Ersatz TLS discussion

There has been some sad news in recent days with the deaths of Raymond Briggs and Sempé. Two lovely drawings by the latter were posted.
Then came the savage and shocking attack on Salman Rushdie. It's reported today that his son, Zafar Rushdie has said “his usual feisty and defiant sense of humour remains intact” but added that his father’s wounds were “life-changing”. We wish him well.

The weather here has cooled down considerably after a storm yesterday with grey skies at the moment. I might even need to put on a cardigan. Let’s turn to some of the past fortnight’s themes.

AB76 pursues his interest in empire/colonialism with Unconventional Reminiscences (1913): South African civil servant and writer William Charles Scully looks back at his life in the emerging republic from 1876 to 1900 and The Olive Trees of Justice by Jean Pelegri (1962):

a rare French novel by a pied-noir who isn’t Albert Camus, this novel is set in Algeria during the war with France.

Andy decided to try something new: Unconventional ReminiscencesLip Hook - a tale of rural unease by David Hine and Mark Stafford.

This was my first graphic novel, or comic as they used to be called. A reason I had put it off was that almost all of my reading is on a black and white e-reader, and I had wrongly assumed it would be detrimental to the experience. Colour would have been better, and the speech bubble writing is small, but perfectly possible to read and enjoy.
This is folk horror, populated by a set of grotesque characters whose images verge on the disturbing. Straight away it’s a whole different experience to a novel, for which one’s mind does the job of conjuring that image.

Francesburgundy was thinking of re-reading Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin series one after the other but got derailed by Henry Williamson and his Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight series. I read these years ago – they must have been borrowed from the British Council Library here in Paris, in the days when it had a rather random collection of books. They were later all got rid of in favour of computers.

Storm started an excellent discussion:

Film adaptations of books can range from faithful to fanciful. Which have you loved or hated? Why?

There were lots of suggestions and Bill had a book to recommend: Double Exposure: Fiction Into Film.

Last time, I meant to pick up the crime/mystery/thriller, question but I forgot. We also used to use the term detective story, but it doesn’t seem to be current any more. Anyway, whatever we call them, several of us have been reading in the genre.

Giveusaclue:

I'm am having a reading blitz on J M Dalgliesh's Hidden Norfolk series. Currently on No. 4 Tell No Talesand the characters are developing nicely.

Greenfairy:

I have just read the first two of Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins series, set in and around Hereford. Merrily is the vicar of Ledwardine and also the Deliverance Advisor- the exorcist in other words. She is a widow with a troublesome teenage daughter.The books are part supernatural tales and part murder mysteries. The characters are all believable and Rickman seems to know his folklore.

Scarletnoir:

This is the fifth in the Wyndham and Banerjee series (by Abir Mukherjee), which is fast becoming my favourite current crime series. Beautifully written, with a pacy plot and engaging characters, this book also educates us about India in 1923, as the independence movement flexes its muscles.

Dennis Lehane got thumbs down for Shutter Island from Bill and MK, thumbs up from me for the Kenzie and Gennaro (private investigators) series.
MK has been reading The Unquiet Bones by Melvin R. Starr.

It's a police procedural type taking place in England after one of the serious plague years. The detective is a young, but thoughtful surgeon.

Russell: Sous les vents de Neptune by Fred Vargas, translated as Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand.

Once the weirdly wonderful humour sets in all you want to do is let yourself be submerged in the flow.

I felt the series was going downhill a little, but then I really liked the latest one. I also like her évangélistes series about a trio of historians.
Lass:

Glorious sunshine, so am sitting in the garden... Would rather be in France, but ... Martin Walker’s Dordogne set mystery, Fatal Pursuit, will have to do me for now.

And lastly,
in the British Library Crime Classics series, I’m enjoying Murder by the Book: Mysteries for Bibliophiles, a selection of Golden Age short stories. Including, rather to my surprise, one by AA Milne.

Happy reading, everyone, with books to help us understand or take our minds off what's going on in the world.

Thanks for the intro GPFR.....was at my computer and the dog i am sitting, a labrador bitch called Daisy, sought me out with a gentle padding at the door, she is now at my feet...content.

Reading is good, the Pelegri novel fits the season and also as a study of child-father relations and the past, fits in with me spending ten quiet days at the family home, with just a dog for company, a nice break from the "stream of life"

In Miami Joan Didion describes in her typical, fascinating style the seedy underworld of exiled Cuban businessmen, revolutionaries, terrorists and flotsam. Written in 1987, with the Mariel episode still fairly recent, it captures a Miami changing fast, with its Cuban heart beating hard. The Cuban heart that within 35 years was giving the odious Trump a lot of votes....

Elsewhere the find of the month has been Uruguay: Portrait of a Democracy, a second hand 1950s study of the tiny South American nation at a better time in its history.

I am still shocked by what happened to Sir Salman, while i havent only read a couple of his novels, the controversy of 1989, was a feature of my youth, the ghoulish Ayatollahs and fatwa, sadly, as a talking head on Newsnight said a few days ago, that novel, would probably never be published now due to censorship issues.

The only Rushdie I've read is Midnight's Children, which I didn't like (too long ago to give any specific reason) and that hasn't tempted me to explore further.

Concerning Joan Didion, I've read and appreciated The Year of Magical Thinking and Slouching Towards Bethlehem, the latter I think after you recommended it, AB. While liking her writing, I'm not sure I would like the person!

Gpfr wrote: "The only Rushdie I've read is Midnight's Children, which I didn't like and that hasn't tempted me to explore further.

Concerning Joan Didion, I've read and appreciated [book:The Year..."

he isnt that easy a reader to warm to, like with Julian Barnes, i prefer his non-fiction,newspaper articles and interviews to his fictional output

AB76 wrote: "like with Julian Barnes, i prefer his non-fiction,newspaper articles and interviews to his fictional output..."

Ah, now Julian Barnes, I like both his fiction and his non-fiction. Speaking of his non-fiction, I've got Nothing to Be Frightened of in the pile waiting on my bedside table. I picked it up in the local Oxfam shop last time I was there.

Thanks for the month’s summary GP.
It’s more enjoyable to read now our sessions are longer.

Two from me from the last few days. Firstly a disappointment..

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

This is a group of short stories, many of which have been published separately in the last few years, cobbled together to form a novel. As with most short story collections, the standard greatly varies, but there one or two good ones.

In novel form though, it doesn’t work. The effort made to create adhesion between the stories seems to obvious; certain characters recur, and the underlying theme of grief and resilience in the face of great adversity.

Nagamatsu’s stories in the first half of the book are of communities so overwhelmed by death due to plague or climate disaster that most of those who remain unaffected are in some way involved with the funerary business. The stories in the second half are less concerned with despair, and to some extent represent recovery, though not on this planet.

Between the descriptions of disasters there are often lengthy passages which lapse into the sort of contemporary American fiction of recent times that I find incredibly boring and difficult to read.

It would have worked better left as a collection, and as it is feels overly ambitious and contrived.

and, a recommendation for Hex by Jenni Fagan

This is the second in the (so far) very impressive Darkland Tales series from Polygon, for which modern Scottish authors offer retelling of the country’s history and legend.

Despite its evocative descriptions of Edinburgh in the early 20th century, I wasn’t a fan of Luckenbooth, one of my criticisms being that it was far too long. Fagan’s writing seems much more resonant when confirmed to 110 pages.

Her location is again Edinburgh’s Old Town, but this time in 1590, set around the North Berwick Witch Trials. Geillis Duncan was hanged as a witch when just 15 years old, when quite innocent. Under torture she implicated other people who were also hanged. Fagan brings attention not only to this travesty of so-called justice, but more generally to women who have had to endure centuries of misogyny at the hands of men with power.

Fagan gives the story a magical realist twist, with Geillis being visited in her cell on the last night of her life by a person called Iris, in the form of a crow, travelling back in time from 2021. This gives the book a contemporary relevance, at one stage of the night Iris relating to Geillis how more than four hundred years later, similar evils were still occurring, alluding to the two Metropolitan police officers who took photographs of two murdered sisters, instead of guarding the murder scene they took photographs of the two ‘dead birds’ and circulated to friends.

There seems so much crammed into the hundred pages, even some welcome black humour, which is in sharp contrast to Luckenbooth, where relatively little took place in a bloated excess of pages.
Rizzio brought out the best in Mina, as this has with Fagan, and I very much look forward to Alan Warner’s offering later this year.


Horror lends itself well to feminist literature, but it absolutely must be done well, it’s a fine balance in how pronounced the message needs to be. For me at least, I want subtlety and a modicum of humour. The ‘horror’ element will see to the rest.
Two recent films, Men, and She Will, are also examples of good feminist horror.


Here’s a clip that maybe of interest, certainly was to me..

They have things to say about birds. A group of grackles is called a plague. We crows are a horde, we are a hover, we are a mob and a parcel, we are a storytelling, we are a parliament. We gather in the trees high above you humans so we can discuss what? Magpies in a flock are called a tribe or a tiding. Buzzards gathering are a wake. There is a confusion of chiffchaffs. A chattering of choughs. Cuckoos are an asylum. There is a prayer of godwits. A cast of merlins. A murmuration of starlings. A quilt of eiders. A wisdom of owls. A quarrel of sparrows. A scold of jays. A charm of coots. A conspiracy of ravens.

Thanks for the new thread again gfpr

Just to let you know it rained here today - a little.

AB76 wrote: "Gpfr wrote: "The only Rushdie I've read is Midnight's Children, which I didn't like and that hasn't tempted me to explore further.

Concerning Joan Didion, I've read and appreciated [..."

I enjoyed Midnight's Children, which combined thriller with satire.

I've read The Satanic Verses (twice), The Moor's Last Sigh, and Midnight's Children and enjoyed them all, SV being my favourite. I left off after Moor for no particular reason - I think mainly because my focus shifted to earlier periods of literature and I slacked off on contemporary writing in general. But I've come back to the 1990s now (among other reading) so my intention is to carry on with The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999) once I get to that year.

Gpfr wrote: "There has been some sad news in recent days with the deaths of Raymond Briggs and Sempé. Two lovely drawings by the latter were posted.
Then came the savage and shocking attack on Salman Rushdie. ..."

Thanks for your thoughtful introduction... sad days, indeed. Intolerance is ugly, regardless of its target... my current book is Stettin Station by David Downing, in which the protagonist John Russell becomes aware of trains carrying Jews off to unknown fates... more on that when I've finished.

As for Rushdie's books - as far as I remember, 'Midnight's Children' is the only one I've read - I found it OK if over-long, but as magic realism isn't a genre that I get on with too well, I haven't read any others. As already stated, though, I am thoroughly enjoying Abir Mukherjee's series which is taking us through the 1920s and towards (eventually) independence and partition...

Julian Barnes I usually like a lot, though some books don't quite click - especially his fictionalised versions of true lives/events: Arthur & George and The Noise of Time didn't really work for me.

I thought I knew France very well, having lived there for several years, married to a French wife, several visits every year - somehow, the name 'Sempé' never crossed my consciousness even though I was dimly aware of 'Le petit Nicholas'... just goes to show how random our knowledge - or lack of it - can be at times.

I have read all the Abir Mukherjee series so far and found them very good. At the moment I am reading The widows of Malabar Hill by S Massey. The book is set in Bombay in 1921.
I finished the Thora G. Series by Ysla Sigurdardottir finding The Day is Dark set in Greenland excellent and the last one The Silence of the Sea tobe very good as well with many twists and turns.
I was rather disappointed in The Pudding Lane Plot by Susanna Gregory to be truthful I was bored but thought it was going to be about the Great Fire of London as depicted on the cover and felt cheated when it was hardly mentioned only on the last page. I think the two series which Gregory writes have passed their sell by date.

Hi all!

Good news, my brother will go home today after nearly a month in hospital and rehab and hospital and rehab. He is over the moon, glad to be going home, and I'm glad today.

Should allow me more time to spend in these parts. Thanks for keeping the ship afloat, Gpfr!

Lljones wrote: "Hi all!

Good news, my brother will go home today after nearly a month in hospital and rehab and hospital and rehab. He is over the moon, glad to be going home, and I'm glad today.

Should allow me..."

That is wonderful news Lisa. Such a relief to you all. I hope he continues to make good progress.

Lljones wrote: "Good news, my brother will go home today after nearly a month in hospital and rehab and hospital and rehab. He is over the moon, glad to be going home, and I'm glad today..."

That's so good to hear!

Lljones wrote: "Hi all!

Good news, my brother will go home today after nearly a month in hospital and rehab and hospital and rehab. He is over the moon, glad to be going home, and I'm glad today.

Should allow me..."

Good to hear he is in recovery mode Lisa, you were certainly missed... its hard to tell where the new normal is these days, for all sorts of reasons, anyway welcome back...

CCCubbon wrote: "I have read all the Abir Mukherjee series so far and found them very good. At the moment I am reading The widows of Malabar Hill by S Massey. The book is set in Bombay in 1921.
I finished the Thora..."

I’ve read five by Sigurðardóttir and enjoyed them all. They’re usually very dark, bordering on horror at times. My favourite is The Silence of the Sea.
I’ve read the two books in the series prior to Day is Dark, but not that. The Greenland setting sounds appealing.

Lljones wrote: "Hi all!

Good news, my brother will go home today after nearly a month in hospital and rehab and hospital and rehab. He is over the moon, glad to be going home, and I'm glad today.

Should allow me..."

Good for him! I suspect the wily beast will want more attention!

Lljones wrote: "Hi all!

Good news, my brother will go home today after nearly a month in hospital and rehab and hospital and rehab. He is over the moon, glad to be going home, and I'm glad today.

Should allow me..."


Ah, fantastic news! I hope things continue to improve for him

giveusaclue wrote: "Lljones wrote: "Hi all!

Good news, my brother will go home today after nearly a month in hospital and rehab and hospital and rehab. He is over the moon, glad to be going home, and I'm glad today.
..."

Good news indeed!

CCCubbon wrote: "I finished the Thora G. Series by Ysla Sigurdardottir finding The Day is Dark set in Greenland excellent and the last one The Silence of the Sea tobe very good as well with many twists and turns."

Like yourself (and Andy), I have read a lot of Sigurdardottir and like her stories a lot. At one point, I paused the Children's House/Freja and Huldar series, because I didn't care for the subject of young children being murdered... more recently, the victims have tended to be older which somehow makes it more acceptable (!?) - don't know why. Still, they can be dark in places, with lighter interludes featuring the two main protagonists. I'm up to book 5 in that series - The Doll - entertaining, and I enjoyed it, but the set-up was pretty far fetched.

I've been reading another Scottish based crime series: the Kelso Strang series by Aline Templeton. The recently-widowed Strang heads up a special serious crime unit which is sent to areas that don't have a CID presence. Thus each book is set in a different rural area. The first in the series is Human Face.

scarletnoir wrote: "somehow, the name 'Sempé' never crossed my consciousness ..."

I've just posted another in Photos.

From yet another newsletter and now on my wishlist at Bookdepository -

In January 1905, the young Vaughan Williams -- not yet one of England's most famous composers -- visited King's Lynn, Norfolk, to find folk songs 'from the mouths of the singers'. He had started collecting in earnest little more than a year before, but was now obsessed with saving these indigenous tunes before they were lost forever. An old fisherman, James 'Duggie' Carter, performed 'The Captain's Apprentice', a brutal tale of torture sung to the most beautiful tune the young composer had ever heard.

The Captain's Apprentice by Caroline Davison is the story of how this mysterious song 'opened the door to an entirely new world of melody, harmony and feeling' for Vaughan Williams.

With this transformational moment at its heart, Caroline's book traces the contrasting lives of the well-to-do composer and a forgotten King's Lynn cabin boy who died at sea, and brings fresh perspectives on Edwardian folk-song collectors, the singers and their songs.

While exploring her own connections to folk song, via a Hebridean ancestor, a Scottish ballad learnt as a child and memories of family sing-songs, Caroline makes the unexpected discovery that Vaughan Williams has been a hidden influence on her musical life from the beginning -- an experience she shares with generations of twentieth-century British schoolchildren.

Published for Vaughan Williams's 150th birthday, this evocative, sensitive look at the great composer will also be read on BBC Radio 4 (coincidentally, by none other than Henry's -- owner of The Book Hive -- aunt Poppy Miller!).

scarletnoir wrote: "giveusaclue wrote: "Lljones wrote: "Hi all!

Good news, my brother will go home today after nearly a month in hospital and rehab and hospital and rehab. He is over the moon, glad to be going home, ..."

Paul wrote: "Lljones wrote: "Hi all!

Good news, my brother will go home today after nearly a month in hospital and rehab and hospital and rehab. He is over the moon, glad to be going home, and I'm glad today.
..."

Andy wrote: "and, a recommendation for Hex by Jenni Fagan

This is the second in the (so far) very impressive Darkland Tales series from Polygon, for which modern Scottish autho..."

I will certainly take a look at series, thanks ☺

Lljones wrote: "Hi all!

Good news, my brother will go home today after nearly a month in hospital and rehab and hospital and rehab. He is over the moon, glad to be going home, and I'm glad today.

Should allow me..."
Great news Lisa, I hope your brother continues in good health and it will be great to hear from you 😊

Miami by Joan Didion (1987) was less interesting than i expected and not as individual as her early works either

I had imagined the book would cover the city of Miami, its culture and its past with aplomb but instead the book became bogged down in the byzantine warrens of cuban refugee conspiracy theories and the world they lived in. The later section dealt with Reagen and his violent, unpleasent de-stabilisation of many regimes in latin america but never quite enthused me as i expected

It was well written but not the book i expected to find

Good news bout your bro Lisa!

My wife: I was looking for cheap detergent; the cheapest was Ajax, so I bought two.

Me: There are two Ajaxes in the Iliad, too.

Bill wrote: "My wife: I was looking for cheap detergent; the cheapest was Ajax, so I bought two.

Me: There are two Ajaxes in the Iliad, too."

Purely assumption on my part: she must be used to you by now... :-)

@Clue - I saw you were reading the latest Fethering #21! mystery. That got me looking to see if the library had any for downloads, and sure enough they have a few. So with - I hope our last - bout of unseemly summer weather, I have been lazing around with them.

Thanks.

Bill wrote: "My wife: I was looking for cheap detergent; the cheapest was Ajax, so I bought two.

Me: There are two Ajaxes in the Iliad, too."

It took me a while, but now I am picturing one Ajax sparring with the other to be first to do the dishes. 😁

MK wrote: "@Clue - I saw you were reading the latest Fethering #21! mystery. That got me looking to see if the library had any for downloads, and sure enough they have a few. So with - I hope our last - bout ..."

Glad to be of service. They are rather modern day Misses Marpleish!

Fiction i'm looking foward to reading, when i finish Pelegri:

The Honeyed Peace (Short stories by Martha Gellhorn)
Of Heroes and Tombs (Novel by Ernesto Sabato)

Sabato will be my seventh latin american read of 2022(fiction and non fiction), all of them interesting and thought provoking i loved Sabato's 1940s novel "The Tunnel", though that is far shorter and was less xperimental than "Of Heroes and Tombs" is described as being

Lljones wrote: "Purely assumption on my part: she must be used to you by now... :-)"

That's evidently the case, as she inexplicably failed to be convulsed with laughter at my riposte.

Between 2013-17 as the 100 years WW1 dates occurred i read a good variety of novels and history books on the war and its causes, great new studies of the times and the situations that arose

After a 4-5 year gap, i am now reading Jean-Michel Steg's Death In the Ardennes a short precise study of the significant french losses in the battles that took place before the Miracle of the Marne in Sept 1914.

The French army with the BEF and its Belgian allies was extended fighting the German invasion of Luxembourg and Belgium in August 1914. It was fast moving warfare, troops marching under a hot sun and there was a huge loss of life.

Reading this from the French view has reminded me that i read a very good study of the German advance that hot month, written by a german officer. He recounts the terrible conditions of reservists marching in day long heat (similar to the Hungarian experience to the east in another memoir), the incredible losses sustained on any contact with the British,including a heart-rending account of the "first blood", where one british machine gun cuts his regiment apart and it takes hours to finally kill the gunner(research led me to find this gunner was a young Ulster volunteer in the British army)

The worst thing about August-Sept 1914 in the west was that despite the terrible losses, german reprisals against belgian civilians and the miracle of the marne, all this nonsense was repeated maybe ten times more in the next four years, with greater losses and less hope. A hopeless, hopeless war...

AB76 wrote: "Fiction i'm looking foward to reading, when i finish Pelegri:

The Honeyed Peace (Short stories by Martha Gellhorn)
Of Heroes and Tombs (Novel by Ernesto Sabato)


Sabato will be my seventh latin american read of 2022(fiction and non fiction), all of them interesting and thought provoking i loved Sabato's 1940s novel "The Tunnel", though that is far shorter and was less xperimental than "Of Heroes and Tombs" is described as being."

I was very impressed by Sabato's The Tunnel as well and I've been looking for Of Heroes and Tombs since, without success, so far.

My most recent Latin American book was Carlos Fuentes's Where the Air is Clear (1959), which felt like an attempt to write "The Great Mexican Novel", in that it presents a broad picture of Mexican society and history, with much musing about the Mexican soul and where the country's future will lead. I thought it was very good and plan to read more Fuentes in the near future, this being my second. Next up is probably Aura (1962) but there are other Spanish and Latin American books I'll read first - possibly Paco Ignacio Taibo II's Four Hands will be next, another Mexican writer.

Bill wrote: "Lljones wrote: "Purely assumption on my part: she must be used to you by now... :-)"

That's evidently the case, as she inexplicably failed to be convulsed with laughter at my riposte."

Well, I liked it!

Berkley wrote: "AB76 wrote: "Fiction i'm looking foward to reading, when i finish Pelegri:

The Honeyed Peace (Short stories by Martha Gellhorn)
Of Heroes and Tombs (Novel by Ernesto Sabato)


Sabato will be my se..."

I had a copy of the Fuentes novel but somehow i have lost it, it must be in the catacombs of my house(considering its a modest abode, for books its like the tardis!).

I am quite impressed at how much great latin american fiction has been translated in the last 50 years, have you ever tried any Onetti novels Berkley? Onetti was Uruguayan but almost all his novels are set in Beunos Aires accross the plata

From the novels i have read, the southern cone novelists(dominated by Argentina) are my favourites, though the breadth of Brazilian literature is impressive and diverse. Mexico fascinates me and i enjoyed reading Rulfo, i must dig out that Fuentes novel!

Dogsitting in the parched shire borders is almost finished, with some welcome rain but also some early AM waking, due to a wagging tail and snorting from a 4yo labrador!

I have been sedately enjoying a novel of Algeria The Olive Trees of Justice by Jean Pelegri(1959), set just as the tensions expode in 1954, it covers the death of a parent and looking back at the past, an algeria(Muslim and Settler) that marched in an uneasy two step for around 100 years. Pelegri has been praised as an algerian born Frenchman who sees both sides of the complex colonial society, he sees the Kabyles, the Arabs, the Touraegs and others, not just white and native.

Its not a long novel i'm 3/4 way though and its style in translation(by Anthony Burgess) is deliberate and unadorned, although the details are pithy and evocative. There is Algiers in the fierce heat of the August sirrocco, the Mitidja(the great farming plain behind the city) and observations of inter-communal life.

In a subtle but well expressed way, Pelegri seems to blame the settlers who sided with Vichy in WW2 for becoming the strident voices of settler rights, keen to show they were patriots after all and uninterested in a new Algeria, rather they seek to preserve the unequal pre-WW2 society. Pelegri's narrator calls them the "old men", he returns from WW2 fighting alongside Kabyle berbers, keen to see a new future for the colony but finds the old prejudices.

I found my copy second hand, seek it out, its a gem and was made into a film in 1962, which i want to watch as it captures that last year of French Algeria. the film crews were allowed to film by the military authorities as they said they were doing a documentary on olive trees apparently!

My screensaver now is an image from the film of the narrator looking down on the city of Algiers, the white city...

AB76 wrote: "I have been sedately enjoying a novel of Algeria The Olive Trees of Justice by Jean Pelegri(1959)
..."

You've aroused my interest, AB, I'll have a look for this at the library. I didn't know Jean Pélégri. I see he wrote the screenplay himself for the film and acted in it.
Wikipedia has this, written I suppose at the time of his death;

"Jean Pélégri, Algerian by birth and one of the great writers of our time, greater than Albert Camus in any case, remains unknown in France. Why? Because he tried so hard to mark his territory as an Algerian that he created a different kind of French language just for his own use. And for that, French readers rejected him."

Mohammed Dib, Simorgh, Albin Michel, Paris, 2003

As an aside, I learnt a new word in the original French as to how he 'marked his territory'.

In Le Monde also at the time of his death, they wrote:

This need for justice, this desire to balance the wrongs and the pains - he asserts his belonging to the petit peuple pied-noir, shares their pains while denouncing the aggravation of the iniquities and exactions of which the Muslim population was victim - are at the heart of Les Oliviers de la justice, which he himself adapted for the cinema and which will be filmed just before the end of the Algerian war, this "album of murders", as he would call it later on.

Stettin Station by David Downing

This is the third in Downing’s John Russell series: Russell is a journalist of British/American stock, and a long-term resident of Berlin, which he considers as his home - his ex-wife, son and girlfriend Effi all live there. But… the Nazis come to power, and Russell is drawn into helping opponents to the regime. To do this, he plays a dangerous game, at times working for the Soviets, pretends also to help the Nazis, and is connected to the Americans.

By this time in late 1941, the Germans had torn up the non-aggression pact signed by Molotov and Ribbentrop two years earlier, and invaded on 22 June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa). By December, the German army is closing in on Moscow - but Russell (a former communist) and others are hoping that it will fail to capture the city. (Such tacit support for Russia reads rather strangely ATM in the light of recent events, but makes sense in the historical context.)

In the meantime, Russell (who by now is using an American passport) makes plans to escape from Germany, should America enter the war - everyone expects war between the USA and Japan to break out at any moment (the attack on Pearl Harbour on 7 December 1941 precipitates this war). For once, he meets a high-ranking Nazi - Abwehr chief Canaris - who offers him safe passage in return for a favour, though in the main his contacts remain lower and middle ranking individuals or civilian irregulars.

I won’t describe more of the plot, which is about as credible as these tales get; the background detail on life in 1941 Berlin seems entirely authentic, as are the references to various Nazi organisations etc. In addition, by this third volume the author seems better in command of the descriptions of journeys, not just naming the streets or railway stations etc. but including telling details to draw in the reader. IMO, this is the most successful book in the series so far, and I’m sure now that I’ll read the remaining four volumes.

AB76 wrote: "I am quite impressed at how much great latin american fiction has been translated in the last 50 years, have you ever tried any Onetti novels Berkley? Onetti was Uruguayan but almost all his novels are set in Beunos Aires accross the plata."

No, but I have him on my list. Thanks for the reminder, I'll keep an eye out for his name next time I'm in a bookstore (probably later today).

Gpfr wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I have been sedately enjoying a novel of Algeria The Olive Trees of Justice by Jean Pelegri(1959)
..."

You've aroused my interest, AB, I'll have a look for this at the library. I didn..."

will be interested to see how it reads in the original french GPFR...

Berkley wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I am quite impressed at how much great latin american fiction has been translated in the last 50 years, have you ever tried any Onetti novels Berkley? Onetti was Uruguayan but almost a..."

his style is rather oblique, i would say he influenced Vargas Llosa in some ways

AB76 wrote: "I have been sedately enjoying a novel of Algeria The Olive Trees of Justice by Jean Pelegri(1959)..."

That sounds interesting, AB - it seems to be out of print in French as well as English, so it may be some time before I find an 'affordable' copy!

Lljones wrote: "Hi all!

Good news, my brother will go home today after nearly a month in hospital and rehab and hospital and rehab. ...

So pleased to hear the good news about your brother, Lisa.

Great introductions, Gpfr!

scarletnoir wrote: "AB76 wrote: "I have been sedately enjoying a novel of Algeria The Olive Trees of Justice by Jean Pelegri(1959)..."

That sounds interesting, AB - it seems to be out of print in French as well as En..."

even in french? gosh that is suprising...

A mixed week of reading for me..

Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

Published in 1992, beloved by critics and a finalist for the National Book Award, this is a necessary and brave piece of writing, but I found it difficult to enjoy.

The novel is set in South Carolina in the 1950s and is the story of the life so far of 13 year old Ruth Anne (Bone) Boatwright. The Boatwright family are, according to the powers that be in that part of the US at that time, ‘white trash’; a racist and classist slur that fortunately seems to have fallen out of fashion, as it basically describes who matters and who doesn’t.

Though the characters around Bone attempt to justify their world by telling their bleak stories, it is Bone’s own story is much more terrifying. She has been abused by her stepfather since she was 7 years old and is clearly mentally and physically scarred. This is all done with her mother’s knowledge; she eventually flees from her abusive partner, but it is far too late. If anyone helps her, it is her gay aunt Raylene, who lives in a trailer at the edge of town, making a living from recycling stuff other people throw out. The passages involving Raylene are the most pleasurable to read, a welcome break from the tough reading of the rest of the novel.

Men, Women and Rattlesnakes by Franklin P. Collier Jr.

The labelling of this ‘the most evil book ever written’ certainly hooked me. This was the process by which I was duped.. and that it was difficult to find a copy of.

However, it was by no means a waste of time. Rather than the publisher’s fabrication, this all takes place at a gentle pace, and is in effect a series of vignettes about the oddball characters of the rural outpost of Menham, it’s location in the US undisclosed.
With a cast including a man-hating spinster who raises her adopted baby girl as a boy, and a group of farmers who are either misogynistic or lost to alcohol, or both, the whole piece is played out for deadpan laughs, as a satire of small-town life.

The lengthy publisher’s summary wedges it between horror and noir, but I don’t see it as either of those. There’s a feel of southern gothic to the writing, which certainly is compelling to read. It reminds me of Claudel’s eccentric village inhabitants in Grey Souls.

Collier wrote this in 1934, and it was his only novel. Primarily, in the 1920s and 30s he was a satirical cartoonist for the Boston Traveler, chiefly drawing a comic strip that featured Otto Grow, based around his own life.
Although by no means brilliant, this novel deserves more serious treatment than daubing it with the ‘most evil’ tag that has somehow stuck.