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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”
Tag: Literature and War
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”
I turned her into a tree so that she would stop trembling
Dear Irmgard, Child of All Nations (2008, tr. Michael Hofmann. Original: Kind aller Länder, 1938) is all about voice. Not bitter nor cheerful, but something in-between. It…… Read more “I turned her into a tree so that she would stop trembling”
Her compelling mouth, the scent of lavender and cigarette smoke
Dear Dola, Set in Amsterdam on the eve of World War II, The Tree and the Vine (2020, tr. Kristen Gehrman. Original: De thuiswacht, 1954*) is narrated…… Read more “Her compelling mouth, the scent of lavender and cigarette smoke”
Something that was unassailable and inviolable
Dear Netty, The Seventh Cross (tr. Margo Bettauer Dembo, 2018. Original: Das siebte Kreuz, 1942) starts and ends at the same point – but, in the span…… Read more “Something that was unassailable and inviolable”
The alphabet of my childhood
Dear Hella, Running just beneath the nostalgic waters of The Black Lake (tr. Ina Rilke, 2012. Original: Oeroeg, 1948), there is a disturbing current of tainted innocence: at…… Read more “The alphabet of my childhood”
One’s prime is elusive
Dear Muriel, In The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), there is something in the eponymous protagonist that repels us, but there is also something that strongly…… Read more “One’s prime is elusive”
We took everything upon ourselves
Dear Sophie, What I found most interesting in the book The White Rose (1952) were the leaflets you produced and distributed, together with your brother and a group…… Read more “We took everything upon ourselves”
She regarded life as an expedition into the unknown,
Dear Erika, I was not planning to read yet another book about you, nor anything related to the Mann family, but Gunna Wendt’s Erika und Therese: Erika…… Read more “She regarded life as an expedition into the unknown,”
The milk of incomprehension
Dear Nora, Soviet Milk, tr. Margita Gailitis (2018. Original: Mātes piens, 2015) was this odd thing: a butterfly that, going in reverse, moults back into a chrysalis. What…… Read more “The milk of incomprehension”
A strange carousel from which there was no getting off
Dear Daniela, In your novel A Kingdom of Souls translated by Véronique Firkusny and Elena Sokol (2015. Original: Podobojí, 1991), we have magical realism with an edge:…… Read more “A strange carousel from which there was no getting off”
Hope is a wound
Dear Marianne, The Weight of Things (2015), translated by Adrian Nathan West (Die Schwerkraft der Verhältnisse, 1978) is this odd thing: something in-between a horror story, a…… Read more “Hope is a wound”
Look at the colour of it
Dear Ali, It takes us only a few paragraphs of Autumn (2016) to recognize your characteristic marks: experimental writing; a collage of literary references; a narrative propelled…… Read more “Look at the colour of it”
Trespassing on one’s own ground
Dear Monica, The atmosphere in your novel Mariana (1940) feels like a bright surface tinted by an added layer of nostalgia, and a pervading sense of loss.…… Read more “Trespassing on one’s own ground”
If you know about yourself, presumably you know about at least one other person
Dear Mary, Your novel The Charioteer (1953) is crossed over by what it seems to be a tense string, a rein held so tightly by opposing forces…… Read more “If you know about yourself, presumably you know about at least one other person”
Who do you think you are, Cluny Brown?
Dear Margery, Cluny Brown (1944) is a combination of comedy of manners and coming of age novel, set in England in 1938, and centred around a woman…… Read more “Who do you think you are, Cluny Brown?”
Everyone was fleeing and everything was temporary
Dear Anna, Do you know this feeling we have when something terrible happens in a dream and we must scream or run, but we find ourselves suddenly…… Read more “Everyone was fleeing and everything was temporary”
They didn’t dare before; now they do, that’s all
Dear Anna, I was halfway through Manja (tr. Kate Phillips, 2003. Manja: Ein Roman um 5 Kinder, 1938) this past week, when your book acquired a new…… Read more “They didn’t dare before; now they do, that’s all”
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