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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”
Tag: Modern Classics
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”
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”
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”
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”
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”
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)”
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”
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”
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”
A small jewel that has always been hopelessly flawed
Dear Isobel, Every Eye (1956) is a novella that plays with the ideas of perspective and sight, narrated by a character who is trapped in her blind…… Read more “A small jewel that has always been hopelessly flawed”
Fauna smiles upon the love of intertwined women
Dear Renée, For the past couple of days, I’ve been trapped inside a stuffy Victorian room heavily decorated with rich furnishings, intricate pieces of furniture, some middle…… Read more “Fauna smiles upon the love of intertwined women”
Careering along like drunken drivers
Dear Shelagh, A Taste of Honey (1958) centres on teenage Jo and her mother, Helen. They are always falling behind on rent, and, as the story starts,…… Read more “Careering along like drunken drivers”
The unlived life is light, so light
Dear Marie Luise, Circe’s Mountain: Stories (1990, tr. Lisel Mueller. Stories originally written in the 1950’s and 1960’s) is a collection of 12 of some of your…… Read more “The unlived life is light, so light”
The rainbow bubble came along and I grasped it
Dear Capel, Painted Clay (1917) is centred on Helen Somerset, an Australian girl coming of age in Melbourne, in the years before WWI. As the story opens,…… Read more “The rainbow bubble came along and I grasped it”
What was common could also be a flower
Dear Gwendolyn, Maud Martha (1953) centres on a working-class black girl coming of age in pre-WWII Chicago. When the story opens, the eponymous protagonist is about seven yeas…… Read more “What was common could also be a flower”
The time cracks into furious flower
Three poems by Gwendolyn Brooks, from the collection The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks, ed. Elizabeth Alexander (2005), and one from the collection To Disembark (1981). “the mother Abortions…… Read more “The time cracks into furious flower”
Stolen waters are the sweetest
Dear Jessie, Plum Bun: A Novel Without a Moral (1928) centres on Angela Murray, a middle-class girl from a black family in Philadelphia. Angela and her mother, Mattie,…… Read more “Stolen waters are the sweetest”
