Nine books finished this month, five by women/POC and five in German, for a total of 66 for the half-year (124 for the year).
- Kleine Chronik Vier Erzählungen — Stefan Zweig
- Auf See — Theresia Enzensberger
- The Miracle Shed — Philip MacCann
- Landgericht — Ursula Krechel
- March Moonlight — Dorothy M. Richardson
- FLEXEN: Flâneusen schreiben Städte — Özlem Özgül Dündar et al.
- Tiere für Fortgeschrittene — Eva Menasse
- Hummingbird Salamander — Jeff Vandermeer
- Watchmen — Alan Moore
Starting with the short stories, I bought The Miracle Shed some time in the 90s, was blown away by the style when I started reading it, but then found it heavy-going and never finished it. A quarter of a century later, I’m very glad to have read the whole thing: the style perhaps dominates the content, and it’s not always clear what meaning (if any) lies behind it, but the puzzles don’t make it any less interesting or enjoyable.
Tiere für Fortgeschrittene also has some puzzles — each story is prefaced by a short account of a particular animal’s special feature, which in some way relates to the story itself. The relationship is often obscure, to me at least, but it gives the reader something to think about even after the book is closed. I found the length of the stories somewhat unwieldy — they’re generally about the 30 page mark, which requires a certain time commitment, but I appreciated the depth Menasse was able to go into in each one.
Stefan Zweig’s Kleine Chronik Vier Erzählungen was also very enjoyable, combining dark romanticism with the encroaching modernity of the early 20th century. The first and last stories, Die unsichtbare Sammlung and Buchmendel, are each about artistic devotion of different kinds, and were particularly striking for me.
My only non-fiction book this month was Flexen, a collection of texts by a diverse group of writers (mostly women, often POC) on their relationship with the city: we see how their experiences differ from those of the classic middle-class, white male flâneur, and how they deal with it. In India, for example, an activist flâneuse pointedly spends time outdoors:
Bei ihrer ersten Aktion vor vier Jahren legte sich Neha Singh gemeinsam mit einer Freundin mittags in einen Park im bürgerlichen Teil des Vorortes Kandivali, um dort auf der Grasmatte ein Nickerchen zu halten.
While in the Islamic world:
Kann eine verschleierte Frau mit Kind an der Hand eine Flâneuse sein?
Kann ein Mädchen an der Hand seiner Mutter eine Flâneuse sein?
The two German novels this month were both audiobooks: Landgericht reminded me of Anne Weber’s Ein Heldinnenepos in its focus on the post-war life of those who have had extraordinary wartime experiences. In both there is an element of the seemingly unstructured which gives an added sense of realism.
Auf See was in some respects right up my street — near future dystopian sci-fi, set near my part of Germany — and the societies depicted (a dilapidated seastead in the Baltic, reminiscent of the base in Solaris, and a Berlin trying to recover from various calamities) were intriguing. I had several problems with it: we’re frequently told how charismatic one of the main characters is, without any particular evidence; the plot hinges on some rather forced coincidences and parallelisms; and the author was not the ideal choice to read the audiobook. I’m interested enough to read more by her, at least.
Hummingbird Salamander was another audiobook that I had some problems getting into, partly due to the narrator, but partly also my fault (leaving too long between listenings to keep the story in mind). After the halfway point I was much more caught up in it, and I enjoyed spending time with the non-standard protagonist.
Graphic novel for the month was Watchmen, and it’s fantastic. As with Sandman, it’s good to catch up (OK, I’m still 30 years behind) with a whole area of culture I’d previously neglected. Fortunately there’s more Sandman and more Moore to work my way through.
Final instalment of Pilgrimage! March Moonlight is fragmentary, and doesn’t provide nearly as satisfactory an ending as Dimple Hill did. But there are some lovely bits of writing that I wouldn’t be without:
Great bits:
during the dark months, all the doings of the light, half of whose pageant, in the height of summer, must daily be missed, fall well within the waking hours
Hurrying almost the length of the long platform in search of corner seats, finding in every carriage just four men screened by opened newspapers, we meekly took windowless middle places and sat, unnoticed, in hilarious silence
darkness might bring a kind of unity. As does even a deep twilight as it enters, late on a summer’s evening, a roomful of contestants. Host and guest in one, it can be felt at work reconciling differences, transforming each sitter into an almost invisible fellow-traveller within the mystery of space and producing, as it deepens, first a lowering of voices and presently a silence so nearly complete as to impel the arrival of the blindingly brilliant indoor light.
the incident of that winter’s morning when the husband, to prevent her going, with a heavy cold, to early Mass, locked the wardrobe containing all her hats, only to see her, a little later, sailing down the road with her small head supporting his large bowler, draped elegantly with a white veil.
Miriam being Miriam:
Only in silence, in complete self-possession, possession of the inwardness of being, can lovers fully meet. An enthusiastic vocal engagement is a farewell. Marriage usually a separation, life-long?
Glimpses of M’s relationship with her sisters:
Sally knew, had known all her life, Mim’s tiresome insistence on thought and now, at this date, if one were to produce what one had in mind, she would think to herself: ‘That’s the sort of thing that keeps you without a home.’
M realises that Harriett is also a person, but in the next paragraph totally fails to understand her life choices:
And for the first time I realized that my porch was Harriett’s also.
There she was, gazing, in solitude, into her own life, realizing it as it slipped, with the approach of marriage, away into the past, realizing that soon it would be inaccessible.
End of year greatest hits:
- Pilgrimage (13 for one offer)
- Second-hand Time — Svetlana Alexievich tr. Bela Shayevich
- Dunkelblum — Eva Menasse
- The Books of Jacob — Olga Tokarczuk tr. Jennifer Croft
- Die Fremde — Claudia Durastanti tr. Annette Kopetzki
- A Manual for Cleaning Women — Lucia Berlin
- What I Don’t Know About Animals — Jenny Diski
- Der Trost Runder Dinge — Clemens J. Setz
- Der andere Name (Heptalogie I – II) — Jon Fosse tr. Hinrich Schmidt-Henkel
- Wenn es dunkel wird — Peter Stamm
- blues in schwarz weiss | nachtgesang — May Ayim
- Zur See — Dörte Hansen
Plans for the next six months:
- French month, starting a reading of Proust;
- South American month (or possible one Portuguese, one Spanish);
- Japanese month;
- non-fiction month;
- continue with a graphic novel a month;
- at least half women/POC each month;
- at least four a month in German on average;
- read the plays and poetry I neglected this time.