MAY THREAD ON THE GRAND EUROPEAN TOUR - Non-National Languages

Bilbao is in Spain but the de facto capital of the Basque country where most publication is in Basque.

This is termed as an interlude on our tour as I don't have a specific place or region in mind.

I am looking at European languages used by non-Europeans

Maybe a Brazilian writing in Portuguese
An Indian writing in English (not a UK citizen of Indian heritage)
An Argentine writing in Spanish
An African writing in French.

I am looking at European languages used by Europeans but in a country that this language is not the "national" language.

An obvious example would be Herta Muller from Romania but writing in German
Joseph Conrad and Elias Canetti writing in English but where English was not their first language and in Conrad's case not even his second.
Andrei Makine - a Russian writing in French.

I am looking at European "regional" languages.

Examples would be Basque, Catalan and although not regional as such, Yiddish, but there are many more besides.

WHAT I WILL READ?

I have little idea yet! But I am going to enjoy studying options and choosing some.

Pursuant to our discussion of the separatist movement in Quebec I plan to read Menaud Maître-Draveur, one of the classic novels, along with Trente Arpents and Maria Chapdelaine, of the francophone quebecois experience as an “oppressed majority.”

>2 PaulCranswick: Thank you very much Paul. It was fun to look for authors in advance who actually write in a European dialect that is not an official national language.
I'm going to read Obabakoak by the Spanish Basque author Bernardo Atxaga. He always writes his books in Basque, which are then translated. I'm going to read it in German

>2 PaulCranswick: I believe Canetti wrote all his published work in German, although his first language was Ladino, a Sephardic analogue to Yiddish.

>2 PaulCranswick: I want to get this right so that the book police are not after me! I am able to read a book of short stories by Sholem Aleichem written in Yiddish. The author was born in the Ukraine.

>6 booksaplenty1949: You could well be right but he would still clearly qualify as he was Bulgarian and then British.

>7 Tess_W: Definitely qualifies, Tess

I am thinking with going with Confessions by Jaume Cabre as it will qualify for several of my challengers.

I have a hardback version of the book that runs to 741 pages.

Can Samuel Beckett be used, he is Irish but wrote in French if I recall correctly.

Jorge Amado, Bahia, Brazil, writing in Portuguese

Camu Algerian, writing in French

So Long a Letter - Mariama Ba, writes in French I think.

Just a few I quickly recalled.

I am planning on reading Enemies: A Love Story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, which was originally published in Yiddish for this month's challenge.

>8 PaulCranswick: I read his Auto da Fé for the Ottoman Empire leg of the tour. Difficult and not terribly rewarding, IMO. Still struggling with last 50 pages.

>11 Kristelh: Camus’ parents were “pieds-noirs” ie French people who had settled in Algeria sometime between the time of its colonisation by France in 1830 and the war which led to Algerian independence in 1962.

>12 alcottacre: A book I enjoyed. Also made into a very good movie.

Heritage by Miquel Bonnefoy - a book never to be forgotten -
was written in French and translated into both Spanish and English.

It offers French, Spanish, and, native to Chile, Mapuche, words.

>16 m.belljackson: Your touchstone goes to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, which was probably not your intention.

A book that I think would qualify is Deep Rivers by Arguedas, José María. He wrote in Spanish but in the rhythm and style that resonates with the Andean people. Added this; the author thought and expressed himself as Quechua even though he wrote in Spanish.

>17 booksaplenty1949: Gracias!

>15 booksaplenty1949: Nice to know! I did not know about the movie version at all.

>11 Kristelh: Samuel Beckett would qualify of course but only for the work he did write in French.

Albert Camus is a bit more questionable as he was born to pied noir parents in Algerian and they always considered themselves as French.

As always with me, I will of course allow it in the challenge if you are comfortable yourself that it fits.

>16 m.belljackson: I think you are referring to Miguel Bonnefoy, Marianne. He is French/Venezuelan.

>22 PaulCranswick: Yes - book far upstairs so went with what was remembered.

I want to read a book off my shelves for this one so most likely a Yiddish translation for me. I had wanted to read The Family Mashber but this is probably too ambitious considering my other reading plans for the month, so have pulled The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer from the shelves.

>10 PaulCranswick: Your link goes to the Confessions of St Augustine. Worthy, but written in Latin, so for a later month.

Paul Cranswick, Aliette de Bodard is Vietnamese but writes in French (bilingual from childhood) if that could work for you.

I won't participate, Paul, but I wonder whether you or anybody else has ever seen a Basque grammar? I was fascinated when I found one in NC's foreign language library, long closed, in the nearby larger town. There was a 2-foot fold-out, parsing of a sentence of about 12 words. Holy Moly!

>24 avatiakh: Thanks, I have amended it.

>26 leennnadine: Yes that works for sure

>27 LizzieD: Wowzer.

I started reading Nostromo by Joseph Conrad which I downloaded from Project Gutenberg so should finish. I am taking a Baltic Cruise this year and hope to see his statue in Gdynia, Poland.

About half-way through Menaud Maître-Draveur. If one did not know better one would assume that Francophones were the indigenous people of Quebec, colonised by money-hungry Anglophones who had no respect for their culture and customs. The novel is full of the grievance culture I associate with Ireland.
Not that Francophone Quebecois were not a conquered people, but they had themselves arrived from a foreign country relatively recently by anthropological standards.

>29 mnleona: A tour of the Baltic will be very interesting, I'm sure!

I listened to Neville Jason read Sholom Aleichem's Tevye the Milkman. It's never going to be a favorite, but I did enjoy it.

>32 amanda4242: Glad you did, it annoyed me!

I read:
Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories by Sholom Aleichem (Born in Ukraine, wrote in Yiddish)

and The Jewish Festivals: A Guide to Their History and Observance by Hayyim Schauss. (Born in Lithuania, wrote in Hebrew.)

>33 Tess_W: Neville Jason's delivery helped.

Finished Menaud, Maître-Draveur. An interesting window into Quebecois self-concept. Very reminiscent of the Irish.

I didn't think I would have anything to read for this challenge. However, after reading >2 PaulCranswick:, that clarified things and I had to rethink it. So I'm going to take advantage of the challenge and treat it like I did a couple of the challenges for the War Room last year and pick up a classic that has eluded me until now. I've decided to read Conrad's Heart of Darkness. I've got a copy out from the library and am starting to tackle it.

>36 atozgrl: The narrator relates the story to us on a ship in the mouth of the Thames. Once Britain was a distant outpost of the Roman Empire. The colonial map has changed but the mentality has not. A brilliant work.

We attract the best on this thread.

I finished Heart of Darkness days ago, and although I wrote up some comments on my own thread, I didn't have time to come over here to report, and then I forgot to do so until now. I have to say that I was very impressed Conrad could write such vivid descriptions when he was not a native English speaker. But it did surprise me how little we actually saw of Kurtz in the story. I am glad to have finally read this classic.

>40 atozgrl: I think the point is that Kurtz is a symbolic figure—-the self-serving/ idealistic imperialist who is gradually destroyed by the contradictions of his mission. His personal characteristics are unimportant. That’s why the narrator’s desperate assertion to the fiancée—“His last words were—your name!”—is so brilliant. He doesn’t actually know what her name is, but it doesn’t matter. The cliché—-a complete lie—-does the job.

I finally finished a book I started earlier, The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. She was part of the Swedish speaking minority in Finland. So it fitted into this month’s challenge as well. Loved the book.

>41 booksaplenty1949: Good points. I wish this was a book we had studied in high school or college. It would have made for a good discussion.

I finished The Old Country: Collected Stories of Sholom Aleichem, translated from the Yiddish by Julius and Frances Butwin (1946). For the March challenge, I read the first half of these stories, which included a couple of Tevye stories, which I enjoyed.

I finished the second half of the stories for this month's challenge; overall they were good. These stories also centered around the town of Kasrilevka. I think my favorites were "Hannukah Money", "You Mustn't Weep--It's Yom-Tev", and "I'm Lucky--I'm an Orphan" (very bittersweet). Most interesting to me was "Dreyfus in Kasrilevka", which tells the story of how the townspeople in Kasrilevka follow the ongoing trial of Captain Dreyfus. They hear the details from the one man in the town who receives a newspaper from the "outside" world. Here's a sample from that story:

There were two people whom Kasrilevka came to love and revere. These were Emile Zola and Labori. For Zola each one would gladly have died. If Zola had come to Kasrilevka the whole town would have come out to greet him, they would have born him aloft on their shoulders.
"What do you think of his letters?"
"Pearls. Diamonds. Rubies."

All of the translations in the 1946 edition were very readable, capturing the humor and pathos of the stories. The Butwins were both immigrants to America from Eastern Europe and this edition includes a Foreword by Frances Butwin on the couple's process of turning the original Yiddish into a readable and meaningful English translation.

>43 atozgrl: “Studied” it in high school—-in my experience that meant slowly and tediously working through the plot. Most of the authors I studied in high school are dead to me. Fortunately encountered Conrad again later in a course on the Edwardian novel.

>45 booksaplenty1949: I'm glad my classes weren't like that! I remember having more discussion about the book and what it meant, not just tediously recounting the plot. It's a good thing that didn't turn you off to books.

>46 atozgrl: My parents were compulsive readers so I was hooked on books before I got to school. Well remember the tedious pace of “silent reading” in elementary school—-not being allowed to turn a page until everyone had finished. I usually had another book on my knees to help me pass the time.

>47 booksaplenty1949: not being allowed to turn a page until everyone had finished

OMG. I would not have been able to handle that. What was the point?!

>48 labfs39: If anything that went on in elementary school seems to make sense to you it’s probably time to seek counselling.

I read Tent of Miracles written in Portugueese by Jorge Amado, Brazilian author. But I don't think it counts because it is not a European country.

 Obabakoak

With Obabakoak, which has been translated into numerous languages, the Basque language has conquered its place in world literature.
The remote village of Obaba, somewhere in the Basque mountains, follows its own rules. Here, confused hearts, dead letters, and stubborn chickens live. Here, tomato paste piles up in Rosie's corner shop, and rumors about the shepherds' house and lizards creep into unwary ears. Those who aren't careful get lost on the mountain paths or behind the neighbor's door.
Bernardo Atxaga conjures a sensual labyrinth, narrating fantastically real things, searching for the final word and endless stories.
It is a novel of fabulation, in which the fantastic becomes real and the real becomes fantastic, and all the stories are essentially about storytelling. The fictional village of Obaba becomes an almost mythical place of universal significance, yet remains a small town lost in the Basque mountains. With a playful perspective that ranges from Germany to Baghdad to the Amazon, from Borges to Calvino to Queneau, Atxaga conjures up a bizarre cosmos, distorting and parodying, delightfully playing with words, sentences, and senses.
I highly recommend this book.

>50 Kristelh:

See Pauls >2 PaulCranswick: the first example is a Brazilian writing in Portuguese.

>52 Tess_W:.Thanks Tess

Are you setting up the June thread soon-ish, Paul? Or have you already set it up and I missed it?

I managed to finish The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer before the end of the month. Written in Yiddish and set in Poland it was an excellent read. My copy fell apart as I read as it was an old paperback that had seen much better days.
The book was made into a film in 1979, I watched the opening scene on youtube which showed Yasha (Alan Arkin) on a tightrope high above a town square.

>54 PawsforThought: I don’t think Paul has started the new thread yet, I think.
It’s supposed to be for books written in Latin and Italian, I thought.
I was thinking of what to read, and realised I am more familiar with Italian movies than Italian writers or books. I’m looking for suggestions. Starting with an old and loved familiar: The Name of the Rose.

>56 EllaTim: I'm not super familiar with Italian writers, but I can recommend

Our Ancestors by Italo Calvino
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
Silk by Alessandro Baricco

>57 amanda4242: Hi Amanda. Thanks. I think the second and third book can be found in my library. I’ll check them out.

I know Elena Ferrante is super popular right now, but her books did nothing for me, unfortunately.

I think the Ferrante books written in Italian. I think the Aeneid might be what I read. Dante would also work.

>59 Kristelh: Elena Ferrante. If you’re reading The Aeneid you might consider limiting yourself to the first six books. Next six, which Virgil was editing when he died, are a feeble imitation of The Iliad. Read The Great Italian Novel ie The Betrothed recently. A core book for understanding the Risorgimento. Can also highly recommend The Leopard.

>56 EllaTim: I just started reading The Name of the Rose yesterday!

About to set up the thread all. Thank you for your patience as always.

Things have been a tad hectic in Malaysia.

June thread is here:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/371345

Thanks Paul!