Tuesday, 31 December 2019
Saturday, 28 December 2019
Dracula’s Guest: A Connoisseur’s Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories
Dracula’s Guest: A Connoisseur’s Collection of Victorian Vampire Stories
Edited by Michael Sims
A Review
Thursday, 26 December 2019
Saturday, 14 December 2019
Saturday, 7 December 2019
Sunday, 24 November 2019
Saturday, 23 November 2019
Sins of the Father: "The Marquise of O—" by Heinrich von Kleist
"The Marquise of O—" by Heinrich von Kleist
A review of the Pushkin Classics edition
(translated from the German and introduced by Nicholas Jacobs)
Sunday, 17 November 2019
Sunday, 10 November 2019
Sunday, 3 November 2019
Saturday, 2 November 2019
Fear of Isis: "The Beetle" by Richard Marsh
"The Beetle" by Richard Marsh
With an introduction by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
A review of The Haunted Library of Horror Classics Edition
Sunday, 27 October 2019
Thursday, 24 October 2019
Sunday, 13 October 2019
Saturday, 12 October 2019
Thursday, 10 October 2019
Sunday, 6 October 2019
Sunday, 29 September 2019
Sunday, 22 September 2019
Tuesday, 17 September 2019
Sunday, 15 September 2019
Friday, 30 August 2019
Sunday, 25 August 2019
Thursday, 22 August 2019
The Third Tower by Antal Szerb: A review of the Pushkin Collection edition
The Third Tower - Journeys in Italy
by Antal Szerb (translated by Len Rix)
A review of the Pushkin Collection edition
Sunday, 18 August 2019
Adventures in Grinlandia. A review of "Fandango and Other Stories" by Alexander Grin
Adventures in Grinlandia
"Fandango and Other Stories"
by Alexander Grin
(translated by Bryan Karetnyk)
A review
Thursday, 15 August 2019
Murder most wet... A review of "Deep Waters - Murder on the Waves" edited by Martin Edwards
Murder most wet...
"Deep Waters - Murder on the Waves" (edited by Martin Edwards - British Library Crime Classics)
Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Happy blog birthday!
Tuesday, 6 August 2019
Monday, 29 July 2019
Thursday, 25 July 2019
Velvet Underground: "The Warlow Experiment" by Alix Nathan
Velvet Underground
"The Warlow Experiment" by Alix Nathan
A book review
A
reward of £50 a year for life is offered to any man who will undertake to live
for 7 years underground without seeing a human face: to let his toe and
fingernails grow during the whole of his confinement, together with his beard.
Commodious apartments are provided with cold bath, chamber organ, as many books
as the occupier shall desire. Provisions
will be served from Mr Powyss’s table. Every convenience desired will be
provided
Herbert
Powyss, Moreham House, Herefordshire, January 1793.
Sunday, 21 July 2019
Friday, 12 July 2019
Thursday, 4 July 2019
Love in the GDR: "The New Sorrows of Young W." by Ulrich Plenzdorf
Love in the GDR...
The New Sorrows of Young W. by Ulrich Plenzdorf
(translated by Romy Fursland, Pushkin Press)
Sunday, 30 June 2019
Land of the Disappeared: A review of The Therapist by Nial Giacomelli
The Therapist by Nial Giacomelli
A book review
Despite
its virulence, little is known about the disease. They say that it attacks the brain and spinal
column. That victims suffer encephalitis-like reactions. Lethargy, confusion
and changes in personality are all common.
The media report cases of grandiose delusions and memory loss. Some hear voices, other see impossible realities. All eventually disappear.
Wednesday, 26 June 2019
Nazi Apocalypse: Joseph Roth's essays "On the End of the World"
Joseph Roth: On the End of the World
A book review
What
use are my words against the guns, the loudspeakers, the murderers, the
deranged ministers, the clueless diplomats, the stupid interviewers and
journalists who interpret the voice of this world of Babel, muddied anyhow, via
the drums of Nuremberg?
In
sad resignation
Your
Joseph Roth
Sunday, 23 June 2019
Sunday, 9 June 2019
A Whole New World: J.B. Priestley's "The Other Place and Other Stories of the Same Sort"
A Whole New World
The Other Place and Other Stories of the Same Sort
by J.B. Priestley
A Review of the Valancourt Books edition
Friday, 7 June 2019
First Love: Atlantic Winds by William Prendiville
First Love
A review of William Prendiville's Atlantic Winds
Judging
by the quality of this debut novella and Omar Sabbagh’s Minutes from the Miracle City (which I reviewed earlier on this blog), the second wave of “Fairlight Moderns” from Fairlight Books promises to be something to
really look forward to.
Wednesday, 5 June 2019
Monday, 27 May 2019
Theseus
Henry Fuseli: Ariadne Watching the Struggle of Theseus with the Minotaur (1815-1820) |
Theseus
A dusk filled nether-land I roam,
torch brandished high against the gloom,
a length of cord to lead me back
outside the Earth's infernal womb.
I dread the moment when I'll meet
the creature that I've come to seek.
Half-man, half-beast
A hideous sight -
ruler of this realm of night.
I lift lead-heavy limbs.
When will it end, this constant downward trudge?
Have I been here for hours or days?
Time itself loses its way
in the shadows of this maze.
My guiding flame is smothered by the fetid air,
puts up a valiant fight
then flickers weakly,
starts to die
in fits of
choking
smoke.
In the feeble light
of embers still aglow,
a dark mysterious lake no man has seen before
appears.
Throat scorched, lips parched,
Throat scorched, lips parched,
I drag myself towards its edge
to slake my thirst.
I face the water's surface,
still as glass.
There,
staring back at me,
smiling heinously
Friday, 24 May 2019
Of History and Histories... Turning for Home by Barney Norris
Of
History and Histories…
Turning for Home by Barney Norris
A book
review
“The Vanishing Hours”, the latest novel by novelist and playwright Barney Norris, is out on the Doubleday in July.
In anticipation of publication date, I am posting my review of Norris’s “Turning
for Home” which I had read and greatly enjoyed back in 2017.
Monday, 20 May 2019
Saturday, 18 May 2019
Thursday, 16 May 2019
My Heart Burns: E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Sandman
My Heart Burns...
E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Sandman (translated by Christopher Moncrieff): Tale of an Obsession
Saturday, 4 May 2019
Wednesday, 1 May 2019
Saturday, 27 April 2019
Unlikely cult classic: "Madonna in a Fur Coat" by Sabahattin Ali
"Madonna in a Fur Coat" by Sabahattin Ali
(translated by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe)
Review of an unlikely cult classic
Saturday, 20 April 2019
Last Woman Standing: "I Who Have Never Known Men" by Jacqueline Harpman
I Who Have Never Known Men
by Jacqueline Harpman
(translated by Ros Schwartz)
A book review
I was forced to acknowledge too late, much
too late, that I too had loved, that I was capable of suffering, and that I was
human after all…
Thursday, 18 April 2019
Holy Week, Unholy Murders: Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo
Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo
A book review
How best to express the horrors of a bloody civil war whose memory is still painful? How can one probe into wounds which are still open and smarting? An answer might be provided by literature in general, and genre literature in particular. One could cite as an example Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s “Cemetery of Forgotten Books” series, haunted by the memories of the Spanish Civil War. Zafon’s bestselling novels have shown that how the Gothic, so often dismissed as ‘mere’ entertainment, can successfully engage with and comment on troublesome recent history.
Peruvian
writer and journalist Santiago Roncagliolo did something similar with his crime
thriller Red April (Abril Rojo),
originally published in Spanish in 2006 and subsequently in an English rendition by veteran translator Edith Grossman (it won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for 2011).
The civil war which acts as a backdrop to the events in this book is the armed conflict in Roncagliolo’s native country between the Government, the Communist Party (also known as Sendero Luminoso or Shining Path) and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. The conflict started in 1980 and has been largely dormant since 2000, albeit with occasional resurgences of violence.
The plot unfolds around the period of the presidential elections before Holy Week in the year 2000. In the context of this campaign, the Government is keen to make a statement that communist insurgents have been defeated. However, during Carnival in the town of Ayacucho, a gruesome murder raises suspicions that Sendero Luminoso might once again be rearing its head. Associate District Prosecutor Félix Chacaltana Saldívar investigates the matter and prepares a convoluted report which conveniently makes no mention of terrorism. And, possibly for this very reason, when this murder is followed by others, all bearing the stamp of a deranged serial killer or ritual murderer, the authorities assign the case to none other than Chacaltana. He is hardly the ideal detective but, in the eyes of his seniors, appears to be an official who can be easily manipulated.
As evidenced by
the style of the legal reports spread throughout the text, Chacaltana is well-versed
in the letter of the law which he tries to follow with pedantic
conscientiousness, but this hardly equips him for the complexities of life and
for the intricacies of the tense political climate of his country. Abandoned by his wife and
obsessed with the memory of his long-dead mother, the Prosecutor is often naïve
and ingenuous, reminding me of Umberto Eco’s claim that “real literature is about losers”. Perhaps for this very
reason, the novel’s protagonist brought to my mind failed journalist Colonna in
Eco’s own Numero Zero or, to cite another Italian novel, Paolo Laurana in Sciascia’s
A Ciascuno il Suo, hapless figures who end up embroiled in matters beyond their
ken. Over the course of the novel, Chacaltana starts to wise up, and this change
is not all to the good. Indeed, some
unsavoury aspects of his character come to the fore and contributed to some of
my dissatisfaction with what is an otherwise engrossing book.
As a crime novel, Red April is thrilling
and intriguing. Much of its dark feel is
given by the elements it borrows from the horror – and particularly the folk
horror – genre. Indeed, we start to
realise that the serial killer is borrowing imagery both from Christian traditions
linked to Holy Week and from pagan Andean myths and rituals. An underlying theme of the novel, is the friction
between Andean/pre-Colombian culture (as represented by the Quechua-speaking “natives”)
and the subsequent Christian traditions imported by the Spanish-speaking
settlers. It is suggested that underneath the veneer of
Christian ritual, the old rites have never died out. The language/culture barrier becomes a symbol
of this perennial conflict, which seems to fuel present-day violence. As one of the characters puts it:
Ayacucho
is a strange place. The seat of the Wari
culture was here, and then the Chanka people, who never allowed themselves to
be subjugated by the Incas. And later
were the indigenous uprisings because Ayacucho was the half-way point between
Cuzco, the Inca capital, and Lima, the Spaniards’ capital. And independence in Quinia. And Sendero. This place is condemned to be bathed in blood
and fire forever.
Some readers have been put off by the
very graphic murders. To be honest, however, an act of senseless sexual violence
towards the end disturbed me much more than the admittedly gruesome crime scene
descriptions. Plot-wise, the solution to the “whodunit” is
rather too convenient – I believe that this is a novel which is best enjoyed by
soaking up its dark atmosphere tempered by a streak of black humour.
Paperback, Atlantic Cult Classics, 273 pages
Published 2018 by Atlantic Books (first published 2002)
Being a fan of Jan Garbarek, the references to the Quechua culture could
not but remind me of the great saxophonist’s collaboration with the Hilliard
Ensemble and their recording of Quechua Song. It seems ironic however to
represent this native culture through a piece European jazz, particularly in
the light of the themes of Roncagliolo’s novel. So here’s what is
hopefully a more “authentic” rendition of the Quechua song “Munasqetay”.
One
of the traditional instruments of Peru is the charango, a guitar-like instrument
which is a descendant of the vihuela a mano imported by the Spanish conquistadores. Its use in Peruvian folk music
epitomises the sometimes uncomfortable but always intriguing mix between native
and “European” elements. Here’s Jamie Guardia, one of
the Peru's foremost singers and players of the charango in a song named,
appropriately, Adios Pueblo de Ayacucho.
Gabriela
Lena Frank is an American classical pianist and composer whose mother is a Peruvian
of Chinese descent. Some of her works celebrate
her Peruvian family heritage. Apu – Tone
Poem for Orchestra, commissioned by the Carnegie Hall, is inspired by Andean
mythology. The apu is one of the spirits
which keep a watchful eye on travellers passing through highland roads.
As it
happened, I read this book in March/April, the months in which the novel is set,
and this helped me to get into the atmosphere of the book. Indeed, although I live on the opposite side
of the world, I could feel an affinity to the descriptions of the Holy Week
pageantry and, particularly, the crowded processions with the statues showing
Passion scenes. And so I’d like to end
with a funeral march such as are typically heard in Mediterranean countries –
and more specifically, Malta – during this time of year. The march is accompanied by shots of local
processions, not far removed from what is portrayed in Roncagliolo’s novel.
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