Animal Life by Audur Ava Olafsdottir (translated by Brian Fitzgibbon)

I really enjoyed this thoughtful story which follows an Icelandic narrator who works as a midwife, sorting through her grandaunt's manuscripts, renovating the cluttered apartment she's inherited – all in the lead up to Christmas. It's a great thing to read at this time of year and it's got me into the festive mood – not because it directly portrays much celebration-wise (she's originally supposed to work in the maternity ward over Christmas but instead fills in a Northern Lights tour-guide shift for her friend.) But I think this is a very reflective time of the year and it especially gets me thinking about family who I don't see much outside of the holiday season. So I found it very poignant as she relates stories about her lovably eccentric grandaunt's life and considers the scattered musings she left behind. There are some older women in my family who died long ago but who were very dear to me so this book stirred memories of them.

The novel is written in a very conversational mode as it follows the narrator's observations and memories. It all seemed a bit random in the beginning but I felt it came together to say something much bigger about the cycle of life and our place within the lineage of human history. The first half is more concerned with relating the emotional impact of both her family's professions: the toll upon midwives when there are complications and how her mother who works in the funeral business sometimes locked herself away after a difficult event. It must be taxing working in either job as it puts you in such close proximity to significant life events. There's also a lot of interesting information about the mechanics of these jobs – especially midwifery – and how it's changed over time. I liked how she observes that women giving birth find it soothing to listen to David Attenborough programmes (I frequently listen to his shows when I wake up in the night and want to be lulled back to sleep.) It's a melancholy thing to consider but I've never thought before about how there must be certain rules surrounding births when there are complications and tragedies. For instance, it was sobering reading the detail about the difference between a miscarriage and still birth (length of gestation and weight.) Although people can try to prepare there are no certainties when it comes to either birth or death. So it was moving following how different people dealt with this reality when it actually occurs.

The second half of the novel is more concerned with the physical items her grandaunt left behind when she died four years ago, but also her memories and the grandaunt's systems of thought which have impacted the narrator's life. Other than the clutter of furniture, there are three manuscripts which the narrator has spent a lot of time reading and attempting to put in chronological order while trying to make sense of them. I found it quite funny when she thinks “One possibility was to send all of them in and allow the editor to pick out the best nuggets.” What poor editor would want that enormous job?!? But I understood the emotional impact of her mission reading them as it's a connection to the things which preoccupied this beloved lost family member. It was also so interesting how she tried to piece together the real meaning of these manuscripts by also considering the letters between her grandaunt and her Welsh penpal. Perhaps a cohesive message can't be taken from all these musings about human behaviour, light and coincidence. However, it does create a sense of what it's like to be a small part of the story of humankind. Any individual will only be remembered by a handful of people and one day probably won't be remembered at all. Nevertheless, each person is a part of life's continuity. So the grandaunt lives on in the narrator through the knowledge, professional expertise and objects she's left behind. Not to mention all those births she helped usher into the world accompanied by her verbal messages she gives to the babies and knitted garments. Maybe these things are soon forgotten or lost, but they added to the beginning of each new person's existence.

We're not given too many personal details about the narrator herself other than her dedication to her job. However, there are mentions of big life events such as the narrator losing a child at birth. Surely there's a bigger story here but we understand that there is a deep pain within her because this occurred. We also get small details such as the oddness of her seeing a former boyfriend arrive at the hospital with his wife in labour. The novel touches upon the lives of a number of characters who are experiencing emotional difficulties such as the depression of the electrician's wife and Margret (a woman in labour she meets while finishing her shift) losing her baby. I felt these tragedies were all the more potent and felt more true to life as they are mentioned only fleetingly.

There's a steady accumulation of detail about the atmosphere of living in Iceland. Most prominently there's the fact that the sun only appears for a few hours a day at this time of year. I enjoyed how there are frequent passages about the brief appearance of the Winter sun and her observations about the sky in the lead up to a big storm. There's also a mention of traditional foodstuff when she recalls going on a visit with her grandaunt: “blood pudding with sugar and mashed potatoes”. Sounds stomach-turning to me! But this all adds to the sense of life in Iceland and made me feel a little bit like the tourist renting the apartment above her and who she develops a bit of a connection with. I've only visited Iceland once when I toured around the country for a week. It's such a beautiful and strange landscape with all its volcanic rock and waterfalls. Sadly, I didn't get to see the Northern lights.

So overall I really enjoyed this novel – it's like a small slice of life story which meditates on the cycle of living and dying.

Her Side of the Story by Alba de Céspedes (translated by Jill Foulston)

Céspedes was a mid-20th century Cuban-Italian writer whose excellent novel “Forbidden Notebook” I fell in love with last year when a new English translation appeared. There's been a resurgence of her work given her influence on Elena Ferrante and this year a new, lengthier translation of her novel “Her Side of the Story” has been published. This was originally appeared in Italian in 1949 and a heavily edited English edition was originally published in 1952 under the title “Best of Husbands”. The story draws upon the author's own life and experiences as a woman who came of age in Italy before and during WWII. Although the novel is a forceful account of the limitations women experienced at this place and time, it also centres around a frustrated love story which is much less interesting. Where this story shines are in its observations about the social milieu and the imposing force of fascism. However, it feels quite repetitive in several sections and it makes me wonder if the edited version which first appeared in English might be a stronger novel.

I found it immediately engaging following the perspective of Alessandra as she looks back at her life, starting with her childhood and working up to her marriage. She has a kind of doppelgänger in Alessandro, the brother who came before her and tragically drowned at a young age. It's interesting how his loss has a different meaning for every family member and, for Alessandra, he's a kind of shadow she must live under. She also feels him like a kind of devil-on-her-shoulder presence and her mother maintains a stronger superstitious belief in his continued presence - even taking numerous visits from a medium named Ottavia to try to contact him. I found it especially gripping and moving reading about these sessions as her mother Eleonora's grief over the loss of her son is plainly evident. Alessandra gives a highly detailed account of Eleonora's melancholy life and there's a tremendous scene where her mother gives a musical performance. I loved the detail about creating a dress from Eleonora's actress mother's former costume (it felt very Scarlett O'Hara of her.) However, her talents and beauty are suppressed by her controlling and tyrannical husband. The vile remarks he makes to his family (both to his wife and daughter) is truly odious.

Eleanora also harbours a secret passion for a man named Hervey. In a way her mother's maturity feels stunted by being forced to remain in their domestic setting except to give lessons. Alessandra describes how “Her love for Hervey, which others would have judged guilty, in my eyes enveloped her in a magic veil of innocence”. This is such a refreshingly mature perspective showing an absence of moral judgement, but given the enormous lack of affection she witnesses between her parents it's not surprising she was glad her mother could find happiness by aiming her passion towards someone else. The moments where her mother tips over into a more confessional mode (acknowledging it's probably inappropriate to be burdening her daughter with such adult concerns) were very touching and the way her determination to flee with Alessandra is stymied is heartbreaking. But I do appreciate how she notes she might be viewing her mother somewhat through rose tinted glasses since she only exists in her memory.

As a depiction of the social milieu of this Italian era focusing especially on this community of women, I think the first section of this novel is wonderful. Céspedes so powerfully evokes and thoughtfully presents the gender imbalance whereby men maintained all the authority, living for the jobs they complained about and taking for granted the women that raised their children and maintained their homes. I especially liked this line about men's misconception about female desire: “They thought love was a brief fairytale for their companions, a brief passion necessary for a woman to secure the right to be a mistress of her own house, have children, and dedicate her entire life to the problems of shopping and kitchen... none of them grasped that behind every gesture, every bit of self-denial, all that feminine bravery was a secret desire for love.” Sadly, Alessandra's observations and recollections become quite circular. Maybe this is because there was a lot of monotony to her and her mother's days which seemed largely filled with inertia and silence.

However, the repetitive nature of the story continues with the introduction of Francesco, an anti-fascist academic and later leader who Alessandra falls in love with. She is initially wary of his political beliefs because all she knows of the label is from propaganda: “Anti-fascists were outlaws, suspicious individuals, banished”. I like how the novel shows her naivety as a young person who didn't really understand what was at stake and the nature of the different political camps. However, there's a curious lack of development in her maturity and understanding of the war which consumed her country. Despite getting involved with covert operations for the resistance movement she does so more out of a desire to impress Francesco than out of her own convictions. It's only natural that younger people are drawn towards people rebelling against the establishment and are led by love instead of ideological belief but it's like she gets caught in a state of improbable desire and she's incapable of maturing.

Although I found sections of the novel depicting the intensifying war engaging I do wish there had been more descriptions of changes to the landscape and its effect upon the lives of citizens. There are references to hiding in bomb shelters, food shortages and the smell of dead horses after the bombing but considering how the entire cityscape of Rome must have radically changed during that time it felt to me like Alessandra wasn't very concerned or mindful about it. I also wish there had been a bit more context in some scenes such as when during food rationing she gets some rare flour to make pasta, but Francesco returns and insists they must listen to music all day while sitting on the floor. As a consequence the pasta goes to waste when they've seemingly only had potatoes to eat for a long time. I struggled to understand the significance or logic of this though it seemed like some momentous change must have been occurring in the city. I suppose there is a lack of contextual detail because we're completely steeped in Alessandra mind and so she doesn't feel a need to explain the situation. I'm mindful that I'm imposing what I wanted from the story over what the author might have intended but I felt it made this a less satisfying novel. I don't understand how she couldn't mature more or care about the reformation of her country after the seriousness of events like her former classmate who was Jewish and taken away.

I enjoyed how there were some references which led me to learning more about Italian culture in general. For instance, I previously hadn't been aware of the Christian tradition of name day or “Onomastico” in Italy (though it's also celebrated in other European countries as well.) This is a celebration like a birthday where people mark certain days from the saint that they are named after. Sorry if other people were already aware of this but it was new to me. Of course, in the story it merely serves as another reason for Alessandra to feel slighted because Francesco forgets to celebrate her on this day. And when he tries to make up for it it's too little too late. Francesco is definitely not a great partner because he is completely engrossed in his work and seems to expect Alessandra to be the housewife who will always wait at home for his return. However, he really can't ever satisfy Alessandra's neediness because it feels like she won't be happy unless he's constantly staring at her affectionately and repeatedly saying that he loves her.

The dramatic conclusion of the novel felt rushed and unsatisfying to me but maybe that's because I'd grown too frustrated with Alessandra's lack of progression over the course of the narrative. An explanation for her mindset seemed to come with this passage where she described her feeling that “You couldn't buy the body of a slave, but you could enjoy owning the body of a woman. You acquired it with the obligation to maintain it, just as with slaves. But if I had decided to leave Francesco, the law would have recognised his right to remain master of my body. He could prevent my making use of it for years, for my entire life... A slave has greater freedom than a woman.” If this is literally how she felt then it's not surprising she's driven to such a frenzied state. However, I take objection with this logic. Firstly, it seems quite crass to liken her experience to being “worse than slavery” in this way. I think someone who has been an actual slave would disagree. Since Francesco is physically away so much she actually has quite a lot of freedom. She frequently complained about the obligations of her domestic chores but I can't realistically see how maintaining a small apartment for two could be so demanding that she has no time for herself – even while also working a job. She flirts with a man named Tomaso who seems like a much better suitor for her than Francesco yet she refused to accept him as a romantic partner - either as a lover or leaving her husband to be with him. She also refused to simply take the advice she continuously gave to her mother when she was a teenager and leave her husband to start another life. Yes, the nature of the law and social conditions might have meant she “belonged” to Francesco but he seems quite different from her father. I feel like she got in her own way of achieving any sustained sense of happiness or contentment in becoming an adult. Though there was the tragedy of her mother's situation and the example for how a woman must live laid out by grandmother Nonna, it felt frustrating that she couldn't see beyond the confines of these restrictive mindsets.

So I'm afraid I ultimately found this novel disappointing. It seems telling in the afterward by Elena Ferrante that she focuses on the first section about Alessandra and her mother. This felt to me like the strongest part of the novel. Throughout her entire relationship with Francesco the narrative grew increasingly repetitive because she seemed locked in a circular frame of mind. I think this novel could lose quite a few pages while maintaining its central premise and meaning. By the end I felt quite exhausted with Alessandra and I was glad to finish the book. There were many parts I admired but if Alessandra stood in as a kind of cipher for the author herself I don't understand why she couldn't show the protagonist progressing towards a more successful career as Céspedes obviously did herself or Alessandra trying to enact political changes for women's rights rather than imposing a melodramatic conclusion to the story. This book felt bloated in comparison to the novel “Forbidden Notebook” which felt more artfully composed and true to life.

Hangman by Maya Binyam

It's refreshing that there's a wave of contemporary fiction which is actively working against a confessional mode of storytelling. Many novels present the inner life of characters with all their history, memories, preoccupations and hopes for the future. However, Binyam challenges the reader with a nameless narrator who returns to his nameless native country in sub-Saharan Africa after living for many years in a nameless Western country. His purported mission is to locate his ailing brother who has been writing him letters entreating him for money, medicine, property and support. But really this journey is a reckoning with the place he left behind and with himself. However, he actively withholds personal information and his emotional state as he becomes reacquainted with this place, its people and their politics. This unashamedly draws influence from Rachel Cusk's “Outline” to build upon it. Binyam's novel even begins with its narrator conversing with someone on a flight. I greatly appreciated the absurdist and slyly surreal nature of this book with its flashes of wicked humour and his account becomes surprising emotional.

This style of writing may seem confusing and frustrating, but the narrator is highly suspicious about how tales such as his can be used to falsely frame people. At one point he emails a friend about his progress and instantly refutes that message's content “It wasn't accurate, but it didn't need to be accurate, because emails were just a mode of storytelling. In the case of the so-called immigrant returning to his home country, the story should be a good one.” Such a homecoming with all its conflicted feelings of estrangement and belonging can't be neatly contained. Nor can his personal past and the circumstances of his emigration. Any such attempt to convey them in a straightforward way would lead to interpretation and they'd become politicised so that any nuance would be ironed out. Much of the novel concerns his conversations with those he encounters as they eagerly describe their backgrounds and positions: “People liked to talk, because talking made them feel like their experiences amounted to something, but usually the talking turned those experiences into lies.” By withholding his own story, the narrator seeks to maintain a greater degree of honesty.

Nevertheless, details about his past and frame of mind gradually emerge. Through suggestions and hints the abstract gradually solidifies, but it can never be fully defined. It becomes increasingly poignant how people and places that he initially identifies as one thing are suddenly revealed to have great personal significance to him. A stranger becomes a relative. A building turns into a home he was forced to vacate. In this way the present world shifts around him and becomes realigned with history. Yet everything has changed and he's a different person from the one who left this place many years ago. Unsurprisingly, the consequences and ultimate result of this homecoming are ambiguous. Though the immediate experience of this book is befuddling it's developed more resonance the more I've thought about it. It's certainly not a novel that will be everyone's cup of tea but those who patiently engage with its larger meaning will most likely find it impactful.

My Men by Victoria Kielland (translated by Damion Searls)

“My Men” is the story of a young Norwegian woman who moves to America towards the end of the 19th century, changes her name and establishes a new life. Eventually she's discovered to be a serial killer responsible for the deaths of at least 14 people. Kielland reimagines this historical case of Belle Gunness from the inside of her troubled consciousness. Yet, rather than poring over gory details or building a thickly plotted story of dread, the author traces the shifting emotions of this woman whose life is driven by loss, loneliness, bad faith and bad logic. There's a bewitching nature to the poetic prose style which is at once claustrophobic and achingly tender. Rather than offering an explanation for why and how this occurred, this novel is moreover concerned with meticulously recording the state of its heroine's mind.

There's a cumulative sense of Belle's bleakly abiding aloneness in the world and fractured relations to other people. It's noted how “Bella stared into life and saw herself lying all alone at the bottom” and “The world was a whole, she could see it, but it was like she was standing just outside it and there was nothing she could do but cry.” This sense of complete separateness seems to foster a sense of absolute independence where she is wholly self-reliant and governed by her own sense of righteousness. In doing so the story traces how she comes to feel fully justified in her murderous actions: “Her carnivorous heart was exactly that simple, moments of closeness, a big black wound. A whole European map of dead men.” It makes for a very unsettling and strangely haunting read.

Forbidden Notebook by Alba De Cespedes (translated by Ann Goldstein)

There's a deceptively simple premise to Alba De Cespedes' 1952 novel which has recently been published in a new English translation. Office worker and housewife Valeria Cossati impulsively purchases a notebook to secretly record her thoughts and reflections. She has the sense that this is a transgressive act and when her family consider the possibility of her keeping a diary they find it laughable because they assume she'd have nothing to write about. So the notebook is kept hidden and she becomes increasingly anxious it might be found. It's challenging to keep it concealed because her lower-middle class family live in a small apartment. This adds to the feeling that this is an individual with no space of her own and the notebook becomes her refuge. We're the only ones privy to her writings which become a journey of self discovery as well as a record of the transition her family is going through over a period of several months. It's profoundly moving following how Valeria articulates her desires and negotiates her position in the world through this conversation with herself.

There's an increasing dramatic tension as there are developments within her family but there's also an increasing fear this notebook might be found and read by a family member. Of course, it's possible someone else might be reading her notebook without her knowing about it. She becomes increasingly candid discussing her thoughts about her husband, children and romantic feelings that develop between Valeria and her boss at work. Her children are almost adults so she must re-negotiate her position as a wife and mother. It's significant her own husband Michele now calls her “mamma” instead of her name as if her identity is only centred around her being a mother. It's fascinating how she wants to break free of the constraints of this role, but she also embraces and loves her position within her family. Yet the very act of secretly writing the notebook means she must stay up late at night. This adds to her sense of fatigue on top of keeping a job as well as cleaning and cooking for her family.

So many thoughts and feelings have been building inside her for years. Now that she's found an outlet for them through the notebook it becomes almost an obsession to her. She remarks that “It's strange: our inner life is what counts most for each of us and yet we have to pretend to live it as if we paid no attention to it, with inhuman security.” It's stunning how meaningfully this narrative presents the divide between her inner and outer life. The act of writing is like dipping deeper and deeper into a well of suppressed emotion. It also presents her specific position as an Italian post-war woman grappling with financial pressures. She's caught between her more liberal daughter Mirella and more conservative son Riccardo. Even though the diaries are necessarily only from her perspective, the narrative also gives a sense that her husband and boss have their own private lives whose expression is being suppressed. Her husband Michele has written a racy film manuscript and her boss Guido goes into the office on Saturdays as a respite from the demands of family life. In this way the novel illuminates how this tension between the inner and outer life is universal.

I naturally felt very sympathetic towards Valeria and the position she maintains. But I can also see why her family would grow impatient and fearful of her. Scenes she recollects in the notebook show how she often presents quite a strict and steely exterior. It's understandable she feels the need to conceal her notebook but it also feels like a tragedy that her family can't understand her as fully as the reader does because she won't allow them to know about her inner life. At times I almost wished they would discover it in order to get a better insight into Valeria's struggles. The situation raises poignant questions about how close we really are to the people we think we know the most and what levels of honesty are possible within the structure of our familial and romantic lives. Since this novel was written over fifty years ago it also makes me reflect upon past generations of my own family and consider the secret inner lives my grandparents led which I won't ever know about. This novel is a testament to those lost interior worlds but it's also a highly compelling story which describes the human condition with candour and insight.

A Line in the World by Dorthe Nors (translated by Caroline Waight)

I enjoyed the unique narrative of Dorthe Nors' novel “Mirror, Shoulder, Signal” so I was curious to experience her first book of nonfiction which is a meditation on the coast of her native Jutland. She visits various points along the line of the map where the land meets the North Sea including villages, churches, lighthouses, power stations and surfing beaches. It's an area where she was raised and where she currently lives, but she poignantly captures the seemingly paradoxical sense of being from this place as well as being a perpetual outsider. She frequently refers to the “schism” where identity is formed. This is an intersection between time, memory, landscape and community which the individual uneasily occupies. At the same time she reflects upon her personal history as well as the factual and mythic history of the people found here. However, she realises that there cannot be one true chronicle as details of the past become muddled: “When does a story begin? Always somewhere else, always further back in the text, beyond the horizon, in the unknown”. What she offers instead is a personalised view of the beauty and dangers of this natural environment as well as the courageousness, warmth and occasional narrow mindedness of its people.

The memoirist style of this book is pleasurably meandering and broody. Specific instances of erosion, pollution, religious conflict and colonialism have affected different areas of this landscape. Nors shows how these issues raise larger points regarding how the narrative of history is formed and the function of community. I was reminded of Keegan's novel “Small Things Like These” when she describes the tension surrounding how locals want to defend a local company because it employees so many people, but at the same time it's poisoning the land and water with chemical waste. Nors meaningfully recounts the mission of Denmark's first environmental activist known as 'Amber Aage' and observes how “The silence that can close around someone who says what mustn't be said in a small community isn't for the faint of heart.” The drive to maintain the status quo is also reflected in the way women have been traditionally treated in this location and how outsiders are regarded with suspicion because of provincial attitudes that: “Big cities, free speech and foreign lures are the work of the devil.” At the same time Nors recounts the humour and warmth she experiences with many of this coastline's inhabitants. I admire the way she shows how we can have so many mixed feelings about our homeland and how it's an inextricable part of our character.

The Family Chao by Lan Samantha Chang

Reimagining a classic novel is a risky business. Some such as “Gorsky” by Vesna Goldsworthy and “The Promise” by Damon Galgut have successfully borrowed plot lines from classics (“The Great Gatsby” and “Howard's End” respectively) and transposed them to an entirely new setting and context. However, there is a danger that using the scaffolding of a pre-existing plot might inhibit a new story. For instance, I felt Craig's novel “The Golden Rule” needlessly forced in some elements of classic tales in a way which lessened the impact of the otherwise compelling characters and storyline. 

In “The Family Chao” Lan Samantha Chang gives a modern-day retelling of “The Brothers Karamazov” to relate the story of a family with a domineering patriarch and three very different Chinese-American sons. For decades the Fine Chao restaurant has been a fixture of the community, but disharmony is brewing behind closed doors. The youngest boy James returns to his family's home in Wisconsin for Christmas to discover a lot of infighting. Though his eldest brother Dagou organizes a lavish feast and celebration at the family restaurant things don't go as planned. An explosive argument leads to Leo 'Big' Chao being discovered dead in the meat freezer the next morning. Was this an accident or did something more sinister lead to his demise?

Vicious gossip swirls around the family and the eldest son Dagou is put on trial for his father's murder. His two younger brothers Ming and James scramble to come to terms with their family's turbulent history and uncover what really happened that fateful night. With elements that include a dead stranger's travel bag filled with cash, an illegitimate child's well-kept secrets, a missing dog and a murder trial this is a mystery that grows increasingly thrilling as it unfolds. It's also a unique and meaningful tale which grapples with issues to do with racism, corruption and greed. At the same time it is darkly funny, poignant and gripping. 

Leo is rudely vicious in maintaining his dominance and ready to serve up whatever the public wants to feed their appetites and line his pockets. He succumbs to the American ideology that whatever is most profitable is also correct. But his sons have a decidedly different understanding of what it means to live and survive in this country. What's more telling is that the tragedy which occurs sparks public reactions showing deep-seeded stereotypes and biases. Though their situation is unique and the brothers come armed with different points of view, they are churned into an ongoing discourse. It takes honest reconciliations to extract themselves from this and persist in building their own lives. It's poignant the way in which Chang structures the novel to portray why this is such a struggle for this family. In its style and plot, she has successfully modernized and utilized elements of Dostoevsky's classic to tell a story which is uniquely American. 

Dinner Party by Sarah Gilmartin

Family get-togethers are inherently dramatic as they are often accompanied by so much expectation, pent-up emotions and long-held grievances. They often start out with the best intentions but can spiral out of control into feuds. There's an intense familiarity yet often family members can feel like strangers to each other. This is something Sarah Gilmartin understands well as her debut novel begins and ends with a dinner to mark the anniversary of a death in the family. In between these dinners we learn about the history of the Gleesons, a contemporary Irish family of farmers with two sons and twin daughters. The story focuses on daughter Kate as she struggles to reconcile with family tragedies, emotionally connect with the family members who remain and progress forward in her own life. It's an engaging story with many moments of high tension and heartache because it's clear that these people care deeply about each other but also drive each other crazy. 

The routines of family life: games of charade and cards can explode into warfare especially as the matriarch has an emotionally volatile sensibility where suddenly hellfire is released into the living room. She's domineering, highly critical and very concerned about how the family appears to the rest of the community. There's an inherent comedy in the fact that Kate frequently zones out or tries to keep reading a book as the mother is speaking to her and thinks about other things only to realise she's expected to respond and must quickly piece together what was being talked about. Yet, she's also a bridge-builder in the family trying to stop arguments before something is said which will be regretted. At the same time she harbours her own secrets and perilously avoids discussing emotions which are constraining her potential. Ominously, she counts how many bites of food she eats and we see her lack of control manifests into a longstanding eating disorder. She also has an affair with a married man which doesn't give her the emotional satisfaction or security she needs. This leads to another memorably disastrous dinner with her lover where she gets horrifically drunk. This scene is so cleverly written because we understand just how messy things become from the reactions of people around her.

I felt like I grew to know each family member intimately by the end of the book and understand their point of view. Gilmartin skilfully conjures the physicality of her characters while showing their bond to each other with lines such as “He had a similar skin to herself, the kind that flashed up feelings to the world.” At the same time there are many sharp observations which speak more widely to the psychological and social effects of significant events. Though death is a much-discussed and ritualized occurrence in Ireland it's also like a marker which taints the surviving family members: “Death depressed people, and it changed their opinion of you.” The mother vigorously engages in gossip about local people who've died or experience serious illness, but when it occurs within her own family it puts her in an unbearable position within the community. Gilmartin shows how this sense of status and self-image don't matter at all in one sense but in another matter a great deal. The tension of this is movingly played out to show how the bonds of family can both strengthen and destroy us.

When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut (translated by Adrian Nathan West)

It's been especially interesting following the International Booker Prize this year as the shortlisted books all take a creative approach to form, genre and narrative in telling their stories. This is certainly true in the case of Benjamín Labatut's “When We Cease to Understand the World” which inventively blends biographical nonfiction and fiction to describe discoveries made by several different male scientists and mathematicians of the 21st century such as Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger. 

Their intellectual revelations made fundamental advancements within their fields of study, altered our human perception of reality and provoked innumerable changes to our lives in ways we don't often think about. But, like any scientific advancement, this knowledge could be used for positive or negative consequences from alleviating famine to facilitating mass killing. The question of the relative “goodness” of any such discovery is tricky as well because if fertilizer is made so readily available it leads to the planet's overpopulation is that really positive advancement? On a personal level, these discoveries also led to many of these intellectuals experiencing a moral, spiritual or existential crisis. They became so overwhelmed by the consequences of what they found some turned their backs on society to become reclusive and/or actively tried to block their findings from being used. It's described how Grothendieck anxiously wonders “What new horrors would spring forth from the total comprehension that he sought?”

Labatut wonderfully dramatizes the details of these men's lives focusing on the toll such genius and knowledge takes upon the individual. By not sticking to biographical fact the author gets at the emotional truth of the dilemmas which attend such intellectual “advancement”. The narrative is so smooth and smart it's like deep secrets are being whispered to the reader by the coolest and most engaging philosophy professor at school. The prose are also so beautiful they have an enchanting and haunting effect. It makes these separate (and sometimes overlapping) tales compulsively readable. However, sometimes Labatut's embellishments can become a little too fanciful as these scientists become consumed with sexual compulsions or drug-induced hallucinations. I get that the mania which attends genius can also be felt and often might coincide with such extremes of experience, but it's also when I became overtly aware of Labatut shaping the narrative into a story whose need for a poetic arc supersedes the grainier stuff of reality. I felt a more effective scene was when an individual becomes lost in a fog on a desert island and we follow his painfully plodding efforts to find his way back to his accommodation.

Just as Stepanova's fascinating book “In Memory of Memory” seriously altered the way I think about memory, Labatut's more streamlined but equally thoughtful book has made me indelibly reconsider the real value of knowledge. Often we feel that if we can scientifically understand every aspect of the unknown we'll be able to control our lives and the world around us. But to exist involves so many chaotic factors and there are so many facets of reality which will remain permanently beyond our comprehension. Labatut shows with extreme but highly-telling examples how passing into a fuller knowledge of life can as easily lead to madness as it does to enlightenment.

At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop (translated by Anna Moschovakis)

Military officers often describe how it's necessary to mentally and physically break recruits down so they can be rebuilt into soldiers. The idea is that creating a steely sensibility which follows the absolute authority of commanding officers is necessary for the brutality of war. Arguably, it's a process that entirely strips individuals of their humanity to transform them into killing machines. This is what the character of Alfa has turned into at the start of David Diop's “At Night All Blood is Black”. When his “more-than-brother” friend Mademba is killed during combat while they are fighting in WWI, Alfa goes on a rampage assassinating German soldiers and cutting off their hands to keep as trophies. This Senegalese soldier fights for the French army and at first they find his deadly tenacity admirable and then fear he's actually a madman or demonically possessed. Within the context of war, questions of humanity or inhumanity become dangerously confused. This intensely brilliant novel portrays the conflicts this soldier has over this issue as he literally battles through his grief and rage. In deftly pared-down prose the author powerfully describes the chaotic savagery of war and how it spiritually crushes this beautifully unique and traumatized individual. 

The story begins with Alfa's indecision about whether he should put Mademba out of his misery because his friend has been horrifically and mortally wounded and begs to die. It's an impossible situation to be in and breaks Alfa so that he embarks on his own vengeful missions. Plucking enemy soldiers at random he inflicts upon them the mutilation that Mademba experienced but he spares them the extensive suffering that Mademba felt waiting to die. This brutality is vicious but is it any more cruel than the way soldiers are ordered to destroy the enemy within the rules of battle? The captain takes Mademba to task demanding: “You will content yourself with killing them, not mutilating them. The civilities of war forbid it.” Yet, Mademba has only transformed into the savage which the French want the Senegalese soldiers to present themselves as to the Germans. They play upon racial and cultural stereotypes to more effectively intimidate the enemy and view the Senegalese as more expendable strategically placing them in more dangerous situations than the French soldiers. It's compelling how the novel examines the way prejudice plays a part in these battles which are about more than fighting on one side or another.

Though the prose style of this book is stripped down, the word choice and dramatic situation speaks volumes in relaying complex ideas about what it means to be human. The writing also gradually develops a poetic rhythm in how it follows Mademba's logic. He frequently invokes the refrain “God's truth” when pressing a particular point and the flow of his thoughts evocatively bring his clashing emotions to life. The later parts of the book also describe Alfa's past and his community in a way that the French he fights for has chosen to ignore. It's so moving how we get small insights into his background and the possible future he wanted to build with his friend Mademba. Some readers may be put off by the horrendous violence this novel contains, but I admire how it honestly confronts the raw brutality of armed conflict and the complex impact this has on those who get indoctrinated into warfare.

Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors (translated by Misha Hoekstra)

The story of “Mirror, Shoulder, Signal” by Dorthe Nors is fairly simple on the surface. Sonja is in her 40s living in modern-day Copenhagen and working as a translator of sensational Scandinavian crime fiction by Gosta Svensson (who is compared to Steig Larsson). Her occupation as a translator allows the author to explore thoughts about the nature of writing: “Language is powerful, almost magic, and the smallest alteration can elevate a sentence or be its undoing.” Sonja is learning how to drive at an academy although she’s self-conscious that she’s older than most of the people in her class. The story follows her lessons on the road, her experiences receiving treatment from a New Age-type masseuse Ellen and reflecting on memories of her family/childhood. Sonja feels in some curious way cut off from both her past and future so struggles to navigate her way through a nebulous present. What begins as a light and comic tale gradually turns much darker and soul-searching.

The beginning of this book reminded me of the start of Evelyn Waugh’s novel “Scoop” which shows a socialite’s madcap car ride through the streets of London. Sonja isn’t a very good driver and from Nors’ descriptions you can almost feel the car careering through the streets of Copenhagen narrowly escaping multiple accidents. Her education is not helped by her instructor in the passenger seat Jytte who smokes, frequently seizes control of the car and makes xenophobic/racist comments. As she’s disturbed by this behaviour she switches instructors to the centre’s owner Folke and a romantic tension forms. As Sonja’s behaviour becomes increasingly erratic it becomes clear how lonely and troubled she really is although on the surface she appears completely calm.

Sonja finds it relaxing to visit Western Cemetery in Copenhagen.

It feels like Nors wrote this novel partly as a self conscious foil to the kind of Scandi crime that Sonja translates. Her character feels slightly contemptuous of the genre and the people who avidly read it. She remarks that politicians who like taking these books on holiday will happily “rub themselves in SPF 50 and wallow in evil like it’s a party.” In contrast to the tales of violence and intrigue that she translates, Sonja’s story is something much more considered and subtle. Nothing extraordinary happens to her, but the schism which exists between her and her family – especially her sister Kate is intensely felt: “If Sonja and Kate were apples, you’d say that they’d fallen on two different sides of the tree.” Rather than explosive action, it’s only in unsent letters she writes and a telephone call to Kate that you’re really given a sense of how unhinged Sonja really is.

Sonja obsessively mulls over details of her childhood. There is a feeling of nostalgia and sense of loss that I think a lot of people feel especially if in adulthood they’ve moved away from where they were raised: “the place you come from is a place you can never return to. It’s transmogrified, and you yourself are a stranger.” Some descriptive details come up multiple times (such as a sandwich made from brown sugar pressed into bread). In particular, she frequently recalls a past visit to a strange fortune teller in a curry tunic that somehow obstructed her moving forward in her life: “If you don’t believe in the occult, you can’t guard against it, Sonja realizes. And if you do believe, you’re in deep shit.” I couldn’t quite make out why this encounter was so significant to Sonja, but it’s disallowed her from maturing into a healthy adult. Instead she’s trapped in this slightly infantile state where she can’t emotionally relate to many people or, indeed, drive no matter how earnestly she tries to learn. As it progresses the story has a curiously melancholic and haunting effect. Although “Mirror, Shoulder, Signal” didn’t feel entirely satisfying, it was an intriguing and thoughtful novel. 

On Reading, Writing and Living with Books

Books are an important physical presence around anyone who feels reading is a major part of living. I can spend a lot of time just gazing at my shelves wondering what I should read or reread next or simply enjoying the company of my books. Of course, no book was created in isolation but produced by someone who was influenced by reading countless other books. The traditional hub for many great writers to discover books that inspire and inform them has been the library. This year The London Library which is the world's largest independent library with more than a million books and periodicals in its collection is turning 175 years old. “On Reading, Writing and Living with Books” is a compact collection of pieces by great writers such as Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, EM Foster and the poet Leigh Hunt – all of whom were active members of The London Library. They contemplate the experience of being committed writers and readers who share the same wonder, joy and excitement we all feel when staring at a shelf filled with books.  

It's surprising how relevant some of the arguments and questions raised in these pieces still feel today. I suppose this is because the experience of being an enthusiastic reader never changes. George Eliot muses upon the profession of writing in her essay 'Authorship' and how writing for a living can cause someone to compromise their vision and morals due to commercial pressure. She considers the cultural impact of great writing against the degree to which its valued by society. These feel like the same arguments that are made in current articles on how authors are woefully underpaid. Virginia Woolf addresses the issue of criticism and urges readers to come to books with no preconceived notions or expectations about the text: “Do not dictate to your author; try to become him.” In her typically ingenious way she meditates upon the interplay between the physical world around us, the imaginative world the author places us in and how these intermingle.

Charles Dickens' letter to George Eliot is filled with praise for her first publication “Scenes of Clerical Life” yet he shows himself to be incredibly astute guessing in a friendly manner that she is not male as her pen names suggests but female (something which was not publicly known at the time). Leigh Hunt contemplates his passion for the books around him, the manner in which books are consumed and how they are a touchstone to the past. He shows a certain snobbishness about different kinds of literature and how access to books is connected with privilege (this was certainly true when he was alive in the mid-1800s.) In a way all book lovers can relate to, he goes through some of his prize possessions on his bookshelves developing a fetishism for the beauty of certain books. He also covets the books other readers' possess remarking: “I cannot see a work that interests me on another person's shelf, without a wish to carry it off.”

EM Forster wrote his piece about The London Library itself at a time directly before WWII when he was aware of how precarious books and the inheritance of knowledge was in the face of rampant destruction. In this bleak time he ardently remarked about the library that “It is a symbol of civilization. It is a reminder of sanity and a promise of sanity to come.” It's comforting to know that The London Library is still thriving. This week from May 5th-8th to celebrate their 175 year a number of readings and events called Words in the Square are taking place.

This book is a fantastic touchstone for readers and lovers of literary culture exploring from different angles the way literature plays an active part of daily life. It makes a wonderful companion to Ali Smith's recent book of stories and collection of testaments about the importance of libraries Public Library. In the preface to each piece in “On Reading, Writing and Living with Books” there is a short fascinating paragraph about each author's relationship with The London Library – for instance, when Virginia Woolf joined she gave her occupation as “Spinster”. These pieces reinforce how important the library was for these writers and this anthology is a wonderful celebration of our literary culture.

Whispers Through a Megaphone by Rachel Elliott

Novels can sometimes feel so emotionally raw it’s like the story has come straight out of the author’s unconsciousness without any editorial mediation. Rachel Elliott’s writing in “Whispers Through a Megaphone” has a primal power that is tied very closely to her central fictional creation of Miriam Delaney. This is a 35 year-old woman who has spent three years in her house without leaving except to step into her back garden. A traumatic event has caused this retreat from society. Here she mulls over her belief that she’s abnormal and her traumatic upbringing with her mentally ill mother Frances who taught her not to speak in more than a whisper. She chillingly observes that “The world is a safe place until it isn’t. People are good until they’re not.” Buried within these sentences is unfathomable trauma and pain. This novel is like a complex confession which gradually unfolds as several characters strive to make the connections they need to progress forward in their lives.

As a counterpoint to Miriam’s shut-in existence, this is also a novel equally about Ralph Swoon who gradually retreats from the pressurized life of friends and family until one day he walks out of his own birthday party. He’s a psychologist who is very good at empathizing with other people’s problems, but finds it very difficult to process his own. His wife Sadie is undergoing a personal crisis where she tries to reconcile her same-sex attraction to certain friends throughout her life. She keeps a private-public life separate from Ralph where she tweets frequently and these Twitter interactions are recorded in the text of the novel. She feels “What’s the point of an experience if you can’t share it? If you can’t tell other people what’s going on?” After rekindling a connection with her old friend Alison she gradually understands the importance of maintaining a degree of privacy in a relationship and how to manage her repressed longing.

While these central characters’ story lines follow an arc which shows their growth and development, I found at times Elliott’s focus veers off too sharply to briefly focus on other characters without giving them sufficient narrative space to grow. There are some fascinating people touched upon such as Ralph and Sadie’s son Stanley who has just entered his first gay relationship, Miriam’s neighbour Boo who obsessively cleans or an old flame of Ralph’s named Julie Parsley who independently runs a business and cares for her father. I wanted to know more about these characters, but we only get a glancing understanding of their fascinating lives. While presenting complex peripheral characters can really add to a main story, it can also be frustrating when it feels like the storyline rushes towards them but must quickly retreat to focus on the central characters again. By doing this, it feels like their independence isn’t being sufficiently honoured.  

Sadie recalls going to a Tori Amos concert with her friend Alison where Tori performed 'Cornflake Girl' while "staring at them as she sings"

Miriam’s mother Frances is perhaps the character who receives the most uneven treatment. For much of the novel she comes across purely as a villain disrupting her daughter’s development in the most shocking and cruel ways. There are some fantastically perverse lines which hint at Frances’ deranged way of thinking such as “Her mother always said that love was for people with dirty houses.” Yet, something strange happens towards the end of the novel where her relationship with Miriam’s school Headmaster is expanded upon in a chance meeting between the two. It doesn’t give an insight into why Frances might have acted the way she did towards her daughter, but it suggests why she met an untimely end. However, instead of adding another layer of insight this felt jarring and problematic to me. Prior to this, we only get an external view of Frances and when we finally see her point of view it feels like it comes too late.

Nevertheless, this novel is full of life and vigour. Where it really shines is in moments of deep introspection and acute psychological observation. Elliott states how “The mind is a fairground of unearthly rides. Intrapsychic theme parks. The constant rattle of ghost trains.” The past is continuously drawn into the present of these characters’ reality causing them to stutter in their interactions with each other. Scenes happening now are frequently interspersed with paragraphs that abruptly leap backward to a crucial time in that character’s past. Elliott writes sympathetically about people who find it very difficult to reconcile their internal and external realities. She weaves a lot of humour and jovial human interaction into her story which provides welcome light relief from some of the darkest moments in this novel. “Whispers Through a Megaphone” is an emotional read whose story touchingly suggests people can thrive when they make the right crucial connections with others.

Montaigne by Stefan Zweig (translated by Will Stone)

Several years ago I read Zweig’s biography of Balzac and it remains one of the best biographies I’ve ever read. Balzac led an impassioned, rigorous and tragically bumbling life that is great fun to read about. But what was so gripping about this book was the tension between Zweig who was evidently a writer of high ideals and his subject Balzac who was a brilliantly gifted writer with frivolous values. Zweig was a man dedicated to art and a freedom of spirit. Balzac desired status and fortune and only wrote so prolifically to get himself out of the enormous debts he accrued through get-rich-quick schemes. Thus reading Zweig’s intense frustration at Balzac’s indifference to his obvious talent and foolish striving for material goods and pretentious society is incredibly compelling to read about. Zweig is a thoroughly subjective biographer who makes his opinions known in a way that works so well more than a biographer trying to present an objective portrait of a life. He sticks to the facts, but focuses on aspects of his subject’s personal history and the statements their work made which he deems important to our culture and that have the most relevance to where he was in his own life.

“Montaigne” is a biography which is almost more compelling for what it says about Zweig than it does about his subject. Translator Will Stone gives a thorough and intelligent introduction to this brief book which is more a sketch of Montaigne’s life than a comprehensive account. (His biography of Balzac was much more extensive.) Normally I get impatient with such introductions and want to get to the real text of the book I’ve bought. But Stone’s account gives vital information about where Zweig was in his life when he wrote about Montaigne and why he was so drawn to this subject at this point in his life. Zweig famously retreated to a house in Brazil to escape the increasing influence of Hitler’s rise to power and the authoritarian forces threatening Europe. Despairing about the state of the world, he and his wife committed suicide in 1942.

“What Montaigne seeks is his interior self… which Goethe labelled the ‘citadel’, where all access is prohibited… This citadel, which for Goethe was only symbolic, Montaigne erects with real stones, a lock and a key… the famous tower of Montaigne.”

This biography was written in the crucial year before this act and the psychological cracks show in the text. The first section of the biography is an impassioned account of Montaigne’s high ideals. The values which he believed Montaigne exhibited are ones which felt so crucially relevant to Zweig’s own life that he seized upon him as a subject for the highest reverence. Zweig feverishly states: “Only he whose soul is in turmoil, forced to live in an epoch where war, violence and ideological tyranny threaten the life of every individual, and the most precious substance in that life, the freedom of the soul, can know how much courage, sincerity and resolve are required to remain faithful to his inner self in these times of the herd’s rampancy.” It’s as if he’s leapt upon Montaigne as a life raft in a time where he felt hemmed in by the ideological forces of his time which threatened the civilization Zweig valued so highly.

Zweig focuses on only the most crucial facts of Montaigne’s life, those which are relevant to him, and skips over huge chunks. What he seizes upon is gold and wholly engaging. No doubt if Zweig had lived longer he would have written much more extensively about this famous essayist. I can feel very sympathetic to Montaigne’s abrupt removal from his family and public life in his late thirties since it’s the same age I’m at now. Montaigne retreated to a tower to study, read and write while blocking out the everyday distracting realties of the world as much as possible. As a great reader Montaigne felt “Books are my kingdom. And here I seek to reign as absolute lord.” It’s interesting the way that Montaigne’s life played out – because, of course, however much we try to completely retreat into books the world draws us back into it. Montaigne’s reading tastes suited Zweig perfectly as he remarks “Concerning Montaigne’s judgement on books I am 100 per cent in accordance.” Thus Zweig found in Montaigne an intellectual kinship across centuries and found strength to stand against the tyranny of his own time. More disturbingly, it’s possible that Montaigne’s reasoning might have heavily influenced Zweig’s own decision to end his own life. This can be intimated in the line: “the last freedom: in the face of death. Life hangs on the will of others, but death on our own will.”

This is such a fascinating book for what it says about both its biographer Stefan Zweig and its subject of Montaigne. I’m now inspired to go out and read more by both of these fascinating authors.

Stammered Songbook by Erwin Mortier (translated by Paul Vincent)

Last year I read Emma Healey's moving novel “Elizabeth is Missing” which is daringly written from the perspective of a woman with dementia. She captured the inner life of someone lost to herself. It's a tremendous challenge to write meaningfully about the indignities that dementia entails and make sense of the senseless. When a rational, lively person loses the facility to interact with the world accompanied by all their memories and sense of self in tow they are left only with the functions of the body and fleeting reactions to stimuli. Erwin Mortier's memoir “Stammered Songbook” is a highly personal account of the loss of his mother to dementia, but more than that it's a poetic examination of family, what loving relationships mean and the human condition. In a series of highly compressed short sections, Mortier conveys the daily experience of caring for his mother and sifting through memories of his past.

Mortier describes working with his father and other family members to care for his mother as her symptoms get progressively worse. Much of the time there is a sense of being suspended in an amorphous state: “We live in and outside of time.” Mortier’s mother is there in body, but the essence of what made her a mother, wife and friend has left with all her memories and sense of self. There are the daily tasks of care for her wellbeing which require more and more from the family. Eventually they become incapable of the fulfilling the necessary actions required to properly feed her and prevent her from hurting herself. When it becomes necessary to restrain her, the author hauntingly questions “When does care become another word for torture?” There is a solemn sense of inevitability and acknowledgement that her condition can only get worse. Yet, Mortier travels through this territory with courage savouring the remaining time he has with his mother and reflecting tenderly on family life. He powerfully describes the way that those who have left us still remain in our thoughts: “The dead have a busy time no longer being there.” There are many moments of sorrow in this account of his mother’s disease, but also some blissful light-hearted moments of relief. Passages effortlessly move from blunt facts about the reality of living with someone with dementia to memories to ruminations about life – all infused with a poetic sense that allows the specifics of his experiences to extend into a more universal, beautifully-unifying meaning.

One of the passages I found most powerful in the book was this long meditation on the meaning of love and the way in which we connect to one another: “love is attention. That they are two words for the same thing. That it isn't necessary to try to clear up every typo and obscure passage that we come across when we read the other person attentively – that a human being is difficult poetry, which you must be able to listen to without always demanding clarification, and that the best thing that can happen to us is the absolution that a loved one grants us for the unjustifiable fact that we exist and drag along with us a self that has been marked and shaped by so many others.” This so elegantly summarizes the way in which love is a form of caring without judgement. I find it a very inspirational perspective to have when considering what it really means to love someone throughout the long hard line of a lifetime no matter how much they change or become lost to us.

“Stammered Songbook” is a profound, utterly-unique book.