Paper Conspiracies by Susan Daitch

"Taking on the role of animating but anonymous power that revitalized Buster Keaton as his eyes grew sadder and (I thought) more disillusioned, or pumping up a flimsy, short haired Myrna Loy revealed an odd kind of romance I sometimes had with these images.  Or maybe it was a case of antiromance, the romance of solitary, imaginary pleasures."

"Yet when I watched movies and cartoons made before 1939 I couldn't help but pretend to inhabit those faces known only through photographs, wondering if they had watched these too, and in that projection back, the ghostly clusters took on a mixture of strange and familiar features."

The magic and mystery of the film industry, and the restoration of old and damaged reels is the setting for this novel that examines both current attitudes and historical events with the same intense focus on what is hidden and what is revealed.  Intentions to divert, distract, and conceal are all a part of the discoveries Frances makes as she tries to recover films from the past.

Her own sense of romance about her job alters as she realizes, through her boss, that substantial historical secrets could be literally under her fingers.  Set on preserving and discovering the truth, she learns about the infamous Dreyfus Affair, a French scandal that involved anti-semitism, the Catholic Church, politics, the monarchy, and even the writer Emile Zola.  The connection between this still-bitter historical event and the novel is what the novel investigates as the films of George Melies. 

The damaged film may hold the key to incriminating details to the Dreyfus case, and Frances finds that her life is changed as she tries to sort out clues from what appears to be distractions set to throw off the search for the truth. Old letters, vengeful agents, and Frances' bulldog personality all make the search for the riddle's answers that much more difficult.

Everything about this book revolves around the mystery of film and using that as a motif, Daitch manages to reveal her characters in a light that makes us wonder if we are seeing them as they are or as another shadowy transparency. While the book is extensive in scope, the writing is sharp and lean.  It doesn't linger too long on any one facet, even at times when I wish it had.  There's so much going on, politically and historically, that I found myself checking Google often to try and piece together my own take on what was fact and what was fiction.

"...Fabien saw special effects as links that created logical connections between otherwise entirely disparate events or objects....While he searched for props, he created or participated in another event, a parallel set of circumstances and phenomena..."

There's probably an obvious, underlying intention for the reader to question what they see and the forces behind whatever images they are presented with.  While this focuses backwards, there's an instinctive sense of acknowledgement that makes us realize the Dreyfus Affair is being repeated under other names and in other media right in front of us.

Special thanks to Stacey of City Lights for the Review Copy.
http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100733240

The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning by Hallgrimur Helgason

Originally published at The Quivering Pen

"Stieg Larsson marries Quentin Tarantino"....(credit David Abrams with the cool title!)
http://davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com/2012/05/stieg-larsson-marries-quentin-tarantino.html

At least the man knows how to clean and how to straighten up a room. I’ll give him that much credit, despite the fact his tidying up is only a way to kill time, waiting on a woman who may end up a victim. Vacuum expertise aside, however, it’s difficult to find much else of interest in this arrogant and chatty assassin nicknamed “Toxic,” the main character of the novel The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning, who continually reminds us just how skilled he is at murder. Immediately, we start to wonder how this will play out: is he going to turn into a valiant hero, or will he maintain his tragic vision and become the rarely seen, fully fledged anti-hero? 

“…I’m really proud of my hitman work. I always try to do a good job. ‘Victim first’ is my motto.”

Determined to come across as a fully-accredited badass, the protagonist narrates his every thought and action as he flees the U.S. after a hit goes wrong.  Seeing the FBI on his tail, he quickly changes his plans, kills another stranger, and steals his identity. He awakes on a plane bound for Reykjavik, Iceland.  The odds are good his escape plan will work, except that his new identity is that of a well-known fundamental Christian leader with a schedule of appearances awaiting him.  Deciding to play along with the ruse, he manages to record some disturbing radio sermons and manipulate his somewhat confused hosts, all while looking for a way out of Iceland. 

Author Hallgrimur Helgason often channels Quentin Tarantino with action similar to the film director’s style: fast-paced violence, pop culture references, saturated with sarcasm.  This is completely intentional, as Tarantino gets mentioned (as do Beyonce and Creed) several times in the storyline. The frenetic pace makes it difficult to absorb just how despicable the character is, and I found myself grasping for some quality to make him likable, some redeeming quality that would explain his often disturbing actions. 

“Usually I don’t want to know anything about my victims. It’s like back in the war. I kill strangers. I don’t feel for them. They’re just another head to swamp my bullet into…Usually they have refused to pay their tithe, failed to deliver for Dikan, or they show up with the same tie as he at the Mafia Oscars.”

See that? He manages to radiate disinterest and boredom, while at the same time making a really bad joke.  Unfortunately, that becomes the theme of this novel.  When hiding in an attic looking himself up on Google, he jokes, “I’m Anne Frank online.” Upon remembering a group of beautiful women, he shares his wishes for “mass rape.” He is endlessly amused at the low murder rates in the country, and spends his time remembering the better days in the States where he celebrated each kill with glee. 

It becomes clear at the midpoint of the novel that there is a source of his internal conflict and external bravado: he served in the Balkan war, and with his father and brother, saw and participated in terrible atrocities.  Helgason inserts the details slowly, and it’s possible to feel a tiny bit of pity for the protagonist.  But it doesn’t last, as experiences of war don’t seem sufficient to mitigate his present behavior.  If anything, the arc of the Balkan storyline appears so far into the novel that it feels too late to make up for his actions. Of course, mindlessly killing a small dog doesn’t exactly make him appealing.  And yet his self-awareness grows, likely because he’s out of his element and who he had been can’t exist anymore. In one brief moment, he admits, “everybody must have figured out I am the monster who lives under the bridge.” 

On the surface, the premise of The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning is very clever, but the delivery is so unsavory that it is neither tragic nor comic.  The sarcasm and humor feels forced, almost like a joke told by a comedian who is trying far too hard to get a laugh.  I get the feeling that Helgason is trying to reinforce just what a “monster” Toxic is due to his past experiences, yet there’s no evidence that he’s left the past behind. The other characters he encounters seem flat, as if they are only tools to further reveal Toxic’s depravity. 

Perhaps this can be attributed to the Stieg Larsson effect. Scandinavian crime novels boomed with his “Girl” trilogy, but the dark mystery novels were nothing new.  Other authors, such as Jo Nesbo, Henning Mankell, Karin Alvtegen and Arnaldur Indridason have created suspenseful and imaginative crime stories in the same setting for years before the region became comparatively “hot” in the literary world.  While those authors don’t often present characters quite as colorful as Toxic, they usually succeed in developing deeper characters with a more compelling warmth. 



Review by Amy Henry

Spring Tides by Jacques Poulin (French translation)

Translated from the French by Sheila Fischman

Supporting the translator, to every means possible, seems to be the theme of this unsettling and comic book from Jacques Poulin. The story told is held up by the elements of myth and fable that make the island setting and bizarre visitors seem to impart a greater meaning than had they been placed anywhere else. Translator (Teddy) seems to be the focus, there’s also a Prince, an Author, the Boss, the Organizer, a Professor, a ghastly woman called Featherhead, and an Ordinary Man who come to share the small island with a princess named Marie and a family of cats. Of course, the Author is a grump.

Teddy arrives first, and his work as a comic book translator appears top-secret as his boss frequently flies in to check on him and his work, while also delivering, via helicopter, any possible item that Teddy might find helpful (which is how Marie arrived). Teddy works and swims, and focuses on the tides that isolate the island but also seem to keep it, while stationary, in fluid motion.

Interactions between characters are what propel the events, more so than the arc of a plot. Each character reveals something completely different to what we’ve understood about Teddy. So as they arrive, he appears to unravel a bit, both in our perception and in his literal mental health.

Reading this felt relaxing and amusing. The little digs at publishing, especially the character of the Author, felt spot-on. But something about this made me feel I was missing a bigger picture. Almost as if it might have been even more tragic-comic had I known what the joke was. Because that’s what I felt, as if I only had heard the punch line and was missing the setup of an “in” joke between the author and the story. What am I missing? I tried to find some literary link to another island with similar characters and all I could get was Gilligan (and don’t worry, this is not Gilligan’s Island).

Despite that, I did enjoy the word play, especially the behind the scenes nature of translation and why Teddy chose particular words over others, and his explanations for doing so.

While I review for Algonquin, this was acquired as purchase I made two years ago.

The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac by Kris D'Agostino

Calvin Moretti is a jerk.  Despite being in his twenties, he behaves like a teenager, collecting vintage vinyl and sinking further into debt.  While he wants to be a man of the world, he ends up moving back home with his parents.  In fact, every decision he makes, or drifts into, leads him backwards. 

The timing home is difficult; his overachieving and obnoxious brother is also home for an indefinite time, and his little sister has rejoined the nest.  It all seems to be coming together for a Hallmark moment when the reader learns that the father of these children is dying of cancer.  All those kids, all that potential help!  Caregiving and getting to know each other, creating precious memories.

But no.  This is not that family.  Because "Dad" is not a Hallmark moment patient.  He keeps a Colt .45 in his robe.  Shooting at life-size family images through a window at night is just something to do.  He's bunkered down, stocking the house with everything he can to beat a potential enemy, just not the one that is killing him from within.  He makes Calvin promise to be with him in the end, and gives away his fears, it seems, only to Calvin.

An ensemble cast and a family drama like this usually leaves an author plenty of room to make it all work out with lots of hints at impending unity.  That despite it all, they'll end up closer and wiser.

But no.  This is not that author.  Kris D'Agostino doesn't take the shortcuts.  He creates characters that are messed up, and that much more real for their flaws.  Recognizing that challenges don't always bring out the best in us, he doesn't insult the reader by tidying up their sometimes ugly lives.  For example, Calvin works with disadvantaged and disabled children.  Perfect setup to make him a sympathetic character, but D'Agostino doesn't go there.  Calvin is just as much a jerk at work, impatient with these kids, and we see just how atypical he is. And here's the thing: the more layers of flaws and complications put on each character don't just make them difficult, it actually draws us in.

So how can you work a plot around some extraordinarily complicated characters?  D'Agostino does so by making everything a surprise.  A push and pull comes from moments when Calvin looks towards the future:

"What's going to happen to us?" I ask.

"In what context?" David asks.

"In the context of life," I say. "A year from now I'll be twenty-five. My father got married when he was twenty-five. He bought a house. I have nothing to show for it."

"We don't want those things," Wally says.
......
"Maybe we need to grow up," I say. "At least a little.  maybe it isn't all about us."

Yet pages later, Calvin is still short-sighted as always, looking for the perfect drug to deaden such questions about life.  These moments occur for the rest of the family, as their worry over their Dad and money and a new complication presents itself.  Many twists keep the tension ratcheted up, and it's difficult to put it down once you've started.  Possibly because, while most families like to imagine they are the Cosby's, the Walton's, or the Cleaver's, the reality is that they are the Simpson's.  And the Simpson's are what most of us understand.

Special thanks to Megan Fishmann for the Advance Review Copy.

Releases today! GRANTA 119: Britain

The release of a new Granta journal is always a big deal, and this issue on Britian gives you about ten reasons why.  As usual, it features poetry, fiction, journalism, and photography, but this time the issue is focused on one of my favorite places---Britain!  In fact, I probably watch more BBC than most Britons, so I practically devoured the whole issue.

The new issue features a delicate china cup in a traditional motif, but it’s cracked, without a handle. In Granta terms, that’s a big clue as to contents. This look at Britain is anything but stuffy or traditional, and it’s one of my favorite issues ever. Seriously, I’m the person you see at the thrift store going through piles of old books to find back issues of ancient Grantas, and who does a little happy dance when she finds one (one day I found five!!).

As usual, the journal features poetry, journalism, short stories and photographic essays. I first dove into Ross Raisin’s short story, “When You Grow Into Yourself”, because I was so fond of his novel, Waterline, which came out last year. And Mario Vargas Llosa’s piece, “The Celt”, is unforgettable in its sly humor and devastating realism.

Then there's Sam Byer's story, "Some Other Katherine":

"Katherine didn’t like to think of herself as sad. It had a defeatist ring about it. It lacked the pizzazz of, say, rage or main. But she had to admit that these days she was waking up sad a lot more than often than she was waking up happy.
----

“Like much of Katherine’s life, what she read and what she watched were governed by her sense of types of people: types she wanted to be; types she couldn’t stand. She didn’t want to be the sort of person (woman) who watched soaps and weepie movies. She wanted to be the type of person (woman) who watched the news and read the Booker list. She imagined herself at parties, despite the fact she never went to parties, being asked her opinion on world affairs and modern literature


Byer's short story is going to win some sort of award, even if I have no idea what they give to astonishing short stories.  The O.Henry? The "Katherine" that he creates is at times familiar but also scary as hell. The affect he can give to a fictional character is nothing short of brilliant.

Several poems are featured, my favorite being Robin Robertson’s “1964”, where the day’s journey of a kid --from playing in puddles, through the “museum of men” at the local barbershop, and to an unexpected end—creates an edgy yet innocent character.

“Under the gritted lid of winter, each
ice puddle’s broken plate
cracked to a star. The morning
assembling itself into black and white, the slow dawn
its developing tray. Cold steams off the grass;
the frosted yarrow and sea holy
smoke in the new sun.
…..


I know how children came, so I look for the stork
in the cliffs over the mussel pools…
Search for her everywhere
in the gantries of the storm woods, in the black pines,
that she might take me back.”

For the most serious read, a section on Belarusian journalism by Nikolai Khalezin and Natalia Kaliada details the numerous suspicious deaths of reporters who were falsely accused of being agitators. The article studies a group of thespians as well as the efforts of the KGB to intimidate them.

Mashka Henner



Mashka Henner

In the photography series entitled "Home", numerous artists play on the theme of the nature of home, from a hoarder, to a person recently released from Guantanamo Bay, to the looters and rioters who take from others while likely unable to define their own sense of place. In Mashka Henner's "The Gleaners" (two images of which are shown), the looters take on an almost classic portrait appearance, something you'd see at the Tate instead of on CCTV.

Special thanks to Saskia Vogel for the Advance Review Edition.

Use Your Words by Kate Hopper (non-fiction)

Okay, first off, let me rave. I love love love this book! And I was astonished at how much is packed into
its pages.  First, I write when I can fit it in, usually for this blog. It's difficult with kids to find the time. When you do get a free moment, your brain is fried. So it's refreshing when author Kate Hopper gets that, and addresses it immediately. But she goes further than the simple tried and true advice to "write all the time". She acknowledges time is hard to come by, and gives ideas.

But it's more than that. She includes motherhood as a genuine topic to cover. She states, "When you say you're writing about "motherhood" some people assume that the story --if indeed there is any story at all--will consist of only sleepless nights, diaper changes, nursing debacles, and tantruming toddlers. They assume if they opened your book they would be sucked into the minutiae of daily life with children." Isn't that exactly right? To say you're a mother who writes makes most people dismiss your work as less than serious.

Yet, instead of trying to prove that isn't the case, she urges readers to hone their craft by writing about everything in their life, and not just through the lens of mothering. Moms are complicated: "women--mothers--crafting memoirs and essays dealing with issues of identity, loss and longing, neurosis and fear, ambivalence and joy....last time I checked, this was the stuff of which real literature was made".

To that end, she gives legitmate writing advice (concrete terms, sensory images, selective word choices). Then she shows prompts to make you practice writing about an event to make it feel real, not just a vague memory. This in itself is terrific practice. But beyond those, she includes numerous essays by writers who happen to be moms. These reveal the very truths about what Hopper urges: honesty, tangible descriptions, and the freedom to discuss what may not appear to follow the June Cleaver image of motherhood.

I can see using this over and over. It is not paced to be read in one sitting. It's more of a workbook that will only help if you sit down and try it....do the prompts. Interact with the essays. Make notes. And go back and do it again.

Lastly, it's a great introduction to the works of some wonderful female authors I had never heard of....now I have a larger list of books to search out: Jill Christman, Beth Kephart, and Alexis Wolfe are a few.  I'm planning on using this book over the summer to try and reign in my schedule to waste less time and write more. I can actually imagine a writing group structured around this book...

Bluesman's Daughter, by Jeffrey Alfier (poetry)

Normally, when I read a chapbook of poetry, especially one whose author I’ve read before, I jump around a bit in my exploration. I may read one or two poems, then put the whole thing in my tote until I get a chance to read a few more. Seldom in order. And that’s what I did with Jeffrey Alfier’s new chapbook “Bluesman’s Daughter” from Kindred Spirits Press. I dog-eared the pages that spoke to me, the verses especially poignant. But the night before I worked on the review, I did something entirely different.


It was a moonlit night; I couldn’t sleep, so I ended up again reading, but this time cover to cover. My perceptions changed-some becoming sharper-while other elements seemed to infuse the whole with a theme I had missed on my hit and miss reading previous.

Alfier is known for sparing prose, concise writing, and intensely visual descriptions. This doesn’t change in Bluesman’s Daughter. But something about this collection feels more historical and more personal. True, we can guess that he’s the Bluesman, and we know he has a daughter he cares deeply about. But it’s even more personal than that.

In “My Father and the Laws of Coal”, Alfier describes a coal man slowly converting to the use of hardwoods for warmth. Hardwood left less dust, less painful shoulders. And nothing much changed in the end as the house was still warmed either way. But the point isn’t the conversion of fuels but the change in mindsets, a sadness almost that the past is no longer relevant, and that by its easy replacement, becomes forgettable. Suddenly we sense that this isn’t about fuel and warmth at all.

“Before the Redeployment” features a father trying to convince his daughter to avoid another return to wartime battle. He can’t imagine her in harm’s way, no matter how much he respects her strength. Yet, there’s a point where fathers can’t control or dissuade their daughters, and the father here understands, “I’m still learning to trust the shadows you want.”

He creates a startling character portrait in “The High School Cafeteria Lady”, a woman who “breaks up fights quicker than coaches.” Her exterior is tough, but she goes beyond the ordinary to be the one that “teaches kids at lunchtime the difference between stocks and bonds, and if the scales of justice have to balance your checkbook you’ve gone too far.” This life teacher will probably be remembered by students more than the hip science teacher or the cynical English professor. Instead, she’ll be remembered as the hard-ass with a heart for Chesterfields.

The whole collection puts improbable characters and situations together and each feel like a glimpse of reality. Certain phrases just knock you out: “Fresh blue paint applied to a clapboard house warns that hope is something recycled here.” Yeah, it’s that good. Then there’s this description, “Her skin was the paper men signed confessions on”. Visual, concrete, and real.

Special thanks to Kindred Spirits Press for this review copy.

Naked in New York, a memoir by Alan Cooke

An audio book by Alan Cooke

“A landmark of nostalgia, ugliness, and reinvention”


Many themes cross in Alan Cooke’s memoir that traces his journey from Ireland to New York just after the events of 9/11. For one thing, the journey itself, being far more than just a change in location, displays the personal motivations that would compel someone to leave all they’ve known for something intangible. The idea of New York is what calls him. Being the center of art and culture, he wants to test his wings and see if the city of his dreams is indeed magical.

The journey takes place in October, when the world was still reeling from the terrorist attacks. Naturally, his family was concerned for his safety. But most touching to me was the way he relays the events of the day of 9/11, as observed in a Dublin pub. Somehow, knowing that the entire world was watching, gasping, and horrified as we were is very moving. The silence that descends on that Pub shows a tie of humanity across borders. This tie is explored by Cooke once he’s arrived into the city.

Another theme, reminiscent of the work of Tomas Espedal, is survival. Looking after oneself with just a backpack and the desire to explore, Cooke’s entry into New York is complicated by finding places to stay once his initial funds run out. Survival becomes consuming, especially when he realizes just how many of the crowded streets are in a similar position. He finds work, but being “illegal”, has to be concerned with both doing a good job and making sure he’s off the radar. Survival in New York, in his case, often means going without even food, but by a bit of Irish charm he usually manages to get by well.

What keeps this from being an ordinary travel memoir is the writing. Cooke is a poet, and the words he chooses to describe his adventures feel poetic. Phrases are built carefully rather than pages of repetitive prose. Less is more, as always, and the result is finely polished writing that is compact but powerful. He has much to say about the towers falling, and in approaching the remains of the towers, he notes “Ground zero wailing in silence.” He depicts the area as one of dread and death but teeming with hope.

The street life of Manhattan is dissected by some very careful and astute people watching. Taking notes while drinking endless coffee (how can this man sleep?), he watches the residents scurry, sometimes noting their resemblance to animals, while at other times he elevates their condition to that of angels. He sees “the functionally insane and the wholly mad” all around him, yet there’s a trick here. Is it the “holy” mad that he’s referring to? What he writes and observes makes you pause and wonder again at exactly what he has in mind. To turn a declarative phrase into such a complicated question is a subtlety that fills the book.

In his people watching, he always leans towards the positive. He doesn’t bash people; instead, he seems to notice little details that may explain even the rudest of characters he meets. One section contains a fascinating glimpse of humanity when Manhattan experienced a tremendous black out months after 9/11. The fear was instant, and people took to the streets en masse to find out what was going on…once it was learned that it was a simple blackout, the people visibly relaxed, forming a laughing and relaxed river of people walking the streets toward their homes. As the sun falls, Cooke notes the faces of the crowd peeling off months of tension as they suddenly feel a shock of good fortune.

As this was an audio book, it was especially enjoyable to hear it read in Cooke’s Irish brogue, and spoken the way he intended it. It’s peaceful to listen to, and even when discussing tragedy, Cooke maintains a calm demeanor and looks for the silver lining he’s learned always exists.

Cooke is an Emmy-winning writer, filmmaker, and actor who is also credited with creating the film, "The Spirit of Ireland".  I purchased my copy of this audio book at www.wildirishpoet.com.

Giveaway: Breathless by Anne Sward

Translated from the Swedish by Deborah Bragan-Turner

British publisher MacLehose Press has generously given me an extra final copy of the new novel, Breathless, by Anne Sward.  It just released two weeks ago in the UK but you can win your own copy on May 22, 2012, 9:00 Pac Time.  My review for the book will post on that date as well.

Rules: US only, blog followers can enter by leaving a comment to this post with an email contact for notification.  An additional entry is possible by linking to this post on your own site or posting via twitter (just send me the URL) to amy at theblacksheepdances dot com.

The last giveaway for Olmstead's The Coldest Night was won by Amy Meyer.

Georg Trakl: Poems, translated by Stephen Tapscott

Originally published in the May issue of Gently Read Lit, edited by Daniel Casey.  You can find this literary journal at http://issuu.com/gently_read_literature/docs/grl_may.
--------------------------------

Translated by Stephen Tapscott
Oberlin College Press/FIELD Translation Series

Stephen Tapscott’s new translation of Georg Trakl’s poetry illuminates an internal dimension to the poet that is often ignored in favor of the more external and controversial elements that sidetrack a serious discussion of the poet. Trakl isn’t well-known, but those who’ve heard of him are likely to think of his mental illness, suicide and suspected incestuous relationship with his sister and stop there, leaving examination of the poetry aside.

Tapscott lets the reader know immediately that his translation isn’t going to cover the scandalous factors of Trakl’s life, or categorize him as disturbed genius. Instead, “I wanted to try to register, in English, that droll ascetic tone. I tend not to hear the cri de Coeur of a young Expressionist victim…” This viewpoint is new and recognizes that the six years of Trakl’s writing career contains much deeper elements than controversy. In fact, viewing him as a victim seems to minimize much of the breadth of his lasting oeuvre. Tapscott finds wit, bravery, and elegance in the few poems Trakl wrote:

His lyricism is lean and acute: pointing lucidly toward what both is and is not there, firm in its stillness. In his silences I hear confidence, not victimized muteness, and I see clean, conscious craftsmanship in his sentences, lines, and patterns of repetition.

With this in mind, Tapscott’s translation looks instead at Trakl’s contemplation of self, and notes that in his poems, Trakl “details dynamic facts of the physical world – seasons and landscapes and times of day –as if they were already constituent elements of the self.” In doing this, Trakl creates an indivisible line between the exterior and internal, making each element stronger and yet more fragile.

Georg Trakl 1887-1914

In his Foreword, Tapscott mentions the essayist Martin Heidegger who wrote extensively about Trakl’s work. “Every great poet creates his poetry from one single poem,” Heidegger stated. Heidegger states that he feels that one underlying current, a single unwritten poem, outlines the work of each individual poet. It begs the question stated by Karsten Harries in his essay “Language and Silence: Heidegger’s Dialogue with Georg Trakl” (boundary2: Winter 76 Vol 4 Issue 2): “Even single poems are often too ambiguous to rule out different, even antithetical interpretations. Is such ambiguity only superficial, to be penetrated by more searching interpretation? Can we assume that a particular poem possesses one determinate meaning?” The interpretation Tapscott seems to deliver in this collection is that the language comes first, and that only within the complexities of the language and semiotic images that Trakl chose can an understanding be reached.

In his essay, “From the Evening-Land to the Wild East,” Richard Millington wrote that that the poems contained “visions of natural and historical decline that within the poems themselves are figured concurrently on several time-scales: diurnal, seasonal and cultural-historical” (German Life & Letters, Oct 2011, Vol 64 Issue 4). That this could apply internally on the part of Trakl is reasonable, especially in that Millington notes Trakl’s “symbolic geography” as well as his literal locations in Austria. Most of the poems take place out of doors, at night, with the play of shadows in action in the words.

In "Helian", the movement between locations in that symbolic geography is most obvious. Never still, it appears that Trakl’s words make the same journey as his subjects: motion is always present either in the walking or in the streams of water or wine, even the flight of birds.

It’s lovely, the quiet of the night.
On a dark plain
We meet shepherds and white stars.

When autumn has come,
A solemn clarity appears in the grove.
Gentle, we drift beside red walls,
Our wide eyes following the flight of birds.
At evening white water settles in urns.

Millington spoke too of the “semantic nuances” that Trakl’s poetry contains. In discussing the poem “Evening Song”, Dean Rader (Masterplots II:Poetry Jan ’02) notes that the poetic device “that Trakl employs in almost every one of his poems is silence…and Trakl is also fond of silencing objects that cannot speak anyway.”

Evening Song


At evening, when we walk the dark paths,
Our own pale forms appear before us.


When we feel thirsty,
We drink white water from the pond,
Sweetness of our poignant childhood.

….And yet, when dark harmonies haunt the soul, then
You appear, Whiteness, in your friend’s autumn landscape.

All of the details that Millington refers to are apparent in this poem, and the “if…then…” style of the poems suggests a forward motion that is unified and purposeful. “We” becomes the variable that can change the meaning of the poem per the reader’s impressions.

Color is another factor that is repeated throughout Trakl’s poems, however, the usages are never typical. The wine is brown, not red. Dew is black, not clear. Silence and sleep are both depicted as blue in some poems, black in others. What is intriguing is how he chooses these colors to seemingly catch us off guard and re-examine the cultural images of what a color should mean.

Trakl’s tragic death, after days of horrific experiences, makes many of the poems that much more meaningful. Yet, we have to remember he didn’t know how he’d die when he wrote these. Clearly distraught, and likely emotionally damaged already, he couldn’t have known of the chain of events that left him in charge of a hospital of wounded soldiers who he was helpless to assist. The mobs outside and bodies and decay all around him…one can only imagine that the exit he chose made sense in the world of madness he was locked into.

Christian Hawkey’s book, Ventrakl (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2010) is an excellent companion to Tapscott’s translation. In it, Hawkey analyzing Trakl’s work but uses radical ways to translate the work: experimental translation that literally rips Trakl’s poetry apart and reconfigures it in a way Trakl would likely sanction. Hawkey also dissects photos of Trakl and experiments with an imagined interview. Combining that book with this translation would give any reader a solid background in Trakl’s works, history, and indelible contribution to Austrian and global poetry.

----Amy Henry 2012

Adrienne Rich, "Diving Into the Wreck", poem and analysis

To remember Adrienne Rich, who passed away earlier this year, and to commemorate Poetry Month.  A study of the symbols she used in this personal examination...

Diving into the Wreck

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.

Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and sway into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.
---------------------------------
There were a ton of symbols in this poem to evaluate. I chose to concentrate on the ladder, simply because the phrase “hanging innocently” struck me as curious. So my interpretation will likely vary from whoever selects the mask, the knife, or the camera as symbols to evaluate...


As noted, Rich stated that this poem “is” an experience rather than about an experience, and I think what fits for me is the idea of searching our memories, our past. And that is a journey that can only be done alone, subjectively. So using the symbolism of the dive, and the shipwreck, it appears to me that she wants to go back and figure out what happened in her life (her journey, or course) that left her damaged in some way.

To do this, she has to dive deep in the water, which is not pretty but black and dark, symbolizing that the journey is fearful. Rather than jump right into the water as some divers do, she has to use the ladder to slowly descend into the water, indicating hesitancy. Also, the ladder hanging off the boat requires her to face the boat as she went down. This means she literally can’t see what she is getting into: “there is no one to tell me when the ocean will begin.” So as she retreats into her memories, she’s not exactly sure at what point she’ll find clues or meaning. She says in verse 41, 42 “I have to learn alone to turn my body without force”…here she has to let go and turn away from the ladder to explore, letting go of the way out.

The ladder is significant as a symbol because it goes both ways: she could easily quit the journey and go back up. Also, because the water creates buoyancy, she really has to hold onto it to “go down”, so it’s not an easy task to go into the unknown (the sea of memories). The water would be pushing her back up, and the ladder would be so easy to just forget it and head back up to the deck. So the difficulty of the journey means that the rewards of such a journey must be greater.

She wants to find the damage but also what is left of value; she sees something in herself flawed but she wants to inherently know she still has value, something lasting. As she looks at the damage, she shows a sense of gentleness by saying “I stroke the beam of my lamp slowly”. She wants to know “the thing itself and not the myth”, which I take to mean she wants to find the root of her problem rather than the possibly nicer/easier story that she’s told herself (or possibly the excuses she’s made for herself).

It seems that as she explores the wreck, she finds the damage nearest the deepest part of the ship (herself) where her figurative heart is (because “the ribs of the disaster curving their assertion” are what protect the heart from damage). The mermaid and the merman she meets could represent parental figures, her origin of life, but I can’t figure out much on that, except that I think it is her parents as she says “I am she: I am he”, which a biological child could actually be, parts of both.

The reference to the journey of memories and damage could also be seen in lines 80-86: valuable things are still part of her “silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies obscurely inside” so maybe she’s trying to retrieve part of her value. As the half-destroyed instruments, the log and the compass that she mention both connotate the wreck itself: the water-eaten log sinks (the ship), the fouled compass gives poor navigation (the journey).

But in the last few verses, as she finds her way back (we, I, you), I’m lost as to what she’s achieved in her journey. What was the knife there to cut? What would the camera record? And what is with the book of myths?
-----AH

Why Calories Count by Marion Nestle and Malden Nesheim

...this isn't my typical genre, but it's a fascinating glimpse at the food industry!

This is not a diet book.  While it is probably considered a health book, it could easily be shelved in the political/current affairs section of any bookstore.  Because what it talks about goes far beyond weight and waistlines into the very political structure of the weight-loss industry and big business.

Sure, it talks about how unhealthy most Americans are, and without a doubt the most troubling aspect is the rising obesity rates in children.  But, given how many low-calorie and "diet" options are out there, why aren't people eating better?

The answers are pretty disturbing.  First off, human nature is an issue, and how impressionable our minds can be.  If a food item says it has low calories or is low-fat, we tend to tell ourselves it's okay to eat more.  Some more shockers:

• "When fast-food restaurants position themselves as healthy, customers tend to underestimate the calories....and choose higher-calorie side dishes, drinks, or desserts."  Think Subway plus that lovely chocolate chip cookie next to the register, which is okay now, because the sandwich was so healthy!
• "When portions are labeled small, people believe they are eating fewer calories regardless of the number of calories the foods contain or their actual size."  So small fries aren't really great even if they are small. Damn.
• "When Oreo cookies are labeled as organic, people perceive them as having fewer calories than conventional Oreos....even when the study subjects have been shown package labels indicating their calories are equal..." Yikes.

Another surprise:  if the label grants that the product has some beneficial component, such as "vitamins added" or "contains probiotics", many of us will assume it's healthier and thus the calories "don't count nearly as much".  Ouch. 

Then it looks at some diet claims:  apparently the Negative Calorie Diet claims that eating certain foods will make the body burn calories instead of store fat.  Of course, it's not possible, and the dynamics of the claim are analyzed.

One example of this is given of how people interpret or imagine calories work when faced with a choice.  Sort of like the "diet coke plus cheeseburger" phenomenon we may not want to admit to, this one is disturbing.  A scientist did an experiment with bowls of chili and salad.  With the chili alone, participants guessed that the portion contained 700 calories.  But when the same bowl of chili was placed with a green salad, they guessed that the meal was 655 calories.  That somehow, the salad magically eradicated chili calories!

Beyond those terrible details, there's the whole idea of how badly we underestimate portions, and how even children aren't able to understand what is or isn't reasonable.  What makes this such an issue is that junk food and high-calorie treats are big  business; manufacturer's aren't really interesting in you eating less because you'll buy less.  Sure, they may offer a 100-calorie snack pack, but the increased price makes up for their losses.  And it's sort of disturbing to see just how involved this large corporations get into political lobbying to keep healthy food out of schools, and using this power to simply redesign their products to gain imaginary approval.

It seems like the cards are stacked against anyone eating healthy, but this shows ways a consumer can analyze ridiculous claims, see through the hype, and understand just how nutrition works. Also, with that knowledge, a person can make better choices and realize just how much a business model is manipulating their health.

One area I would have like to seen explored a bit more is just how to make good choices for people on the go for whom the worst of the food choices are aimed. I'd like to be able to explain to my sons why a Monster energy drink and a King Size Snickers is not a meal, because their crazy schedules don't allow them much time for planning or prepping something healthy.  A list of "yes, you can buy this at 7-Eleven before work and still be healthy" foods would have been nice, but probably not realistic.  And I think that is another point the book makes very clear: we are in charge of our health.  We can't leave it to fast-food companies or convenience stores to provide the healthiest choices...they simply have no incentive to do so unless people change their habits.  It really can't be left to chance or as an afterthought. 

Special thanks to Kathlene Carney for the Advance Review Copy.

A Spy in the Ruins by Christopher Bernard

“In the wreckage of a life contained like a seed in the wreckage of love. Since that is what it is meant to have been all about. Wasn’t it. Was it not. Where is it. The nightmare again. Flung. Out. Far.”


In Christopher Bernard’s novel, A Spy in the Ruins, a disaster has devastated a city. Or perhaps, it only affected a small region, a block, a person, or just a moment. The reader begins by being uncertain as to exactly what happened, and more importantly, why. This vague beginning is intended, and offers the first clue in grasping the scope of this complicated study of the human mind, memory, and hopes. Various characters appear, but one can’t be sure if they are indeed individuals or fragments of one consciousness.

Various literary devices are used in a surprising way: poetry and narrative intermingle throughout. Phrases may appear on a single page, and paragraphs can last for pages. Some paragraphs are absent all almost all punctuation, which creates a sense of propulsion towards the next word, speeding the text into a tense pace that feels urgent. Alternatively, other paragraphs are full of fragments, such as quoted above, driving the reader to stop. Listen. Question.

I have to admit, as I began, I wasn’t sure where the story was headed, or if it even was a story. It doesn’t follow Campbell’s Heroic Journey mythology. And I can’t really say that it is character or plot driven. I continued, because I was intrigued, and began to make marginal notes whenever a concrete location or person appeared…something to anchor the narrative to reality (or at least a fictional one). My marginal notes were minimal. It didn’t take long to figure out that such anchoring wasn’t the point, but rather the emotional and mental state of each action was what Bernard was toying with. With this in mind, it became easier to see that this was a piece of metafiction that was more about exploring the line between reality and constructions.

“It came as something of a surprise to learn that the will was written in invisible ink. So much trickier the task of deciphering a text on a blank and tumultuous page.”


Such deciphering continues as the novel continues, and without being held to the typical story arc, it is free to examine random perceptions about youthful confusion, aged wisdom, and the struggle to conjoin the two. A young man and woman both appear, but separately, and are written so differently one would imagine they were separate species rather than human. Their thoughts are rambling, sometimes incoherent, but also painfully honest. In a typical story, an author would be hard-pressed to have a character speak (or think) so honestly without alienating the reader. Because these are beings we can’t know, their anonymity allows us to view them without judgment.

“One day he opened a book. It was as though an arm rose from the pages and seized him by the throat and a voice angry learned and terribly clear said look hear listen act. Who are you. What do you know. What do you believe. What have you done. What will you do. What will your life have been worth.”


For some reason, that quote from the book reminded me of T.S. Eliot’s reaction to Joyce’s Ulysses, and how Joyce’s authorial voice challenged his way of looking at fiction forevermore. I can’t find the quote now (of course), to confirm it, but I’ve heard similar reactions to Joyce because of the unconventional style he employed. In any case, this novel’s unconventional style is mesmerizing. Throughout, the idea of books as challenges to consciousness and thought prevails. Bernard insists, through the poems and prose, that only books can reach the interior of the mind and the honesty of private contemplation. At the same time, books may invite disorder and dissonance as well.  After all, going back to the title, who is the Spy and what are the Ruins?

“Chaos facing its reflection in a mirror becoming symmetry and order.”


Once the reader can grasp that the intention of the book is to question consciousness (that’s my take…I hope I’m not way off base!) rather than take a reader from point A to B, it begins to read more personally. No doubt, this is a complicated book, one that requires consideration and reflection. If I were to advise a reader, I’d suggest that they read it slowly and enjoy the play on words, the images created that only hint at reality, but that feel familiar.

Special thanks to Regent Press for the Review Copy.

Niagara Digressions by E.R. Baxter III

“The ideal reflecting pool is smaller, rather than larger…deep enough to suggest mystery and to sustain schools of minnows or other small fish so that these may be observed in the shallows.



Ferns, wildflowers, and grasses should be permitted to grow unmowed on some of the shore, trimmed grass in other areas….Mature trees, native to the region, not nursery ornamentals, should also be left to grow on the shores, establishing groves or small forests. There should be no artificial lighting.”

When I hit this section of E.R. Baxter’s new book, Niagara Digressions, I couldn’t help but think he was talking about more than simply viewing a landscape. The quote above felt more fitting in describing this book, a collection of stories, musings, and history by a writer who is unpretentious and honest. There’s nothing artificial or hyped up about his recollections, and there’s nothing showy in the famous names he drops.

As Eric Gansworth, who wrote the introduction, states, “this book, in its more unorthodox style, is closer to truth than most of those memoirs with which you might already be familiar. It’s an aesthetic representation of the way we really see our lives, if we are at all careful listeners and viewers, witnessing the way we perceive the world.” Baxter is all over the place (in the best way possible) in how he recalls events that were significant in his life, and ultimately, in the history of that region and even in literary culture. And the almost rambling path he takes isn’t annoying, it’s endearing. Better yet, he’s not one of those figures who nostalgically look back and whitewash realities that are easier forgotten. His voice is honest, and just as importantly, unadorned with anything extraneous.

In one part of the book, he speaks extensively about his Uncle Bill McCoy, cataloguing details of his life that tell their own story, right down to the personal effects left when he died. These included numerous photographs of his life at sea:

“Photographs: there are photographs of ships at sea, foggy, misty, too far off to be recognizable, street scenes, all taken from too great a distance to be focused on individuals, but more on the aggregate, picture of a lone man on a deserted street at dusk, almost half a block distant, nearly a silhouette, walking away.”

Somehow the description feels eerily poetic, filling out the stories he’s already told about Bill to make him both complicated and endearing. Besides colorful characters he’s known, and some especially dishy gossip about Ginsberg and W.S. Burroughs, he also speaks seriously about toxic chemicals in the region, the romantic life of red foxes, Shredded Wheat, dead foxes, the annoying habit of people who stir their coffee too long, and the beauty of flaws in old houses. The play between dead serious and wry wit is compelling, and makes you wish you could sit by a fire and listen to him talk. His reflections, like those found in the pond he described, can only have come through his personal perception. Yes, that’s obvious, but unfortunately, it’s rare. Few people can talk about life without whining or trying to instill some all-important message.

The title is based on his lifelong location on the Niagara River, and many, but not all, of the 'digressions' are from this location. From his website (http://www.erbaxteriii.com/), he explains simply the subjects about which he writes: "it all rises from here, originates, is foundationally from here, the place that increasingly these days becomes the imagined landscape I call home."


Ultimately, Baxter’s work here coincides with his vocation as a teacher. He wants readers to observe and think, to write well for having interpreted for themselves life around them. It’s fitting that when again, he discusses the reflecting pond, he asks, “Where are you in the picture, standing or sitting tentatively near the edge, staring down?”

Special thanks to Ted Pelton for the Advance Review Copy.

Hugs from afar..

For author Doug Skopp and his lovely wife:

Holland tulip fields, photo Hello magazine

...I hope you get a more restful and comfortable Spring!

Stein and Hemingway by Lyle Larsen (all the juicy bits...)

The Story of a Turbulent Friendship

First off, who selected the photos for the cover art for this book?  Seriously, it sets the mood immediately:  Gertrude Stein looking mean and shrill and Ernest Hemingway with an amiable Dos Equis half-smile, his cap at a jaunty angle.  Would I have perceived the book differently had she looked a bit more congenial? 

In any case, this is a fascinating read full of gossip and name-dropping of just about every major literary figure in the US and UK in the early 20th century.  The book covers more than just the friendship between Stein and Hemingway, as Eliot, Pound, Fitzgerald and others (Picasso!) are interspersed in the stories. Somehow it surprises me to see just how catty and vindictive many of these authors and poets were, especially that they seemed to focus a great deal on revealing the faults of each other rather than promoting the writing art.

Stein seems to have all the great lines.  In one case, the book explores the numerous times writers came to visit Stein at 27 rue de Fleurus.  One night, Ezra Pound stopped by. "Gertrude Stein liked him but did not find him amusing.  She said he was a village explainer, excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not."  Ouch!  Another night T.S. Eliot shows up:  "Eliot and Gertrude Stein had a solemn conversation, mostly about split infinitives and other grammatical solecisms".  Stimulating!  But when Hemingway came to see her, their conversations and subsequent friendship became a random mixture of mutual admiration and dismissive gestures, mind games and begrudged respect. 

Stein's opinion of Hemingway thereafter, and her part in his success is revealed in a conversation she had with Sherwood Anderson. As Larsen writes,  "Hemingway had been formed by the two of them, and they were both a little proud and a little ashamed of the work of their minds." 

William Carlos Williams got a knock in when he remarked on her endless piles of manuscripts, asking her "are you sure that writing is your metier?....things that children write have seemed to me so Gertrude Steinish in their repetitions." Score WCW.  Naturally, she refused to see him again.

Hemingway, once matured and successful on his own, looked at Stein as lazy and disagreeable. He felt that she theorized more than she actually created.  He was harsh and overly worked up about a new way she wore her hair, closely cropped, "like a Roman emperor".  That her haircut was tied into her sexuality was obvious to Hemingway, and it could that he didn't like this "unambiguous statement of her sexual alignment."  In any case, their friendship was pretty much over.  As he explains, "But I could never make friends again truly, neither in my heart nor in my head. When you cannot make friends any more in your head is the worst."

Another character in this real-life soap opera is Alice Toklas, Stein's companion and to all accounts, a troublemaker eager to separate Stein from her literary peers.  Larsen offers insight into why she may have been so controlling.

It occurred to me that much of the friendship between this pair (as well as the other authors and artists mentioned) was dependent so much on face to face interaction...they made efforts to seek out each other's company, often staying for long periods of time in each other's homes.  Alternatively, they'd write extensive letters documenting their thoughts.  Given our technological excesses, it makes me wonder if modern authors would even interact in such ways today.  Maybe firing off a Facebook post or a Tweet in response to another's work, but does the same 'peer-review' sense of conversation about artistic works still occur?  Has globalization made it easier to come together, so much so that everyone takes it for granted and remains distant?

The Unfortunate Traveler by Billy Collins (and a new Smithsonian issue!)

The Unfortunate Traveler
Billy Collins

Because I was off to France, I packed
my camera along with my shaving kit,
some colorful boxer shorts, and a sweater with a zipper,

but every time I tried to take a picture
of a bridge, a famous plaza,
or the bronze equestrian statue of a general,

there was a woman standing in front of me
taking a picture of the very same thing,
or the odd pedestrian blocked my view,

someone or something always getting between me
and the flying buttress, the river boat,
a bright cafe awning, an unexpected pillar.

So into the little door of the lens
came not the kiosk or the altarpiece.
No fresco or baptistry slipped by the quick shutter.

Instead, my memories of that glorious summer
of my youth are awakened now,
like an ember fanned into brightness,

by a shoulder, the back of a raincoat,
a wide hat or towering hairdo--
lost time miraculously recovered

by the buttons on a gendarme's coat
and my favorite,
the palm of that vigilant guard at the Louvre.

-------This was quoted in the March 2012 issue of Smithsonian, that has a special insert on "The New Stars of Photography".  Tomeu Coll, Jonathan Smith, Pilar Belmonte, and Farzana Wahidy are some of my favorites.  Some seriously beautiful photography....

Giveaway: The Coldest Night by Robert Olmstead

Thanks to the generous folks at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, I have a new hardback copy of The Coldest Night to give away here. It releases April 3, 2012, so that night I'll announce the winner and email them.

My review of the title will post on that day as well, but I've already heard alot of buzz about this literary fiction title that is described as "epic" by many.

To enter, leave a comment in the comment box telling me if the background red color on the blog now is cool, ugly, gorgeous, obnoxious, hurts your eyes, etc....AND with a way to contact you back if you win. US only, ends 4/3/12 9:00pm PACtime.

Monsieur Linh and His Child by Philippe Claudel

Translated from the French by Euan Cameron

“Sitting on this bench which, within the space of just two days, has become a familiar little spot, a chunk of floating wood he could cling to in the midst of a strange, broad, swirling torrent. And nestling cosily against him he clasps the last twig of the branch, sleeping its fearless sleep for the time being, without melancholy or sadness; that sleep of a satisfied infant, happy to have found the warmth of the skin it loves, its pleasant smoothness and the caress of a loving voice.”

Monsieur Linh has lost almost everything: his wife, his son, and even his city, as war has displaced him and made him a refugee in a French city. To his joy, he has one remaining connection to the past and a hope for the future: his infant granddaughter. Brought with him on the rough journey to France, his only concern is her safety and welfare. In the crowded refugee center, he quietly launders her baby clothes, holds her as she sleeps, and in his traditional garb, becomes an eccentric sight to the other visitors. During the day, he takes her out walking for fresh air.

“’I am your grandfather,’ Monsieur Linh tells her, ‘and we are together, there are two of us, the only two, the last two. But don’t be afraid, I am here, nothing can happen to you. I am old, but I’ll still have enough strength, as long as it is needed, as long as you are a little green mango in need of an old mango tree.’”


It’s on these walks that he finds the wood park bench described above, where he watches the city go by and tries to make sense of its foreign tongue. Soon he meets Monsieur Bark, another man beset by losses, and both find the bench to be their place to come to grips with their pasts and the uncertain future. They become virtually inseparable, despite the fact that neither of them can speak each other’s language. Theirs becomes a friendship made up of the language of nods, shared sighs, and companionship. And when difficult changes occur, this unique bond becomes unbreakable.

This is an impossibly elegant novel, one that makes you sort of wistful at the beauty of the words and their meaning. It’s only appropriate that this be an example of translated literature, because the translation of feelings, gestures and moods is at the heart of it, far beyond the translation of mere words. I actually (this is super corny) put it down and sighed a few times…it’s that gorgeous.

The author, Philippe Claudel, has crafted something that manages to combine melancholy and sentimentality without becoming mawkish. The writing is lean and powerful and each character retains a mystery. The mystery is what pushes you on to understand how each man will survive their loss, and how mysterious the nature of friendship can be. The novel asks the reader to examine what makes two people feel connected. Does loss leave a mark that only another kindred spirit can discern? Do the words we speak mean less than who we are? I couldn’t help but think that the story would be entirely different if the two men did share a language, and that Claudel may be commenting on how, very often, words can get in the way.

Special thanks to Paul Engels of MacLehose/Quercus in the UK for the review copy.

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.

BabyLit: Jane Eyre and Alice in Wonderland, Jennifer Adams and Alison Oliver

So, this is totally not my blog's typical content, but seriously...these are too adorable not to mention.  Could there be Russian book added to the line? 

Board books! This is a new series called BabyLit. The Jane Eyre is my favorite (that cape!), but both are really neat.  Heavy-duty stock makes them indestructable and the colors are much more vintage and cool than typical kid colors.  Jane Eyre is for counting, Alice is for colors.  How about a Kafka bug one? War and Peace with veggies (peas!)? Can't wait to see the series continue.  I've heard there is a Romeo and Juliet board book, possibly it could be a family first aid guide in board book format?

They are published by Gibbs-Smith, but I think the review copies were sent to me by Eric at Quirk.

A History of Russian Literary Theory and Criticism, Dobrenko & Tihanov

First off, this is not Russian "lite"...this is a scholarly work from the Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies, well-known for their focused publications on Russian history.  The focus of this reference work is "the Soviet Age and Beyond", and it covers well-known literary figures as well as a few unknowns.

My favorite chapter had to do with the experience of Russian emigrants into other nations between WWI and WWII.  Since most of the intelligentsia had to leave or be exterminated, an entirely new form of Russian writing, from outside of Russia, began to exist.  This presents two issues that editors Evgeny Dobrenko and Galin Tihanov address.  One is how their substitute home, a "host culture" as they say, contributed to their writing in scope and subject matter.  The remaining issue is what about the writers who did not leave during this time: how were they affected by the works of their comparatively free peers as the emigre writing became accessible in Soviet Russia?  French culture had an enormous contribution to the emigrant writings, as many were handled by Parisian publishing houses.

"Emigre writing was increasingly interpreted as flight from symbolism, toward realism", and the editors designate Ivan Bunin as an example of this "resilient emigre".  But from there the subject gets even trickier, as the function of writing literary criticism about emigre works became "little more than a weapon in settling domestic scores."  This goes into length in examining the nature of the literary criticism by who was writing it:  critics were influenced by political allies and personal friendships, and subject to both financial incentives and self-promotion. 

In another direction, the editors discuss the events resulting from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Fourth Congress of the Union of Soviet Writers in 1967 where he demanded an end to censorship and was supported by many other writers.  This was late in the period known as "the Thaw", a significant and turbulent time in Russian literary criticism.  During the Thaw, two forms of definitive Soviet literature appeared, "village prose and war prose".  Additionally, this was the time period in which the government went after Boris Pasternak, "aimed at his novel Doctor Zhivago, which had won him the Novel Prize."  The time period was rife with attempts to divide writers by designating who had supported the people and who had been known to "stir up" the political situation, and the result is described in detail, showing how the entire face of Russian literature changed during the time.  Repressed writers were able to develop their works, while other writers were returning home to Russia different from when they had left.  But since writing is the tool that can unite as well as divide, political ideology factored heavily in the work during this period. 

On what appears to be a lighter note (although deeply significant) is the explanation of the reception of the scandalous Strolls with Pushkin, a work by Andrei Sinyavsky that had many worked up as it was considered vulgar.  However, dissing Pushkin in any way is akin to sacrilege, and Solzhenitsyn rips apart Sinyavsky for his treatment of Pushkin in what should have been enlightened times:  "could we have naturally expected that the new criticism, barely freed from the unbearable repression of Soviet censorship, that the first thing for which it would employ its freedom would be a strike against Pushkin?" (from an article by D. Galkovskii quoted in the book).

All the big names of Russian literature are here, in ways not often explained in Western press.  I had no idea that one critic considered Nabokov, Sorokin, Tertz and my beloved Vasilii Grossman as "the virus of Russophobia."  And I think that is what makes this collection of essays so interesting:  it's not so much biographical sketches that we see but the back-room politics of literary criticism in a super-heated environment where classic authors are revered or dismissed, per whatever political ideology is in place.  So I don't suggest this as a collection of Russian literature per se, but an inside view of the process of publication of Russian literature.

Special thanks to Maria Sticco of University of Pittsburgh Press for the Review Copy.

www.upress.pitt.edu.