The Translated Literature Book Tag

I saw a blog post this week on Portuguese reader Susana’s blog A Bag Full of Stories, and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to tag myself and take part. As you know, I am very opinionated when it comes to translations!

A translated novel you would recommend to everyone

Tove Jansson’s The True Deceiver (trans. Thomas Teal) is such a deceptively simple story of village life in winter and the friendship between two women, but it is full of undercurrents, ambiguity, darkness. Of course, if you haven’t read Tove Jansson at all, then I suggest you start with the Moomins, which are just as wonderful for grown-ups as they are for children.

A recently read “old” translated novel you enjoyed

The Strugatsky brothers’ Roadside Picnic, which was the inspiration for Tarkovsky’s film Stalker, was even better than I expected.

A translated book you could not get into

Everybody knows that my Achilles heel is The Brothers Karamazov, which is ironic, given that I love everything else that Dostoevsky wrote (and generally prefer him to Tolstoy). I have bought myself a new copy of it and will attempt it again (for the 5th time?).

Your most anticipated translated novel release

This is a little under the radar, but it sounds fascinating: Istros Books (one of my favourite publishers, for its brave championing of a part of Europe that is still woefully under-translated) is bringing out The Trap by Ludovic Bruckstein, a Romanian Jewish writer virtually unknown to me (because he emigrated in 1970 and was declared persona non grata in Romania). The book is made up of two novellas, offering, as the publisher blurb goes, ‘a fascinating depiction of rural life in the Carpathians around the time of the Second World War, tracing the chilling descent into disorder and fear of two cosmopolitan communities that had hitherto appeared to be havens of religious and racial acceptance’. The official launch will take place on 26th of September in London and you bet that I’ll be there!

A “foreign-language” author you would love to read more of

I only discovered Argentinean author Cesar Aira in 2018, and he is so vastly prolific (and reasonably frequently translated) that I have quite a task ahead of me to catch up. His novels are exhilarating, slightly mad and, most importantly, quite short.

A translated novel which you consider to be better that the film

Movie still from Gigi.

Not many people will agree with me, but I prefer the very short novella Gigi by Colette to the famous musical version of it, starring Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier. The book’s ending is much more open to interpretation and makes you doubt the long-term happiness of young Gigi. It can be read as a satire and critique of the shallow world of Parisian society and the limited choices women had within it at the time.

A translated “philosophical” fiction book you recommend

Not sure I’ve read many of those! Reading biographies of philosophers or their actual work is more fun. The only example I can think of, and which I enjoyed at the time but haven’t reread in years, is Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder, transl. Paulette Moller.

A translated fiction book that has been on your TBR for far too long

Marlen Haushofer’s The Wall (trans. Shaun Whiteside) is a post-apocalyptic novel with a difference. I’ve been meaning to read this much praised novel forever, but in the original, so I finally bought it in Berlin last year… and still haven’t got around to reading it.

A popular translated fiction book you have not read yet

Korean fiction seems to be having a moment in the sun right now (thanks to a great influx of funding for translation and publication), especially the author Han Kang. I haven’t read the ever-popular The Vegetarian but her more recently translated one Human Acts (trans. Deborah Smith) sounds more on my wavelength, with its examination of policital dissent and its repercussions.

A translated fiction book you have heard a lot about and would like to find more about or read

The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischwili, translated by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin is perhaps far too intimidatingly long (1000 pages) for me to read, but it sounds epic: six generations of a Georgian family living through the turbulent Soviet 20th century.

Holiday Book Haul

I had to pay a rather absurd amount for overweight luggage, although it was only my suitcase that was 4 kilos overweight, my older son’s suitcase was 4 kilos underweight and my younger son had no suitcase at all. What can I say except: don’t fly TAROM, as they clearly try to rip you off. So what was in my luggage? Of course all the Romanian delicacies that I miss so much when I am back in England: wine, homemade jam and honey, herbs and tea leaves from my mother’s garden, quinces (shame I cannot bring the tasty organic vegetables or cheese or endless array of milk products – kefir, sana, drinkable yoghurt, buttermilk etc.).

And, naturally, I had to bring back some Romanian books and DVDs. Romanian cinema is not very well known but highly respected in a small niche community. I got a recent film Child’s Pose, winner of the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2013, which covers pretty much all the topics that interest me: domineering mothers, generational and class conflict, as well as corruption in present-day Romania. I also got two older films from the 1960s by one of the best Romanian directors, Lucian Pintilie: The Forest of the Hanged based on one of my favourite Romanian novels, and The Reconstruction. The latter was named ‘the best Romanian film of all time’ by the Romanian film critics’ association, although it was forbidden during the Communist period because it turned out to be too much of a commentary on the viciousness of an abusive, authoritarian society.

There are many beautiful bookshops in Romania nowadays, although not all of my pictures came out well. I certainly lived up to my reputation of not being able to enter any bookshop without buying something! Among the things I bought are Fram and Apolodor, a polar bear and a penguin homesick for their native lands, two children’s books I used to adore and which I am very keen to translate into English and promote for the BookTrust reading scheme for diverse children’s literature In Other Words

I succumbed to the lovely hardback edition of Mihail Sebastian’s diary from 1935 to 1944, such a crucial (and sad) time in Romanian history, especially from a Jewish point of view. I got two titles, both family sagas, by female authors that I already know and admire: Ileana Vulpescu and Hortensia Papadat-Bengescu (the latter is sort of our national Virginia Woolf, although not quite as experimental, but she nevertheless dragged Romanian literature into modernity).

Brasov Bookshop 1

I also bought some new contemporary writers to try out: Radu Pavel Gheo –  Good Night, Kids about emigration and coming back to the ‘home country’, Lavinia Braniste – Internal Zero, a book about young single women in Romania today, Ioana Parvulescu – Life Starts on a Friday, a historical crime novel or time-travelling story. Last but not least, I sneaked back one of my favourite books from my childhood Follow the Footprints by William Mayne. Nobody else seems to have heard of this book or this writer, although he has been described as one of the ‘outstanding and most original children’s authors of the 20th century’. Sadly, in googling him, I discover that he was also imprisoned for two years in 2004 for sexually abusing young girl fans, so that leaves a bitter taste in my fond childhood memory.

Brasov Bookshop 2

While in Romania, I received a fairly large pile of books back home in the UK to my cat sitter’s surprise, some for review, some I’d previously ordered. So here are the things which came thudding through my letter-box.

I went on a bit of a Murakami Haruki binge following the reading of Killing Commendatore. I suppose because the book was enjoyable but not his best work, I wanted to get my hands on some of my favourites by him that I did not yet own: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Sputnik Sweetheart and South of the Border, West of the Sun. Unrelated, and possibly as a result of some Twitter discussion, I went on a Marian Engel binge – a Canadian author I had heard of, but never read. I had to search hard in second-hand stores but found The Honeyman Festival, Lunatic Villas and Bear (I had heard about this last one, the love story between a woman and a bear, and it sounds absolutely bonkers). Meanwhile, I decided I needed to up my game with Chinese women authors, so I bought two Shanghai-based stories of illicit passion, Eileen Chang’s Lust, Caution and Wei Hui’s more contemporary Shanghai Baby. I also read an extract from Anna Dostoevsky’s reminiscences about how she met and fell in love with Dostoevsky on Brainpickings, so I ordered a copy of her out-of-print memoir.

I make no bones about being an unabashed fan of Finnish crime writer Antti Tuomainen, but I realised that one of his books was still missing from my shelves – his first to be translated into English (and possibly his darkest) The Healer. And the final, thick tome to make its home on my bedside table is from the Asymptote Book Club. I am very excited to be reading Ahmet Altan’s first book in the Ottoman Quartet – yet another family saga – Like a Sword Wound. Currently imprisoned in Turkey for his alleged involvement in the 2016 coup attempt, Altan (better known in the West as a crusading journalist, but much loved and respected in his homeland for his fiction) is currently working on the final volume of the quartet in prison. Last, but not least, I also received a copy of Flash Fiction Festival Two, a collection of sixty micro fictions written by participants and presenters from the second Flash Fiction Festival in the UK, which I attended (and loved) in Bristol in July. I am delighted to be there among them with a tale about a kitchen!

Weekly Summary – Just Bookish This Time!

No events this past week – well, no cultural ones at any rate. Can you tell that the boys are back from their holidays? So our ‘trips’ have been more along the lines of dentist, haircut and swimming pool. We attempted to go see The Incredibles 2 but I got the time and date wrong (embarrassing, I know). We’ll attempt it again later on today.

On the upside, other than being reunited with my little ones (who now tower above me – and I am not short!), quite a few books have been incoming this week. Let’s start with the one that got delivered today, on a Sunday, by a courier, which made it feel very special. Infernus: The Power of the Goddess by Jo Hogan. And indeed it is! I’ve known Jo for a while now via Twitter. She has been a source of inspiration for me, for her perseverance with writing and creating a happy family life in the most difficult of circumstances. Her debut novel was turned down by British publishers, because apparently it is too much of a mixed genre. A German publishing house Oetinger was so enthusiastic about it, however, that they had it translated and it has just come out, so I had to pre-order it. I’ll tell you all about it soon – and maybe some day it might be published in the original language too.

Jo describes it as bonkers, but I think it sounds rather intriguing (and I’m sure it’s better written than Dan Brown). Here is my translation of the blurb from German:

Maria’s mother went mad and killed herself. That was what Maria was certain of, as she was growing up. Suddenly her father is found dead as well, after touching a legendary amulet. Just the cruel hand of fate, or is there something more behind that? Maria herself starts having increasingly frequent nightmares about a Hand of Evil trying to grab her. She starts looking for answers in mysterious and mystical corners of the world…

I told you last week that I had finally succumbed to peer pressure (thank you Melissa and Tony!) and decided to make another attempt at reading The Brothers Karamazov. So I got myself a different translation by Ignat Avsey, dating from 1994. As I was ordering this off Abe Books, however, I came across some other Russian books and just couldn’t resist.

Olesha’s Envy is a small miracle: a slapstick satire of the model Soviet citizen published in one of the most difficult periods of the Soviet empire (late 1920s). Olga Grushin’s novel is about the end of the Soviet empire, everyday life in Russia during that massive period of change in the mid 1980s-1990s. (Perfect for #WITMonth, I may try to squeeze it in.) And Victor Pelevin’s Omon Ra achieves the rare feat of being historical, satirical and science fiction all rolled into one (it was published in 1992 in Russia, when it was acceptable to be critical of the Soviet space programme).

Who can resist a book sale? When I heard that Fitzcarraldo are having a fourth anniversary sale with 20% off everything, I bought myself two of their books I’ve been salivating over (not literally, obviously) for a long time. Svetlana Alexievich brings a collage of voices talking about the collapse of the Soviet Union, so will tie in neatly with Grushin’s fictional voice. Meanwhile, Esther Kinsky uses her solitary walks along the River Lea to meditate about the past, nature, transience, migration and life in general.

The last two books I got were also as a result of spending far too much time on Twitter and on reading other blogs. Madeleine Bourdouxhe’s La Femme de Gilles has been reviewed by quite a few of you, and I always thought I would like a stab at it, but not in English. The final book is to fill a massive gap in my literary geography: I have read next to nothing by Korean women writers, yet I’ve heard they are currently producing some of the most interesting work in the Far East.

Now all I need to do is figure out a way in which to sit at home and read all day, while still having an income stream and happy, well-adjusted children…

6 Degrees of Separation – June 2018

A non-fiction title as the starting point to this month’s 6 Degrees of Separation run by the lovely Kate.

Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point has become part of the modern business and sociological vocabulary, although I suspect that more people have read reviews about it rather than actually read it. Perhaps more have read another book of his, Outliers, which became notorious for bursting the myth about creative genius. Success is not just about innate ability, but a combination of hard work (those oft-quoted 10,000 hours to gain mastery), your cultural legacy (what you are born into) and sheer dumb luck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My second book in the link is also non-fiction, but also relies on sweeping generalisations, although it also includes some close anthropological observation. This is Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour by Kate Fox and it is full of very funny observations. Here is something that I notice at the train station every single morning.

There is something quintessentially English about ‘Typical!’ It manages simultaneously to convey huffy indignation and a sense of passive, resigned acceptance, an acknowledgement that things will invariably go wrong, that life is full of little frustrations and difficulties (and wars and terrorists) and that one must simply put up with it… a sort of grumpy, cynical stoicism.

The idealised image of the English and their countryside is the link for the next book, one in the popular Miss Read series: Thrush Green. Set in the Cotswolds in the 1950s, before the influx of commuters and second homers, this is the Little Britain that Brexiters perhaps believe they can revert to, but charming nevertheless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course, only a small proportion of people ever lived in this rural bliss and for much more realistic and horrifying look at the rape of the countryside you only need to read Fiona Mozley’s Elmet. The harshness of life on the land, albeit a hundred years or so ago and in a different country, is also very much present in Romanian author Liviu Rebreanu’s Răscoala (The Revolt), which describes the circumstances leading to the Peasants’ Revolts of 1907 in Romania and its aftermath.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, and this is a bit of weird side-jump, but the word ‘răscoala’ reminds me of Raskolnikov, so my last link is to Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, one of the books that got me hooked on the kind of writing that comfortably straddles the border between crime and literary genres, and which shows that labelling really doesn’t matter.

So from what is essentially a self-help book for businesses and marketers to urban poverty and despair, via a detour in the countryside… I really do know how to keep things cheery and relaxed, don’t I? Where will your six links take you?