She was driving home from Paris when she became involved in an accident with a speeding car that crashed in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel. Under the influence of shock and adrenaline, Lou fled the tunnel and drove straight home. She was terrified of being caught, but she made plans to get her car repaired as soon as possible. She hoped that no one would be the wiser. She had no idea at the time that Princess Diana was in that other car or that she was killed in that accident. With that knowledge, things became that much more complicated.
I would have read this book in one sitting if my plane ride had been long enough. I was headed home to Michigan for my aunt’s funeral. I was sad and anxious about all that was to come. I needed something to take my mind off of life and death for a little while. I actually hadn’t anticipated reading at all, which is why I tossed the ARC for this novel in my bag. It was light weight, not something I’d have regretted lugging along for nothing. Never mind all that. From the moment I opened the cover, I was sitting in that white Fiat right along with Lou.
An Accident In August packed a huge punch in the tiniest of packages. I remember staying up later than I’d ever intended the night the news broke in about Diana. As Cossé weaved in further details about the events surrounding that car crash, it all came back to me. Making Lou a part of that accident was inspired. Her fear of the police and, given the mood of nearly the whole world, of her life leapt from the paper straight into my chest. Just when I thought I couldn’t absorb any more paranoia, the story spiked unexpectedly. From that point on, I couldn’t have set the book aside to save my life. It was a dream reading experience.
Laurence Cossé has written an amazing and intense novel. An Accident in August will grip you by the shoulders and won’t let you go. Alison Anderson did a terrific job translating. I never once had the feeling that I wasn’t reading the book in its native language. Better than any confessional or Jewish mother, this book will make you feel the guilt, panic and remorse that would result from any attempt at skirting the law. Reading this book was such a powerful experience for me that I pretty much annihilated the ARC in the process. No matter. I preordered the finished copy. The cover is absolutely perfect. Read it. You’ll see.

French Leave by Anna Gavalda

2011-08-28T15:59:00.000-04:00

It is no surprise that this novel became a bestseller in France, as it captures a moment like a bird in flight—that sunny moment of refusing to acknowledge the weight of cares and celebrating the silly, the mad, and the wild. We are led in this madcap adventure by the irrepressibly sassy Garance, who travels from Paris by car with her brother and his wife to a relative’s wedding. Travelling wearing her thong because her skirt was too tight or slathering depilatory cream on her legs in the car (“Where else can I do it?”), Garance narrates, giving us a view of her family and their lives.

‘French leave’ is a phrase meaning to take one’s leave suddenly, with no warning and without permission. And that is what a family trio does almost immediately after arriving at the wedding in Podunk-on-Indre. Suddenly deciding what they really wanted to do was to visit their brother in Tours, the siblings jump back in their car and race away to spend the day with each other, taking time to remember, laugh, love, and celebrate their bonds. Left behind were boring family obligations, spouses, painful responsibilities and what they enjoyed was joyous, rare, and life-sustaining.

Something really must be said about novels that actually celebrate the ties between siblings. How rare it is. This paean to family life caused me to wonder about the parents: what had they done (or not done) to make the children so loving to one another? Sure, the kids are different from one another. Older sister Lola is careful and cautious, while younger sister Garance is completely at ease with seeing how much she can get away with. But the two somehow feel as though they are enriched—nay--can’t live without each other’s influence. Simon and Vincent are likewise different as chalk and cheese, but the freedoms of one nutures the other. There is admiration, support, generosity, and a depth of sincerity displayed that is usually reserved for best friends.

This slim novel is just a weekend slice of life—but what a slice it is! This novel should be required reading for twenty-somethings on the cusp of discovering the "latter years" and those others who need the fizz put back in their drinks. Wonderful light summer fare.

This book counts towards the 2011 Europa Challenge. The Bowed Bookshelf: French Leave by Anna Gavalda

Introducing myself

2011-08-27T23:55:00.004-04:00

Hello Europa Editions fans!

I am Stiliana -- I just joined the Europa Challange Blog and I'd like to introduce myself. I am a scholar and teacher (and I just relocated to the Chicago area). My first encounter with Europa Editions was when over a year ago I needed the English translations of Elena Ferrante's three novels: Troubling Love, The Days of Abandonment, and The Lost Daughter. Luckily, they had been translated in English and published by Europa! Looking at my Italian originals of the novels, I realized that Europa Editions was a branch of my favorite Italian publisher - edizioni e/o. What a coincidence!

I am looking forward to reading more Europa novels over the coming months (indeed, I have a row of them on my bookshelf: Linda Ferri's Cecilia, Alina Bronsky's The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cusine, Milena Agus' From the Land of the Moon, James Hamilton-Paterson's Cooking with Fernet Branca, and Rebecca Connell's The Art of Losing), sharing my thoughts on this blog, and learning from its contributors!

Marie C.'s review: The Companion, by Lorcan Roche

2011-08-26T00:00:00.000-04:00

The Companion, by Lorcan Roche. Published 2010 by Europa Editions. Paperback.

The ad is in The Voice.
Then, after a little while, a voice is in the ad.
Sounds exactly like the bloke who played the evil-baddie in North by Northwest, you know him yes you do, silver hair, real refined, shite, what's this his name is...?
Mason, James.
And this is what James Mason saying, softly: Trevor, you should endeavour to respond. ON the contrary, it will not be a waste of a subway token and will not involve your faith in humanity further being broken. My dear boy, this is for you. Believe me.

Thus begins The Companion, Irish writer Lorcan Roche's novel about an Irish man living in New York City who answers an ad to care for a slowly dying, disabled young man named Ed. Roche tells the story in Trevor's lively first-person Irish argot and tells it with elan. Trevor is troubled himself, with a difficult backstory we don't fully learn until just near the end. His parents kept secrets from him, and he himself didn't quite fit in with his brilliant sisters and their posh beaux. He works as a companion because taking care of the disabled is what he knows how to do, and he's good at it. He forges a good relationship with the often difficult and demanding Ed, and manages Ed's cold and selfish family as well. Other characters in this colorful novel include Dana, a brittle physical therapist, the family cook Ellie and Trevor's own running internal monologue.

The Companion is a very entertaining, very bittersweet book. Trevor becomes, over the course of the book, a very different person from the hard-as-nails, sarcastic man we meet at the beginning; Roche takes us all the way under his shell and shows us the vulnerable and damaged man inside. It's possible to draw some parallels between his psyche and the outward condition of the people for whom he cares- and he does care about his patients and clients, not just for them.

I enjoyed The Companion enough that I slowed down as I neared the end, unwilling to let the book go just yet. Roche's bubbly language rolls the reader along and shows more and more heart as the pages turn. I didn't expect it to end the way it did, and I didn't expect the tenderness that came out, either. It's edgy and raw and uncompromising, like so many Europa books, and a great read for the literary fiction reader looking for something a little different and off-the-beaten-path. At first I wasn't sure I was going to like the tight-hemmed Trevor, but I ended up loving him and I think you will, too.

This is book #3 of the Europa Challenge on my way to Haver Level.

It's on my blog, Boston Bibliophile, here.