“Every day the world we’re living in is increasingly turning into…a circus. Yes, I know, the comparison’s a dull one. It’s what people used to say in ancient B.G., (Before Google). It’s a compete circus! My life has turned into a circus! Politics is a circus! The word ‘circus’ was an analogy for chaos, madness, unbecoming behavior, for events that had gotten out of hand, for life’s more grotesque turns. It’s possible, though, that the word might soon regain currency. Let’s remember P. T. Barnum for a second, father of the circus and American millionaire, and his declaration that ‘no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.’ Barnum’s cynical declaration naturally doesn’t only apply to Americans. The circus is global entertainment.”

Book Review:

Review by Jana L. Perskie  (FEB 21, 2014)

Dubravka Ugresic’s new collection of cultural essays deal, primarily, with “Nostalgia,” the title of her first piece.

Ms. Ugresice is a Croatian, formally a Yugoslavian, who now lives in Amsterdam.

Her essays delve into politics, history, popular US, Yugoslavian and European culture from the 1950’s to the 21st century, as well as her own thoughts and flights of fancy. She is branded a “Yugonostalgnic,” by many of her fellow countrymen and women. This is a derogatory term, a synonym for those who long for the days of the Yugoslavia of yore under the reign of Tito; dinosaurs who look back fondly to the slogan “brotherhood and unity.”

Her “Yugonostalgia” began before the death of Tito, before the unified country of Yugoslavia broke up into six different states: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Serbia. “Back then I was haunted by an unnerving premonition that the world around me was about to suddenly vanish.” She wonders if she has developed what psychologists call LAT, or “Low Authoritarianism Syndrome.”

The collection’s first essay, which really captivated me, has the author visiting New York City in 2011. She is searching for Zucotti Park during the “Occupy Wall Street” protests. She asks a stranger, “Excuse me, where’s the ah, revolution.” She wonders if “a long dormant rebel virus” was stirring in her.

She visits Washington Square in New York City’s Greenwich Village and laments the absence of the “dropouts, the refuseniks, the superfluous men and women, the alcoholics and smokers, the homeless, the pickpockets the vagrants, the hustlers, the grumblers grumbling to themselves, the idlers, the losers, the dreamers,” of before…the Washington Square Park as she remembers it.

The author was born in 1949, around the time when Marshall Josip Broz Tito, a statesman, revolutionary and authoritarian head of the post WWII state of Yugoslavia, told Soviet dictator Stalin “NO!” He modeled his economic development plan independently from Moscow, which resulted in a diplomatic escalation followed by a bitter exchange of letters in which Tito affirmed that although his country would follow the examples of the Soviet system, his country would remain separate from Russia and the Eastern Bloc Countries. Ms. Ugresic seems to be having trouble with what the future has brought. She asks herself, “What in her lifetime of civil war, new passports and fractured identities, betrayals, etc., had actually been realized of all the things promised to us by communists’ ideologues.”

She reflects on a post Soviet Union world, “a BG, (Before Google),” world. However, although she paints the past with artificial colors, (which she is very much aware of), she really doesn’t want to turn time back, but is not happy with life in the present. The author quotes Peter Sloterdijk, a German philosopher, cultural theorist TV host and columnist, “Europe no longer loves life. The radiance of historical fulfillment is gone, in its place only exhaustion, the entropic qualities of an aging culture,” a reign of “spiritual nakedness.” Yes, she agrees, “Europe is in decay.”

With a wry, often quirky sense of humor, she does riffs on 21st century Europe – western and eastern. The essays contain comments on the Netherlands, where undocumented immigrants are not wanted. Here Poles are branded as thieves – they are blamed for everything that goes wrong. Even the Polish prostitutes flourish, taking work away from Amsterdam’s ever famous “ladies” who work their trade in the infamous red light district. As far as Hungary goes – they are “anti-Semitic and despise the Roma, (gypsies).” She muses on formerly great Russian literature and Europe’s neglected film industry, where only yesterday directors, i.e., Luis Bunuel, Ingmar Bergman, Lina Wertmueller, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Goddard, Sergei Eisenstein, Michelangelo Antonioni, etc., created cinematic masterpieces. She even mentions the popularity of aquarium ownership among wealthy young men, to the marginalization of unattractive people.

There are also pieces ranging from her travels to USA’s Midwest and her native Zagreb, from Ireland to Israel. There are lots of personal anecdotes here. Her insights on the people she meets in her travels are perceptive. Like an anthropologist, she analyzes the norms of the times and writes of “Lookism.” ” ‘Lookism’ is a widespread and very powerful prejudice based on a person’s physical appearance.” It is discriminatory. Fat people are targeted as ugly. Even Sak’s Fifth Avenue has closed their plus-size department. Fat people and smokers are “intolerable social evils.”

The “Sepia” from the title refers to the past…to old photographs in sepia.

These essays are passionate, intriguing, and skillfully written. They should appeal to those who are curious about the take on today’s world by a woman who is the product of both a communist regime and the “now” of the 21st century. Highly recommended. (Translated from the Croatian by David Williams.)

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 1 readers
PUBLISHER:	Open Letter Books; Reprint edition (February 18, 2014)
REVIEWER:	Jana L. Perskie
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	Not Yet
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Dubravka Ugresic
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

Bibliography:

• In the Jaws of Life and Other Stories (1992)
• Fording the Stream of Consciousness (1993)
• The Museum of Unconditional Surrender (1998)
• Lend Me Your Character (2004)
• The Ministry of Pain (2005)
• Nobody’s Home (2007)
• Baba Yaga Laid an Egg (2009)

Non-fiction:

• Have a Nice Day: From the Balkan War to the American Dream (1994)
• The Culture of Lies: Antipolitical Essays (1998)
• Thank You for Not Reading: Essays on Literary Trivia (2003)
• Karaoke Culture (2011)
• Europe in Sepia (February 2014)

“We whoosh down between dark ­rock-­faces, through hairpin turns, down and around past dry scrub,  silver-­pale trees and back up, then over a ridge where the car nearly leaves ground and Niklas and I whoop as our entrails become weightless.

The hot Mediterranean air buffets our faces, for all four windows are open. Frederik takes a curve so fast that I grab my headrest. The sea beneath us keeps switching left and right.

Normally Frederik’s never brave behind the wheel, so I try not to be afraid. And the heat makes the rocks steeper, darker, the lemon groves prickling even more tartly in my nose, the sea shining blue like I’ve never seen it before.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (FEB 4, 2014)

In Christian Jungersen’s You Disappear, translated from the Danish by Misha Hoekstra, forty-two year old Mia Halling’s life will never be the same following a family vacation in Majorca. Mia notices that her husband, Frederik, who is at the wheel of their rental car, is speeding through hairpin turns like a madman. She implores him to slow down, to no avail. Although they crash, they manage to survive. What should have been a relaxing and enjoyable holiday nearly ends in tragedy.

Frederik’s behavior in Spain is just the tip of an iceberg that threatens to irrevocably damage the Hallings’ ability to communicate. It seems that Halling has a brain tumor that manifests itself in bizarre changes in his speech, actions, and emotional responses. A complete recovery is far from certain. Thus begins a lengthy ordeal that Jungersen describes in excruciating detail. Mia and Frederik live together, but they might as well be on different planets. Their son, seventeen-year-old, Niklas, is frightened and confused. In addition, when revelations emerge about Frederik’s unsavory activities while he was the headmaster of a private school in Copenhagen, it becomes horrifyingly obvious that the Hallings’ troubles have just begun.

You Disappear is far more than a conventional tale of domestic angst. Jungersen is an accomplished and daring writer who challenges us to ponder weighty topics such as free will and the mind-body connection. In addition, he poses a question that has no clear-cut answer: What does a spouse owe to a husband or wife who can no longer function normally? Mia is frustrated, angry, guilt-ridden, and lonely, knowing that the person she married is unable to provide her with the love, caring, and companionship that she desperately needs. To help her deal with her battered psyche, she joins a support group and reads extensively about brain injuries. Excerpts from her findings are inserted in key points of the book, giving us a window into her thoughts.

Jungersen creates fully developed characters, writes evocatively and perceptively about sensitive topics, and offers provocative theories about what makes each of us who we are. Mia, the narrator, reveals her most intimate and embarrassing thoughts and deeds, as well as her dreams, memories, and fantasies. She had a difficult childhood and her marriage to Frederik was imperfect, even prior to his diagnosis. Readers will empathize with this woman who is torn between her duty to her impaired husband and her desire to have a partner who understands and cares for her. This is a grim novel with little humor and few lighthearted moments. However, it is filled with enlightening information about how brain injuries affect both the victims and their loved ones. Mia describes her existence as an “endless grey corridor of disheartening days, days that look like they’ll last the rest of your life.” “You Disappear” is recommended for its poignant, compassionate, and uncompromising look at how people cope (or fail to cope) when they are in danger of losing everything that they cherish.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 28readers
PUBLISHER:	Nan A. Talese (January 7, 2014)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Christian Jungersen
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: The Exception and some other marriages: The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris  Caribou Island by David Vann

Bibliography:

• Undergrowth (1999)
• The Exception (2004; 2007 in US)
• You Disappear (2012; January 2014 in US)

“She just stood there and saw his face merge into the darkness as he lowered his hand and threw the burning match.  The flames burst into life.  It was like an avalanche of fire.  At once everywhere around them was lit up. It was a restless yellow light that made all the shadows tremble.  He staggered backwards a couple of paces while she remained motionless.  The flames were already licking high up the wall.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody  (JAN 29, 2014)

Gaute Heivoll has written both a compelling novel and a historical and fact-driven book that examines a series of fires that occurred during two months in 1978 Norway. It is told from the perspective of the author who was born during the year that the arson occurred, as well as from the perspective of the arsonist who was in his twenties when the author was born.

The character Heivoll has returned to his hometown of Finsland, Norway to research this book and try to become a writer. He interviews those who knew the arsonist and he also gleans information from newspaper clippings and his grandmother’s diaries.

The arsonist, Dag, is the son of the fire chief. He was a most wanted child, an only child and very much loved – good at everything he put effort into. During his early adulthood he goes into the military and returns home after some sort of rejection that is never made clear. He lolls around the house and follows his father on fire calls that, because Dag is setting the fires, become more frequent and horrific. At one point, there are eight fires set over a period of three days.

Between May 6, 1978 through early June, 1978, ten fires are set, mostly to abandoned buildings and out buildings in Finsland. Towards the end of the pyromaniac’s rampage, however, buildings are burned with people or pets in them. They come just a hair’s breadth from losing their lives.

The book goes into the lives of the people who live in Finsland, mostly farmers, who have known each other their whole lives. It is inconceivable to them that one of their own is starting these fires. How could this possibly be? They only know that the arsonist comes at night and they have been driven to ignore sleep and are forced to stand guard all night to protect their homes and belongings from the crazy person who is burning down the village home by home.

Gaute Heivoll remembers clearly a time in school when one of his teachers told him he’d be a writer. He had gone to Oslo to study law but when it came time to take his exams, he turned in empty papers. He is afraid to be a writer yet drawn to a writing life and compelled to write at the same time. He is drawn in completely by the subject matter of this book.

Mr. Heivoll is a child being Christened at the time that the fires start and he imagines what his life as an infant is like when those around him are so frightened and paranoid about the fires. The town is a quiet one and no one would ever suspects Dag, the perfect boy, of doing anything wrong. When his parents figure out it is Dag, the bottom falls out of their world.

The book is poetically written and highly charged. It brings to life Mr. Heivoll’s own development as an author while examining the life of an arsonist who can not stop himself from his heinous actions. This book will appeal to those who like true crime and memoirs, along with literary fiction. I recommend it to anyone who treasures good writing and poetic use of language. (Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett.)

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 5 readers
PUBLISHER:	Graywolf Press (January 7, 2014)
REVIEWER:	Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Gaute Heivoll
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	More from Norway: Child Wonder by Roy Jacobsen

Bibliography:

• Before I Burn (January 2014)

“Dear stranger, welcome to this narrative. I should warn you that if, before you take one step, you feel the need to perceive the indistinct line that separates fact from fiction, memory from imagination; if logic and meaning seem one and the same thing to you; and, lastly, if anticipation is the basis for your interest, you may well find this journey unbearable.”

Book Review:

Review by Friederike Knabe  (JAN 20, 2014)

Gilbert Gatore’s debut novel The Past Ahead, (Le passé devant, 2008) has literally taken my breath away while reading and for quite some time afterwards. Without ever mentioning either the country by name or the concept of genocide, the author brings the reader intimately close to the emotional turmoil of his two protagonists as they, from their very dissimilar post-trauma reality struggle to re-adjust to life after theirs was forever changed. They stand, without doubt as representatives for many.

Two Rwandans, Isaro and Niko, their destinies intimately linked, are both survivors of the horrors of the massacres in their country. Distinct in their voices, complete opposites in the reflecting on their experiences, their combined stories, told in parallel, create a deeply affecting portrayal of the limits of human endurance in times of greatest traumas. They are the two sides of a tragedy that is difficult to comprehend even now, almost twenty years later.

Isaro was saved as a young child by a French couple and grew up within a caring and protective family, the past more or less banned to the farthest recesses of her brain. Until that is, listening to the radio, she hears that the prosecution of the perpetrators of the massacres in her country would take several lifetimes to complete. What shocks her more than anything is the reaction of people around her: “It’s terrible, but what can you do…?” For her, the only response is to return to the country of her birth and to bring the different voices – of victims and perpetrators – into the open – to confront and to heal?

Niko, disfigured and mute since birth and rejected by all in his village, has retreated to an island that is rich in mythology and void of human beings. His mind wanders between haunting memories of the past and foreshadowing dreams. His life story emerges through his re-imagining, as revealing for the reader as to himself. Niko’s contemplations often return to self-questioning: Is he victim as well as perpetrator? Could or should he have acted differently? Did he have a choice?

These fundamental questions haunt Isaro as she embarks on her quest to “comprehend the incomprehensible,” to help herself and others, she hopes, to go on living beyond the trauma. And of course, they increasingly preoccupy the reader. Despite exploring such profound questions the narrative remains intimately engaged in the personal story. Nonetheless, comparisons to other human tragedies may come to mind.

Not surprisingly, The Past Ahead is anything but an “easy read,” despite the author’s careful use of language and, where possible, oblique references to the devastating details. What does it take for an author to enter so deeply into the conflicting mind of his anti-hero without destroying him totally in the mind of the reader? Gatore deserves more than praise for succeeding so admirably. There is poetry in Niko’s dreams; his description of his disabilities that are offset by his special sensitivities:

“His ears discern the subtlest movements. His eyes pick up the most distant sounds. His nose embraces invisible shapes. His hands detect odors beyond the trace of a hint. As for his tongue, it tracks down indescribable feelings in the air he breathes.”

Isaro may be the more real-to-life, down-to-earth character: Strong at times, yet also overwhelmed at times, emotional and sensitive to her environment and her re-assessment of her life’s challenges.

The Past Ahead is not only a powerful book, exquisitely crafted and now, finally, translated into English by Marjolijn de Jager, it is an important book that deserves a wide readership. It may be the first fictional treatment of the Rwandan Genocide by a Rwandan national. While Gil Courtemanche’s A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali, may come to mind, Gatore’s book stands out in treating the tragedy in a very different kind of literary form and from a very intimate perspective.

Gilbert Gatore was born in Rwanda and escaped with his family in 1994, the year of the massacres. He was twelve years old and very much aware of the events unfolding around him, without comprehending the broader context or meaning. Absorbed by the Diary of Anne Frank that his father had given to him, he embarked on keeping his own diary. It only exists in his memory now; it was taken away by border guards during the family’s flight in Africa.

I am grateful that I was made aware of this excellent novel by the publisher and offered a review copy. This did not influence my views of the book.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 2 readers
PUBLISHER:	Indiana University Press (October 4, 2012)
REVIEWER:	Friederike Knabe
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Gilbert Gatore
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali by Gil Courtemanche We Need New Names by Noviolet Bulawayo

Bibliography:

• The Past Ahead (2008; 2012 in US)

“Only a madman unaware of what he was doing would admit to being directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds and thousands of people and then behave as if nothing had happened.”

Book Review:

Review by Roger Brunyate  (OCT 4, 2011)

Saramago’s last, indeed posthumous, book is a real treat. Brief, inventive, funny, it furthers the author’s well-known distaste for religious dogma by traversing many of the familiar stories of the Old Testament by means of a fanciful parable told from a rational point of view. Much like The Elephant’s Journey, it shows Saramago’s stylistic fingerprints in relaxed form. There are still the run-on sentences, but they are the product of irrepressible exuberance rather than philosophic density. There is a lot more dialogue than usual, but, liberated by the author’s minimal punctuation, it propels the page forward rather than breaking it up. And his avoidance of capitals (except to start sentences and dialogue) has the familiar effect of demystifying his various beings — most especially god — making them earn respect rather than being granted it automatically. He treats the lord as an omnipotent but rather amateur bungler, forever tinkering with his unsatisfactory creation, as here with Noah’s ark:

“God was not there for the launch. He was busy examining the planet’s hydraulic system, checking the state of the valves, tightening the odd loose screw that was dripping where it shouldn’t, testing the various local distribution networks, keeping an eye on the manometers, as well as dealing with tens of myriads of other tasks, large and small, each of them more important than the last, and which only he, as creator, engineer and administrator of the universal mechanisms, was in a position to carry out and to which only he could give the sacred ok.”

Saramago’s most audacious stroke is to choose the outcast murderer Cain as his protagonist. He has him argue successfully that at least half the blame for Abel’s murder should be shouldered by god (let’s stick with lowercase) for his unreasonable provocation. Condemned to wander the earth as a kind of compromise, Cain finds the rest of the Middle East quite adequately populated already; it appears that the Garden of Eden was not the beginning of anything, simply god’s private experiment. Other than an extended amorous interlude with the capricious Queen Lilith, Cain will jump around in the Bible story, turning up at most of the key events of Genesis, and several from other books of the Old Testament also. Sometimes he gets there only in the nick of time, as when the official angel arrives too late to prevent the sacrifice of Isaac, and Cain himself has to intervene.

The middle sections of the book are rather episodic, and I was not entirely convinced by Saramago’s choice of just these episodes in just that order. But it gradually becomes clear that Cain’s role is to be a witness, and — murderer though he is — a moral conscience that Saramago’s god himself lacks. The chosen stories focus on god’s capriciousness, apparent unconcern for human life, and willingness to accept any amount of collateral damage in pursuit of his goals. Cain cannot understand how the killing of one’s son can be a worthwhile test of anything; would god be willing to sacrifice his own son? (Well, yes.) How can god think that giving Job another set of sons and daughters can replace the ones he has arbitrarily destroyed, as though family, like wealth, were a fungible commodity? Cain is haunted by the cries of the innocent children slaughtered along with their Sodomite parents. He leaves Joshua’s army in horror at the massacre of combatants and non-combatants alike, and the capture of virgins for other purposes. Finally, having been brought onto the ark by Noah, he takes matters into his own hands directly, standing up to god once more face-to-face.

So a fun book with a serious message. From any other writer, it would be a wonder; from Saramago, though, little more than a jeu d’esprit. Compared to his rewriting of the New Testament in The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, a complex book which proves by no means hostile to religion even while denouncing the official manifestations of it, this seems little more than a whimsical after-dinner entertainment. But I would have happily gone to dinner with Saramago any time, and listened to his stories for as long as he cared to tell them. (Translated by Margaret Jull Costa.)

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 25 readers
PUBLISHER:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; None edition (October 4, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Roger Brunyate
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wikipedia page on José Saramago
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: The Elephant’s Journey The Double The Cave

Bibliography:

• Baltasar and Blimunda (1982, translated 1987)
• The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (1991)
• The Gospel According to Jesus Christ (1993)
• Manual of Painting and Calligraphy: A Novel (1994)
• The Stone Raft (1994)
• The History of the Siege of Lisbon (1996)
• Blindness (1997)
• The Tale of the Unknown Island (1999)
• All the Names (2000)
• The Cave (2002)
• The Double (2004)
• Seeing (2006)
• Death with Interuptions (2008)
• The Elephant’s Journey (2010)
• Cain (2009; 2011)
• Manual of Painting and Calligraphy (2012)
• Raised from the Ground (2012)

Other:

• A Journey to Portugal (2001)

“It was time it happened, the determination that this should never be allowed to repeat itself, the hatred and the bitterness of not being able to decide whether to thrust a knife in her or start to weep so that she could console me like a second Linda, for I was no child any more and yet I was, and I wanted to be neither, but someone else, again.”

Book Review:

Review by Jill I. Shtulman  (SEP 28, 2011)

Navigating that shaky bridge between childhood and adulthood is never easy, particularly in 1961 – a time when “men became boys and housewives women,” a year when Yuri Gargarin is poised to conquer space and when the world is on the cusp of change.

Into this moment of time, Norwegian author Roy Jacobsen shines a laser light on young Finn and his mother Gerd, who live in the projects of Oslo. Fate has not been kind to them: Gerd’s husband, a crane operator, divorced her and then died in an accident, leaving the family in a financially precarious position. To make ends meet, she works in a shoe store and runs an ad for a lodger for extra money.

To complicate the situation, Finn’s father’s second wife – a now-widowed drug addict – views the ad and unloads on the family Finn’s half-sister, Linda – a young girl who appears to have mysterious problems that are only gradually revealed. Figuratively, this “poor mite got off the Grorud bus one dark November day with an atomic bomb in a small light blue suitcase and turned our lives upside down.”

Linda becomes the mirror in which Gerd, Finn, and others (including the lodger Kristian) eventually define themselves. Gerd, who identifies strongly with Linda, is transported back to an abusive childhood and views herself in the little girl. Finn — who is the first-person narrator — battles jealousy, bewilderment, and eventually, stirrings of love as he defends Linda from the Norwegian educational system and the school bullies. He reminisces: “Linda was not of this world, one day I would come to understand this – she was a Martian come down to earth to speak in tongues to heathens, to speak French to Norwegians and Russian to Americans. She was destiny, beauty and a catastrophe. A bit of everything. Mother’s mirror and Mother’s childhood. All over again.”

Not unlike his regional compatriot, Per Petterson, Roy Jacobsen is (as one publication stated about the latter), “a master at writing the spaces between people.” He succinctly and beautifully captures the incomprehension of a young boy who is trying to make sense of the adult world and his place within it. The increasing bond between the boy and his accidental sister is explored painstakingly and is exquisitely poignant. The portrayal of Linda’s evolution to her new family is genuinely heartrendering.

A pedestrian and at times downright awkward translation does not serve the stream of consciousness sections well. In the best translations (such as the talented Ann Born’s translation of Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses), the reader loses sight that the book is a translation. It takes a little while to get into the cadence and the rhythm.

But the authenticity of Roy Jacobsen’s vision wins out with its universal themes: how others become gifts in our lives, unveiling us, and the lengths we go to preserve relationships with those we love. Or, in the words of the author, “Something happens to you when someone spots you – you see yourself from the outside, your own peculiar strangeness, that which is only you and moves in only you, but which nonetheless you have not known…” This quiet book is a hopeful testimony to transformative change.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 21 readers
PUBLISHER:	Graywolf Press (September 27, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Jill I. Shtulman
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wikipedia page on Roy Jacobsen
EXTRAS:	Blog with all sorts of Roy Jacobsen info
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Out Stealing Horses by Per Pettersen

Partial Bibliography (translated):

• The New Water (1987; 1997 in English)
• The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles (2005; 2009 in English)
• Child Wonder (2009; September 2011 in English)

“Calm down. Just calm down. It will all be fixed tomorrow. Change the brake light and touch up the paint, it won’t take all day.”

Book Review:

Review by Roger Brunyate  AUG 31, 2011)

Very early in the morning of August 31 1997, Princess Diana was killed when her car crashed at high speed into a pillar in a road tunnel near the Pont de l’Alma in Paris. Evidence at the crash site suggested that the driver of the car might have lost control after side-swiping a slower-moving car, a white Fiat Uno, near the tunnel entrance. It was not until 2006 that the driver of this car was identified as a young man of Vietnamese origin, but at the time that Laurence Cossé published this novel in 2003, the Fiat still posed a mystery, leaving the author to imagine a story of her own. Clearly wanting to follow the astounding success of Cossé’s A Novel Bookstore, Europa Press has commissioned a translation of this earlier book, produced with Europa’s trademark elegance. But this is a less relaxed, more edgy book that will appeal to quite a different audience.

Conspiracy theories aside, the driver of the Fiat was clearly not directly to blame for the crash, so the big stumbling block is to find a convincing reason for his or her not going immediately to the police. The driver in the real situation might have had many reasons: momentary panic, fear of involvement, then fear of being blamed for not coming forward earlier; the details do not really matter so long as the driver is just a name in a newspaper. But once we get to know the driver as a real person, once we get into her heart and her head as the protagonist of a novel, the reasons had better be good ones. Cossé uses her feminine empathy (yes, Laurence is a female name in France) to imagine a young woman, Lou Origan, a 25-year-old cook at a Paris restaurant, returning home to the suburbs. Her initial reactions are entirely credible; the huge black Mercedes bearing down on her at more than double her speed, knocking into her not once but twice, then bursting into flames; no wonder she drives home in shock.

It is only when Lou wakes up and listens to the radio that Cossé really runs into problems. No doubt wanting to plunge into the story at breakneck speed, she has not had time to establish Lou as a fully-dimensioned character; her relationships with her live-in boyfriend Yvon (an aficionado of fast motorbikes and sleek sailboats) and her co-workers at the restaurant are sketched in only later. So all we have of Lou is her panic. Cossé’s empathy produces only the kind of girly helplessness that I thought had more or less vanished from serious fiction. Lou’s attempts to take control of the situation are generally negated by fecklessness in carrying them through. Before long, she feels herself hunted and in fear of her life, running around in circles despite her determination to make a clean break. But to a large extent, these problems are inherent in Cossé’s choice of subject. A Novel Bookstore contained elements of suspense and detection also, but it was held together by the author’s deep love of books and appreciation for the people who write, read, and sell them. This, by contrast, is a book about a woman falling apart.

The novel does pick up half-way through when another character enters the story, a man who knows Lou’s secret. Now Lou has another person to contend with, a situation which brings out reserves of courage, endurance, and (in the one climactic scene) inspiration that she had not the opportunity to show before. But despite this one addition to the cast, we are still basically trapped inside Lou’s mind, and the feeling of going around in circles continues. Unfortunately, too, the climax comes too early, so the last section of the novel just runs out of steam — though Cossé springs a nice ironic twist as a final flourish.

Readers who enjoy the woman-in-peril genre may find themselves biting a few nails in delicious anguish, and there is always the interest of the Di-and-Dodi crash (since Cossé stays very close to the facts). But these are unlikely to be the same readers who so enjoyed A Novel Bookstore.  (Translated by Alison Anderson.)

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 4 readers
PUBLISHER:	Europa Editions (August 30, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Roger Brunyate
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	Not Yet
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wikipedia page on Laurence Cossé
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: A Novel Bookstore

Partial Bibliography (translated books only):

• A Corner of the Veil (1996)
• A Novel Bookstore (2010 in US)
• An Accident in August (2011 in US)
• Bitter Almonds (April 2013 in US)

“Having burnt their lips and their peace of mind on a soup of Brussels sprouts, the four – General Nicolae Golescu, minister of the interior and of foreign affairs under Bibescu Voda, member of the 1848 revolutionary committee, the provisional government, and the first Princely Lieutenancy; Lascar Catargiu, with his wolflike senses, honed until then only in appointments as prefect and en famille; Colonel Nicolae Haralamb, landowner, son of a court victualler from Craiova; and Ion Ghika, bizarre Turkophile revolutionary of 1848, longtime Bey of Samos – were now so prudent that they would have blown even on a bowl of yoghurt before tasting it.”

Book Review:

Review by Vesna McMaster  AUG 16, 2011)

It’s 1886, and the dentist Joseph Strauss follows Karl Ludwig of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen from Prussia to Bucharest, where the latter is crowned King Carol I of Romania. Carol’s relationship with Joseph strays beyond the dental boundaries and they develop a certain camaraderie, particularly when Joseph arranges for the services of a blind prostitute to be made available (in strictest secret) to the politically beleaguered king. It is precisely the intimate nature of the knowledge Joseph carries which eventually leads to the king’s deliberate distancing of himself from the dentist. However, when the three-year-old Princess Maria dies of scarlet fever, and no further heirs seem forthcoming, Joseph wonders whether the King ought to be informed that the blind whore now has a son with a suspiciously aristocratic nose.

Filip Florian is a highly regarded Romanian author, and his first novel, Little Fingers  won numerous awards.

Now, how can I put this. I have an off-hand familiarity with the Continental predilection for convoluted language in both fiction and non-fiction. The ability to twist thirteen sentences into one contortionist-like knot and still somehow come out grammatically on top is often regarded as a sign of intellectual and linguistic brilliance. It’s little wonder in that case that Florian’s work has won high regard.

Sentences in this novel are frequently one and a half pages long (well, on Kindle at least). Subject is violently sundered from object, blown apart by sub-structures and interjections to make the reader’s mind dark with confusion. Why use one adjective when you could use twenty three, interspersed with thirteen sub-clauses and twelve asides? There is certainly nothing wrong with the translator’s (and I suspect Florian’s) grammar or vocabulary. After parsing the first two sentences out, though, I found it far too wearisome to follow the exact meaning of the text, and had to rely on intuition and guessing to struggle on, or risk going mad.

One advantage to these verbal acrobatics was, admittedly, the revival of several infrequently-used adjectives. It was refreshing to see some of the recesses of the rich English language being taken out and dusted off: I hadn’t used “nacreous” in quite a while and as for “canicular,” never. (“Having the quality of mother-of-pearl” and, in this application, “referring to the dog-days” respectively, in case you were wondering.)

The off-putting garb of tortured sentence structure which Florian of necessity wears is, however, doubly unfortunate because there is a highly talented writer lurking under there. Somewhere. It’s noticeable when the narrative narrows down to a point of excitement, or when rapid action takes place. He can’t help allowing sentences out in short breaths, and suddenly the scene springs to life. The characters start gasping for breath, their gags and restraints momentarily loosened. Unfortunately the action inevitably comes to an end. Then it’s time for either narrative, or asides, or observations and descriptions – all of which would be interesting and vivid were they cut up and served decently rather than being thrown at one’s face like a giant custard tart. Techniques of delivering backstory through dialogue or implication are obviously frowned on in Romania.

Much as I’d like to, I can’t say I would recommend this book to anyone who doesn’t know the sort of things Continental writing can get up to in its spare time. I am left wondering whether Florian will consider aiming his writing more at an English-speaking audience, but I’d guess that’s (sadly) unlikely. It’s a bit much to ask a nation to change its accepted linguistic style so that we can enjoy a few more decent translations. In the meantime poor Mr Florian might be doomed to languish in the obscure corners of the English translation pond.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 1 readers
PUBLISHER:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (August 16, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Vesna McMaster
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Filip Florian
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: Train to Trieste by Domnica Radulescu

Bibliography:

• The Baiut Alley Lads (2006)
• Little Fingers (2009)
• The Days of the King (August 2011)

“The wine comes in 250-ml bottles, or by the carafe, your choice. You take a sealed bottle. Vin du pays from Hérault, 11.5 percent alcohol, with a picture of grapes on the label. Screw top. There’s also a liter bottle for drunks. The wine has the power to humiliate you. Like truth serum, it scours, strips, reveals. It flows into you like a kind of blood, spreading pain. The soul plunges into it. You grimace as the first swallow announces the metamorphosis. The wine is like a developer solution specially formulated for the wretched misery we stew in. The photograph that emerges isn’t a pretty one: a guy sitting in front of his cafeteria tray, head down, grinning at his neighbors’ tired jokes, his heart in his mouth. (from “Cafeteria Wine” by Laurent Graff)”

Book Review:

Review by Devon Shepherd AUG 13, 2011)

According to Richard Wrangham, a biological anthropologist at Harvard, when Homo erectus, already master over fire, threw some tubers on a spit, freeing up nutrients and easing digestion, teeth, jaws and intestines shrunk, paving the way for the evolution of larger brains, and us, Homo sapiens. In the wilds of the prehistoric world, it’s likely our human ancestors gathered around a single fire for safety, and a communal feast, suggesting that our need to sit and break bread with each other – rather than scarfing down food, alone, in a moving car –is an ancient memory buried deep in our brains. And so, it’s little wonder that meals, and the rituals surrounding them, are of unmatched importance in human society; can you think of a holiday that isn’t centered around food, if not in the form of a celebratory feast than in a ritualized period of denial? If food – it’s acquisition and preparation – is arguably the foundation of human evolution, it’s also the cornerstone of our culture, and there is no better way to familiarize oneself with a foreign country than through the idiosyncrasies of its cuisine.

No other country has mastered this relationship between ritual and sustenance, nutrition and indulgence, quite like the French, and, for better or worse, French cuisine is inextricably linked to our concept of French culture. The caricatured Frenchman, sporting a mustache, sailor-stripes and a beret, brandishes a wine glass and a baguette. In much the same way that, from Bogota to Beijing, the Golden Arches signals a (perhaps comfortingly familiar) McDonalds, rattan-backed chairs, red banquettes, polished wood and brass rails characterize reproductions of the French brasserie all over the world. But without resorting to these cultural clichés, French Feast: A Traveler’s Literary Companion, a collection of short stories translated from French, provides a window into French culture through its relationship to food.

William Rodarmor, the editor of this collection, notes just a few of the French words that have entered our culinary lexicon: entrée, quiche, escargot, crepe, hors d’oeuvre, petits-fours, Bearnaise, baguette, croque-monsieur, vinaigrette, pate, maitre’d, sous-chef, “and even the word cuisine itself!” To Mr. Rodarmor’s list, I would add: à la carte, à la mode, au gratin, soup du jour, nouvelle cuisine; and I’m sure you’ll be able to add your own too—there’s just so many of them. My pocket copy of Gastronomic Dictionary French-English was indispensable for dining in France; from cuts of meat to sauces and preparation techniques, the French language is far more nuanced when it comes to food. So needless to say, it should be no surprise that there are enough (good!) French stories to compile a collection thematically centered on food.

The collection is broken into sections, each its own component of a long French meal: Appetizers; Entrees; Main Courses; Libations; and Desserts; the stories of each section linked by a single theme; memory, manners and society, family, fantasy, and love and sex, respectively.

In “The Taste of New Wine” (Mariette Condroyer), a dying man longingly eavesdrops on his doctor’s lively household through the door connecting the doctor’s examination room to the kitchen. The aroma of the doctor’s wife’s cooking both fortifies and weakens the old man, filled with longing for a life he knows he’s soon to leave. In “Pfefferling” (François Vallejo), a young man remembers a summer spent at a hotel in Switzerland, quite close to the sanatorium featured in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, a book the boy has just finished and loved. When an elderly German countess offers to walk with him to the sanatorium, the boy agrees, but when they reach the buildings, the boy doesn’t want to go inside, “afraid that like Hans Castorp, [he] would never come out again.” Instead, the countess offers to show him the cemetery out back, where they harvest the chanterelles that grow in abundance on the graves for an omelet back at the hotel. The boy has difficulty swallowing “these chanterelles of death, these fleshy mushrooms swollen with wet and earth and mixed with the rotting flesh of old Davos and Magic Mountain TB lungers.” But, all too often in life, it’s through the memories of those meals we never wanted, or of things too mundane to notice– the smell of onions frying in a young wife’s kitchen – that we come to appreciate the miracle of our lives.

To judge by two of the best stories in the next section, one would think that politesse had had the sole purpose of keeping gourmands from their food. “The Plate Raider” (Thanh-Van Tran-Nhut) is the hilarious account of Ernest Pardieu whose “either stingy or unskilled” mother subjected him to a childhood of watery puree and leathery steak, so that poor little Ernest had little choice by to make sure he never missed dinnertime at the houses of friends with “cordon bleu mothers.” From there, it was just a few years and a few crashed parties until he perfected his “art of infiltration,” setting him on his way to a career as a “professional plate raider.” But who can really blame him, faced with such mouth-watering fare as “ miniature vol-au-vent garnished with bits of scallop and seasoned with a drop of apple pommeau,” “smoked salmon with guacamole and green tea mousses,” “four-spiced foie-gras with crushed pear drizzled with honey,” and “frogs’ legs fricassee in a hazelnut croute.” A real gourmand, the only thing Eric can’t stomach are peanuts, which of course he mistakenly eats, at a funeral, in what can only be described as just desserts.

A chapter from “Belle De Seigneur “(Albert Cohen) works as a wonderful set-piece, the excerpted section a brilliant comedy of manners; Adrien, a clerk at the League of Nations, awaits his boss’ arrival, with his socially ambitious mother, Madame Deume and his long-suffering (and hungry) father, Monsieur Deume . One can’t help but feel for the poor Monsieur Deume who, after an interminable afternoon of fussy preparations, is told he won’t get to eat any of the sumptuous feast laid out for their guest but rather will have to eat “bread and cheese and the three ham sandwiches left over from lunch” standing at the sideboard. And as Madame Deume informs her husband that their feast will be wrapped up and put in the fridge to entertain whichever illustrious guest she can persuade to join them for dinner the following evening, you know he wishes he had the chutzpah to raid the fridge after his wife has gone to bed.

Those closest to us are often the ones responsible for much of our pain – aren’t most murders committed by loved ones? – and two stories in the next section highlight the dark undercurrents that course through our most intimate relationships. In “Tears of Laughter ” (Nadine Ribault), a Sunday lunch reveals complicated alliances and hidden resentments of an extended family. In “Brasserie” (Marie Rouanet), a woman settles in to enjoy a solitary meal, with a glass of wine and good book, only to be distracted by a family with a horribly abusive patriarch.

The Libations section centers on fantastical tales, tales like “The Legend of Bread” (Michel Tournier), an origin myth for those wonderfully crusty-on-the-outside-soft-on-the-inside baguettes and pains aux chocolats; or “Oysters” (Fabrice Pataut) told from the point of view of – wait for it – an oyster! Perhaps most charming story in this section, “Eating” (Cyrille Fleishman), imagines a Yiddish poet who manages to pack his readings to the rafters (a standing-room only poetry reading? – fantasy, indeed!). Of course, most poets aren’t handing out delectable pastrami sandwiches .

No meal is truly complete without dessert, and like a warm moelleux au chocolat or a silken crème brûlée, “Come and Get It” (Tiffany Tavernier), a steamy account of a couple’s last meal together, satisfies just as naughtily. “Porcupine Stew” (Calixthe Beyala) is more refreshing fare –ginger-lime sorbet perhaps – that delights as it piques the palate for the novel its excerpted from, How To Cook Your Husband The African Way, detailing the sexually charged tension between a woman in love and her lover’s lonely mother.

The collection runs the stylistic gamut, from realism to fantastical, and most stories would be better described as vignettes than fully developed short stories, the kind of book that weathers being picked up (on a train, say) and put down again (because there’s no shortage of fascinating things to do in, say, Paris) only to be picked up again (one lazy Sunday afternoon at a café nursing an espresso) some time later. Whereabouts Press is a house devoted to published literary travel companions, and I couldn’t agree more with their claim that, “Good stories reveal as much, or more, about a locale as any map or guidebook.” As for this book, I can’t think of better companion for trip to France, armchair or otherwise.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 1 readers
PUBLISHER:	Whereabouts Press (June 28, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Devon Shepherd
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	Not Yet
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Q& A with William Rodarmor on FaceBook
EXTRAS:	Sample
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: French Women Don’t Get Fatby Mireille Guiliano Monsoon Diaryby Shoba Narayan The Cyclist by Viken Berberian

Bibliography:

• France: A Traveler’s Literary Companion (2008)
• French Feast: A Traveler’s Literary Companion (June 2011)

“How quickly it can change, the life we think has been marked out for us. We start the journey with good intentions, the gift our parents bequeathed us. And then, someone snaps their fingers and we find ourselves sidetracked; we end up in a foreign country.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky AUG 10, 2011)

Karin Fossum’s Bad Intentions is about three friends, now in their twenties, who have known each other since they were six. On the surface, Axel Frimann is by far the most successful. He is well-spoken, good-looking, nicely dressed, and drives a Mercedes; his job at an advertising agency pays well. Philip Reilly, on the other hand, is disheveled, has long, stringy hair (“he looked like a troll from a fairy tale”), and spends a portion of his small salary as a hospital porter getting high. The third member of the trio is Jon Moreno.

As the story opens, Jon is with his two buddies at a cabin near a lake ominously called “Dead Water.” Reilly and Frimann have taken Jon out of the hospital ward where he is being treated for depression and anxiety; the doctors hope that the change of scenery will speed Jon’s recovery.

The three men share a dark secret, one that would land them in deep trouble if it came to light. Their transgression preys on Reilly and Moreno, while Frimann’s chief concern is how to keep his pals from blabbing and ruining his life. The dynamics of control—self-control and the control of others—drives the story. Some men are leaders and others are followers. For certain individuals, it is easier to let someone else make the decisions than it is to take a stand. Fossum is keenly aware that any of us, in certain circumstances, can do something that we will forever regret. Certain people rationalize their actions and blithely carry on as if nothing has happened, while those who possess a sense of morality may become mired in guilt. They can escape only when they unburden themselves and try to atone.

Inspector Konrad Sejer and Jakob Skarre are called in when one of the men goes missing. Sejer interviews the victim’s family and acquaintances, but although he has his suspicions, he has little hard evidence to go on. The inspector thinks, “I’ve developed a profound skepticism and it follows me everywhere. I don’t trust anyone.” When another body turns up, Sejer’s suspicions deepen, and soon matters come to a head in an unexpected manner.

Karin Fossum demonstrates that justice comes in many forms and is often meted out in unlikely ways. In addition, she poignantly touches on how two grieving mothers find a measure of consolation after they lose their beloved children. Bad Intentions, translated capably from the Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund, is a subtle and heartbreaking tale of psychological suspense in which Fossum explores not only the nature of good and evil, but also the power of guilt to insidiously destroy a person from within.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 36 readers
PUBLISHER:	Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (August 9, 2011)
REVIEWER:	Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Wikipedia page on Karin Fossum
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read our review of: The Indian Bride When the Devil Holds the Candle Who Fears the Wolf Don’t Look Back

Bibliography:

The Inspector Sejer & Inspector Jakob Skarre Series:

• Eve’s Eye (1995)
• Don’t Look Back (1996; 2004 in US)
• He Who Fears the Wolf (1997; 2005 in US)
• When the Devil Holds the Candle (1998; 2006 in US)
• The Indian Bride (2000; July 2007 in US)
• Black Seconds (2008)
• The Water’s Edge (2009)
• Bad Intentions (August 2011)

Other:

• The House of the Insane (1999)
• The Nightmare of November 4th (2004)
• Broken (2006; August 2010 in US)
• The House of Fools (2008)