Alice

StuckinaBook All 14 Comments

So, tonight I went to see Alice in Wonderland. I’ve just about come to terms with calling it that when I’m talking about the film, as I suppose it’s the proper title, but when we’re discussing the book, make sure you say Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, ok? Right. Glad we’ve cleared that up.

Tim Burton – who is the only director who could possibly do Alice – sets his version of the book when Alice is 19, paying a return visit to Wonderland. So all the same characters are there (from Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There as well) but he can throw in a Hollywoody Quest Plot where Alice has to slay the Jabberwocky. In a nice touch, they refer to this foretold event as The Frabjous Day.

Burton never seems to quite decide whether he’s adapting the book or creating a sequel – everything is new to Alice, who has forgotten most of what happened (Tweedledee – or is it Tweedledum? – voiced my thoughts at one point when he said “Surely she should remember all this from the first time?) but that’s a small matter when it comes to his realisation of Wonderland, which is rather wonderful. Very Tim Burton. Even better than the setting are the characters – Helena Bonham Carter is, visually and character-wise, perfect as the Red Queen; Johnny Depp is delightfully mad as the Mad Hatter; Stephen Fry was born to be a Chesire Cat. And so it goes on – some great decisions with make-up and special effects make the characters dazzling. The only dubious member of the cast was Mia Wasikowska as Alice, who wasn’t brilliant… but once she got to Wonderland she didn’t have much to do but look surprised and/or determined, and she managed that with aplomb.

My real problems with the film were mostly about the plot – I know that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland doesn’t have a very linear plot, but it does have a brilliant rhythm and warped internal logic, which could perhaps have been carried across to the film. Instead, the plot led to the inevitable battle scene… why do all big budget films have to have a battle scene now? I blame Lord of the Rings… they’re always so long and dull and nothing happens except we see just how much money they had to throw at CGI axes.

Also – perhaps I should have expected this with Tim Burton – the film was rather more sinister than the book. I’m mostly thinking about the hedgehogs… (what a sentence to write!) who enjoyed being croquet balls in the book, but were terrified in the film. Everyone seems contentedly mad in the book, and rather more scared in the film – but I don’t think Burton will ever make a cheery film.

Still, worth seeing – doesn’t match up to the book, but it is one of my favourites so that comes as no surprise – and I got all excited about it being in 3D (you just know in five years time that our 3D film technology is going to look wildly dated). Let me know if you’re going to see it, and what you think… (and make sure you read the books)

My previous experience with getting videos across from YouTube haven’t always been successful, but hopefully above this post is the 1903 version of Alice which I’ve seen linked to in a few places… look out for some wonderful ‘surprise-acting’ and quite impressive effects for over a hundred years ago.

David Golder

StuckinaBook All , 5 Comments

As I mentioned yesterday, amongst the hmphing, the trip to London gave me the opportunity to read Irene Nemirovsky’s David Golder (1930), her second novel and the one which propelled her to fame in France. More importantly, given that I had about two hours of travel in which to read it, it’s fairly short. Which is always a plus here at Stuck-in-a-Book. I read Suite Francaise (along with most of the country, it seems) about 18 months ago for my book group, and wrote about it here. About the only things that David Golder has in common with that novel are a) the influence of Nemirovsky’s Jewish heritage, and b) her great writing.

As Patrick Marnham points out in his introduction, David Golder is actually vulnerable to accusations of anti-Semitism – at least it would be if it were published now, in its use of something of a stereotypical central figure. David Golder is ‘an enormous man in his late sixties’, obsessed with accruing money. His ruthless lust for money – which drives a former business partner to suicide in the opening pages of the novel – make uncomfortable reading when one bears in mind the sort of anti-Semitic propaganda was shortly to be used. Since Nemirovsky was herself Jewish, it is less awkward – although (again, as the introduction points out), she was keenly pro-assimilation and considered herself French at least as much as she considered herself Jewish.

But Nemirovsky is cleverer than any initial conclusions about David Golder suggest, of course. We soon learn that Golder is in fact the least mercenary of his family once his wife Gloria and grown-up daughter Joyce are introduced. In one of Nemirovsky’s brilliant little passages, Golder ‘pictured his own wife quickly hiding her chequebook whenever he came into the room, as if it were a packet of love letters.’ Both Gloria and Joyce are forever asking Golder for money, buying expensive jewellery, and all the while declaring that he does nothing for them. And, it appears, even believing it. Gloria happily spends 800,000 francs on a necklace, but begrudges the money he gives his daughter; who, in turn, throws a tantrum when he won’t buy her a car.

David Golder sees the protagonist facing several crises. His businesses aren’t doing well; he realises the disrespect and lack of love his wife and daughter show him; he has a heart attack. All of these are devastating to him, and come to a head when he discovers that he has not much time to live – the novel then follows his final months (as he sees them). Will he forgive his family and try and build a life with them? Will he exact revenge upon them and leave them penniless? Will other avenues open up, other priorities?

Nemirovsky’s portrait is – belying the opening feeling I had – subtle and even wise. She has no heavy-handed point to make, but rather a fascinating individual to delineate. Golder and his family feel real, and his actions feel like real actions, motivated by his realisations and emotions rather than plot direction or authorial intervention. In short, David Golder is a very good piece of writing, and encouragement to me to read more widely in Nemirovsky’s work. Perhaps Suite Francaise did so well because of the true story attached to it – Nemirvosky’s death in Auschwitz and the subsequent discovery of the manuscript over fifty years later. But as Nemirovsky’s daughter Denise, and translator Sandra Smith, stressed at the talk I (almost) attended – we can decide to view Irene Nemirovsky either as a victim or a writer. They – quite rightly, and strongly – believe she should be seen as a writer.

Hmph

StuckinaBook All 5 Comments

I am very annoyed with myself. Today I should have been reporting back on Jewish Book Week for the second time, and specifically a talk entitled Celebrating Irene Nemirovsky. Except… for some reason, I was certain that the talk started at 7.30pm. Just managed to get onto the Tube at about 7.10pm, gave the ticket a quick check… and discovered that it started at 6.30pm. Amusingly, I’d written 7pm in my diary. I’ve probably scribbled down 2.15pm somewhere else, and midnight-under-a-full-moon somewhere else again.

So. Four hour round trip for ten minutes of a talk – which was probably brilliant, I’m afraid I have no idea. It was nice to hear Irene Nemirovsky’s daughter Denise speak (albeit briefly, and in French, ably translated by Sandra Smith who also translates Nemirovsky’s work) and the journey there gave me the opportunity to read Nemirovsky’s David Golder, so I’ll blog about that before too long.

Very frustrated with myself – but, even though I didn’t hear him talk about it, Oliver Phillipponnat was there in his capacity as Nemirovsky’s biographer (with Patrick Lienhart) and I think The Life of Irene Nemirovsky is another to go onto the list…

As well, of course, as a better organisational mind. Tsk.

Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

StuckinaBook All 8 Comments

Happy weekend, everyone! I’ve had one of those not-very-productive weeks, in terms of work and in terms of reading. Not sure quite where it went, to be honest, but still picked up a few bits and pieces for a Weekend Miscellany…

1.) The blog post – is a lovely review of Miss Hargreaves over at Hayley’s blog Desperate Reader – click here to hear how my, er, persuasions have been noted over the years – and how they proved fruitful.

2.) The book – is one I heard about over at Cornflower, who is a fellow Debo fan – Deborah Mitford, or Deborah Devonshire as we should call her (or Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, if you feel so inclined) has succumbed to public pressure and written her autobiography: Wait for Me! You might remember my love of all things Mitford from 2008, and I’m excited about this – there is so much that Debo says that I don’t agree with, but she says it all so charmingly that she’s the most delightful Grumpy Old Woman imaginable. To the extent that none of her opinions really sound grumpy… but instead rather adorable. The book isn’t out til September, so this is very early warning – but I expect some of you will be putting pre-orders in even as I type…

3.) The link – I’ve been very parasitical this week – thank you Cathie from my email group for this fascinating link. It’s an article in The Guardian by AS Byatt about Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but also mentions all sorts of other children’s classics, like the Wizard of Oz series, The Secret Garden, Winnie the Pooh… and reminds me to point out the link to a beautiful webpage of many different artists’ impressions of Alice et al, that link being down in the left-hand column under ‘Places of Beauty’. Enjoy!

And, finally, I thought I’d let you know that the latest Bloggers Books of the Month are available at the Big Green Bookshop and on its webpage (including my choice, which I love – see all the choices here) – and I’m sure you’ll want to join me in congratulating Simon from the shop on his beautiful new baby boy…

Grammar Day

StuckinaBook All 10 Comments

Apparently today has been Grammar Day! (Cue awful joke: what about Grandpa Day, huh?) Booking Through Thursday inform he thus, and ask this:

In honour of National Grammar Day … it IS “March Fourth” after all … do you have any grammar books? Punctuation? Writing guidelines? Style books? More importantly, have you read them? How do you feel about grammar in general? Important? Vital? Unnecessary? Fussy?
Yes, BTT, yes it does matter to me. I have a few guides dotted around, don’t tend to read them… but I do own a T-shirt with this on it (my T-shirt isn’t yellow, but this is the only good image I could find):


I understand that, in the long run, grammar probably doesn’t matter… but I don’t love grammar-accuracy out of snobbishness or a need to be superior, but just because it feels right. And, even more so, it feels horribly wrong to get it wrong. Perhaps your reaction is the same as my friend who wrote on Facebook the other day: ‘If there’s one thing I hate, it’s pedanticness’ – to which my reply, of course, was ‘I think you mean pedantry.’

Over to you…

JBW: Save the Children

StuckinaBook All 7 Comments

I’ve had a fun afternoon in London, attending the first of two Jewish Book Week events I’m going to this week (check back on Monday for the second). Today’s was called Save the Children, and was about Jewish evacuation during the Second World War. Both speakers were personable and excellent, and it was a really good session.

Ruth Barnett was four when she was part of Kindertransport in 1939, living in England for the following ten years. During that time she developed a love for the country, and for the countryside, and was horrified when her father used a court order to make her return to Germany – especially, as she said, since she’d been exposed to propaganda in England for ten years, and wrongly believed all Germans (not just Nazis) to be cruel and unspeakable. For the next four years, until she was able to claim British citizenship, she was a Person of No Nationality, the title of the book she has written about the experience. Astonishingly, it wasn’t until she was over fifty that she realised what Kindertransport really was – having previously thought that her experience and her brother’s was exceptional.

The second speaker was Susan Soyinka who, though not an evacuee herself, has written a book about the Jewish Free School moving to Mousehole (pronounced Maows-ull) in Cornwall. She was one of those speakers you just want to go and hug… the topic obviously touched her greatly, and she was a little overcome emotionally – which heightened how good her talk was, rather than the opposite. It was a truly uplifting story, about a small village which generously welcomed strangers from the East End of London – I definitely want to get hold of her book From East End to Land’s End, based on extensive interviews and research. A few of the evacuees were actually in the audience for the talk, as well.

That’s just a taster of the event – I’m keen to track down those books, and was hugely impressed not only with the lucidity and warmth of the speakers, but with the genuine curiosity and selflessness of those in the audience who asked questions. So often Q&A sessions are just taken as opportunities for people to give their own lengthy opinions, whereas the questions at the event were interesting and actually questions, rather than diatribes disguised as questions!

Do have a look here to see what other events are still to come, and try to get along to something if you can. There’s such a variety of interesting topics and speakers, and the programme is rather better than most other literary festivals I’ve seen…

Beside the Sea

StuckinaBook All , , 6 Comments

Continuing in the books-in-translation theme, but moving to the other side of the Channel, step forward Beside the Sea by Veronique Olmi. Yet again, imagine the accents. This novel, published as Bord de Mer in 2001, has been translated by Adriana Hunter and is one of the first books from new publishing house Peirene Press.

Let’s talk about Peirene first, for a moment, actually. They translate and publish contemporary European novels, giving those of us with zero language skills a chance to experience the best of continental literature (n.b. for American readers, British people rather oddly refer to ‘Europe’ as though we weren’t part of it. That’s the ego of an island, that is). Best of all, for me – they don’t publish anything over 200pp. Oh, Peirene, how I do love thee! It is not just yours truly who likes his books short and sweet. Their line is: bored watching films? Read a two-hour book instead. (Oh, and see their rather witty blog too).

But Beside the Sea, though short, is not sweet. That is to say, it’s a pretty devastating read. From the beautiful cover, lovely thick pages, and generally pretty luxurious feel to the physical book, I was expecting the novel inside to be equally elegant. The written version of Audrey Tautou or Marion Cotillard, wearing a beret, sipping from a champagne flute and eating vol-au-vents. That sort of thing. So when the protagonist said that she ‘didn’t give a stuff’ on one of the first pages, I was a little taken aback. So she’s not elegant; this is not an elegant book. Ok.

Instead, we have a mother taking her young boys, Stan and Kevin, away to a grotty hotel by the sea. It’s not lived up to her expectations, but she is determined that they will enjoy their stay – even with hardly any money, and rain, and fears continually crowding into her mind. Throughout all the activities, her main worry is that she isn’t good enough as a mother, and that her children will outgrow her and leave her behind. She loves Stan and Kevin desperately, and tries to show this affection, but never feels that she is getting it quite right: Maybe the only real cuddle is in your tummy, when you’ve still got the baby in your tummy, I mean. No one to tell you what to do, to say you’re pampering it too much or not enough or not at the right time. You mustn’t wake a baby. You mustn’t ruin his appetite. You mustn’t hurt his head. You’re just with him. That’s all. You’re with him.
For their parts, Kevin and Stan try to cope well with the situation, but everything is a little fraught, detached, anxious. Stan takes refuge in words…
Are they good? I asked Stan. He didn’t answer. He’s gone off somewhere, he’s good at that, Stan, slipping his moorings – oh, he’s mine alright. The teacher lends him books and it’s the same when he reads: he leaves us. Sometimes I think he carries on reading his books when he’s given them back, he still thinks about them, he can read them even without the words, he’s really very good at being somewhere else.I was initially thrown by the tone of the novel, being so different from what I expected – and I did worry that it would be like so many other novels, in a ‘real’ voice which is so jarring and unsatisfying. But Olmi is much cleverer than that – though the reader might think at the start that this is an average mother, it is soon obvious that she is not. Unreliable narrators always make for interesting reading, and this one gives away only so much – and how much of that is true or reasonable is difficult to gauge…

Olmi manages to build tension without explaining much – the novel is haunting and continually advancing towards an unknown climax. The writing also gets better and better as the novel progresses – I loved the section where they visited the fair:

I’m taking you to the fair, I said. My voice was wrong, I didn’t want to say it like that, in a whisper, I’d like to have said it all loud and happy, the kids didn’t react. I took a deep breath and tried to shout, I’m taking you to the fair! but it came out faded and tired… the boys didn’t move. Mind you, I’d have sworn they’d have followed me to the ends of the earth, but I realised the three of us didn’t need to talk to each other any more. We could do things. Anything. The weirdest, craziest things. But without talking. We followed each other instinctively. We were sure of ourselves, like animals who never question, who just know what you should do and what you shouldn’t.But far and away the best writing comes in the final ten pages. The climax has arrived and, though perhaps the reader has predicted it, that doesn’t make its arrival any less affective. Like Susan Hill’s The Beacon, it’s one of those gasp-out-loud-stare-at-for-five-minutes final pages, final lines.

Obviously I’m not a mother, and I think being a parent might make Beside the Sea even more arresting – but, though it was not the novel I expected when I turned the first page, this is a very good portrayal of quiet desperation and irrationality in a dark, dismal, but real world which never crosses the line into the gratuitously macabre or seedy. Peirenne Press are obviously a publishing house to keep an eye on…

the best laid plans…

StuckinaBook All 7 Comments

I got halfway through writing about Beside the Sea by Veronique Olmi, and now my eyes are too bleary to continue… frailty thy name is apparently Simon.


Instead, I shall wish you a happy St. David’s Day (as it draws to a close) and, in honour of the occasion, ask you to name your favourite book by a Welsh author…

Mine is the wonderful autobiography Under Storm’s Wing by Helen Thomas, containing As It Was and World Without End, about her life with the poet Edward Thomas. It’s over there ——-> in the 50 Books, and is one of the most moving books I’ve ever read, the last paragraph has stayed with me ever since I read it.

Over to you… if in doubt, I’ll accept anyone with the surname ‘Thomas’, ‘Jones’, or ‘Llangochwellyn’.

The Blue Fox

StuckinaBook All , 13 Comments

My weekend of reading those short books in translation is going apace, with two and a bit down. I also read possibly my first book by an author with only one name, since I’ve never read anything by Cher… oh, wait, no, there’s Saki too. Anyway. It’s definitely the first Icelandic book I’ve read, The Blue Fox by Sjon. Imagine the accent on the ‘o’, if you will – apparently this penname means ‘sight’.

I’d heard about the novel (novella?) in a few places – first at dovegreyreader, methinks, then later when Scott Pack chose it as his first Blogger’s Book of the Month – and Claire at Paperback Reader has also written about it – there you go, three reviews to read before I even get past a weak Cher joke. And they all liked it – you can add me to that pile.

Published in Icelandic in 2004, Victoria Cribb’s translation was published by Telegram Books in 2008. I always make sure to credit translators, because it is one of the jobs which impresses me the most, being about as far away as possible from own (incredibly limited) skill set. And, though I cannot compare Cribb’s translation with Sjon’s original, I’m pretty certain that the atmosphere of the book has been carried across.

The Blue Fox takes place in January 1883, and the first section follows the priest Baldur Skuggason as he is on the trail of the elusive blue fox. Each page has a paragraph or two of text on it, slowing down the reading process and giving the words the form, as well as the language, of poetry. Not that it is overly full of imagery or anything like that – rather, the language is sparse and deceptively simple. And there is a subtle humour throughout. One page reads simply: ‘The night was cold and of the longer variety.’ We follow the slow and careful hunt, and even if (like me) you’re willing the fox to escape, this is still beautiful writing. Completely unlike anything I’ve read before.

Just as the trigger is pulled on the gun, we jump back a few days, to the world of Fridrik B. Fridiksson and his charge Abba, who has Down’s Syndrome. Apparently it was rare, in the mid-19th century in Iceland at least, for babies with Down’s Syndrome to be left alive. No witnesses were needed; before the child could utter its first wail, the midwife would close its nose and mouth, thereby returning its breath to the great cauldron of souls from which all mankind is served.Once more the structure is strange, as it’s going backgrounds. We meet characters before we know their histories; sometimes we are told they are dead before they even appear. It all lends a disorientating feeling, but fairy-tale-like rather than sinister. Perhaps it is the mediation of translation, or perhaps it is in Sjon’s writing, but The Blue Fox feels almost mystical, as though it is read through a glass darkly.

I’ll be honest – I wasn’t *as* bowled over by the novella as Scott Pack was, but I am very glad that I’ve read it. The sections of the hunt, especially – which continue at the end of the book, increasingly and beautifully surreal – were haunting and mesmeric and so different from anything else I’ve read. For a taste of Icelandic literature, and a glimpse of a wholly different world and time, I suggest you pick up The Blue Fox – you’re unlikely to read anything else similar this year.

Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

StuckinaBook All 6 Comments


1.) The books – I’m cheating, as there are four this weekend… and they’re all short (539 pages between the four of them!), and they’re all in translation. That wasn’t deliberate, but somehow it happened – and so I thought I’d collect them altogether. Two from the library (The Blue Fox by Sjon, from the Icelandic; Identity by Milan Kundera, from the French) and two review copies (Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord and Beside the Sea by Veronique Olmi, both from the French). Look out for them on Stuck-in-a-Book over the following weeks, they look like they’ll cover quite a range of styles and moods, but all sounds interesting… Since there are four, I don’t think I have space to offer summaries or blurbs now, so we’ll wait til I’ve read them…

2.) The blog post – is the very innovative Cate at Bookshelf Project with her Book Oscars 2010. You only have three days left to vote, so click on that link and choose amongst the nominations in categories including Best Cover Design, Best Fiction Novel, Best Book-to-Film Adaptation… and maybe more. She also made this rather fab banner:

3.) The link – I’m cheating again, because it’s not really a link. I’m just copying and pasting from a recent email… it’s a hard life, being a blogger. Said email was from a man named Peter, who runs Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations. Apparently he’s looking to expand his offerings of book club books. Take a look at what he has and if you have some ideas as to a list you could contribute, get in touch with him at info@flashlightworthy.com.