Mr Darwin's Gardener - Kristina Carlson

Translated from the Finnish by Emily and Fleur Jeremiah.

I spent most of last week working my way through two very short books and realising it's a long time since I've found myself reading anything so challenging. The other book is Jen Hadfield's latest collection of poems - 'Byssus'. I'm in the habit of reading books I find enjoyable, interesting, informative, sometimes provocative - but rarely ones that make me work this hard, but then Peirene books excel at making me work hard. The only downside is that most of my reading time is on the bus and during breaks at work where it's all to easy to get distracted. Ideally I would have read 'Mr Darwin's Gardener' somewhere quieter - it deserves the readers full attention.

Reading it alongside 'Byssus' was fortuitous though, both encourage a search for images and meaning, and both have their own ways of keeping the reader in line. In 'Mr Darwin's Gardener' it's the fractured narrative - it had me going back time and again to try and remember who was speaking and who they were. This is a whole village of voices and sometimes it feels like they're all speaking at once, each giving a little bit of insight into an interior life and all coming together in layers which are hard to untangle. Part of it is the business of living with others, along with all the attendant births, marriages, deaths and small scandals that make up community life but there's also the question of what to put your faith in.

Mr Darwin and his theories of evolution are a shadow over the village, we never meet him directly but he's there in the background as the villagers define what they put their faith in - god or science, though in the end you have to question if it really matters so very much. Regardless of belief when advent (or any celebration) comes:

 "There is hardly a moment to draw breath and one has to sweep snow off the steps, heat the house, do the laundry, starch, iron, darn, sweep, wax, polish dust, air, boil, crush, whisk, knead, roll, roast, ice, sew, go out for sugar, salt, flour, currants, cinnamon, almonds, soda, buttons, ribbons, candles; run to the shop and back, to the neighbour's, the church, the chicken coop, the shed, and back into the kitchen before a burning smell comes from the oven."

Put your faith into whatever you feel you must, one way or another life will carry on much the same.

Sea of Ink - Richard Weihe (translated by Jamie Bulloch)

I read this at the start of my recent holiday, it was wet and cold enough to more than justify a fire and an afternoon on the sofa which in turn led to a fair amount of dozing off which rather added to the dream like quality of this book. It's 51 short chapters (very short, none are more than a couple of pages long) and 11 pictures which together form a portrait of an unusual man.

Born as Zhu Da, a minor prince of the Ming dynasty, in what might best be described as interesting times, he grows up in the sheltered formality of palace life until the old dynasty crumbles and the Manchurians take power. Zhu Da who already shows artistic promise disappears into a monastery where he spends the next 40 years as a monk and learning his art. During this time he changes his name time and again until eventually he is Bada Shanren a master painter. There is also some debate about his sanity. Contemporary accounts describe him as mad but current thinking seems to be that his madness was a conscious manipulation of his behaviour to avoid the new regime.

Each chapter is an episode from his life be it a piece of history, an anecdote, the description of a picture, or a meditation on how art is created and it's all rather more like reading poetry than prose, more because of the way that many of the chapters could be separated from the book and still feel like something complete. Having read it all it's easy to dip back in and out at random points and find something thought provoking, and sometimes beautiful, to mull over.

Bada Shanren's painting is so stripped back it's almost abstract, a few lines and smudges which
quietly resolve themselves into something figurative. More than that for images made of almost nothing there's a tremendous sense of the artist behind them, but what's even more remarkable is that Richard Weihe (and Jamie Bulloch) seem to do the same thing with words. It's a magical book (I see now that I'm looking at the inside cover I'm by no means the only person who feels like this about it) there's nothing flashy or obvious about it but it get's under your skin (it certainly has mine) and sticks there.

On Holiday

After what feels like an eternity but has in fact only been 4 months it's time for me to go on holiday again. The Scottish Borders are calling, and I am packing. So far I've packed marmalade, champagne, pearls, plenty of books, a large bottle of gin, a warm jumper, rhubarb, some wellies (which auto correct is determined to turn into willies - which is not what I mean to say at all) and enough clean underwear to see me through - though I may have broken the golden rule and packed more books than knickers. Whatever the weather does I'm confident I'm going to enjoy myself, though I do wonder what will happen of Scotland ever gets border control. Is rhubarb likely to be a prohibited item? Do I really need to take it on holiday with me anyway? And perhaps most vitally what have I forgotten to pack which I might really need when I was thinking waste not want not over the rhubarb.

Reading, as you can see, mostly sponsored by OWC

The Mussel Feast - Birgit Vanderbeke translated by Jamie Bulloch

I've just read two of the recently reprinted Rumer Godden's and been surprised to see both described as young adult books, which makes me think I'm not very clear about what young adult means. I've looked it up  which has only confirmed a vague prejudice against the term, but perhaps that's my age showing because I find myself thinking 'in my day...' and that can't be a good sign. If I could choose though I would have 'The Mussel Feast' on the school curriculum here as it is in Germany -  it's the sort of book young people ought to read.

The mussel's in the title are a well chosen food, I cook and eat them quite often because they're my partners favourite, I like them too, but there comes a point halfway through the meal when I suddenly find them repulsive (every time I eat them, and I really do like them up until that point). The other thing with mussels is how carefully they have to be observed - when you scrub them you need to make sure that every single one is closed and undamaged, when they're cooked you have to be sure that every one has opened. Get it wrong  you face violently unpleasant (gastric) consequences.

 'The Mussel Feast' is narrated by a teenage girl, she starts by looking back to a specific evening - were the mussels they were preparing an omen of things to come? No, she decides they were not, but they are a sign that her father is expected home from a business trip and his immanent arrival is causing some tension in the family. It always causes tension in the family. As the narrative unfolds it becomes more chilling. The father is slowly revealed as controlling, violent, manipulative, demanding, unreasonable, in short very dangerous to his family.

The family has escaped from East Germany to the West, but despite the promise of freedom I assume that would mean, the household is still a totalitarian state with obedience maintained by a system of division and intimidation. This night is different though, the father doesn't come home and the mother, brother, and sister start to talk. That small brake in routine is enough to shift the family dynamic. Each revelation and confirmation strengthens the bonds between the three as they wait - denial becomes harder, by the end of the evening some act of revolution, however minor, is inevitable and a gesture will be made. 

We never find out quite what happens, I think it's just possible that the husband has cleared off with his attractive young secretary which raises the possibility that he's been as much a prisoner of the domestic situation he created as the rest of his family has. It's a book to think about, the parallels between domestic oppression and political oppression are impossible to miss, I keep thinking about Aleksander Solzhenitsyn's 'One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich' (which I did read as a young adult, and at about the same time that Birgit Vanderbeke was writing 'The Mussel Feast') it's a book that's stayed with me as a great cry of unfairness and the two make good companions. 'The Mussel Feast' provides the hope that is missing from Ivan Denisovich - the possibility of change. It's a book that begs to be discussed and ought to be pressed on the young - it's just the book I'd like to see being given out on world book day...

The Murder Of Halland - Pia Juul

My second book in translation of the week - and I have to admit this one was far more baffling than 'The Treatise of Walter of Bibbesworth'. 'The Murder Of Halland' is the latest book from Peirene, it's billed as a crime novel and whilst Halland is murdered (as the title suggests) and the police are called in that's where any resemblance to traditional crime writing ends. I'm a little out of my depth here - I don't read much contemporary fiction and stick to decidedly cosy crime so I don't know quite how atypical this book is, but I'm guessing it's by way of being one of a kind in it's genre.

Bess and Halland are a successful semi public couple; Bess is a well known writer - she never reveals what Halland does, maybe because she doesn't know. They've lived together for ten years, ever since Bess walked out on her husband and teenage daughter, an action that seems to have precipitated an estrangement from most of her family. The action kicks off a couple of pages in with a bang at the door and a local caretaker trying to perform a citizen's arrest; Halland has been shot - his dying words apparently implicating his wife. Bess however isn't Halland's wife, they never married, and this is the first of many ambiguities. It's Bess we follow as she deals with what happens after your lover is shot down in the street.

This is where the book diverges from traditional crime fiction, neither Bess, or Juul - and perhaps by extension the reader, are really interested in who killed Halland although there are tantalising clues regarding a double life laid out for us. Bess grieves for the man she's lived, though hardly shared, her life with for a decade but Halland's murder makes it clear that there was little between them; a year of happiness followed by 9 years of illness and slowly separating paths.  

For me however the focus of the book, the thing that kept me turning the pages, was the relationship between Bess and her daughter - Abby. Abby hasn't spoken to her mother since she left, the question is with Halland gone will they reunite? It's a book full of questions with few answers, Bess is an unreliable narrator, she's also hard to like - but she's easy enough to empathise with. I feel like this book shouldn't have worked for me, but it did. It may not be particularly satisfying as a piece of detective fiction, but as an examination of grief, and dysfunctional family dynamics it's excellent. 

The Brothers - Asko Sahlberg

One of my favourite jokes (partly because it's one of the few I can remember) is about two Finnish men who go out for a drink. The first man goes to the bar, gets the drinks, sets them on the table, raises his glass, says 'Skol' and then they drink in silence. Second drink same thing happens, silence, third drink and he raises his glass and says 'Skol' again at which point his friend snaps 'I thought we were here to drink not talk'. (Stay with me on this one, I'm not a natural joke teller, when I heard it, it was funny.) I've attempted to share that joke because it was the background I came to 'The Brothers' from, and true enough if you want to fit an epic of love, loss, betrayal, and family into a fraction over a hundred pages you don't want to be profligate with your word count.

This is the 7th Peirene title and each one strengthens their identity. The last two books I read both seemed to take an age to finish, and enjoyable as they were neither was a particularly challenging read, so when I picked up 'The Brothers' I was really craving something 'thought provoking, well designed, and short' - it's all three. I'm not surprised that Peirene are doing well, they have such a strong identity, it's not just that the books are lovely to hold and read, or that the covers are rather pleasing, it's more the whole hearted passion with which they get behind their books and the carefully curated choices they give us that makes them so exciting.

'The Brothers' is one of those books which ticks lots of boxes I normally avoid (historical novel, written by a man, family saga, not British, contemporary...) but I trust Peirene and it's short - both of which are important, we're traditionally not very good at reading translated fiction in the UK; I find it a lot easier to step out of my comfort zone with an elegant little volume like this than I do when a much greater investment of time is demanded. Preconceptions are a limiting thing, once the book was open I realised that it also ticked lots of boxes that attract me - short, told from several perspectives, sensual (is it only men who describe smells, or do I only notice male writers doing it?), and more than a touch of the fairy tale about it.

The action unfolds over a couple of days in a large farmhouse somewhere in the Finnish backwoods, isolated in location as well as by limited daylight and heavy snow there's an uneasy family gathering made more tense by the unexpected arrival of a disinherited older son. The narrative is shared by all the characters, each of whom shares a little bit more of the story, and much of which is concerned with the relationship between the brothers of the title - one is heavy and dark with almost unnatural strength, the other light of foot, easier perhaps to love, and the one who ends up with the girl. There's also a farmhand with a timeless mythic quality about him, and a cousin who has a touch of the troll or the wicked enchanter.

Everything unfolds quite quickly (and indeed it was hard to put the book down once started because I was desperate to see what would come next) although what's happened or is happening isn't always explicit - each character's segment feels like a statement; evidence that the reader has to try and piece together. Finally though I think this is more about the constraints family and home put on us - expectation is a kind of prison and when the family hierarchy is disturbed the results are unexpected freedoms.

Anyway it's a fine read and one I'm eager to share. I'm tempted to go on at length about the elegant spareness of the prose, the power behind so many of the descriptions (between Sahlberg and his translators we've got some really evocative images) and the effective way scent (or smell, or stink) are used to set scenes, moods, and raise tension - but the brevity of the book demands a little restraint.  

Next World Novella – Matthias Politycki

My preferred reading matter by and large comprises books written by women, written in the past and written in English but two of my stand out books of the last year have been Peirene titles – both written by men, contemporary, and originally written in German. I’m truly grateful to Peirene for sending me both ‘Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman’ and ‘Next World Novella’ neither book would have crossed my path otherwise. For all the abundance of books out there it seems to me to be harder than ever to find something different – the choice in my local chain bookshop is disappointing to say the least and we don’t have an independent locally (that I know of, but I have dreams that one will reveal itself). Amazon has the range but unless you know what you’re looking for, or looking for more of the same finding things is tricky.

Thank heaven then for blogs and publishers who are inclined to flirt with them; it’s one good way to broaden my reading horizons – and with them horizons generally. ‘Next World Novella’ is an unsettling read (which seems to fit with the times); Hinrich and Doro have been married for 30 years seemingly happy until one morning Hinrich wakes late to find his wife has died in the night at her desk. What follows turns his perceptions on their head. Doro’s last act was editing an old manuscript of Hinrich’s, in an attempt to make sense of this unexpected loss he starts to read her commentary – with mounting discomfort he realises that his contented marriage was no such thing.

Slowly over the course of the day that Hinrich spends with Doro’s corpse some sort of truth about his failings and her intentions are revealed, Hinrich also finds that:

"Being dead, he thought, means first and foremost that you can’t apologize, can’t forgive and be reconciled, there’s nothing left to be forgiven, only to be forgotten. Or rather there’s nothing to be forgotten, only forgiven.”

It’s a frustrating situation, sudden death leaves so much to be explained, understood, and of course forgiven. Hinrich is left with his frustrations and only a fly to take them out on and in such a situation it seems you eventually have to be honest and face the truth about yourself.

It’s a hard book to describe, and being a short one far too easy to reveal too much plot (not that I mind spoilers but as so much of this book is a slow exposure of the inside of a marriage it seems wrong to give away to much). I will say that the end turns everything upside down again – I’m not quite sure what happens – it might be a dream, or what went before may have been the dream, or it may be that this is what might have been – or frankly it could have been something else entirely but whatever it is it feels hopeful and poignant at the same time.

There is a trailer here which is worth watching and if you come across this book please read it – it’s only short and time spent on it is time very well spent. Peirene have deservedly just won the new comer of the year award from the independent publishers guild, I hope they come by a whole lot more awards and a lot more recognition. I hope also to be able to pick up their titles on the high street someday soon (and that they might take their literary salons on the road and into the provinces).

Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman – Friedrich Christian Delius

There are lots of things I like about Peirene Press and I’ll come clean – one of them is that they asked me if I’d like a copy of this book to read. More importantly (yes more important in my scale of priorities than presents) I love that these books are short. I don’t read much in translation, there’s no particular reason or prejudice behind this gap in my literary experience beyond a huge pile of other reading preoccupations which have initially proved more attractive, and so many of the books I see in translation strike me as worthy rather than fun, but reading books like this one are a revelation which make me think I should try a little harder to see what else is out there.

‘Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman’ has a particularly personal resonance for me. It’s a single sentence stretching over 117 describing the thoughts and feelings of a young, heavily pregnant, German girl as she walks through Rome on her way to church. Its 1943, her husband is in Africa and the future is looking uncertain. It’s personal to me because my grandmother was German; she met my English Grandfather whilst he was in the army and I don’t suppose he behaved in a very gentlemanly fashion. She arrived here with a baby (which I believe was news to him) sometime in the latter half of the ‘40’s. They made the best of it but by the time I knew her it’s safe to say she was bitter about the way her life had gone, she had good reason but it didn’t make her very nice to be around. Delius has made me wonder what my grandmother was like when she was young and had the prospect of happiness in front of her. She didn’t tell her story and now she’s gone it’s lost but the aftermath of her history is very much alive and felt within the family.

Delius’s typical young woman is conscious throughout of her otherness. She’s not the enemy but she’s definitely a foreign object, a walking symbol of the war – something that she and the reader are constantly aware of. She’s also innocent of anything other than a determined avoidance of thought. Somewhere at the back of her mind there is clearly the niggling idea that all is not right with the Reich, but more pressing are the everyday cares – foremost her concern for her husband and unborn child. To doubt is to be disloyal – victory isn’t so much about lands conquered, but the safe return of loved ones and the chance to form a family. I can’t imagine anything which makes people more selfish or dangerous – or easier to understand.

I read this book over a few lunch hours which I think was a bit of a mistake, next time I mean to sit down and just read; I know there’s a lot more in here for me and that some if it fell through the gaps of bitty reading. That long single sentence demands you invest the time to read it properly, which is fair enough given the length of the book. I will also admit that when I read about it I wasn’t sure how it would work for me as a device, but in the end I didn’t really notice the lack of full stops (which might say something about me and my approach to punctuation). There are a lot of paragraphs, and sometimes I wasn’t sure why they were there – something I’d love to know about, and which makes me really sorry that I couldn’t attend a recent event with both writer and translator (living in the provinces rather tends to rule these things out damn it) but never mind, there are plenty of reviews out there and enough research should hopefully answer all my questions.

The only other German book about the war I’ve read is Bernard Schlink’s ‘The Reader’ in which there is a definite need to explain, excuse, and atone. ‘Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman’ is just that – a portrait, and one with the hint of a challenge to the reader which seems like a good step further on in discussing what being on the ‘losing’ side does to a nation as well as to a person. Will all the hope, love, and pride in this young woman survive what’s to come, or will she lose too much?

I would love to either go on talking about this book, or make a snappy conclusion here, but the truth is that for all its brevity I’ll be mulling it over for quite a lot longer, it felt so elegant and self contained, yet full of ideas, and to be honest I hardly know where to start or finish with my thoughts on it. It amazes me that a writer can pack so much into so few pages and so neatly too, and that’s before I even start to consider that it’s been translated as well.

Stone in a Landslide

In the Scottish ones garden it’s a lovely evening, the sky is blue, the sun gold on the tree tops, the Hawthorne is in flower – in fact the whole place is awash with blossom and sweet smells, and in the fridge is a bottle of my favourite Gin. It would be perfect if I was actually there and not back in town contemplating a gigantic set of notes that need to be written up for work in a very stuffy flat with no gin. It’s proving hard to motivate myself regarding the finer points of sales statistics so here I am blogging instead (pretending it’s a well earned break).

‘Stone in a Landslide’ came to me from Peirene Press, and is it seems the modern Catalan classic. Now as regular readers will know I’m not much of a reader of contemporary fiction and this is not normally a book that I would have given a second look but Peirene press is new and its founder Meike Ziervogel sent me an email asking if I would like a copy. Initially I wasn’t very interested; I’m as lax as most when it comes to reading literature from other countries, and everything about this book sounded a little out of my normal field of interest. On the other hand how often does someone give you the opportunity to broaden your horizons, and for free at that? Exactly; not so very often, and the promise that it was a short book swung me totally (much less intimidating when you’re not sure how much you’re going to enjoy something.)

Ziervogel’s enthusiasm for what she’s doing is palpable and infectious, and with only 120 tempting pages to deal with I got straight to it. ‘Stone in a Landslide’ tells the life of Conxa, a peasant girl from the mountains born around the beginning of the century. Her life is work and the rhythms of the country she lives in, love and motherhood bring happiness, but also more work; women are (as in most farming communities) the ones who keep the home going and do many of the tough jobs around the farm. The needs and demands of motherhood come second to the harvest – her daughters have to do without milk if the calves need it more and so like her mother before her Conxa comes to understand little but work. Her husband is a different character – he thinks and dreams - dangerous dreams of equality - so the rise of fascism brings tragedy to the family. All the while the passing of the century is bringing change of its own, so the life Conxa knows won’t be the life her children settle for.

My grandmother was German, she too came from a mountain village. I didn’t know her terribly well – we never really saw much eye to eye, she rather disapproved of education for girls, or careers for girls outside of marriage, though hard work was right up her street. From what I know of her life I can begin to understand why she was so difficult to know, and why she was so unwilling to share much of her history. Reading ‘Stone in a Landslide’ bought her very much to mind – I think she would have recognised Conxa; a woman who knows how to be strong, but not how to fight, and someone who’s bewilderment in being caught up in political events which mean nothing to her is palpable.

For a short book it packs quite a punch emotionally, and celebrates an image of womanhood that isn’t I think so very fashionable these days. I look forward to seeing what else Peirene Press bring out, I have a feeling it’s going to interesting.