Kornel Esti by Dezso Kosztolanyi (link to review)

http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php?id=3868

Nominated for BTBA this year, the link goes to the review at Open Letter/Three Percent where they are running a series focusing on each title.

Translated from the Hungarian.

Stone Upon Stone by Wieslaw Mysliwski (link to review)

One of the longlist titles for Best Translated Book Award and why it should win---My review is at:

http://www.rochester.edu/College/translation/threepercent/index.php?id=3856.  Open Letter is going to profile each of the titles nominated. 

The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka

Reprinted review: this title is now released in the US so I'm posting the review again...this is a "don't miss" title.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa

"Tears are very unliterary: they have no form."

This is possibly the most dog-eared book I've ever had. Folding down corners is my method for marking significant (to me) passages, but it clearly wasn't working with this fiction novel because I was marking every page. I'd never read this Venezuelan author before, but I hope to find more of his work translated into English.

Tin House's cover

Delicate prose, deep moral questions, and a stunning pace are what kept me hooked into reading this in one sitting. The story itself is rather simple: a successful doctor discovers that his father is seriously ill. Their close relationship is strained as the son weighs the consequences of telling his father the details of his illness. In the meantime, another man, virtually unknown to the doctor, begins stalking him, imagining that he holds the cure for the the list of complaints he suffers from. There's a push and pull to the narrative, as the poignant moments between father and son,nuanced with shared memories of grief, intertwine with the creepy certainty of the stalker.

Because of the health issues that permeate the novel, questions about the nature of health and wellness are explored, but in a brief, compelling way. The author cites quotes of famous authors, ethicists and physicians, but he's not showing off, they are actually appropriate observations of how the human body deals with illness. These asides never go too long or feel like a lecture, they fit the material in the most uncanny way.

For example, Tyszka quotes Julio Ramon Ribeyro, who provides possibly the best explanation for the euphoria that exists after an episode of physical pain:

"Physical pain is the great regulator of our passions and ambitions. Its presence immediately neutralizes all other desires apart from the desire for the pain to go away. This life that we reject because it seems to us boring, unfair, mediocre or absurd suddenly seems priceless: we accept it as it is, with all its defects, as long as it doesn't present itself to us in its vilest form - pain."

Tsyzka presents simple scenes with insightful observation. On trying to read the face of a doctor while awaiting possibly bad news:

"It's the illustration that accompanies a bad diagnosis, the first installment of an expression of condolence."


On imagining his father's worries:

"Are the monsters of old age as terrible as those that assail us when we're children? What do you dream about when you're sixty-nine? ....Perhaps this is what his father dreams about: he's in a laboratory, in the bowels of a hospital, surrounded by chemicals, sharp implements, gauze, and strangers all repellently dressed in white...."


Events proceed in unexpected ways, and as a reader, you never quite know what direction you're being pulled in. You feel empathy and disgust in altering passages, and the underlying fear is riveting. I did find the ending a bit confusing...I still am not sure I've understood all the implications laid out.

One scene confounds me: It takes place on a ferry, where an obnoxious businessman makes a production of his 'importance' and maltreats his seemingly intelligent and kind wife, all the way to the point of beating her to the ground. I'm not sure what the symbolism is, although I know it's present in that scene. Is Tyszka trying to say that people are subject to humiliation, by oppression or illness, no matter how virtuous they are?

In full, this is easily going to be in my list of favorites for the year. While the subject revolves around illness, it never quite defines which 'illness' is being addressed: is it disease? regret? evil? The questions are posed, and only each individual reader can answer.

Special thanks to Paul Engels of Maclehose Press, London, for the Review Copy.


This book has now been released by Tin House in the US.  It can be purchased at online retailers and at http://www.tinhouse.com/books/fiction-poetry.html.

I Hadn't Understood by Diego De Silva

Translated from the Italian by Antony Shugaar

The fact is that I’m an inconsistent narrator…I’m too interested in incidental considerations that can take you off track. When I tell a story, it’s like watching someone rummage through the drawer where they keep their receipts and records.



All this is just another way of saying my thoughts don’t seem to grip the road, they tend to skid and drift.


So explains Vincenzo Malinconico, the Italian lawyer who becomes one of the most lovable protagonists I’ve ever encountered in this story by Diego De Silva. On the surface, it is the story of a lawyer strong-armed into defending a low-level criminal backed by a dubious source, while at the same time dealing with the aftermath of a painful marital split. But, while the plot is fast and furious, the real draw is the character of Vincenzo. Hearing a character’s inner monologue can really be a risk, as it can veer into boring pretty quickly. But in this case, you really just want to hear him talk.

And talk he does!  At times using lists and bullet points, his mind races around analyzing everything. He does a two-page riff on Camorra interior décor, to the point I had to grab Kleenex from laughing so hard. (If you have a fuschia and marble living room, you may find his observations uncomfortable). Another phenomena that Vincenzo investigates with wit and insight is the way some people talk in public, raising their voices so their imagined audience can see how cynical and world-weary they are.  He manages to capture the insecurity that's revealed in the gestures and chatter of those desperately hoping that someone finds them fascinating.  Edgy and fast-paced, the scenes that take place in the courthouse have some of the best dialogue I've read. 

The thing that is so unique is that while he pokes fun at others constantly (but most of all himself), he's never really mean or nasty. That would get tedious after awhile.   Instead of arrogance, it's with acceptance that he realizes just about everyone he knows is a jerk in some way or another, including himself, so he doesn't seem to take any of it too seriously.

At another point he tries to understand the difference between perception and actuality:

“The thing is that reality mumbles. It expresses itself in incomplete sentences. And the translations that circulate are terrible, done by incompetents. Riddled with misreading, typos, entire lines missing. I make imperfect translations in an effort to get by until, one fine morning, I meet reality in the street –nonchalant, understated, never vulgar – and I stand there, rooted to the spot, staring as she passes me by and vanishes…”

At one point, he discovers he’s being followed. Vincenzo has to look at his options.

“In these cases, in fact, the first thing you do when you’re out walking is to slow down, take a deep breath and square your shoulders, as if somehow you feel incredibly interesting all of a sudden.


Obviously in your case this is all just a farce, because if you really did think that a criminal was following you in order to rob you or settle some account that you know nothing about, at the very least you’d start running like a sewer rat or you’d scream for help in the general direction of the first policeman, traffic cop, or mailman (anything wearing a uniform, in other words) you happen to see; I very much doubt you’d waste time acting like the poor man’s James Bond.”

Vincenzo obsesses about his luxury furniture, fights with his wife’s new man at an airport Burger King, and tries to learn all the case law he’s forgotten while still managing to catch the eye of the courthouse’s loveliest lawyer. Even that mystifies him, as he tries to figure out what she seems in him.  The lyrics to Gilbert O'Sullivan's Alone Again (Naturally) get a complete dissection that will alter all previous associations to the song, as "You nod along to the tempo and then shudder in horror at the end of each verse."  Small and annoying dogs get a few pages in too, and while almost universally despised, he manages to freshly capture what it is that makes us hate them so much.

Vincenzo is a fresh character --reflective and thoughtful without sinking into self-absorption. A fun read.

Special thanks to Europa Editions for the Advance Review Copy.

This title releases in the US on February 28, 2012.

Best Translated Book Awards Longlist

Chad Post and Open Letter released the longlist for the Best Translated Book Awards. Since many are from the Eastern European and Russian regions, as well as the Mediterranean, I thought readers could post which ones you've read or purchased, as well as thoughts.  Anyone?

Leeches by David Albahari

Translated from the Serbian by Ellen Elias-Bursać
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

My review: http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/2011/06/leeches-by-david-albahari-serbian.html

My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec
Translated from the Spanish by Margaret B. Carson
(Open Letter)

Demolishing Nisard by Eric Chevillard
Translated from the French by Jordan Stump
(Dalkey Archive Press)

Private Property by Paule Constant
Translated from the French by Margot Miller and France Grenaudier-Klijn
(University of Nebraska Press)

Lightning by Jean Echenoz
Translated from the French by Linda Coverdale
(New Press)

Zone by Mathias Énard***
Translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell
(Open Letter)

Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Harstad
Translated from the Norwegian by Deborah Dawkin
(Seven Stories)

Upstaged by Jacques Jouet
Translated from the French by Leland de la Durantaye
(Dalkey Archive Press)

Fiasco by Imre Kertész***
Translated from the Hungarian by Tim Wilkinson
(Melville House)

Montecore by Jonas Hassen Khemiri
Translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles
(Knopf)

Kornél Esti by Dezső Kosztolányi***
Translated from the Hungarian by Bernard Adams
(New Directions)

I Am a Japanese Writer by Dany Laferrière
Translated from the French by David Homel
(Douglas & MacIntyre)

Suicide by Edouard Levé
Translated from the French by Jan Steyn
(Dalkey Archive Press)

New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani
Translated from the Italian by Judith Landry
(Dedalus)

Purgatory by Tomás Eloy Martínez
Translated from the Spanish by Frank Wynne
(Bloomsbury)

Stone Upon Stone by Wiesław Myśliwski***
Translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston
(Archipelago Books)

Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz
Translated from the Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange
(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

The Shadow-Boxing Woman by Inka Parei
Translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire
(Seagull Books)

Funeral for a Dog by Thomas Pletzinger***
Translated from the German by Ross Benjamin
W.W. Norton)

Scars by Juan José Saer
Translated from the Spanish by Steve Dolph
(Open Letter)

Kafka’s Leopards by Moacyr Scliar
Translated from the Portuguese by Thomas O. Beebee
(Texas Tech University Pres)

Seven Years by Peter Stamm***
Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann
(Other Press)

The Truth about Marie by Jean-Philippe Toussaint
Translated from the French by Matthew B. Smith
(Dalkey Archive Press)

In Red by Magdalena Tulli
Translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston
(Archipelago Books)

Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas
Translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean
(New Directions)

***Reviews coming to this site or placed in other publications

My personal vote is for Kornel Esti or Stone Upon Stone. 

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo (Norwegian crime)

Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett


I've heard his name over and over, but this was the first Nesbo title I've read.  Part of the draw was that it seems like everyone who reads his books raves about the detective Harry Hole, who features in several of the books.  I like characters who show up in series.  Arkady Renko, Kurt Wallander, Kinsey Milhone, Harry Bosch...all of these become so familar in series form that you can almost know how they think.  (I dropped the Javier Falcon series after awhile...just too gory, too ick!) 

So, I wasn't disappointed with The Redbreast, if anything, I was a bit surprised at just how complicated the storyline was. Nesbo mixes present day Norway with WWII fighting by Norwegian soldiers, and strings a thread from the fighting to a present day assassination attempt.  Stolen identities, a manipulative Secretary of Foreign Affairs, a group of skinhead Neo-Nazis, a rare rifle from South Africa, and departmental battles keep the narrative moving all over the place.  There is never a point when the reader can claim "I figured it out!"  Okay, maybe Bernadette could, but other than that...no way.

I'm not going to go into a formal review....I picked this up as part of my goof-off time reading and enjoyed it.  It's won of ton of awards, and for once I'd think someone could make a movie of this rather than the inevitable Larsson books.  Great mystery, great series, good stuff!

Purchased at the Book Exchange in Los Osos, California.

The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka (translated fiction)

Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa

"Tears are very unliterary: they have no form."

This is possibly the most dog-eared book I've ever had. Folding down corners is my method for marking significant (to me) passages, but it clearly wasn't working with this fiction novel because I was marking every page.  I'd never read this Venezuelan author before, but I hope to find more of his work translated into English.

Delicate prose, deep moral questions, and a stunning pace are what kept me hooked into reading this in one sitting.  The story itself is rather simple:  a successful doctor discovers that his father is seriously ill.  Their close relationship is strained as the son weighs the consequences of telling his father the details of his illness.  In the meantime, another man, virtually unknown to the doctor, begins stalking him, imagining that he holds the cure for the the list of complaints he suffers from.  There's a push and pull to the narrative, as the poignant moments between father and son,nuanced with shared memories of grief, intertwine with the creepy certainty of the stalker.

Because of the health issues that permeate the novel, questions about the nature of health and wellness are explored, but in a brief, compelling way.  The author cites quotes of famous authors, ethicists and physicians, but he's not showing off, they are actually appropriate observations of how the human body deals with illness.  These asides never go too long or feel like a lecture, they fit the material in the most uncanny way.

For example, Tyszka quotes Julio Ramon Ribeyro, who provides possibly the best explanation for the euphoria that exists after an episode of physical pain:

"Physical pain is the great regulator  of our passions and ambitions.  Its presence immediately neutralizes all other desires apart from the desire for the pain to go away.  This life that we reject because it seems to us boring, unfair, mediocre or absurd suddenly seems priceless: we accept it as it is, with all its defects, as long as it doesn't present itself to us in its vilest form - pain."

Tsyzka presents simple scenes with insightful observation.  On trying to read the face of a doctor while awaiting possibly bad news:

"It's the illustration that accompanies a bad diagnosis, the first installment of an expression of condolence."

On imagining his father's worries:

"Are the monsters of old age as terrible as those that assail us when we're children?  What do you dream about when you're sixty-nine?  ....Perhaps this is what his father dreams about:  he's in a laboratory, in the bowels of a hospital, surrounded by chemicals, sharp implements, gauze, and strangers all repellently dressed in white...."

Events proceed in unexpected ways, and as a reader, you never quite know what direction you're being pulled in.  You feel empathy and disgust in altering passages, and the underlying fear is riveting.  I did find the ending a bit confusing...I still am not sure I've understood all the implications laid out.

One scene confounds me:  It takes place on a ferry, where an obnoxious businessman makes a production of his 'importance' and maltreats his seemingly intelligent and kind wife, all the way to the point of beating her to the ground.  I'm not sure what the symbolism is, although I know it's present in that scene.  Is Tyszka trying to say that people are subject to humiliation, by oppression or illness, no matter how virtuous they are? 

In full, this is easily going to be in my list of favorites for the year.  While the subject revolves around illness, it never quite defines which 'illness' is being addressed:  is it disease?  regret?  evil?  The questions are posed, and only each individual reader can answer.

Special thanks to Paul Engels of Maclehose Press, London, for the Review Copy.

Additionally, I jumped the gun on this review:  it will be released in the US in 2012 by Tin House Books, but is available in the UK now.