I finished nine books this month, four as part of my “Nordic septologies” theme, seven by women/POC, and two in German.
- The Tunnel — Dorothy M. Richardson
- The Midnight Timetable — Bora Chung, tr. Anton Hur
- Über die Berechnung des Rauminhalts III — Solvej Balle, tr. Peter Urban-Halle
- The Tokyo Suite — Giovana Madalossa, tr. Bruna Dantas Lobato
- Staring at the Sun — Julian Barnes
- Über die Berechnung des Rauminhalts IV — Solvej Balle, tr. Peter Urban-Halle
- Money to Burn — Asta Olivia Nordenhof, tr. Caroline Waight
- A New Name — Jon Fosse, tr. Damion Searls
- Interim — Dorothy M. Richardson
Starting with the Scandinavians, I read volumes three and four of Über die Berechnung des Rauminhalts (On the Calculation of Volume). The story itself is progressing in very interesting directions, though Tara’s/Balle’s verbal tics are increasingly irritating when one reads two volumes per month. Volume four spends a lot of time recounting endless meetings, which is as exciting as one might expect. All of which means that each volume since the first has been progressively worse, though they’re still pretty good. And she does excellent cliffhangers.
Another Danish septology still in progress begins with Money to Burn, which wasn’t quite what I was expecting. It’s a short, (artfully) messy story of the kind of messy, fucked-up lives we tend not to associate with Scandinavia, tangentially linked with the ostensible centrepiece of the series, the Scandinavian Star disaster/scandal. On which subject, as the narrator says, “If there’s anything rare about this case, it is only that the victims of capitalism (assuming we ignore the ones not even counted as victims: plants, insects, fungi, fish) aren’t usually located in Scandinavia.” So surprises all round.
Not so many surprises in A New Name, the last instalment (of two books) of Jon Fosse’s Septology. This is basically the same as the previous books, the repetition here being very definitely the point. Disappointingly the excellent German audiobooks only cover the first two instalments, so I had to settle for reading the English translation. It was disconcertingly different (slangy American English and odd capitalisation, which I assume reflects the original but obviously didn’t affect the audiobooks).
The Midnight Timetable was my only book of short stories this month: a series of (sort-of) ghost stories with a mildly SF bent. The setting which links them together is occasionally ropey, but gives it a satisfying togetherness nevertheless.
Another Portuguese in Translation book club book this month: The Tokyo Suite didn’t bowl me over, I suspect because the short chapters created a lack of focus. Further confusion arose because the two voices in the book are distinguished in part by the linguistic mistakes which one character makes, but some poor production means that there are quite a few similar accidental mistakes in the other chapters too. The discussion was at least interesting, and the author mentioned that her first book was “much darker”, which I take as a recommendation.
And the ongoing projects: two volumes of Dorothy Richardson (The Tunnel and Interim), where she’s much more linguistically inventive and wilfully obscure than in the opening “trilogy”. Interim has the best example so far of her characteristic repetition:
Two tall vases on the mantelshelf holding dried grasses carried her eyes up to two short vases holding dried grasses standing on the wooden-pillared brackets of the overmantel, and back again to themselves.
This month’s helping of Barnes was Staring at the Sun, which I first read thirty or so years ago. Very good, very funny, very humane, and with a marvellously retro version of Chatgpt in the final section. What more could one wish?
Next month’s theme is a work-in-progress, but may be a revival of my planned European tour which never quite happened….