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    Category: Scarlet Letters

    It takes destiny for a human to tame a beast

    Dear Yan Ge, Your Strange Beasts of China (2020, tr.  Jeremy Tiang. Original: 异兽志, 2006) reads like a collection of entries from a bestiary: the city of…… Read more “It takes destiny for a human to tame a beast”

    7 de April de 202112 de April de 2021 by juliana

    You created me in the abyss of nonexistence

    Dear Carmen, The Book of Anna (2020, tr. Samantha Schnee. Original: El libro de Ana, 2016) takes off a couple of years after Tolstoy had left us…… Read more “You created me in the abyss of nonexistence”

    18 de March de 202118 de March de 2021 by juliana

    Childhood is dark and it’s always moaning

    Dear Tove, In Childhood (2019, tr. Tiina Nunnally. Original: Barndom, 1967), your portrait of the artist as a working-class girl is no rosy picture. Born in an…… Read more “Childhood is dark and it’s always moaning”

    16 de March de 2021 by juliana

    What fun she would have as a ghost

    Dear Elspeth, Who can resist an awkward, introverted misfit with a wild imagination and a tragic fate? Janet, your protagonist in O Caledonia (1991), is a girl…… Read more “What fun she would have as a ghost”

    12 de March de 2021 by juliana

    And the flower is still up on the hillside

    Dear Marita, As The Purple Flower (1928) opens, we are told that we are in “The Middle-of-Things-as-They-are”, in an unusual setting: “Might be here, there or anywhere—or…… Read more “And the flower is still up on the hillside”

    11 de March de 2021 by juliana

    I felt that laughter could be the dawn of a word

    Dear Sara, The short stories and vignettes in your Land of Smoke (2018, tr. Jessica Sequeira. Original: El país del humo, 1977) walk us through the mist…… Read more “I felt that laughter could be the dawn of a word”

    2 de February de 2021 by juliana

    At least we learned that war is madness

    Dear Fumiko, Everyone is drifting in your Floating Clouds (2006, tr. Lane Dunlop. Original: 浮雲, 1951). When the novel opens, WWII has ended and Yukiko is returning…… Read more “At least we learned that war is madness”

    1 de February de 2021 by juliana

    Madness has turned to logic

    Dear Gine, In Zero (2018, tr. Rosie Hedger. Original: Null, 2013), we follow a middle-class Norwegian girl from age ten to twenty-one, as she comes full circle…… Read more “Madness has turned to logic”

    28 de January de 202129 de January de 2021 by juliana

    My mother never held my hand

    Dear Violette, At one point in Asphyxia (2020, tr. Derek Coltman. Original: L’Asphyxie, 1946), the unnamed narrator is standing on the sidewalk, peeking through a window at…… Read more “My mother never held my hand”

    26 de January de 202126 de January de 2021 by juliana

    Even after her head was struck off she behaved so beautifully

    Hi, folks! This is post 3 of Deal me In. For more about this project & my previous posts on it, go here: Reading Plans | Weeks 1 | 2 | 3…… Read more “Even after her head was struck off she behaved so beautifully”

    23 de January de 202123 de January de 2021 by juliana

    This restless craving for sun and love and motion

    Hi, folks! This is post 2 of Deal me In. For more about this project & my previous posts on it, go here: Reading Plans | Weeks 1 | 2 (you…… Read more “This restless craving for sun and love and motion”

    20 de January de 202121 de January de 2021 by juliana

    A trail of books: on Carolina Nabuco’s A Sucessora (‘The Sucessor’, 1934) and the plagiarism charges against Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938)

    The other Rebecca A Sucessora (1934, ‘The Successor’) opens with a couple returning from their honeymoon trip. The first chapter unravels through an extended scene that feels…… Read more “A trail of books: on Carolina Nabuco’s A Sucessora (‘The Sucessor’, 1934) and the plagiarism charges against Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938)”

    13 de January de 202113 de January de 2021 by juliana

    Her heart is this red apple

    Dear Irina, When Isolde (2019, tr. Bryan Karetnyk and Irina Steinberg. Original: Изольда, 1929) opens, it’s summer, sometime in the wild 1920’s, and we are in Biarritz.…… Read more “Her heart is this red apple”

    8 de January de 2021 by juliana

    Her perversities were as essential a part of her work as her inspirations,

    Hi, folks, This is post 1 of Deal me In. For more about this project & my previous posts on it, go here: Reading Plans | Weeks…… Read more “Her perversities were as essential a part of her work as her inspirations,”

    4 de January de 202119 de January de 2021 by juliana

    The music of life and living

    Dear Dorothy, We are forever exiles of our childhoods, but sometimes the smallest details can bring us back to our neverland. It takes one song, a slant…… Read more “The music of life and living”

    30 de December de 2020 by juliana

    Such shifting winds in life

    Dear Ida, A Change of Time (2019, tr. Martin Aitken. Original: En ny tid, 2015) is the record of a woman’s passage through grief. Told through diary entries…… Read more “Such shifting winds in life”

    29 de December de 2020 by juliana

    A kind of door in oneself through which it was necessary to pass

    Dear Mary, The Friendly Young Ladies (1944. Published in the USA as The Middle Mist, 1945) is at its best when walking the tight rope of double…… Read more “A kind of door in oneself through which it was necessary to pass”

    23 de December de 2020 by juliana

    Happiness is so elusive it may as well be supernatural

    Dear Marie-Helene, Much of the disturbing, off-kilter sense of humour in Parakeet: A Novel (2020) comes from a finely-drawn contrast between the strong sense of reality in…… Read more “Happiness is so elusive it may as well be supernatural”

    21 de December de 2020 by juliana

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