It’s become an annual tradition for me to try to record (photo or audio) 50 species of birds in and around Cottbus each December. This year’s results (photos of almost everything this time, but including some dirty record shots):
collared doveferal pigeon / rock dovewoodpigeonstock dove
4 Woodpeckers — Picidae
black woodpeckergreat-spotted woodpeckermiddle spotted woodpeckergreen woodpecker
2 Herons — Ardeidae
great white egretgrey heron
2 Gruiformes
(an order, rather than a family, but I like the name)
cootcrane
2 Gulls — Laridae
black-headed gullherring gull
1 Phalacrocoracidae
cormorant
1 Falconidae
kestrel
1 Alcedinidae
kingfisher
Making a grand total of 69, if I’m right about the firecrest, and much better than last year. I got lucky with a few surprises (black redstart, I’m looking at you), and most of the waterfowl came in a burst at the end of the month.
Just eight books finished this month (but some whoppers): four by women/POC, (just) three in German, one in Portuguese, and just three that were part of my original plan. For the six months, 50 total, 35 by women/POC, 26 in German.
Covers of Ulysses Annotated, Ulysses, Poor Things, and Der Hausmann
Poor Things — Alasdair Gray
Katz und Maus — Günter Grass
Luft und Liebe — Anne Weber
Memórias de Uma Envelhescente — Judith Nogueira
Der Hausmann — Wlada Kolosowa
The Mirror and the Light — Hilary Mantel
Finding Time Again — Marcel Proust, tr. Ian Patterson
Ulysses — James Joyce
The plan was to read recently-departed writers: interpreting “recently” quite flexibly for Alasdair Gray and Günter Grass. Hilary Mantel was the only other one I managed to complete, and the almost 40 hours that one took left Martin Amis and A. S. Byatt to be completed (and Milan Kundera to be started) another month.
Poor Things was also a re-read, and that’s yet another thing I want to start doing more (ideally one each month, along with my four German, one Portuguese, one graphic novel…). There was a lot I’d forgotten, probably a lot I appreciated more this time round, and lots of great Gray writing:
“It is hard not to pity those whose powers separate them from all the rest of us, unless (of course) they are rulers doing the usual sort of damage”.
Katz und Maus is the second part of the Danzig Trilogy, but for some reason I’d left it until last. It was very enjoyable to go back to the world of the other two books (Oskar, Tulla Pokriefke etc. turn up again), making this almost a re-read itself, while the novella format created a very different storytelling experience (much more direct, though the diversions of the other two books have their own virtues).
Something similar happened with The Mirror and the Light: a trilogy read in the proper order this time, it was much easier to follow having already been introduced to the main characters. I enjoyed this volume more than the first two, perhaps for that reason, perhaps because Cromwell’s story reaching its conclusion creates more urgency in the story. That despite the vast length of the book — I never grew tired of his company, especially in Ben Miles’ excellent performance of the audiobook.
Luft und Liebe is another short book, in typical Anne Weber-style blending fairytale elements with life in contemporary France. The conceit of the narrator telling her story through her own characters is brilliantly executed, with the distancing effect (indirectness, this time!) heightening the emotional impact.
Der Hausmann was my graphic novel for the month — sort of. This is another formally extravagant book, combining various texts produced by the characters (a graphic novel, a blog, instant messages) alongside the narrative of the househusband of the title. The events are mostly comic, sometimes tragic, and always engaging.
Memórias de Uma Envelhescente is hard to categorise, but is basically a memoir of an “envelhescente” — a word which I think English lacks; roughly, “ageing person”. It was a bit of a shock to find that the writer felt the need to start the book when she started to become old — at the age of 39. The biography is taken as a basis for philosophical commentaries which never descend into self-help banalities.
Lastly, I finished two big reading projects: again, both re-reads. In Finding Time Again (translated by Jenny Diski’s Ian Patterson!), Marcel finds that he’s also become old, while a character “in her fifties” takes pleasure from watching her contemporaries dropping around her. Proust the writer died at 51, so he may have a point. More highlights in my mastodon thread: https://mastodon.green/@slnieckar/111665384530178899
Finally, Ulysses. Not much to say beyond the obvious — this is really a book which needs multiple re-readings, and doing it with Don Gifford’s notes brought me much closer to being able to say I understand (most of) it.
Next projects: as I mentioned, I have an ever-growing list of things I’d like to do each month, which are not all going to happen every time. One non-prose-fiction per month would also be good. Then I’m planning a few more country months (Spain, DDR); in the first half of 2024 I’d like to read one from each European country. And there are some group reads that I’d like to take part in: possibly Der Zauberberg, definitely Portuguese in Translation reads and Kate Briggs/Roland Barthes in #KateBriggs24….
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Nine books finished this month, six by women/POC, six in German for #GermanLitMonth, and one in Portuguese.
Vista Chinesa — Tatiana Salem Levy tr. Alison Entrekin
Os da Minha Rua — Ondjaki
Echtzeitalter — Tonio Schachinger
Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger! — Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi tr. Ulrike Wasel and Klaus Timmermann
Gebrauchsanweisung für Potsdam und Brandenburg — Antje Rávik Strubel
Die Inkommensurablen — Raphaela Edelbauer
The Sandman Vol. 8: World’s End — Neil Gaiman
Sieben Jahre — Peter Stamm
Knochenlieder — Martina Clavadetscher
I’ve covered the German books in a little more depth than usual in separate posts, so just to summarise:
Austria
Echtzeitalter, by Tonio Schachinger. A very Viennese coming of age novel, packed with literary references. Die Inkommensurablen, by Raphaela Edelbauer portrays the collision of psychoanalysis, the paranormal (maybe), and war fever in 1914’s Vienna.
Sieben Jahre, by Peter Stamm. A meticulous, slow-burn dissection of a loveless love-life. Knochenlieder, by Martina Clavadetscher. A short, but wild poem/novel/fairytale/dystopia.
The other non-English book was Ondjaki’s Os da Minha Rua, which I found less engaging than A Bicicleta que Tinha Bigodes: it’s also set in the world of his childhood in Luanda, but without the magical element which made the other book so attractive. This volume is made up of a series of stories (I think non-fictional) about his childhood and the people in his environment, but they tend not to really go anywhere. It doesn’t help that killing the local wildlife was one of his favourite pastimes. The exotic element (what was 1980s Luanda like?) adds interest, but it’s not enough to carry the whole work. Towards the end, as the narrator reaches adolescence, it takes on a more elegiac note, which adds some form, but seemed rather heavy-handed to me. Palavras para o velho abacateiro — written almost in one sentence — was very impressive, though.
Translated from Portuguese, Vista Chinesa by Tatiana Salem Levy was much more rewarding (and the basis of another enjoyable session of the Portuguese in Translation online discussion group). It tells the story of a rape survivor — based on the experiences of one of Levy’s friends — focusing on the effects on her ability to process the events of the police investigation and subsequently having children. The ending, linking the protagonist to the city as a whole, is particularly impressive.
Finally, after last month’s failure, I got back to a graphic novel of the month with The Sandman Vol. 8: World’s End, by Neil Gaiman. It’s another excellent volume, drawn by several different artists in contrasting styles. The story focuses less on the character of Morpheus himself — I think a tendency of the later volumes? — but is none the less enjoyable for that.
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#GermanLitMonth book six completes my perfectly balanced pattern: representing Swiss woman is Martina Clavadetscher, with Knochenlieder. This is a wonderfully strange book. Most obviously, it’s a novel written (pretty much) in verse. That is, there are line breaks, and while there are no formal limits of rhyme or scansion, there’s a frequent focus on the words themselves:
Die nächsten Kilometer besteht der Anstieg aus Tragen und Fragen, und für Jakob vor allem aus Fragen Ertragen.
Das Geräusch klettert vom Raumraum bis in den Traumraum.
There are strong affinities with the work of Anne Weber — based on what I’ve already read, Annette, ein Heldinnenepos in terms of the novel-as-poem, and Tal der Herrlichkeiten for the fairytale texture. The book is in three sections, very different in milieu and approach, but each combining a dystopian setting with fairytale and ultimately all tied together (with some work from the reader) in an effective story.
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#GermanLitMonth book five is Sieben Jahre, by my Swiss gentleman for the month, Peter Stamm. It’s narrated by a Munich architect, within a framework of his telling an acquaintance “now” of various events between his student days and middle age. The narration to the acquaintance is subtly, but effectively blended with narration of other events to the reader.
This is a low-key novel in other ways: the characters and events are not exceptional, and the protagonist’s missteps are often more irritating than anything else. Stamm is merciless in relating the character’s self-pity as he descends into the hole he is making for himself, making for a test of the reader’s ability to identify. The fact that two characters are called Sonja and Sophie was also confusing for this listener to the audiobook — I’m not sure whether that’s a quirk of my brain and the format, or Stamm making a point about their everydayness.
This is not one of my favourite Stamm books, as may already be clear, but I appreciated the dissection of the characters’ loveless lives and the skill of the storytelling more as it went on. Christian Brückner is as always a brilliant performer of the audiobook.
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And my fourth #GermanLitMonth book, my second for Austria, makes a nice pair with Schachinger’s Echtzeitalter: Die Inkommensurablen, by Raphaela Edelbauer. It again takes place in Vienna, and is viewed through the eyes of an outsider teenager, but this time is is essentially rooted in its setting of the city on the eve of the outbreak of war. It is a very odd book.
We follow the protagonist, Hans, and two friends which he makes — the upper-class aesthete-soldier Adam and the maths prodigy from the underclass Klara — as they spend the day and night before her viva visiting various underworld dives and discussing maths, philosophy, psychology and the paranormal. Again as with Schachinger, Edelbauer is aware of and addresses this improbability, and by doing so to some extent defuses it. There is a big reveal towards the end, which is satisfying enough while leaving enough open for the reader to continue thinking about the book.
That, I think, is the crux. This isn’t a masterwork — it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief, and the mathematical content is shoehorned in. But the characters are diverse and interesting enough to want to keep following them, the milieu of a hysterical city, riven with psychoanalysis and jingoism, is fascinatingly weird and uncomfortably contemporary, and the balance between realism and the uncanny is constantly and skilfully reexamined. There is a lot to think about, and it’s a book which I’ll come back to.
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My third #GermanLitMonth book completes my pair of German books, and is by chance also non-fiction: Gebrauchsanweisung für Potsdam und Brandenburg, by Antje Rávik Strubel. This is certainly odd — as if Margaret Atwood had decided to write a guide for visitors to Ontario — and I would never have chosen it if it weren’t by the great Ms Strubel, even as an adopted Brandenburger. I’m very glad I did, though.
There’s very little in common with Strubel’s more literary books, although the frequent paddling about on lakes has echoes with Kältere Schichten der Luft. The narrative voice is understandably very different, here predominantly wry, and sometimes bordering on whimsy. It’s probably best read chapter by chapter rather than straight through, as I did it, as I found it wearing at times. Nevertheless, she strikes a fine balance between love for the region and glee in poking fun at it.
The slightly odd title — Potsdam and Brandenburg? — seems to relate partly to Strubel’s own Potsdam residency, and to the more obvious visitors’ attractions of that city. There’s always an eye on what sights and information might be interesting for a visitor to the state, but she also gives a good overview of its history and geography for residents or others with an interest in it. For the majority of people who, as Strubel points out, have never even heard of Brandenburg, it’s probably not the place to start with her, but the small number of my fellow Brandenburg- and Strubel-lovers, this is essential.
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Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger! by Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi is my second book for #GermanLitMonth — sort of. I was reading it for Black History Month in October, before things got in the way, but it fits into the rulebreakers week of this year’s GLM: Massaquoi was German, at least during the time he writes about, but wrote this memoir in English after settling in the US.
Massaquoi was the grandson of the Liberian consul in Hamburg, left alone in the city with his German mother when his father departed. Massaquoi was a child whem Hitler came to power in the ’30s, and the bulk of the book consists of his reminiscences of the period. These are often extraordinary: in the pre-Nazi days, he was taken to the zoo and found there an “African village,” whose inhabitants were on display and recognised Massaquoi as a “brother”. Later he was himself caught up in the enthusiasm surrounding him and a desire to belong, persuading his nanny to sew a swastika on his jumper.
The later chapters, relating his experiences in Liberia and the US, are not of such great interest, tending to illustrate how brave, resourceful and spirited he was. The book has other defects as literature: the short chapters give it a choppy feel, and the prose is rich in platitudes and cliches. Despite eventually becoming a journalist, Massaquoi wasn’t really much of a writer. Nevertheless, for the insider’s view of being a Black German in this period, I highly recommend the book.
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I’ve finished my first book for #GermanLitMonth: Echtzeitalter, by Tonio Schachinger. Deutscher Buchpreis-winner this year, it’s a Bildungsroman following a teen gamer at a Viennese school very similar to the one Schachinger went to, where he encounters first a Snape-like teacher dedicated to torturing him, and then a barely-distinguishable pair of precocious girls, Feli and Fina, who take his life by storm. The ending is very nicely-judged.
Schachinger’s style is borderline metafictional — the Snape comparision and the indistinguishableness of the girls are explicit, for example, while the book is packed with references to Schlüsselromane and Austrian writers from Adalbert Stifter to Thomas Bernhard and Stefanie Sargnagel. I was incidentally pleased to find that my brain had retained the insulting Austriacisms I’d learned from Eva Menasse’s Dunkelblum (“schiach, Gschisti-Gschasti, deppert”).
I spent most of the book waiting for a major event to happen, and it doesn’t really; this is more a book about remembering or discovering what life is like as a teenage boy. Which brings us back to the ending.
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A Covid-affected reading month meant I only finished seven books, and particularly disrupted my Black History Month plan (to be continued next month). I still finished four in German, one (1) in Portuguese, and five by women/POC.
Schwarzes Herz — Jasmina Kuhnke
A Bicicleta Que Tinha Bigodes — Ondjaki
Schwarzenberg — Stefan Heym
Zwei Schüsse und ein Lachen — Abdulai Sila tr. Renate Heß
Die Geschwister — Brigitte Reimann
Closure: Contemporary Black British Short Stories — Jacob Ross (ed.)
The Prisoner and The Fugitive — Marcel Proust, tr. Carol Clark and Peter Collier
Starting with what I did manage for BHM, Schwarzes Herz was a very powerful account of a character’s experiences with the twin issues of racism and domestic violence. The passages concerning the narrator’s childhood were particularly effective, as where she feels threatened on first meeting other Black people. Only in the latter stages of the story did the book seem over-dominated by the issues rather than the characters; on the whole this was a very impressive first novel.
A Bicicleta Que Tinha Bigodes is a young adult novel set in the Luanda of the author’s childhood, transformed into an enchanting semi-mythical environment. The first part focuses on the narrator’s friend and her close relationship with the animals in her yard, while the main, latter section contains the story of the dreamed-of bicycle. There is a meaningful ending, as to be expected from the genre, but the real pleasure is the journey. (I’ve classed this as part of my BHM reading because the author is mixed-race, though he doesn’t consider himself Black.)
Zwei Schüsse und ein Lachen is the second book I’ve read by Abdulai Sila (from Guinea-Bissau), and the first play. Again semi-mythical, it tells the story of a conflict between a group of people working to save a country very like Guinea-Bissau, under the guidance of a spiritual leader, and the efforts of some to stop them. I found it rather wordy (there’s a lot of the characters telling each other to get to the point, which I could empathise with), and the translator has an irritating habit of retaining Guinean words and phrases, but then immediately translating them.
Finally for BHM, Closure is an interesting and varied collection by Black and Asian British writers. Quite a few of the pieces were engaging, but read like novel extracts rather than fully-satisfying stories. The big names (Monica Ali and Bernardine Evaristo) finish off the book and produced probably the best stories, so it at least ended with a bang.
Then two East German novels, both grappling remarkably honestly with the tension between idealism and realpolitik. Schwarzenberg is the somewhat fact-based story of a mini-state which arises in the Erzgebirge between the American- and Russian-occupied zones of Germany. The inevitable happens, but before that Heym allows us some hope for human nature.
Die Geschwister is set after the establishment of the two German states, but at a time when crossing the border was still relatively straightforward. The protagonist is a Reimannesque young artist who struggles with seeing each of her brothers in turn decide on Republikflucht, and with her own position in the increasingly ossified East German society. There’s no happy ending, but the ambiguity it leaves the reader with is thought-provoking.
