I’m beginning to think of Japanese literature again…

 

It’s hard to tell from the small section included in the picture, but this is a window seat under our dining room window, in which I plan to sit and read All Day. I hope to finish Haruki Murakami’s latest, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, which is proving to be just as enigmatic, and intriguing, as I had hoped. Once again, I find some of the same themes: libraries, dreams, walls, and loneliness, and I am reminded of my love for Japanese literature.

When my husband and I were in Kyoto, in 2018, one of the many photographs I took were of the beautiful flower arrangements in the hotel. They were so elegant, and so simple at the same time. I have chosen one of  the photographs to represent the upcoming Japanese Literature Challenge 18.

It won’t officially begin until January, but if you choose to participate again, or for the first time, you have several weeks in which to choose what it is that you will read. I am compiling a list myself, which includes such titles as these:

• Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami
• Palm of the Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata
• Harlequin Butterfly by Toh Enjoe (speculative fiction, winner of the Akutagawa Prize)
• Mina’s Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa
• We’ll Prescribe You A Cat by Syou Ishida
• Invisible Helix by Keigo Higashino
• The Full Moon Coffee Shop by Mai Mochizuki
• Marshland by Yotohiko Kaga

This list is comprised of short stories, classic authors, and newly published works. I hope you find something which encourages you to consider joining us, as we read for the Japanese Literature Challenge 18. (Review site to come.)

Ti Amo by Hanne Orstavik “I love you.”

 

If Ti Amo wasn’t in the fiction section of the library, I would have thought I was reading a letter. Or, more accurately, a personal journal entry. 

It is exquisite in its poignancy.

At first, I was apprehensive about reading a novel in which the narrator’s husband is dying of pancreatic cancer. The pain is raw, and the description of his suffering is graphic.

But then, the novel evolves into being more about her than him. Suddenly, quite near the end, she discloses an attraction to a man who is only called A; he has come to meet her on a book tour for one of her books in Guadalajara, Mexico.

She does not betray her husband. She writes this about meeting him four years earlier:

It was when I was writing Over the Mountain that I met you. I wrote myself into a place then where our coming together became possible, I knew that the work I was doing in writing that novel, approaching the girl-child parts of me from which I’ve detached myself all my life, despised and shunned, was in order to ready myself to live in nearness to another person and love them. Because if I couldn’t be near the vulnerable, soft and silly girly parts of me, the parts that so yearned for affection, how could I believe I could ever allow another person to be? Another person can’t make me love what I despise about myself, therefore if I hate myself I can never feel loved. And I longed for someone to love. (p. 108)

We learn about the process of dying, as we read, and what it does to a couple who love each other. But perhaps more importantly, to me at least, we learn about how we must also love ourselves. 

Professor Andersen’s Night by Dag Solstad “…he kept himself at a certain distance, he had always done that…”

 

Silly me. I was intrigued to read this book not only for the Norwegian challenge I have put forth, but also because I thought it would be a kind of thriller. Professor Andersen’s Night by Dag Solstad has, at its core, a murder. And I love Scandinavian noir. But, this is noir of an altogether different kind.

On Christmas Eve, Professor Anderson sets the table in his dining room. He changes into formal clothes, and serves ribs with crisp crackling from his own oven. We think, perhaps, that he is preparing a party. But, no, he sits down and eats all by himself, taking his coffee and cognac to sit before the fire when he has finished his meal.

“That’s odd,” I think, for even to an introvert such as myself, this seems like a tremendous amount of effort for one’s own holiday celebration. Even more odd is that when he stands looking out of his window he sees a beautiful young woman in the window across from him. Suddenly, a man appears behind her, puts his hands around her neck, and with flailing arms she falls to the ground. Apparently, she has been murdered.

We never see the body. We don’t know for certain if she has been killed. We don’t even if this event really occurred, or if it is just Professor Andersen’s imagination. What we do know is that he doesn’t report the event. He goes about his business, accepting a dinner invitation with friends, and then flying to visit a colleague in another city, all the while consumed with what he witnessed and what he should have done. When it is entirely too late.

Professor Andersen is a professor of literature, and the author of his own bizarre life. He is removed from people; more interested in how he appears to them, than how he connects with them. 

“…he kept himself at a certain distance, he had always done that and it had become more and more important to him over the years.” (p. 113)

What is important to him is having a well-organized life. He makes assumptions that aren’t necessarily true. He is passive. Removed from people on any level beyond the superficial. He lives alone and chooses to be almost completely isolated.

New Directions, who publishes the book, says, “Professor Andersen’s night is an unsettling yet highly entertaining novel, written in Dag Solstad’s signature concise, dark, and witty prose. “He’s a kind of surrealistic writer, of very strange novels,” Haruki Murakami wrote. “I think he’s serious literature.”

If this novel is meant to portray society today, as I have read, then I fear for us. 

If comedy is not far from tragedy, then Solstad’s writing is very witty indeed. 

Norway in November: The Other Name Septology I-II by Jon Fosse

 

In a way that is similar to the photograph I took of this bird and its reflection in the water, Fosse gives us a reflection of two men; one may be real, and the other a shadow. One may be transformed from the other into the person he has now become. Whatever the case, I have been intoxicated by the story of Asle. And, Asle.

The first is a painter, who begins his narration by telling us of the painting he has just finished. It is one wide line of purple, and one wide line of brown, crossing each other like a St. Andrew’s Cross. Like the photograph above; two images intersecting into one.

Asle goes into town, stopping at a park where he sees a man wearing a long black coat just like his. The man pushes the woman in a swing, and Asle hears their entire conversation which he transcribes for us. (Is he seeing this interaction, or remembering it?)

When he continues on his way, he thinks he must stop at Sailor’s Cove to see Asle, who is shaking and trembling from too much drink. Again, Asle (the narrator) gives us specific details about Asle (the drunk) shaking in his apartment, looking at his dog, Bragi, as he pours himself another drink.

But, Asle carries on into town, where he buys canvas, wood from the hardware store, and an open face, ground beef sandwich for lunch.

After he has unloaded his supplies at home, he realizes he really must go back and check on Asle in Sailor’s Cove. And so, tired as he is, he drives into town for the second time. 

Lo and behold, he finds Asle in the street! Lying in the snow, outside of The Lane, quite unaware and unable to get up. Asle helps Asle to stand, and takes him to a diner for dinner. For warmth. But, it is clear that the drunk Asle is very, very ill, and after taking him to The Clinic in a taxi, Asle is then admitted to the hospital.

I will stop retelling the story here, for soon you may not find a reason to read it yourself.  But, I can’t emphasize the beauty of the writing enough; it’s as though I know Fosse, or better yet, Fosse knows me.

This can’t be just because I’m (part) Norwegian too, can it? How can a person write of one’s past, one’s thoughts, one’s career, with such relevance to my own? I am not a painter, by any means, yet his words resonant with who I am. Like this:

“…tomorrow the same as every other day, yes, since he was maybe twelve years old, somewhere around there anyway, there hasn’t been a single day when he didn’t either paint or draw, it just happens by itself, that’s how it is, like it’s him in a way, painting is like a continuation of himself…” (p. 47)

This is exactly how I am concerning my need to write in my notebooks…and, there’s this:

“…I always tend to think I’m not allowed to do things, that’s why I always do the same things over and over…” (p. 49)

Or, this:

“…I like driving as long as I don’t have to drive in the cities, I don’t like that at all, I get anxious and confused and I avoid city driving as much as I can…” (p. 61)

Or, this:

“…and as for anything to do with maths I can’t do it, that’s for sure, and nothing with writing either, or, well, actually to tell the truth it’s pretty easy for me to write…” (p. 210)

Or, this:

“…it’s in the silence that God can be heard, and it’s in the invisible that He can be seen…” (p. 212)

And finally this:

“…it’s not often I pray in my own words, and when I do it’s for intercession…if I pray for something that has to do with me then it has to be let me good for someone else, and if it specifically has to do with me then I pray that it should be God’s will that it happens…”

The Other Name is written in a contemplative, dreamlike stream of consciousness, relating a deep introspection…there seems to be a deep sorrow just beyond reach, as if he is trying to define it. Or, explain it. We wonder, as we close the final pages, are the two Asles namesakes? Relatives? Old friends? 

Or, as is my personal belief, is one redeemed and the other not?

The Other Name Septology I-II by Jon Fosse (the first 100 pages) for Norway In November

 

‘And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows except him who receives it.’ — Revelation

One of the things that immediately draws me in to this contemplative, deeply introspective, novel is the way that Fosse speaks of faith.

From the epigraph on, faith is a recurring theme. We read the quote from Revelation (above), and then open to the very first page where Asle has painted a picture “with the two lines that cross in the middle, one purple line, one brown line…and I’m thinking this isn’t a picture but suddenly the picture is the way it’s supposed to be…” (p. 12)

I carry blithely on in my reading, marking more passages pertaining to faith such as this one:

“…it’s always, always the darkest part of the picture that shines the most, and I think that that might be because it’s in the hopelessness and despair, in the darkness, that God is closest to us.” (p. 96)

and this:

“…I say that no thing, no person, creates itself because it’s God who makes it possible for things to exist at all, without God there’s nothing, I say…since nothing can exist without God sustaining it, without God having made it exist, given it being  as they put it, then it’s He who is, it’s He that everything has in common, yes, God says Himself, about what we should call Him, that His name is I AM, I say…” (p. 99)

And then suddenly, a thought begins to crystallize in my mind about Asle, the one who is a painter in Dylgja sharing his thoughts with us, and Asle, the one who is shaking from drinking too much in Sailor’s Cove. These are the points I want to talk about in future posts.

I do hope you have a chance to read this with me. There’s so much I want to discuss…

Welcome to Norway in November (and Review Site)

 

I am so excited to begin Norway in November. Long have I been selecting the choices, from which I will read, and anticipating the reread of The Other Name: Septology I-II by Jon Fosse. Pictured above you will find:

Kristin Lavransdattar by Sigrid Undset

Ti Amo by Hanne Orstavik

Trilogy by Jon Fosse (comprised of three novellas, this work received the Nordic Council’s Prize for Literature in 2015, and could be read for Novellas in November, too, hosted by 746 Books and Bookish Beck)

Septology: The Other Name I-II by Jon Fosse

and The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad (which is not in the photograph because I have temporarily misplaced it). This book is nonfiction, which could be read for Nonfiction November, for whom one of the hosts is Readerbuzz.

These are books most fiercely calling my name, and from which I will be reading and reviewing this month. Oh, that November was longer!

Please join in my reading anything translated from Norwegian this month, and leave the link to your review for us to enjoy below:

What I’m Seeing, What I’m Reading

 

I stand in awe at the colors of October.

Who could imagine such glory and bounty?

Even the quietness of a still lake is glorious to me…

as we transition from Summer into Autumn.

I have picked up and laid down many books this month. I can’t even remember what happened in An Event In Autumn by Henning Mankell well enough to describe it to you. Sadly, I can remember Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride enough to tell you I abandoned it halfway through. It is for Book Club on Wednesday, a club which now seems to consistently pick bestsellers; they never please me. Even in reading, I seem to be off the beaten path.

Instead I have been entranced by Robert McCammon’s Speaks the Nightbird. What a book! It is perfect for R.I.P. XIX, but I would enjoy it any time, not just for an eerie autumnal read. The atmosphere, the writing, are magnificent, and the story has me lost for hours in an evening.

Before I go, I will add a reminder for Norway in November, should you wish to join. Simply choose a work which has been translated from Norwegian to English, and leave a link in the review site here (which I will soon put up). There are books which also coincide with Nonfiction November, as well as

Novellas in November. I would be happy to recommend some if you would like, just let me know in your comment.

Cold Hearts by Gunnar Staalesen (translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett)

I had little or no idea of her background, but for reasons unknown she had chosen to make her living roaming the streets as a prostitute in Bergen, a coastal town with several hundred years of such activity. But once, not a very long time ago, in an overcrowded metropolis or in a frozen rural district, she has been someone’s little daughter, a small girl who played with tatty dolls, if she had any, a schoolgirl who had taught herself to read, heard about Brezhnev and Kosygin and other famous people, had her first lover, if she hadn’t been raped by a brutal stepfather, a precocious boy or a seaman on leave; one small person on her way into life, later across the border in the neighboring country in which she stayed long enough to acquire the local dialect before moving south to the town where all too abruptly she would end her days, without anyone knowing where she came from or who she was. (p. 154) 

I probably should have started reading the Varg Veum detective series with the very first one, but Arcadia Books sent me Cold Hearts a long time ago and so here is where I started.

Veum is a private investigator, much like Robert B. Parker’s Spenser, or John MacDonald’s Travis McGee, they are men who are strong and determined, in pursuit of justice, and compassionate. Veum is different, though, as he is Norwegian. The descriptions of the scenes and the streets, the restaurants and the stores, allow me to sense that I am there. Even if I can’t pronounce the names.

A former classmate of Veum’s son comes to his door, telling him that her friend, Maggi, has disappeared. They are street walkers, girls who turn tricks in desperation to survive, as they can find no other options in which to make a living. Often, they have been abused and turned to drugs.

It is extremely difficult for Varg to find Maggi; he must stumble through all kinds of other people first. He discovers that her brother is also missing, and worse than that he is missing from prison where he was incarcerated for killing a PE teacher. (Not that I have pleasant memories of gym classes, myself; they were the worst part of going to school.)

Also, two horrific characters named Kjell Malthus and Rolf Terje Daley have beaten up someone named Lars, after stealing all the heroin he had been transporting from Denmark.

To top it off, Carsten Mobekk has been found brutally murdered in his own home. He once was the head of a committee that had sought to help Maggi, her brother, Kalle, and her sister, Siv, as they were impoverished children with ineffective, to say the least, parents.

How does this tie in with Maggi’s disappearance? Unlike most American thrillers, the writing is complicated and unpredictable. I am transported to a world which is not my own, not only by profession(s), but also by culture. No wonder Cold Hearts is an international best seller with over 2 million copies sold. 

Norway in November Sign Up Post

Word is getting around that I am hosting Norway in November this autumn. It comes from a great passion I have for Jon Fosse, but other Norwegian authors as well. I have recently finished Emily Forever by Maria Navarro Skaranger, and Kristin Lavransdattar Book I: The Wreath by Sigrid Undset, both outstanding books about young women, although the later is set in the 14th century, and the former is in the present time. They each had something to teach me…

In November I am planning on focusing on Jon Fosse, however, rereading Septology (for the third time) as it is so profound. If you choose to join us, which I hope you do, you need not focus on him.  Please choose any work originally written by a Norwegian author and tell us your thoughts. I look forward to reading about what you have chosen!

Leave your name and the post about your choice(s) here if you would like to participate:

Sunday Salon: Let’s Talk about Norway in November, Specifically Some Book Suggestions

I could recommend Japanese authors from now until Tuesday. But, Norwegian authors? Not so much. In fact, some whom I thought were Norwegian are actually Swedish. So clearly, the hostess has things to learn herself. 

I have been searching for some highly recommended books which I leave for you here, in pairs instead of single images as that will make the post a bit shorter. I hope you find something which appeals to you should you choose to join us this Norway In November. (Some of them apply for Nonfiction November or Novellas in November as well.)

Hunger by Knut Hamsun

Kristin Lavransdattar  by Sigrid Undset

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

The House with the Blind Glass Windows by Herbjorg Wassmo

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad 

Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder

Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

The South Pole by Roald Amundsen

The Kon-Tiki Expedition by Thor Heyerdahl

The Werewolf by Aksel Sandemose

The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas

Giants in the Earth by Ole Edvart Rolvaag 

The Other Name by Jon Fosse (I-II)

I Is Another by Jon Fosse (III-V)

A New Name by Jon Fosse (VI-VII)

(These three books comprise the volume entitled Septology. after which Jon Fosse won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2023. I read them singly, as they were not all published when I began reading, and I recommend taking them slowly, one by one.)

Aliss At the Fire by Jon Fosse 

(perfect for Novellas In November)

A Shining by Jon Fosse

Trilogy by Jon Fosse

Scenes from a Childhood by Jon Fosse

Well, you can see that I have listed more books by Jon Fosse than any other, but that is because he has become one of my favorite authors. I have read The Other Name, I is Another, A New Name, Aliss At the Fire, and Scenes From a Childhood (which are short vignettes of the most piercing nature). I still look forward to reading Melancholy I-II and Trilogy, as well as A Shining. Obviously, there are so many more Norwegian authors to discover; I have only attempted to whet your appetite here, in the hopes that you will join us this November. A review site is soon to come…

I have linked this post with Sunday Salon, as this is what is uppermost in my mind today.

Norway in November…A New Literature Challenge Because I Am A Fosse Fanatic

It began with a simple comment on Sunday Salon, wherein I mentioned that Jon Fosse has become my new favorite author, which indeed, he has. Even before he won the Nobel Prize in Literature last October, I knew I had read someone who felt like he understood me. So often I read because I feel in sync with the author, but this time, I felt he was writing what I had no words for. (I’m speaking of Septology.)

My blogging has been in decline; I have switched from one platform to another, and I find it a challenge to discuss Japanese literature any more. My father says, “Things have a beginning, a middle, and an end.” And I feel very strongly that I am in need of a new beginning (which is part of why I left WordPress and returned here). I’m wondering if you are interested in reading some Norwegian literature with me?

Perhaps you have heard of Norwegian crime writers, such as Karin Fossum or Gunnar Staalesen. Maybe Jo Nesbo? If you are in the mood for something more action filled, you may wish to pick up a psychological thriller. Believe me, they are nothing like an American thriller, which seems to follow the same plot line over and over again. (The Girl…fill in the blank.)

Or, you may prefer a classic work with more historical value, such as something written by Henrik Ibsen or Knut Hamsun. 

If you’re planning to read for Nonfiction November, there are several options, as well options for Novellas in November; I think it’s fun to combine reading events.

I am going to leave a compilation of Fosse works published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, with a much more complete list of Norwegian authors to come, hoping that something will catch your eye and you’ll join me in Norway this November. I’d surely hate to go alone.

Melancholoy I-II by Jon Fosse

Septology by Jon Fosse

I Is Another by Jon Fosse

A Shining by Jon Fosse

Selected Jon Fosse

A selection of books by Jon Fosse, awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature ‘for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable’, in Damion Searls’s translations.

Included publications:

• A Shining, Jon Fosse, Fiction
• Scenes from a Childhood, Jon Fosse, Fiction
• Melancholy I-II, Jon Fosse, Fiction
• Aliss at the Fire, Jon Fosse, Fiction

Sunday Salon: August, the month that was

The 20 Books of Summer turned into 15 for me. But, they were a good fifteen; I had a wonderful Summer of reading. My favorite books from the list include Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, and Scenes From A Childhood by Jon Fosse. The first I read for Classic Club Spin #38. The second I read for Paris in July. The third I read because Jon Fosse has become my favorite author, replacing Haruki Murakami who formerly held that position ever since I hosted the first Japanese Literature Challenge in 2006. (Does this mean I should host a Norwegian Literature Challenge sometime? 🤔)

And now for something completely different: are you waking up with golf ball sized welts that seem to have come from nowhere? My son was so terrified his new apartment had come with bedbugs that he called Orkin, and for $300.00 had the whole thing sprayed. I’m afraid they took advantage of him for it doesn’t appear that bedbugs are the culprit. No, in Illinois the culprits are Oak Mites, which feast on eggs the cicadas have left behind. You can’t see them. You can’t feel them sting you. But the itch that they leave behind is nearly intolerable. None of the creams we have bought are terribly effective; the best thing I’ve found is holding an ice cube up to my skin until it melts. 

Also, staying inside and reading on the couch helps. I have begun reading for the R.I.P. XIX, which runs from September 1 through October 31. No longer does Carl from Stainless Steel Droppings run the event (where have so many of my blogging friends gone?!). Instead, you can post, and read about Readers Imbibing Peril, on Instagram at #ripxix.

It is sad to say goodbye to Summer. There has been such joy in swimming at Centennial Beach, and participating in all the reading adventures so many have provided. Thank you Cathy, and Emma, for hosting your reading challenges. Thank you Deb Nance for hosting Sunday Salon all this time! 

Happy September to all.

The Other Woman by Therese Bohman, translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy, for Women in Translation Month

 

My heart grieves for the women who think that married men will choose them over their wives. Because a married man has sought a woman out, has felt that she would satiate a yearning for him, does not mean that he will sacrifice his perfectly comfortable, albeit boring, life for her. 

Alternatively, two of my all time favorite books, Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina, portray women who desperately abandon everything for the men that they love, and still they are not happy. Romance, illicit or otherwise, cannot fulfill the deepest hunger for love and passion.

The Other Woman had such an intriguing cover to me that I borrowed it from Boundless (the most annoying library app ever). Finding that it had been translated from Swedish made it a perfect read for Women in Translation Month which is quickly drawing to a close; furthermore, Other Press has just sent me Bohman’s latest book, Andromeda, to review. I wanted to know more about Therese Bohman’s previous work before embarking on her latest.

My whole body burns with a feeling I can’t quite define: anger, jealousy, the sense of being left out. The knowledge that I never come first. (p. 149)

Thus speaks the narrator of The Other Woman, when the initial thrill has begun to wane. She is an attractive girl in her late twenties, wanting to become a writer, but working at the Norkopping hospital kitchen in the meantime. When Carl Malmberg, a handsome doctor, offers her a ride home, she agrees. She has noticed his wedding ring, but it pales next to the shiny, dark blue Volvo that he drives. And, it seems to fall from her vision altogether when he eventually holds her in his arms, whispering lovely things in her bed.

Her life seems shabby next to his. His wife, Gabriella, and he have the finest things in a beautifully decorated apartment on the top floor of their building. Their life is ordered and complete, with children from their own marriage, and older children from the marriage Carl had before. We know nothing good can come from his liaison with this “other woman.”

The resolution is surprising, and far different than I had anticipated. Seeing how this particular relationship sorts out, combined with descriptions of intense emotion, were the thrill of the novel. As Other Press says, this book is “a passionate psychological drama where questions of power and sexuality are brought to a head.” 

The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story by Olga Tokarczuk for Women In Translation Month

The Empusium is one of the most wonderfully atmospheric books I have read in a long time. The forest trees, moss, and lichen create their own ominous mood:

The ritual of the fall had started, as if the proximity of death activated reserves of extraordinary energy in these trees that, instead of continuing to support life, allowed them to celebrate dying…As we know, however, the most interesting things are always in the shadows, in the invisible.

Upon closing the cover after finishing the last page, I am not entirely sure that I understand it. But, Olga Tokarczuk has given me much to ponder.

Mieczylaw Wojnicz has come from Poland to a sanatorium in Gorbersdorf, to live in a kurhaus for those suffering consumption. While he waits for a room there, he is taken to the Guesthouse for Gentleman, run by Herr Opitz. And soon after his arrival, he sees the body of a woman lying in the dining room table; it is Frau Opitz who has died.

Mieczylaw hears noises in the night, and when alone, he investigates the rooms above him. One is Frau Opitz’, where he tries on her clothes (her slippers fit him perfectly), and lies in her bed feeling great peace. The other room is an attic, containing a chair to which are attached great leather straps…the sense of foreboding is ominous.

The men at the Guesthouse for Gentleman have discussions around the dinner table, much of which consist of disparaging women. They also partake of a liquor called Schwärmerei, made from mushrooms in the forest, which tastes earthy but clearly makes their heads heavy and calms them down. 

We are told that Wojnicz has been uncomfortable all his life undressing in front of the doctors, who always insist he must remove even his drawers. At first I think this is because he is shy. Later, I come to understand it is because of what his underwear hides.

He makes friends with Thilo, who bequeaths him this photo:

They both have admired it greatly, noticing that when you look at it in certain ways you can see different things. This, I think, has something to do with the point Olga Tokarczuk is making: we see what it is that we want to see, and sometimes, our perspective shifts with the blink of an eye.

One more interesting concept…an Empusa is a shape-shifting female being in Greek mythology, a demonic ghost sent by the goddess Hecate and appearing to the ill-fated. How is it then, that The Empusium contains no women at all, unless we look more closely at Mieczylaw?

I have read this book for Women In Translation month, always an enriching experience in the book blogging world. Also, thanks to Fitzcarraldo Editions who sent me an advanced copy of this book, to be published September 26, 2024.

Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell

 

After ten days I managed to find a free quarter of an hour, and wrote to my friend B. in London, asking him if he could get me a job of some sort - anything, so long as it allowed more than five hours sleep. I was simply not equal to going on with a seventeen-hour day, though there are plenty of people who think nothing of it. When one is overworked, it is a good cure for self-pity to think of the thousands of people in Paris restaurants who work such hours, and will go on doing it, not for weeks, but for years. (p. 112)

It is a good cure for self pity for anyone to read Down and Out in Paris and London; revealing life in the early 1930’s when people everywhere were willing to work for anything. 

George Orwell does not tell how, or exactly why, he goes to Paris. But, he tells of his life there, going for days without food as he looks for a job of any sort. When the French find out he is not French, they are unwilling to hire him. When Russians opened a restaurant named Auberge de Jehan Cottard, the working conditions were worse than those he suffered under Hotel X working as a plongeur (dishwasher) with hard water and soft soap. Which wouldn’t lather. With an inch of fish heads and vegetable matter on the floor. With people scurrying, and yelling, and dropping food which may, or may not, be rinsed off before it is put on the plate.

This washing up was a thoroughly odious job - not hard, but boring and silly beyond words. It is dreadful to think that some people spend their whole decades at such an occupation. The woman whom I replaced was quite sixty years old, and she stood at the sink thirteen hours a day, six days a week, the year round; she was, in addition, horribly bullied by the waiters. (p. 69)

So I sat in an Adirondack chair at Centennial Beach, reading this book for both Paris in July and Reading Orwell 2024, most grateful for the jobs that I have had. (Not to mention the retirement I now enjoy!) Their onerous quality could never compare to that which I read described here, with courage and strength.

Sunday Salon, Classics Club Spin 38, and Hitting Two Challenges With One Book

 

When I’m not swimming, I’m walking, and it is such a delight to be outside. This path is at Herrick Lake, which I have been walking since a little girl, and then seriously again after Covid. When we had to be isolated, I refused to be stuck indoors.

I’m home from church now, and eager to begin a post. Isn’t that funny about blogging, how it comes and goes? At least that is the way it is for me…I have added a new header because why not? And this one is so inviting, as if I could sit by that window and read forever.

The Classic Club has revealed the number for Spin 38, and the number is 17. So, I will eagerly embark on this reread:

I have been wanting to reread it for so long! My father was a cattleman with the Chicago Stockyards before it closed in 1971. I know the stories of cowboys well, and these resonate beautifully within my heart.

Did you participate in The Classics Club this time around? Are you taking lovely walks to clear your head? Have you opened a book you particularly enjoy? 

I’m finishing Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell, to wrap up Paris in July 2024 and get a book in for ReadingOrwell2024. It’s nice when it works out that way…

May your week be blessed,

Bellezza

Classic Club Spin Number 38…to be revealed this Sunday

Thanks to Sylvia, I (re)discovered the Classics Club. Long ago, I had such a list published somewhere…but it is all too vague to remember now. So I created a new Classics Club list, and now I will choose twenty which I’d really like to read for CCSpin #38. The number of the book we are to read will be revealed on Sunday, July 21, so, if you’re like me, you’re just in time!

My twenty books, from a list of fifty:

1. A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle
2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
3. 1984 by George Orwell
4. Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
5. We The Living by Ayn Rand
6. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
7. Animal Farm by George Orwell
8. Walden by Thoreau
9. Watership Down by Richard Adams
10. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
11. The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis
12. The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
13. The Sea by Jon Banville
14. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
15. Possession by A. S. Byatt
16. The Pillars of The Earth by Ken Follett
17. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (finished August 2024)
18. It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
19. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
20. The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

The  challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by Sunday, September, 22. I am eager to see which one it will be, as all of these are either great favorites, or books I’ve long been meaning to read. 

p.s. A comment below has caused me to wonder just what it is, exactly, that qualifies a book as a “classic.” It cannot be age alone, I thought, and proceeded to look for a definition. This comes as close as any I can find from PanMacmillan:

“ A classic brilliantly articulates universal themes – like love, morality, death, adversity – and offers revelatory insight and clarity to readers of any era. It always feels fresh.”

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (Paris in July 2024)

Madame Bovary has come to me twice in my life. Both times were when my heart was ripped and torn by another. When I was seventeen, I sympathized with her; now I blame her.

She was the lovely daughter of a farmer, who caught Charles Bovary’s eye when he came to attend to her father. After repeatedly visiting their home, for Charles is enraptured, he asks her to marry him. And so, she becomes the wife of a well-meaning, but not very proficient, doctor.

This is not enough for her. When invited to a ball, she dances with a dashing viscount, and thereafter yearns for such romance. For someone who would carry a green leather cigarette case, with his initials monogrammed on the outside. Her life begins to bore, and eventually dissatisfy her, in small amounts at first. She makes eyes with a clerk, Leon, and he with her, until he leaves the town afraid of compromising them both.

And then, she meets Rodolphe. He is a master at enticing women, intending nothing more lasting than a momentary dalliance. But, to Emma Bovary, he becomes everything.

“Oh, I will have her,” he cried, striking a blow with his stick at a clod in front of him. And he at once began to consider the political part of the enterprise, “Where shall we meet?” 

She leaves her home at dawn, to walk to his, waking him in his bed with her tender kisses. They meet in the garden of her home, finding every opportunity to be together. She buys him beautiful things which she cannot afford, from Lheureux, who obsequiously gives her everything she desires. Until he does not.

Rodolphe sends her word, the night before they are to leave together, that he cannot come. She is too good for him, blah, blah, blah. Emma is thrown into despair, which only becomes worse when Lheureux demands the money for what she has so carelessly bought. He will not be assuaged any longer, and in utter panic Emma goes to the chemist shop next door, stuffing handfuls of arsenic into her mouth.

Hers is a death most horrific; I will never forget the black liquid flowing from her mouth when she is being dressed for burial. Charles mourns her with everything he is; she was too foolish to see what she had in his love.

Flaubert has described the hunger some women possess to be loved by someone who thrills them; the steadfast love of a husband does not suffice. Instead, they are drawn to danger, to romance, to fulfillment which is not possible from a lover. It cannot satisfy, it cannot last. We find this in Anna Karenina, and again in Emma Bovary. They are two of my favorite novels, reminding me not to put my love where it should not go. 

As Gustave Flaubert has written, “We must not touch our idols, the gilt sticks to our fingers.”

(I read this book specifically for Paris in July, the links for which can be found here.)

Knife by Salman Rushdie “Language was my knife.”

 

 

We would not be who we are today without the calamities of our yesterdays. (p.38) 

Knife, by Salman Rushdie, was surprisingly accessible to me because Midnight’s Children was somewhat of a challenge. I am neither a writer, nor a victim, but I have been greatly intrigued by his account of being stabbed on August 12, 2022, in Chautauqua, New York. Rushdie’s life was irrevocably changed; for one thing,  he has not been able to see out of his right eye since.

But, that doesn’t mean he has lost his insight. Using his fondness for free association, he draws connections that are not readily apparent. Take, for example, the description of his attacker:

My Assailant, my would-be Assassin, the Asinine man who made Assumptions about me, and with whom I had a near lethal Assignation…I have found myself thinking of him, perhaps unforgivably, as an Ass. However, for the purposes of this text, I will refer to him more decorously as “the A.” What I call him in the privacy of my home is my business. 

This is such beautiful alliteration, sentences that I would love to show the students in my class if I was still teaching. There are many more passages throughout this book which made me pause and stick a flag onto the page I was reading.

Taking us back in time, before the knife attack, but after the coronavirus onslaught in 2020, he and his new wife, Eliza, go to Italy.

Italy felt like a miracle, wrapping us in an old friend’s warm embrace. 

“Of course!” I say in my heart. “That’s exactly what Italy does!” 

And, I’m intrigued by the way he extrapolates on the usage of a knife. A wedding knife, he writes, is part of a ritual which joins people together. A kitchen knife is an essential part of cooking, and a Swiss Army Knife is a helper. 

Language, too, was a knife. It could cut open the world and reveal its meaning, its inner workings, its secrets, its truths. It could cut through from one reality to another. It could call bullshit, open people’s eyes, create beauty. Language was my knife.  

As he slowly begins to recover from the brutal stabbing, Salman Rushdie contemplates the meaning of freedom. 

I was in no state to talk about freedom. It was a word that had become a minefield. Ever since conservatives started laying claim to it (Freedom Tower, freedom fries), liberals and progressives had started backing away from it toward new definitions of the social good according to which people would no longer be entitled to dispute the new norms. Protecting the rights and sensibilities of groups perceived as vulnerable would take precedence over freedom of speech, which the Nobel laureate Elias Canetti had called “the tongue set free.” …The First Amendment was now what allowed conservatives to lie, abuse, to denigrate. 

It is hard for me not to take offense at Rushdie’s intense scorn for those who don’t adhere to his political persuasion. I have thought a lot about the paragraph above, gaining a fresh perspective towards what Rushdie calls the “perceived vulnerable,” and resentment that he believes conservatives “lie, abuse, and denigrate.” 

I cannot imagine a more appropriate city for Salman Rushdie to admire than New York. He described himself as a city boy, and where else, besides Los Angeles, could such a liberal person be content? He explains the joy of coming home, watching the World Cup on television, and finding the “news better in many ways. (Not the real news, which was full of insane gun violence and equally insane Trump and Trumpublicans, as usual.)”

He feels free to criticize conservatives, which he does liberally throughout the book, as any man without a strong faith would do. But, I don’t call him a Demonrat. I read his book, open to his ideas and compassionate about his suffering. Many of his observations I found powerful and brilliant. Yet I close the book knowing that I could never recommend it to my book club. There is too much political fodder to be thrown about, which is not nearly as interesting, to me, as recovering from an attempt on his life.

“Words are the only victors,” he writes. It is a lovely thought for writers and readers, alike. But, words are what Rushdie believes in, whereas I believe in the Lord. And therein lies our ideological difference, like a knife which divides.