Hux

was that she once headbutted Mick Jagger during a drug fueled orgy in 1969. But worse than that, she...

Mysteries (1892) Knut Hansun This was bizarre. A stranger named Johan Nagal comes to a small Norwegian coastal village with a seemingly infinite supply of money and anecdotes as well as a significant number of mysteries which, along with his mannerisms and ideas, bamboozle both the reader and the inhabitants. I actually loved this. At first I thought it was a (very early) detective novel as Nagal seems fascinated by the recent murder (or was it suicide) of a man who appears to have been in love with a young woman called Dagny Kielland. He questions the people of the village about it, specifically a short, disabled man referred to by everyone as the Midget. As the novel proceeds, Nagal demonstrates that he has brilliant insights into the human psyche, can psychologically manipulate people with ease, and even admits to his games when he's caught out, claiming that he is lying but that his confessions should also be taken into account. I genuinely belived a twist was coming which would reveal his clever plan, his subtle investigation into these village people and the recently deceased man. But... that never comes. Instead, we are left with a deranged man, a lunatic, who claims to have fallen madly in love with Dagny but also pursues the spinster Martha (asking her to marry him). He tells tales, and weaves stories, and provides anecdotes that marvel and bemuse his listeners. Some of his stories are bizarre and monstrous, ghost stories and drug fueled memories of hallucinations (which reminded me of Hesse). He is pleasant to people one minute, then ranting about their dishonesty and furtive motives the next. The man is all over the place, a delusional maniac but one of immense and subtle intelligence. I think I adored him. At first the ending felt flat, a disappointing nothing on the shoulders of so much potential. An unfinished thought. But then I was relieved, glad that Hamsun didn't give us the obvious and instead chose to leave his audience as perplexed as the people in the village. This one had me thinking, churning it all over in my mind. What was Hamsun getting at? Why build things up like this only to knock them down? What was he attacking? What was he implying? The book's title is apt and the whole thing was a curiosity that fascinated me. I especially enjoyed his feverish rants (and the insights which are clearly Hamsun's in the mouth of Nagal), regarding socialism and literature, in particular when he criticised Tolstoy (a man who, amazingly, was still alive at the time). That Hamsun wrote this in 1892 only adds to its stature. It isn't perfect but this one will stay with me a while. 8/10

The Eight Mountains (2016) Paolo Cognetti The story of an Italian boy who befriends another boy when his family take him to their holiday home at the base of the alps in the grana community. As children, they climb the mountain, follow the streams, and explore together. As the book goes along, they become teenagers, adults, and middle-aged men who regularly check in with each other. Or more precisely Pietro, the wanderer (and narrator), checks in with Bruno (who knows no other life than living on the mountain side). It's a perfectly sweet book with a charming quality but ultimately I was a little underwhelmed. The writing is basic and the story is never especially gripping or insightful. It always feels as though the book is on the verge of saying something about life, about friendship and isolation, about death and loss, about something. But it never quite does. It just plods along in a rather bland manner. Even the obvious tug of war between nature and modernity isn't entirely meaningful. I kept waiting for something to happen but all I got was a prosaic story that has been done better elsewhere. There are occasional moments where it almost becomes something beautiful but doesn't quite get there, offering little more than a straight-forward and forgettable story. Under normal circumstances this would be fine and I'd pass the book off as a mildly enjoyable and readable piece. But this book has quite a lot of hype around it and has apparently been translated into a billion languages (my copy has a quote from Annie Proulx describing it as 'exquisite' and 'achingly painful' and I'm sorry... but it's none of those things). I'm afraid this gets filed under 'contemporary literature lets me down again.' It's not a terrible book by any stretch, there's just nothing remarkable about it and I wish the media, publishers, etc (whoever it is) would stop promoting average literature like this as something profound and impressive. It's fine. It's perfectly fine. 6/10

Any recommendations? Doesn't even have to be a good twist. Recently I enjoyed 'I See you' (2019) And even 'Black Butterfly' (2017) despite the twist being fairly obvious (to me at least). That's the kind of thing I'm looking for though.

The Appointment (1997) Herta Muller A female factory worker in Ceausecu's Romania is on the tram heading towards an appointment with the secret police. On the way there she reminisces about many things in her life, including her ex husband, her current husband, her work, her friend Lilli, and her life in general. The book returns to the present day on the tram as the narrative goes along so the sensation of this entire book taking place in her head, her racing thoughts, is very effective and, consequently, produces a distinct stream-of-consciousness style. Similar to the first book I read by Muller, it took a while to get into this. I have many issues with stream-of-consciousness writing and find that when it's good, it's excellent but when it's bad, it's a barrage of profoundly inane navel-gazing. It's difficult to care about people and events that are so remote from you that they're being casually brushed over in the mind of a fiction character. It's hard not to find it all rather trivial and indulgent. What do I care that your grandfather had a glass eye or that your co-worker is a dick but one you eventually sleep with? It all feels somewhat detached and vague, producing a sense of the obscure and unclear. But Muller is clearly a gifted writer so more often than not, I was very engaged by her writing and enjoyed the book. I found the life she was writing about mostly interesting and thoughtful. But I just don't like this style of writing in general, even when it's done well. Muller is very good at creating a sense of oppression and fear, however, and the two books I've read by her both deal exceptionally well with the totalitarianism of communist Romania. It's difficult not to come away feeling impressed. 7/10

The Setting Sun (1947) Osamu Dazai The narrator, Kazuko, a 29-year-old woman who is recently divorced, is forced to live with her mother in the country as they have lost their previous home. She takes care of her mother as she is afflicted with various ailments but it seems clear that the end is in sight. As such, Kazuko is looking for a purpose, a reason to keep going, and, having dabbled with notions of Christianity and Marxism, has ultimately settled on the notion that she she is love with a married man she barely knows. They met only briefly and he was inappropriate with her but she, over estimating the significance of the encounter, has imbued the potential relationship with a profound aura of love. Meanwhile, her brother, Naoji, (who inadvertently introduced his sister to this man) has returned from the war with an opium and alcohol addiction. As the book comes to a climax, there is little in the shape of happiness to be had for either. I enjoyed reading this a lot. There is a simplicity to Dazai's writing which elevates it to a level of disturbing intimacy. You're immediately naked with these characters, a witness to their inner shame and guilt. There is always a feeling that some residual sin has taken place, something salacious and defining. Dazai speaks of being between worlds, of morals and values, of one system of civilisation being replaced with another. He uses Kazuko (and Naoji) as vessels for exploring these changes. And, given the accusation of misogyny he often receives for No Longer Human, I think he does a pretty good job of fleshing out Kazuko as a woman with a genuine humanity, seeking a genuine desire for meaning. It was short and sweet, and enjoyable to read. Dazai has a technique which gets to the point whilst simultaneously giving you food for thought. He takes the bleak and makes it very human. 8/10

Froth on the Daydream - Foam on the Daze - Mood Indigo (1947) Boris Vian This one was a curiosity. A surrealist novel about Colin meeting and falling in love with Chloe. My version was called 'Mood Indigo' but I think it has also been translated as 'Foam on the Daze' and, most commonly, 'Froth on the Daydream.' The book exists in a world of whimsy and surrealism, a world where you can walk down the street inside a cloud, where rooms change shape, where a mouse is a central character, where technology and dreams are combined in bizarre and peculiar ways. The book is full of absurdist quirks that are sometimes charming, sometimes silly (or downright unclear). Colin has a clavicocktail, for example, which, as far as I could gather, is like a piano that, when you play it, produces special (unique) drinks depending on what notes you play. Not long after Colin and Chloe get married, she falls ill and develops water lily of the lung, an ailment that can only be cured by being surrounded by flowers. Colin, having lost or given away a lot of his money, must find (an assortment of weird and wonderful) jobs to pay for the flowers. The writing is fairly basic and easy to read. I enjoyed the experience and finished the book quite quickly. Given that this book has been on my 'to read' list for a very long time (and I therefore had some awareness of what to expect), I was slightly disappointed by how conventional the book actually turned out to be. The surrealism comes in sporadic waves, only hints at a greater potential for the absurd and other worldly, and is often quite sparse and even a little juvenile and silly when it does arrive. But in a strange way, it works and by the final third of the book, I was slightly in love with it all. It was rather heartbreaking and beautiful. At least to me. Watching someone's grief and heartbreak through the prism of a surrealist lens was actually very effective and created a dream-like sense of sorrow. The idea of a flower growing in Chloe's lungs as a metaphor for cancer, the idea of surrounding her with flowers as a cure. I want to say that this book was really nothing very special, a straight-forward piece of writing, terse and formulaic, an example of simplistic prose, a book that was never that original or impressive and yet... it affected me for some reason. It got me. It made me feel something. I thought it was rather beautiful. 9/10

Reading a book with several titles. The most common appears to be 'Froth on the Daydream" but there's also "Foam on the Daze" and the one I'm reading called "Mood Indigo." By Boris Vian.

a woman got on the bus who looked familiar. It was the Nobel prize winner writer Olga Tokarczuk. I had some questions about her work and how to pronounce her name so walked over to her and said...

Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of the Dead (2009) Olga Tokarczuk I really enjoyed this. It wasn't what I was expecting. It begins with a woman in her sixties, Janina Duszejko (the narrator), being woken by her neighbour (who she refers to as Oddball) because another neighbour (Bigfoot) has been found dead in unusual circumstances. At first this seems like a simple starting point for an altogether more introspective narrative but what follows is a series of deaths which produces a slight whodunit quality I wasn't anticipating. While other dismiss the deaths as accidents Janina (being so inclined) suspects that the animals are somehow involved. Eventually, the book reaches, what seemed to me, to be a somewhat inevitable conclusion given the slow development of events but which others might describe as a twist. I don't think it can be viewed that way however. The prose is crisp and clean (with occasional flourishes) but never becomes anything truly outstanding or exquisite. Olga Tokarczuk is a Nobel prize winner, however, so I would need to read more of her work to make a better judgement. For me, the book was very readable but the majority of my pleasure came from the story and the character of Janina herself, more than from the actual writing. Janina is not a sympathetic character, she believes things which are absurd (astrology) and has cantankerous traits which make one think of those elderly women who 'demand to see the manager.' She is outraged by the behaviour of young people, makes haughty complaints, and thinks certain people are scandalous. As a character, she is one of the most wonderfully realised I've ever come across. You have absolutely met women like this. And yet there are moments when, even as she maintains her disdainful qualities, she surprises you. Her love of animals, for example which, like the book itself, is a strong feature. And her cool indifference to social etiquette like the way she describes having sex with a younger man she has only just met. "I raised the quilt and invited him to join me, but as I am neither maudlin nor sentimental, I shall not dwell on it any further." As such, she is the the embodiment of the unreliable narrator. But it's hard not to take her at her word. I really liked this woman. I really loved this book. And I suspect that she and John Wick would have lots to talk about. Will definitely be reading more of her work. 8/10

But I told her to bugger off because I had an appointment with...

Fart. It had the combined scent of death and beetroot and...

The Opposing Shore (1951) Julien Gracq Two fictional European states have been at war for 300 years though, in recent decades, there have been no military engagements, only the constant, ongoing threat that such engagements might, at any moment, be reignited. The protagonist, Aldo, is sent from the comfort of his home in Orsenna to a fort on the coast in Syrtes where he is increasingly intrigued by the idea of sailing towards the enemy coastline of Farghestan. The book slowly (very slowly) builds to a feverish, almost dream-like desire for the war to return, for the waiting to have a purpose. If this reminds you of 'The Tartar Steppe' then that makes sense because they are both inspired by the trope of 'Waiting for the Barbarians.' The book is hard to review because there are moments of great literary quality otherwise lost in a swamp of turgid language that drowns these moments out. It is written in a baroque style of dense verbosity which becomes (for me at least) an altogether unpleasant experience to read. When it's good, it's superb but when it's bad (which it is the majority of the time) it's a gloopy treacle of meandering nonsense lost in a quagmire of simile and metaphor (the word 'like' is massively overused). There are times (few and far between) when it reaches glorious heights of exquisite prose: "just as a landscape painted against the background of a black room loses its vital iridescence but thereby acquires a mineral stability and seems to filter out things what best translates their dim reverie of inertia, it was as if the sounds here were decanted, filtered through a cloak of snow, whereby they lost their ordinary meaning in order to swell to a deep and indistinct murmur which became the very sound of returning life." But these moments are ultimately lost within the general swell of ornate and elaborate molasses which is Gracq's style. I would read a paragraph of viscous word salad several times before even grasping what he was saying only to discover (after my headache had abated) that it was something banal about the shape of the trees in a valley. Where seven words would suffice, Gracq gives us seven hundred and spirals them around an esoteric dream of intoxicated obscurantism until you're either enchanted or (in my case) losing the will to live. Despite my misgivings, I would definitely recommend the book as the writing is good (and the pointlessness of waiting for life to happen theme is intriguing) but ultimately it's a style of writing that doesn't speak to me. Others might be seduced by this kind of technique but I was left (much like Aldo) craving an ending. 5/10

Just bought... 'Mysteries' by Knut Hamsun. 'Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead' by Olga Tokarczuk. 'The Setting Sun' by Osamu Dazai 'The Appointment' by Herta Müller.

One Moonlit Night (1961) Caradog Prichard Dew, I just read this book. Dew, I really enjoyed it. Dew, it was really quite charming. Dew, I liked the way he described people as Price the School, Owen the Coal, or Bob Milk Cart. A young (nameless) boy (around ten) narrates his experiences of the many moonlit nights he experiences in a small village in Wales during and after the first world war. This is very clearly based on Caradog Prichard's own life. He hangs about with his pals Huw and Moi, dreams of the lovely Ceri (roughly ten years older than him), and loves listening to the men in the choir. He helps his mam as she irons and cooks and goes shopping; he watches as she gradually descends into mental illness. There is something very romantic about the book. It deals with childhood memory very effectively but also with the tribulations of small village life. And it is, of course, very Welsh (having been translated from the Welsh to English). Sometimes the book is charming and light (the chapter with the football match which evoked a real sense of community and nostalgia) and sometimes it is profoundly sad and introspective (his best friend Moi's illness). At other times it simply details life as it was then, drinking, mining, quarries, funerals, boxing, bread and butter, the war. It was a nice window into another time and place. It is a small story with a melancholy heart. There are moments of genuine beauty in the writing, almost a touch of magical realism, and the occasional flourish of such lyrical fluidity that it feels close to being stream-of-consciousness when, in reality, it is anything but. And never has Christianity or the bible seemed more beautiful than in the hands of Prichard. The book must be even more wonderful in the original Welsh. And who doesn't love a book with a character called Mary Plums? 8/10

River Deep Mountain High -Tina Turner

Just as long as it's not the Yanks or the Germans.

Seven Years (2009) Peter Stamm This is a tricky (more nuanced) review to write. Because on the one hand, I thought the writing was very basic and forgettable, dry and matter-of-fact, with very little in the way of creative or imaginative prose. The language is sparse, to-the-point and, truth be told, of little literary significance. That being said, it's immensely easy to read and goes along at a pace. I enjoyed reading the book (especially the middle section) a great deal. But what really got me was the book's exploration of the existential trauma of love. This really fascinated me. The story is a straight forward one about a student (Alex) who has a casual one night stand with a stranger, a slightly dull Polish girl called Ivona. Meanwhile he develops a serious relationship with Sonia (she being among his architect student friends). As the novel progresses, his relationship with Sonia intensifies until marriage inevitably comes along. But he continues, almost against his will, to keep seeing Ivona. He doesn't entirely understand why. Sonia is beautiful and clever, middle-class, has a wonderful future ahead of her. Ivona, by contrast, is not physically attractive, an uneducated immigrant, poor, and not very interesting, she is devoutly religious and lacks opinions on most subjects. The book goes from being a rather bland love triangle into something far more existential. Sonia is a good match, who he should be with, the perfect woman. But she doesn't need him. She doesn't crave him. Her love has conditions. Ivona, on the other hand, is almost a slave, utterly captivated by Alex and accepts him in totality as her spiritual husband. She will not disagree with him, she will not resist him (especially when he wants sex), and she will always be on his side, unconditionally. Alex tries to grasp the pull she has on him but can't quite do it. There are some people that want us but there are others who need, crave, and live for us. Sometimes two human beings simply connect in a way that burrows deep into the soul. Sometimes, it is inexplicable. It would tempting to dismiss this book as yet another insight into the bored lives of middle-class people (and yes, there is a lot of that), but for me the narrator (Alex) is not the point. Neither is Sonia, nor their daughter Sophie, nor their aunt Antje. This book is about Ivona. She is something quite remarkable. 7/10

It's arrived and a quick flick through it shows that (unlike Satantango and Melancholy) it has... breaks in the chapters. Looking forward to it now.

A Certain Smile (1956) Francoise Sagan I managed to read this little book by accident due to not realising that my copy 'Bonjour Tristesse' also contained it (that was not made clear by the front cover). Anyway, it took a few chapters before I even realised because... well, because it's more of the same. The only thing that actually changed was the character's name. Otherwise, it's the same girl, the same life, an alter ego for Sagan and her experiences. The character is simply Cecile but a few years on, with the same spoiled entitled outlook, the same apparent boredom with people who don't marvelously entertain her, the same selfishness, the same ignorance of other human beings being as important as her. Nonetheless, the book is well written and easy to read, this time the story being focused on Dominique's affair with a married man (Luc). It's all very French and (ooh look how little I care about things and how shockingly liberal I am) and it plods along nicely but I never really cared. This is ultimately the problem with literature by teenagers; it's like a 50-year-old reading what he tweeted when he was 20. CRINGE!! It's made even worse when it's a young girl bragging about her love affair with an older man as though this is an accomplishment. Shooting fish in a barrel, love But the banal, self-obsessed narrative aside, she can certainly write and I would actually say I enjoyed this more than Bonjour Tristesse. Both end with a somewhat unconvincing moment of realising that other people matter too. That there are consequences to your actions. But I never really belived Sagan actually learnt that lesson, she simply needed an ending. Overall, it was fine. 6/10

immediately seduced me. Off we went to bed and made love like...

Bonjour Tristesse (1954) Francoise Sagan I appear to have accidentally finished this without realising and continued reading 'A Certain Smile' thinking it was the same book (which it frankly could be). I didnt realise it was both books. Anyway, I guess I should review it. The story is of 17-year-old Cecile and her father, Raymond, who are essentially spoiled hedonists who are summering by the coast. She swims in the sea and they laugh together and adore one another. Raymond has regular girlfriends, often young and not much older than Cecile which Cecile entirely approves of and enjoys. She views them as mildly amusing distractions. He is currently seeing Elsa while at the same time Cecile is seeing a young man called Cyril. Then, one day, Anne arrives, an old friend of her mother and very quickly begins a relationship with Raymond. Elsa is dropped and Raymond and Anne announce that they're getting married. Cecille is not happy about this and, with the help of Elsa and Cyril, intends to sabotage the relationship. It was very easy to read and for the most part, I enjoyed it. The chapters breezed by (so much so that I started reading 'A Certain Smile' without even realising (my copy of the book only says 'Bonjour Tristesse). Anyway, it was a fun romp but nothing more. In truth, these characters are spoiled brats and immensely unlikeable (with the possible exception of Anne). If this book had been written by a man, the reviews would be an endless slew of screaming about privilege and so on. But it's written by a woman so we can skip that. Yes, Cecile is awful, spoiled, privileged, mercurial and ungrateful. Yes, she endlessly complains of being bored. But it was fun. I guess I should carry on reading 'A Certain Smile' now. 6/10

Bought 'War and War' by Krasznahorkai and 'Seven Years' by Peter Stamm.

I'm gonna try War and War next.

The Melancholy of Resistance (1989) László Krasznahorkai The story (as loose as it is) revolves around a small (always bleak) town where people traipse from street to street, from pub to cemetery, from house to square, etc. Then, one day, a circus arrives with an enormous dead whale as a unique spectacle. This seems to upset everyone, almost to an existential point and results in a riot that requires the presence of the military. The primary characters all know each other but seemingly have their own interpretations of what is happening. Eszter, his wife, Valuska, his mother. What follows is a decent into madness and death, a confused paranoia and fear which, in swirling, never ending sentences, creates an atmosphere of desolate claustrophobia and isolation. As always with Krasznahorkai, this book could be set on the streets of communist Hungary in the 1980s or, just as easily, could be set in a windswept wasteland of the future, some dystopian nightmare 300 years from now. Either would work. My experience of this book was much like that of my first Krasznahorkai book (Satantango) in the sense that I could see how accomplished the writing was, how bleak and apocalyptic the setting (which I adored), and how fascinating the man's insights are. But (equally) I just didn't ever enjoy the reading experience that much. There are times when it's great (the opening chapter really had me) but then there are times when the chapters (that last for a billion pages) and the walls of text (without a solitary paragraph break), become oppressive and exhausting. And while that might all be viewed as part of the experience (Krasznahorkai deals with oppressive landscapes after all), the bottom line is I, as a reader, occasionally need to breathe. That isn't to say I didnt enjoy the book because, for the most part, I did. It's more the case that I actively want to do more than simply like it, I want to adore the man's writing but... I just never quite do. Every page has something wonderful in it, a sentence, a phrase, a stream-of-consciousness moment that is lyrical and captivating. The final section describing the cold mechanical process of death is truly stark, blunt and mesmerising. And at every turn, you can sense how good the prose is, how wonderfully bleak his ideas are and yet... and yet... it never quite makes me feel any joy or excitement at the prospect of reading the next page. Having known what to expect with the walls of text this time, I paced myself a little more than I did when reading Satantango and found it less gruelling as a result; and while I suspect this book wasn't as good as Satantango, this approach did ultimately help. Hopefully this means I will enjoy the next one a little more too. 7/10