I finished 8 books in March: 5 for my month’s topic of South America, 2 for my failed topic of 1983 BYBN, 5 by women/PoC, and one each in German and Portuguese.
- All Fires the Fire — Julio Cortázar, tr. Suzanne Jill Levine
- Little Eyes — Samanta Schweblin, tr. Megan McDowell
- Indoctrinaire — Christopher Priest
- Macunaíma — Mário de Andrade, tr. Katrina Dodson
- Assim na terra como embaixo da terra — Ana Paula Maia
- Honeycomb — Dorothy M. Richardson
- Nachts ist es leise in Teheran — Shida Bazyar
- Flaubert’s Parrot — Julian Barnes
Accidentally, five of the books were also re-reads, which partly explains why I got through so many (Cortázar, Schweblin, Priest, Richardson, and Barnes). All Fires the Fire is also the only book of short stories finished this month (I’m also gradually re-reading Lydia Davis’s), which has one of my favourite stories ever — The Southern Thruway, which combines a Ballardian societal collapse with another collapse/return to normality.
Little Eyes is one of my favourite books full stop, combining plausible technology with a devastating critique of the flaws in human natures which it exposes and allows to flourish. The diversity of stories contained in such a short book is impressive.
Indoctrinaire is an interesting, but not great book by a great writer: the surreal cruelty of the Brazilian section now looks like a harbinger of early Banks, while the later part is reminiscent of Priest’s own Wellesian The Space Machine.
The other two South American books were first-timers: Macunaíma was sitting in a pile for some time before it fortuitously became one of the Portuguese in Translation book group selections. No author this time, but theere was a fascinating discussion with Katrina Dodson. The book itself is completely different from what I’d expected: rather than a serious national epic, I got a collection of folk tales somewhat tenuously linked by the adventures of the “hero” (of questionable morals). “Broke all to smash” has now entered my vocabulary.
Assim na terra como embaixo da terra was also a quasi-involuntary selection: its English translation is longlisted for this year’s International Booker, so I thought I should read it in the original. I’m quite happy I did: the author’s obsession with systems of violence is not one I particularly share, but I enjoyed the complexity of the characters (and the language practice).
Nachts ist es leise in Teheran is another whose translation has been longlisted, and is also timely for other obvious reasons. Bazyar is a really good writer, bringing the characters and settings brilliantly to life. Minus one point for the dream sequences, plus ten for the conclusion.
Finally, two re-reads from my year’s series: Honeycomb is volume 3 of Pilgrimage, and makes a nice end to the trilogy of Miriam’s attempts at being a teacher before she moves to her natural home of Bloomsbury. It’s full of her trademark repetitive descriptions and splenetic outbursts, mostly this time directed at all men:
the strange, beautiful, beautiful long wide hang of the faintly patterny faintly blue curtains covering the whole of the window space
How utterly detestable mannishness is; so mighty and strong and comforting when you have been mewed up with women all your life, and then suddenly, in a second, far away, utterly imbecile and aggravating with a superior self-satisfied smile because a woman says one thing one minute and another the next. Men ought to be horsewhipped, all the grown men, all who have ever had that self-satisfied smile, all, all, horsewhipped until they apologise on their knees.
Flaubert’s Parrot is the perfect Julian Barnes book, and interestingly similar to his more recent ones: a blend of fact and fiction, with an ageing, flawed narrator grappling with failures of memory and with a fine line in irony. It’s also liable to send me back to Flaubert, as soon as I find time.
Next month, though, should be more International Booker longlistees (and perhaps some other Booker books around Mr Barnes).