Book Review: Marina by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Based on other readers' feelings about Carlos Ruiz Zafón's other book, The Shadow of the Wind, I was prepared to love this audio book.  Shadowy underworld of Barcelona?  Promises of the gothic and the macabre?  Yes, please!

Oscar, a boy at boarding school, meets Marina under curious circumstances. Marina and her father Hermann take Oscar under their wing, sharing their stories and offering him the first friendship he's ever known.  When Marina takes Oscar to a cemetery on the last Sunday of the month to observe The Lady In Black leave a rose on an unmarked grave, it is the beginning of an adventure. Little do they know that their adventure will lead them through the darkest quarters of Barcelona and will end with their lives in great peril from a sinister creature that does not, cannot, face the light of day. Along the way we meet artists, musicians, physicians, inspectors, and Fascist barkeeps who long for the time of Franco's reign in Spain, not to mention the shadowy tunnels and caverns hidden under the city of Barcelona.

Promising enough, right?  There were, I admit, a couple of scenes that I found both thrilling and disturbing -- self-animated marionettes with empty eye sockets, silver fangs for teeth, and scissors for fingers, anybody? -- but they were the standouts in an otherwise not very satisfying story.

 I think my main gripe with this book was the 1980s setting. Trying to pour traditional gothic themes into a contemporary setting created a mix that simply beggared belief.  I could have forgiven a lot more if it had been set one century earlier, but it's hard to get worked up about mysterious, horse-driven carriages that emerge out of the black night, or Dr Frankenstein-like creations that combine re-animated human bodies with mechanical parts at a time when jelly shoes were being worn with abandon in the western world.  Evil creatures that can't be killed by a revolver might have been scary once upon a time, but in the Reagan era, we had a lot more weapons at our disposal in the arsenal.

Beyond that, Ruiz Zafón seems to play fast & loose with his timelines (reminded me of J K Rowling that way), and I was constantly distracted trying to calculate the ages of his characters based on the few dates and world events mentioned in the narrative.  One of them might have had a grandfather who was 108 years old.  Not impossible, to be sure, but also not likely. One girl seemed to be 19 in the 1940s and still a woman of childbearing age in the 1970s.  Again, not impossible, but not likely. Also, the translator always used the word "nauseous" when the word should have been "nauseated," and it took me out of the story every time.

Still, the reader, Daniel Weyman, was quite good, with a nicely resonant voice, and I'm happy I had a new audio book to listen to in my car.  Anybody who lurvs gothic tales and isn't particular about small(ish) details like grammar and timelines might very well enjoy this more than I did.  Apparently it's all the rage in Spain.

Oddly, this book was marketed as a YA book in the US, which is think is a mistake.  The two main characters, while 15, are rather prim despite their adventures and sleuthing, and not belonging to their own era at all.  While adults might go for this sort of thing, American teens certainly won't put up with that. Not when there are sparkly vampires and snarky teens dying of cancer and prickly heroines caught up in love triangles to be read about instead.

NB: I found a copy of this audio at my local record shop. 

Book Review: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami

It is a worldwide major publishing event when Japanese writer Haruki Murakami puts out a new book, and even bookstores in the US, a country not precisely exalted for either its love of literature or celebration of other cultures, hold midnight release parties for his books.

This is the story of Tsukuru, who narrates this story as a bachelor in his thirties but spends a lot of time exploring memories from his high school days when he was part of a group of five friends.  Best friends, to be exact, though Tsukuru always had a bit of a complex about his place in that circle.  His lack of self confidence leads him to think of himself as metaphorically "colorless, " a term derived from the names of his friends: each of them has a color in their name except for him.

Tsukuru is the only one who leaves Nagoya to attend university in Tokyo, and after his first year in college, he comes home one weekend, only to be informed, categorically, that none of his friends want to be friends any more.  Tsukuru isn't to call them or contact them in any way, and once the truth sinks in, his descends into a malestrom of depression from which he barely emerges. His friends' rejection of him colors (pun intended) all of his future relationships, or lack thereof.  He is unable to form emotional attachments or lasting relationships of any kind.

Sara, a woman he is dating, encourages him to track down these four friends and confront them with their desertion, to demand why they abandoned him so cruelly, and the second half of the book is dedicated to Tsukuru's efforts to do just that.

While I am glad that I read this novel, because I think it's important to read works in translation and because  I think Murakami is one of the world's most important novelists, I can't pretend that I really understood it. In fact, I've concluded that there is just too wide a chasm of cultural disconnect for me to "get" Murakami at all.  This is the third novel of his that I've read (not including a fourth novel that I never finished), and I don't think I'm any closer to an appreciation than I was before. To me, his dialogue is completely stilted, the depiction of suicide as both prolific and mundane is countercultural to the way most Americans approach or understand it, and the sex scenes are so overtly lacking in anything remotely erotic that I wonder why they're even present.  In fact, they read more like a technical manual.  They are the unsexiest sex scenes I have ever read. Those are just three generic examples from this book of how it didn't work for me as a reader, but I felt that away about the two previous novels of his that I've read, too. This is not, I hasten to add, because I think the American approach to suicide, sex, etc is the correct way and Murakami's is the wrong way; it's just that the American culture is what I know.  I just don't "get" him.

In fact, I feel about Murakami the same way I felt when I was studying French in college and trying to read a short story by Guy de Maupassant or a poem by Rimbaud. I was trying so hard to grasp the surface meaning in a language I was trying to learn that all of the substance underneath utterly slipped by.  That's how I feel about Murakami, except, of course, that here I'm reading an English translation. I'm absolutely convinced that I'm missing a world of meaning in his novels. Still, I'm glad that I put in the effort to read it, and I hope that one of my internet friends will share with me the genius that they see in his work.

My review wouldn't be complete without giving a nod to Chip Kidd for the fascinating design of this book, and a nod to Knopf for the beautiful production values.  Before I saw the actual book, the cover design didn't do much for me, but the physical book is very interesting and well put together. Tsukuru, represented by the "thumb" of the cover design, is shown as a map of subway or train lines (fitting, since he is a designer of train stations, and also for some spoilery reasons), while the fingers are the colors of his high school friends.

The four lines of the fingers are repeated on the tope of each page, and curiously, the pagination is printed in black with the exception of the number four, which is always printed in white. I have a half-cocked theory about this, but it might be a little spoilery to get into. Also, the endpapers in the book are all different colors: red and blue in the front, black and white in the back. Printing in the various colors, putting together a book like in general, is a very expensive proposition, so extra kudos to Knopf for undertaking it. Be sure to check it out--a lot of thought went into this design, more so than most novels and the book, at least the US edition, is worth seeing in person (for which read: worth buying in the physical format, not as an e-book).

The two front endpapers

Most page numbers looked like this except... 

...All of the pages with a four had the "4" printed in white, not black.

Book Review: Invisible Love by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

Whew.  It's been so long since I've written a book review that I've been putting it off.  Seriously. Not since April--I just checked.  I've blogged a lot of bookish things since then, and I did several posts in the readalong for Caitlin Moran's forthcoming novel, How to Build a Girl, but an actual book review?  Nope.  This is embarrassing, and for those of you who come to this site looking for bookish things, I extend my apologies.

I'm an unabashed fiction reader, through and through, and while I love to read novels, I don't pay as much attention to short stories.  Oh, I might read one or two story collections a year and the occasional stand alone story in a publication like The New Yorker, but most of the time I really prefer to sink my teeth into a book and become immersed in its world. Let's face it, good short stories are more difficult to write than good novels--at least from this reader's perspective, since good short story collections seem a bit scarce on the ground, whereas good novels are being published every day. However, if all short story collections were as good as Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's book, Invisible Love, I would soon change my reading habits.

Every single story in this collection was very good, and a couple of them verged on excellent, but one of them?  Ahhh, one of them was nothing short of sheer perfection. The first story, "Two Gentlemen From Brussels," tells the twin narratives of two couples. One young couple is getting married in the town cathedral to much fanfare, whilst in the back, two men secretly murmur the young couple's wedding vows to each other, sealing their union under God, if not in the eyes of the state. The men take a proprietary interest in the young couple's relationship and guard over it, keeping watch over the baby they produce as the young boy grows up, showering him with treats and honoring him as a child they could never have themselves.

In another story, "Ménage À Trois,"  the young widow of a musician becomes increasingly convinced that her new husband has an unhealthy obsession with her dead husband's original music.  Uncomfortable, she goes about her life feeling like her marriage bed is a bit crowded, sandwiched between her current husband and the ghost of her first one.

It's the story called simply "The Dog" that broke my heart wide open and made me appreciate anew just how much emotional ground one short story can cover.  I'm not sure I've ever read a piece of Holocaust literature than has moved me more.  An old man kills himself within a week after his beloved dog dies, and his daughter and only friend are left to piece together the old man's history, which is quite different from what he's always told his daughter.  I think any reader would appreciate this story, but if you're an animal lover, and in particular a dog lover, I think this story will completely undo you. To say more would be to spoil, so I'll just say this: "The Dog" is, I think, the best short story I have ever read. If it's not the best, then it ties for first place with Annie Proulx's "Brokeback Mountain," which I haven't read since it was first published in The New Yorker seventeen years ago.  No other short stories have their equal for emotional heft.

These stories are exquisite little gems of literature that are full of philosophy and quiet moments of epiphany, those moments when the story pivots in the reader's mind to cast an entirely new slant of light on what has just been read. Each one left me with a sigh of satisfaction and contentment, but also a little bit slack-jawed with amazement that so much could be accomplished with such efficiency -- the longest story is only fifty pages. If you value fine writing and the remarkable execution of a difficult craft, this is a book you should purchase right away.

I don't make sweeping proclamations very often, but I will say this: Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt is the finest short story writer of our time.  I wish more of his books were translated into English, but thanks to Europa Editions, this is his fifth book available to readers like me.

NB: This book was provided at my request by my sales rep.

Book Review: The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain

A fellow bookseller just created a new section in our bookstore called Read the World, featuring fiction, poetry, and essays translated into English.  He's a big proponent of translation and is in fact helping to put together a symposium on the importance and the future of translation.  Sadly, browsing the new section in my bookstore made me realize that I don't read many books that were not originally written in English.  Now, a large part of this is not so much my fault as it is the nature of the American publishing industry.  According to a 2007 study done by the University of Rochester, a scant 3% of the books published in the US are in translation. A quick survey of my Goodreads stats shows that I've read three books in translation over the last twelve months, and now that I'm aware of the situation, I'm going to see what happens when I actively seek out works in translation to read this year.  Thank goodness for Europa Editions and other small publishers who make world literature available to those who read only English!

One that I have recently read is called The President's Hat by Antoine Laurain, which I picked up not because it was originally written in French, but because it sounded fun and had actually been selling fairly well in the store.  Lucky for me, it turned out to a delightful little novel. It's set in France in the 1980s when Francois Mitterand was the president of France, and it is basically the story of what happens when you believe than an object can empower you to take control of your own life.

It opens with an accountant named Daniel, who decides to treat himself to a solo dinner at a fancy brasserie one night when his family is out of town.  Not long after he's ordered, President Francois Mitterand sits down with a small party at the table next to him. The President accidentally leaves his hat behind on the banquette between himself and Daniel, so Daniel surreptitiously picks it up and leaves with it, thinking of it as an accidental souvenir of the night he sat next to the President.  But lo and behold, after he starts wearing the hat, Daniel begins acting a bit differently at home and at work.  He takes charge during a business meeting, he gets a promotion, he acts more confidently and with authority--that sort of thing.  He's just beginning to attribute his new success to the President's hat when he accidentally leaves it behind on the train...

...Enter a young woman named Fanny, who notices an abandoned hat on the luggage rack of her train. It's clearly going to be next to impossible to find the owner, so she dons that hat herself, little knowing what is in store for her.  Now she is feeling empowered and emboldened in new ways.  Fanny finds a way to break off an unproductive affair with her married love, and then the short story she submits to a national contest wins the grand prize. Now she in turn leaves the hat on a park bench, where it gets picked up by Pierre, a once-mighty perfumeur who has fallen on hard times...

...You can guess what happens when the perfumeur puts on the President's hat, n'est-ce pas?

We see various people whose lives are changed by this presidential hat, and the big question is, does the power lie within the hat, or does it simply awaken the power in each individual who wears it?  I ended up thinking of Mitterand's hat as a cross between a benevolent version of Tolkien's One Ring and Mary Poppins, transferring its attachment from one owner to the next, always going where it happens to be needed.

For a small novel (it barely reaches 200 pages), it really covers a lot of territory both large (love, life, work, politics) and small (random chances can change your life, and so can accessorizing). Though I read it in two short sittings, the quiet contentment that pervades these pages stayed with me for days--a kind of magic all its own.  I recommend it to just about any reader, but especially if you're looking for a book that is life-affirming without being hokey, or gentle without being dull. The President's Hat got lot of raves in France and it won both the Prix Landerneau Decouvertes and the Prix Relay des Voyageurs in 2012.  Sadly, the translation is not attributed to any one person but to Gallic Books in general.

What about y'all?  Do you seek out works in translation to read? Have you read anything marvelous lately that was not in its original language?

NB: I read an uncorrected proof version of this book that I found in the ARC pile at my bookstore.  It is  published in the US by Gallic Books, which is distributed by Consortium.

Three Mini Book Reviews

My blog has been on the dormant side recently, but my reading has not.  Here are three mini reviews of books that I've read that are recently (or soon to be) published, and by "mini reviews," I essentially mean that these are the small shelf tags that accompany these books in my bookstore. 

Frances & Bernard by Carlene Bauer. Has a letter ever changed your life?  When Frances and Bernard meet at an artists’ colony, they are not quite certain what to make of each other, but one letter changes everything. Bernard’s first letter to Frances leads to a deep and intense friendship. Not-so-loosely based on Flannery O’Connor and Robert Lowell, Frances and Bernard navigate the tricky waters of publishing, romance, religion, and mental illness in this hauntingly beautiful story. If you enjoy the works of Marilynne Robinson or 84 Charing Cross Road, or if you appreciate the bittersweet aspects of life, give this one a spin. 

The Mothers by Jennifer Gilmore. I had to remind myself several times while reading this book that it’s a novel and not a memoir—that’s how realistic and heartbreaking it feels. After years of unsuccessful fertility treatments, Jesse and Ramon desperately want to adopt a child, but they never could have imagined the difficulties lying in wait for them in the process, not least of which is determining how willing they’d be to adopt a child born with Down’s syndrome, fetal alcohol, blindness, deafness, spina bifida, or any combination thereof. This is an emotional and compelling read.

The Dinner by Herman Koch.  What starts off as a rather Bourgeois novel quickly takes a darker turn and descends into the realm of menace, both underhanded and overt.  Clearly there is more to our unnamed, mild-mannered narrator than first meets the eye, and as he learns more about his son’s new and disturbing hobby, the reader learns more about him.  The further this insidious father-son story unfolded, the faster I was compelled to turn the pages.  This book is a bestseller in Europe and recently translated for English-speaking audiences. 

Book Review: Me, Who Dove Into the Heart of the World by Sabina Berman

I received a copy of this book from my MPS sales rep, Bob, because (if I recall correctly) there weren't any more ARCs of the book. This book caught my eye because it was published to great critical acclaim in Mexico by a major poet, dramatist, and journalist, and yet I'd never heard of her.  Such is the myopathy of American readers like me, much to our discredit.

This is the story of Karen Nieto, an autistic child who runs wilder than the feral dogs & cats of her neighborhood until around the age of eight.  Unspeaking, and thus unable to give voice to the unspeakable horrors she has survived at the hands of her mother, she learns language at the hands of her aunt. Her aunt is the new mistress of her family's fishery & cannery, Consuelo Tuna, and as Karen learns to speak and to navigate the bewildering social world of humans, she discovers an affinity for thinking like fish.  For the first time in her life, Karen has somebody who encourages her to think of what she can accomplish, rather than be fettered by her differences.

The obvious parallel for me was Temple Grandin, and I kept flashing back to what I know of Grandin from the bibopic made of her life (sadly, I never read any of Grandin's books).  Both young women have difficulty in college in their identical fields of study. Like Grandin's special cattle cage that she crawls into during times of stress, Karen puts on a wetsuit and then suspends herself from a ceiling harness.  Like Grandin, who could visualize animals' fear in the abbatoir and devised far more humane methods of slaughter, Karen can see things from the tuna's point of view and she revamps the entire fishing industry.

So while certain plot points may feel familiar based on what I know of Temple Grandin's life, the main thing underlying this book is Karen's success on her terms in a world that befuddles, irritates, and scares her.  I also think that it is a triumph of translation, as Karen's first-person voice is clear and consistent, so brava to Lisa Dillman for her work on this novel, too.  People who have read and enjoyed The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night will know what I mean about reading Karen's distinctive first person voice.

NB: I requested and received a comp copy of this book from my sales rep, Bob, when I placed my summer '12 frontlist order. I don't believe any ARCs were available, so the copy I read was a finished copy. It's published by Holt.