Willoyd's Read Around The World

[lunababymoonchild]

11 hours ago, willoyd said:

Book #16: Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata for Japan **

If ever a book made me feel inadequate....! Acclaimed as a classic, regarded by many as the masterpiece of a Nobel laureate, I failed at pretty much every level to engage with this slim (thank goodness!) novel. As much as anything, I think this must be something of a culture clash, as I can't recall a single Japanese novel that I've enjoyed (I've not read many, but have tried a few now) - at least one reviewer has commented that one needs to understand at least something of the way the geisha system works (I admittedly don't). Even trying to allow for that, whilst I found some of the description of the landscape evocative,  I never really felt there was much point to what I was reading, with 2 characters bumbling along going nowhere, either as people or on any form of narrative arc, and revealing about the same. I stumbled my way through this in a fog of incomprehension and bewilderment, but, unlike some difficult poetry, with no real 'hook' to movitate me to try and work it all out: I found the style of writing almost abrupt, too staccato and fractured, with dialogue where it was all too often difficult to identify who was speaking. I'm just relieved to be able to move on, although I will probably, once given a chance to draw breath, start to wonder what that was all about.

 

This could simply be the translator. I have found that on occasion I can't understand a translated book (The Count of Monte Cristo as it turned out) and it was the translator that was the problem. I put two versions of the book together (in Waterstones at the time) and read the first pages and discovered that I understood one translator better than another. Having had a quick internet search it looks like there is only one translator for that particular book. There is also a study guide, depending on how far you want to go into it - online explanation found here, if it's of use Snow Country Study Guide

[willoyd]

16 minutes ago, lunababymoonchild said:

This could simply be the translator......

Thank you for those thoughts - I hadn't thought of that.  It's certainly been an issue in the past. For instance, I've discovered that I find the translations of Russian novels by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky to be almost unreadable, and positively avoid them now in spite of all the plaudits.  And as for Julie Rose's translation of Les Miserables....!  Etc etc. 

However, as you say, there's only the one translation available here, and it's received good reviews, so I have to take it pretty much at face value.  I think, though, that the real problem for me lies with the genre: I have tried various Japanese writers at various times, and I can't recall a single book I've enjoyed (can't abide Murakami!), in spite of their obvious popularity (and quality).  I don't think it's a coincidence either that the only other 2 star book amongst those I've tackled on this project so far (I'm only 16 books in on a 200 book project though!) is Han Kang's The Vegetarian from near neighbour, South Korea.  In other words, I think there may be a wee bit of a culture clash here.  I don't know - if that is the case, it's the only one I've come across so far, as I'm otherwise really starting to enjoy reaching out beyond my normal reading comfort zone.  But I think I ought to mention the possibility as I don't want others to be put off because of my own personal perspective (or prejudices!).

I'll check out the Study Guide in the New Year, as that could indeed help.  I'm currently working my way through one for TS Eliot's The Waste Land, which completely flummoxed me, and have the Cliff's Notes on As I Lay Dying arriving in the next day or so as follow up to reading that (an astonishingly good book IMO).

[lunababymoonchild]

1 hour ago, willoyd said:

Thank you for those thoughts - I hadn't thought of that.  It's certainly been an issue in the past. For instance, I've discovered that I find the translations of Russian novels by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky to be almost unreadable, and positively avoid them now in spite of all the plaudits.  And as for Julie Rose's translation of Les Miserables....!  Etc etc. 

However, as you say, there's only the one translation available here, and it's received good reviews, so I have to take it pretty much at face value.  I think, though, that the real problem for me lies with the genre: I have tried various Japanese writers at various times, and I can't recall a single book I've enjoyed (can't abide Murakami!), in spite of their obvious popularity (and quality).  I don't think it's a coincidence either that the only other 2 star book amongst those I've tackled on this project so far (I'm only 16 books in on a 200 book project though!) is Han Kang's The Vegetarian from near neighbour, South Korea.  In other words, I think there may be a wee bit of a culture clash here.  I don't know - if that is the case, it's the only one I've come across so far, as I'm otherwise really starting to enjoy reaching out beyond my normal reading comfort zone.  But I think I ought to mention the possibility as I don't want others to be put off because of my own personal perspective (or prejudices!).

I'll check out the Study Guide in the New Year, as that could indeed help.  I'm currently working my way through one for TS Eliot's The Waste Land, which completely flummoxed me, and have the Cliff's Notes on As I Lay Dying arriving in the next day or so as follow up to reading that (an astonishingly good book IMO).

I've resorted to Cliff's Notes and online notes many times. It just depends on how much effort a reader is willing to put in. I bought The Master of Go by Yasunari Kawabata and will see how I get on with that. It's translated by the same translator though so it seems to be take it or leave it.

Edited December 28, 2022 by lunababymoonchild

[willoyd]

Book #17: Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou for the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville) *****
The story of the eponymous boy as he grows up in a Congolese orphanage, later escaping to a life of survival and petty criminality on the streets of Pointe-Noire, whilst seeing himself as a sort of Robin Hood. It's a pretty brutal life, and the violence is notably casual, but the author writes it more in the style of a latter day Don Quixote, a sort of picaresque bildungsroman, than what could have been an unrelentingly grim story. As 'Mose' gradually loses grip on reality, there seems to be an increasingly strong element of that self-deluding Spaniard present right to the end! Overall, this was a fairly easy read which I found myself fairly galloping through. What struck me most was the strong maleness of the book - there are plenty of women, but they aren't drawn in the same depth and seem to flit in and out of the narrative almost casually (that word again!) - although it's the lack of a mother figure, or rather, perhaps, the search for one, that seems to dominate Mose's life. How accurate a reflection of Congolese life at this time this is, I can't say, but there's a ring of authenticity to it that I found convincing - it feels that the author is drawing on personal experience.
Incidentally, the book's title in the original French is 'Petit Piment' or Little Pepper - Mose's nickname in the street gang he belonged to.

Edited September 8, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Book #18: Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid for Antigua ****
Another growing-up story, this time centred on a young girl in Antigua. At the core of the novel is her relationship with her mother - initially very intimate, almost overwhelming, later more mixed and complicated as her mother appears to distance herself from her daughter as the latter reaches puberty - there's certainly growing alienation. But then, we're just seeing this from one perspective, and the reliability is uncertain. Annie certainly seeks substitutes, best-friending intensely successively with 2 contrasting peers. Annie is bright, top of her class, but increasingly rebellious, and the novel examines the complexities of her development - all from Annies point of view. It's beautifully written, with a clarity that makes this short, but very full, novel an easy read - almost too much so, as it's all too easy to miss some of the depth as one gallops from page to page. In particular, it touches on a number of different themes, the most prominent (at least to me) being the influence of colonialism. And yet, I never fully engaged with Annie. I think we're meant to sympathise with her, but there's something (fairly small admittedly) missing, possibly created by the temporal jumps between chapters - this is more episodic than continuous narrative (it was originally published as a series of chapters/short stories in The New Yorker). But still a powerful read, which I am likely to return to.

[willoyd]

Book #19: The Year of the Hare by Arto Paasilinna for Finland ****

A return to Europe, to Scandinavia, with a slim volume that is something of a cult read, although one that I didn't really expect to gel with. However, it's short, a mere 135 pages, so I reckoned I could hack it; the reviews are certainly mixed. In the end, though, I needn't have worried, as this actually really struck a chord, not least as I benefited enormously from getting more involved in nature when dealing with work-generated stress issues, even if my experiences were nothing like this! However, whilst this might have been written in the mid-70s, so much of what it's about resonates even more strongly today.

At heart, this is almost pure social satire (which is partly why I didn't expect to get on with it much, satire often going right over my head!). The main protagonist, Kaarlo Vatinen, rescues a hare that his car hits. The act seems to trigger a major reaction in his mind, and he takes off in the the Finnish landscape, leaving job, wife and his whole lifestyle behind, in spite of their efforts to hang on to him. The book then becomes something of a picaresque, almost back to nature, journey, although this is nature that is distinctly red in tooth, claw and fire. In the meantime, the 'civilised' world keeps threatening to intrude, and however dangerous nature might be, the latter is in danger of threatening even more, often ridiculously so.

The book's humour is often cited but, personally, it rarely made me more than smile. But it didn't need to - I still enjoyed the ridiculousness and the satire. As I so often find, I think the satire would be funnier, blackly so, on film, and I do intend to look out the film that was made of it in the 1970s (there are two adaptations apparently, with another French one made later in the 2000s). In the meantime, this proved to be a much more engaging and rewarding book than I expected, one I would recommend to others. even if just to decide for themselves what they think!

[willoyd]

Book #20: The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas for Norway *****

Another slim Scandinavian volume, regarded as a literary classic by many.  It's certainly hypnotic, highly poetic in style, very lean, even simple, in its language, using a range of techniques that appear to upend many of the norms of 'good' writing (eg deliberately repeating words or phrases, multiple times sometimes, in sentences, really focusing the reader's mind. It's one of those books that is a captivating read even if not sure I fully understood everything going o; it cries out to be reread, probably several times.   There's so much packed in here, that even though it's only 140 pages long, I felt at the end as if I'd read a book at least double the length, and that was not due to boredom!  I also find it very hard to describe my reaction - almost too complex, and much easier to talk than write about it - but perhaps it's sufficient to say that I've immediately ordered a copy of Vesaas's other major work available in English, The Birds.

Edited March 15, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Book #21: The  Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa for Angola *****

Having thoroughly enjoyed the author's more recent book A General Theory of Oblivion as a book group read, I was keen to try him again for my Angolan stop on my Read Around the World. This was the one generally recommended! A interesting quirk of this book, and one that instantly attracted me to it, is that the story is told by a gecko (lizard) whose mobility around the house of the central human character, Felix Ventura, makes him a realistic omniscient narrator. Felix is an albino native of Angola, one who sells clients reinvented/imagined pasts. He is approached by someone who wants to create a completely new, documented, identity, the implication being that they are on the run (but who from?), and far harder core than Felix has been involved in before. Events start to spiral out of control (but not necessarily in the way that one might have imagined!).
A lot of (most?) reviewers suggest that the book has really been misnamed - the narrator is a gecko after all, not a chameleon, but I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding of what the title is referring to - it's not the narrator, but the human characters - adopting new identities, adapting to those identities, camouflaged by them, identities that become more real than their original ones, although these start to break through.... Actually, we find (fairly early on; it's not a spoiler) that our gecko was once human - perhaps the ultimate chameleon of all, now absorbed into the background of Felix's life and work (and regarding Felix as a friend).
It's an intriguing story, told in very short chapters (including a number of dream sequences when the gecko - Eulalio - recalls his human existence) that give a rather staccato feel to the reading at times (deliberately I'm sure, and sometimes rather disconcerting). I'm not sure I really got everything from it first time through, so it's now added to the lengthening queue of books on this tour which I want to reread. I need to find time for them!

Edited April 5, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Book #22: Who Among Us?  by Mario Benedetti for Uruguay ****

My first South American book on the tour! This is a very short novel (novella), telling the story of a three-way relationship, with all three protagonists contributing in their own way. The primary narrator, telling his story through a series of entries in a diary/notebook, is the husband, Miguel. HIs wife, Alicia, contributes barely half a dozen pages, in one letter. The 'lover', Lucas (and also Miguel's best friend) provides the final element, his side told through a short story, written for personal not public consumption ( he is a writer), and footnoted as the story is fiction based on the reality, and the footnotes explain the differences. Complicated? Yes, it is, although for the most part I found the reading reasonably straightforward - it was just those footnotes; I could read the story, or I could read the footnotes, but the latter disrupted the former too much to read in parallel. Maybe that was the point?
It's an odd relationship. Miguel pretty much wills on Alicia's and Lucas's relationship - they are initially pretty antipathetic, and it's only because of Miguel's actions that they ever come together. Love manifests itself in very different ways - and, as with so many love stories, misunderstandings abound, as we find out once we see things from more than one perspective.
To a considerable extent, the plot is really rather trivial. What this is, is a study of 3 characters and their triangular relationship. The plot is the relationship. The book is brief, and very much to the point. It may be less than a hundred pages long, but it feels worth so much more.

Edited April 5, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Book #23:  History. A Mess. by Sigrun Palsdottir for Iceland *****

A young, female post-grad student studying a 400-year old diary trying to see if she can link the author to a famous portrait artist of the English Civil War era, finds a series of clues that suggest that not only is there a link, but that the artist is female, the first female professional artist in Britain. Her thesis is based around this premise, yet just as she's due to finish and submit, she finds an overseen entry that looks like it blows her work out of the water. What to do?
This is the central premise for a plot that sees our protagonist (I don't think she's ever named) come under increasing strain as she tries to come to a conclusion, returning to her native Iceland with her husband, Hans, and struggling to retain her equilibrium and sanity.
I was intrigued, increasingly so as I continued to read. The book is written from the perspective of the central character, and we see the world as she sees it. As a result, things become thoroughly increasingly disjointed as our subject starts to struggle mentally, imagining what people are saying, flashing back to and reliving remembered incidents (is her memory reliable?), becoming increasingly confused, even hallucinatory (early on, she contemplates a door in her sitting room that she doesn't ever recall seeing before!) as she struggles to hold on to reality. Tjhere are moments of real concern, but also of some humour.
It's a book which I can't pretend I understood all the time. Quite a few reviewers completely lost it, and a fair number reported giving up, but every time I though I might be losing it altogether, things seemed to resolve themselves again, and the mystery, quality of writing, and interest in the main character, kept me reading all the way to the end. I needed those moments of clarity though! I'm glad I persisted - the last dozen pages or so produced an ending that not only left me really pleased I'd made it, but also looking forward to going back and exploring the book further (it's only 170 pages long) to try and get to grips with elements I failed to grasp first time round.
This was not an easy read (well, the reading was easy, it was comprehension that wasn't always!), but one I found ultimately worth the effort. I'm certainly looking forward to the second of the author's books to be translated, Embroidery, due out soon!

Edited April 5, 2023 by willoyd

[Hayley]

On 3/31/2023 at 11:13 PM, willoyd said:

The  Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa for Angola *****

 

18 hours ago, willoyd said:

History. A Mess. by Sigrun Palsdottir for Iceland *****

My wish list is huge right now but both of these are being added! 
 

I also think, without having actually read The Book of Chameleons, that you’re right about the meaning of the title. It actually seems like quite a clever way of drawing the reader’s attention to the idea!

[willoyd]

Book #24: The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield for New Zealand *****

I'm not a great short story reader, all too often finding them rather unsatisfying, but i have to make an exception for these. I think that's because Mansfield focuses so much more on character and place than on pure plot. They are more vignettes that tell us something about lives, even about ourselves. No more so than in the first, and longest, story At The Bay, which consists of 13 different 'episodes' spread over a day at or near the bay in question, building layer upon layer. The language is concise but rich - both places and characters come vividly alive in a very short space. One can see very quickly why she's regarded as one of the leading developers of modernist writing - these stories have a very strong affinity with, for instance, Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse and I can certainly see why Woolf so respected Mansfield's work. Perhaps the first short story writer whose work I'm going to definitely read more of - and have acquired a really nice second-hand copy of Constable's The Collected Stories in order to do so!
I immediately followed this with Claire Tomalin's A Secret Life; it doesn't tell us much (if anything!) about the generation of her work, and, unusually for a Tomalin work, left me a little bit unsatisfied, but provides some interesting insight into the difficult, fractured life of someone who, to be honest, I found it rather hard to warm to (maybe that's why I was unsatisfied?). I also have a copy of, and plan to read soon, Claire Harman's All Sorts Of Lives, which hopefully will provide more insight into the stories themselves as well, as well as possible alternative perspectives.

Edited April 17, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

4 hours ago, Hayley said:

My wish list is huge right now but both of these are being added!

 

Yes, mine is rather large too!  This challenge (and the American one) just makes it worse as well - I'm finding all sorts of authors whose work I want to explore more!

[willoyd]

Book #25: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez for Colombia *****

A book group read as well as a read for this challenge. A 'big' novel in more ways than one, this was an anything but easy read, even if very  readable (if that makes sense!).  A saga of seven generations of a family responsible for setting up a remote village in Columbia, reflecting the history of the country and its people's experience. Being anything but an expert on Latin American history, I spent much of my time wondering what on earth it was all about, and was grateful at the end to read a number of critiques, but the themes of colonialism and the human inability to apparently learn from history were all too clear!  The strength and centrality of the female characters were prominent as well.  Rich, colourful, unrelenting, this was a rare book that left me mentally exhausted (and wore out most of the book group - only 3 of us finished in it in the timeframe available, although several said they would continue with it) - although well sated.  Needs a reread though, although I need some recovery time!  Monumental.

Edited June 1, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Alternative for New Zealand (#24):  Potiki by Patricia Grace *****

Another in a series of slim volumes that packs a big punch! Initially reading in the rather stiff and repetitive way of of a traditional oral tale, this, as with many world books tackled to date, took a little bit of getting into, but, as with all the others, it wasn't overlong before I found it thoroughly engrossing - this one picked up enormously at the point when the developers start to try and persuade the residents to sell up. Telling the story of how a group of Maori inhabitants of traditionally owned land on the seashore stood their ground against developers trying to establish, by hook or by crook, a major leisure complex*, the novel was an object lesson in culture clash and failure to understand a different point of view - classic post-colonial literature. Modernist in style, this had definite whiffs of Woolf and Mansfield about it, but was oh so different (interesting comparing and contrasting this with Mansfield's 'At The Bay' and, to a lesser extent, elements of Woolf's 'To The Lighthouse'). A book that definitely grew on me.

*Later reflected in Grace's own experience resisting the New Zealand government's efforts to compulsorily purchase land she lived on to develop an expressway.

[willoyd]

Book #26: Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih for Sudan ******

Edited September 8, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Book #27: Standing Heavy by GauZ for Cote d'Ivoire *****

Just the sort of book that makes this project so worthwhile - I almost certainly wouldn't have read this but for the stimulus this challenge has provided to hunt out books from further afield, and in parts of the literary arena never really previously explored.  This slim noel and quickly readable novel   focuses on a group of Ivorians trying to make their way as "undocumented immigrants" in Paris. Working as security guards they see much of the underbelly of Western capitalism and consumerism, and it's not a pretty sight.  Satirical, wrily ironic, vivid, vibrant, with much to say about post-colonial attitudes in both France and Africa,  I was grabbed from the word go, reading this in two sittings (and wanting it to last longer). 

Edited September 30, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Book #28: Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov for Bulgaria ***

Intrigued by it's winning the International Booker, this was the book for Bulgaria in my Reading Around the World project.

Initial impressions were very promising if a little confusing: a slightly surrealistic tale of a series of clinics set up to to deal with dementia by creating safe environments for sufferers in a time they could remember - rooms exactly reproducing a decade - and the almost inexorable expansion of that concept into the wider world, spiralling into nationalist politics. Dystopian satire?  Certainly a cutting examination of recent trends throughout (especially) Europe.

I was fascinated by the concept and ideas, but have to admit that I found the book itself an increasingly difficult read, so much so that I rather struggled to reach the end. It was worth it, and some of the ideas continue to resonate, but it was tough going!

 

Edited September 30, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Book #29: Travelling in a Strange Land by David Parks for Northern Ireland *****

Almost a novella, this beautifully written story focuses in on the thoughts of one man as he drives across a snowbound border country from Stranraer to Sunderland to pick his poorly son up from university at the end of his first autumn term there. Much is revealed about the man's family history and its impact on his relationship with his family.  Beautifully written, full of atmosphere, made almost claustrophobic by the state of the landscape (the descriptive writing was excellent), this really took me by surprise, coming from an author I'd not even heard of until nominated for one of my book groups.  For me the second half didn't quite live up to the first, but our discussion, one of the best we've had, helped me understand why the author took the route they did, and led to me adding a star back on! A book that really underlined the value of book groups to me if nothing else, but also, and perhaps more importantly, led to me thinking a lot more about my own role as a father and individual.

Edited September 30, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Book #30: The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah for Ghana *****

From several promising looking books, I chose this one based on its appearance on the Big Jubilee list, which has been the source of some cracking reads already, and the fact that The Leeds Library, a subscription library I belong to (the oldest surviving in England!) had got a stock in for one of the book groups, so was easy to get hold of!
The narrative focuses on 'the man' (he's never named), a railway clerk who, very unusually, is absolutely honest in what is shown to be an utterly corrupt society, the Ghana of the Nkrumah era. Colleagues, even relatives, don't understand why he takes the line he does, and no-one more resents his 'failure' to take advantage than his wife and mother-in-law, who, in particular, want to enter in a deal with a local party high-up over the ownership of a boat, and reap the rewards they perceive will be forthcoming. The book homes in on how his honesty affects these relationships, and the internal monologue that the man holds with himself - even he's not sure why he does what he does. But then events take a turn....
Most distinctive for me was the author's ability to draw a picture, one into which I really felt pulled - this was a place, never visited by me, that really came alive. It could be fairly gruesome too: the author used basic bodily functions and the contrast in toilet environments to really underline the difference between the corrupt 'haves', and the (more) honest 'have nots'. This is a distinctly post-colonial novel, but one that highlights the fact that (apparently)even after independence in Ghana everything 'white' was the aspiration, and anything native was to be deplored (some reviewers say that's still a problem). The colonial masters had simply changed colour themselves, treating the 'lessers' in just the same way as the previously European colonists had. I have to admit, I found the excremental side of things rather overwhelming at a couple of key moments, when I could only read through gritted teeth and clenched muscles - descriptions and details were all too vivid, and far too real to be anything but excruciating! But they certainly pushed the point (and the narrative) home. There are also passages where it feels all too much that the author has climbed up on his soap box and his bludgeoning us with his hectoring, but fortunately, they didn't overly dominate the book, and only once really felt intrusive - Armah was far stronger when he was showing than when he was telling.
Overall, this was a powerful read. It wasn't 'easy', but it certainly wasn't as difficult as the reviewer who claimed it would take anybody weeks to read (it's less than 200 pages) suggested. I read it in less than a week, and it only took that long because I was staying with friends for the weekend in the middle and unable to have my usual reading time. Well worth 5 out of 7 stars, and yet another great read for Africa, my 9th book from that continent, the most consistently rewarding continent to date so far.

 

[willoyd]

Book #31:  Minty Alley by CLR James for Trinidad and Tobago *****

There are other candidates for the most famous book from Trinidad and Tobago, the latest stop on my Reading The World tour, not least A House for Mr Biswas, or pretty much anything by VS Naipaul, but I decided to opt for this on discovering it was the first novel by a Black Caribbean writer to be published in England. I came to it, and that fact, through it being included in the Black Britain collection published by Penguin and curated by Bernardine Evaristo. Whilst I'm sure the alternatives are great (and Biswas is on my to-read list), I have absolutely no regrets making this choice, rather the opposite!
Haynes (I'm not sure we ever learn his first name) lives on his own, his mother having recently died. He needs to downsize, and, against the advice of his loyal servant, Ella, he opts to take a room in the house of Mrs Rouse, at no. 2 Minty Alley. The house is a very mixed bag, including Mrs Rouse's lover, Benoit, various lodgers, servants and relatives. The book, just 260 pages long, tells the life of this household and how, almost against his will, Haynes moves from observer to active participant in this menagerie of characters. It's a fascinating, colourful, loud character study, and, (if accurate - I have no evidence one way or another), social portrait, bringing this small community vividly to life, vibrantly coloured. There's certainly plenty of passion and scandal, and the whole novel, including the writing, felt distinctly more modern than it's 1936 publication would suggest. For a book that addressed so many 'issues', it had a remarkably light feel to it - this was a distinctly enjoyable, entertaining, almost rollicking read. 5 stars out of 6.

Edited September 30, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Book #32: Stories From Nauru by Bam Bam Solomon and others, plus readings from Indigenous Literatures from Micronesia  ****
My geography of the Pacific Island nations is, at best, sketchy, so venturing there for my first book from that region in my Reading the World project was a bit of an act of personal discovery. As I found out, Nauru is the third smallest nation in the world in terms of land area (only Monaco and Vatican City are smaller - I was really surprised to find that it's barely one-third the size of San Marino!), and population (Vatican City and Tuvalu are smaller), even fewer people than my nearest (small market) town in West Yorkshire (Otley)! It's not surprising then that its depth of literature is not great, particularly given the largely oral cultures that prevail in that part of the world. Even finding something to read was something of a challenge but, fortunately, the source that Ann Morgan used for her Year of Reading the World, proved equally productive for me over a decade later, and I was able to obtain a copy of Stories From Nauru from the Masalai Press in California (very effectively and efficiently packed and despatched too). Also published in the past few years has been a rather attractively presented anthology, Indigenous Literatures of Micronesia, part of The New Oceania Literary Series from the University of Hawaii (relatively new, with just 2 volumes in it so far), with 4 readings from Nauru within its covers. So, not a huge amount (Stories is just 20 pages long), but what this combination lacked in quantity, it more than masw up in interest.

Ann herself wrote an excellent review of Stories, which says far more than I ever could, so do read her commentary .  What I can say is that I found the combined collection fascinating - an eclectic mix of folklore retold, personal experiences (or so they read), and reportage. There's a distinct thread to these pieces- they don't make for the happiest reading - with a distinct sense of sadness, almost wistfulness, for how life was, or how it could have been, and the disconnection Nauruans are in danger of suffering from their culture and sense of identity, if they aren't already doing so. Inevitably, the impact of the phosphate mining that has devastated the island environment, and the mismanagement of the sovereign fund that should have provided the islanders with some financial security, has a presence too.

However, I did thoroughly enjoy what I read (more than once). My impression is that most of the authors were somewhat inexperienced at the time of writing - Stories after all derived from a literacy workshop designed to promote creative writing on the island - but the quality rather belied this, although there was a rawness, or freshness, about these pieces that I find thoroughly engaging, particularly given their brevity (succinctness!). It all certainly bodes well for my further explorations in the Pacific region. Both books thoroughly recommended (although Indigenous Literatures is likely to be much easier to obtain!).

[willoyd]

Book #33: Chess Story by Stefan Zweig for Austria  *****

More a novella than a novel, the quality of this psychological study more than compensates for the lack of volume! A group of cruise passengers take on the world chess champion in a series of matches, and takes the latter by surprise through the intervention of a complete unknown who, whilst surprisingly diffident, uncertain and apparently having not played for many years, is devastatingly incisive, leading the group to victory. How? It's intense, stark, and utterly riveting, posing some big questions about the human psyche. A book to reread (it only takes a couple of hours)!

Edited December 16, 2023 by willoyd

[willoyd]

Book #34:  The Wandering Falcon by Jamil Ahmad for Pakistan *****

A series of short stories, linked through the life of the 'Falcon', set in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border region, the author having worked much of his life as a Pakistani government official in the region.  The language is simply constructed but with a clarity that seemed so appropriate for a largely desert, mountainous, environment!  As a westerner (even though I've visited Pakistan) the culture was totally alien, but, with a strong sense of authorial sympathy for his characters and subject, I felt I gained much insight.  I was certainly gripped - this is a short book and pretty much unputdownable. 

Edited December 16, 2023 by willoyd

[itsmeagain]

On 9/30/2023 at 10:54 PM, willoyd said:

Book #31:  Minty Alley by CLR James for Trinidad and Tobago *****

There are other candidates for the most famous book from Trinidad and Tobago, the latest stop on my Reading The World tour, not least A House for Mr Biswas, or pretty much anything by VS Naipaul, but I decided to opt for this on discovering it was the first novel by a Black Caribbean writer to be published in England. I came to it, and that fact, through it being included in the Black Britain collection published by Penguin and curated by Bernardine Evaristo. Whilst I'm sure the alternatives are great (and Biswas is on my to-read list), I have absolutely no regrets making this choice, rather the opposite!
Haynes (I'm not sure we ever learn his first name) lives on his own, his mother having recently died. He needs to downsize, and, against the advice of his loyal servant, Ella, he opts to take a room in the house of Mrs Rouse, at no. 2 Minty Alley. The house is a very mixed bag, including Mrs Rouse's lover, Benoit, various lodgers, servants and relatives. The book, just 260 pages long, tells the life of this household and how, almost against his will, Haynes moves from observer to active participant in this menagerie of characters. It's a fascinating, colourful, loud character study, and, (if accurate - I have no evidence one way or another), social portrait, bringing this small community vividly to life, vibrantly coloured. There's certainly plenty of passion and scandal, and the whole novel, including the writing, felt distinctly more modern than it's 1936 publication would suggest. For a book that addressed so many 'issues', it had a remarkably light feel to it - this was a distinctly enjoyable, entertaining, almost rollicking read. 5 stars out of 6.

Amazing book, I read it in c1985.

Still love to read it again.