Hux Book Blog 2024 (Spoilers)

[Hux]

Immobility (2012) Brian Evenson

 

A man is woken, brought out of storage after many years, perhaps decades, and tries to remember who he is. He cannot use his legs and cannot remember anything. It's the future, there has been a terrible nuclear war, and there are very few survivors. He is told that his name is Josef Horkai and they (the community) have woken him for an important mission. Two men (Qanik and Qatik) must carry him outside into the radioactive wasteland to a place many miles away where he must find a cylinder and bring it back. Qanik and Qatik will surely die after such prolonged exposure but Horkai is special and will survive and that is why he was awoken from storage for this mission.

So this book was mostly fun to read. Evenson does a good job describing the barren post-apocalyptic landscape and creates a curious mystery which keeps you guessing to the end (or close to the end). The characters are very perfunctory and straight-forward. The setting is the real selling point. I enjoyed the first half with Qanik and Qatik taking turns carrying him through the wasteland, chatting about their experiences, answering and asking questions along the way. Their protective suits and masks reiterate that this is a nightmare world for them, where very little can survive, where death is guaranteed. But not for Horkai, he does not need a protective suit and can heal at an astonishing rate (this being the real mystery of the book).

The writing is fairly basic, nothing too creative, but it sufficiently pushes the story along. This is another example of the genre being the thing that will keep your interest. Either you like post-apocalyptic stories or you don't. I would say this had an original concept but it slightly lost its way towards the end and signposted what was happening. But I was already invested by that point. And I enjoyed visiting this world for a while and especially the early parts where Horkai is carried by his two hulking (albeit innocent) companions.

A fun but bleak story of the nuclear hellscape.

 

7/10

[friendofbooks]

On 9/30/2024 at 10:38 AM, Hux said:

Immobility (2012) Brian Evenson

 

A man is woken, brought out of storage after many years, perhaps decades, and tries to remember who he is. He cannot use his legs and cannot remember anything. It's the future, there has been a terrible nuclear war, and there are very few survivors. He is told that his name is Josef Horkai and they (the community) have woken him for an important mission. Two men (Qanik and Qatik) must carry him outside into the radioactive wasteland to a place many miles away where he must find a cylinder and bring it back. Qanik and Qatik will surely die after such prolonged exposure but Horkai is special and will survive and that is why he was awoken from storage for this mission.

So this book was mostly fun to read. Evenson does a good job describing the barren post-apocalyptic landscape and creates a curious mystery which keeps you guessing to the end (or close to the end). The characters are very perfunctory and straight-forward. The setting is the real selling point. I enjoyed the first half with Qanik and Qatik taking turns carrying him through the wasteland, chatting about their experiences, answering and asking questions along the way. Their protective suits and masks reiterate that this is a nightmare world for them, where very little can survive, where death is guaranteed. But not for Horkai, he does not need a protective suit and can heal at an astonishing rate (this being the real mystery of the book).

The writing is fairly basic, nothing too creative, but it sufficiently pushes the story along. This is another example of the genre being the thing that will keep your interest. Either you like post-apocalyptic stories or you don't. I would say this had an original concept but it slightly lost its way towards the end and signposted what was happening. But I was already invested by that point. And I enjoyed visiting this world for a while and especially the early parts where Horkai is carried by his two hulking (albeit innocent) companions.

A fun but bleak story of the nuclear hellscape.

 

7/10

Hmm, I find that interesting! Thanks!

[Hux]

Lolly Willowes (1926) Sylvia Townsend Warner

 

Well, this was an oddity. At first it appeared to be a bildungsroman about a woman named Laura (Lolly) who, after her father's death, moves in with her brother and his wife and kids. She spends the vast majority of her adulthood here, growing to be a middle-aged spinster, and the book follows a fairly common place trajectory. Her childhood, her youth, her suitors, and so on. At first I was enjoying the writing, a grown up style of prose, intelligent and often beautiful, but as the book went on I was starting to lose a little of my interest. Ultimately, it was too dry and dense, and the story seemed to offer very little in the way of entertainment. Out of nowhere, Lolly decides that she wants to go live in the countryside (Great Mop) alone and at the ripe old age of 47. Again, this part of the book wasn't all that interesting to me and I was struggling.

But then... then there's a sudden and bizarre change of direction. It's actually quite mad. A kitten arrives at her house and its arrival forces Lolly to confess to herself that she is a witch, that she came to Great Mop to follow her master Satan, as well as the other Warlocks and Witches (of which there are apparently many in this community). The whole book becomes a weird revelation of her desire to be a witch and while it's tempting to view this as occurring only in her head, it isn't presented that way (not entirely at least). She sits with a random man at the end of the book, a gardener, who is the embodiment of the devil and converses with her. Is this conversation purely in her head? It doesn't seem that way. It feels as though this woman is indeed a witch who wants to serve her master.

Apparently, this a feminist classic. I'm not sure why. Lolly grows up with servants and never does a day's work in her life yet the implication is that, because she is a woman, she is trapped in an oppressive role and is seeking an escape. I'm sure the men working down the mines and dying in the trenches have nothing but sympathy for her. To me, the book is more curious than such a lazy interpretation.

I wouldn't say I enjoyed it that much. But it was certainly very unique.

 

7/10

[France]

Mmm, I've got this one sitting in the bookcase and have never felt a great urge to pick it up.

[Hux]

84 Charing Cross Road (1970) Helene Hanff

 

I wish I could give this the same glowing reviews everyone else seems to have given but I found it to be a mostly inoffensive and ordinary piece. It should be noted that I HATE reading letters in books (not necessarily epistolary novels but specifically books where each page is a letter). I just don't enjoy reading them and find myself instinctively skimming them with my eyes. And that's what this novel (memoir) is: a New York woman writing to a book shop in London over two decades and developing relationships with the staff at the book shop via these correspondences.

I've seen lots of people describe the book as charming but honestly there were parts where I thought Hanff was frankly a little entitled and rude (some may dismiss that as her sense of humour) when demanding books; and occasionally she was even a little patronising as she sent them powdered egg and meat during the 50s period of rationing. I dunno. None of it seemed especially charming to me. It was certainly quaint and interesting and the books she wanted access to were unique and worthy of further discussion. But ultimately, it's still just people writing letters back and forth and maybe that's what's so appealing, the nostalgia of a time when people (even strangers) could do such things in a manner that suggested significance, hope, even romance. Oh, to write to a book shop across an ocean and ask them to find me a rare, leather bound copy of a childhood classic and develop a connection with them. Maybe we'll meet up some Christmas and share stories over mulled wine. Who knows.

I found the sequel (which I also read) slightly more interesting. The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street sees Hanff finally get to England in 1971 (sadly too late to meet Frank, her primary correspondence at the book shop, who died in 1968). She takes in the sights and meets many of the people she had been communicating with and even hangs about with Joyce Grenfell for some reason. This was a little more readable but still nothing that really blew me away.

I would still recommend this book to people, however, as they, like so many people it seems, might be one of those individuals who finds it to be heart-wrenchingly romantic and sweet. Sadly, it didn't really have that effect on me. 

 

6/10

[Hux]

The Wall (1963) Marlen Haushoffer

 

A woman in the Austrian mountains discovers that her holiday companions have not returned. In the morning, she investigates only to discover that there is an invisible wall now blocking her path back to civilisation. She then spends the next two and a half years living in the huts and houses of the local area with her dog Lynx, her cats, her cows, and her potato fields. She details her experiences in a journal.

I was enjoying this for the first third but then it just starts going around in circles. She milks the cow, she walks with the dog, she strokes the cat, she checks the potatoes, she picks the berries. Jump ahead several pages and yup, she's still milking the cow, still walking the dog, still picking the berries, and still stroking the cat. And on and on it goes. Now while this might be one of the themes of the book (repetitive existence) the fact remains (as I have said many times before for countless other books) if the only way you can explore the theme of boredom is by making your book boring, you're a poor writer, and if the only way you can convey repetition is to make your book repetitive, you're a poor writer. The simple fact is, you can unquestionably skip massive portions of this book and you will miss absolutely NOTHING, It's just milking the cow, stroking the cat, picking the berries etc. Had Haushofer given her protagonist a greater amount of philosophical contemplation, an exploration of what it means to be alive, her opinions regarding the nature of existence, it might have appealed to me a lot more. But we get very little of that in truth. Just milking the cow, stroking the cat, harvesting the potatoes etc.

As for the sci-fi premise, that also gets a wide berth. She investigates the phenomenon for five minutes then just chooses to live the life of Walden (which is really what this book is about). She briefly mentions seeing people on the other side of the wall but they seem motionless, paused. And that's about all you get. I read somewhere that Doris Lessing said that only a woman could write this book. I agree... but not in a good way. On day one, a man would have grabbed a backpack and wandered as far in the opposite direction of the wall as possible to see what its parameters might be (is it a dome, a single wall, a circle?). Maybe that's the point Haushofer is making and even explains the appearance of the man at the very end --he was THAT very character (and presumably, given his actions, that is somehow seen as a bad thing by her). I don't know. Perhaps he has indeed spent two years making his way towards them, losing his marbles in the process. But as a novel playing with science fiction tropes, it doesn't really satisfy. And as a novel exploring the human condition it fails just as badly. There's only so much communing with nature that I can take before I want to scream... I GET IT! I also profoundly disliked the constant references to the death of her dog, Lynx, every five minutes. She keeps bringing it up then going back to the story (where Lynx is very much alive). Hate that shhhhhhh. Stop doing it. You're writing from a future point, I also get that... no need to rub it in my face with constant references to the dead dog. Yes, life and death, the circle of life, nature's true meaning etc. I am very much on board with you Marlen... but it needs to be more interesting than this (a short story that has essentially been dragged out into a novel).

Anyway, I'm starting to sound like I actually hated the book. I didn't. It was well written and definitely worth a read. But the constant milking of the cow and the constant stoking of the cat was too much for me in the end. It was good, interesting, unique, and certainly intriguing. But be prepared to read a lot about the miking of that damn cow.

 

6/10

Edited October 8, 2024 by Hux

[Hux]

Franny and Zooey (1961) J. D. Salinger

 

Having loved the vibrancy and humour of Catcher in the Rye, I was amazed by how dull this was. The writing never grabbed me at all, just dry narration followed by long, unrealistic conversations between New York old sports who call their mother by her given name instead of the non-psychotic 'mom' that normal people use. But you see, that's because they're not normal, they're different, they're not like other people, they're outsiders, freaks, non-conformist blah blah blah. Didn't Salinger already do this? Didn't he already write a novel about a young person experiencing trauma at the death of a relative who, in his vibrant, youthful cynicism, realises that (unlike him) everyone else in the world is a phoney. A big fat PHONEY!

The story begins with Franny going out to a meal with her boyfriend Lance and she tries to explain to him that she's been reading a book about a Russian peasant who finds a way to always be praying. Then she falls ill and faints. Then we have the Zooey part (the main part) which takes place a few days later and begins with Zooey, Franny's older brother, in the bath having a very staged, histrionic, Noel Coward-esque conversation with his mother Bessie (who he always irritatingly refers to as Bessie). He's basically a richer, more smug version of Holden Caulfield and understands that his sister, like him, is struggling with their older brother's suicide and the inauthenticity of the world. Like I said, we've already covered this ground but in Catcher in the Rye it was fun, exciting, animated, profound. But here, it's dull and contrived, stilted and unnatural. The book endeavours to explore interesting themes but in a confined space where it's all a little too trivial and forgettable.

I really struggled when reading the prose, finding it so bland and without excitement. Meanwhile the conversations are forced and artificial, the kind of thing you'll see in a stage play where bad actors get laughs where they didn't expect to get them. At one point, as Zooey was on the phone with Franny in the other room, I thought Zooey was gonna start talking about how he wished he could catch all the young people before they fell off the rye cliff. Honestly, I disliked this book so much that it actually soiled the memory of Catcher in the Rye and made me wonder if I was duped by that book. This thing was so lacking in anything of substance and became nothing more than treading the same water. Just rich new Yorkers acting like they're the only people who ever experience death or boredom. Every time I read characters like this I simply want to scream: send 'em down the fudgeing mines. And why does Salinger keep making his characters mock the psychoanalysis of the time, the cod-philosophy of looking at the self, and talking through issues? Those silly psychiatrists and their pseudoscience. Yet, at the very same time, he's endlessly presenting these tedious traumas and globules of New York ennui as though they're monumental failings of a society that doesn't take mental health seriously. It's all rather banal and pathetic.

But ultimately, my biggest problem with the book was simply that it was unutterably boring to read.

 

4/10

[Hux]

Waiting (1999) Ha Jin

 

The Tartar Steppe but for relationships.

As a young man Lin was pushed by his family into a marriage without love to a woman named Shuyu. They had a daughter named Hua but stopped sleeping together and lived separate lives. Lin worked as a doctor in the city while Shuyu stayed at their country home looking after his elderly parents until they eventually died and raising their daughter. Meanwhile, Lin meets a woman at the hospital called Manna and they develop a platonic relationship but want it to become something more. They agree not to sleep together until he can get divorced otherwise, in communist China, there might be serious consequences. Eventually Lin finds the courage to ask Shuyu for a divorce and she agrees but at the last minute, in the courthouse, she changes her mind. This happens again the following year. Then again the following year.

This pattern continues for 18 years (the amount of time that must pass before a man can get a divorce without his wife's agreement). The whole book is about waiting, about placing all your hopes and dreams on an outcome that, should it ever arrive, will finally give your life meaning and purpose. And so they wait. Year after year. Their lives passing them by as they age and lose all their vigour, attractiveness, and youth. And even when Lin finally gets his divorce and marries Manna, he discovers that he's still not happy because the book isn't actually about waiting, it's about love. Specifically, it's about the fact that so many of us (more than we ever want to admit) don't ever experience the kind of passionate sensual, romantic love that we see in movies. Some people never get that far. They develop feelings, attachments, and care about people... but they never experience that epic weight of falling desperately in love. And Lin is one of those people. He loved neither woman. The circumstances of his life simply forced him into these relationships. And after all that waiting, all those years, he realises at the very end that contentment was the only thing he truly wanted.

The waiting was (just like in the Tartar Steppe) all for nothing.

I enjoyed the book overall but it was only a very basic story with very basic writing. For me the book only became interesting as it played with the theme of life passing us by (in more ways than one) and the notion of pointlessly waiting for life to give you a meaning, some happiness, a purpose. The prose was straight-forward and never challenging, and the book essentially gives you all the information you need in the prologue (filling in the blanks as it goes along). It got the job done. And, despite being ultimately rather prosaic, it did successfully get me thinking about my favourite subject again (that we're all wasting our lives). The only part that perplexed me was the rape which frankly didn't seem to add much. I'm not sure what Ha Jin was implying by having that in the story (get married otherwise you're asking for it??) Not sure. Maybe it was simply to force the reader to sympathise with Manna just at a point where we're mostly sympathising with Shuyu. Hard to say.

So yeah, a pretty average and easy to read book. But one that got me thinking all those lovely existential thoughts again.

 

7/10

 

 

Edited October 15, 2024 by Hux

[Hux]

I Who Have Never Known Men (1995) Jacqueline Harpman

 

Life is a prison. And death is the only way out.

This was right up my street. Ambiguous, vague, curious, and best of all... determined to leave you without answers. As all good books should.

An unnamed woman (a teenage girl in fact) is locked in an underground cell with 39 other women of varying ages and has been for many years. They have no memory (beyond a smattering of vague recollections) of their previous lives and no grasp of why they have been imprisoned. They are guarded by three men. Food is provided but they are not allowed to touch or engage in behaviours that are prohibited (a whip will be cracked to remind them). The narrator is the youngest and she begins to want answers but the other women can only tell her so much. Then one day, as one of the guards is putting the key in the cell door, an alarm begins to sound and the guards run away and vanish. The women, led by the narrator, also take this opportunity to escape. They go up some stairs to discover they are in a small cabin and outside there is only a wasteland of flatlands, a dry, lifeless plain. Where did the men go? Why were they imprisoned? Will the guards come back? As the days go by, they begin to explore further afield only to discover another identical cabin. But the women prisoners here were not so lucky and could not escape and starved to death. Then they find another cabin, this time with men, and the same outcome. And on and on it goes, cabin after cabin as they travel for miles, for years, seeking out an explanation. Eventually, the women build homes by the river, the years go by, and one by one they die off. No answers arrive. No saviours. No rescue. Only more mystery. Perhaps this isn't even Earth. Maybe it's an alien world. Gradually, as the decades go by, the women are whittled down to the narrator. She is finally alone.

I really enjoyed this. The writing is fairly straight-forward, never anything challenging, but it's immensely fun to read. I've seen some people offer feminist interpretations regarding the story but I find identitarian politics are always immensely dull and reductive. For me, the book is far more interesting, exploring bigger human themes that are more in line with something like The Tartar steppe in the sense that they are focused on the existential limits of being alive (an entirely universal experience). Harpman is showing us that even when we escape prison, we are still in prison. Existence is a prison, a ludicrous waste of time and energy that rewards us with nothing. Life is confined by repetitive experiences and with or without walls, we are destined to be restricted by our natures. Death is your only true means of escape. And even that is a pathetic damp squib of having to excrete discharge from your orifices or sliding a knife between your ribs to bring the farce to an end. The fact that men are also imprisoned and suffer the same fate would certainly suggest as much even when taking the narrator's unique female experiences into account.

Best of all, there are no answers. Not even attempts at answers. When you think you've found something that might add context, might clarify, you discover that it only added further darkness and uncertainty. There are no answers, only more questions. And while asking questions, as the narrator often does, might offer solace or satisfaction, it ultimately results in nothing. Nothing is all we get. A giant pointless mystery that only ends with death. I love books like this, personal, philosophical, meditative, and I was relieved that Harpman didn't waste any time titillating the reader with the prospect of providing any answers.

There are none. There never will be any. Welcome to a pointless existence.

 

9/10

[Hux]

Barney's Version (1997) Mordecai Richler

 

In response to a book written about him by his enemy Terry McIver, Barney Panofsky writes his autobiography to give his version of events. The book is separated into three sections, each named after one of his three wives (Clara 1950 - 1952/ The Second Mrs. Panofsky 1958 - 1960/ Miriam 1960 -). Aside from giving us a life story that begins in his youth in the 1950s, the book primarily addresses the accusation that he murdered his friend Bernard Moscovitch (Boogie) after his disappearance in early 60s. The autobiography is written in the 1990s when Barney is (we later discover) suffering from Alzheimer's and is finally edited by Barney's son, Michael, meaning that the book can be seen as highly unreliable.

It was... interesting. There's something of value here and yet despite enjoying a great deal of it, I did have a lot of issues. First of all, Barney just seems like an entirely unrealistic creation, overly melodramatic and relentlessly self-satisfied. The book is just endlessly goofy and rapidfire in its approach, making a joke of everything, and weighed down by various pop culture references, and a general sense of cartoonish smugness. None of it felt remotely set in the real world. I didn't really like Barney and found him to be someone privileged by a shockingly large amount of good fortune and convenience (developing the puffed-up personality to match such a comfortable existence). For a moment, the book reminded me of the protagonist from Donleavy's The Ginger Man, a charismatic oaf who always lands on his feet but is essentially a malignant force, but then, as the smugness and over confidence continued, something else occurred to me. I suddenly felt like I was reading a sequel to... Ferris Bueller's Day Off. As someone who has always hated that self-satisfied prick, I almost felt as though this was the continuation of his story (despite it obviously being predominantly set in the 50s). The same smugness, the same ease with which life seems to fall into his lap, the same sense that no matter what he does, right or wrong, he will always get with it. Anyway, imagine a 68 year-old version of Ferris Bueller telling his life story that always seems to end with him... winning. That's what I felt like I was reading.

I can't say that it grabbed me entirely. But equally, I can't deny that it had a lot of interesting elements that made the book very appealing. Ultimately, I found the ceaseless high-energy narration a little too nauseating. And I hated the endless inclusion of footnotes where Barney would say something like: 'that famous Dickens novel Crime and Punishment.' And then in the footnotes his son Michael would correct this and point out that it was Dostoevski. The first six or seven times, it was funny, but by the time you're onto the 30th example, it's simply irritating. Sure, it's there to remind us that Barney's memory of events is flawed but it always felt more like a cheap attempt at some lazy humour. And that's the bottom line with this book; you're either gonna find it immensely funny and charming or you're not. I'm significantly more inclined to be seated with the latter group.

But I would definitely recommend it. As I said, there's something quite fun and original here, a book that will definitely turn into a favourite for many but which, for me, never quite got there. While I recognised its qualities, I was ultimately never close to falling in love with it. At the end of the day, I just really fudgeing hate Ferris Bueller.

 

7/10

[Hux]

The Vegetarian (2007) Han Kang

 

There's a joke that if an actor wants to win an Oscar and be taken seriously, he should play a mentally handicapped person. Anyway, here's another novel that revolves around a mentally ill character whose mental illness is vague and faintly magical (she had a dream).

I enjoyed reading it but am inclined to give most of the credit for that to the translator. And when I say I enjoyed reading it, I mean part one (The Vegetarian) and part two (Mongolian Mark). Part one is (strangely) the only part that is a first person narration, and it's not even her narration, it's her husband's. He's a slightly emotionless man, matter-of-fact, detached, who craves simplicity and the mundane, his expectations of his wife being nothing more than for her not to irritate him. Why he gets to narrate I'm not entirely sure; perhaps Kang is saying something about men having a voice and women not, etc (but then why is the second part third person when it's mostly coming from the brother-in-law's perspective?) Who knows. But there's plenty of banal feminist interpretation to be had here so feel free to add them to the list. So yeah, part two is probably the most fun to read, the artistic brother-in-law who obsesses over her body (grrr, those darn men keep forcing her to be things... bloody patriarchy innit!!). Part three meanwhile (Flaming Trees) is slow and tedious and throws all the mental health cliches it can at you (mentally ill people are like special goblins who live in the woods and see things differently from everyone else). As someone who used to work in mental health, I can assure you, the mentally ill are usually just fat people with bad hygiene who throw plates at your head.

I was very engaged for the first two parts (despite the predictable bad men who take advantage of her in some form or another or, in the case of her father, just beat her). Part two has some nice erotic touches which, as far as I'm concerned, do nothing more than reveal Han Kang's own sexual fantasies quite clearly. And the soulless husband was fun to hate (would have preferred a book about him really). But all the while, I kept thinking that the book was too obvious, too lazy. Wanna win a Nobel Prize? Then make sure to write about mental illness as though it's a strange ethereal dappling of light on the soul of the most beautiful among us (and not a bloke shitting in his hand and showing it to you). All the way through, I just kept getting that feeling that this was all a little bit by-the-numbers. Those east Asians (why can't we call them orientals anymore) sure do love stories with suicide and generic crazy people.

I mostly enjoyed it but let's just say I'm glad it was short. Oh and by the way, she doesn't just reject meat, she rejects all animal products so the book really ought to have been called the Vegan. Just saying. But what does it matter. You so much as fart in the general direction of Sweden these days, and they'll give you a Nobel Prize. Good but not great. Hope she has better stuff than this and will look forward to reading it.

 

7/10

[willoyd]

Catching up with reading blogs: and have one review I agree with, one where I disagree, and one a bit of each!

Agree with Lolly Willowes: really don't see what's so classic about it. First part found okay, if not 'exciting', last part plain silly. Certainly unique!

I loved 84 Charing Cross Road, but then I do enjoy letters, and epistolaries. Given the nature of life then, I didn't find it patronising at all. Hanff's generosity would have been much appreciated by most at the time.

And as for the Han Kang....I read this as the book for South Korea in my round the world project. Whilst I do agree with much of your detailed comments, my overall feelings were rather different : more an intense (and I mean intense!) dislike. It just felt so cold and utterly unfeeling. Perhaps a culture clash, or ignorance on my part, as I rarely enjoy Eastern Asian writing, but this was an extreme example. I finished it, but felt revolted (I rapidly disposed of the book, so only have my notes to go back to). Am not in a rush to try her again, but someone else I've spoken to who also disliked it, said her book Human Acts was both different and better, so maybe some day!

Edited October 24, 2024 by willoyd

[Hux]

Pereira Maintains (1994) Antonio Tabucchi

 

In 1938, in Salazar's Portugal, an overweight, middle-aged journalist named Pereira writes obituaries for an afternoon newspaper called Lisboa. He wanders the city eating omelette after omelette and forever drinking lemonade. He enlists the help of a young man named Monteiro Rossi who gives him advanced obituaries of recently deceased writers. Rossi appears to be involved in some kind of underground left-wing movement and, perhaps due to a misplaced sense of fatherly connection, Pereira often helps him and his girlfriend Marta. Ultimately this leads to an ending which changes Pereira's life.

This was a nice, easy read. It never entirely took off, only ever maintaining (sic) a mild charm. It, of course, immediately brought to mind Pessoa (who is mentioned in the book among countless other writers) and, to a greater extent, Night Train to Lisbon. Both books are concerned with love of literature but this one has a more focused story and a clear opinion regarding the fascism of the day. It was certainly charming and Pereira was as thoughtful and jovial as a character can be. The style of the book, a third person narration which yet strangely gives Pereira control (he maintains this and that throughout the book), is unique and did a good job of keeping me engaged. I also enjoyed his flights of fancy and the way he regularly spoke to the photograph of his wife. And again, the strange narrative device where he and Tabucchi seem to be in collusion.
 

That afternoon, Pereira maintains, he had a dream. It was a beautiful dream about his youth, but he prefers not to relate it, because dreams ought not to be told, he maintains. He will go no farther than to say he was happy, that it was winter and he was on a beach to the north of Coimbra, perhaps at Granja, and that he had with him a person whose identity he does not wish to disclose.

It's nicely done and allows the story to unfold gently, the chapters all short and sweet to further emphasise the pace. Ultimately, however, I'm not sure this will live long in the memory. I mostly enjoyed it, it was perfectly nice to read, and had some nice flourishes, but never went much beyond that. If you like Pessoa, that part of the world, young, heroic left-wing men standing up to the fash, it's a book worth reading.

 

6/10

[Hux]

A Month in Siena (2019) Hisham Matar

 

It's always difficult to review books like this (auto-fiction, fictional memoir) because at first glance it's all very moving and profound, full of philosophical and human insight, the temptation to be overwhelmed by such warm and pensive meditations very powerful. But ultimately, this feeling tends to fade as you get further away from the piece.

If you're a fan of Sebald, or any other kind of writer who presents fiction as a kind of reflective non-fiction, where the writer goes on flights of fancy throughout history and philosophy, discusses art and literature, and reminisces about his or her own personal loves and losses, then you'll very probably find this very compelling. The writer, Matar, a Libyan who loves art, goes to Siena for a month where he visits the galleries and museums and discusses the art in question. The book contains pictures of the pieces he is contemplating and his opinions are always thoughtful and engaging. Meanwhile, he will also go off on a variety of tangents which, among others, take in the lives of medieval Moroccan travellers, musicians, the Black Death, and ancient traditions. Then there are his personal issues, his kidnapped father, his wife, his encounters with people in Siena such as the Nigerian lady and the fellow Muslim who invites him for coffee. There is an obvious charm to the piece and, like I said, it owes a lot to the Sebald style of spinning a narrative out of personal experiences and historical events, all while offering opinion on several pieces of art.

I enjoyed it and found it very easy to read. But as I said at the beginning, these kinds of books are always hard to review as they seem more profound and meaningful as you read them than they do several weeks later when the dust has settled. It was a lovely book to read and I would definitely recommend it. Charming and reflective but ultimately a light read that probably won't go much deeper into my soul than any other entertaining piece of popular culture. 

 

7/10

[Hux]

Victoria (1898) Knut Hamsun

 

Ah, my second favourite writer with Nazi sympathies (Celine remains undefeated). There's something about Hamsun's writing that always reaches me, cuts deep into the romance of life. And here, it's all about romance. He has the ability to write in a manner that's concise and blunt, often when looking at the limits of the human condition, and yet, in equal measure, he has the ability to suddenly start talking about the course of the stars and how they shatter into dust as tears of unrequited love fall upon them. This whole book is filled with heartache and yearning, poetry and sadness. Hamsun is relentless in his exploration of lost love.

The story is, appropriately for such subject matter, extremely simple. A young boy named Johannes is madly in love with a girl called Victoria. They grow up together and instantly seem to have a connection that goes beyond the formalities of friendship. As he gets older, he moves away to study, becomes a poet (a successful and published author). Meanwhile she is engaged to Otto, a smarmy lieutenant from a prosperous family. And yet she confesses to Johannes that she loves him, a confession that ought to have led to him doing everything he could to win her. But these are different times and everyone is expected to play their role as social etiquette demands. And so they go on, living their lives, apart from one another, failing to find a way to be together despite the endless declarations of love and proximity. What fools!

As ever, Hamsun's writing is great, just so easy to read, vibrant and sharp, crisp with meaning. There aren't many books from the 19th century that feel as modern as this, so much so that you often forget you're reading something from 1898. And as I said earlier, his ability to switch from matter-of-fact prose to heartbreaking expressions of lyrical poetry is wonderful. It feels like you're reading a dark fairy tale, one full of bitterness and loss, yet always with a veneer of romantic optimism for the transformative power of love.
 

"Asked what love is, some reply: It is only a wind whispering among the roses and dying away."

Hamsun has the unique ability to straddle the styles and themes of two different centuries with a comfort that is impressive. I suspect he will face the next century with similar ease and continue, despite his Nazi failings, to feature prominently in the hearts and minds of many people (including those not yet born). He is a one-off. 

 

8/10

Edited October 29, 2024 by Hux

[Hux]

The Necrophiliac (1972) Gabrielle Wittkop

 

Hmm, where to start with this one. I suppose with the basics. The book is the diary of a man named Lucien who owns an antique shop and, in his spare time, digs up dead bodies and takes them home so he can have sex with them. Good. All clear? Then we shall continue...

It should be noted from the outset that Wittkop is not squeamish about giving us details so if you're not comfortable with the subject matter or the visuals they will undoubtedly stimulate (he has a dead baby on his naked lap at one point) then you should probably just skip it. That being said, however, I thought Wittkop's writing was rather wonderful, occasionally even quite beautiful. She took the premise and really went for it, sparing little, exploring everything, and almost justifying the sexual acts as their own unique form of human relations. At one point Lucien even points out that while the young will happily stand in solidarity for all manner of grotesque or outlier sexualities, this one might be a step too far for them (despite the inanimate, non-sentient nature of the abused). The diary format works well as there's no real story, only individual encounters with a variety of victims, poetic insights on the nature of his desires and compulsions. He is aroused by all dead bodies, men women, and yes, children. But the content of the book, no matter how depraved, is always elevated by the wonderful prose (plus it's gloriously short).
 

"My excitation had put me into a sort of delirium, and I'd hardly started passionately licking the point of encounter where these beautiful dead creatures united my desire, when I thought I would die myself and inundated myself, moaning."

It's difficult to surmise what Wittkop is exploring as a theme here, perhaps loneliness, the outsider, or just those with a perversion so dark that it cannot be discussed openly. I must admit, the fact that she is a woman also gives the book a unique feel. Maybe it shouldn't but it did. There's always an added salaciousness when such sexual deviancy is in the hands of a woman and, for all I know, that may have been the point she was ultimately making. Hard to say. But the book was very readable and occasionally even reached heights of sincere beauty. An odd little novella.

Very good but approach with (some) caution. 

 

8/10

[PYX]

On 10/30/2024 at 7:57 AM, Hux said:

The Necrophiliac (1972) Gabrielle Wittkop

 

Hmm, where to start with this one. I suppose with the basics. The book is the diary of a man named Lucien who owns an antique shop and, in his spare time, digs up dead bodies and takes them home so he can have sex with them. Good. All clear? Then we shall continue...

It should be noted from the outset that Wittkop is not squeamish about giving us details so if you're not comfortable with the subject matter or the visuals they will undoubtedly stimulate (he has a dead baby on his naked lap at one point) then you should probably just skip it. That being said, however, I thought Wittkop's writing was rather wonderful, occasionally even quite beautiful. She took the premise and really went for it, sparing little, exploring everything, and almost justifying the sexual acts as their own unique form of human relations. At one point Lucien even points out that while the young will happily stand in solidarity for all manner of grotesque or outlier sexualities, this one might be a step too far for them (despite the inanimate, non-sentient nature of the abused). The diary format works well as there's no real story, only individual encounters with a variety of victims, poetic insights on the nature of his desires and compulsions. He is aroused by all dead bodies, men women, and yes, children. But the content of the book, no matter how depraved, is always elevated by the wonderful prose (plus it's gloriously short).
 

"My excitation had put me into a sort of delirium, and I'd hardly started passionately licking the point of encounter where these beautiful dead creatures united my desire, when I thought I would die myself and inundated myself, moaning."

It's difficult to surmise what Wittkop is exploring as a theme here, perhaps loneliness, the outsider, or just those with a perversion so dark that it cannot be discussed openly. I must admit, the fact that she is a woman also gives the book a unique feel. Maybe it shouldn't but it did. There's always an added salaciousness when such sexual deviancy is in the hands of a woman and, for all I know, that may have been the point she was ultimately making. Hard to say. But the book was very readable and occasionally even reached heights of sincere beauty. An odd little novella.

Very good but approach with (some) caution. 

 

8/10

I love books that are written in a diary style. It's like you're sneaking into something you shouldn't!

[Hux]

The Skin (1949) Curzio Malaparte

 

If you've read Kaput, you've essentially read this. As such it feels less powerful despite being as beautifully written. But it did feel like ground we had already tread, in fact, less so, because it doesn't quite have the mad flourish of Kaput and its highly dubious stories. Nonetheless, it's a fascinating piece worth reading if not for the sheer quality of the prose alone.

Whereas Kaput focused on the eastern front, this one is all about Italy. Naples especially. Malaparte is now marching with the Americans into the city and onwards north (though he does reminisce about the eastern front some more at one point). But generally this whole book is a love letter to Naples. He spends most of his time there liaising with an American colonel called Jack Hamilton, and Malaparte (more so Naples) becomes the embodiment of Europe, its prostitutes and dwarves, its dead and its lost, all representing something which is rotten yet steadfastly proud. He delves deep into the dirt as much as ever and makes bold proclamations about the homosexuals, the negro soldiers, and the nature of Europeans and Americans in general. In fact, it slightly irritated me that he kept referring to ALL Europe as though it was one thing (it really isn't), perhaps in an attempt to further the narrative that Italy was some kind of victim among the rest of Europe.

It's well-written and always compelling but as I said, Malaparte covers ground he's already covered, adding only a slightly more incredulous quality to the work which I struggled with; namely his inability to speak the truth and his penchant for waiting to see which way the wind is blowing before committing to a position. This was also a feature I disliked in Kaput, his smug certainty that he was always on the right side of things, capable of justifying his banquet feasts with Nazis as though he were a mere observer with no skin in the game. One can only assume this criticism was levelled at Malaparte when the book was first published because there is a little moment where he and his American friends even mock his dishonest nature in Kaput and his habit of exaggerating events (either with a view to spicing up his stories or, more likely, to make himself look better in the eyes of his readers).
 

"... 'Judging from Kaput,' answered Pierre Lyautey, 'one would say that Malaparte eats nothing but nightingales' hearts, served on plates of old Meissen and Nymphenburg pocelain at the tables of Royal Highnesses, Duchesses and Ambassadors.'

'Malaparte undoubtedly has a very vivid imagination,' laughed General Guillaume, 'and in his next book you will find our humble camp meal transformed into a regal banquet, while I shall become a kind of Sultan of Morocco.'... "

That Malaparte includes these little moments of his entirely fictionalised characters talking of the exaggerations of an entirely fictionalised version of himself is telling (at least to me). He's confessing to something minor whilst simultaneously deflecting attention from something more unpleasant elsewhere. And that's the problem I have with him here which was only a background issue in Kaput. He's full of it!! But worse than that he is a fascist who is never to be punished for his fascism, a villain, allowed to embrace the clownish facade of a harmless oaf. So yeah... he's Italy.

In the end, it's not as good or as original as Kaput (essentially just more of the same) but nonetheless entertaining, well-written and fascinating all the same. While I was charmed by him in Kaput, here my cynical awareness that I was being lied to by a scoundrel became harder to ignore. Fool me once and all that. I dunno. I just feel a bit dirty, like I've been sold something I didn't need by a snake oil salesman who smirks a little too often.

 

6/10

[Hux]

Concrete (1982) Thomas Bernhard 

 

Well, I tried.

After having read The Loser and being less than impressed, I chose to wait before going back into the world of Thomas Berhard. Unfortunately, I essentially had the same experience again, his bland prose presented as a wall of text representing the mundane rambling thoughts of a man ranting about the mediocre trivialities of life. The interesting thing about Bernhard is that he has a style which suggest stream-of-consciousness but never actually is. His prose is very prosaic, possessing no meaningful flourishes, no Proustian beauty, not even the staggered scattergun stream of thoughts I tend to dislike and which one associates with this kind of writing; but instead he produces a very standard, almost perfunctory, level of writing and grammar. It's somewhat bewildering that he has such an impressive reputation when the writing is, for all intents and purposes, no more creative than what you'd expect from an accountant who works at Dixons. It isn't challenging, it isn't difficult, it's just very basic. 
 

PAGE 29 - "I believed fervently that I needed my sister in order to be able to start my work on Mendelssohn Bartholdy. And then, when she was there, I knew that I didn't need her, that I could start work only if she wasn't there. But now she's gone and I'm really unable to start. At first it was because she was there, and now it's because she isn't."

PAGE 50 - "We must commit ourselves one hundred per cent to everything we do, my father always said. He said it to everybody - to my mother, to my sisters, to me. If we don't commit ourselves one hundred per cent we fail even before we've begun. But what is one hundred per cent in this case? Haven't I prepared for this work one hundred per cent?  

PAGE 60 - "How long it is since I last took these cases out of the chest! I said to myself. Far too long. In fact the cases were dusty, even though they had been in the chest ever since my last trip, that is my last trip to Palma."

PAGE 124 "At two o' clock in the afternoon, when the car came to collect me, it was still eleven degrees below zero in Peiskam, but on my arrival in Palma, where I am writing these notes, the thermometer showed eighteen degrees above."

Does any of the above strike you as difficult? Not really. And yet Bernhard has this reputation as a writer above the commonplace herd, a writer of difficult prose and challenging works. But why? It doesn't make sense. Well, I've come to the conclusion that it's for the same reason that Jon Fosse also gets endlessly praised. Because they both engage in what I like to call "Manic Monologue." It essentially involves being endlessly repetitive until you feel dizzy with swirling madness. While Fosse will literally just repeat sentences OVER AND OVER again to manufacture this dire sense of being inside a man's anxious mind, Berhard uses a slightly different yet equally irksome approach. Bernhard will write standard, uninteresting (non-repetitive) prose, but will return to the same handful of themes again and again. So in this book, for example, the narrator, Rudolf, talks about his sister, then a few pages later talks about the book he's working on about Bartholdy, then a few pages later talks about going to Palma, then a few pages later talks about his sister again, then a few pages later talks about Bartholdy again, and so on, and so forth. It's slightly less deranging that Fosse but it's ultimately the same technique -- just cover the same ground relentlessly ad nauseam until you're so befuddled and mesmerised that you completely forget that what you're reading is actually... not very interesting.

Apparently, this is great literature to many of you. To me, it's time wasted. Aside from the fact that I don't believe this is actually how people think (even when manic) -- the lack of personal context or abstract thinking, the lack of visuals or incoherent notions incapable of being turned into expressions of thought -- there is also the fact that it's just not very fun to read. Where is my reward for enduring this false, slightly self-congratulatory style? 

I once heard someone say that Berhard doesn't have chapters because life doesn't have chapters. To which I would respond, it's a book, dear, not life.

So yeah, this isn't for me.

 

3/10

 

 

[lunababymoonchild]

If I may, perhaps Bernard is considered difficult because it takes a lot of effort to understand the point he’s making. Not that it matters. If it’s not for you it’s not for you

 

 

[Hux]

1 hour ago, lunababymoonchild said:

If I may, perhaps Bernard is considered difficult because it takes a lot of effort to understand the point he’s making. Not that it matters. If it’s not for you it’s not for you

 

 

And what point is he making? 

[lunababymoonchild]

41 minutes ago, Hux said:

And what point is he making? 

I don't know, I haven't read that one.

[Hux]

32 minutes ago, lunababymoonchild said:

I don't know, I haven't read that one.

 

Indeed. What point was he making in The Loser?

Edited November 3, 2024 by Hux

[lunababymoonchild]

11 hours ago, Hux said:

 

Indeed. What point was he making in The Loser?

The loser is a study on the impact of a ‘more talented than everyone else’ person has on those around him. Gould’s friends end up giving up playing because of it and one gradually ‘loses it’ as a result of both the effect and being called a loser by Gould. It has no paragraphs and many run on sentences - as you know - and this is to convey the atmosphere, anger and frustration (these are creative, artistic men) that the interpersonal relations of the characters create.

 

In other words, it’s the whole experience that’s meant to be immersive. But…………if it’s not for you then it’s not for you.

Edited November 4, 2024 by lunababymoonchild

[Hux]

5 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

The loser is a study on the impact of a ‘more talented than everyone else’ person has on those around him. Gould’s friends end up giving up playing because of it and one gradually ‘loses it’ as a result of both the effect and being called a loser by Gould. It has no paragraphs and many run on sentences - as you know - and this is to convey the atmosphere, anger and frustration (these are creative, artistic men) that the interpersonal relations of the characters create.

 

In other words, it’s the whole experience that’s meant to be immersive. But…………if it’s not for you then it’s not for you.

 

So not that much effort was required to understand it after all.

 

Somebody on Goodreads suggested Concrete and The Loser were his worst books and I should start with Wittgenstein's Mistress. But I can't see what difference it would make if his style is the same. The style is the issue.

Edited November 4, 2024 by Hux