Nonsuch Book

clandestine in chile by gabriel garcia marquez

In 1985, filmmaker Miguel Littin disguised himself as an Uruguayan businessman, and snuck back into Chile after twelve years of exile. Accompanied by three international film crews, each supposedly there making films promoting Chilean tourism, Littin sought to assemble a documentary film that would show the world the dark truths of Pinochet's dominion. After Littin's safe exit from Chile after weeks of filming, he sat down with Gabriel Garcia Marquez to recount the experience, yielding approximately 18 hours of recorded conversation which became condensed into this 116 page book. Of oddness. And slightly annoying vanity.

So the story is told as if in Littin's own voice but is clearly stylistically the voice of Garcia Marquez. The tone is serious, asking the reader to believe in a danger facing Littin and his very large, very well-financed entourage that hardly exists. Littin's cab changes, hotel changes, fake passport and wife and other cloak and dagger type details take on the form of drama queen gone wild, and assume comedic qualities in which I found only small amusement. There is an emotional attachment here to home and hearth for which one can have some sympathy, but these details of the face of Chile become muted by the larger assertions of self concern. My family. My friends. My childhood. My film career. Et cetera. There is no terror, no horror, no real indication of Pinochet's crimes. 

Now perhaps, as suggested by Francisco Goldman in the introduction to the NYRB edition, Garcia Marquez did not find it necessary to recount Pinochet's atrocities when they were already well-known. Or perhaps this was Garcia Marquez just using the weight of his fame as a writer of fiction to publish a threat, a slap in the face to Pinochet. A threat whose very existence prompted Pinochet and his cohorts to seize and burn 15,000 copies of the book upon publication. But let's be clear. This is no "classic of modern reportage" where Garcia Marquez returns to his journalism roots. This is personal, and as Goldman astutely concludes, more about the ways that an older generation of political dissidents align themselves with power especially as when compared to the more strident voice of someone like Roberto Bolano. I'll stop here before revealing anymore of my leftist leanings. This was not a bad book. This was a weird book. A curiosity you can run through in a short amount of time if interested. 

the very favorites and the lesser favorites of 2010

Resistance is futile. There is no avoiding the end of year listing of the year's best reads. I waffle and ponder and dodge and then a few emails and tweets of encouragement and I fold like the spineless librarian I am. Faced with requests for recommendations, for personal favorites, no self-respecting guardian of the books can refuse.

It seems obvious to mention that my continuing journey through Proust (here and here) and the Woolf in Winter group reads (here and here and here and here) were highlights of the year. But they were. A less likely classic that also shaped up to be an enlightening read and an addictive conversation was the new Lydia Davis translation of Madame Bovary. I say less likely because I strongly suspect things about Flaubert that have removed him from my dead writers to dinner list. But Madame Bovary this time around revealed secrets I heard not a whisper of as a younger woman, the translation was as fine as Emma's luxurious textiles, and the company was superb.

Of books published in 2010, head and shoulders above anything else I read this year, an elegy contained in a box consumed my mind and imagination to the point I am still incapable of adequate synthesis required to write about it. Nox by Anne Carson as seen above. A reproduction of her notebook begun after her brother's death. A way to both re-create him and find him within the remembrances, the scrapbook like images, classical scholarship and the unfillable hole of grief. “I wanted to fill my elegy with light of all kinds. But death makes us stingy. There is nothing more to be expended on that, we think, he’s dead. Love cannot alter it. Words cannot add to it. No matter how I try to evoke the starry lad he was, it remains a plain, odd history.” Incredibly beautiful and moving.

Two other standouts from the year were read with my Wolves friends and those who cared to join us. Moo Pak by Gabriel Josipovivi was a near perfectly executed 150+ page conversation between friends where "only the last word can make sense of the first." And Life: A User's Manual by Georges Perec was the most FUN I have had with a book in recent memory. Brilliance and playfulness (that occasionally borders on silliness) choose each other as dance partners from opposite sides of the room, and bring puzzle and literary chase to new heights. The stories of the inhabitants of an apartment building at 11 Rue Simon-Crubellier, a fictional Parisian address, might initially remind you of a more detailed, a richer The Elegance of the Hedgehog but what you will find is a book you can come back to again and again revealing multiple layers of meaning and allusion (and goofiness). 

And the rest? The lesser but still awesome favorites?

• The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
• The Old Man and Me by Elaine Dundy
• Great House by Nicole Krauss
• Not to Disturb by Muriel Spark
• Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker 

Now I just realized that I have yet to write about two of these. Must correct. But my pattern does tend to be not writing about the favorites. Not sure why. Hmmm. Bookish year end closure complete.

new directions in the new year

Lists and lists and lists. Everywhere I look. Top books, worst books, books read, books we intended to read, books to read in 2011 and many, many more. I enjoy reading them but always wonder why I seem less enthusiastic than the average reader/blogger about this close of year activity. But as I clear out today in an effort to begin a new year with less clutter, less (sigh) paper, the New Directions Spring/Summer 2011 catalog calls out to me in a way that brings me a little closer to understanding the need to plan the reading life. I want to read nearly every title.

In 2011, New Directions will celebrate its 75th anniversary. Quite the achievement for a small press "devoted solely to the best in literature." A press that maintains some of my favorite authors like Muriel Spark, Tennessee Williams, and William Carlos Williams "with new editions that reflect the latest scholarship on these authors" at the same time they publish new poetry (like this year's beautiful achievement in Anne Carson's Nox) and literature in translation. You can read more about them on their website if you choose or just look at the titles they publish. That list of books speaks for itself, or should I say, it will either speak to you or it won't. As is the case for most of us and our favorite publishers.

So what do I look forward to reading next year from New Directions? Well, a lot but will definitly not miss out on these:

Curriculum Vitae: A Volume of Autobiography by Muriel Spark. This was the year I discovered Spark. Most happily. Now I want it all. And the time to get through the rest of that wonderful biography by Martin Stannard.

The Magic Tower and Other One-Act Plays by Tennessee Williams with foreword by Terrence McNally. A collection of some of the early work that informs the later masterpieces. And all work I have yet to read.

Between Parentheses: Essays, Articles and Speeches, 1998-2003 by Roberto Bolano, edited by Ignacio Echevarria, translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer. Had a small taste of Bolano's personal voice this year in book of interviews, and would like to reach beyond that to his literary criticism as well.

Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas, translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean. Paris. Literature. Writing. In the seventies. Hanging out with Duras, Barthes, Perec, Pitol and company. Literary memoir that reportedly reads like a novel.

The Seamstress and the Wind by Cesar Aira, translated from the Spanish by Rosalie Knecht. Aira is an author I have yet to read and hate to admit that I have not and this is Bolano's favorite Aira novel. 

On Booze by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Love this Pearl series of small works and as my husband was kind enough to give me all the new Fitzgerald re-designs for Christmas, I think that next year has a Fitzgerald thing coming together. It has been years. And this small book is plugged as "the most intoxicating Pearl yet!" (silly) (giggle)

That should keep me happy and busy. Happy just thinking about it. Joy of the list found.

Have a favorite publisher? Recently experienced some list joy?

wigs on the green by nancy mitford

When Vintage re-issued five novels by Nancy Mitford this year, I knew it was finally time to read these books which I had eyed for years. The point where I take my interest in the personal story of the Mitfords to an actual work from one of them. The new releases are Mitford worthy from the fabulous photographs of the author featured on the cover to the small design details to the paper stock so substantial. But where to start with all five beauties in hand?

Thomas suggested that I read them chronologically by publication date, and that seemed very sensible to me. I loaded them on to my sidebar of recently acquired titles in that order so that I might not forget the plan. But then something funny happened. When Wigs on the Green left the pack and migrated up to "Reading Now," I received more than a few emails, direct messages and other missives encouraging me to "work through the disappointment" as the other Mitford titles would be much more worthy of my reading time. What? I was confused. My Mitford novice status was showing.

As it turns out, Wigs on the Green has been out of print for nearly 75 years until this year. Mitford had declined to have the novel re-issued in her lifetime because of the strife it had caused within her family with some satirical elements clearly leveled at her sisters Diana and Unity who were apparently smitten with Hitler and fascism. But this was not the cause of readerly disappointment. This is just the novel of a young Mitford I think. For those who have read The Pursuit of Love or Love in a Cold Climate it is a lesser work. But for someone like me who had yet to read anything by Mitford, it was a fun and witty little romp that promised much for my future with the oldest Mitford sister. Like a quick meal of Wodehouse love chased down with a glass of Waugh admiration.

The novel begins with Noel and Jasper in search of an heiress to marry. Something about this path being a bit easier than an actual job. They venture out into the countryside to attempt an introduction to one of the richest young women in England, Eugenia Malmains. But Eugenia is not the fluff of which most heiresses are made. She is an over-the-top rendering of a proponent of English fascism made forgivable and laugh worthy by virtue of her age and lack of worldly experience. They encounter her first in the town square.

‘“Britons awake! Arise! Oh, British lion!” cried Eugenia Malmains in thrilling tones. She stood on an overturned wash-tub on Chalford village green and harangued about a dozen aged yokels. Her straight hair, cut in a fringe, large, pale-blue eyes, dark skin, well-proportioned limbs and classical features, combined with a certain fanaticism of gesture to give her the aspect of a modern Joan of Arc. . . . “The Union Jack movement is a youth movement,” Eugenia cried passionately, “we are tired of the old. We see nothing through their eyes no longer. We see nothing admirable in that debating society of aged and corrupt men called Parliament,” . . .At this point a very old lady came up to the crowd, pushed her way through it and began twitching at Eugenia’s skirt. “Eugenia, my child,” she said brokenly, “do get off that tub, pray, please get down at once. Oh! When her ladyship hears of this I don’t know what will happen.” “Go away Nanny,” said Eugenia, who in the rising tide of oratory seemed scarcely aware that she had been interrupted.’

Her most amusing fanaticism drives the farce as Eugenia's political group joins forces with the two fortune seekers, two well-heeled women, Poppy and Marjorie, hiding out from a well-arranged marriage for one of them, and a local woman, Mrs. Lace, whose love of the creative fuels a measure of drama wherever she appears. The pageant they stage at Eugenia's ancestral home, Chalford, concludes the novel as the "wigs on the green" experience here, and all is neatly tied up as one might expect.

Simple, light and breezy on one hand but kept interesting by Mitford's sharply incisive wit and observations about marriage and the roles of women in society (among other things). A soft chuckle comfort read that will send me back for the rest of Mitford's novels. Just the beginning.

a merry christmas to all!

No matter how you celebrate the season, may your head be filled with magic, your heart full of love and your arms full of books. Merry Christmas everyone!

Image by Tracey Long.

new directions in gifting

The packages that come to me from New Directions are my favorite bookish mail deliveries so I was very excited to find one today. But then a little pouty because this was a duplicate mailing. And then happy in my belief that I know they would want me to share them with you given the circumstances.

The Clash of Images by Abdelfattah Kilito and translated from the French by Robin Creswell as described on the publisher's website:

Abdelfattah Kilito’s The Clash of Images is a sweet, Borgesian mix of bildungsroman, memoir, family history, short-story collection, fable, and literary criticism. Written in a graceful and charming style, Kilito’s story takes place in an unnamed Moroccan coastal city of memories where a child experiences first-hand the cultural clash of text and image in a changing, modern society. The story unfolds in the medina, the msid (or Koranic school), the neighborhood hammam (or bathhouse), summer camp, and the local cinema — vanished sites that inspire Kilito’s meditations and eulogy. In one chapter the child’s mother forbids her son to read comic books after a bad report card, and the author evokes Don Quixote’s niece, who tries to burn her uncle’s romances and save him from his insane quests. In another, he remembers the first time he saw an image of the Prophet Mohammed, in a French textbook, and the moment he showed the offending picture to his grandmother.

The Clash of Images is a celebration of the pleasures of storytelling, a magic lantern that delicately reveals how the world of books intimately connects with the world outside their pages.

And the stories in While the Women Are Sleeping by Javier Marias and translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa are described in this way:

Slippery figures in anomalous situations — ghosts, spies, bodyguards, criminals — haunt these stories by Javier Marías: the characters come bearing their strange and special secrets, and never leave our minds. In one story, a man obsessed with his much younger lover endlessly videotapes her every move, and then confides his surprising plans for her; in another a ghost can’t stop resigning from his job. Masterfully, Marías manages in a small space to perplex and delight.

“The short story fits Marías like a glove,” as Le Point noted. His stories have been hailed as “formidably intelligent” (The London Review of Books), “a bracing tonic” (The Chicago Tribune), and “startling” (The New York Times Book Review).

“Sexy, contemplative, elusive and addictive.” —San Francisco Bay Guardian

“In the space of ten or twenty pages, Marías contrives to write a novel.” —Nouvel Observateur

“The most subtle and gifted writer in contemporary Spanish literature.” —The Boston Sunday Globe

You see these titles in my sidebar? I plan on reading both in January. Care to join me? Or not. It does not matter. Just leave a comment before end of day tomorrow (Wednesday), and I will let one of my children pick a winner. Will ship anywhere but the titles are coming together. A package deal.

Winner: Lizzy Siddal! (Chosen through a highly complicated system where I say to my son, "Hey, pick a number between 1 and 11," and he replies "5.")

sunday salon: book geek smackdown

It was with gleeful curiosity that I scrolled down through the announcement of the 2011 Tournament of Books to the long list. Not so much to be told what I should have appreciated and/or read in 2010, but to get ready to trash the inclusions I find most objectionable. Because that is the beauty, the fun of this yearly event sponsored by The Morning News. There is something for most readers to cheer for included on the list, and numerous opportunities for bookish sorts to smack talk about books they have never read. Or will ever read. A riotous highlighting of skewed standards of taste, and the impossibility of any awards system accurately defining literary excellence. 

The short list, the sweet sixteen, will be released in January, and then the action takes place concurrently with the more well-known March Madness. A panel of judges (and there is a contest going on until midnight tonight where you can nominate yourself to be a judge - yes, you, a nobody) will spar bracket by bracket until a winner is named, a winner who will receive an angry rooster as a prize. Sweet, right?

Now in the spirit of this excellent post recently, I would love to see lots of book bloggers begin the smack talking as soon as possible. So I am pasting the long list here so you don't even have to wait the delay of a click to start making unfair assumptions about books you consider beneath you. Come on, offend somebody. Gently. Just comment below and tell me what shines on this list and what is a sad reason to kill a tree? Reason and intellectual discipline not required to respond. In fact, they are discouraged. Knee jerk reactions preferred. It is not required that you have read the books you are discussing either. You are smart people. Make it up.

So in your opinion, what stands out as something truly worthy of this "best of" list, and what stands out as a possible typo? What did you love but inexplicably not find here? And what book has been included that you cannot for the life of you explain the appeal - your wtf moment?

• The Pregnant Widow, by Martin Amis
• The Infinities, by John Banville
• The Map of True Places, by Brunonia Barry
• The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender
• If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, by Robin Black
• Ordinary Thunderstorms, by William Boyd
• Doubles, by Nic Brown
• Parrot and Olivier in America, by Peter Carey
• Nox, by Anne Carson
• Exley, by Brock Clarke
• Witz, by Joshua Cohen
• The Passage, by Justin Cronin
• Stiltsville, by Susanna Daniel
• Bad Marie, by Marcy Dermansky
• The Autobiography of Jenny X, by Lisa Dierbeck
• Room, by Emma Donoghue
• The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, by Heidi W. Durrow
• A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan
• Aliss At The Fire, by Jon Fosse
• Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
• Safe from the Sea, by Peter Geye
• The Solitude of Prime Numbers, by Paolo Giordano
• The False Friend, by Myla Goldberg
• 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
• Lord of Misrule, by Jaimy Gordon
• Museum of the Weird, by Amelia Gray
• Bloodroot, by Amy Greene
• The Line, by Olga Grushin Orion
• You Came and You Took All My Marbles, by Kira Henehan
• Horns, by Joe Hill
• The Four Stages of Cruelty, by Keith Hollihan
• Sleepless, by Charlie Huston
• Next, by James Hynes
• The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson
• Great House, by Nicole Krauss
• The Surrendered, by Chang-rae Lee
• The Man From Saigon, by Marti Leimbach
• The Instructions, by Adam Levin
• The Ask, by Sam Lipsyte
• What We Are, by Peter Nathaniel Malae
• Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War, by Karl Marlantes
• Beatrice and Virgil, by Yann Martel
• An Object of Beauty, by Steve Martin
• The Lost Books of the Odyssey, by Zachary Mason
• C, by Tom McCarthy
• Solar, by Ian McEwan
• Driving on the Rim, by Thomas McGuane
• The Spot, by David Means
• American Music, by Jane Mendelsohn
• How to Read the Air, by Dinaw Mingestu
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell
• The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers, by Thomas Mullen
• Red Rain, by Bruce Murkoff
• Skippy Dies, by Paul Murray
• February, by Lisa Moore
• Bound, by Antonya Nelson
• A Beautiful Place to Die, by Malla Nunn
• The Invisible Bridge, by Julie Orringer
• Voice of America, by E.C. Osondu
• Foreign Bodies, by Cynthia Ozick
• The American Painter Emma Dial, by Samantha Peale
• The Wilding, by Benjamin Percy
• This Is Just Exactly Like You, by Drew Perry
• Rut, by Scott Phillips
• Model Home, by Eric Puchner
• The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman
• The Canal, by Lee Rourke
• You Were Wrong, by Matthew Sharpe
• So Much for That, by Lionel Shriver
• Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart
• Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson
• My Hollywood, by Mona Simpson
• The Madonnas of Echo Park, by Brando Skyhorse
• Private Life, by Jane Smiley
• The Singer’s Gun, by Emily St. John Mandel
• The Frozen Rabbi, by Steve Stern
• The French Revolution, by Matt Stewart
• Illustrado, by Miguel Syjuco
• The Lonely Polygamist, by Brady Udall
• Aurorarama, by Jean-Christophe Valtat
• Kapitoil, by Teddy Wayne
• The Colony, by Jillian Weise
• All Clear, by Connie Willis
• Savages, by Don Winslow
• How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu

Now I am off to finish A Novel Bookstore about a Parisian bookshop that only stocks "good novels." Very few of them recent releases. Funny. What are you reading (or wish you were reading) in the Sunday Salon today?

book sculptures by su blackwell

Discovered the incredibly beautiful book sculptures of Su Blackwell this week and just can't stop staring. The allure of something not only wonderfully expressive, but something I can nearly feel as I look at it. In the artist's words: 

I often work within the realm of fairy-tales and folk-lore. I began making a series of book-sculpture, cutting-out images from old books to create three-dimensional diorama’s, and displaying them inside wooden boxes.

For the cut-out illustrations, I tend to lean towards young-girl characters, placing them in haunting, fragile settings, expressing the vulnerability of childhood, while also conveying a sense of childhood anxiety and wonder. There is a quiet melancholy in the work, depicted in the material used, and choice of subtle colour.

Subject matter such as Wuthering Heights (click on any image to enlarge):

Pandora's box:

Alice:

Narnia:

Or Little Red Riding Hood:

Visit the artist's website for more images and her blog for recent updates. Or check out the greeting cards for an affordable temptation.

book bloggers holiday swap

And one more wonderful gift exchange! This year I also participated in the Book Bloggers Holiday Swap, and was recently treated to the lovely gifts you see above from Amelia at The Authoress. A beautiful blank book with lined pages, a brand spanking new copy of A Separate Peace to replace my very old, very tired, very ratty one (yay!), and a lovely bookmark that features Thoreau urging me to go confidently in the direction of my dreams. And that cute card? My penguin-loving daughter has her eye on it, and will most likely claim it the moment I hit "publish." Thank you so much, Amelia! You are a kind and generous soul.

The best part though? As often happens during these secret Santa exercises, I am getting to meet someone new, someone outside my usual reading circle. So off now to check out Amelia's blog, and laugh at how she let me know that she has "no patience" for literary fiction but did her best for me anyway. She was most successful. But now I feel challenged to find her something from my lists that suits her fancy. The librarian in me. I think I can do it. Thoreau just told me I could. On a bookmark.

persephone secret santa revealed

Persephone Secret Santa participants are a lovely group of people especially the organizer of the whole event, Claire. And especially my own secret Santa, Marie of Boston Bibliophile. Do you see the contents of my lovely package above? They were in pretty wrapping paper but I of course ripped that off immediately. And I do mean immediately. A full two weeks ago. Yay for all of you with the restraint to wait until today but my gifting maturity age is 5 and I just could not wait. As I have said many times, I love presents. Adore them. Live for them. No need to fake politeness in this regard. I completely own the small fault.

So in addition to the cute ornament, the lovely bookplates, the kitty card and Mariana by Monica Dickens, I think there was candy and my children ate it. Immediately. Now you see how this sort of shameless greed runs through the family. But back to the book. I have a few of the plain grey jackets but this is my first Persephone Classic with its much more vivid cover design. In this case, the cover painting is titled Amity and was painted in 1933 by Bernard Fleetwood-Walker. When I flipped the book over to read the blurb on the back, I could see immediately why Marie would pick this for me. I saw "like I Capture the Castle and The Pursuit of Love" and funny and a young woman encountering life and love as she reaches toward maturity. Sounds like much I have enjoyed in the past. I look forward to it. Thank you so much, Marie for such a considerate choice!

Cannot wait to see what other Persephone Santees received. Just know that there will be many fitting choices because as a group, Persephone readers are a kind and perceptive bunch. Happy holidays to all 32 participants with extra love to head Santa, Claire!