Núria Bendicho, Maruxa Relaño & Martha Tennent (Translators) – Dead Lands (2021, English Translation, 2022)

While I was reading Dead Lands I kept on saying that the books plot reminded me of another novel and then it clicked. I’ll reveal that a bit later in the review.

The plot centres around the shooting of a young man. The rest of the book offers 13 different perspectives of the killing. The witnesses range from the victim’s family, both blood relatives and ones through marriage, and assorted villagers, namely the priest. In the process some secrets begin to emerge and the reader gets a wider picture of all the happenings.

If you guessed correctly, the plot gently echoes William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying and this is not a cheap comparison, it is acknowledged in the author’s bio with the Faulkner novel being a pivotal book in the author’s life.

However this goes beyond just an event seen from different perspectives: Núria Bendicho presents a snapshot of village life; the secrets, hidden jealousies and disturbing actions. It’s a murder mystery disguised as a anthropological study. Dead Lands is an unforgettable read which proves that the supposedly community aspect of a village can unveil some pretty dark happenings.

Simone de Beauvoir, Patrick O’Brian (Translator) – A Very Easy Death (1964, Fitzcarraldo Edition, 2023)

Before Annie Ernaux, Simone de Beauvoir also documented certain aspects of her life and giving them a philosophical twist, I will stop with the comparisons as it’s not fair.

1964’s A Very Easy Death documents the last six weeks of Simone de Beauvoir’s mother, who was already the subject of 1958’s Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter. In the book her mother slips while in the bath and breaks her femur, which leads to other complications.

Simone de Beauvoir portrays her mother as an emancipated woman, when her husband died, her mother began to do things she was not able to do such as travel and not meet her friends as her husband (Simone de Beauvoir’s father) banned her from doing, yet she also portrays her as a submissive person, within her marriage and to an certain extent during her illness. Thus she is a contradictory person.

As the illness gets worse de Beauvoir notices the decay of her body, at one point she calls her mother a living zombie, in which she then questions her mother’s existence and the imminent death. At this point we are seeing de Beauvoir’s main philosophies embedded in A Very Easy Death: feminism and existentialism, the former is because her mother was overpowered by a man, This crops up again through the incompetence of the male doctors tending to her mother. The latter is through her mother being on the brink of death.

When her mother dies, de Beauvoir wonders why she has taken it so badly and she comes to the conclusion that her mother had a bigger part in her life, which intensified her feelings towards her. As a conclusion de Beauvoir states that death is never natural or easy, it’s is always the cause of something.

As I said earlier A Very Easy Death was controversial because it was thought that de Beauvoir was capitalising her mother’s death, In fact, Ali Smith states in her excellent introduction to this Fitzcarraldo reissue, that de Beauvoir was taking notes by her mother’s hospital bed. Despite these accusations the book is an emotional one with many heartfelt moments. In a Very Easy Death, the topic is treated in a open and unflinching way but at the same time it’s not cold and calculating.

Agustina Bazterrica, Sarah Moses (Translator) – Tender is the Flesh (2017, English translation 2020)

As a reader I have quite a strong constitution. Very rarely do I get grossed out with gory details but Agustina’s Bazterrica’s novel about the meat industry did make me feel a bit queasy at times.

The setting is a near future world where people cannot eat animals anymore so it is decided that human beings should be farmed and used instead. Instead of being called humans the word head or product are used. The main protagonist Marcos is one of the top workers in a slaughterhouse; He gives tours, checks if work is being carried out properly etc. Although he is great at his day job, his personal life is the opposite: his wife as left him due to their baby dying ( not a spoiler) his dad is slowly dying and his relations with his sister is not good.

Then one day, as a gift , he receives a female head for farming or slaughter, except things take a rather interesting turn with her.

The main crux of the novel is about animal treatment for our consumption. There are some grisly scenes about how people, being the metaphor for farm animals we eat, are slaughtered and are sent to butchers and meat processing factories. One other disturbing scene involves a rich person who releases humans on his property just for hunting purposes.

Agustina Bazterrica also manages to squiggle in some other ideas; parenthood, treatment of animals, political corruption and familial relations have their part to play but it’s the meat eating sector which takes up the novel.

As this is a satire, world building is there just to get the message through but I thought it did the job and I have to mention, other than human cruelty there’s one scene of animal cruelty as well so squeamish people do approach with caution, although it’s the main message that’s one should pay attention too.

Tender is the Flesh is all kinds of ugly but really, you’d expect that when you read about cannibalism.

John Patrick Higgins – Teeth: An Oral History (2024)

Teeth; aren’t they strange? They are these odd shapes made out of enamel and dentin that help us chew food and yet they provide comedic value. Look at the cartoons. Whenever one is bashed in the face and all the teeth fall out, it is funny, they also express the type of animated character: if there are buck teeth it denotes lesser intelligence, braces are geeky and gold ones generally means a villain.

This comedic aspect of teeth is featured in John Patrick Higgin’s memoir. The books starts off with John conscious of the fact his teeth are not in the best condition and thus begins many detailed sojourns to the dentist in order to take care of his mouth.

We all know that comedy and pain are rooted (see what I did there) together and John Patrick Higgins, tales of extractions, operations, the formation of dentures and the eventual wearing of dentures to his teeth being capped must sound agonising. However, John has such a turn of phrase with puns and sharp one liners one can’t help giggling. As a person who has over forty fillings and a false tooth I could relate to the multiple dentist visits, pain involved (obviously not as bad as Author’s).

In between there’s some trivia about famous people and their teeth, most famously, the late Martin Amis spending the advance he received on The Information on restructuring all his pearly whites.

By the end the author does get his wish and has his teeth capped and things look better, does this mean that having good teeth will equal a brighter future? ummm maybe but don’t forget it all comes at a hefty price and, with teeth, work is continuous.

If you are equally fascinated by teeth or have been stigmatised for having less than normal ones, then Teeth is a fun read, Don’t forget John Patrick Higgins’ pain will be your pleasure.

Many thanks to Sagging Meniscus for providing a copy of Teeth

Urzula Honek , Kate Webster (Translator) – White Nights (2022, English Translation, 2023)

White Nights is a series of interconnected short stories. Most take place in a small village and focus on a family. Past , present and future all collide as the reader forms a clear of the destiny of all the members and friends.

I will say straight away that this is a bleak read: suicide, drowning, hanging, it’s all there. In the process there is a snapshot of village life and all it’s harsh conditions.

As with every short story collection, some pieces are better than others. Saying that, the quality of most of the stories is high.

An interesting book but not my favourite

Book Round Up – April 2024

Well that was quite a month!

The highlight was What I’d rather not think about

Other close ones were:

The Details

Gamish

The Silver Bone

As for the 33 1/3 books My fave was I’m Your Fan, I liked Vs, Avalon and Once Upon a Time too.

What’s next

With the International Booker longlist done and dusted, I’ll be tackling the TBR stack. I will be receiving The Women’s Prize shortlist though. I have one review copy. So far my book buying is under control so I’m pleased with myself.

Andrey Kurkov, Boris Dralyuk (Translator) – The Silver Bone (2020, English Translation, 2024)

As it stands, an Andrey Kurkov novel is the equivalent of comfort food: you know you’re going to meet likeable characters, that there will be a balance of funny bits and tragic ones and general feel good vibe. Yet, the three Kurkov novels I’ve read a different in their own way bar the setting.

The Silver Bone is the first part of a planned trilogy of police procedural mysteries set during the 1919 Soviet occupation of UK. As of typing, the second volume is already out in Ukrainian and Kurkov is working on the third. A little bit of a tangent but I felt that info was needed as I do like that fact that Kurkov is taking genre fiction and giving it a new dressing.

The main protagonist is Samson Kolechko, an engineer by profession. After seeing his father being killed by soldiers and then having his ear sliced off, he feels that his career has gone to a standstill.

Things get worse when two soldiers decide to live with him and he discovers sacks of stolen goods. Once he goes to the police to report, he is offered a job and he sets off investigating a series of murders which connects the soldiers, a tailor and a large bone covered in silver.

The crime is secondary as the importance is on Ukraine under Soviet rule; houses were repossessed, soldier lived with people, theft was rife, businesses went down, people could not hold a profession. Yet despite the bleak landscape Kurkov still manages to inject his trademark humor. tragically when Boris Dralyuk finished translating The Silver Bone, Putin invaded the Ukraine, thus making the book oddly prescient.

One cannot help liking the characters in the novel. There were many times I smiled, humor is one of the better ways to get a message across and it works here. Probably what makes me enjoy Kurkov’s writing is that he always sees a glimmer of light in everything, no matter how tragic and in these times, it does help.

Domenico Starnone, Oonagh Stransky (Translator) – The House on Via Gemito (2020, English Translation, 2023)

I will admit that I am no fan the Elena Ferrante style of writing, that is lots of repetitive detail with tons of slang thrown in. I’m not saying that Domenico Starnone is Elena Ferrante but their writing styles are similar.

The narrator of the novel is Mimi who is talking about his father, Federi’s, life: it starts off with him admitting that he has only hit his wife twice, which then goes into the past and we begin with Federi’s parents.

Federi is a baron Munchausen-like character: he lies, has high aspirations and yet, he had a colorful life. Although he works in a railroad, he is an artist and has managed to gain a tiny reputation Mimi’s job in the novel is to sift out the truth and give his perspectives on his father’s behaviour.

In a way it’s like a family saga but it’s more a portrait of post war Naples through working class eyes. Like Ferrante, there’s beatings, swearing and rough behaviour. Some bits are clever, the second part consists of Mimi trying to find one of his father’s paintings only to find out more about Federi’s life.

My problem with the novel is the repetitive nature – My attention started to drift after a 100 pages and the rest became a slog due to the fact that I kept reading the same thing over again. True it might have been the point but it still bothered me.

Veronica Raimo, Leah Janecko (Translator) – Lost on me (2022, English Translation, 2023)

We all know someone who is great at telling anecdotes, the type just makes you laugh. These people never stop at one anecdote, they tell dozens but they are so good at it, that the listener doesn’t mind. Lost on me is like that.

The narrator, Veronica, which makes this another auto fiction entry in this year’s International Booker longlist, and she reminiscences about her eccentric parents, weird situations she has been in and various coming of age experiences. All these tales are funny but since my humor is lacking, I smiled a lot or chortled. I liked her hypochondriac parents , her relationship disasters and the farcical ‘vacation’ which destroys a car. There are some darker aspects, it’s not all cheery laughter.

What do we get out of a book consisting of loosely connected anecdotes? for starters there’s a portrait of 90’s Europe, like me, Veronica was born in 1978 and I related a lot to what she described; the casual sexism, the slacker attitude, the strange confusion of being a teen.

Lost on me also stresses the importance of family, no matter how crazy they are, family will always be there no matter what. Now whether these stories are true or not it doesn’t matter. Even if Veronica Raimo is an unreliable narrator, she’s an most entertaining one.

Ismail Kadare, John Hodgson (Translator) – A Dictator Calls (2018, English Translation, 2023)

Ismail Kadare is one of those writers who I just don’t like. I’ve always thought his plots were interesting but his writing style does not gel with me. I find it laborious.

While researching, Kadare discovers that in 1934 Josef Stalin called Boris Pasternak for three minutes in order to enquire about an arrested poet. Kadare then takes this call and views it from 11 different perspectives, with a 12th being an epilogue. In the process Kadare discovers the link between politics and literature or how literature is a form of protest.

I didn’t like the book. I found it dull and a slog for such a short novel. Even the message didn’t impress. I know one can’t like every book on a longlist and this is the one.