86-90/150

[potted_music]

Title: Casanova in Bolzano [read in English translation]
Author: Sándor Márai
Genre: fiction
Number of Pages: 294
Book Number/Goal: 86/150

I think this was meant to be a meditation on ways personal, private freedom can be afforded & kept in a totalitarian state? But the approach seemed quite too simplistic.


Title: "When the pumpkins were in bloom" („Kad su cvetale tikve“) [read in Ukrainian translation]
Author: Dragoslav Mihailović
Genre: fiction
Number of Pages: 136
Book Number/Goal: 87/150

I only took this book up out of idle curiosity as I've never encountered Serbian prose before, and this one is considered a classic? It turned out to be an interesting, if thoroughly creepy read. The narrator is a mob guy, with all the acts of sadistic violence that entails. That is, until his boss, whom he idolizes, rapes his sister. The narrator kills him in revenge, and in doing so, he commits symbolic suicide, I guess, as the boss stood for all he strived to become. Which makes for a very, very strange story of spiritual rebirth XD The narrator's voice is what makes it, though.


Title: Queer Theory [read in Russian translation]
Author: Annamarie Jagose
Genre: non-fiction
Number of Pages: 152
Book Number/Goal: 88/150

A good overview of both queer theory & GLBT rights movements, but the translation was hilariously bad. Like, the word "sex" in "third sex" got translated with a word for "sexual intercourse", not gender - THAT bad. And some passages I could not even figure out.


Title: Fishing for Amber
Author: Ciarán Carson
Genre: fiction
Number of Pages: 360
Book Number/Goal: 89/150

I don't have nearly enough words to convey how fascinated I am with this book, a sprawling, rambling tangle of myths & historical notes & local legends & advice on what to see in Netherlands and Ireland that it is. Carson tries to recreate the meandering way oral storytelling works, I think, and my, does it work. The style is a thing of beauty in and of itself, too; for example, the book starts like this: It was long ago, and long ago it was; and if I'd been there, I wouldn't be here now; if I were here, and then was now, I'd be an old storyteller, whose story might have been improved by time, could he remember it.


Title: The Book Thief
Author: Markus Zusak
Genre: historical, young adult
Number of Pages: 576
Book Number/Goal: 90/150

This book seemed to be pretty awesome at first (a witty, spunky YA about WW II with Death for a narrator? I was hooked instantly). The style was fresh, and the messages were all I could readily agree with (like the preaching of tolerance, and elucidations on the power of words). But, I think, it took a rapid downward spin somewhere in the second hald, with the style becoming over-wrought, and the messages anvilicious.

Comments

[starlady]

You know, I read Casanova in Balzano myself recently, but completely ignored any possible political interpretations to the book. I still think Embers, the first book that I read by Marai, is vastly superior, but I enjoyed Casanova.

[potted_music]

Thank you so much for the rec! I've heard a lot of good things about Embers, and I'll sure get around to reading them!

but completely ignored any possible political interpretations to the book

That might just be me coming to Marai with a strong pre-set suspicion that most Central(-Eastern) European writers deal with such themes in one way or another. But then, the triumph at Casanova's escape at the beginning of the book strongly posits him as a symbol of freedom ("gondoliers [...] were glad because he had outwitted the authorities, and because there was someone stronger than tyrants or stones and chains" - p.11 of the Vintage Books edition), and the finale could be read as the example of how illusory that freedom was. But, yes, I'm hardly an un-biased reader.

[starlady]

I would definitely buy that such themes predominate in Central/Eastern European literature, just on the basis of the area's recent history. Embers in some ways does have an explicitly political aspect--the characters spend a lot of time ruminating on the fallen Austro-Hungarian Empire--but yeah, any political aspect completely escaped me in Casanova. Your interpretation sounds sound, though; I'll have to reread the book at some point.

[potted_music]

the characters spend a lot of time ruminating on the fallen Austro-Hungarian Empire

That sure sounds interesting seeing how Ukrainian, which is the one Eastern European lit I'm most familiar with, spends inordinate amounts of pages on constructing the Austro-Hungarian Empire to suit its needs. Makes me wonder how Hungarians deal with it. That had just moved Embers right to the top of the to-be-read pile, thank you :)