'You try for a little happiness, and what do you get? A few memories and a fat stomach.'
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Good grief, how alluring, funny, smart and touching thi'You try for a little happiness, and what do you get? A few memories and a fat stomach.'
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Good grief, how alluring, funny, smart and touching this was…! From the golden age of Peanuts, this was a gift of half an hour of undiluted joy, lovely and recognisable observations on the silliness of life pithily wrapped in the thoughts and interactions of an amusing cast of little characters. Knowing them only from silly merchandising and not having read one iota of the comics before nor met them in TV shows or film (maybe I do live on another planet?), I was entirely unaware of their charm and of the quirky philosophic and melancholic undertones of this series.
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Well, Charlie Brown, while you had to read Gulliver’s travels during the Christmas vacation and were not getting to it until the last night, hopefully the son who has to read and write a book report on Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader in this very same period might take inspiration from your adventures - or will meeting you and your pals bring him to even more procrastination? As the pot calls the kettle back, now give me back that blanket and get started reading the book, son.
'Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It’s already tomorrow in Australia.' ...more
Thinking about life with books, attempting to recapitulate the reading year for the fourth time, maybe just one word could do for 2018: Middlemarch. RThinking about life with books, attempting to recapitulate the reading year for the fourth time, maybe just one word could do for 2018: Middlemarch. Reading Middlemarch in 2018 to me was pure bliss. In the afterglow of it, reading Zadie Smith’s essay on the novel in Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, I caught myself nodding at Smith’s eulogy: In Middlemarch love enables knowledge. People are still all that people really have: our knowledge of, and feelings for, one another. Eliot is thinking with the heart and feeling with the head’. It would be hard to explain why, but these words and the novel equal for me the feeling of cuddling up close to the warmth, near the fireplace.
Another memorable highlight was the rounding of Giorgio Bassani’s lyrical The Novel of Ferrara cycle after I had read The Garden of the Finzi-Continis long ago. Fionnuala rightly and astutely drew some parallels in the various episodes with Proust’s In search of lost time – but also without associating it with its distinct Proustian hues and references, this cycle on the plight and lost world and culture of the Italian Jews of Ferrara in the aftermath of WWII enraptured by its subtle melancholic beauty.
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(Picture by Ferdinando Scianna on the cover of the fourth episode of Giorigio Bassani’s cycle, Behind the door).
To be honest, there was a bit more to 2018’s reading than Middlemarch, as the prospect of reading Eliot was the decisive element why I chose to embark on Alexandra’s alphabetical challenge of reading women in 2018. Although it was not simple to find an author I fancied reading for each letter (the letters I, Q and X particularly challenging) the reading itself went smoothly and overall it was a rewarding reading experience. I managed to read a for me agreeable mixture of familiar and newly discovered authors – next to George Eliot, I greatly enjoyed reading Fleur Jaeggy, Edith Wharton, Penelope Fitzgerald, Maeve Brennan, Han Kang, Angela Carter and Nora Ikstena. With regard to poetry I was enthralled by the poems of Margaret Atwood (thank you for pointing me to her poetry, Julie!), Louise Glück, Edna Millay St Vincent, Christina Rossetti and Jenny Xie.
Which means 62 out of the 160 distinct works I have read were written by women (the ones marked in bold I have written a review about).
Thanks to the group read Kris initiated, I finally got to read the The Iliad(in two editions) and the The Odyssey, for which I shied away until now and now both read with great eagerness and joy.
Other books that will stay with me were a few poetry collections (Rilke’s The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christopher Rilke, William Carlos Williams, Cavafy) and last but not least Kafka’s Aphorisms – fragile, mysterious, poetic, thought-provoking as well as making me dream.
I enjoyed reading Julian Barnes essays in Through the Window: Seventeen Essays and a Short Story, so much that I now look for more essayistic work (currently Zadie Smith). Singularly gratifying was Jan Brokken’s fine travelogue Baltische zielen: Lotgevallen in Estland, Letland en Litouwen in which we meet with Mark Rothko, Eisenstein, Hannah Arendt, Gidon Kremer, Arvo Pärt, Romain Gary and many other fascinating personalities from the 20th century connected to the Baltic States. I managed to wrestle me through Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy, ending up with mixed feelings.
A first acquaintance with John Berger (The Red Tenda of Bologna). touched a particular esthetical chord in me – I will return to his work in 2019.
Like in 2015, I had a few moments of bookish (and other) existential doubts this year, wondering anew whether I simply can continue ‘reading my whole life away’ like this or rather consider going for fundamental change in life. Again the books decided and I seem not yet willing and able to forsake them. Bearing T.S. Eliot’s words in mind, I still assume that books and cats are what makes life good. And as Julian Barnes this year reassured me that ‘Life and reading are not separate activities. When you read a great book, you don't escape from life, you plunge deeper into it.There may be a surficial escape – into different countries, mores, speech patterns – but what you are essentially doing is furthering your understanding of life’s subtleties, paradoxes, joys, pains and truths. Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic.’, there seems even less reason to abandon the delight of reading. Maybe, like a friend did earlier this week, I also will look back on this year as a bittersweet one, but I still feel blessed and grateful for this life with books as it was and is the life of my choice.
Approaching the ending of the year I came across a wonderful, beauteous essay of the Belgian-Polish philosopher Alicja Gescinska in which she explores the question if music can make people and society better (Thuis in muziek. Een oefening in menselijkheid). She shows how music can play a major role in our personal and moral development and how music is fundamental rather than ornamental to our existence, allowing us to come home in ourselves, forming our home in the world. And it is her essay that now points me where to head for in the year 2019: I will read more on music and composers and particularly return to listening to music, considering to go back to dancing as well if I see a chance to.
I mostly didn’t write reviews of what I read, but greatly enjoyed reading the reviews of friends on the moments I managed to drop by here. My heartfelt wishes and thanks to all of you making this place a haven of bookish friendship by reading and writing reviews and discussing books. May 2019 be another great year of reading, joy and love for each and every one of you and for your loved ones.
A complete list of what I read in 2018 can be found here.
Op zoek naar schoonheid en de liefde voor het naakt
Angst voor het naakt is een vrij uitzinnig kortverhaal dat Arnon Grunberg schreef naar aanleiding vOp zoek naar schoonheid en de liefde voor het naakt
Angst voor het naakt is een vrij uitzinnig kortverhaal dat Arnon Grunberg schreef naar aanleiding van de tentoonstelling Classic Beauties over neoclassicistische kunst die nog loopt tot 13 januari 2019 in de Hermitage Amsterdam, waarin hij de lezer net zoals de bezoeker van de tentoonstelling meeneemt naar Italië en speelt met het achttiende-eeuwse kunstenaarsideaal van de Grand Tour. Op zoek naar de inspiratie die zijn kunst een hart en een ziel kunnen geven, vervelt Fabian Brouzos van een would-be schilder die Arnold Böcklin natekent naar een beeldhouwer die zich op een weinig orthodoxe wijze laat inspireren door Antonio Canova, terwijl de vrouwelijke modellen in de ogen van zijn ouders in zijn werken verdacht vaak de trekken van een Bolognese garagehouder (kaal, gezet, met een behoorlijke onderkin) lijken te weerspiegelen. Onmiskenbaar zijn moeders ook wel eens loeders zelfs al handelen ze dan met de beste bedoelingen (naar verluidt geen ongewone zaak bij Grunberg).
Verzinnebeeldt de – vruchteloze - zoektocht naar een hart en ziel van de kunst de mening van Grunberg over neoclassicistische kunst of gekscheert hij vooral met het sensuele, vernieuwende karakter van de naaktheid in deze stijl, ‘een naakte, goddelijke schoonheid, nog gedurfder dan bij de Grieken en de Romeinen’? Ik zou het niet kunnen zeggen, maar genoot van dit licht groteske, speelse verhaal waarin het dollen met lichaamsdelen en vooral de conversaties tussen het ouderpaar zalig op de lachspieren werkten. ...more
It is a life of surprises, and so, owing to my son’s English teacher who assigned this short story by Patricia Highsmith to the class as their first tIt is a life of surprises, and so, owing to my son’s English teacher who assigned this short story by Patricia Highsmith to the class as their first tale to read in the language, I found myself lured out of my natural reading habitat and sent on the path of crime fiction. Since reading a bunch of Agatha Christie novels in my teens, I actually cannot remember reading a thriller or crime novel but I just could not not read the whole story after I had been cannily fed some snippets of it by the son asking for assistance. Ever keen on a great story I am as vigilant and curious like an aproned woman standing in the doorway many hours a day not to miss any movement or exciting gossip in the street when I am tickled by some intriguing sentences on paper. O yes, that skilful son knows all too well how to get me where he wants.
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And what a darkly funny treat of a story this was. Fast-paced, sardonic, in a delectably vicious way magnifying men’s abysmal instincts – the unrepentant lust for money and sex, the vanity. Ironic indulging in old sayings and wisdoms galore. What goes around, comes around. Crime doesn’t pay. He who digs a pit will one day lie in it. Closing the day with this gripping and chilling story, I drew my dressing gown a little closer to me, glad it wasn’t such a flimsy one like Olivia’s.
(***1/2) Sometimes when you read, it’s like certain sentences strike home and knock you flat. It’s as if they say everything you have tried to say, (***1/2) Sometimes when you read, it’s like certain sentences strike home and knock you flat. It’s as if they say everything you have tried to say, or tried to do, or everything you are. As a rule, what you are is one simmering, endless longing.
Knots is a collection of 26 stories, mainly ultra-short pieces ranging from one-two page flash fiction over three-four pages and two somewhat more fleshed out short stories taking ten to twenty pages for the opening and the closing of the collection. Delightfully imaginative and variegated in tone and style, from conventional to experimental, some stories are connected by characters, situations or repetitiveness of turns of phrases and patterns, most stand alone. Themes are death, desire, loneliness, family ties, love, betrayal, adultery, longing, identity, sexuality.
We meet a deer in an existential mood. We get fable and crime fiction. Some stories are funny, others chafing, mysterious or erotic. Some are abrupt like life. The opening story in a humorous and recognisable way illustrates the craziness of our current life style, how a visit to Ikea while suffering from depression escalates. A few of the evocative titles like ‘Fortune Smiles on Mona Lisa’ or ‘Blanchot Slips under A Bridge’ reveal the playfulness and a certain light-heartedness characterising some of the stories. But there is also unfulfillment, a yearning to be seen by others, discomfort and disillusionment. While a few stories ostensibly touch on the banality of everyday life, Gunnhild Øyehaug doesn’t eschew blending the ordinary with elements of the supernatural, rendering her stories a peculiar, surreal atmosphere. Her protagonists seem to float into the thin air of every day absurdity. They seem not earthed, while at the same time tied up – knotted - to their awkward situation – like in the story on the uncuttable umbilical cord uniting a mother and her adult son over the grave.
The Deer at the Edge of the Forest The deer stood at the edge of the forest and was miserable. He felt like there was no point in anything, like he might as well give up. I walk around here, day in and day out, the deer thought, and there’s no one who sees me. Am I invisible, or what? He didn’t think so. I walk around here and could change people’s lives if only they could see me, but no one sees me. Here I am, a hart, and no one cares. The whole point is that I am supposed to be difficult to see, I know that, I am supposed to roam around the forest and not be seen. But it is the very premise of my life that is now making me miserable. I want to be seen. So here I am at the edge of the forest. I am open to being seen, to being shot. If someone doesn’t see me soon, I am going to do something drastic, I mean it. Right now it feels like I’m trapped in deerness. Oh, I would love to change everything, be someone else, something completely different. Oh, imagine if I could be a roe deer, an elk…
Within Gunnhild Øyehaug’s slightly alienating world and through some of her somewhat ostentatious spielerei with names and literary references (Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters, Rimbaud, Cortazàr, Blanchot, Barthes – a fine analysis of these can be found here), I sense a cleverness below the surface of some of the stories which largely escapes me but which I can imagine will speak to readers who are more familiar with these authors (such for instance was the case with ‘Vitalie Meets an Officer’ drawing on the meeting of the parents of Rimbaud which reminded me of the little I gathered so far on Rimbaud’s life).
Overall these stories were intriguing but didn’t engage me much as a reader. Most stories felt a little insubstantial to my taste to make a long-lasting impression if read in one track, nonetheless the collection works in giving a flavour of the uncommon to the common, if dipping in with little doses (in that respect Øyehaug indeed reminds me of Lydia Davis, to whom she has been compared). Noticing that Knots gets pretty enthusiastic reviews, I guess it is just me this time- unable to suspend my disbelief in UFO’s - and not this motley Nordic Wunderkammer of breezy, well-composed and quirky stories which other readers might enjoy a lot.
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