I finished a healthy 15 books this month, some admittedly tiny, but including also several whoppers. 13 on my monthly topic of non-fiction, nine by women/POC, five German, one Portuguese (a re-read), one graphic novel.
- Jenny Erpenbeck Über Christine Lavant — Jenny Erpenbeck
- Mithu Sanyal über Emily Brontë — Mithu Sanyal
- Helga Schubert über Anton Tschechow — Helga Schubert
- Gittersee — Charlotte Gneuß
- The Sea-gull — Anton Chekhov, tr. Marian Fell
- Memórias de Uma Envelhescente — Judith Nogueira
- Portugal: A Companion History — Jose Hermano Saraiva, tr. Ursula Fonss
- Gegenwartsbewältigung — Max Czollek
- The Preparation of the Novel — Roland Barthes, tr. Kate Briggs
- This Little Art — Kate Briggs
- Black Lamb and Grey Falcon — Rebecca West
- Dandelions — Thea Lenarduzzi
- Palestine — Joe Sacco
- The Demon-Haunted World — Carl Sagan
- Vaxxers — Sarah Gilbert, Catherine Green
The first three German books were all audiobooks from a great series where writers each discuss one author who they like or admire. There are interesting parallels between Lavant and Emily Brontë: Lavant was from a poor, mountainous area of Austria, and was particularly poor herself — most of her life, she made a living by knitting and lived in an attic room, while also writing remarkable poems and stories. It’s hard to get a good sense of the poetry from the excerpts in an audiobook, but I definitely want to start on the stories.
Mithu Sanyal covers a lot of ground in her book — the story itself, Emily’s life, critical responses, cultural influence and Sanyal’s own relationship with the novel. There’s a particular focus on the political and racial sides of the text, and Sanyal’s performance is excellent (despite a very weird pronunciation of “Brontë”). Helga Schubert on Chekhov was the shortest of the three and relatively slight, but Schubert is good at putting him in relation to more recent times (his widow lived until 1959, and Schubert met his niece).
Reading The Sea-gull in the same month was a coincidence — it was my homework before watching the play in the theatre — and I appreciated it more than I had his other plays, which I read at school. It’s a dusty old translation, so it would be interesting to compare with a more modern version.
Much more politics in Gegenwartsbewältigung, a thorough demolition of Germany’s attempts at Vergangenheitsbewältigung since the war. Czollek contrasts the lip service paid to support for Jewish life in Germany and the measures to tackle the Covid pandemic with the lack of interest shown in protecting people of colour or confronting the far right generally. Obviously since the book was published in 2020 things have got far worse in each of these areas, but it’s good to know that people like Czollek are here and on our side.
The last German book, Gittersee, was my only novel of the month. Leading on to my topic for May, it’s an engrossing portrait of a teenager in East Germany whose boyfriend has (apparently) committed Republikflucht, and the consequences which it has on her own life. The plot is slightly creaky, especially towards the end, but the depiction of teen life in a Communist society is fascinating.
One in Portuguese — Memórias de Uma Envelhescente, a re-read, mostly for linguistic rather than literary reasons, so nothing to add to what I said before — and Portugal: A Companion History. The latter is a very short canter through the country’s history with an obvious emphasis on the age of discovery period. Things got very messy in the 19th century, but I think that was Portugal’s fault rather than the author’s.
The whoppers: for the past few months I’ve been doing a couple of group read projects, both organised by the splendid Kim McNeill (and for Barthes/Briggs, Rebecca Hussey). Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is Rebecca West’s account of her travels through Yugoslavia in the 30s, with a certain amount of fictionalisation (certainly of names, I strongly suspect of dialogue, and perhaps of the characters). Everything is of course overshadowed by the coming war, during which West wrote it, and by more recent events. West has her own view of history which she expounds at (great) length, but she’s such a good writer (especially in comedy) that it very rarely drags. Lots more on Bluesky and Twitter at #BlackLamb24
Both Black Lamb and The Preparation of the Novel are books I’d be unlikely to have read without these projects, and after getting used to the style of the lecture notes, I fell for Barthes much more than I’d expected. Especially in the first part (focusing on haiku) the constant reference to the individual poems keeps the text concrete enough to be comprehensible for the non-specialist, while the second half is full of insights about Proust, Kafka, etc. It’s perfectly complemented by This Little Art, which as a Fitzcarraldo book I would have had my eye on anyway, and apart from its own virtues TLA‘s thoughts on translating Barthes were always illuminating about the other book — like having another member of the reading group on call. Again on Bluesky and Twitter at #KateBriggs24
Dandelions is another Fitzcarraldo, this time a memoir of the writer’s Italian-British family, set once more against the backdrop of Covid. Lenarduzzi gets more mileage than one would have imagined from the Dandelion-migrant metaphor, while the warmth of her portrayal of her Nonna and the poverty which the family experienced so recently in both countries are both striking.
Palestine, my graphic novel for the month, revisits several issues brought up in the other books — the apartheid system operating with western support in Palestine in the 90s, but as in Gegenwartsbewältigung we meet some deeply impressive characters responding to it with determination, creativity and dignity. Sacco doesn’t shy away from showing the negative aspects of Palestinian society (anti-Semitism, misogyny); there are parallels with the effects of colonialism on Yugoslav societies in Black Lamb.
Finally, two science books: The Demon-Haunted World wasn’t a favourite, I have to say; I agree with pretty much everything Sagan says, but he says it at Westian length with little of her wit. The audiobook is also narrated as if the listener were a public meeting, and a 17 hour public meeting at that. Much better was Vaxxers: two of the creators of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine talk about the process of developing the vaccine, and its effects on their own lives. The personal side does verge on the Pooterish, but they do a wonderful job of explaining the science clearly for the non-specialist. The “Covid diary” side of the book brought the period back to life in often moving passages, but the retrospective view helps to see the events as a whole rather than the random series of happenings it seemed at the time. There’s a lot here which I didn’t realise then (the reasons for the speed of the vaccine’s design, the significance of the half/whole dose confusion, etc.).
Next month will involve fewer books: it’s GDR month, so probably almost all in German. I haven’t found an East German graphic novel yet, so I may have to be creative there.