deebee's reading corner

i'm very sure i will not get to 75 books in 2010, but i'm back just the same -- this group is much too fun! i'm swearing off challenges this time, though -- aside from a busy work schedule which keeps me away from my beloved books more than i would like it to, i realise that i'm too much of an impulse reader to manage even a single challenge. so will just continue as i have done until now -- picking up what fancies me as i go along. as the unread books in my collection run into the hundreds (and growing ---horror!), there's plenty to choose from. the challenge really is how to make a dent in the pile!

in 2009, i managed only 49 books -- it was nevertheless a fantastic reading year. i expect 2010 to be equally great.

i've started a few titles which will make it to my January list --

The Wandering Star by J.M.G. Le Clezio
In Morocco by Edith Wharton
Mysteries by Knut Hamsun
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durell
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk.

last night, with not a little trepidation, i placed Swann's Way on my bedside -- let's see...will it finally be in 2010 that i face Proust? i wonder if i should get a reading guide or just immerse myself in its languid prose and enjoy the ride. advice, anyone?

Hi! Interesting list:) Looking forward to see what you think of Knut Hamsun since I have not read that particular book. Got you starred!

Happy new year!

Waving hello - good luck with Proust!

Hi deebee! I look forward to your comments on Wandering Star and My Name is Red.

Hunchback!...ah, I really would liked to read that. I almost bought a copy the other day but realized that I couldn't guarantee I'd get to it this year. Perhaps a group read...? Either way, I'll look forward to your review!

I started reading Proust in November with a non-LT site. There is a facilitator who points out certain critical references (nothing too academic), and people can comment (I haven't commented yet, but am enjoying other people's comments). We read about 25 pages or so a day, and it seems it will work out to a book every two months. We've just finished Swann's Way, and are just starting Within A Budding Grove. Check it out at www.thecorklinedroom.wordpress.com.

I'd unsuccessfully tried Proust a couple of times before, but this time it's grabbed me. The language is luscious and dense, which is why I can't read it in huge hunks, but it is so rewarding and, yes, enjoyable. I can see reading through all 7 volumes and then starting over with Swann's Way again, there is so much to be absorbed in these books.

Welcome back!

Glad to see you back with us again, deebee!

I had My Name is Red out of the library last year but never got around to reading it. I am looking forward to your insight on the book, so I can decide if it is worth checking out again.

> 2 apolline, great to see you here. i'm enjoying Mysteries though not as much as his better known Hunger which is one of my all-time best reads. happy new year too!

> 5 dk, On Hunchback - except for a couple of parts where Hugo goes into detail in describing the city of Paris and the architecture of Notre Dame, it is a very easy and fast read -- like a fairy tale for adults. i'm a few chapters to the end already so a group read is a bit late for me now. didn't we talk last year of having a group read on The Count of Monte Cristo? would you still be interested in doing it? we could start in January -- for a year-long read. what do you think?

> 6 abw, thanks for the much-needed encouragement -- that website looks really good. will be a big help.

#6, arubabookwoman, Thanks for the link -- I wish I had had a resource like that when I finally managed to read all of Proust several years ago, and loved it (after, like you several failed attempts, in my case in my teens, 20s, and 30s -- and then success in my 50s).

I'd certainly be up for Count of Monte Cristo! I was a bit disappointed last year when it never happened, but if there's enough interest this year I'd jump right on that bandwagon! You're right, it probably would take the whole year...

I, like Apolline, am looking forward to your thoughts on the Hamsun book. I have read The Growth of the Soil, at the suggestion of a huge fan and enjoyed it. I just picked up a copy of Hunger, as it is on one of my lists. Glad to know you enjoyed it so; more credibility for me than its place on the bes list.

You've been starred.

Hunchback is a wonderful read - hope you enjoy it.

I would like to read some Proust and Nabokov but it will have to wait till 2011.

Count of Monte Cristo languishes on my TBR shelf, I'd join a group read on that one.

Books read in 2010

The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham (UK)
The Unknown Sea by François Mauriac (France)
Leo Africanus by Amin Maalouf (Lebanon)
The Crime of Father Amaro by Eça de Queiros (Portugal)
Granta 59: France The Outsider
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durell (UK)
Great Stories by Nobel Prize Winners (various authors)
The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah (UK)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo (France)
The Wandering Star by J.M.G. Clezio (France)
Chess Story by Stefan Zweig (Austria)

copying this from a post i made elsewhere

My top reads in 2009

Germinal by Émile Zola
The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe
The Days of the Consuls/Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andrić
Fado Alexandrino by António Lobo Antunes
The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa

Other great fiction reads

The Kingdom of this World by Alejo Carpentier
Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
Seeing by José Saramago
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Non-fiction
Empires of the Monsoon: A History of the Indian Ocean and its Invaders by Richard Hall
The Face of War by Martha Gellhorn

Author i just discovered and want to read more of: André Schwarz-Bart

Author to avoid: Angeles Mastretta

My 2009 thread is here

i wanted my first book for the year to be a "wow" book -- and indeed it was.

Chess Story by Stefan Zweig
Short fiction, original in German published in 1942

during world war II, passengers on a ship en route to Argentina discover that on board with them is a world chess champion. he is taciturn, haughty, and unfriendly but for a price, allowed himself to be challenged to a game against a wealthy passenger and some amateur chess lovers. with nary an effort on his part, his opponents lose one game to the next -- that is, until a mysterious passenger spoke up in the middle of one game telling the amateurs what moves they had to make. the game resulted in a draw -- and there the story begins.

Dr. B, the mysterious man, reveals his identity to the narrator and tells him how he came to possess his extraordinary ability in the game, and the price he had to pay to gain it. therein lies the heart of this short but powerful work -- the resistance as well as the vulnerability of the human mind in the face of extreme ordeal, and how tyranny scars forever those it manages to avoid killing.

spare in prose, the effect is visceral as the intense psychological drama builds up to an almost painful end. stunning and unforgettable, i highly recommend this!

Good start, deebee! Fortunately I read Chess Story last year, which I also loved, so I don't have to add it to my wish list.

Interesting. This one needs to go on the TBR pile...

I added that one to the BlackHole last year off Darryl's thread. Unfortunately, my local library does not have it. *sigh*

It took some work, but I've found you! Looks like you're off to a good start...

I'll look for that one. Great review!

deebee - Le Salon is reading Swann's Way in June if you wanted an accompanied read.

http://www.librarything.com/groups/thequestforthelastpa#forums

Otherwise just dive in and start reading. After 20 - 30 pages you will know what you are in for. If they are turgid and hardgoing remember that you have several thousand more pages ahead of you (assuming you read the whole series), and that it might not be worth the pain. If, however, they are dense but deep, and thought- and dream- provoking, then you have much much more of the same. It is an experiance which I do not believe can be repeated anywhere else.

> 22, thanks for the link to Le Salon -- i might join in though i'm already dipping into the book (i'm almost sure i would end up having to read it several times before finally getting it!). it definitely requires being in a certain state of mind -- i have had to go back several times to a certain passage or section and i'm not even sure whether i got him right at all. but the prose is beautiful and it certainly feels very much like floating in a dream!

The Wandering Star by J.M.G. Le Clezio

Fiction, original in French published in 1992

Esther, a young Jewish girl, lives with her parents in a small town way up in the mountains between France and Italy. The town is a refuge for Jews and other exiles who have fled the Nazis. They live, however, in mortal dread of the day when the enemy will reach the quiet slopes. Esther loves the mountains, she loves nothing more than climbing up their crevices and exploring secret places, spending entire days just looking at the town below and the distant peaks. Through her eyes and her love of this place, we not only see but feel its beauty and tranquility that evokes images of a Shangri-la. But all this is shattered forever one day when her father, who secretly helps Jews escape, doesn't come home. Esther, his "wandering star", continues to go back to her beloved places up there in the mountains but now only to watch the ridge where she wills her father to appear. Then the Nazi soldiers were heard coming. The escape, long, arduous, fraught with danger begins. The hope of Israel is what keeps Esther, her mother, and the survivors going.

The second part of the book is the story of another girl of Esther's age, Nejma, a Palestinian. Two groups of refugees meet on the road to/from Jerusalem -- the Jews on the way to the city, and the expelled Palestinians going away from it. Esther in one, Nejma in the other -- they meet very briefly, touching hands and exchanging names but only that. From Nejma's journal, we feel her anxiety, her confusion, her sorrow for the loss of the life she knew, her desire for a better one than the one she knows now. What will become of her?

I was blown away by Le Clezio's narrative of the mountain landscape and Esther's deep attachment to it. His prose evokes tremendous beauty accompanied by profound sadness. Esther's solitude, and later on, her sorrow, is portrayed so convincingly that my strongest image from this book is of a town which is perpetually gray and foggy, with appalling weather, and tall mountains always covered in thick dark clouds.

While Le Clezio for the most part writes very beautifully, the part about Nejma and the adult Esther seems much less inspired. The depth and the compassion of his writing was not sustained till the end. Despite this, the book was still an excellent read.

Love the description of reading Proust as "floating in a dream."

Haven't read any Le Clezio, and The Wandering Star sounds like a good place to start.

Hi deebee1 - I read Wandering Star last year and loved the first part of the book. I can see why he added the contrast with Nejma's story but it didn't really work for me and it sort of tailed off without closure. The descriptions of the French countryside and Esther's response to it were the best part of the book.

> hi avatiakh, thanks for stopping by. you hit the nail on the head by saying the story "tailed off without closure." after the powerful and intense images in the earlier part, i expected an equally memorable end but didn't find it.

Nice review, deebee. I have Wandering Star, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to get to it this year. My next Le Clézio book will definitely be Désert.

great review for Chess Story - adding that one to my wishlist.

This is exactly why I like popping on to your thread deebee. I have never heard of Le Clezio before I read your review, now I am intrigued enough to search him out. Thanks for expanding my universe....and my wish list.

#24 - Thanks for the review on Wandering Star. After Le Clezio won The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2008, the bookshops here in Japan suddenly seemed to be overflowing with his books. For some reason I was particularly intrigued by The Prospector, and may even read it one day, even though it's been described as "overwrought" :)

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

Fiction, original in French published in 1831

A hunchback, a gypsy, a priest. A church and a scaffold. Paris is not exactly the city of lights. Peopled by colourful characters, depraved creatures, hopeless beings, the architecture of the city, however, is a sight to behold. And the church of Notre Dame is the most magnificent of all.

I enjoyed very much Hugo's writing, including the digressions on the evolution of architecture as a form of “writing” and immortality, as well as a portrayal of the center of the city, street by street. I didn't enjoy the story very much, though – it was carrying martyrdom too far. The priest was vile, the soldier petty, and esmeralda not just cloying but downright foolish, too. Quasimodo, however, made up for all that – pity he didn't live a happier life.

Though it doesn't hold a candle to Les Mis, I'm still glad to have read this, as I greatly admire Hugo's ability to paint images with words.

Though it doesn't hold a candle to Les Mis, I'm still glad to have read this, as I greatly admire Hugo's ability to paint images with words

Yes! I totally agree. Especially for the time it was written. Readers did not have pictures nor Google to refer to so it was important to achieve a sense of place thru words. Great review.

ETA: Oops, I'm learning to italize and I think I've gone too far :(

ETA: ooo, now look! I've fixed it :)

It has been a while since I read any Hugo (the last being Toilers of the Sea), so I may do a re-read this year. Hmm, wonder when I can fit that in?

Stasia--what did you think of Toilers of the Sea? It's on my shelf and I was thinking of getting to it this year.

Great review of Chess Story - I'd never heard of it, but now I'll try to see if I can't find it. Also, I'm suddenly inspired to read Hugo. Thanks. :)

Also, bought My Name Is Red before Christmas (funny how one always seems to find so many good books for oneself when out Christmas shopping...) but haven't started reading it yet. Except for looking at the first page, which was very intriguing. Be interesting to hear what you thought of it!

#35: Parts of the novel are slow, Deborah, but overall I thought it was a terrific book. The fight of man against nature is a classic conflict and Hugo (as expected) handles it well.

> 33, i read in Wikipedia that Hugo was an artist -- he drew and painted as much as he wrote but that fearing his artwork would overshadow his literary work, he kept them out of the public eye. i think this explains why he was able to portray architecture and the city layout in an exceptionally vivid way -- he described them as only a visual artist could! he was also into politics, being elected into the National Assembly and the Senate. a very fascinating man he was indeed! hmm, would be interesting to get hold of a good biography of Hugo...

> 36, i've set aside My Name is Red after about 80 pages. it started well enough but i've reached a part where it's becoming a big of a slog. i might pick it up again in Feb and join a group read over at Le Salon...you might want to join the group too.

I found My Name is Red "a bit of a slog" too. I finished it, was sure I missed a lot, but glad I persevered.

I got over halfway through Snow by Pamuk 5 years ago and then just gave up. I'll try again some time, but it just fizzled out for me.

Great Stories by Nobel Prize Winners by various authors

Short story collection, translated from various languages, first published in 1959

An excellent collection of short stories by 26 Nobel Prize Winners selected from among their finest work in this format. I found it a highly readable and enjoyable way to be introduced to the writings of some previously obscure (at least to me) literary greats such as Bjornsterne Bjornsen, Maurice Maeterlink, Gerhart Hauptmann, Wladyslaw Reymont, Roger Martin du Gard and Johannes V. Jensen. It was also my first time to read something by Anatole France, Grazia Deledda, Luigi Pirandello, and Par Lagerkvist. According to the editors, the stories were chosen to represent the literary style of the period in which the author wrote, and thus overall traces the shift in style over some 60-year period. Some featured stories are now not easily accessible.

It's interesting to note that the stories by the earlier winners (except Rudyard Kipling) had a dominantly religious theme to them -- of poor individuals or communities of people with simple yet profound faith, and an almost mystic quality attributed to nature. The mood is mostly melancholic, the struggle to live hard and sometimes futile or violent. The later writers wrote on more varied subjects, and humour starts to peep through some of the writing. I found most memorable the following stories: The Procurator of Judea by Anatole France, The Crucifixion of the Outcast by William Butler Yeats, The Massacre of the Innocents by Maurice Maeterlinck, and The Guest by Albert Camus. Highly recommended.

Thanks for the review. I'm in a short story group and I'll be responsible for the group's read in a month or two so I'm always interested in finding new-to-me authors.

The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah

Memoir, 2006

Tired of the stale, monotonous life in wet, gray London, Tahir Shah and family packs up their stuff, and go away for good to somewhere thrilling, exotic, colourful, and vibrant -- to the Morocco of Shah's childhood. It was a jump into the unknown.

Dar Khalifa, Arab for The Calih's House, in Casablanca was a former palatial compound now falling apart from many years of neglect. As soon as Shah sees it, he knows it is the house of his dreams. As soon as he purchased the property, he realises he got more...much more than what he bargained for. Shah's house project is fraught by disasters from the onset -- phony architect, bungling workers, illegal suppliers, among others. Then there is the big story of the jinns who inhabited the house. The reconstruction project itself was a cultural journey and an awakening for Shah, and he ultimately finds himself understanding and appreciating the ancient bonds that hold the Moroccan society together.

More than just a delightful account of the reconstruction of Dar Khalifa, it is also a depiction of a society that for all its apparent "Frenchness", is steeped in tradition. I read this book as a continuation of my Moroccan literary jaunt, piqued by my trip to the country last month. I found the book entertaining and informative, with funny and heartwarming anecdotes, but certainly not distinguished writing. I enjoyed his In Arabian Nights: A Caravan of Moroccan Dreams much more.

Nice review, deebee. I'm tempted to get it, but I think I'll pass, based on your comments.

#41: My local library has a copy of that one. Thanks for the recommendation, deebee.

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

Memoir, 1956

Gerald Durrell had a childhood many children can only dream of. This wonderful and brilliantly funny book takes us to the island of Corfu where his family moved to in 1935 in order to escape the damp, gray English climate. To the entire family, life in the island was a dream come true, and to 10-year old Gerald, it was the beginning of a lifelong affair with wildlife and nature. To the young intrepid explorer, the small island being a sanctuary of many small and interesting creatures, and with its marvelous array of flora and fauna, was a veritable museum of natural history.

Between his explorations of the natural offerings of Corfu, we are introduced to his wacky family and their misadventures concerning the various animals Gerald kept bringing home to collect and observe. Scorpions in matchboxes, snakes in the bathtub are just a few of what the family had to put up with. An animal's antics or escape invariably leads to a riotous atmosphere, and with Durrell's striking prose, we find ourselves right in the middle of it. Gerald not only discovers nature in the island, but has found friends among the locals, including some memorable characters.

This book is vibrant, full of life and not just literally. It's colourful, heartwarming, enchanting, and laugh-out-loud funny. By a wonderful turn of words, Durrell has turned the habits of our little animal friends into a subject which otherwise holds no fascination for me. It also evokes a world that was still untouched by the impending clouds of war in europe, a tiny world apart.

I enjoyed this book very much, and if I had to reread something (which i almost never do), this book would be a strong contender. Which means I can't recommend it highly enough.

#46: I loved that one when I read it a couple years ago. I am glad you enjoyed it, deebee!

Oh, that sounds too good to pass up! This will go high on my wish list, and I'll probably give it to a couple of friends as Christmas gifts, too. Thanks deebee!

Part of the wacky family is Lawrence Durrell, and it is particularly funny to read Gerald's descriptions of Lawrence in this book. Overall, I agree wholeheartedly on the recommendation.

As I mentioned on deebee's other thread, I read My Family and Other Animals when I was about 11 or 12, adored it, and went on to read a lot of Gerald Durell's other books. It's one of those books I was afraid to reread because I might not love it as much, but deebee has encouraged me and reread it I will.

> darryl, i plan to give this too as a gift to several people i know (young and old alike) -- we can't go wrong with this choice.

> lisa, i loved everybody in the cast, including self-possessed Lawrence who, without meaning to, always ends up looking the most ridiculous!

> rebecca, i'm quite sure you will still love it. my regret is that i didn't get to read this earlier or when i was growing up.

My Family and other animals sounds like an enchanting book. It is now on the wishlist. Thanks

>46 deebee1:: My Family and Other Animals was one of my favorite books when I was in high school.

Lawrence Durrell's (Larry in the the story you just read) book about the Corfu years is Prospero's Cell. I found it quite interesting how different the perspectives of a mature adult and a young boy were (comments here).

ETA: Also, Gerald did two sequels to MFaOA: Birds, Beasts and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods.

thanks, Tad, for sharing your comments on Prospero's Cell. i have this book and i look forward to comparing his impressions of Corfu with those of the young Gerald.

Granta 59: France the Outsider, edited by Ian Jack

Anthology, 1997

I love to intersperse my reading with anthologies, and I have a collection of old issues of Granta magazine to choose from whenever I need a break from my longer reads. In this issue are writings by Michel Houllebecq, Assia Djebar, and Patrick Chamoiseau, among others. I didn't find this issue very remarkable, no particular piece stood out. I did enjoy David Macey's Fort-de-France enlightening -- about Martinique and its "Frenchness", and the photo essay by Raymond Depardon, one of France's most distinguished photojournalists, of the farm where he grew up. The more worthwhile piece was an extensive account by Brian Cathcart about the case of racial killing of Stephen Lawrence, a young black, in a suburb of London in 1993 gives us a view of how the system was manipulated to favour the white killers in a gross miscarriage of justice.

#55: I will have to see if I can locate a copy of that one. I have a couple of old issues of Granta I need to get to, so one more would not hurt, right?

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner}}

Novel, 1930

I never thought a story about dying and death could be grimly amusing. It sounds macabre, but macabre this story was, and brilliantly, too. Addie Bundren takes awhile dying, and in the opening scene, we find her watching through her bedroom window Cash, her eldest, building a coffin for her. Finally she is dead and there the family's luckless adventure begins as they have to bring her body to Jefferson, where she came from. Anse, the husband, swears it was a promise he made her, and that he will fulfill at all costs.

That the body was placed reversed on the coffin, to start, could not have boded well for the entire endeavor. Against all common sense, Anse insists on crossing the ford instead as the bridge had collapsed. A ludicrous scene follows with horse, mules, people and coffin being carried away by the waters. The coffin is intact, and surviving waters, fire, and the petty hostilities between the siblings and the sly manipulations of the lazy Anse throughout the transport, it finally entered Jefferson in a procession accompanied by vultures overhead, for now it had been the 9th day and the smell was horrible.

While we learn of things that happened in the course of bringing Addie's body to Jefferson, we also learn of her life and the family's, skeletons and all, before this took place, spread in the novel's 59 chapters and from the point of view of 15 narrators. Written in a stream of consciousness style, some effort is necessary when switching from one point of view to another, as narrators can be articulate, confusing, vague or abstruse. I found this fun, though, as all these were like dots I had to connect and work out by myself. Also, by getting into each character's mind, we experience and perceive rather than "told" of what he or she goes through, and so as a reader, have to sometimes consciously detach ourselves from the narrator to "see" what is happening. For example in the case of the boy, Verdaman who thinks his mother is a fish. I had to pull back and reflect -- why did he think his mother is a fish? So there, go find out why he thinks his mother is a fish. Read the book and find out why Faulkner is a giant of literature.

Between you and Deborah (arubabookwoman), you have made me want to go back and read some more Faulkner. It has been 20+ years since I read any, so I guess it's about time.

>>57 deebee1: - OK, I'm sold. I honestly don't think I've ever read a Faulkner title, so this sounds like a great place to start.