#EU27Project Update in May

After four months of #EU27Project, I have to admit I have not been the hardest- working reviewer. I have only linked to six books in total (and two of those are from the same country, France, while the rest are : Germany, Czechia, Ireland and the Netherlands), so in reality only 5 of the 27 countries have been represented in 4 months. At this rate, I have little chance of finishing this project this year – but, unlike some politicians, I never thought it was going to be an easy and quick process, so I’m allowing myself time to continue this project next year.

However, I’m pleased to say that other book bloggers have been far busier than me, so, since my last update in March, we have moved from 16 reviews to 41.

France is the biggest mover, from 0 in the first batch to 6 reviews in the current one. Susan Osborne reviews two very different types of books: Marie Suzan’s poignant Her Father’s Daughter and the lighter French Rhapsody by Antoine Laurain. Kate Jackson reviews a book by Sebastian Japrisot, one of my favourite French crime writers, while Karen from Booker Talk considers a contemporary crime novel Hell’s Gate by Laurent Gaudé. I have also reviewed two French books, the not quite satisfactory Men by Marie Darrieussecq and the dark but very funny and musical Les harmoniques by Marcus Malte.

Austria is also a popular choice for us book bloggers (a trend which I heartily approve!). It already featured in the first batch and has notched up an additional five reviews, although, to be fair, three of those are for short stories or novellas by Arthur Schnitzler by Jonathan: Late Fame, The Spring Sonata and A Confirmed Bachelor. Like Chekhov, Schnitzler was a doctor as well as a writer, and very much concerned with the human psyche. He describes perfectly the darkness in the Viennese soul at the turn of the 20th century (and not only then). Kate reviews a book set in the same period, Leo Perutz’ The Master of the Day of Judgement, Susan reviews one of my favourite recent reads, Robert Seethaler’s The Tobacconist, with a guest appearance from Sigmund Freud.

Reviews from the Netherlands continue to trickle in. Karen attempts The Evenings, but does she like it any more than Lizzy did in the first two months of the project? Meanwhile, Susan found The Boy by Wytske Versteeg deeply unsettling. Ireland also features with two new reviews, a new one for The Glorious Heresies, which makes it the most popular book so far (3 reviews in total), and Anne Enright’s The Green Road. 

The last country on the list with two new reviews is Italy, with the crime fiction of Augusto de Angelis and the story of the breakdown of a marriage by Domenico Starnone.

The remaining countries featured in the selection of March and April have been: Norway, represented by Anne Holt – Norway is not in the EU, but we will leave that link there anyway; Denmark with Dorthe Nors’ Mirror Shoulder Signal, Poland with Swallowing Mercury by Wioletta Greg, Czech Republic or Czechia with Bohumil Hrabal’s Closely Observed Trains. The French might take exception with Marguerite Yourcenar representing Belgium rather than France, but that was Jonathan’s choice and that country is rather under-represented.

After a strong start in the first batch of reviews, Germany only managed one review in this round, a lesser-known Heinrich Böll oeuvre.

So what will the next two months bring? Personally, I intend to read more in this category. Perhaps two or three in May? I am currently reading the road-trip book by Andrzej Stasiuk (Poland), and will move on to poems from Malta and Pessoa’s pseudo-diary The Book of Disquiet (Portugal). But, as we all know, my plans for reading don’t always work out and I get easily side-tracked.

Special thanks and celebrations for Susan Osborne, Kate Jackson, Jonathan from Intermittencies of the Mind and Karen from Booker Talk, who have been the most prolific reviewers over these past two months, but thank you to everyone who has contributed, read, tweeted about this project.

 

The #EU27Project: Two Months On…

It’s almost exactly two months since I dreamt up the #EU27Project of reading a book from each of the countries remaining in the EU, and about 7 weeks since I set up a separate page for linking reviews. So it’s time for a bit of an update.

I’m delighted to say that a number of you have responded – and it’s doubly appreciated, because it’s not the most intuitive linking method. You have to write the country, the author or book title and then your name in brackets, as it doesn’t have separate lines for each item of information.

We have 16 reviews and blogger Lizzy Siddal has been the most prolific reviewer to date. She has posted two books from the Netherlands: Gerard Reve’s masterpiece from 1947 translated at last into English, and Esther Gerritsen’s description of a toxic mother/daughter relationship. Also, two from Austria: short stories by Stefan Zweig (perennial old favourite) and a disquieting thriller by Bernhard Aichner. There is also a sly dig at behind the scenes of literary prizes by Filippo Bologna from Italy and a collection of short stories by Spanish writer Medardo Fraile described as ‘one of the best I’ve ever read’ – high praise indeed and it’s gone straight onto my TBR list. So here is a bouquet for Lizzy and her sterling work!

Netherlands is front-runner in terms of number of book reviews. In addition to the two by Lizzy, there is also a review of Herman Koch’s story of personal and social meltdown The Dinner. Joint top of the leaderboard is Germany, with three historical novels. Susan Osborne reviews Summer Before the Dark, a fictional account of Stefan Zweig and Josef Roth spending the summer of 1936 together in Ostende, refugees in vacation land. Joseph Kanon’s thriller Leaving Berlin is set in post-war, post-partition Berlin and is reviewed by Maphead. Finally, Ricarda Huch’s novella The Last Summer is set in Russia just on the cusp of the 1917 revolution.

There are two book reviews for Ireland, both for Lisa McInerney’s riotous description of the less touristy side of Cork The Glorious Heresies: one by Kate Vane and one by myself. Finland can also boast two reviews, both for historical novels: White Hunger by Aki Ollikainen reviewed in French by Sylvie Heroux from Montreal; while Mrs. Peabody investigates Kjell Westö’s The Wednesday Club, which provides a rather grim insight into Finland’s troubled history.

A Greek muse, from theoi.com

Peirene Press is represented with no less than 3 reviews: in addition to White Hunger and The Last Summer, there is also a Danish representative The Murder of Halland , which is not so much a crime novel as a story about grieving, reviewed by Karen at BookerTalk.

Another publisher which is well represented here is Pushkin Press, with 5 reviews, most of them by Lizzy, but also Summer Before the Dark by Volker Weidermann. So well done to these two independent publishers for making so much European culture available to us in the UK!

Last but not least, one of the youngest EU members, Croatia, is represented by the book Girl at War by Sara Novic, highly recommended by Maphead.

In terms of personal plans, I’ve already veered away from my original ones. I oomed and aahed about my selection for Germany, gave up on considering Kati Hiekkapelto for the Finnish entry (because her book takes place in Serbia), switched my Irish entry, found a women’s writing collective for Lithuania (still to be reviewed) and am still conflicted about France… And I still have zero inspiration for Malta or Cyprus.

Another thank you to all participants, from my garden…

Thank you to all the participants and I hope to see many more of you in the months to come. I believe there are a few of you who have reviewed books which would fall into the EU27 category, but have not linked up yet, so please do so if you get a chance. There is no deadline, no pressure, and absolutely no shame in back-linking to older reviews from late 2016 or early 2017.

 

Herman Koch: The Dinner – #EU27Project

Herman Koch: The Dinner (transl. Sam Garrett)

Why is Dutch literature comparatively unknown abroad? It’s a small country, certainly, but it has many cultural and even linguistic links with Germany and the United Kingdom. Why has Scandinavian noir taken off so dramatically, while authors like Gerard Reve, Harry Mulisch and Willem Hermans (collectively known as the ‘Three Giants of Dutch literature’) languish unread and untranslated? It’s not so much the problem of it being spread across two countries (Belgium and the Netherlands) – after all, German has that problem too, spread across three countries.

Herman Koch. Foto: Joost van den Broek (c)’07

One writer who seems to be bucking this trend is Herman Koch, yet he is seldom listed in the recommended readings of Dutch literature. Perhaps because he writes something which may be sailing a little too close to ‘genre’ literature to be considered literary? The Dinner was his sixth novel and the one which brought him international recognition, translated into more than 20 languages, adapted for stage and film, and selling over a million copies in Europe alone.

I’m not surprised that Christos Tsiolkas is the first one to blurb the book and describing it as ‘a punch to the guts’, as both authors have that kind of shock value. Yet the book starts sedately enough, perhaps even too much so. Two couples, two brothers and their wives, are having dinner at a rather pretentious restaurant in Amsterdam. The first few chapters seem to be entirely given to the satire of consumer culture and fashionable Michelin-starred restaurants. It’s funny enough, but doesn’t seem to move the story on significantly.

The brothers don’t really see eye to eye, despite the outward show of bonhomie between them. Serge Lohman is a politician and derided by Paul for his hypocrisy and ambition, while Paul himself seems hyper-critical and resentful. Their wives, Babette and Claire, try to smooth things over, but it becomes clear that they are both suffering and hiding things. The conversation starts off with polite banalities, but grows more and more strained, while the first person narrator (Paul) gets interruptions and flashbacks to the underlying issues which has brought these four people to the restaurant in the first place. I don’t want to give too much away (although the back cover of the book does just that), but suffice it to say that the two families have got together to see what should be done about the ‘scrapes’ their sons have got into.

Hardcover edition.

This slippery sliding to and fro through timelines initially irritated me, but then it becomes clear that this messy way of telling the story reveals much more about Paul’s state of mind and about the layers of protective secrecy which the families have tried to weave around themselves. There is the shock factor of what the youngsters have actually done, of course, but what was more shocking was the gradual unravelling of all morals and ethics as the parents try to justify the actions of their offspring and their own reactions. Equally disturbing was that, at first, we find ourselves nodding along sympathetically to Paul’s grumpy assessments of Dutch restaurant culture, tourists in the Dordogne or people’s reactions to meeting celebrities, but then we realise there is a much darker, more sinister aspect to everything that Paul says or does. I’ve never been one to demand likable characters in a novel, but Koch really outdoes himself here in the presentation of unlikable ones.

Paperback edition

There is something of the unvarnished, forthright depictions of society or ‘shocking realism’ here which has coloured so much of contemporary Dutch literature. It’s a very cleverly constructed book, designed to make us question our own morality and assumptions. I admire its intention, but have to admit that, upon finishing, I felt a strong need to gurgle or wash the unpleasant stains off.

Can I also say how much better and more subtle the cover of the hardcover version is than the paperback (although the latter copies the Dutch language edition)?