Book Review: Industrial Park by Patrícia Galvão

The steadily growing divide between rich and poor isn’t a new phenomenon, or else Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels would never have had reason to write the Communist Manifest and the blood-soaked October Revolution of 1917 might never have massacred the Russian Tsar along with his family to put the idealistic principles of Marxism into practice. During the first decades of the new regime, people worldwide dreamt of following the country’s example unawares of the fact that Lenin, Stalin and their likes turned their egalitarian Soviet utopia into the dystopian oligarchy, even monocracy of totalitarian Bolshevik leaders. Set in the working-class district Brás in São Paulo, Brazil, the proletarian novel Industrial Park by Patrícia Galvão, first published under the pseudonym Mara Lobo in 1933, shows the daily struggles of women who have to cope not just with cutthroat capitalism but also with machismo. The communists among them call for fight…

Book Review: One Man’s Bible by Gao Xingjian

However much we’d like to start life all over again with a clean slate after a traumatising experience, it’s virtually impossible. If we like it or not, any such experience has a lasting impact on our world view and on our behaviour as well. It marks and even forms us. Cases of dementia and brain injury excluded, we can only refuse to allow memories to come back to our conscious minds. Nonetheless, they keep working on us under the surface. And more often than not, these disagreeable ghosts of the past return sooner or later to haunt us. Ten years after his flight, the exiled playwright in One Man’s Bible by Gao Xinjian, the Sino-French recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature 2000, finds himself forced to relive the trauma of almost fifty years under Communist reign that he tried to forget when his Jewish-German sex partner starts asking questions.

Book Review: Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther by Elizabeth von Arnim

Just a hundred years ago the status of a girl largely depended on her chances for marriage. If she hadn’t found a husband by her mid-twenties people around would start looking at her askance, especially when there was nothing in her looks, behaviour or family background to put off courters. Only few women dared to actively defy society’s expectations, least of all the teenage ones who didn’t really know life yet. It was universally acknowledged that a girl who received a marriage proposal from a suitable match should be overjoyed and so is the letter-writing protagonist of the 1907 epistolary novel Fräulein Schmidt and Mr. Anstruther by Elizabeth von Arnim. Twenty-five years old and a poor scholar’s daughter, she was convinced to end her life as old maid, but all of a sudden she finds herself secretly engaged to an Englishman much above her. The initial happiness doesn’t last, though…

Book Review: The Curse of Kim's Daughters by Pak Kyongni

There are people, even entire families, who get more than the usual share of misfortune in life. While some may simply call it bad luck, others will be convinced that in the world nothing ever happens without a reason because everything is interconnected. In fact, it can be very comforting to believe that God, the Universe, whatever is just and that sooner or later we all get what we deserve. First published in 1962, the historical novel The Curse of Kim's Daughters by Pak Kyongni (or Park Kyong-ni for the English edition that appeared in 2004) follows the karmic decline of a well-to-do family in a small Korean sea port during the first decades of the twentieth century. Their misfortune starts with a hot-tempered husband who drives his terrified wife into suicide, kills an innocent man and disappears, but it’s his son and his grand-daughters who eventually pay the price.

Book Review: Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson

For many people there comes a moment, when they look back on life and re-evaluate the choices that they made along the way. Often it’s an event that draws attention to how fragile and short a human life is – like the death of someone close – that inspires such contemplation of what they did or failed to do. The lucky ones will find that overall they missed nothing that really mattered and have little to complain about, while others may be weighed down by the memory of lost opportunities and abandoned dreams. The Englishwoman past sixty who starts the correspondence of Meet Me at the Museum by Anne Youngson did all her life what needed to be done or what others expected of her. Now her best friend died and they never got round to making true their almost lifelong dream of seeing the Tollund Man in his museum in Denmark…

Book Review: The Women at the Pump by Knut Hamsun

When fate strikes badly and turns life completely upside down thwarting all plans, it’s usually a very unsettling experience that can make feel at a loss even the most flexible mind. Some people quickly pull themselves together and take life back into their own hands trying to make the best of the situation, while others give in to despair and just drift on with the current unwilling to set a new course because it just doesn’t seem worthwhile or at least possible. The protagonist of The Women at the Pump by Knut Hamsum, the recipient of the 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature, is one of the latter. Having lost one leg in an accident aboard a cargo steamer and unfit to work as a sailor again, Oliver Andersen takes to brooding and idling away his time. Not even for the sake of his growing family, he is able to change.

Book Review: Fear and His Servant by Mirjana Novaković

Sometimes there are rumours about extraordinary, even mysterious events that give us the creeps no matter how erudite and rational we happen to be because – if only for an instant – they make us speculate what would be if it were true. Authors even like to toy with such musings in books and films. Take for instance zombies, revenants and vampires. For us today they may be delightfully scary creatures because they belong to the realm of superstition and ancient religions, but for our ancestors it was a real threat to be haunted by one of these undead or even worse to become one of them instead of passing on into eternal life after death. In the modern Serbian novel Fear and His Servant by Mirjana Novaković the Devil himself travels to Belgrade out of fear that the vampires whispered about all around may be real and presage his impending end.

Book Review: To Bury Our Fathers by Sergio Ramírez

It’s people who make history by way of passing on knowledge about the more or less heroic deeds of individuals and groups to later generations not just through different memorabilia, but also as stories that over time may even turn into legends. Above all, turbulent times that are exceptional with regard to what people have to go through and bear with – be they wars or revolutions, be they periods of voluntary or forced migration, just to give a few examples – are a hotbed for such stories. And wherever people come together it’s likely to hear the one or other of them like in To Bury Our Fathers by Sergio Ramírez, a Nicaraguan novel from the 1970s that evokes from different perspectives the country’s (or actually the whole region’s) tragic that is history marked by terror regimes and armed resistence with or without the meddling of the USA and the USSR.

Book Review: Souls Divided by Matilde Serao

Since times immemorial the main ingredients of a good love story are two steadfast lovers who overcome all kinds of obstacles and hazards until at last they are allowed to live “happily ever after” or – occasionally – find a tragic end after the model of Hellenic Hero and Leander or Shakespearean Romeo and Juliet. Unrequited love, on the other hand, isn’t such a popular subject of the Romance genre unless its twists and turns lead to a happy ending for the infatuated protagonist after all. The fictitious letters forming the almost forgotten Italian classic Souls Divided by six-time (sic!) Nobel Prize nominee Matilde Serao show a man in his early thirties who falls head over heels in love with a voice and seeks relief in writing to the woman for over a year because even after having found out her name and having exchanged furtive glances social conventions keep them apart.

Book Review: The Illustrious House of Ramires by José Maria de Eça de Queirós

For a person who grew up in a family of long linage with a glorious past incorporated by adventurous and fearless ancestors whose deeds keep being recounted all across the country, it can be difficult to give life a direction that doesn’t fall short of their example. In The Illustrious House of Ramires by José Maria de Eça de Queirós a young man who is exceedingly conscious and proud of his many legendary ancestors decides to go into politics because it will allow him to live at ease and to add his own to the country’s history at the same time. The trouble is that he has nothing except the name of his respectable family in his favour and needs to overcome his cowardice making himself known to the world. Thus, he begins to write a heroic novella about the brave men who started his family in the twelfth century…

José Maria de Eça de Queirós was born in Póvoa de Varzim, Portugal, in November 1845. During law studies in Coimbra he published poetry and later worked as journalist for a while. Besides, he collaborated with others on Correspondence of Fradique Mendes (Correspondência de Fradique Mendes: 1900) and The Mystery of the Sintra Road (O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra: 1870) released under his name, while working on The Relic (A Relíquia: 1887). The Crime of Father Amaro (O Crime do Padre Amaro: 1875) established him as novelist, but he continued as public servant contributing to periodicals alongside. His most famous novels Cousin Bazilio (O Primo Basílio: 1878), The Mandarin (O Mandarim: 1880) and The Maias (Os Maias: 1888) he wrote as diplomat in England before becoming consul-general in Paris. José Maria de Eça de Queirós died in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, in August 1900, revising The Illustrious House of Ramires (A Ilustre Casa de Ramires: 1900) for the press. Unfinished The City and the Mountains (A Cidade e as Serras: 1901) and Alves & Co.  (Alves & Companhia: 1925; also published in English as The Yellow Sofa) appeared posthumously along with reprints of short stories, poetry, journalistic work and private correspondence.

Thirty years old and unmarried, Gonçalo Mendes Ramires is the last “Nobleman of the Tower” from The Illustrious House of Ramires, one of the oldest families of Portugal. By the late 1800s, however, the family’s glory is gone and the revenues from the Tower and another estate hardly permit Gonçalo the life-style that he enjoys and considers appropriate for a man of his station. His sister Gracinha is well provided for thanks to her marriage to a wealthy bourgeois, but he still worries about her because André Cavaleiro, their neighbour and brotherly friend of Gonçalo courted her for years leaving the girl desperate when he withdrew instead of proposed. Hurt in his family pride and trying to protect the virtue of his sister, whom he believes still in love with Cavaleiro, he even broke with his friend and blackens him whenever he can. Moreover, he envies his political career that already made him Civil Governor of the District and promises to promote him to Minister of the government. His other friends, too, are important men in local politics and administration, while Gonçalo has little to boast with except his lineage that he can trace back to the twelfth century. To improve his position and income he makes up his mind to go into politics as well and grudgingly reconciles with Cavaleiro for his support when unexpectedly the opportunity to be elected into Parliament arises, but he is uncertain of himself and convinced that he lacks the popularity to succeed. Having had some success with a novella during his studies, he sets out to make himself a name with a novella about his heroic ancestor Tructesindo Ramires that closely follows the lead of an epic poem published some fifty years earlier by an uncle and the example of Sir Walter Scott.

Written from the third-person perspective of an unconcerned as well as omniscient observer, The Illustrious House of Ramires draws the satirical portrait of a young nobleman who tries to enhance importance and reputation of his old family as well as of himself becoming a writer and a politician –mainly because he lacks willpower, energy and skill for other professional activity. A dreamer and a coward who likes to distort his “adventures” in his favour, he wants to write a heroic novella in celebration of his legendary twelfth-century ancestor whose chivalry and fearlessness he admires. Embedded in the chronological plot that shows the protagonist’s present life just before 1900, the five chapters of his historical novella mirror moods and events during the summer months up to his election into Parliament, a narrative structure that decades later Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago also used – slightly altered – in The History of the Siege of Lisbon (»»» read my review). Nostalgic of his family’s past splendour, the protagonist clearly stands for his country Portugal at the dawn of modern times. Saturated with impressive images and sometimes a bit lengthy by today’s tastes, language and style are typical of a realist novel of the time.

Altogether, I’m pleased to say that The Illustrious House of Ramires by José Maria de Eça de Queirós turned out to be an engaging and entertaining read for me although I must confess that I struggled quite a bit with the original Portuguese not mastering the language as well as I would like to. It was the second novel from the pen of this remarkable nineteenth-century writer that I read… and I liked it just as much as (shorter) Cousin Bazilio (»»» read my review). It seems that English-speaking readers now get a chance to rediscover this Portuguese master of realist style (greater even than Gustave Flaubert according to Émile Zola and to me) because several new translations have been coming out these past years. As historical fiction that was contemporary at the time of its first release, his novels definitely deserve more attention and I gladly recommend this one.

Nota bene:
Since José Maria de Eça de Queirós died already in 1900, the original Portuguese editions of his work are in the public domain in Europe. The major part of the fiction can be downloaded legally and for free from Luso Livros, Project Gutenberg and similar sites. Probably, many of the early translations are no longer protected by copyright, either, but hardly any of them seem to have been digitised and made available online, so far.

Book Review: Crabwalk by Günter Grass

As time passes, ideas may go out of fashion or even become kind of taboo, but once in the world they never disappear completely. These days, fascist ideas including national socialist ones see an alarming revival all around the world thanks to – for the moment still – democratic movements that prudently deny their roots. Such pretended nationalistic and patriotic, but actually racist ideologies make believe that they can put the unfathomable chaos of the modern world in a clear order and especially the young are easy prey for the populist demagogues who cunningly preach them taking advantage of the growing discontent in the population over living conditions and cultural diversity. In the novel Crabwalk by en-NOBEL-ed German writer Günter Grass a journalist from Berlin retraces his own and his mother’s lives to understand how their history encouraged his son to write a Nazi blog and to kill his pretended Jewish counterpart.

Book Review: Hell Has No Limits by José Donoso

Ever since scientists first expounded their theory of evolution, those in power gladly have been taking recourse to the concept of the survival of the fittest to justify even their most selfish actions before themselves. Unquestionably, the urge to exercise power over others belongs to human nature, but often it brings forth the worst in a person. Less settled characters even seem to think that it were their inborn right to bully those who are weaker than themselves and defenceless. In the 1960s Chilean classic Hell Has No Limits by José Donoso the homosexual transvestite living in a small rural brothel is regularly teased and beaten up by the clients because her mere presence provokes them. For nearly twenty years she has been co-owner together with the girl whom he fathered in the night when she agreed to help the Madame win a wager pretending to have sex with her.

Book Review: Portrait of a Man Unknown by Nathalie Sarraute

Not only political power can bring the despotic vein of a person to the surface. In fact, most of us will be a lot more familiar with it from a family setting where it shows more or less markedly in relations with children or less self-assured relatives, notably a weak spouse. This wish to rule over others, to impose our will on them seems to be deeply rooted in our nature. In addition, living it we often pass it on to the next generations. The father in Portrait of a Man Unknown by Nathalie Sarraute is tough to his grown-up daughter whose penchant for a carefree and extravagant life he disapproves because he had to work very hard to live in moderate wealth. He even threw her out of his flat to teach her a lesson, but she always comes back to him for money that he grudgingly gives her…

Book Review: The Ides of March by Thornton Wilder

The people who rule a country, be it a republic or a monarchy, a democracy or a dictatorship, even a tyranny, quite naturally provoke controversy. They carry the burden of responsibility, but often everybody else seems to know better than they. Sometimes this may even be true, especially when looks, charisma and populist catchphrases – in other words a good performance – make the public blind to their incompetence and to their lack of ideals. At the same time, power can corrupt even the most able ruler because it easily produces a growing hunger for more. This is a dangerous game as Caius Julius Cæsar knew well, and yet, he continued to undermine the Roman republic. In The Ides of March by Thornton Wilder the Dictator’s writings and those of friends and foes, men and women, citizens and slaves bring to life the atmosphere in Rome in the months before his assassination.

Book Review: Train to Trieste by Domnica Radulescu

The urge for freedom is so strong that not even the cruelest totalitarian regime can crush it completely. Fear of persecution, imprisonment, torture and death may keep it in check outwardly, but under the surface it smolders and seeks an outlet that may well be a violent revolution in the final consequence. Meanwhile, people just do their best to survive making good use of the little freedom left them to outwit authorities and informers or to flee the country if need be. This is the scene that the semi-autobiographical novel Train to Trieste by Domnica Radulescu draws of Romania during the Cold War when the narrating protagonist grows up in an intellectual environment with the secret police around every corner. Even her first love is overshadowed by the suspicion that her sweetheart might be an informer and eventually her father’s underground activities drive her to flee to the safe West.

Book Review: The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco

When life doesn’t take the expected turn, it’s often easier to come up with the idea of a conspiracy than to search for the real cause of events. Especially misanthropists (but not only they) are prone to blaming others for all and nothing. They need a scapegoat and who is better suited for it than the weak, be it an individual or a whole group like the Jewish minority spattered all across Europe. In The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco a man in his late sixties looks back on his life as unscrupulous informer and forger of documents whose every action has been marked by the blind hatred against Jews, Freemasons and Jesuits that he contracted in his youth. Writing down his adventures, it slowly dawns on him that he has an alter ego, a Jesuit priest of all things, who got active in the periods that he can’t remember…

Book Review: Murphy by Samuel Beckett

Many ways lead to enlightenment. Some of them – like religion and other established spiritual practice – are conventional and almost generally accepted, while others are so individual that they seem rather absurd, even completely crazy from an outsider’s point of view. They all have in common that it requires great determination and perseverance to pursue them because all along it remains uncertain when or if at all the ultimate goal will be reached. On the other hand, we are only beginning to learn here in the West that following the way is actually more important than arriving. The Irishman in London of the 1930s who is the title hero of Murphy by Samuel Beckett, the 1969 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, tries to reach a presumably blissful state of non-existence through complete inactivity, but just like his earlier lover his new one urges him to take on a job...

Book Review: S. by John Updike

Sooner or later for the less lucky among us comes the moment, when we realise that, for one reason or another, the life that we had so far doesn’t feel right any longer. Often such existential crises go hand in hand with a search for identity and meaning that can make us susceptible to outside influence. A longing for guidance in an unsettling phase of change like this can lead some of us (back) to religion and drive others into the hands of charismatic leaders as is the case in the epistolary novel S. by John Updike. Its protagonist is a well-to-do housewife from Boston who left her doctor husband to join a dubious Hindu ashram in Arizona and to reinvent herself in the spirit of Eastern philosophy, but she never loses from sight her personal advantage and tries to keep her old world under control sending letters and tapes.

Book Review: Short Letter, Long Farewell by Peter Handke

To come to terms with important events in life, notably with big changes, usually takes time even if they don’t turn upside-down the entire universe that we have known. Sometimes they can leave us at a complete loss because they put into question who we are and force us to re-evaluate our whole being to piece together a new identity. In the novella Short Letter, Long Farewell by Peter Handke a young Austrian writer has fled to the USA to recover his peace of mind after the end of his marriage to Judith. Years of life together had turned them into opponents seething with hatred to the point of trying to kill each other more than once, and yet, his fear of his ex-wife mixes with the urge to go after her. As a result, he zigzags across the country as much in flight from as in pursuit of Judith...

Book Review: The Golden Hills by Clara Viebig

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We all know moments when we feel like Job from the Holy Bible because nothing goes right and the whole universe seems to be against us. The longer such a spell of bad luck lasts, the more likely it is that we give way to despair although already the wise men of Ancient Greece coined the expression πάντα ῥεῖ – everything flows – knowing that nothing ever stays the same without end (and without hope). In the classical regional novel The Golden Hills by Clara Viebig the vineyards along the Moselle in Western Germany a few years after World War I are the stunning scene of growing misery and desperation. Economic crisis and caprices of weather bring ever more winegrowers in the region on the brink of ruin and even the old Bremm family of Porten is already hard up, when the eldest daughter Maria enters service as a maid in town.