The Brothers by Asko Sahlberg

Translated from the Finnish by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur Jeremiah

"I sensed that motherhood was terrible, perhaps sweet at times, but above all terrible.  Not because one human child would be more horrendous than another, nor is it so that offspring cannot bring joy when little and be useful when grown up, but because motherhood makes it possible for future generations to be rocked by dark tragedies."

The Old Mistress in this snowy and tense Finnish tale reflects on her early impressions of motherhood, and what sort of legacy her two sons would be for her.  It's right that she worries, for she is desperately miserable in her desolate forest home, where she has to deal with "people whose speech tells you they have rough palms" as well as a sickly husband.  Added to this, she has furtive servants and two wildly opposing boys, Erik and Henrik. 

Erik and Henrik are introduced as quarrelsome boys who end up on opposite sides during the war between Sweden and Russia (this takes place in 1809). (See footnote) Neither character is fully exposed, so the tension between the two is immediately apparent while the meaning behind it is delayed.  As the plot twists, the reader can see that this was intended...for the reader is given no easy clues to unravel the family's drama.

"...for a time I was able to watch the boys grow up with at least distant pride.  But boys are fated to grow into men, and a mother has to follow this tragedy as a silent bystander. And now it seems they will kill each other, and then this, too, can be added to my never-ending list of losses."

The character of their mother, the Old Mistress, is one of the most powerful female characters to be found in modern fiction: she has no saving grace that makes her likable or even necessary.  Her anger and rage doesn't make her a stereotypical obstacle: rather, she intrigues the reader and pulls out an interest in her that detracts a bit from the animosity between the boys. And author Sahlberg makes her a key to the plot-- a veritable loose cannon as the plot proceeds.

"I took up the habit of moving all the yesterdays and tomorrows discreetly to one side.  I have never deceived myself in this respect:  I gulp down spirits like a sailor".

Along with the Old Mistress, other characters speak in the first person voice, including both boys.  But while the world orbits between their opposite poles, another character begins to invade the literal and figurative world of the desolate farm.  This outsider quietly alters the lives of everyone involved, and controls the plot to its remarkable ending. 

Several details of note:  the subtle writing definitely follows the rule of "show, don't tell".  Broken veins on the cheeks of a character are a detail not elaborated on, yet critically important.  Scenes between silent characters are so detailed that even without the dialogue, one reads an entire conversation.  These kind of details made me wish I could go back and read it again, slower, to catch the amazing writing that can capture so many variants of meaning with the same words, even the same characters, at different times. This subtlety seems to mirror the cold, snowy landscape.

I have to confess, I searched a thesaurus to find other ways to say 'tension' and 'subtle'!  I really can't emphasize the taut and bare style of the work enough without saying "tension" repeatedly.  So, let me just throw it out there:  tension.  Everywhere. 

Special thanks to Meike Ziervogel of Peirene Press for the Review Copy.

The details of this war are fascinating (Napolean's in it) and this link details the events of the time as well as some rather ironic problems with uniforms for both sides (someone had the brilliant idea to experiment with changing colors and styles!).  An excellent background to the story:

http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/battles/c_finnish.html

Frozen Time by Anna Kim (translated fiction)

Translated by Michael Mitchell

“…being missing mutates into the birthmark on their forehead, into the scar on their cheek, into their predilection for swimming in the rain, strolling along streets after midnight.”


Such are the sorts of details that forensic archeologists and forensic anthropologists look for when trying to find missing persons. It’s not enough to know what the missing person looked like, but how they lived, even their favorite foods, places to eat, and ways they liked to travel are also important. Habits assist in placing the victims, dental records and medical reports come in later to confirm the identity. Such is the difficult work of locating and identifying missing persons in wartime, in this novel, specifically during the Kosovo war. The conflict between Albanians and Serbs was intensely violent, and cases of mass executions and random kidnappings were common.

Frozen Time examines the conflict from the point of view of a researcher with the Red Cross Tracing Network in Vienna whose job consists of interviewing the families of persons still missing long after the conflict ended. She interviews the family, trying to discern details that will set their loved one apart amid the thousands of corpses that are buried throughout the region. Physical details are important, but even their moods and whims create an additional layer of identification. Nora is taught essential skills in interviewing loved ones, yet even her professional demeanor is challenged when hearing the heartbreaking stories of incomprehensible atrocities.

The title comes from Nora’s observations about a man, Luan, who is searching for his wife Fahrie, who had been abducted seven years before and was presumed dead. “Your present and future have been amputated, leaving traces, phantom beings, they complain whenever you forget your grief, even if only for a moment, your life frozen at the moment when you discovered Fahrie had disappeared, no, it’s not your life that’s frozen but your time, frozen time which doesn’t count, you wish it would finally pass, it is passing, but as it’s frozen, it passes infinitely slowly. Or is it less a matter of being frozen, more of experiencing particular minutes, days and months in an endless loop?” Her interviews with him are painful, as he deals with the guilt of not protecting her, guilt for his own survival, and the guilt that he feels when he tries to move on with his life. Yet in order to find her, and differentiate her from all the others, she has to probe, unemotionally and distant, to find clues.

As she interviews him and builds a paper trail of Luan and Fahrie’s life, their shared history, another dimension is revealed as the courtship and marriage rituals unique to the region are explained. Arranged marriages are still common in Albania, and in the case of Fahrie and Luan, they cleverly met in advance to see if they could stand each other, and fell in love on their own, which required them to hide their affection at their marriage because it was assumed they’d never met. Sweet little details like that make Luan’s grief, despite the seven years of solitude, palpable and intense.

The story is told in a documentary style, based on the styles of interviews that are typically done in these cases. This means no dialogue tags, quotation marks, and a few areas of abbreviated text. It feels very real-brisk-and yet despite that, or maybe because of it, the details of the atrocities that are still being unearthed and exposed are shocking and hideous. I remember this time period, my children were little, and it’s hard to imagine such a medieval scope of violence occurring within their lifetime. Even having studied the region in previous nonfiction texts, I was still astonished at what unimaginable horrors have been meted out to innocent victims. The book doesn’t focus on these, but they are there in the background, begging the reader to consider where such violence comes from.

An especially important detail is that the author, Anna Kim, doesn’t get into the politics of the war; she doesn’t push for one side’s guilt over the other, instead, she concentrates on the recovery process. In a situation where, say, one hundred bodies are discovered in a mass grave, it isn’t enough to have a photograph or DNA; knowing if the missing person frequented the area, what they wore (were their ears pierced?), and if they were right or left handed is more useful in the initial stages.

This book was hard to put down: the style of writing and subject matter had me glued to it to see if Fahrie would be found. I marked so many interesting passages of text I couldn’t even begin to sort them out for this review. There was only one thing that drove me nuts: extensive use of italicized words and phrases. I’m not sure if it was on the author or translator or even editor’s end, but very often in the narrative, a few words would be italicized to remind you that they are very important. But the context was clear and concise, if you’d read anything in the book you knew that without needing italics to tell you it was significant. It sounds completely trivial but it put my teeth on edge at times, because it was distracting and unnecessary. It almost came off as childish, which makes no sense given the serious nature of the subject matter. See, I just did it…isn’t that obnoxious? The book was still very much worth it, but it had to be mentioned!

An excellent title for the Eastern European Reading Challenge!

Special thanks to Jorun Johns of Ariadne Press for the Review Copy.

The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt, Rulka Langer

Originally published in 1942, Aquila Polonica has reprinted this in a stunning new edition.  The first thing that jumps out at you is pictures!  Lots and lots of pictures, particularly focused on the Siege of Warsaw, which is the focus of the book.  In addition, maps and timelines assist in understanding the events before and during WWII.

First off, the female author adds a unique voice to the usually male-dominated subject of wartime.  She also explains immediately why her story is different from what a war correspondent for the news might write.  Her presence as a mother with an extended family gives her a different viewpoint:

"A war correspondent, when he runs to that gigantic fire (her example), does not leave his own children behind in his hotel room.  When caught in an air raid, he doesn't tremble for the life of his own old mother.  His brother has not vanished somewhere on the crowded roads...it isn't his own house, the house in which he was born and has lived for years, that has been set on fire by an incendiary. And if he himself goes through the agony of mortal fear, none of his readers will ever know about it."

As a narrator of the horrors, Langer is ideal.  For a time before all this occurred, she had lived in the United States and had attended Vassar, and then became a copywriter for an advertising agency.  After marrying and having a child, her husband became the Commercial Attache at the Polish Embassy.  Eventually he resigned and they went back to Poland, but in 1938 he had another opportunity to work in the US.  She remained in Poland, on a temporary basis, planning to rejoin him.  However, as WWII heated up, she ended up in a small town with her mother and extended family, hoping to wait out the storm.

The book goes on to detail the fears that residents had, as well as the thread of suspicion that wove through daily life.  At one point, when she travelled to try and find a way to get to Warsaw, she was arrested by a band of women with pitchforks who assumed she was a German spy (her missing passport didn't help her case).  While many Warsaw residents had fled the city, Langer and her mother actually decided to return there, because the refugees who fled were equally endangered, and the prospect of travelling with small children seemed questionable.  They returned to an apartment thoroughly shelled, without windows, and with its contents turned to rubble.  Here they tried to reclaim their life and wait out the Siege.

It's this personal aspect that makes the book most involving.  As a mom, hearing how she attempted to feed her children and create some semblence of normalcy, no matter how fragile, was amazing.  Entertaining them, distracting them from their fears, and still maintaining a sense of calm is hardly imaginable. When a fire began on their roof, it took 48 hours to get help.  Without panes of glass in the windows, they nearly froze in their apartments.  Small details jump out the most:  how a copy of Gone with the Wind seemed to inspire her to hold on to her old clothes lest she have to use the drapes for fabric.  How rumours and gossip made fear escalate even more.  And how, even in extreme danger, women will still bicker over the price of produce!

Another intriguing part of the book involves her creation of a new business to try and make money. Since newspapers no longer circulated, and the Poles desperately needed items that would normally be offered in the classified ads, Langer used her advertising background and a friend's help to create posters of small items for sale.  Despite interference from the German's occupying Warsaw, they still found a way to post these and make a small amount of money. 

In all, her family suffered greatly during the Siege and family members was tragically killed.  But Langer and her children survived and were able to get to Vienna.  Soon after, they left for America.  I'm most amazed at how readable this is compared to other books about the war experience.  Suitable for all ages, it would make an excellent resource in a classroom and a stepping stone to further study on the Siege of Warsaw.  Hearing from a survivor about the human capacity for resilience and inner strength is motivating, especially in a time when nothing made sense.

Special thanks to Debra Gendel of Aquila Polonica for the Review Copy.

Aquila Polonica also produces a DVD of the Siege of Warsaw available on their website,

www.aquilapolonica.com.

The Russian Version, Elena Fanailova, Best Translated Book, poetry

The Russian Version was recently awarded the prize for 2010 Best Translated Book Award for Poetry by Three Percent (University of Rochester), an international literary translation site (link on left sidebar). 

In most instances I avoid prologues and forewords...they usually tell me too much about the work and influence me to look at it in a often slanted light.  I tend to read more into it of another's opinion than my own reactions.  However, in this beautiful poetry collection (beautiful as in subtle and elegant), I must break from tradition and read the Introduction by Aleksandr Skidan.  It's worthwhile in that he explains some biographical details about Fanailova and also about the style of poetry that is contained herein.  It's not simply free verse or heteromorphic but a compiling of various clues from her consciousness:  random bits of pop culture, socio-political commentary, painful details of war, conflicted thoughts of family and a tiny bit of ironic humor.  It is probably the most complicated political poetry I've read, in that it isn't just commenting on Chechnya or Afghanistan but more on the Russian character as a whole:  both the stereotype and the reality.  One of her poems mentioned Gogol, and having confused him with Pushkin and Chekhov I have to look him up, so I googled Gogol (!) and the first sentence I saw was that he "says something very essential about the Russian character";  in this she seems to dispute what typifies the Russian persona.

Additionally, another key factor to most enjoy these selections is to go to the back and read her text notes on each section (and these are excerpts, portions of other books and works).  These illuminate details that may be foreign to many Western readers.  For example, in "Freud and Korczak", she explains that the Korczak was a Polish pediatrician who remained with his young Jewish patients in the Warsaw ghetto, though it cost him his life.  The poem talks about the meaningless of murder, the irony of how insignificant a single murder can seem, and yet how a magnificent tool, capable of so much fine workmanship, ends up being a tool of destruction on a massive scale.  It concludes with the question "Why War?", which Fanailova remarks is the name given to letters exchanged between Einstein and Freud, which leads to further meditation on how perplexed those great minds were by the same things that confuse us now.

One of the most revealing selections is her explanation for her one of the poems "Again they're off for their Afghanistan", where she describes a chance meeting with the couple that it is based upon, and how "the whole course and mechanism of this conversation call for a kind of opening of a window in time, and through this window the draft of the eighties begins to blow.  The details, taste, and feel of the time all had to be captured, whenever possible, without distortion....The sense of violence is the main thing that I remember about this era; this sense permeated all entertainments, pleasures, sensations and feelings, not to speak of work...They speak about monstrous things in a rather ordinary way, even with some animation, because it is their youth they are referring to."  Given that my grasp of the eighties was big hair and Duran Duran, I feel shamed for my ignorance. 

A favorite passage:
Recall:  how fine it is to embrace your beloved
Shirking all responsibility.
Love will change with age,
Become even more magnificent,
Maybe more tender, or perhaps more combustible.
Try to stick around long enough for this.

These aren't easy or pretty;  they require some meditation and perhaps further research.  This selection is not for the masses but for those willing to journey somewhere outside their realm of comfort, and who would undoubtedly return richer for the experience.  I'm not going to pretend I understand every reference, or even every poem.  Some made me laugh in places I wasn't sure was appropriate ("Black Suits").  I hope to enjoy this collection and get more out of it as I return to it.

Special thanks to Ugly Duckling Presse for the Advanced Review Copy.

After the Fire, a Still Small Voice by Evie Wyld

Frank has returned to his childhood playground, a beach cottage near Queensland, to sort out his life after a devastating breakup, a relationship that inevitably ended when he became physically violent with his girlfriend. He loathes what he did, and runs to hide in a place that he thinks will comfort him. Once there, memories begin to eat at him, becoming so real that he turns his head and alerts to their arrival.


He can’t relate to his new violent streak, and tries to analyze what has happened since his mother’s death that turned him. Violence would have been more appropriate, more expected, from his father or even his grandfather, both veterans of brutal warfare in Asia. As the novel continues, the narration explores the experiences of both of those men in war and at home.

It’s oversimplified to say that war changed them, and Wyld doesn’t take us down that well-worn path. Rather, what makes this story complex is how it changed everyone else. Wives and girlfriends alternate between comforters and enemies, their every action subject to the random and unpredictable moods of their men.

“ Some fellas, they make the women lonely. Maybe it doesn’t apply to you, mate, but maybe that’s why you’re here”

Frank sorts through his memories while being befriended by a small girl and her pet carrot. A missing teenager and a grieving couple complicate his life while his coworkers rail against the Aboriginal natives that reside in the community. All the while his memories and fears creep up on him though he tries to ignore them. At one point, he makes a conscious decision to rid himself of tangible items to remove the memories that go with them:

“Makes things easier having less stuff. See, if I keep them I’ve got to find a place to put them in – probably in a box or something so they don’t get broken…And when you start to get older that sort of thing gets to be more of a problem.”

This novel focuses on the intimate details of these men and their lives in a setting of urbanization and change. Wyld describes subtle gestures and inner thoughts flawlessly, and invents these entirely new flawed characters like none I’ve read before. Her writing style reminds me of Tim Winton (my favorite author), with its focus on the Australian bush and seaside with their colors and plants and weather. An unexpected sweetness is found mixed in with the brutality of war. A really enjoyable story that makes me eager for her next book.

This novel was recently nominated for Best First Book in the 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Special thanks to K. Freeman at Knopf/Random House for the Advanced Review Copy.