labfs39 wanders the world of words in 2024

Currently Reading


Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker


Peter Duck by Arthur Ransome

E-Book:

Short Fiction by Anton Chekhov, translated from the Russian by Constance Garnett

Serial Reader:

Audiobook:

Apeirogon by Colum McCann, read by the author

Books Read in 2023

January
1. Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein (F, 3.5*)
2. The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata, translated from the Japanese by J. Martin Holman (TF, 3*)
3. The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers, translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo (TF, 3.5*)
4. All Systems Red by Martha Wells (SF, 4*)
5. Chekhov by Henri Troyat, translated from the French by Michael Henry Heim (NF, 4.5*)
6. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (F, 5*)
7. Artificial Condition by Martha Wells (SF, 3*)

Book Club
1. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
2. This Other Eden by Paul Harding
3.

Holocaust Literature

Nobel Laureates
1. The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata

Graphic Stories

In French

Reading Globally

Books I've read in 2024 by nationality of author (a tricky business):

American: 3 (2 in series)
Canadian: 1
French (Russian): 1
German: 1
Japanese: 1

Check out my Global Challenge thread, labfs39 reads around the world, for a look at a cumulative list since around 2010. And I've broken out the US by state in my labfs39 tackles the states thread.

Book stats for 2024:

I am trying to promote diversity in my reading and, for the lack of a more refined method, am tracking the following:

books total: 7

countries: 5
translations: 3 (50%)
in French

nonfiction: 1 (17%)

by women: 5 (67%)

nonwhite and/or non-European/US/British Commonwealth: 1 (17%)

new to me authors: 3 (50%)

science fiction: 2

Short Stories

Anton Chekhov
1. The Darling (1899)
2. The Bet ( 1889)
3. The Bishop (1902): It's my least favorite so far, about Bishop Pyotr who is ill but continues his duties, receives a visit from his elderly mother and niece, and reflects on times past. The best part was his conflicted feelings about his mother who is unsure whether to treat him with the deference due his position or with ease as her son.
4. The Black Monk (1893)

5. Living Chattel (Aug 1882)
6. Joy (Jan 1883): a young man runs home to his parent all excited to have his name in print. The newspaper made note of his being drunk and being run over by a cart.
7. At the Barber's (Feb 1883): A young barber is distraught when his godfather comes in to get his head shaved and learns that he has engaged his daughter to another. The barber was in love with her, but his godfather is adamant. So the barber refuses to shave the half of his head. The godfather is too cheap to pay for a haircut and dances at the wedding like that.
8. An Enigmatic Nature (Mar 1883): A pretentious psychologist meets a woman on a train and she reveals all to such a discerning man. She married an old general for his money and had to wait until he died to be able to pursue her love and happiness, but alas. She met another old general.
9. A Classical Student (May 1883): A stupid boy flunks his Greek exam and gets thrashed.
10. The Death of a Government Clerk (July 1883): While at the opera, a clerk sneezes and believes that he has sprayed the eminent man in front of him. He tries repeatedly to apologize, to the man's annoyance.
11. A Daughter of Albion (Aug 1883): A Russian man and his children's English governess both love to fish. He believes she doesn't understand a word of Russian, and when his hook gets snagged, strips naked and wades in.
12. The Trousseau (Aug 1883)
13. An Inquiry (Sept 1883)
14. Fat and Thin (Oct 1883)
15. A Tragic Actor (Oct 1883)
16. A Slander (Nov 1883)
17. The Bird Market (Nov 1883)

18. Choristers (Feb 1884)

Welcome to my 2024 thread! I'm Lisa, and I love reading, gardening, and homeschooling my two nieces. I recently returned to my home state of Maine and am enjoying being near my family again. Life here can be on the chilly side for half of the year, but it has its charms. Don't ask me what they are at the moment, as it's only 16 degrees Fahrenheit, and I'm rethinking this whole New England thing...

Unlike the last couple of years, this year I have joined no challenges (other than my real life book club) and will be a free range reader. I hope to continue reading internationally, as well as about the Holocaust and the occasional graphic novel. I have so many great books on my shelves and Kindle that I hope to get to, but as you know, the TBR mountain is self-propagating.

So without further ado, we're off. Happy reading!

Thanks for all the work you've done, Lisa, in getting this year's group up and running. I'll have an Avid Readers thread up in the next day or two. Most importantly, Happy New Year!

Thanks Lisa! I agree with Jerry. You have a been a gift to our group.

And a big thanks from me, Lisa. I don’t know how you do it. The work involved must be enormous.

Another note of appreciation here. This is such a pleasant place for me to come, no matter how irregularly—thanks for keeping it humming.

Thanks, all, for cheering me on. December/January is always a bit hectic in LT world. I'm so grateful to this community of readers, and I'm glad that I'm able to give back a little.

I've finally wrapped up my 2023 thread, which ended with a fantastic book, At Night All Blood is Black. Tomorrow I will start Study for Obedience. There's something so refreshing about a new thread, a new book, and a new year. So many possibilities. It's exciting!

Happy New Year! And thanks for all you do!

I'm also joining the Lisa Appreciation Society for setting us up for another year.

Adding to the chorus - I appreciate the time and effort that goes into setting the new group up right when everything else is going a little crazy too.

I'll be watching out for what you have to say about Study for Obedience when you finish it.

I sincerely wish you health, happiness, contentment and many exciting books.

Happy New Year! Looking forward to another year following your reading.

Happy New Year! On my rounds dropping off stars. Looking forward to your thoughts on Study for Obedience. Are you enjoying it so far?

Thanks, everyone, and Happy New Year! I'm only a dozen pages into Study for Obedience, but so far the woman's voice is interesting, and clearly unreliable as she contradicts herself all the time. I've been avoiding reviews, as I don't want spoilers, so I'm anxious to see where the author's going with this.

On a separate note, I started using Serial Reader a few weeks ago and read The Captain's Daughter by Pushkin and "The Lady with the Dog" by Chekhov. Today I did some catch up (15 minute segments are sent to my phone every day whether I read that day or not, so I could read several segments all today, but not go ahead). I finished two more short stories by Chekhov.

"The Darling" is about a woman who is actualized only through her love for a man, and she falls in love easily. When she's in love, everyone thinks she's a darling, she espouses all the man's views with passion and is lively and entertaining. When her husband dies, as two do, she is listless and dull until she falls in love again. There was a lot that could be discussed in this short story.

"The Bet" is about a two men who argue about which is more humane, capital punishment or life imprisonment. The banker bets two million dollars that the lawyer will not be able to stay in solitary confinement in the banker's house for fifteen years. The lawyer is allowed books, but no personal communication or visits, and is sealed into a room of the banker's house. He goes through stages of depression and frenzied learning and finally the day of his release is near. The banker is in a frenzy, because he has lost most of his money through speculation, and to pay two million will impoverish him. What to do?

One of our members, Deborah/arubabookwoman, has a multi-volume set of all 522? 574? short stories that Chekhov wrote in his short lifetime (he died of tuberculosis at 44) and is resolved to read through them. I couldn't understand the incentive, but I'm beginning to. Although I'm not sure about the translation that I'm reading, Serial Reader doesn't give that information, the stories feel fresh and modern with tremendous insight and compassion for human frailty and for relationships. Although I don't read a lot of short stories, I will continue reading Chekhov's for a while. Any other Chekhov admirers out there?

>19 labfs39: The Darling is one of the stories George Sanders discusses in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, using it to explain patterns and how to make them work. There was, indeed, much to look at in this story.

>20 RidgewayGirl: was thinking about that too.

Lisa - I should get to Study for Obedience in February. Someone on FB i like told me it's very good, but that they weren't sure they got it. :) It's gotten praise in our club. Also, since the gate to the range in open, wish you a wonderful eclectic year. And I hope more Checkhov is involved.

>19 labfs39: I began my Chekov project after reading Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer a number of years ago. In it she discussed her habit of reading a Chekov story every day. I enjoyed it while I kept it up. I completed 3 volumes of my 13 volume Chekov set (not sure how many stories or if it's his complete set of stories). I should get back to it. It was a good experience.
>20 RidgewayGirl: I have that on the TBR shelf. I was intrigued and bought it soon after it was published but unfortunately haven't read it yet.
>19 labfs39: A lot of people here loved Study for Obedience. I read close to half and it wasn't clicking, and I was dreading having to pick it up, so back to the library it went.

And thank you so much Lisa for all the work you do to keep this place humming along!

>20 RidgewayGirl: I've had A Swim in the Pond on my wishlist since Dan/dchaikin reviewed it over a year ago. I think this is a sign that I should get to it.

>21 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. Study for Obedience is quite short, it wouldn't take me long to get through if I weren't so distracted by LT at the moment. Plus I started knitting a hat today, broke a needle (!), and had to rip it all out. Sigh.

>22 arubabookwoman: That's right, your inspiration was Reading Like a Writer, another how-to book that I feel like I should get to. Do you feel like Chekhov's stories get repetitive after a while? I can't imagine coming up with 500+ original stories. I've been mighty impressed with the three I've read so far, but that's only three, and three of his better known. In any case, I'm thinking I'll keep plugging away with the ones that are accessible through Serial Reader, or Project Gutenberg. BTW, who translates the stories in your edition?

Happy New Year, Lisa. Thanks for setting everything up here. I haven't yet decided if I'll have a thread here this year. I do have one in the 75ers group https://www.librarything.com/topic/356547#n8337890

Anyway, I look forward to following your reading this year.

>19 labfs39: Happy New Year! And thanks for the work you do to keep this group organized.

>24 BLBera: I'm sorry you won't be joining us in Club Read this year, Beth, but I have starred your thread. You can't get away that easily!

>25 qebo: Thanks, Katherine. It's a pleasure to help out, although Dec/Jan can get pretty hectic. Btw, I still want to go down and visit you and Darryl. His schedule is so unpredictable that I think I'll just need to go and hope he can squeeze me in. I thought I was going to get a week off from the kids in January, but it may have been pushed out to March. I'll keep you posted.

>26 labfs39: Dec/Jan can get pretty hectic.
I can imagine.
I'll keep you posted.
I can trek into Philadelphia easily with a bit of advance notice, and it'd be great to see you.

>26 labfs39: i could meet in Philly with some warning. If you have an open meetup planned (i don’t mean to butt in on one).

>28 dchaikin: I would love it. Jerry has said he could probably come too. I wanted to go this fall, but I kept waiting for Darryl to have an opening, and his schedule is tough to plan in advance. As I said, I thing I just need to go and hope (although I'll message him too, of course). I'll let you know as soon as the kids' vacation is set.

>29 labfs39: yes, it’s really hard for Darryl. Thanks!

Happy new year, Lisa, and thanks for all the "housekeeping" you do.

Let me know about a Philly meetup, definitely. It's a relatively quick train ride from here. I'll be in NYC through May.

I, too, am a great admirer of Chekhov. As I wrote somewhere else around here recently, I did a deep study of his plays in grad school, and I've read and enjoyed a lot of his stories, as well. His stories are generally quiet, but take revealing looks, I think, at human nature.

I like the picture that has been chosen for the group, with its suggestions of calm and tranquility. Happy new year.

>19 labfs39: >20 RidgewayGirl: George Saunders also discussed "The Lady with the Dog" at length in his Story Club newsletter—he pulls out the work that a writer does and how stories work in a really intuitive, interesting way, and the group discussions are always really interesting. I've had A Swim in a Pond in the Rain for a while and want to read it; I've also always wanted to read the Prose book (and always get it confused with Jane Smiley's Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel, which I have but ALSO haven't read.

>30 dchaikin: I hope we can entice him away, but it will, of course, depend on his mom.

>31 LolaWalser: Thanks, Lola. Glad you're back for another year.

>32 rocketjk: Will do, Jerry. I read your posts about the plays. I have not read them either, so I have that to look forward to.

>33 baswood: I cannot take the credit for the lovely photo, Barry. Diane/dianeham was kind enough to send me a few public domain images to choose from and this was my favorite. This being an election year in the US, I'm going to need all the prompts for calm and tranquility that I can get.

>34 lisapeet: Well, if I've only read a few Chekhov stories, at least I seem to be reading the most important. So many books, so little time. Sigh.

---

Just got back from story time at the library. Having little ones (my nieces) around, let's me enjoy things like this years after my own daughter has outgrown them (she's 20). I imagine it's sort of like having grandchildren.

What great reading projects you've got going! I think my only goal this year is get my non-fiction to fiction ratio back to 60/40 where I'm happiest.

If you need a recommendation for West Virginia books, I strongly suggest The Voices of Glory by Davis Grubb on the fiction side. It's an underrated one, in my opinion. (I also have very strong opinions on which books about the WV mine wars are most worth reading, if you're tempted in that direction.)

>36 mabith: Thanks, Meredith. I have not been reading much for the States Challenge, but I will keep your suggestion and offer in mind.

I just finished my first book of the year, and what an eerie book it was. Not what I would have chosen for a fresh start had I known!



Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein
Published 2023, 192 p.

It was the year the sow eradicated her piglets. It was a swift and menacing time.

From the very first lines, Sarah Bernstein creates an eerie atmosphere of foreboding. The entire book is a monologue spoken by a women we suspect of duplicity or madness from the earliest pages.

I was the youngest child, the youngest of many—more than I care to remember—whom I tended from my earliest infancy, before indeed I had the power of speech myself and although my motor skills were by then scarcely developed, these, my many siblings, were put in my charge. I attended to their every desire, smoothed away the slightest discomfort with perfect obedience, with the highest degree of devotion, so that over time their desires became mine, so that I came to anticipate wants not yet articulated, perhaps not even yet imagined, providing my siblings with the greatest possible succour, filling them up only so they could demand more, always more, demands to which I acceded with alacrity and discreet haste, ministering the complex curative draughts prescribed to them by various doctors, serving their meals and snacks, their cigarettes and aperitifs, their nightcaps and bedside glasses of milk... In this process, I would become reduced, diminished, ultimately I would become clarified, even cease to exist. I would be good. I would be all that had ever been asked of me.

The unnamed woman's eldest brother is recently divorced and asks her to come manage his house, as he travels often for work. Ever compliant, she settles her affairs in the city and moves to the countryside, to the land of their ancestors, and moves in with her brother. Not speaking the local language, despite being fluent in many, she is at once an outsider. When her brother leaves on a business trip, she is left to fend for herself. At first she tries to ingratiate herself to the townsfolk, but it becomes apparent that they blame her for a series of mysterious ill omens, mostly involving animals. Being an unreliable narrator, and the only voice we hear, it is unclear to what extent her increasing paranoia is justified.

Permeating the entire novel is the shadow of the Holocaust and the locals' continuing antisemitism. Like much in the novel, however, it is an undercurrent, never made overt, but is insidious. On the one hand, everyone is guilty of wanting to take the easy road, to go with the flow: "which while entirely and understandably human was at the same time the most barbaric, the most abominable course of action. So, listen. I am not blameless. I played my part." On the other hand, terrible crimes had been committed, and yet the local people continue with their lives as though nothing had happened at the "pit parties" on the other side of the woods. It is in part the woman's struggle to live with the townsfolk, knowing what she knows about them, that contributes to her breakdown.

So here it all was at last. I had come to this place, when my ancestors had fled, out of what I recognised at last as an unkillable longing for self-annihilation, no more than I felt I deserved and, moreover, what I felt had been meant for me, the wayward child of a people whose only native merit was that they had survived. They had kept on. For ages they had kept on. And here I was, meeting history at last, proof that my deference, anyone's deference, was the surest and swiftest route to one's own eradication. It would be total.

The claustrophobic merging of the public and the private in her self leads to tangled threads of guilty, complicity, the desire to belong, and the fear of the other. There is a tremendous amount packed into this slim novel and many themes to explore. It is both an eerie novel of an individual's madness, and an indictment of society's complacency toward acts of aggression against those who are different. An impressive work by a young novelist.

>38 labfs39: I loved this novel and I love your review. I noticed that many readers did not see “the shadow of the Holocaust” and the local townspeople’s antisemitism in the book.

I did not read any reviews of Study for Obedience before I read it, and only chose to read it because it was nominated for the Booker. Then after I read it I wondered had I imagined the Holocaust shadow. But I wasn’t the only one.

she and her brother belong to “an obscure though reviled people who had been dogged across borders and put into pits”. The country to which her brother has emigrated is where this persecution of their Jewish ancestors took place. The narrator’s encounters with modern-day antisemitism are captured acutely and absurdly.
- Observer Review

There were just so many references to the narrators family’s Jewishness and the anger of the townspeople toward them because of this. The pigs at the beginning and end of the book, the mezuzah on the side of the portal of the family’s front door, the references to the townspeople thinking the narrator would be good at handling money.

I’m glad you liked the book Lisa. I was looking forward to your review which I so related to.

>39 kjuliff: I had avoided reviews too, Kate, although I had read your exchange with Alison regarding antisemitism. Like you, I found it an important part of the book. I also noted other things flying below the radar that made me question whether it were there or not. For instance,

had she been sexually abused by her eldest brother when she was a child? I found references in chapter two that made me wonder, then later she says she shouldn't complain because she had not suffered any serious injury, "no assault that had been reported, investigated and brought to trial", and then there is just the weirdness of bathing, soaping, and dressing her adult brother.

I wish I had purchased this book instead of borrowing it from the library. It is one I could see reading again and getting even more out of it.

>40 labfs39: I know what you mean by that spoiler alert. There were some other instances that didn’t quite gel. I forget which. I’d need to read it again. I thought I sensed survivors’ guilt there too. I kept wondering was I reading too much into this clever and concise book. Nevertheless the antisemitism is certainly there.

The not complaining bit you refer to in your spoiler alert, for me reminded me of the attitude of the boy in Fatelessness.

>38 labfs39: I have had this book on my holds list for several months, always with a bit of foreboding.

When I consider a book to read there are two important details that I look at. First is the global average rating for the book. Second is the number of 'similar' books I have read as coming from LT members. On this book it has an avg rating of around 3.2, which is far below what I would normally choose at 3.7+.
Contrary to that is the count of similar books which comes in at 12+, which is a strong number for me.

Your review helps me focus on content, or topic and what mood am I in to read this book. In this case I am trying to avoid such a deep self-introspection and your review leads me give the book a pass.

If you look at my current Wishlist of books I have tried to do this for myself. If I get into a book that I misjudged I will move on. Time is short!

>41 kjuliff: Yes, the survivor's guilt came through in that last passage I quoted in my review. She was other on so many different levels (due to her own oddness, her Jewishness, her inability to speak the local language, her gender) that I empathized, yet she was also batshit crazy as they say.

>42 JoeB1934: It's interesting that you mention the ratings, Joe. Members either seem to love it or hate it. There were lots of 1 and 2 star ratings as well as 4.5 and 5 stars. I find it interesting when a book is so polarizing. Knowing what I know of your reading, I'm not sure it would be your cuppa. I think you are safe on passing.

>38 labfs39: wow. Such a great review. The quotes leave me in a slight awe. I’m planning to get here in February.

Happy new year, Lisa. I love the idea of a free-range reader. It's a title I will aspire to. If there is room, I'd love to get in on a Philly-area meetup.

>45 dchaikin: Study for Obedience was different from anything I've read lately. The protagonist's voice lingers in my mind. Although much can be read between the lines of what the protagonist is telling us, little is made overt, and some readers have found this irksome. I'll be interested in your take, Dan. People seem to love or hate it from what I see in the LT reviews.

>46 Jim53: Absolutely, Jim. I hope to arrange something in the next couple of months, but of course these are the worst travel months. Needs to be before May though so that Jerry/rocketj can join us.

>38 labfs39: >39 kjuliff: >42 JoeB1934: >45 dchaikin: Outside Canada, Study for Obedience may be known for its Booker nomination, but as mentioned elsewhere, in Canada it won the Giller Prize, awarded in November 2023. The jury's citation read:
The modernist experiment continues to burn incandescently in Sarah Bernstein’s slim novel, Study for Obedience. Bernstein asks the indelible question: what does a culture of subjugation, erasure, and dismissal of women produce? In this book, equal parts poisoned and sympathetic, Bernstein’s unnamed protagonist goes about exacting, in shockingly twisted ways, the price of all that the world has withheld from her. The prose refracts Javier Marias sometimes, at other times Samuel Beckett. It’s an unexpected and fanged book, and its own studied withholdings create a powerful mesmeric effect.

Love the idea of "fanged".

https://scotiabankgillerprize.ca/sarah-bernstein-wins-the-2023-scotiabank-giller....

>48 SassyLassy: interesting re “the dismissal of women”. I didn’t especially see that though I can see why it could be interpreted that way. Though the fleeing and returning doesn’t fit that interpretation. Thanks for providing us with that citation.

>47 labfs39: I think many people want a clear-cut story in which a narrative explains a plot or a history. I enjoy the subtly of books like Stusy for Obedience, and to me it has more punch, is more akin to poetry than to a story.

>48 SassyLassy: Although my copy from the library is emblazoned with "Booker Shortlist", it doesn't mention the Giller. I am going to make a list of Giller Prize winners and start tracking how many I read. It seems like a great source of some new books for me.

As for the point about the subjugation of women, that is another theme that ran through the book that could be teased out and explored. I was unclear as to whether the protagonist had been abused, but clearly she was treated as less-than in her workplace, as well as by her family, and she mentions women who could never be journalists due to the male culture and sexual harassment. There are so many different ways the reader could approach this novel. I can see college students flocking to analyze it in their literature papers.

>49 kjuliff: I don't think it's an either/or proposition, Kate. I think there is both antisemitism and misogyny and lots of other things.

>50 kjuliff: I am sometimes turned off by unclear endings, but in this case, the ethereal nature of the entire book is, to me at least, a reflection of the disturbed nature of the narrator's mind, not just a stylistic choice, although that could be as well. I think by the end, even the narrator is confused as to her motive for her treatment of her brother. She "serves" him, yet she is also "not blameless", and is increasingly powerful vis-à-vis him. The role reversal both invigorates her and terrifies her, I think.

>51 labfs39: I’m the weirdo who loves awards AND loves spreadsheets so PM your email and I’ll send you my Giller Prize list.

Enjoyed your excellent review of Study for Obedience

>51 labfs39: I didn’t mean to refer to people who dislike unclear endings. I was referring to people. Who prefer their books to have a clear story with either a plot or a depiction of the lives or personalities of the characters. There can still be unclear endings in such books too.

From the reviews I’ve read, many people who disliked SfO were annoyed that it didn’t have a storyline, and even the country it was set in was not clear. For these people the book had no meaning. I have come across other books with no meaning - or at least I didn’t see or understand the meaning, and it is truly frustrating. I found a meaning in SfO and loved the prose.

Regarding the Giller Prize citation, I didn’t see anything of Javier Marias in SfO. Sometimes one has to wonder at why prizes are given out. I was checking the Australian Miles Franklin Award in search of something written by an Australian, and was surprised at some of the choices.

I know that in the end it comes down to individual preference but for me I only trust the Booker of late,

The Booker citation for Study for Obedience
A woman moves from the place of her birth to a ‘remote northern country’ to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has just left him. Soon after she arrives, a series of unfortunate events occurs: collective bovine hysteria; the death of a ewe and her nearly-born lamb; a local dog’s phantom pregnancy; a potato blight.

She notices that the community’s suspicion about incomers in general seems to be directed particularly in her case. She feels their hostility growing, pressing at the edges of her brother’s property. Inside the house, although she tends to her brother and his home with the utmost care and attention, he too begins to fall ill… 

And from the Booker Judges Study for Obedience is an absurdist, darkly funny novel about the rise of xenophobia, as seen through the eyes of a stranger in an unnamed town – or is it? Bernstein’s urgent, crystalline prose upsets all our expectations, and what transpires is a meditation on survival itself

It’s worth looking at the Booker web page on Study for Obedience but I’ll leave it here as I’m saying too much on your thread already.

Another take: A woman moves from the place of her birth to a ‘remote northern country’ ...She notices that the community’s suspicion about incomers in general seems to be directed particularly in her case.

Perhaps this could reflect in part Bernstein's experience moving to a small community in northern Scotland. Small communities, no matter where, are suspicious of newcomers, so any particular newcomer's idea that it is directed at them is entirely reasonable.

>57 SassyLassy: But the locals don’t have yellow thinning hair in Scotland and don’t use sacrificial pigs in their churches. Read what Sarah Bernstein said about her book. It’s on them Booker page and in one of the posts on my thread. And why would people have fled from their and then returned even though many of them were burned in pits?

>57 SassyLassy: I couldn’t help seeing how The Scotsman took it.

excerpt
One assumes from the first that they were Jews, and indeed the narrator confirms this when she says she had been a disappointment to her parents and teachers because of her refusal “to say bracha over our classroom Sabbath ceremonies”
(the “they” being the narrators family).

Moving on to my next reads, today I picked up two. First, I started The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata on my phone, when I was stuck without a book. When I got home, I picked up Peter Duck, the second (chronologically) in the Swallows and Amazons series, although numbered as 3. Very different works, but I have read one other book by each author and liked them both.

>60 labfs39: Kawabata is another writer I'd like to read more of, having really enjoyed Snow Country - I think it was one of the first books I read thanks to LT recommendations, soon after I joined. As for Arthur Ransome, those books were a massive part of my childhood. I was really disappointed when my daughter failed to warm to Swallows and Amazons!

>61 rachbxl: I really liked Snow Country too, Rachel. I only read Swallows and Amazons last year, but what a treat!

>38 labfs39: Great comments, Lisa. I will look for this one.

>44 labfs39: I do find it interesting when there are such widely varied comments on a book.

I just finished Sorry, which I think I heard about from you? It was wonderful. I will read more by Jones.

>63 BLBera: It's a book with lots to discuss, that's for sure. So many themes and issues are present.

There was an extended discussion on my thread last year about Sorry in particular, and Gail Jones in general, after I read her book, Five Bells. I loved Sorry too.

>64 labfs39: There must be a copyright issue - I. can’t get any Gail Jones on audio here. Same with some other Australian authors. One of my aims this year was to read more Australian novels but I’m having trouble getting audio editions, even when there are audio editions in Australia.

>64 labfs39: Did you like Five Bells more than Sorry, Lisa? I will definitely be reading more Jones.

>66 BLBera: No, I liked Sorry more, although Five Bells is good too. I'm looking to read Salonika Burning next, although Black Mirror is also on my wishlist.

>65 kjuliff: I'm sorry you aren't able to get any Jones on audio. I find that really odd. Talking books maybe?

>67 labfs39: No they are not in Talking Books. That’s no longer in existence. And the Braille library here in Manhattan does stock commercial audio books but they are just what you get on Audible US. I’ve had the same thing happen with movies. Books and movies are sold to certain countries where they have a copyright agreement, and if they haven’t then they aren’t available.

Edit: Just checked Gail Jones in Australia Kindle as an example -
“Sold by: PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE AUSTRALIA PTY LTD.”

See, it’s a separate company.

>67 labfs39: “audiobooks are protected by copyright law, just like written books or any other creative work. The audio recording of a book is considered a separate form of expression and enjoys legal protection.” - Audiobook Copyright Laws - Bytescare.

You’ll notice some books written before a certain date, become “out of copyright “ and then they are free to reproduce.

The US government program once known as Talking Books does still exist to provide Braille and audio book recordings to the blind and visually impaired. It's now called BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download). And a 1996 amendment to US copyright law allows certain nongovernment organizations and government agencies to provide copies/recordings of literary works in specialized formats exclusively for the use of blind/disabled people. So it's still out there, and there are relatively few copyright restrictions on what they can make available, but you can only access their titles if you're eligible to receive services from the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled.

>70 KeithChaffee: yes i use BARD - it is the name of the mobile app. It’s similar to Libby but for the blind.

The books on offer include older “Talking Books” which were on reel-t-reel tape and CD, now converted, and newer commercial books. I am aware of the availability of the mobile app - BARD, but the books we were discussing were published after digital access, and are not available, either because of copyright laws, or maybe they have not bothered to market them here.

Sorry I wrote doesn’t exist - I should have said “had a new way of distributing”. But that doesn’t really get across the other changes. Talking Books were on tape, recorded by professional and non-professional narrators. I was once a volunteer narrator but that was before I lost my sight, I do have the cassette player but prefer BARD.

Five Bells is not available through BARD or on tape cassette. Note BARD is only of use for the visually impaired who have digital access. The books I have available can be on tape cassette or through BARD. They are from the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library in Manhattan. The storage in the US was decentralized in 1974.

Please note, every country has its own laws and Talking Books have not been confined to the US. Australian copyright laws are not subject to US ones.

In any case I can’t get any books on audio in the US by Gail Jones.

>62 labfs39: I have been looking at Snow Country for a while new. I love Japanese literature. I’m adding to my rather lengthy tbr.

Only a few days into 2024 and I have tens of unread messages in your thread… Nevermind, I’m late, but want to wish you a happy new year, reading-wise and more generally.
I’ve seen that in many instances you pointed that it is an election year for you and it might make you worry and stress, so I hope things will sort out in the best way possible…

And please let me add my thanks to the chorus. I enjoy CR a lot and it is adding a lot to my reading list, but also to the enjoyment of my reading experience. So thanks a lot for all the time and energy you give to CR and to us!

>19 labfs39: and below It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything by Chekhov or watched a play. But I usually enjoy his short stories as well. I did not know « The Bet » and « The Darling », but now I want to read them, I’ll have to find them, they are probably already on my ereader (free ebooks are not always the best translations, but they make some works otherwise difficult to find pretty accessible).

>38 labfs39: I enjoyed reading the review of your first book of the year. I don’t think Study for Obedience would be a book for me (I think I have to face it, I usually don’t like books that are too subtle or open to interpretation.). I will probably pass if and when it is translated into French, but it’s great that such books exist and find so many readers who like them.

>64 labfs39: I’ve ordered Sorry in an on-line second hand bookshop a couple of days ago, as it is out of print in France. So it’s on its way and I hope to get to it fairly soon.

>72 kjuliff: I quite enjoyed Snow Country, mainly because of it's beautiful language, but also because of the evocation of a different time and place. So far The Old Capital has even less of a plot, but without the haiku-like language that so impressed me in Snow Country. It does however encapsulate a time and place perfectly: the kimono garment district of Kyoto.

>73 raton-liseur: Serial Reader makes use of free public domain translations as well, without even mentioning who the translator is, which irks me. But it is an easy way to digest some new works on my phone. I paid the $2.99 today to become a lifetime member and can now upload my own e-pubs to the app and have it serialized for me. I might try that at some point.

I'm glad you were able to find a used copy of Sorry. I know you've been intrigued by the discussion of it. I've felt bad that you and Kate have been unable to access it.

We are supposed to get snow tonight, the first since early November, a rarity in Maine when we usually expect snow from late October into April. I have a few things to tidy up outside, and then I hope to curl up with my books and e-reader and drink tea while waiting for it to begin.

I had purchased so many African books for last year's challenge, that I didn't use my Kindle after March of last year. I was amazed when I took it out that it still had a charge. I topped it off, and started reading The Old Capital on it. I love the ability to read at night in bed with the e-reader. I'm so glad I finally purchased one. Of course, I'll miss having a copy of the novel on my shelf, but space has recently become more of a premium.

My sister is having her house remodeled, and all of the kids books and craft supplies, etc. were brought to my house for the duration. She has gorgeous kids books, so I have purchased a 6' wide bookcase in order to have them out. It will replace two smaller cases that I will shoehorn in somewhere. I also bought industrial shelving for the basement as the classroom is burgeoning at the seams with craft supplies and science kits. Unfortunately shipping on the East Coast is being delayed at the moment due to the storm. In the meantime everything is heaped in the living room.

I finished another short story by Chekhov last night, "The Bishop". It's my least favorite so far, about Bishop Pyotr who is ill but continues his duties, receives a visit from his elderly mother and niece, and reflects on times past. The best part was his conflicted feelings about his mother who is unsure whether to treat him with the deference due his position or with ease as her son. Next up: "The Black Monk".

Unread E-Books:

2022
North to Paradise: A Memoir by Ousman Umar
Where the Desert Meets the Sea by Werner Sonne
American Seoul: A Memoir by Helena Rho
Light to the Hills by Bonnie Blaylock
Local: A Memoir by Jessica Machado
This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing by Jacqueline Winspear
The Singing Trees by Boo Walker (accidental purchase)

2023
Bird of Paradise by Ada Leverson (public domain)
The Limit by Ada Leverson (public domain)
The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
Kamusari Tales Told at Night (Forest Book 2) by Shion Miura
Where Waters Meet by Zhang Ling
The Wren and the Swordfish Pilot by Stella Hutchinson
Elizabeth's Star by Rhonda Forrest
The Lost Girl from Belzec: A WW2 Historical Novel, Based on a True Story of a Jewish Holocaust Survivor by Ravit Raufman
Ester and Ruzya: How My Grandmothers Survived Hitler's War and Stalin's Peace by Masha Gessen
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Guernsey Saga: The moving story of one English family under Nazi occupation by Diana Bachmann
Journey To The Heartland by Xiaolong Huang
Don't Forget to Write by Sara Goodman Confino
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
Scorpio by Marko Kloos
Freydis by Gunhild Haugnes

Happy New Year, Lisa. I mostly hang out with the 75ers, so it takes me awhile to get over and visit the other groups. Looking forward to following your reading in 2024. Study for Obedience sounds really good. Have you read North Woods yet? If not, it has been very good.

On the Chekhov front, I forgot to mention in my earlier post that I really enjoyed La Salle n°6/Ward No. 6 that I audio-read in 2014 according to LT memory (which is more accurate than mine).

>77 msf59: Hi Mark, thanks for making the jaunt over to Club Read. I haven't yet read North Woods, but I will, as I think Daniel Mason is great. My bird feeders are still empty much of the time, but I'm hoping that tonight's snowstorm will encourage the birds to take advantage of free food.

>78 raton-liseur: Ward No. 6 sounds interesting. I'll look for it.

Popping into this discussion a bit late, but I'm definitely putting Study for Obedience on my list of "next up" books. I love when a title can carry so much discussion and has a lot of possible interpretations.

Enjoy your snow day and ereader. I enjoyed your couple lines on The Bishop.

>76 labfs39: I haven’t read a single one of these

We’re due snow tonight as well, but I suspect your snowfall will be more spectacular than ours. I’m planning an evening by the fire with Kate Grenville.

>82 rachbxl: we are expected to get 8” of snow in NYC tonight. We’ve had no snow to speak of here so far this winter.

Which Kate Grenville are you reading? I read The Secret River on Kindle a long time ago, but can only remember that it’s about a settlement on the Hawkesbury River in NSW. From memory I really enjoyed it. I’ll be interest to read your review.

>80 lisapeet: Study for Obedience won't be everybody's cuppa, but I think you might find it interesting, Lisa.

>81 dchaikin: Some of these I purchased, but many are promotions by Amazon. As a prime member, I get one free e-book a month out of a choice of 10 or so and every year they have a World Book Day giveaway. Sometimes I don't bother with any of them, but sometimes there is something of interest. For instance, War and Me: A Memoir by Faleeha Hassan, The Ardent Swarm by Yamen Manai, and The Easy Life in Kamusari by Shion Miura were all freebies from Amazon that I quite enjoyed.

>82 rachbxl: We are currently in the 6-10" band, but I never count my snowflakes until they've accumulated. I did, however, get ready by first taking several bags of pine cones that fell in the last windstorm to the dump, and then a huge stack of cardboard to the recycle center, so that I could move the snowblower closer to the front of the garage. I can now get it out without having to move the car. Sweet. I also picked up all of Ace's balls so that they don't disappear in the drifts until spring. He was quite upset that I wouldn't let him keep them all out.

>83 kjuliff: It's hard to believe it's January with no snow on the ground. I have The Secret River on the shelves, but have not read it.

Happy new year and thanks a lot for hosting CR! I'm looking forward to following your reading this year. You made me very interested in the Chekhov's stories. The short stories I read are mostly speculative fiction and I would like to branch out a bit from this. I see that many short stories free of copyright are available in ebook form in French so maybe I'll pick up one and have a go at them. I had no idea he had written so many short stories! I knew him for his plays.

Also I enjoyed your review of Study of Obediance.

I wish I owned this book in paper, in part because the cover is so pretty.



The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata, translated from the Japanese by J. Martin Holman
Published 1962, revised English translation 2006, e-book

Chieko is a demure young woman who was abandoned as a baby, but raised in a loving home by an upscale fabric wholesaler and his wife in the kimono district of Kyoto. She meets a childhood friend to view the cherry blossoms, she discovers a woman who looks exactly like her while viewing the cedar forest of Kitayama, and she has a beautiful obi woven for her by a young man. Everything that happens is elegant, quiet, and slow.

But Chieko's story is almost a sidebar to the city of Kyoto itself. The author lovingly depicts the natural beauties of the former capital in each season, as well as the shrine festivals which mark the passing of the seasons. Someone more familiar with Japanese culture than I would understand the references better, but even I had a sense of the understated love of tradition and nature that Kawabata expresses. Although I did not find the writing as inspired as in his earlier novel Snow Country, I found it relaxing to spend a couple of hours immersed in this world.

>76 labfs39: The Quiet American would be a good snowstorm book. I can't remember whether you have a generator or not.

The storm is expected here tomorrow.

>87 labfs39: The old capital looks like something I would enjoy in the right mood. And I'm intrigued by two of the memoirs in your list from post 76 above - American Seoul and Ester and Ruzya.

If you read Where waters meet, I'll be interested in your take on it. I read A single swallow last year, and though I enjoyed it, I was disappointed in that I felt it didn't tell the story from a Chinese perspective, especially the female character who is so central to the men's story. The synopsis of Where waters meet sounds like it will at least center a woman's perspective.

I can recommend two on your list: The hired man by Aminatta Forma and Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi.

>87 labfs39: i love that cover too. Interesting find. The book sounds beautiful inside too. Perhaps I should check out Snow Country.

>83 kjuliff: "we are expected to get 8” of snow in NYC tonight."

Not right in the city, at least according to The NY Times. Just outside the city, though, it looks like folks might get hammered. From the Times article:

"There is a chance that cities, including New York — where the emergency management department on Friday warned residents to prepare for “snow, rain, breezy winds, and minor coastal flooding” — may squeak out an inch of accumulating snow or more through Sunday. It has been almost 700 days since Central Park last received an inch of snow in a single day.

As much as a foot of snow could fall in northeast New Jersey, the Hudson Valley just north of New York City, and southwest Connecticut, forecasters said on Saturday."
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/05/us/winter-storm-forecast-noreaster.html

My weather app says "0.95 inches expected in the next 24 hours."

Anyway, that's the info I've got.

I'm writing this at 3:20 pm in Harlem. We've got snow falling right now, kind of in the heavy flurry range.

>83 kjuliff: I’m reading One Life: My Mother’s Story, Kate Grenville’s reconstruction of her mother Nance’s life. I’ve read several of her other books, including The Secret River, and really enjoyed them all, but my favourite is The Idea of Perfection.

>84 labfs39: see? Much more spectacular. I wouldn’t know what to do with a snowblower if I had one! If we do get any of this promised snow tonight and tomorrow it’ll be more like 6-10 flakes than 6-10”.

>85 labfs39: I think you’d like The Secret River.

>87 labfs39: I am sold! Even if you didn’t like The Old Capital quite as much as Snow Country it sounds well worth reading, mainly for the quiet immersion in another time and place.

>90 dchaikin: Snow Country is beautiful, Dan. I second Lisa’s recommendation. It was years ago, soon after I joined LT, but I remember being mesmerised by it.

>86 chlorine: It's quite remarkable that Chekhov wrote so many short stories (plus one novel and seven plays), considering he died at age 44. I am curious now too to read a biography. He evidently wrote frenetically at the beginning to support his parents and siblings.

>88 SassyLassy: I don't own a generator yet, but I there are several in the family, so I usually end up with one when needed. I live off the main trunk line, so rarely are we without power long. It's supposed to start snowing around 8pm tonight, here in southern Maine.

>89 markon: I agree that The Old Capital is best enjoyed when in the mood for a quiet low-action read.

I almost always choose a memoir when faced with a limited selection of promo titles. Even if poorly written, I almost always learn something from a memoir as opposed to a dubious novel. The Hired Man and Americanah are two of the books I purchased.

>90 dchaikin: I liked Snow Country. It's bleaker, and with a rather unlikable main character, but there's more going on. Both feel very Japanese to me, meaning restrained, with a focus on the details of nature. For instance, in The Old Capital, a pair of violets are described several times in different seasons, and in Snow Country dead insects are examined. Nothing in nature is too small or insignificant to warrant observation.

>91 rocketjk: I hope you have a good book going, and can stay snug and warm while the storm passes.

>93 rachbxl: If we do get any of this promised snow tonight and tomorrow it’ll be more like 6-10 flakes than 6-10”.

Ha, ha, ha! I do remember it snowing on me in Belgium back when I was a student many, many years ago. The flakes were drifting down, and I was wandering Brussels with a girl from Perth that I had met in a hostel. Some guy invited us to a bar that was decorated like a funeral home, with dead flowers, coffins, and waiters dressed like undertakers. I even have a picture of me wiping snow out of my hair while holding this cheap framed painting of a young boy nearly in tears that I had bought at a flea market. That's my memory of Belgium in the snow.

We're getting flurries here in the NW Bronx (a few miles north of Jerry) that look like they're going to turn into a wet wintry mix any minute. I just finished the book I've been reading for ages (Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook) and am thinking whether I want to download the library hold that just came in (Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore's Touching the Art) or go for something a bit shorter and lighter in between the two for my bad weather read.

>94 labfs39: " I am curious now too to read a {Chekhov} biography."

I highly recommend Chekhov by Henri Troyat. Troyat was a great biographer. I look at his works list will show you the range of his work writing, especially focused on Russian and French authors and Russian rulers.

>91 rocketjk: Thank you for that. I’m on East 93rd, not so far from you. I get really scared when it’s like this as I can’t get out. I hope my carer can get to me. She’s in East Harlem. Earlier I could see some snow falling. I have just been in denial.

>92 rachbxl: I’d forgotten about Kate Grenville - I’ll have to read some more of her books. I used to really like another Australian writer, Janet Turner Hospital but haven’t read anything since Oyster.

>96 lisapeet: The Club Read weather report is better than News Channel 6. I was convinced by Jennifer/japaul and several others on her thread to start The Seventh Cross as my storm read. It's gripping, but I know things aren't going to end well. Thankfully I've got Peter Duck to switch to when things get too bleak.

>97 rocketjk: I actually own Troyat's biography of Chekhov (and one on Tolstoy). According to LT I've read them, but I think that may have been an error when I was adding my data back in 2008. I may dig it out and add it to the queue.

>98 kjuliff: >99 kjuliff: Good luck with the storm, Kate, and I hope your carer isn't impeded. I also hope you have better luck finding Grenville's works on audio.

>100 labfs39: I just checked. There are plenty of Kate Grenville on Audible. This usually means they be available at the “ Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library” which I can access via BARD, which is handy as they are free with no limits or holds. The downside is that they are often older versions.

I have Kerangal’s Eastbound available at my local library or Audible, but they are later editions than the BARD one which is free and no hold. Also, the narrator is not as good as in the newer editions. I can’t decide whether to save the money or wait or get the BARD One. It’s just a 2 hour read so I probably should buy it from Audible.

>95 labfs39: Was the girl from Perth Australia, and if so, do you remember her name? I mean the likelihood that I know her is pretty small, but then so is Perth. When we were staying at a game lodge in South Africa a few years ago it turned out that one of our guides was good friends with my niece's husband's cousin. So you never know 😉.

>95 labfs39: What a great image! When was that? So, no snow here in the end although it did freeze overnight. How much have you had?

>99 kjuliff: Hadn’t heard of Janet Turner Hospital so I’m off to check her out.

>101 kjuliff: Eastbound is one of the books I've been looking forward to from Archipelago. I'll look forward to your impressions when you get to it.

>102 rhian_of_oz: Gosh, you know, I don't remember her name although she's in that photo, so I remember her face. Her name will be in the journal that I kept at the time. If I ever dig it out, I'll let you know. She was a lot of fun, and I've always had a good impression of Perth because of her.

>103 rachbxl: We've only had 4" so far, but it's only 7am and it's supposed to snow all day, so we'll see. It's almost light enough to start snow blowing, but I'm putting it off until I drink my coffee. I don't want to let it get ahead of me, but it's snowing pretty hard at the moment. It's always discouraging to get to the end of the driveway and find an inch already on the ground behind you.

On that same trip (I was studying in France, and used to take excursions when I had the time and money), I went to Utrecht. I was on a bus into the countryside, looking out the window admiring the snow-covered fields dotted with sheep, when all of a sudden a commotion broke out on the bus. These elderly women were chattering away in increasing agitation. Finally one of them shouts at me in a heavy accent, "Get off! Get off!" They had guessed, correctly, that I was headed to a nearby hostel and were worried I would miss it. As the bus pulled away, one side of the bus was crowded with women waving and smiling at me. Another great memory.

Good luck with the snow today, Lisa. Sounds like a perfect day to curl up with a book or 2.

Those are great memories. Hope the snow isn’t any worse than predicted up by you—we got a dusting and a lot of cold drizzle. It’s in the mid-30s, supposed to snow this afternoon and then go back to rain.

Kate, was your caregiver able to make it to you OK? I think in NYC right now the bigger threat to getting around is the state of the subways…

>106 lisapeet: Yes, she came. She’s a lovely person. She’s not far, East Harlem, and at a pinch, can walk. We ended up not having any snow coverage. It was more in the north of the island - Bronx- and NJ.

>105 msf59: Thanks, Mark. We've got about 8" and it's still snowing steadily. I just finished the first round of snowblowing and shoveling.

My drought at the bird feeder has officially ended. The snow has driven a flock of juncos, some titmouses/titmice?, a mourning dove, and a pair of cardinals to the feeder so far this morning.

>106 lisapeet: The predictions went from 4-6" to 6-10 to 9-14 and my neighbor just told me she heard 16". So who knows? It's still coming down fairly steadily so far this morning. I looked like the abominable snowman coming in from snowblowing.

>107 kjuliff: I'm glad your carer was able to make it, Kate. Snow removal in the city is harder than snow in the country, I'm glad the worst of it missed you.

Now for some tea and my book!

>100 labfs39: The Club Read weather report is better than News Channel 6.
Here in greater Boston - or at least my little bit of it - we haven't got too much, though it is still snowing. My town has had less than 3" so far. I should really go out and clear off/dig out my car before it turns to wet winter mix and gets all heavy and difficult to move. But I don't want to. :(

Enjoy your tea and book!

I think often I prefer more straightforward novels, but the writing in your excerpts from Study for Obedience is so striking (and if I only read in my perfect comfort zone that's hardly in the spirit of things). Definitely immediately putting that on hold at the library.

>94 labfs39: Yes I was amazed to learn that Chekhov died at 44 when he has written so much. I was also quite surprised at his choice of starting writing to try and make money. This makes me wonder at how lives was organised for him and people around him as this would not seem a practical thought at all for anybody I know today. This worked very well for him though, obviously. :)

I read The black monk and while I found it well written and enjoyed it, the point of the story eluded me. This was still a nice change from what I'm currently reading and I'll read the other stories in the collection I picked up. Thanks for bringing my attention to him!

I wish you a good start to the new week.

>109 Julie_in_the_Library: We ended up with about 13", Julie. If it really does get up to 50F on Wednesday, with 2" of rain, we are going to have some massive flooding. I just can't figure this weather out. It's 11F currently.

When I bought my house three years ago, one of the things I was really hoping for was a garage, and thankfully this house has one. Not having to shovel out vehicles is a definite plus.

>110 mabith: Study for Obedience is not straightforward, as you can tell by all the conflicting interpretations, but it's interesting, and short. I'll be curious as to your take when you get to it, Meredith.

>111 chlorine: I think I'm going to read his biography next, Clémence. I'm very curious about him now too. Since I'm reading Chekhov's stories on Serial Reader, I only read a few minutes a day before bed, so it takes me a while. "Black Monk" is divided into 6 days. "The Bishop" didn't have much of a point, either, at least that I could garner, but his characters are depicted so warmly that I can't help but enjoy them.

>112 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara, you too! The kids are going to be late today, everyone's still doing snow removal and it's very cold, so I have a little extra reading time before they arrive.

>113 labfs39: I think there is a point to The black monk, I just meant to say that I wasn't able to get it. ;) I'll be interested to hear about what you think of his biography when you get to it.

I had purchased this novel during my meetup at the Strand in NYC this summer. Lots of positive buzz on Jennifer/japaul23's thread this month made me pull it off the shelf.



The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers, translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo
Published 1942 in both German and English, 402 p., NYRB

Netty Reiling, pen name Anna Seghers, was a German Jew and a communist, both of which made her a target when the National Socialists came to power in 1933. She fled with her Marxist husband and two children to Paris, and then had to flee again in 1940 when the Germans occupied France. She stayed in Mexico City until 1947 when she returned to East Germany. Her experiences as a communist and having to continually flee, one step ahead of the Nazis, lend authenticity to the novel, as does the research she did into conditions within prison camps at the time. Her novel was extremely popular in the US and was made into a movie starring Spencer Tracey in 1944 and an abridged edition was given to US soldiers going to the European theatre, although many of the references to communism were deleted. The main character was seen as a symbol of successful resistance, as well as the book as a whole being a window into the German psyche.

Although divided into seven chapters, taking place over seven days, the novel moves between the main character, George Heisler, and thirty other characters in over 100 episodes. The continual movement between characters and scenes might have been choppy in another author's hands, but instead works well here, creating increasing tension. The novel opens in a prison barracks, with the prisoners wondering if the seventh escapee is still at large. We then immediately switch to descriptions of the countryside outside Mainz as a young man, Franz Marnet, pedals his bike through the early morning fog on his way to work. At the factory, he learns of an escape from the nearby concentration camp of seven prisoners, one of whom he might know. It is only then that George Heisler is introduced, hiding in a ditch outside the camp, heart-pounding and desperate. Although George's desperate attempt to reach safety is the main plotline, the back and forth between him and the other escapees, people he knows, his family, and the guards at the camp creates an almost unbearable tension. As one by one the other escapees are captured and George's situation becomes increasing tenuous, I had to put the book down to break the spell, only to find myself drawn back to it, unable to escape as well.

The situation of German communists, labor organizers, and others in the years 1933 to the start of the war was a time period about which I was not well versed. I knew that many were sent to prisons such as Dachau, but the conditions and treatment of communists both by the SA and by everyday Germans was complex. Families sometimes contained both SS members and communists. Former party members might still be loyal, but silent, or they may have succumbed to societal pressure and economics. Communities might come together to help a neighbor on the run, or might isolate an entire family. Segher's novel sheds light on these complexities while at the same time being very straightforward and realistic. Although parts of it read like an adrenaline-driven escape novel, on another level it's a testament to the ties that bind people even when faced with unbearable consequences. And although some people will break under pressure, others find the strength to resist, even unto death.

>115 labfs39: Enticing review Lisa. I too was taken by Jennifer @japaul23's thread and have The Seventh Cross on my tbr list. It was a choice between Vengeance is Mine and The Seventh Cross. I chose the former as I need to move away from books set in Germany, having read three already this month.

Showing that not all buckled under the Nazi regime was what Anne Funder was trying to achieve in All That I Am which also gives a lot of information on German communists pre-WWII.

>115 labfs39: I’ve been thinking about this since I read Jennifer’s post and here it is again. I think it’s great that you followed up on her review and read this too. I loved your review too. I can sense the intensity. (I think recently reading Prophet Song influenced my reaction.) This goes on my reading ideas list.

>115 labfs39: Thank you for this wonderful review. My local library has a copy of it. I'll put it on my watch list.

>115 labfs39: Great comments, Lisa. This has been on my shelf for a long time. Maybe it's time to dust it off.

>114 chlorine: I'm not quite finished with "The Black Monk," but I'm thinking the guy is bipolar. Quite an odd story.

>116 kjuliff: I sometimes like it when I getting reading on a theme, or in your case, from a country, but there are so many books calling my name that I get called away again.

I think Seghers does a good job of balancing the bleakness of the violence and groupthink of the time with hope. She does not pull punches with the brutality of the Nazi regime and the fate that awaits those who don't fall in line. The seven crosses of the title are for the seven trees that await the recaptured escapees and upon which they will be tortured. And many men and women break under duress or even the threat of it, but as one character remarks, the Gestapo isn't, contrary to popular belief, omniscient, they only know what they are told. I like that she includes all sorts of people in her sweep, and it's not obvious who is going to turn out to be an important player.

>117 dchaikin: One of the advantages of my return to serendipitous reading is that I can react to an interesting review quickly, without the feeling of having to shoehorn something in. In this case, The Seventh Cross is a book I bought this summer, and I have another book by this author on my shelves as well. But, I think next up will be a Chekhov biography that Jerry/rocketj mentioned. My interest in Chekhov has been aroused as well, both by my reading on Serial Reader and CR chatter. Fun to be able to pivot midstream.

>118 Ameise1: I found it a bit slow for the first ten pages or so, but the book gathered steam and I was sucked in. I'll be curious what you think when you get to it.

>119 BLBera: She's an interesting author, for sure, Beth. Worth the investment, I think. I also have her novel Transit on my shelves, a book rebeccanyc recommended highly. It's about people (Jews, communists) waiting in Marseille for transit papers to get out of Europe on the last boat ahead of the Nazis. Transit was "written soon after Seghers herself fled from Marseille to Martinique (on the same ship as Claude Levi-Strauss, Victor Serge, and Andre Breton, all traveling on visas arranged by Varian Fry)." Quite the passenger list.

Next up?



Chekhov by Henri Troyat perhaps, as well as a return to Peter Duck.

Hi, Lisa! Apologies for my shamefully long first visit to your thread.

Fabulous review of Study for Obedience! I'll request a copy from one of my local library systems today.

I also want to read Yasunari Kawabata's works. I'm sure that I own a copy of Snow Country, even though LT tells me that I don't.

We had significant flooding here in the Delaware Valley after Winter Storm Finn. Fortunately the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers are far enough away that I wasn't personally affected, but the even closer Neshaminy Creek (really a river) did have moderate to severe flooding, and some residents in my township who live along its banks had to temporarily evacuate their homes. Unfortunately this weekend's system is supposed to dump as much as 2 more inches of rain, so things could be just as bad, if not worse.

I definitely want to participate in a LibraryThing meet up in Philadelphia if I can, but I don't want others to have to wait for me. The best time for me to go would be when my cousin from Michigan visits us, and stays with my mother in my absence. I can let y'all know when Tina visits; she usually comes every 1-2 months, and she told me that she plans to come from January 25-29, weather permitting. That will probably be too soon, though.

If we do have a meet up I would suggest inviting some of the members of the 75 Books group, particularly Mary (@bell7); we tried to get together when she and her sister were in the City last year, but I couldn't make it work. Katharine (@qebo) should be invited as well, as she lives in Lancaster, PA and can take Amtrak to 30th Street Station. It's even easier for me to come, by car or train.

>120 labfs39: you’re truly free range 🙂 I hope to hear more about Chekhov here.

>120 labfs39: Good review of The Seventh Cross which complements japaul's. I liked your follow up comments.

I read Transit after reading rebecca's review. I think it is an even better book than The Seventh Cross, so hope you are able to get to it soon.

I have Transit on my TBR shelf too. I hope to get to it soon. The Seventh Cross is a book that has really stuck with me.

>122 kidzdoc: Hi Darryl, thank you for visiting, I know you have a lot on your plate these days. I am glad that you were not effected personally by the flooding, though I feel for anyone who is. Being forced out of your home in winter is particularly difficult.

I think we could get quite a group together for a Philly meetup. January is a tough time to plan a get together that folks flying in from the upper Midwest, Texas, and the Northeast could get to without delays or cancellations. Let us know as soon as Tina has planned her next trip, and I think we should go for it. Dan/dchaikin, Jerry/rocketj, Katherine/qebo, and Jim/Jim53 (a new CR member) have all expressed interest in getting together. 75ers would of course be welcome too, but you would have to invite them, as I don't know as many over there, or where they are from.

>123 dchaikin: I feel like a chicken, pecking here and there, but I'm happy.

>124 SassyLassy: Thanks, Sassy. Good to know that Transit is as good or better. Hopefully I won't get as anxious reading it. Have you seen the Spencer Tracey movie of Seventh Cross? I read that the actor playing Paul Roeder was even nominated for an Academy Award.

>125 arubabookwoman: You may get to Transit before I, Deborah. I am still processing 7th Cross and may hold off on jumping back into Seghers world. But who knows? I'm playing everything by ear this year.

>121 labfs39: That's a blast from the past. I read a lot of Henri Troyat in my teens - he was heavily translated in Bulgarian. I still consider him one of the best (kinda) Western biographers of the Russian authors and politicians :)

Lisa, you'd really done it! I'm still trying to go free range and have decided that, for the first time in years, not to read the entire list for the Tournament of Books after the last one I read turned out to be the worst book I've read in years. So a little more freedom and room to grab what looks interesting at the moment.

>127 AnnieMod: I have a couple of Troyat's bios (Chekhov and Tolstoy) and may have read then in my early twenties, but I didn't retain them. I'm a few chapters into Chekhov and am enjoying it. I was surprised to see that it's translated by Michael Henry Heim, whom I think of as a translator of Czech books, in part because he wrote my Czech language textbook, but no, he translated from eight languages. He was also the anonymous donor behind the creation of the PEN Translation Fund (using his life savings). Rebeccanyc had a biography of Heim on her to-read list. I may look for it.

>128 RidgewayGirl: I've never been a prize junkie, but I have enjoyed geographic challenges. They do expose me to new authors and countries, but after two years of focus, I was ready for a break. Even without a challenge, I've read books by a Canadian, a Japanese, and a German author so far this month, so I'm happy.

The novel Transit was very good. There was a film made based on this novel as well-it is worth looking for.

Just stopping by to say thank you for visiting my thread and leaving such encouraging comments.

Henri Troyat is not an author I've ever seen on LT other than my own reading of him, although I've only read his fiction and not his historical works. I enjoy his ease of writing and I find him to be an easy page-turner. Kind of like Stefan Zweig. I love Zweig but have only read his fiction and not his biographies. This makes me curious as to if I have another Troyat on my TBR pile ready to pick up.

As for Kawabata, I have given up on trying his works. He's just one Japanese author I've never enjoyed reading.

>130 torontoc: Interesting that the film was adapted to the present time. I'm intrigued.

>131 lilisin: And I only knew Troyat as a biographer. I had no idea he was so prolific and diverse in his writing. I'm curious now to try his fiction. Do you have a favorite you would recommend?

If I had read The Old Capital first, I'm not sure I would have continued to seek Kawabata out, Nobel or no. But some of the writing in Snow Country was IMO exquisite. I have a collection of very short works by him called Palm of the Hand Stories. I would like to try that before I stop reading him.

>132 labfs39:

Troyat's most famous fiction work would most likely be La Neige en deuil which is translated as The Mountain in English but good luck finding a copy of that one. But it is a superb tale that follows two brothers and their relationship after a plane has crashed in the mountain and one brother wants to go after to scavenge the wreckage. I really think it deserves a re-publishing.

Kawabata's train scene at the beginning of Snow Country was exquisite but my interest quickly waned as the two characters fluttered around each other. I think I just really disagree with Kawabata's portrayal of male and female characters. I do think it has a bit to do with my bad experience with Japanese men here in Japan and Kawabata loves to portray these men with all their worse traits.

>133 lilisin: The male protagonist in Snow Country was horrible to the women in his life, and I'm sorry you have experienced similar in Japan. In The Old Capital, if you haven't read it, the sisters seem to have a little more agency, but one of them squanders it by being exceedingly compliant to her parents' wishes, or even perceived wishes. I know little about Japanese culture, but Kawabata seems to romanticize the traditional and yearn for the past.

I'm currently reading Chekhov, an interesting biography, and also well-written. Here is a description of one of Chekhov's acquaintances:

Another remarkable rowdy among the bohemian fauna was Vladimir Gilyarovsky, a journalist with Russian News and a stocky, ruddy-faced, booming-voice man who took great pride in his iron-man musculature, his faultless memory, and his diabolic dexterity in performing card tricks. At the drop of a hat he would proffer his biceps or smash a chair. He worked at a thousand and one occupations: he had been a Volga barge hauler, a stevedore, a factory worker, a circus acrobat, a horse trainer... His head was fall of salacious stories, which he accompanied with the guffaws of an ogre.

>38 labfs39: Interesting review of Study for Obedience. Did you feel she was a reliable narrator?

Enjoyed your excellent review of The Seventh Cross. Another timely reminder of life under a fascist regime for those people that are not in agreement with it.

>136 AlisonY: I did feel she was an unreliable narrator, Alison. That plus being the only voice we hear makes it difficult to know to what extent her paranoia was justified. Clearly making straw figures and distributing them to doorsteps during the night is odd at best. And by the end she has somehow flipped the power dynamic with her brother (did he have a stroke? did she somehow overpower him? It's unclear), but she's torturing and confining him somehow. Despite that, I do feel that there was prejudice and ostracization, superstition and antisemitism at play too, on the part of the villagers. It's just unclear the extent of the threat they constituted (at least in the present day).

>137 baswood: It was interesting how Seghers depicted so many different attitudes and levels of behavior. It was not simply a matter of resisting or complying. It was how far were you willing to go to resist or how far were you willing to bend your beliefs to comply. Remaining neutral becomes less and less of an option. You can try to hide your agreement or disagreement, but eventually you are faced with a situation in which you have to do something: abet, aid, turn a blind eye, run away, hang yourself. And whatever action you choose comes with a price. To yourself and others. Seghers also shows how even the most ardent supporters could get tangled in their own nets and find themselves on the other side of the interrogation table. Have you read Seghers before, Barry? I think you would like her.

>115 labfs39: I’ve been trying to find The Seventh Cross in audio, as it looks like a good followup to All That I Am which was set in Germany between 1922 and the mid 30’s when a group of German communists, some Jewish, fled Germany and continued their active opposition to Hitler in England. Unfortunately there’s only an old Talking Books version and the narrator is very flat. All That I Am was spoiled by a bad narrator so I’m unsure whether to try this one.

I'm so glad you enjoyed The Seventh Cross. I did really enjoy Transit as well. I enjoyed your review.

>139 kjuliff: I checked too. 🙁

>141 dchaikin: I’m going with the Talking Books version. The human narrator is not to bad. She’s reading it straight without emotion. It’s a bit flat but not grating. Anyway I’ll see how it goes.

>139 kjuliff: >141 dchaikin: I will probably also take it as audio, but in German. They are usually very well narrated, but of course I don't know how it is with this book.

I'm happy to keep the enthusiasm for Seventh Cross and Anna Seghers rolling. I hope the audio works out.

Meanwhile, the Chekhov bio continues to be interesting. I had no idea he spent his first years writing humor snippets for magazines. I haven't read much by him that I would consider humorous, but that's how he cut his teeth, writing solely to make money to support his parents and siblings.

It's a rainy, sleety, windy day today, perfect reading weather. The only other thing on the agenda is putting together some metal shelving for the basement. The kids' science and art supplies are overwhelming the classroom.

>145 labfs39: Unfortunately the audio version from the Braille and Talking Books library didn’t work out, due to the quality of the narration. I could tell it should be a good read but the reader’s voice was almost monotone and I gave up after a concerted one hour of listening. I expect a commercial version will come out so I’m keeping it on my tbr.

Top of 57 degrees expected here today!
Have fun with the shelving.

Stopping by to say hello, drop a star and let you know I'm currently reading Study for Obedience. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. It's a bit eery, but I like it and will probably finish it later today.

>138 labfs39: I am tempted to find something by Anna Seghers

>145 labfs39: Good luck with the shelving. I am trying to put together a bamboo clothes drying rack, and it isn't going well.

>146 kjuliff: Sorry the talking books audiobook didn't work out. Did you try the audible one? It's narrated by Piers Hampton. I don't know if you like him.

The temp here has crept up to 41F, so straight rain now instead of sleet. It's going to be a mess though once the temp drops to freezing around midnight. Then it's light snow tomorrow on top of all this slush. We still have several inches of snow on the ground right now, but with the continuing rain, it may disappear. How are our friends in the Midwest and North Atlantic doing?

>147 Trifolia: Hi Monica! Eerie is a good word for Study for Obedience. I look forward to your thoughts when you finish.

>148 baswood: I think you would like Seghers, Barry. I think her biography would be interesting too, if there is one. I look forward to your impressions if you do read her.

>149 markon: Thanks, Ardene. I don't have a mallet, so I'm making due with a hammer and a board book (dinosaur with googly eyes), which is slowing things down. The first (of three) is up, and although a little wobbly, it's serviceable and now filled with science and craft kits. Good luck with your clothes rack. A lot less hammering involved there, I would imagine.

And by the way, I think it was on your thread that I was finally convinced to give Murderbot a try. My hold on the first one came in yesterday, and I read it this morning. I loved it. Excellent writing and compelling main character. In my mind I immediately thought of Murderbot as female. Did you unconsciously assign a gender to it? If so, which? I found my own reaction interesting, and I wonder why I assigned it a female gender.

>115 labfs39: Oh, another review of The Seventh Cross. I’ve not read your review as I own this book and want to read it soon (I’ve been meaning to read it for a while now, and CR might give me the push to do so at last!)

>120 labfs39: I am with you on how good it feel to go back to some more serendipitous reading. But even by doing so I feel I already have too much to read: apart from the book I am currently reading and its sequel, I want to read The Seventh Cross, The Black monk, Sorry that just arrived by mail today, and… and…

>132 labfs39: and >133 lilisin: On the contrary, for me, Troyat was a novelist and I did not know he was a biographer (and one that is still read). There are a lot of Troyat at my parents’ home, I think M’man Raton (my mum) did read a lot of them when she was young and he was a trendy author. I have not read La Neige en deuil but I think in my teen’s, I’ve read the entire series La lumière des justes about the links and revolutions in France and Russia in the 19th century. An easy-to-read story, and I am surprised I have not logges any Troyat book in my LT library!

Hi Lisa - I am glad to see another Murderbot fan. I was surprised at how much I like them. I have listened to all of them and the narrator is male, so I think of Murderbot as male although I've seen a few discussions about its gender and many do think of it as female. That is so interesting. I kind of wish I had read them vs. listening. I wonder if that would have made a difference.

I finished "The Black Monk" today, a short story of Anton Chekhov. SPOILERS FOLLOW It's about Kovrin, a young professor, who falls in love with the daughter of a fanatical gardener who practically raised him. Kovrin spends the summer with the father and daughter seeking respite from his increasing anxiety and insomnia. There he is visited by the apparition of The Black Monk. Kovrin is increasingly excited by the discussions that he has with the monk, and is full of energy, charismatic, and needs little sleep. Shortly after marrying Tanya, however, he is forced to accept that his hallucinations are an indication of mental illness, not genius. He accepts treatment and becomes very depressed and cruel to Tanya who leaves him. As he is dying, he is visited by the monk and is found dead on the floor with a smile on his face.

I was lost at first as to the point of the story, but it became increasingly clear to me that Chekhov was describing a man with bipolar disorder. Evidently Chekhov, a doctor by training, had become interested in psychiatry about the time of his writing this story, and, according to his brother, had had a dream about a black monk. From the biography that I am reading, this makes sense, as Chekhov mined ideas for his stories from every aspect of his life and the lives of those around him. The megalomania, delusions of grandeur, lack of need for sleep, heightened senses and emotions, and charismatic behavior are typical bipolar symptoms and is often followed by depression, as with Kovrin. Life feels flat and uninteresting and patients often miss the excitement of mania. I am happy to stop my analysis of the story here, although some critics have gone further saying that Chekhov is implying that having a dream is better than not, even if it is based on delusion.

>151 raton-liseur: I had a hard time getting into The Seventh Cross but only for the first 20-30 pages, then I was hooked.

I am with you on how good it feel to go back to some more serendipitous reading. But even by doing so I feel I already have too much to read
I know what you mean. My read-next shelf is almost as full now as it was when I was preparing for the Africa challenge and pulled all my African books. I'm still enjoying the freedom to read based on whims of the moment, however, so that shelf may or may not be read.

Just a note that I read the short story, "The Black Monk," not the collection of short stories with the same name. I'm not sure which you are intending.

So interesting about Troyat. I am going to keep an eye out for some of his fiction, as I like his writing style in the biography I'm reading. Evidently Troyat's historical fiction benefited from the research he did when writing his nonfiction.

>152 BLBera: I do find the different ways people perceive Murderbot's gender interesting. I can see how listening to a male narrator who lead a listener to think of MB as male. In the book, however, the author is very careful never to assign gender, and MB even talks about not having a gender. It's evidently difficult for me not to do so, as I clearly think of MB as female. Which is strange in and of itself since MB is a security guard cyborg, not usually portrayed as female in popular culture.

I can't wait to get to the next book in the series!

>150 labfs39: This is so strange. I can see now that Audible had it. But nothing came up when I did the search. I always check Audible first. I often mistype as I can’t see what I type :( . I tried with Anna Seghers but only Transit came up. So when Dan ( >141 dchaikin:) said he couldn’t find it I was confident it wasn’t there.

I just tried both again and nada. But when I click in your Audible link it come up.

However Dan was correct. I also get this message -

“ This title is not available for you
Sorry, this title is no longer available. Please try using the search feature as another version of this work may be available. If you think we've made a mistake, please contact Audible Customer Care at 1-888-283-5051.”

>150 labfs39: Another murderbot fan here. I really think "it" (they?) is androgynous & asexual. But it's hard for me to picture this, so I think my brain defaults to male as I've listened to the last few on audio.

I swear, if there's a way to do it wrong on putting together things, I will find it. I did get the small holes on the inside of the ends, but they forgot to tell me that the ends of the rack should mirror each other, so of course I put one on upside down and had to take it apart. It is now happily drying clothes while I play on the computer.

>155 kjuliff: Weird. I have only used Audible a few times, so I am a novice at the intricacies and foibles of the program.

>156 markon: I really think "it" (they?) is androgynous & asexual. But it's hard for me to picture this, so I think my brain defaults to...

I agree. It's interesting to me that I defaulted to female, despite it going against the stereotype. Were there contextual clues that prompted me in this direction, or did my brain assign the same gender as my own? I wish I could be inside my own thought process in this. I was several chapters in before I even realized I had done it.

Sadly, I too have struck a problem in my assembly. Two of the brackets are either bent, or two of the L-shaped posts are. All the others have fit together fine, but now I'm stuck with a 3/4 assembled shelf, and no way to go forward. Very frustrating. I'm ready to throw the whole thing out in the snow!

I tried calling them but it was useless. I note that Google Play also has the same edition advertised but it throws an error when you go to buy it. So there seems to be a general problem with is book. Dan and I are both regular Audible users and we can’t get it. I’m assuming a copyright problem from my call to Audible. I’ve never had this problem before.

I at last found out why The Seventh Cross is not available in audio. Apparently Anna Seghers put a restriction on this edition being sold in the USA.

“Title Not For Sale In This Country/Region
We're sorry, Audible is not authorized to sell this title in your country/region. Please consider another book.
Remove from Wish List”

I'm not sure where I caught the Murderbot fever: Florence? Ardene? Chlorine? Beth? Anywho, I borrowed an e-book of the first in the series, and am very impressed. I have requested book 2 in paper, but I may sign up for a month free-trial of Kindle Unlimited and binge read the first six.



All Systems Red by Martha Wells
Published 2017, 152 p., e-book

I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites,. It had been well over 35,000 hours or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don't know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music combined. As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.

Thus begins the first book in a series about an agender cyborg, designed to be a security unit (SecUnit) and assigned to protect humans, with lethal force if necessary. Due to an accident years prior, our SecUnit thinks of itself as Murderbot. Currently Murderbot is working for a company who hires out SecUnits to provide security to planetary explorers. This particular group of scientists is from a freehold planet, where cyborgs are treated humanely, but their goodwill only makes Murderbot uncomfortable. When trouble ensues, humans and cyborg must work together to figure out who is trying to kill them and why.

I enjoyed this book and was impressed with the writing. Murderbot is a very interesting character with a jumble of human and nonhuman characteristics. Lots of action does not preclude introspection and character development. The author handles the lack of gender particularly well. I was surprised by the ending and am looking forward to the next in the series.

>158 kjuliff: >159 kjuliff: I'm sorry you are having issues with it. Frustrating. Not the author's fault though, she died forty years ago. :-) Copyright and licensing are difficult at the best of times, and in today's climate, even worse.

>161 labfs39: I know it’s not the author’s fault. Probably an estate thing. I was really wanting to read that book though and thought at first it might have been a technical glitch. Oh well, back to my tbr list for something not on hold.

>160 labfs39: I don't like science fiction, and I am enjoying the Murderbot series a lot. The first few are free on audible right now and I will be very sad when I reach the end of the series in another 3 hours or so.

>162 kjuliff: It may be that someone else holds the US rights for the audio version of the book - then this publisher won’t be able to sell in the states. Annoying when it happens but as rights are sold piecemeal, it happens :( And unlike paper books, we cannot just go and get it from overseas.

>164 AnnieMod: it’s certainly strange, as The Seventh Cross was once available on Google Play and Audible. I had it on my wish list, so it’s only recently been removed. I do have a copy available via BARD but the narrator is terrible - but just good enough that I can tell it’s a book I want to read.i left two political prisoners hiding in a ditch in Germany 1939. :(

Now I have few new books on my tbr that are not on hold, or too expensive on Audible. I will have to go back to older books that no one is currently talking about. I think I will read a Highsmith that I haven’t read, or The Covenant of Water which I can get on audio at the Braille library.

What really annoys me is the lack of current Australian literature that’s available on audio in the USA.

>165 kjuliff: I’ve seen it happen with eBooks when the rights are not yet bought in a certain place (Uk and US or Australia and US for example). That allows books published elsewhere to be sold. Once the rights are sold, the previously available book now cannot be sold anymore in this area. Same applies for audiobooks - and sometimes it may take months and years before the new version shows up

Although I have been enjoying the daily nudges from Serial Reader, I didn't like not knowing who the translator was. Also, they only had four Chekhov short stories, and I have read them all. So I have now downloaded an ebook "Short Fiction" from Standard Ebooks that includes hundreds of his short stories, translated by Constance Garnett, and organized by date of publication. I will start on that tonight.

I want to give a shoutout to Standard Ebooks, the volunteer organization that organizes and formats public domain works into multiple ebook formats. They are nicer to read than Project Gutenberg downloads, although PG is the source of most of their works. I would encourage ebook consumers to check them out. One note, their website says that Kindle does not use epub versions, but that is no longer the case. If you use a Kindle, don't try to download the azw3 version, just use the epub one.

>163 RidgewayGirl: I really enjoyed the first Murderbot. Although I'm tempted by the idea of a free Audible version, I don't want the male narrator to change my mind's image of MB (as per the discussion up thread about the agender character).

>166 AnnieMod: sorry about the bold text - typo now edited. I’ve only recently come across this problem with audiobooks. Thanks for your explanation. I was going crazy with The Seventh Cross as it was in my wishlist on Audible so I had assumed I could get it anytime. Now u understand.

>168 labfs39: It's an interesting idea, but since the character is mostly a robot, I never thought of it as gendered. But I can see why people would wonder -- the activities a secbot would perform are male-coded, but the author is a woman, so I can see it going either way in someone's imagination.

>169 kjuliff: Figured that this is what happened with the bold so no worries.

Yeah - I’ve learned the hard way that if I really really want the book, I should get it when I can - or it can get area-locked due to another pending edition. Isn’t the world of publishing rights just fun? (Sarcasm heavily implied in case it is not clear). :)

>167 labfs39: Her translations are a bit old fashioned (and of their time) but so is Chekhov - and she was competent. Have fun with the stories.

>160 labfs39: Hooray for Murderbot fever. I agree that discussions of its gender are interesting, since they are adamant about not having one. I like the humor as well. And in the second one, you meet ART, another great character.

>153 labfs39: what an interesting story. I really enjoyed your post

>160 labfs39: I’m intrigued. Glad you enjoyed murderbot 1.

>170 RidgewayGirl: I think part of my mind may have been primed to think of Murderbot as female because I just read Wild Robot with my niece and the robot is female. My niece wanted me to change all the pronouns to masculine as I read. It's made me think more about why people assign gender to things.

>171 AnnieMod: Garnett was such a prolific translator and the one I cut my teeth on. There didn't used to be a lot of choices for Russian translations. Now, I would have preferred a modern translation, such as by Pevear and Volokhonsky, but beggars can't be choosers. Who is your favorite translator from Russian, or do you not have one since you read in Russian?

Btw are you familiar with the article "The Translation Wars" in the New Yorker?

>172 BLBera: The humor is definitely another selling point in the Murderbot book. Although I haven't read carefully reviews of the other books in the series, I am looking forward to ART. People seem to love that character too.

>173 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. There had been some discussion up thread about what the point of "The Black Monk" was and by the time I finished the story, I was rather impressed. I thought he captured some of the issues around bipolar disorder quite poignantly given the time in which it was written.

All Systems Red was a quick, fun read. Something I never would have discovered without CR.

---

I started the short story "A Living Chattel" and am finding the writing much less skillful. The short stories I read on Serial Reader were some of his best, and from later in his career. The volume of stories I'm reading now are chronological by publication date, so I'm getting a different perspective. Deborah, how are the stories in your collection arranged?

My husband and I both read Murderbot - although I think we both managed to think of it mostly as without a gender, if pressed I would say it leaned female and Morgan said male. Maybe we're just self-inserting into the story!

>171 AnnieMod: >174 labfs39: Constance Garnett - Hemingway talks about her translations in A Moveable Feast. In the 1920’s it was he had and he loved it. So, Garnett has some literary historical traction herself…

>175 ursula: Exactly! So interesting.

>176 dchaikin: Oh, no doubt, Garnett was important. She made Russian literature available to English-speakers for practically the first time, translating 70 works, including all the big classics. But in part because she was so rushed, she would often skip parts that were difficult to translate, and as Pevear said,

“Hemingway read Garnett’s Dostoyevsky and he said it influenced him,” he continued. “But Hemingway was just as influenced by Constance Garnett as he was by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Garnett breaks things into simple sentences, she Hemingwayizes Dostoyevsky, if you see what I mean.”

So while she was important, she wasn't necessarily the best translator, she was the translator.

>177 labfs39: that’s funny. She Hemingwayized.

I've enjoyed catching up with your thread. I've already put The Seventh Cross on my list so it's good to see another review of it. It sounds a really worthwhile read.

Always good to see another fan of the Murderbot books. I tend to get to them as quickly as I can when I discover a new one is out, since they're always such fun reads and I've definitely been feeling the need for those recently. I too thought of Murderbot's voice as female initially. I think if the narration in a book is first person, I probably automatically read it as the same gender as the author until it says anything to clarify it.

I'm always up and down on what I want to prioritise when picking a translation. I read the Constance Garnett translation of Notes from the Underground when I didn't know anything about different translations. Then after having read articles about how her translations aren't accurate and how good Pevear and Volokhonsky are, I read their translation of Crime and Punishment. I enjoyed the stories of both books, but I actually found the Garnett one easier to read and preferred the writing style, so I now can't decide where I want to go with future reads.

>176 dchaikin:, 177

I actually don't get along with the PV translations and now seek out Constance Garnett's translations. While I'm all about accuracy with translations, the PV ones are so focused on accuracy that I feel they lack a literary flow. Many times it feels like they will write contradictory translations within the same paragraph and it makes me question what is actually trying to be said especially if it doesn't fit the flow of the conversation as it is in in progress.

Also, because, at the base of it, with a book as long as say, Anna Karenina for example, when I've finished the book what I will remember is the plot, the characters, the themes, and the prose, but not the prose in terms of its accuracy. But instead in terms of the overall flow it has, the ambiance it creates, and I won't remember any specifics of translation.

>178 dchaikin: A good word! I knew exactly what he meant.

>179 valkyrdeath: >180 lilisin: I think translating is an amazing art, and so difficult. I have great respect for all translators. Constance Garnett is amazing for how much she translated, and into a very readable "Edwardian prose". Russians, such as Nabokov and Brodsky*, hated her translations, in part because they diverged from the Russian-ness of the writing. (Should a translator be thinking of the audience or the text?) Not being Russian, or even speaking it, although I did study it for a couple of years, I can only hypothesize what they meant by that. People look for different things in their translations, and the old seesaw of accuracy vs readability is one factor. And what is meant by accuracy? Word for word, or meaning? Slang, innuendo, proverbs and sayings, rhyme, rhythm make a word for word translation meaningless. As translations age, so does the vernacular that the translator used (hence "Edwardian prose"). And yet the meaning of a work can be utterly subverted by a translation (in a pure sense, all translations are a subversion). So, what to do? I think accessibility is the number one factor for me. Which translation can I lay my hands on? Sometimes I collect multiple translations of important works. I am always tempted by new translations that include previously censored material, like In the First Circle. Sometimes I default to the translation that I read first, for instance Lattimore is the translator I know for Homer, although if I were to reread now, perhaps I would try Fagles.

Compare:

Lattimore
Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways,
who was driven far journeys, after he had

Fagles
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered

A wonderful article comparing the various translations of Anna Karenina, including Garnett, Maude, and PV version, can be found here.

* "the reason English-speaking readers can barely tell the difference between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is that they aren’t reading the prose of either one. They’re reading Constance Garnett." -Brodsky

>181 labfs39:

This is a never-ending (and thus fun!) discourse that I often partake in the Japanese translation community. That community has its own unique problems that often boggles the mind of translators of other languages. Japanese fans (and particularly anime and manga fans) are just unhinged.

* "the reason English-speaking readers can barely tell the difference between Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is that they aren’t reading the prose of either one. They’re reading Constance Garnett." -Brodsky

The problem with PV with me is that they made me stop reading Dostoevsky entirely! So next time I'm going for Constance so maybe I can like Dostevesky better although in all honesty I'm not sure anything can really get me to like Dostoevsky. lol

Can't let a translation conversation go by without recommending Douglas Hofstadter's magnificent Le ton beau de Marot (despite the title, the book is in English). It's an exploration of the issues involved in translation, filtered through Hofstadter's repeated attempts to translate a short poem from the French Renaissance.

>182 lilisin: Japanese fans (and particularly anime and manga fans) are just unhinged.

Lol! I can only imagine the difficulties of translating from Japanese to English. I have been studying a little Korean, and the levels of honorifics, represented in part by verb endings, is so unlike English, and yet important in Korean. I have begun noticing how these are translated in subtitled Korean movies. The results range from laughable to contorted to a complete absence. How do you translate something that doesn't exist in English?

The problem with PV with me is that they made me stop reading Dostoevsky entirely!

And that is why readers are fortunate when they have a choice of translators. So much is never translated into English at all. To have a choice is ideal. Something for everyone. :-) Which Dostoevsky have you read? I've only read C&P, twice. Probably the Garnett translation since it was thirty years ago!

>183 KeithChaffee: Interesting, Keith. I only knew of Hofstadter as the author of Godel, Escher, Bach. He certainly set himself a difficult piece to translate. Thanks for the recommendation.

I finished another Chekhov short story, this one from the new collection I started which has several hundred of his stories in chronological order of publication (translated by Constance Garnett). This story, "A Living Chattel", was written more than a decade before the other stories of his that I've read, and it shows in that the writing is not nearly as smooth. It's about a young man who seduces a married woman, pays off her husband to allow them to run off, but finds themselves living next door to each other a couple of years later. From his biography I learned that Chekhov was often criticized by his peers for not taking a political or moral stand in his writing. Chekhov always responded that that was not the author's job, but the reader's. The author should write believable, realistic characters and let them speak (or better yet, act) for themselves. That stance is evident in this short story, because Chekhov does not moralize about the ethics of the behavior of the lovers. Instead he lets their choices play out and I felt sorry, in turn, for all three of them.

>183 KeithChaffee: I've been wanting to read that Hofstadter book for years, but just haven't been able to find a copy. It sounds like something I'd be really interested in. It's frustrating finding books out of print, especially now when it should be fairly easy to at least keep an ebook available.

I've been reading some translations of Anna Akhmatova. I posted this on my thread, but I'll post it again here. I found two translations for the same poem.

The final section of Jane Kenyon's Collected Poems is devoted to translation of a few Anna Akhmatova poems. Kenyon writes a short introduction to the translations noting that the poems are "free-verse versions of rhymed and metered poems. Losing the formal perfection of the Russian verses...has been a constant source of frustration and sadness...Because it is impossible to translate with fidelity to form and to image, I have sacrificed form for image."

Kenyon's translation:
The memory of sun weakens in my heart,
grass turns yellow,
wind blows the early flakes of snow
lightly, lightly.

Already the narrow canals have stopped flowing;
water freezes.
Nothing will ever happen here --
not ever!

Against the empty sky the willow opens
a transparent fan.
Maybe it's a good thing I'm not your wife.

The memory of sun weakens in my heart.
What's this? Darkness?
It's possible. And this may be the first night
of winter.

Translation by Stanley Kunitz:
Heart's memory of sun grows fainter,
sallow is the grass;
a few flakes toss in the wind
scarcely, scarcely.

The narrow canals no longer flow,
they are frozen over.
Nothing will ever happen here,
oh, never!

In the bleak sky the willow spreads
its bare-boned fan.
Maybe I'm better off as I am,
not as your wife.

Heart's memory of sun grows fainter.
What now? Darkness?
Perhaps! This very night unfolds
the winter.

Translation is fascinating. I am reading the Kunitz translation of Akhmatova now. It does have an introduction, and Kunitz also talks about the challenges of translation.

>186 labfs39: enjoying these Chekhov takes

>188 BLBera: i really don’t like that Kunitz translation

>187 valkyrdeath: I don't think it's ever been released as an e-book; published too early to have been made an e-book at the time, and probably not enough ongoing demand for it to make it worth digitizing now. But the print version is still in print, in both hardback and paperback. Not a cheap book -- currently between $40 and $50 for either format at Amazon -- but available.

>186 labfs39: "Chekhov always responded that that was not the author's job, but the reader's. The author should write believable, realistic characters and let them speak (or better yet, act) for themselves."

My memory from grad school days is that Chekhov's phrase was something like, "The author's job is to hold up a mirror to the world."

>183 KeithChaffee:

I've been trying to translate my favorite poem from French to English as a pet project but I've been stuck for years. The beginning I've been able to keep the rhyme scheme but then towards the middle I lose rhyming words and even with rearranging words I haven't been able to make progress. An ongoing project!

>184 labfs39:

Well, the Japanese fans are unhinged in that they are at utter war with translators. They actually believe all translators are scheming together to sneak in their "woke" and "LGBTQ" preferences into Japanese media, breaking "the purity that is the Japanese word". Japan fans have rose-colored glasses, and the matching armor, when it comes to Japan so they refuse to believe anything that negates their sanctified view of the country and its media.

Then you have those fans that are "trying to learn the language" and thus think a lot of words should be kept untranslated. They would be perfectly okay with a sentence like

"Tanaka-san picked up his hashi to eat his karaage, as his nakama looked at Fuji-san out the window".

Writing "Mr. Tanaka picked up his chopsticks to eat his fried chicken as his companion looked at Mt. Fuji out the window." to them is unnecessary and the Japanese words should stay, especially those that are "untranslatable".

Now I should mention that these "learners of Japanese" typically have only taken took one semester of Japanese, and then failed that class, but that doesn't prevent them from thinking they can do a better job than a translator. Which means the sentence above, if they tried to translate it would actually turn into

"While holding his hashi to eat his karaage, Tanaka-san with his nakama, upon the window Fuji-san did they glance".

I'm telling you, they are unhinged!

---

And yes, getting to choose between translations is certainly a privilege often granted in the more popular languages to translate. I've read The Idiot and Crime and Punishment and the first 100 pages of the The Brothers K, all in the PV translations.

>192 lilisin: Oh wow that was a rabbit hole I wish I didn't fall into! There are some very sweaty white dudes that have totally fetishized Japan. Their japan can't be real, its beyond comprohension.

>177 labfs39: she (Garnett) would often skip parts that were difficult to translate

A woman after my own heart!

>181 labfs39: Compare:

Lattimore
Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways,
who was driven far journeys, after he had

Fagles
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered

And then there's Emily Wilson:

Tell me about a complicated man.
Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy,

I love waking up to a discussion about translation. One of my favorite topics! Unfortunately I also woke up to a text that my brother in law tested positive for covid, so we are trying to decide what to do with my nieces. Do they come, since I had them yesterday and I am already exposed, or does my sister take more time off from work to stay home with them, thus increasing all their exposure? And to top it all off, it's snowing. 3-6" predicted. So a messy feels-like-Monday kind of day.

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>187 valkyrdeath: >190 KeithChaffee: Gary, are you able to interlibrary loan the book from your local library? I'm not sure how ILL works across the pond, but that's what I would do here.

>188 BLBera: Thanks for sharing the two versions of Akhmatova's poem. I cannot imagine translating poetry. It seems impossible, unless perhaps the poet herself is able to do the translations. Do you prefer Kenyon's or Kunitz's translations?

>189 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. Interesting, of the two poems Beth quotes, I prefer the Kunitz. I think it has sharper imagery. But after reading the two versions, I feel completely at a loss as to how it is supposed to sound.

>191 rocketjk: You're right, Jerry, I think that is what Chekhov said. It raises another interesting question: should an author write fiction "objectively" and to what extent is it possible? Critics, both contemporaneous ones and current, liked to look for hidden meanings and reflections of Chekhov's self in his works, which frustrated him to no end when he was alive (according to the letters quoted in Troyat's bio of him).

There are things I like about both of them, Lisa. Some of the words in the Kunitz seem odd choices, like "sallow" to describe grass, but as you say, I don't speak Russian, so it's hard to say. I think both give off the same emotional feeling. The Kenyon is perhaps more colloquial?

Yes, translating poetry would be the most difficult thing to translate.

Re: translations, the conversation has reminded me of the English translations of Proust. A quick online search brought me to a New Yorker Magazine article by Adam Gopnick that beings thusly:

"The art of translation is usually a semi-invisible one, and is generally thought better for being so. A few translators’ names are familiar to the amateur reader—we know about Chapman’s Homer, through Keats, and Richard Wilbur’s Molière is part of the modern American theatre—but mostly translators struggle with sentences for even less moment (and money) than other writers do. One key exception to this rule is C. K. Scott Moncrieff (1889-1930), whose early-twentieth-century English version of Marcel Proust’s masterpiece, “À la Recherche du Temps Perdu,” has been a classic in our own language since the day of its first publication. Newly published volume by newly published volume, working almost as a simultaneous translator, Moncrieff inserted Proust into the English-speaking reader’s consciousness with a force that Proust’s contemporaries in continental languages never really got. Mostly thanks to Moncrieff, Proust is part of the common reader’s experience in English. John Middleton Murry, in an early review, wrote, “No English reader will get more out of reading ‘Du cote de chez Swann’ in French than he will out of reading ‘Swann’s Way’ in English,” and amateur book readers, for whom other works of mega-modernism—“The Man Without Qualities,” or “Buddenbrooks”—remain schoolwork, still read Proust. Everybody tries to climb Mt. Proust, though many a stiff body is found on the lower slopes, with the other readers stepping over it gingerly."

There have been a few more recent translations, of course. I read Swann's Way several months ago and at the time went looking to see which translators I should look for if I decided to continue with the series. It turns out that Proust himself objected to some of Moncrieff's choices, including the title Swann's Way itself! I have several of the Proust books in Modern Library editions, which are all Moncrieffs, of course, but if/when I do move forward with the set, I'll fill in any holes with more modern translations.

>192 lilisin: Kudos to you for attempting to translate poetry. The thought of my attempting such a thing is enough to give me nightmares, even if my skills were adequate in any language.

Oh, my, the Japanese translation world seems fraught indeed. Your examples of leaving in "untranslatable" Japanese words is funny. Is romanization from Japanese fairly standard or is that problematic too? I see that there are three different systems of romanization, so maybe not.

>193 stretch: There are some very sweaty white dudes that have totally fetishized Japan.

Now that brings to mind an image I would like to forget!

>194 rachbxl: Lol. I think it was DH Lawrence that said that when Garnett was translating, she would focus intently and let pages of translation drift down from the table until they were knee-deep around her.

>195 Julie_in_the_Library: Interesting, Julie. The Wilson translation of these lines is very direct and simple, but I like the imagery of " the man of twists and turns" as opposed to "a complicated man".

>197 BLBera: Agreed, Beth. Similarly Kunitz's snow falling "scarcely, scarcely" instead of Kenyon's "lightly, lightly". But lightly brings to my mind falling without weight, whereas "scarcely, scarcely" captures the frequency of the falling flakes. I like it. Fortunately, we are lucky enough to have multiple translations. It's fun to compare them.

>198 rocketjk: That brings us to another question regarding translation: how much should the author's opinion drive translation. I think Tostoy preferred Maude over Garnett. I like when an author can participate in the translation process, like Murakami does. Although that presupposes the author knows the other language well. And I doubt it's an easy process to manage for the translator.

---

Meanwhile the snow outside continues to fall slightly more than "scarcely, scarcely", we have about an inch, but it's supposed to continue falling all day. It's pretty to watch through the window. Blue jays, cardinals, even downy woodpeckers look pretty on my feeder against the white backdrop.

>199 labfs39: "I like when an author can participate in the translation process, like Murakami does."

Isaac B. Singer as well. It seems like sometimes he took part and sometimes chose his translators and/or oversaw the translating process.

We had a bunch of snow overnight in NYC. Rosie the German shepherd got her very first experience of it this morning. She's about a quarter husky, however, and didn't seem much put out. The steps of Morningside Park were pretty slushy, though. A bit of a hazard for this old man. I managed to navigate it all safely.

>198 rocketjk: There are a few translators whose work I will pick up when I see it, mainly because I know they do a great job and also they pick books to translate that I am interested in reading. For example, Megan McDowell translates new literature from Spanish-speaking South America and she makes interesting choices. I'm not sure I ever noticed this, however, before I started making a note of the translator's name. They do tend to operate invisibly.

>200 rocketjk: Back when my husband and I were newly married, we moved from Phoenix to Munich and took our cattledog mix out to the mountains to see snow. She danced in it for hours, utterly delighted.

>200 rocketjk: i understood that Singer, who of course knew English very well, worked very closely with his translator.

>199 labfs39: Maybe Garnett should have been an interpreter instead of a translator (though she died a bit too soon for simultaneous). The most useful piece of advice I was given in interpreting school all those years ago was “if in doubt, leave it out”.

>200 rocketjk: Ace, our German Shepherd, loves snow, but hates rain, despite having been born and trained in Florida. He first experienced snow with his first handler, a deaf young woman going to school in Ithaca. Once he came to work for my daughter, he was a regular visitor to northern climes, and now of course we live in Maine, and her dad lives in Colorado. He frolics like a puppy in the snow, despite being middle-aged. Unfortunately, he thinks shovels are great fun to snap at or stand on, making clearing the deck a bit of a chore. He's ever hopeful that his ball will halt the snowblower and get thrown, tossing it into my path cheerfully, and only grudgingly removing it when I order him to get it. Does Rosie stick her whole head into the snow and snort it? Despite having an enormous schnoz, he seems to think he needs to be buried up to his ears in order to get a good whiff.

>201 RidgewayGirl: Whenever I read a book in translation, I am hesitant to comment negatively on the writing, as I never know how much is the author, and how much the translator. Plot and characters, yes, but style and flow, no. It makes judging books in translation difficult. I agree that translators are unsung heroes. They work almost as long and hard as the author to completely rewrite something, but don't get paid a lot and get little credit. It's a tough job.

>203 rachbxl: The only tougher job, in my estimation, is interpreting, because it's translation on the fly. I don't know how you do it, Rachel. I think I would find it really stressful too. Did I misunderstand something? Did I misrepresent their words? Did I put too much of myself in the interpretation? I would be a basket case!

Speaking of interpreting, I purchased an e-book copy of Intimacies by Katie Kitamura yesterday. It's a book that has been on my radar since reading reviews by Kay/RidgewayGirl and Monica/Trifolia.

Late to the table here, but I'm another Murderbot fan. I've read the first three (or four?) and will gladly read the rest.

I really like reading translators on translation. I've heard Emily Wilson talk a bit about the choices she made in her translation of The Odyssey, which pushed me to buy it—and I'm interested to read her version of The Iliad as well.

Today was Jasper's first experience of snow too, and he loved it! Despite being a Texas boy, he's fine in the cold and I have trouble convincing him to go back in even on the chilliest days we've had. This morning he ran around like a crazy thing while I shoveled and salted (only a couple of inches, but I knew it was turning into a wintry mix and I live at the top of a hill, so a little salt is always a good idea).

I loved Intimacies - if you are fascinated by translation, I think you will love it as well.

>150 labfs39: I’m interested in these Murderbot Diaries. When you talk about them “coming in” is it a subscription thing? Is it text or audio?

>208 kjuliff: Murderbot is available on audiobook - you'll probably have to request them at the library since they're pretty popular; you can also get them via libro.fm or audible or other platforms. They're also availble in print or ebook.

>209 markon: Thanks. I’m a bit interested in them. I used to love sci-fi but went off it a decade ago.

>208 kjuliff: They are written books originally, though as Ardene says, available in audio. Murderbot Diaries is the name of the series. They are mostly novellas, with a couple of longer novels. 7 books in all currently, I think.

>211 FlorenceArt: Thanks. I didn’t understand what Lisa meant by “coming in”. It seemed like a serialised thing appearing in one’s inbox.

>204 labfs39: "Does Rosie stick her whole head into the snow and snort it?"

She didn't do that this morning when I had her out. She was completely unphased by the snow that was on the ground over the grassy parts of the park, though she didn't care for the slush that was already covering the cement sidewalks any better than I do. I would love to get her to the spot in Central Park where she can be off-leash before 9 am and see how she handles being able to play in the snow, but I couldn't get to sleep last night, so I wasn't up early enough to make that happen today.

>206 lisapeet: There's something endearing about Murderbot without being sentimental at all. I liked the humor too. I'm looking forward to the next one (I have it on hold at the library, in print this time).

I'm glad Jasper enjoyed the snow! He seems like a fun dog, despite his foibles.

>207 BLBera: Good to know, Beth. I may take a break from Chekhov short stories, and read it next. I'm 250 pages into the Chekhov biography with another 100 pages to go.

>208 kjuliff: Sorry for the confusion, Kate. I meant that the hold was coming in at the library. I read the first one as an e-book through the library, but the next one I have placed a hold on the paper copy. When the hold "comes in" I will go pick it up. As >209 markon: Ardene says, they are also available in audio format. Originally they were published on Tor.com, I believe.

>210 kjuliff: I haven't read much science fiction in recent years either, Kate. I used to read Scalzi, Orson Scott Card, and a few others.

>211 FlorenceArt: I haven't looked up the page counts, Florence, which ones are novel-length? The most recent?

>213 rocketjk: I'm glad Rosie has acclimated to city life so well, Jerry. I hope she gets to the off-leash area before the snow melts. Do be careful though. I had the kids out yesterday and we went for a walk in the woods despite the 20F temps. It was sunny and beautiful, but I did take one digger on the icy road, and the kids several. In their snowsuits, they are indestructible, but us less well-padded fogies don't bounce quite as well.

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The snow continues to fall, so I made the executive decision not to snowblow until dawn. Only about 4" so far, so easily manageable with the snowblower even if we get a couple inches more overnight. I made progress in my Chekhov biography today, as well as 8" on my niece's scarf.

>214 labfs39: I think Network Effect (5) and System Collapse (7) are considered “full length novels”.

>215 FlorenceArt: Got it, thanks.

>204 labfs39: But you see, this (admittedly fascinating) discussion on translation makes me want to scream with frustration, not at what you're all saying but at the very idea of having to sit there trying to find exactly the right word. Me, an interpreter, I'll find you a word on the fly and it will get the message across. That evening whilst feeding the cat I may well think of a better word I could have used, but ah well, it's too late, and I'll store it away for future use. I don't have the patience to translate (I did a bit, albeit not literary translation, in my early freelance days to plug the gaps, but fortunately I always had enough interpreting work so was able to give up translation almost before I started).

>35 labfs39: Funnily enough, I bonded over Intimacies on Monday evening with the lovely woman sitting next to me at the choir I've just joined. In the break she asked what I did for a living, and she mentioned she'd read a book recently in which the main character was an interpreter in The Hague. I asked if it was Intimacies, and she was delighted to meet a fellow reader! I enjoyed it, though the work done there by that interpreter bears little resemblance to what I do, and although I raised the odd eyebrow at some of the interpreter's working conditions, I put it down to the nature of the work.

>217 rachbxl: That's so interesting, Rachel. Knowing nothing about how interpreting is actually done, I could only extrapolate from translation, which I had to do some of in college. Your point that in interpretation the goal is to get the message across in the moment, makes some of the esoteric goals of translation moot. I think my personality lends itself to the navel gazing of translation much more than the speed and intensity of interpretation, but fortunately, I have the skill set for neither!

>218 labfs39: I love these sorts of bookish encounters. I will be eager to hear more about where Kitamura goes astray after I read Intimacies.

I’m late in this interesting conversation about translation. Obviously the translators I have access to are not the ones you do read !
Same as >201 RidgewayGirl:, I started noticiting translators choices after I starting writting their names down while reviewing a book. For books written in Spanish, there are two-three translators who translate almost all the interesting books from Latin America, so I am not surprised when a book I want to read is translated by Maspero (who died in 2015) or more recently by François Gaudry.

And I have started recently to look for books based on the translator. Sika Fakambi translates from English into French, and she chooses books with a real voice. Hence all her work is finding the best way to communicate this specific voice into another language. I read her translation for the first time with Mais leurs yeux dardaient sur Dieu/Their eyes were watching God, where she uses Cajun to translate the way Zora Neale Hurston writes. Then, at the end of 2023 I read a book from Ghana, Notre quelque part/Tail of the Blue Bird where she uses the specificies of West African French to translates the specificities of the Ghanean English.
Next on my list, Pardon/Sorry from Gail Jones, which is one of her earlier works. I might almost buy any book she translated without even reading the blurb (that’s actually what I did for Notre quelque part/Tail of the Blue Bird and I’m glad I did as I would not have picked this book if it was not for her, and I really loved this reading!).

>217 rachbxl: The comparison between translation and interpretation is fascinating. I had never thought about it that way, as >218 labfs39: says.
There is an incredible interpreter on the French radio, and I can listen to an interview just because he’s there. He interprets from English to French, so usually I listen to the person in English and then gets the translation. He does not interpret in a literal way and it’s incredible how he finds the right word or right image just on the post. (And I love his voice as well!). Can’t remember his name, but I am in awe of his work.

Too long for a post, and not adding much to what was already said. But I’m late in the conversation and wanted to give my two cents!

Another one who is late to comment on this topic of translation. I've never given it much thought, but I'll add the translator from now on too and see if I can discern patterns here.
I have other issues with translation as I read most books in a Dutch translation, although I sometimes read in English and less often in French. It's the easiest for me to read in Dutch because it's my own language, but when I read a book in another original language, it's a different experience and often a better one.
Another issue: although it's basically the same language, Dutch Dutch is slightly different from Flemish Dutch and in some cases, there are two versions of a book or a book from a Flemish author is edited by a Dutch publisher to polish away the Flemish words or style. If not, Dutch readers apparently find the Flemish Dutch cute, quaint, incomprehensible or weird, depending on their point of view. It's rarely (if ever) the other way round, although the Dutch often use words that we do not use. I suppose something similar may be the case with English as spoken in different countries?

As Dan already mentioned in the Just Lists topic, the longlist of the Dublin Literary Award has been published and it strikes me that the author receives €75.000 and the translator receives €25.000. Although writers who write in English are at an advantage because they receive €100.000, I think this shows respect for the translator's work.

I'm really enjoying this discussion of translation, as well as the description of everyone's dogs in snow!

>220 Trifolia: That's interesting about Dutch Dutch and Flemish Dutch!
And yes, an interesting fact about the Dublin Literary Award! There are also a few prizes for translators only, but none is really famous. Examples: PEN Translation Prize or National Translation Award in the US.

>219 raton-liseur: Not late to the conversation at all, and I'm always happy to hear about translations and translators into other languages than English. I think I first started thinking about translators in grad school, since I was surrounded by polyglots and even some translators, like Bill Johnston. I have great admiration for translators.

On LibraryThing, I try to add translators to the common knowledge records, and it leads me to a another question: Current practice on LT is to lump all translations onto the same work record. I'm not sure this is a best practice. In my opinion, different translations are practically different works. What do you all think? I wish we could create subgroups within a work record. A similar conundrum is picture books with different illustrators.

>220 Trifolia: Thanks for chiming in, Monica. Very interesting that Dutch publishers "polish away" traces of Flemish. I do think some American publishers edit away British traces, although I haven't given it a lot of thought. I should, as I remember how indignant I was when I learned that the show "Downton Abbey" had UK and US versions, with the US version being dumbed down to be more palatable for American audiences. What American viewer wants to hear so much about entailing estates? Grrr.

I do like that translators are given a cut, but I hope this doesn't cause resentment on the part of authors for their translators. Too bad the award couldn't pony up the extra.

>221 Julie_in_the_Library: Hi Julie! Winter has finally arrived in the Northeast, eh? How much snow did you end up with? The rain knocked down our cover to about 6" and then we got 4-6" more, but it's hard to tell exactly how much we have now due to wind drifts and crust. It remains below freezing here, but will warm up enough to snow next week.

>222 raton-liseur: In a previous post (>129 labfs39:), I erroneously wrote that Michael Henry Heim and his wife used their life savings to start the PEN Translation Award. I will correct it to say they used their money to start the PEN Translation Fund. It was created to fund translations, not as a prize for translations already done. It funds the translation of between 8 and 16 books a year.

>223 labfs39: Winter has definitely arrived, but luckily, so far, we haven't gotten too much snow in my little corner of the region. Also, luckily, I work from home, so I only have to clean off my car if I have a medical appointment. Last snowstorm I was able to let the rain and warming weather do it for me entirely. This snow, I wasn't so lucky. I had to clean it off Wednesday morning to go into Boston. It has been very cold, of late. I usually don't have to keep my hat and gloves on in the car, but I've needed to the last few days.

>224 Julie_in_the_Library: I was so lucky to find a house with a garage when I moved to Maine. Clearing the driveway is enough of a pain without having to deal with the car too. Last month I got a new-to-me car with not only heated seats, wipers, and side mirrors, but steering wheel too! The height of luxury on a cold day.

>223 labfs39: Current practice on LT is to lump all translations onto the same work record. I'm not sure this is a best practice.

Been following along with this conversation. I definitely agree that translators should be credited. In my posts, I have always tried to credit the translator of the work, if the person is known, and try to state the year.

I do notice that in Common Knowledge for a particular book, you will often find the various translation dates under "Original Publication Date". Kristin Lavransdatter gives the original Norwegian publication date, and two date in English for two different translations of the trilogy. That's interesting though about treating the different translations as different works. There can certainly be a case made for that, and having read both the English translations of Kristin, I would definitely agree with that work!

__________

Like the distinction between translating and interpreting.

Re the translations discussion:
I was browsing for my next book as I am having trouble with reading reviews and I came across an interesting “Translator Notes” in the audio of Suite Française.

Apparently Némirovsky misquoted Keats.. and the translator Sandra Smith kept the error though she corrected others. Némirovsky whose book was a work in process was unable to finish Suite Française due to her tragic murder at Auschwitz) . The mis-quote:- A raging of beauty is a guilt forever”. Other changes involved changing confusing character names and an incorrect location address.

I don’t normally read translator note but now realise, because of the discussion, how important they are.

I spent 9 days not visiting LT and your thread grew up out of all proportions. I must admit I skimmed over many entries as my reasoning was that if I did not catch up now I would never do it, so I hope I did not miss something important and that everything is fine with you.

Interesting thoughts about The black monk. I also thought about bipolar disorder while reading it, as not needing much sleep is a clear symptom of a manic episode, but what threw me off is that hallucinations are a symptom of schizophrenia which is a different disorder. Well, I guess that psychology was not as advanced then as it is now.

I'm so glad you enjoyed Murderbot!
Regarding the gender question, I fall in the bandwagon of those who tend to assign the male gender to it, because of the stereotype of the strong individual who knows how to fight. But I was really interested in Network effect to see a character refer to it by an explicitely female term (when Amena calls it "third Mom").

I guess the way Murderbot looks after its humans could be described as motherly.

I think of Murderbot as male too, because I’m a product of my times and to me the default state of the species is male. I think I even see myself as male in a (very small) way, not in a “born in the wrong body” way but because I think of myself as normal, and normal is male, right?

I've been reading all the comments on translation with interest. This year I'm trying to read more "women in translation". The reason I felt I wanted to expand this area of my reading life is that I had really gotten away from reading anything not originally in English because of all the translation issues people have brought up above. But, last year I felt I had tipped too far and was missing great books by avoiding translations. So I am back to trying them and hoping to find a good balance.

>226 SassyLassy: I realize that their are problems with separating out every translation into a separate work, but if there were a way to create sub-works or linked works, I think it would be helpful. Sometimes I have multiple translations of the same work, and although my individual records reflect that, they are all lumped into the same work (for instance there is no way to make a touchstone to a particular translation). I realize that this is of no concern to many or even most readers, but it would be a value-add, in my mind at least.

>227 kjuliff: Sometimes translator notes seem like housekeeping (I chose to Romanize the names like thus, place names were standardized like so) but other times they offer insight into the philosophy or practice of translation, which are particularly interesting. I like the example you gave with Suite Française. The note highlights the tragedy behind the novel.

>228 chlorine: January is always crazy on LT and this year is no exception. I love the conversations, but I have to mentally block out more time for LT in January, as I know it will keep me busy. As admin, I try to read all the posts for the first couple of months, to ensure everything is going well. After that I can't promise I will get to them all, although I do try.

You are right about hallucinations being more common associated with schizophrenia, but there is a whole laundry list of causes, and sleep deprivation (common with bipolar disorder) can cause hallucinations too. I saw his as more a manifestation of his megalomania. His conversations with the Black Monk reinforced his delusions of grandeur as chosen by God as the future of humankind. In any event, I found the story more interesting that I anticipated after reading only the first part.

>228 chlorine: >229 FlorenceArt: The question of Murderbot's gender continues to fascinate me. I have never studied it, but the cues that people use for assigning gender are so varied. In today's society when so much more attention is paid to gender, it's surprising how we still have our defaults, and what those defaults are.

>229 FlorenceArt: When I was younger, I often explained away my tendency to be visual and logical as "skewing male".

>230 japaul22: Although I see the problems inherent in translation, my desire to learn more about people in cultures other than my own is far stronger. I do try not to judge a translation the same way I do an untranslated work, because it's hard to know whether things that irritate me are due to the author, poor translation, or cultural differences. I'm excited to see where your focus on women in translation takes you this year.

Although the matching scarves I am knitting for my niece and her lovey have taken up some of my reading time, I did finish this excellent Chekhov bio.



Chekhov by Henri Troyat, translated from the French by Michael Henry Heim
Published 1984, English translation 1986, 368 p.

"My father began my education or, to put it more simply, began to beat me, before I reached the age of five," wrote Anton Chekhov of his earliest memories. "Every morning as I awoke, my first thought was, 'Will I be beaten today?'"

The grandson of a serf and the son of a fanatically religious and domineering father, young Chekhov had a hard start to life. Often forced to work in his father's store instead of studying, Chekhov was at first a mediocre student. But soon he saw that the way to lift himself and his family out of poverty and degrading circumstances was by becoming a professional. He studied to be a doctor, and began writing and publishing scads of humorous short stories as a way to make a little income. He would later often refer to his profession as a doctor as his wife, and his writing as his mistress.

Despite his treatment at his father's hands and the dissolute lives of his two older brothers, Anton accepted that it has his job to take care of the family, and took responsibility for supporting them (including his five siblings). Despite the financial burden, Anton often treated patients for free, and spent a great deal of time working for the common good: building schools, libraries, a sanitarium, raising money for famine victims, and acting as a public health officer during cholera outbreaks. He believed that a better future would be built through good works, not through political action or religious interventions.

A firm believer in science and an agnostic, it was surprising that he admired Tolstoy greatly, and the two grew to visit one another and have long conversations. Chekhov was closest with Gorky and Bunin, two other great Russian authors, although these two looked up to Chekhov the way Chekhov did to Tolstoy. Tolstoy often berated Chekhov for not imbuing his works with a moral message, and others chivied him for not taking a political stance. But Chekhov was a staunch believer that the author's job was to hold a mirror up to life and to let the reader make what conclusions (and take what actions) they would. Troyat wrote that there was "no intellectual force-feeding, there is complicity" between Chekhov and his readers.

The sincerity and moderation in his works, mirrored his personal life. Self-effacing and retiring, Chekhov hated emotional outpourings. He never turned away a visitor or a young author looking for help, but found them exhausting too. Never happy staying in one place long, he was constantly changing residences from dacha to Moscow or Petersburg, the Crimea, Europe. He enjoyed the company of witty women, but always pulled away when they got too close. He loved attending the theater, but never felt as though he were a good playwright. And often his plays were misunderstood or misrepresented at first, and it was often only when the public embraced them that the critics came around.

Unfortunately all of his adult life, Chekhov suffered from tuberculosis and other illnesses. He carried a leather pouch into which he would spit or cough blood, but for years refused treatment. He was solicitous of his patients, but not of himself. By ignoring his illness, he both focused on living and avoided the emotional attentions of others. Troyat writes, "As much as he delighted in seeing the theater resemble life, he despised seeing life resemble the theater." When Chekhov finally did fall in love and marry in 1901 at the age of 41, he was in the last stages of his life. His wife, a vibrant actress named Olga, continued to pursue her career in Moscow, while Chekhov became less and less able to leave Yalta. He died at the age of 44, a tremendously esteemed, though not well-remunerated, author.

I loved this biography, not only because the story of Chekhov's life was interesting, but because Troyat's writing and treatment of his subject is so well-done. Replete with quotations from Chekhov's library of letters (also translated by Heim), Troyat moves seamlessly between Chekhov's words and his own. Troyat keeps himself in the background, yet creates a narrative that is warm and enjoyable to read. I look forward to reading more of Troyat's many biographies and hope to try some of his novels as well. As for Chekhov, I have a much greater appreciation for the man, as well as his writing.

>232 labfs39: Great review! I remember that biography quite warmly from my grad school days of Chekhov study.

Next up is my first "should-read" of the year, my book club selection for January. I read Song of Achilles many years ago and loved it. It will be interesting to see if my impression is as favorable upon rereading.

>230 japaul22: I did the same for years. Particularly as I read in several languages anyway, why would I ever need to read a translation? There were already far more books out there in languages I understood than I could ever get through. But as Lisa says in >231 labfs39: curiosity won me over - I don’t think that would have happened without LT, though. It’s made my reading much, much richer.

>223 labfs39: I get your point about separating translations. But from a practical point of view, it’s important to keep the books together, whatever language we are reading it into and whatever translator. Else, LT would loose its strength as bringing readers together. The idea of subgroups within a work record, might be a good way to avoid separating translations though.
I remember a similar conversation on Babelio (a womewhat equivalent of LT in French) a few years ago. Some people were willing to separate works read in the original language (usually English) and translation, because, you know, it is so much better to read it in the original form. I felt it was a bit of a snobbish attitude (I’m not saying that you are snobbish when suggesting this separation, your reasons are different!), for some readers to show off because they could read in the original language and wanted to distinguish themselves from the average in-translation-reader.

Actually I don’t really mind in which translation someone has read an English or American standard (except if I am about to buy or read the book and need advice on the translation to get to): it is my responsibility to add the translator to my work page (and I have a lot of work to do regarding this, as when I started LT translators’ input was not a question I was contemplating, so a lot of my LT library is not up to date on this aspect), while I see LT’s “reponsability” in creating as much bridges as possible among users.
Not sure I make my point very clear. Just to sum up, I think the question of translation variability and the question of work lumping might address different goals.

And on lighter note, I am horrified by what you said on Downton Abbey! I hope I watched the UK version! (I am not a TV or series fan, but loved that one!)

>232 labfs39: Oh, so many new posts between the time I started writing my >236 raton-liseur: reply and the moment I posted it!
Love your review of the Chekhov biography by Troyat. I might look for it (no translator for me needed for me this time ;)
I feel Troyat is considered as an outdated writer in France. It’s probably easier to find him in second hand bookshops than in shiny-new-books bookshops!

Edited to add that I've just checked, and this Chekhov biography is indeed out of stock in French if you want to buy it new.

>233 rocketjk: I enjoyed Troyat's writing very much and continue to be interested in Chekhov's work. I might even try reading his plays, not a usual or fun exercise for me, but I'm so curious. The initial reaction to Seagull and, and frankly, most of his plays, was so bad that Chekhov nearly threw in the towel on playwriting. Fortunately, he was always drawn back to it.

>235 rachbxl: I've always been attracted to other languages and literatures, but unfortunately I am not a natural language learner, in part because I lack the ability to mimic. So although I struggled through years of language classes (French, Russian, Czech), I never gained real fluency in any. To satisfy my interest in other places, I have had to rely on translations. Beggars can't be choosers, as they say. I am envious of polyglots, but I refuse to let my ineptitude prevent me from exposure to world literature, even though I'm limited to translations. Imagine if I could only read American literature. Egad!

>236 raton-liseur: I do agree that creating separate works for each translation would lead to chaos, and rob LT of part of it's cohesive force. I would like to see a better way of organizing within a work to recognize translations and sometimes narrators and illustrators. They are treated as second class citizens in the record, or are left out altogether. An interesting organizational conundrum that I like to puzzle over. I'm definitely not snobbish regarding translations as I am limited to a single language!

Getting the UK version of Downton Abbey over here was difficult but not impossible. It's sad that Americans are the intellectual lowest common denominator.

>237 raton-liseur: I acquired my copies of Troyat's biographies of Chekhov and Tolstoy back in the late 80s, so I'm not sure how readily available they are now in the US either. I will definitely seek out more of his works, but I will probably need to rely on resellers.

Sometimes I seek out newer biographies, assuming that the researchers would have had more material to draw from. Troyat's biography relies so heavily on Chekhov's letters (which Heim also translated) that it's hard to imagine much new material has been unearthed. A couple of detractions for some might be that 1. Troyat clearly admired Chekhov, so that would have biased his work to some degree. How much I do not know, but perhaps Jerry can chime in? 2. Troyat does not editorialize much. There is no introduction and little in the way of literary criticism or even overview of his works over time. It is a biography and begins with Chekhov's earliest memories, in his own words, and ends with Chekhov's death and the words of his mother at his graveside. Personally this was okay with me, as it particularly suited Chekhov with his nonintervention of the author philosophy. I'm eager now to continue reading Chekhov's short stories and even his plays, but I would not be averse to reading another bio at some point, perhaps Anton Chekhov: A Life by Donald Rayfield.

>232 labfs39: such a terrific review. I’m really happy to have this condensed version of Chekhov’s life. So thanks for that. The author relationships sound fascinating. That fact that Troyat kept himself in the background and relied so heavily on C’s own letters ( >238 labfs39: ) sounds wonderful (and a little more timeless)

>248 kjuliff: I'm definitely not snobbish regarding translations
Oh I know that from first hand experience. You've introduced me to so many books in translations over these past few years that I could never picture you as despising works in translations!
And if you find an elegant solution to keep cohesion for a work and still highligh the varied contributions of translators, illustrators and so on, I am all ears.

I simply cannot write a review of this book. I wasn't able to a decade ago when I read it the first time, nor can I now. So instead, I will just give some impressions and encourage you to read it for yourself, if you have not already. A fairly rare 5* read for me.


The Song of Achilles by Madline Miller
Published 2012, 378 p. plus 30 pages of after material

-I read this in 24 hours, completely mesmerized by the story, by the writing
-Part of what I find hard to describe is the writing. It feels very Homeric to me, despite being prose, despite the softening of the tone. Part may be the rhythm of the language, but part is I think the trick of reflecting that which is most human within us: fear, greed, hubris, anger, and love.
-When I read it the first time for a former book club, one of the members, I will never forget this, called it gay porn. I was astonished and remain so. It is such a beautiful love story from the time when they first meet as boys, and Patroclus is jealous of his father's love, through their time with Chiron and falling in love, to the more mature love that comes with close to 20 years together.
-I have a greater appreciation this reading of Thetis' love. She is a sea-nymph raped and married to a human with the help of her fellow gods. She might have abandoned the son born of such a horrific relationship, but instead she devotes her life to him. She is proud and haughty, but she does everything in her power to protect him. It's easy to hate her for her attitude toward Patroclus, but by the end, she asks Patroclus for his memories of her son. They are the two who loved him best, and that shared love overcomes her prejudice. When she writes Patroclus' name on the stele, I get choked up.
-It's interesting that it took Miller ten years to write this, her first novel, in part because she spent five years writing the first version: then threw the entire thing away. Not a line remains.
-Despite there being a lot of side characters, each one is so perfectly rendered. For instance, Priam, the King of Troy, is only present on a couple of pages toward the end of the book, but what a perfect depiction of a king coming as a father to ask a favor of his son's killer. So that they can lay both their loved ones to rest. Not a supplicant, not overly proud, a king, but mostly a grieving father. Masterfully done.

>241 labfs39: I call that a pretty good review 🙂

Superb review of The Song of Achilles, Lisa, a book that I adored. "Gay porn"?! Sheesh.

Enjoyed your excellent review of the Chekov biography

>239 dchaikin: Thanks, Dan. One of the episodes that I didn't write about was one of the very few times Chekhov ever intervened in what might be seen as a political matter (the other time that I can think of is when Gorky was expelled from the Academy). The incident was the pogrom at Kishinyov. Because government censorship kept coverage out of the newspapers, Chekhov acquired underground Marxist papers to read about it. Even though he was dismissive of the Marxist articles, even Gorky's open letter, he sympathized greatly, and when Sholom Aleichem asked him to submit a story for a collection to be published in Warsaw for the victims' relief, he said he would, health permitting, and furthermore said that he would allow any of his hundreds of already existing stories to be translated into Yiddish if a such a collection could be used for aid. Although some will say this does not go far enough, for Chekhov, with his lifelong firm belief in author's remaining neutral, it was a significant gesture. Unfortunately this was very near the end of the author's life, and he was writing very little, just desperately trying to finish The Cherry Orchard.

>240 raton-liseur: Oh, I know you weren't calling me snobbish about translations. How could I be when I need them so badly? Lol.

>242 FlorenceArt: More a pastiche than a review, but thank you, Florence.

>243 kidzdoc: I was a little leery about rereading a book that had been such a favorite, but it had been a decade and I wanted to be able to participate in the book club discussion. I need not have been afraid. It was fabulous.

>244 baswood: Thanks, Barry. My review was more of a personal summary, as I wanted a record for myself of things I didn't want to forget, but it was a commendable book.

I'm torn about what to read next. Part of me wants to stay in the world created by Miller and read The Silence of the Girls, but I am afraid it would due a disservice to Barker's perspective to read it while coming off the high created by Miller's. Or I could read Tolstoy since I enjoyed Troyat's biography of Chekov so much. Or I could follow our discussion of translation and interpretation with Intimacies. Or my most recent acquisition, Mama Leone. Or, or, or.... I must go vacuum and clear my mind!

>241 labfs39: Based on your comments earlier I have had this on my holds list for a while. Hope to get it soon.

>246 labfs39: I think you would enjoy Intimacies. I gave it a 4 and I found it a relatively gentle read. I think it would be interesting to see what you made of it, given your background in translation,

Was really interested in the Murderbot gender discussion. From the first page of book 1 it was female for me. Possibly comments by others on LT at the time influenced me. My son also went with the female but we think I could have caused that when I was persuading him to read it. I'm currently halfway through System Collapse.
I have Transit on my e-shelves and really should read it sooner.

>241 labfs39: >246 labfs39: Someone gave me The Silence of the Girls and The Women of Troy, and I read them both this past summer. I thought they were really well done, and they made me want to read The Song of Achilles, which I haven't done as yet. So, thanks for your review. I always like "hearing" what people feel about a book and their reading of it, as opposed to the book itself.

>7 labfs39: I have been catching up on your thread. Yesterday I was at the library, picking books with no particular agenda or regard to book lists, and I thought of your comment about 'free range readers'. Delightful.

These are just wonderful reviews. I have added Kawabata's The Old Capital, Murderbot, and Segher's The Seventh Cross to my lists after reading your comments. I thought that the translator of Segher sounded familiar: Margaret Dembo has such an extraordinary oeuvre. I was particularly interested to see how much non-fiction she has translated as well.

>220 Trifolia:
The International Booker splits it 50-50!

On the issue of American/British English: as a Brit, I much prefer reading an American author in AE and a British etc author in BE. I really struggle with British in AE (common), and Americans in BE (rare).
Slightly greyer with authors from other English-speaking countries, but for me the use of AE still jars.

Happy Monday, Lisa. Glad you are getting some activity at your feeders. May it continue...The Chekhov bio sounds really interesting and I am glad you loved The Song of Achilles as much as you did the first time. Terrific book.

>247 JoeB1934: I hope you enjoy Song of Achilles when you get to it, Joe.

>248 kjuliff: Thanks, Kate. I have a library book hold that I hope to pick up later today, but I do want to read Intimacies soon.

>249 avatiakh: Murderbot was female in my mind as I read too, Kerry. So far, my informal tally here on CR has it about 50/50. If I knew how to do an official vote, like Mark does on Reading Globally, we could collect more data. My favorite!

>250 SassyLassy: Good to know that you enjoyed the Barker books. I have only read her Regeneration trilogy, which I really liked. I'm looking forward to reading more by her. One advantage to my reading Silence of the Girls now is that I have the characters straight in my mind.

My reviews vary in content from summaries, to critiques, to impressions depending on my mood and what I want to remember about the book down the road when I have forgotten details.

>251 rasdhar: Always happy to add to people's wishlists, Rasdhar. I don't know enough about your reading to know whether you'll like them, but I hope so. I always feel vaguely guilty when someone doesn't like a book that I have recommended.

The Seventh Cross is only the first book translated by Margot Dembo that I have read, although I see that she also translated Transit.

>252 Willoyd: The International Booker splits it 50-50!

That's interesting, Will. The economics of publishing are a labyrinth. As an American, I like listening to accents that match the content, but I do have a slight processing disorder that makes accents challenging.

>253 msf59: Thanks, Mark. It's nice to look up from my book and see my feathered friends out my window. I too am glad that I was not disappointed by my reread of Song of Achilles. I hate "spoiling" books I loved with a more jaundiced reread. I would rather they rest tranquil in my memories.

My book club discussion of Song of Achilles was last night, and not surprising to me, it was a hit with all but one reader. Despite so many fans, it was a good discussion.

While at the library I picked up the slim second volume in the Murderbot series and read the whole thing last night and this morning.



Artificial Condition by Martha Wells (Murderbot series no. 2)
Published 2018, 158 p.

This novella picks up where the first left off: our confused construct has left its human team behind and is bound for the extragalactic moon where the SecUnit supposedly went on a murderous spree while working at a mining site. It hitches a ride on a transport ship belonging to a university and discovers that the ship is a highly advanced bot whose processing power is more advanced than its own. Murderbot nicknames it ART (Asshole Research Transport), and they bond while watching TV. In order to get onto the mining moon, the SecUnit needs a cover and joins a group of researchers who need a security consultant to help them get back their data. Between researching what really happened at the mining site and dealing with the young researchers, while also keeping its status as a rogue SecUnit under wraps, Murderbot has a lot of balls in the air.

Although I didn't find the story as fast-paced or tightly written as the first novella, Artificial Condition is still an entertaining read, and I continue to find the growth of Murderbot's character compelling. ART was a fun addition to the party, and I look forward to more collaboration between the two as the series continues.

Sounds cute. ART appeals.

I found this on how to set up a poll: https://www.librarything.com/topic/135180

The interactions and relationships Murderbot has with other artificial beings is one of the interesting threads in the stories. Thinking back, there are a lot of them. ART is of course the best.

>256 dchaikin: It is fun, Dan. I'll definitely keep reading them.

>257 FlorenceArt: Well, that's easy, Florence. Thank you for doing the research. I had been meaning to, but never getting around to it.

I love the image of ART hovering mentally over her shoulder as she watched entertainment feeds as he didn't know how to interpret the human scenes without her filter. (See how I automatically assign Murderbot the female gender? Yet I think of ART as male. Go figure.)

Interesting thoughts about the possible causes for hallucinations regarding The black monk!

Also thank you for your summary of Chekhov's biography, this was really interesting.

I loved The song of Achilles as well and was very interested by your thoughts. Have you read Circe?

>260 chlorine: Thanks, I wrote up such a long summary of the Chekhov bio mainly for my own memory, but I'm glad others have found it useful. I have read and enjoyed Circe. I liked it as well, but I didn't find the language quite as beautiful or Homeric as Song of Achilles.

I didn't leave room for TIOLI Challenges at the top of my thread, because I had stopped doing them. I still don't actively choose books that fit the categories but I do like trying to slot the books I've read into the categories. Here's what I have for January so far:

Challenge #2: Read a book with a garden or floral themed title or cover art
The Old Capital (Cherry blossoms on cover)

Challenge #3: Read a book with a title word that begins with A, B, C, Do, Re or Mi
Artificial Conditions

Challenge #4: Read a book that's on a Best of 2023 list
Study for Obedience (Giller Prize winner)

Challenge #5: Read a book with a new chapter/section starting on p. 53, 53 in the ISBN, or an author's first name in the top 25 for Alabama in 1971
All Systems Red (978076'''53'''97522)

Challenge #10: Read a book where the author’s first and last name begins with the same letter
Song of Achilles (Madeline Miller)

Challenge #16: Read a book for the Zodiac challenge
Chekhov (Capricorn Health: will not accept physical limitations)

>262 labfs39: Challenge #5: WTF?

>262 labfs39: Challenge #5: WTF?

>263 FlorenceArt: >264 kjuliff: Not sure I understand the question. People make up the TIOLI challenges based on all sorts of things. In this case, the person who submitted the question turned 53 this month (born 1971) and is from Alabama.

>265 labfs39: But why is there a two-page - 52/53 selection? Does the reader have to find books from Alabama referenced in these pages?

>265 labfs39: You have to find a book that starts a new chapter or section on page 53, OR has a 53 in the ISBN, OR has an author with one of the most common names in Alabama in 1971 (she lists them on the TIOLI thread). I chose a book I had read that had a 53 in the ISBN

ETA: Each challenge is explained in more detail on the TIOLI thread. The title just helps me remember the general idea of the challenge.

I misread the challenge and see it’s an “or” and not an “and”, but I still don’t understand why the challenge has a criteria of having a new section stating on p 52.3.

I think you may be misreading it. It's simply page 53.

" new chapter/section starting on p. 53 OR 53 in the ISBN OR"

>269 labfs39: I understand now. Thanks. I still find it a bit strange though. I think I’m probably missing the point of challenges.

>262 labfs39: fun, Lisa

>265 labfs39: Sorry! I just felt, what a silly challenge, what’s the point? But of course the point is the challenge. Like Kate, I don’t get challenges, but that's no reason to mock them. So, sorry!

>272 FlorenceArt: I wasn’t mocking that challenge- I genuinely didn’t understand it.

Sometimes the wacky challenges can be the most fun, taking you somewhere you would never have gone on your own!

I see the challenges as just a way of picking one of your TBR books when you're having a hard time choosing what to read next. Some of the challenges can require quite a search of your TBR to find a book that fits, like the "53" challenge that Lisa describes--I don't normally look at the ISBN or look to see if a chapter starts on page 53, but you might have to look through a number of books before you found one that fits. I am interested in what the most popular names in Alabama were the year she was born. :).

>275 arubabookwoman: I asked ChatGPT and got this answer -
I don’t have real-time data, but in 1971, some popular baby names in the United States included Michael, Jennifer, and Christopher. Specific data for Alabama might not be available, but these were commonly used names during that period.

I think they're listed on the TIOLI thread, for that challenge, if it's worth looking for you.

>276 kjuliff: That answer really demonstrates the uselessness of ChatGPT, or as the French call it, "Cat, I threw up."

>278 RidgewayGirl: Nope, ChatGPT is "Cat, I farted". (which is not nicer...)

Edited to add: Lisa, I'm so proud of the high level of my contributions to your thread... 😊

And on that note, it's time for a new thread!

Very late to this discussion, but having just (re)seen the cover art for the first book in the series, this is why I think Murderbot is female:


Look at that costume design. What typical male clothing has that type of sweetheart neckline? Look at the dark band, mimicking a cinched waist/corset look. C'mon!

Lol. Although it also appears to have a codpiece, despite lack of genitalia.

I don't think the neckline on this cover (book 2) looks feminine...