The Zen Leaf

Complete Stories, by William Somerset Maugham

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Thistle

I love Maugham and wanted to read his short stories as part of my short story project this year. I’ve since decided to give up the project and just finished reading the stories. There are quite a bit of them – 91 in all – and they come in a two-volume set that totals 1636 pages. The first volume, at 955 pages, are the first 30 of those stories, with an average page length of 32. It’s called East and West and primarily focuses on stories set in Asia. I got to travel all over the place, from Samoa to Brunei to Korea to Malaysia. The second volume is The World Over and takes the reader through South America, back to Asia, and then through Europe. It’s only 681 pages for 61 stories, averaging 11 pages each. Quite a difference between the two!

Interestingly, the two volumes are completely different in tone and quality as well. It’s almost as if The World Over contains the “b-side” stories. I adored East and West, savouring each story, but I skimmed and skipped most of the second volume. There were exceptions, of course, in both volumes. I hated the Ashenden spy stories in East and West, which were the only stories to take place in Europe instead of Asia, and I loved the Asian stories in The World Over. All the stories that took place in Asia just felt more real. Maugham seems to have really loved the people and culture there, despite being saddled with some traditional British colonialist ideas. I also think the stories set in Asia were better because they were generally much longer than the others. Maugham seems to write better when he has more room to develop his stories. The very short ones felt clipped and clichéd, moralistic and flat.

I’ve had this collection on my shelf for years and have been intimidated by its size. I’m glad I’ve now finally read Maugham’s stories, even if there were some I didn’t like.

Posted in 2011, Adult, Prose | Tagged Asia, classics, collection, Latin America, POC | Leave a comment

The Lost City of Z, by David Grann (audio)

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Thistle

Before I begin this review, I have to admit something a little embarrassing. For a very long time, I thought this book was a zombie novel. I mean, “The Lost City of Z” just sounds like a zombie novel, right? I think I was getting it mixed up with all those World War Z sorts of books. Then, a couple months ago, Jason mentioned it to me as a nonfiction book about South America and the Amazon. I was floored. I had no idea! It sounded fascinating, so I got the audiobook from the library and decided to listen to it.

The book is sort of a mixed biography, history lesson, and travelogue all in one. The primary focus is on an explorer from the late 19th/early 20th century, a man named Percy Fawcett. Fawcett was apparently pretty famous in his time and his explorations were the inspiration for a whole host of things, including books by many writers of the time (such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World). I, being really ignorant when it comes to history, had never heard of the guy and had a great time getting to know all about him and Amazon exploration.

David Grann sets this book up perfectly, alternating history lessons, biographical information on Fawcett and other explorers, and information from his own journey into the Amazon. He tells us how he did all his research, and instead of just presenting the research, he tells it as if it’s a story. To me, this is the best kind of history, and the kind I retain most easily. It’s focused on cultural and human aspects, rather than political or governmental. That’s not to say that politics and government played no part in the history or the book. They did. But they were integrated into the story of these people, rather than the reverse.

I learned so much from this book that I didn’t know before. South America fascinates me, though I’m not sure I would personally want to go into the Amazon, especially after hearing all the (really gross) tales of insects and parasites. Still, from a distance, all this fascinates me. I really felt immersed in the area and a time period in a way I rarely feel. I think it helped that I listened to the audio version, rather than just reading. Hearing it spoken added a whole new dimension for me, and I think I’ve decided that, whenever possible, I want to listen to my nonfiction in the future. Mark Deakins read the audiobook, and he was the perfect narrator, clear and precise. I highly recommend both the book and the audio production.

Posted in 2011, Adult, Prose | Tagged audio, Latin America, nonfiction, POC | Leave a comment

City of Veils, by Zoë Ferraris

Posted on March 19, 2011 by Thistle

When the body of a dead woman – beaten, burned, and bloated – turns up on the beach in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, an investigation begins into her death.

I don’t normally read thrillers, but this one sounded interesting to me, particularly as it takes place in a part of the world I haven’t read much about. City of Veils really goes deep into Saudi culture. It doesn’t gloss over the difficulties, particularly for women, of living there, but also doesn’t judge the whole nation based on their culture and religion. It’s very careful to keep the actions of politicians and religious extremists separate from the religion and culture itself. It also differentiates between cultural and religious interpretations of Islam. This careful balance is one I can appreciate and that I respect.

The mystery and crime parts of this were equally well-done. They were engaging, and the characters didn’t feel like generic cutouts as they have in other thrillers I’ve read. I’m not saying all thrillers are like that – I just seem to run into bad ones each time I try to read one! I liked how well developed everyone was in this book. City of Veils is a second book in a loose series, but is standalone and I read it without having read the first book (Finding Nouf). I imagine there will be more books to follow. There was no cliffhanger, but there was enough room in the lives of the characters for development and growth that I imagine more books would work well.

Posted in 2011, Adult, Prose | Tagged divinity, Middle East, POC | 1 Comment

Harry Potter et la Coupe de Feu, by JK Rowling

Posted on March 18, 2011 by Thistle

As I stated last year, this is my least favorite of the Harry Potter books. Thankfully, some of the things that really irritate me, like the repetition of phrases, aren’t anywhere near as noticeable to me when translated into French! But still, this book dragged a lot and as usual made me a little tired of the series. I’ll be taking a few weeks off reading it before I resume with the fifth book.

This is the first book in the series that needed to make huge changes in the text in order to carry out the same ideas as the original. There are so many things that rely on wordplay in here that needed to be changed. For instance, when Harry hears the riddle from the Sphinx and the clues are supposed to add up to “spider,” the riddle had to be changed completely in order to spell out “araignée” instead. It was fascinating to see how the translator dealt with all this and I was actually very impressed. He’s gotten far better at this since those first two books that were missing tons of stuff!

There didn’t seem to be anything missing from this book, though interestingly, there was a lot of text added. There are several places where additions were necessary or useful. In particular, the translator had to get the idea across that though the book is translated into French, the characters are still speaking English, and the students from Beauxbatons have a hard time understanding them (and vice versa). When Madame Maxime arrives, she speaks in a very strange accent that changes the spelling of many of her French words, and she and Dumbledore have a couple of miscommunications that aren’t in the original. For instance, when Madame Maxime asks about her horses (chevaux), her accent comes across as “hair” (“cheveux”), and Dumbledore tells her that her hair is beautifully styled. She laughs and tells him he’s such a joker. There are several interchanges like that, and the same later when Fleur comes over to ask Ron for the bouillabaisse. When he can’t pronounce it, she chides him for not being good at or kind about foreign languages. By doing this, and by adding lots and lots of Rs to all the Bulgarian’s words (“prrrofesseurrr” instead of just “professeur” etc), it comes across that the three schools are speaking three different languages.

Another addition came when Harry is stuck in the staircase and Moody accios the Marauder’s Map. It’s one of those places where you wonder why Harry didn’t think of that, instead of reaching out and trying to wipe the map clean instead. The English text doesn’t address the issue at all, but the French text adds a paragraph where Harry internally smacks himself for being stupid and giving way to panic. It makes the whole section not look like a plot hole and I love it! I wish something like that had been incorporated into the English version as well.

That’s all for this month. I didn’t really improve my French any because, I admit, I did a certain amount of skimming. Of course, it’s kind of cool that I can skim even when the text is in French, but I certainly don’t think it’s terribly helpful for me over time. Thankfully this is the only book in the series that I ever skim!

Posted in 2011, Children's, Prose | Tagged Harry Potter, speculative, translation | Leave a comment

A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Thistle

A Moveable Feast is a partial memoir, Hemingway’s look back on his life before he published any novels. At the time, he lived in Paris with his wife in poverty, rubbing elbows with other writers at the time in what’s known as the ex-pat community in France. This memoir spends a lot of time with certain authors and related persons in specific: Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Maddox Ford, James Joyce, Sylvia Beach, and Ezra Pound.

Originally, for the Lost Generation Classic Circuit, I meant to read The Great Gatsby. I tried reading it last summer and didn’t get very far. I read long enough to get to where Tom breaks his girlfriend’s nose because she says his wife’s name, and that was it for me. By that point I already hated all the characters and that scene sickened me so much I couldn’t go on. But I felt like I should give it another try. I picked up the audio version and managed to listen to half of the book before giving up again and begging Rebecca to let me switch over to this book for the tour instead. I’m happy to say that A Moveable Feast was a far more pleasurable and satisfactory read, and beyond that, I got to learn all about the origins of the term “The Lost Generation”! Apparently, the phrase came from the owner of a repair garage where Gertrude Stein was getting her car repaired, speaking to one of the workers who didn’t do a satisfactory job. That was news to me!

It was wonderful to read about all these authors. There are many I’ve never read before – Stein, Ford, Pound, and Fitzgerald too if half of Gatsby doesn’t count – and reading more about their personalities, particularly through Hemingway’s biased and unreliable narration, made me want to know more about their works. It was also a great capture of the cultural thoughts of the time. I was particularly amused by Stein’s self-interested assertion that male homosexuality is bad because men are disgusted by their actions afterwards, but female homosexuality was just peachy. There’s a lot of contradiction, hypocrisy, and dishonesty portrayed in this book, but at the same time, Hemingway captures it all in a way that makes everyone seem flawed but human, rather than disgusting.

As usual, Hemingway’s prose is stark and blunt in A Moveable Feast. I’m happy to say that reading this one seems to confirm my theory that I tend to like his later works far more than his younger ones. I was worried that I was simply outgrowing him, but apparently it was just A Farewell to Arms that didn’t agree with me. I’m glad I got over that worry and tried this one, not only because it was a pleasant relief after Gatsby, but because it made me fall in love with Hemingway all over again.

Posted in 2011, Adult, Prose | Tagged classics, nonfiction | Leave a comment

Collected Children’s Stories, by Sylvia Plath

Posted on March 13, 2011 by Thistle

I took a quick break from reading Maugham’s short stories (since there are about 90 of them!) to read this quick collection. It only consists of three stories, one of which I read last year. It’s a cute collection, with stories that I think would appeal to children very well.

The first, “The Bed Book,” is one I read last year. It’s a poem about all different sorts of beds, from snack beds to elephant beds (my personal favorite). I read it to my kids last year, too, and they all giggled a lot.

The second, “The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit,” was my least favorite, but still good. It’s about a family who has seven boys. The youngest, Max, really wants a suit of his own, but as the youngest he’s not likely to get one. A suit arrives one day that his father tries on and decides is too strange for him, and the suit gets passed down one by one through the kids until Max has it.

The third, and probably my favorite, is called “Mrs. Cherry’s Kitchen.” Two pixies who live in the salt and pepper shakers in Mrs. Cherry’s kitchen start hearing complaints from the kitchen appliances. They all want to try each other’s jobs. It’s the pixies’ job to keep all the kitchen equipment happy, as well as taking care of the kitchen in general, so they arrange for all the appliances to swap jobs. As you can imagine, chaos ensues.

All three stories in my edition have lovely illustrations by David Roberts, which added to the young feel of the stories.

Posted in 2011, Children's, Poetry, Prose | Tagged classics, collection, speculative | Leave a comment

The Saga of Gosta Berling, by Selma Lagerlöf (audio)

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Thistle

I don’t begin to know how to describe this book. It starts as the tale of a priest, Gosta Berling, as he’s dismissed from his post and goes to live in a new place. He’s taken in by a woman runs a boarding house, and from there, the book fragments into little stories about each of the people around Gosta. He remains a central character, but this was almost more like a collection of related stories than a novel with a central plot. Partway through listening to it, I began to think of it as a cross between Cranford and Beowulf (how’s that for interesting?).

Because this book is so different from what I’m used to reading, I don’t begin to know how to pick it apart and understand all the pieces. Instead, I just loved hearing each new little story. There are so many different kinds of tales: stories of a woman cursed by a witch and who can’t go outside for fear of being eaten by magpies; stories of a bear that no one is able to shoot; stories of a couple chased by wolves through the snow. Some of the stories are realistic. Some are like the ghost stories you hear told around a campfire. Some are more like old fables or fairy tales, with a lesson to be learned from our actions. And yet, all the different types of stories came together and worked as a single cohesive whole! My favorite included one of the other borders, an old man who has painted piano keys on a wooden board. He uses his “piano” to “play” Beethoven, and believes his “music” can help lift depression from a man’s soul. In this particular scene, Gosta has been very depressed and the old man plays for him until he is laughing and happy again.

I downloaded the audio from Librivox, read by Lars Rolander, and it was an excellent performance. I rarely listen to Librivox recordings because of their amateur quality, but this one was all the same reader and he did a wonderful job.

Posted in 2011, Adult, Prose | Tagged atmospheric, audio, classics, speculative, translation, WTF moments | Leave a comment

The Löwensköld Ring, by Selma Lagerlöf

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Thistle

When General Löwensköld dies, his fantastic ring is buried with him. When the grave is broken into and the ring stolen, the General returns from the dead to haunt the thieves and revenge the theft. He won’t rest until the ring is returned to its rightful place.

What a fascinating book! I’ve been listening to The Saga of Gösta Berling (by this same author) for the past few weeks, and am fascinated by her writing style. She was writing in the early 20th century, but her books feel much older than that, reminiscent of old mythology and ancient texts. In The Löwensköld Ring, I noticed that, like many pre-Don Quixote books, the emphasis was not on the characters but on the things that happen to them. Even though the happenings aren’t really plot-heavy, the characters themselves are more like archetypes than people.

The Löwensköld Ring has an additional element beyond the mythology and archetypes. It felt almost like a ghost story, the type you would tell as a child out camping. There’s a feeling of horror that presses through the text, even though nothing gruesome or really even that truly scary happens. Lagerlöf just manages to write in that oppressive fear so well! There is also a heavy amount of irony and an almost karma-like set of actions and consequences.

This was a bizarre and very interesting book. I’ve never read anything quite like it, or anything quite like Lagerlöf’s writing style. I’m definitely looking forward to reading more of her works!

Posted in 2011, Adult, Prose | Tagged classics, RIP-worthy, speculative, translation | Leave a comment

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by Frederick Douglass

Posted on March 10, 2011 by Thistle

This slim book is Douglass’s memoir of his life as a slave and escape into freedom. It’s more than just a memoir, though. It’s a statement against slavery, which may seem obvious or normal now but was a difficult and controversial thing to publish back in Douglass’s lifetime. In here, Douglass talks about so many different things – why and when slaves become complacent about their slavehood; religion and its use by slaveholders to justify their wrongs; the importance of education. For a small book, this has a lot packed into it.

Honestly, I have to admit that while I think this is a very important book and I’m glad to have read it, I’ve preferred books like Kindred on the topic of slavery. This is just a personal thing – I’m terrible at reading nonfiction and generally have a hard time really experiencing what I read in the nonfiction format. Therefore, I felt very disconnected from Douglass’s story, which is not what I wanted. I can appreciate his words, but I don’t feel them like I have felt other stories about slavery. I didn’t feel I learned as much from them, emotionally, as from other books. That’s not to say the book is bad or that it should be skipped! Like I said, there’s an amazing amount of stuff in here and it’s all worth reading and learning from. But because of my own personal inability to read nonfiction well, I didn’t get as much out of it as others might.

Posted in 2011, Adult, Prose | Tagged classics, nonfiction, POC | Leave a comment

Hedda Gabbler, by Henrik Ibsen

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Thistle

Hedda Gabler has married on a whim and is now bored out of her mind. She escapes that boredom by manipulating the people around her, especially those who have loved her in the past.

After reading and loving A Doll’s House last fall, I thought I’d read Ibsen’s other famous play that many people have loved. Unfortunately, this one didn’t capture me nearly as much as A Doll’s House. It was very well written, but I couldn’t stand Hedda. Perhaps I’m not supposed to, but I get the feeling that once she’s exposed a little, I’m supposed to feel sorry for her and I don’t, not one bit. She’s mean, vindictive, arrogant, and snarky. What I did like about the play was the idea that a manuscript can be so beautiful and important to a person that their life becomes dependent on it. In a way, it was reminiscent of The Picture of Dorian Gray and the way Basil talks about his masterpiece painting. Being a writer myself, I know what it feels like to lose work, irretrievably, and the situation in Hedda Gabler is worse than just loss. It’s annihilation, and the despair involved was one I could feel intensely.

Posted in 2011, Adult, Drama | Tagged classics, mini-review, translation | Leave a comment