Les Liaisons Dangereuses

I love Classic literature; I love books in translation; I love controversial novels with scandal and intrigue so when Polly of Novel Insights chose Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) by Pierra Choderlos de Laclos for the Riverside Readers to discuss, I was delighted.

An eighteenth century epistolary novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses concerns two bored aristocrats in pre-Revolutionary France who are in dire need of the guillotine for the evil ways the employ to alleviate their ennui. The Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, ex lovers, each enjoy the arts of deceit and manipulation, each wishing to excel over the other. What begin as acts of revenge and of sexual conquest evolve into intricate Machiavellian plans of diabolical proportions; Valmont and Merteuil embroil others into their salacious machinations and nobody comes off unscathed.

The structure of the novel celebrates what is now the lost art of letter writing; the letters back and forth between all the players serve to look at the deceptions from every available viewpoint and fully appreciate their well-thought-out wickedness. Despite the epistolary form, the characters each had distinct voices and the letters their own style and tone; each writer was easily identifiable and by providing the majority of the correspondence the reader gains an insight into the complex manipulations and behind-the-scenes workings that occur. The multiple ironies of Les Liaisons Dangereuses that the reader is privy to throughout make it compelling reading as did the insight into the other face and persona that each character showed depending on whom they were writing to. Les Liaisons Dangereuses is very witty and intelligent and where some readers find the Chevalier Danceny and Cécile Volanges, the piano teacher and the convent girl respectively, to be annoying, I found them exceptionally amusing in their naïveté and their hyperbolic declarations of love.

Madame de Tourvel, the sexual object of Valmont's whim, is exceptionally virtuous and pious but her letters display great intelligence and passion and Laclos's representation of women is very impressive for its time; the Marquise is a vividly-drawn alpha-female and her verbal sparring with Valmont is every bit as much about sexual politics as it is sexual attraction. A manual in seduction, Les Liaisons Dangereuses is salacious and sordid; sex sells and the novel was very ahead of its time in being very much a part of ours. The scandalous lengths that Valmont and Merteuil go to to gain revenge are quite something; the novel is enthralling (the second volume does admittedly drag in its involved scene-setting) and shocking. At the same time as attempting to seduce Madame de Tourvel -whose conquest will earn him a sexual reward from Merteuil- Valmont is playing older male tutor to Cécile Volanges, at Merteuil's request as she has a score to settle with Cécile's future husband and Valmont consents because he desires revenge on Madame Volanges, Cécile's mother, who is confidante to Madame de Tourvel; further pawns are the impressionable Chevalier Danceny, in love with Cécile and seeking advice and assistance from both Valmont and Merteuil, and Madame de Rosamonde, the matronly aunt of Vamont and friend of de Tourvel, as well as a couple of other by-standers who are caught up in the devilishly dangerous scheming.

I did not find Merteuil or Valmont at all sympathetic; they are thoroughly cruel and loathsome characters in their depravity yet they are fascinating, especially Valmont in his phallocentrism and boundless vanity. Les Liaisons Dangereuses in a study of Sadism and a play-by-play of how people deceive, seduce and manipulate others to their will; it examines the underbelly of human nature. Merteuil loves Valmont and Valmont de Tourvel love each other as much as vain, narcissistic people can love another, but they will not bend to the other and relinquish their power, which is why they can not, ultimately, co-exist; these odious characters will never submit to true feeling at the expense of their reputation and the face that they show to others.

I read the Douglas Parmée translation of the novel, which I found immensely readable; it gives a modern voice to the words, which never jarred for me but it may for some. I didn't lose any of the aristocratic language nor Laclos's deft and clever plays on language and innuendo to depict sexual liaisons. I also watched the Stephen Frear's 1988 adaptation of the novel and thought it wonderfully brought to screen; the editing that is lacking in the novel is brutal in the film but not to the detriment of the story. John Malkovich as Valmont is outstanding although I was disturbed by his sympathetic portrayal as I was vehemently opposed to the deeds he carried out -in relation to Cécile- but could not resist his charm. Frears achieved an impressive visual representation of Laclos's moral ambiguities and complexities that resonates; of the people at book group who had seen the film, none of us could separate the characters from their incarnations on-screen, that and it was far easier to refer to the Marquise de Merteuil as Glenn Close as none of us could pronounce her name.

Some key dialogue -through letters- between Valmont and Merteuil setting out their despicable plan :

Till now my thoughts were all of love; but it was soon replaced by rage. Who do you think is trying to ruin my reputation with the woman I adore? What fiend in woman's shape is evil enough to weave such an abominable plot? You know her, it's your friend and relative, Madame de Volanges. You cannot imagine the tissue of horrors that obnoxious old hag has written about me. It is she and she alone who has been disturbing my angel's peace of mind; it's her views and her pernicious advice that are forcing me to leave; in a word, it is she who has victimized me. Oh, there's no doubt about it, her daughter has got to be seduced; no, that's not enough. That woman must be smashed and since the old trout is too long in the tooth to be attacked directly, she must be made to suffer through someone she loves.

You may be a trifle annoyed at what I'm asking you to do but isn't it a very small return for all the trouble I've been taking over your affairs? Didn't I restore you to the judge's when, through your own stupidity, you'd been forced to leave her? And then wasn't it me who placed into your hands ways and means to settle your score with that mischievous old bigot Madame de Volanges? You're always moaning about the time you waste looking round for exciting things to do. Now you have a couple under your very nose. Love or hatred, take your pick; they're both sleeping under the same roof and you can live a double life, fondling with one hand and stabbing in the back with the other...

Thoughts from other Riverside Readers:

Farmlanebooks

Novel Insights

Reading Matters

Savidge Reads

Gourmet Rhapsody

Earlier this year I waxed lyrical about The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. At that time I had found one of my favourite books of the year and was excited to discover that Gourmet Rhapsody (Gourmet here in the UK and Une Gourmandise in France) had a scheduled release a few months later. This is actually Barbery's debut novel, first published in French in 2000, and translated (by Alison Anderson) and issued by Europa Editions on the back of the runaway success of Elegance.

Not so much as a prequel to The Elegance of the Hedgehog but a companion novel, it takes the 48 hours preceding the death of food critic Pierre Arthens, the impetus of events in Elegance, as its premise. Events take place in the Rue de Grenelle, the same building setting as in The Elegance of the Hedgehog and the majority of the cast are the same; it was a pleasure to meet these characters again. An arrogant and worldwide revered food critic, Arthens, on his death-bed is seeking a memory on the tip of his tongue; literally on the tip of his tongue, Arthens is grasping for a taste and flavour from his past. Alternating chapters narrated by Arthens and by people -and a cat- from his life, those who love and those who revile him, recall his life. Arthens' memories take him through epicurean delights that he has sampled and indulged during his lifetime, predating is gourmet career, memories he recalls in search for the elusive taste.

I am going to die, but that is of no importance ... I am going to die and there is a flavor that has been teasing my taste buds and my heart and I simply cannot recall it. I know that this particular flavor is the first and ultimate truth of my entire life, and that it holds the key to a heart that I have since silenced.

Particular episodes in his past recalled by particular foods and vice versa foods recalled via certain memories, which instantly reminded me of Proust and his madeleine; Barbery alluded to this a third of the way through the novella, "Like Proust's abominable madeleine, that oddity of a pastry reduced one sinister and drab afternoon into a spoonful of spongy crumbs -supreme offense- in a cup of herbal tea".

Rich and delectable things can be done with language when writing about food and Barbery exults in describing dishes. I am a definite foodie and enjoyed her vivid and rhapsodic descriptions; sashimi (especially tuna) is one of my favourite things to eat and her words made it even more appetising:

True sashimi is not so much bitten into as allowed to melt on the tongue. It calls for slow, supple chewing, not to bring about a change in the nature of the food but merely to allow one to savor its airy, satiny texture. Yes, it is like a fabric: sashimi is velvet dust, verging on silk, or a bit of both, and the extraordinary alchemy of its gossamer essence allows it to preserve a milky density unknown even by clouds.

Barbery said it best herself (through Paul) in describing Arthens' food writing:

His prose ... his prose was nectar, ambrosia, a hymn to language: it was gut-wrenching, and it hardly mattered whether he was talking about food or something else, it would be a mistake to think that the topic mattered: it was the way he phrased it that was so brilliant. Food was just a pretext, perhaps even a way of escaping, of fleeing what his goldsmith's talent might bring to light: the exact tenor of his emotions, the harshness and suffering, and the failure, in the end...

Ultimately it is the writing that matters and Barbery's prose is as rich as her protagonist's. This is a quick and beautifully written novella about life, death and our passions. It is not a literary experiment like The Elegance of the Hedgehog and does not taste as sweet or as rich in comparison but it is pleasant sustenance nonetheless.

A note on why I bought the North American edition of Gourmet Rhapsody (and why the quotes I use are missing the letter "u"):

1. I had an Amazon US giftcard to spend (as good a reason as any).
2. I far prefer the cover to the UK edition and fully intend to buy the matching copy of The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Not only is it more aesthetically pleasing but the Europa Edition is beautifully published; usually I have an aversion to the paper used for the paperback covers in the US but this is a hard-wearing card with flaps.
3. I prefer the title!

I Served the King of England

This month's book for Savidge Reads' and Kimbofo's book group was I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal. This Czech book in translation was my choice. I first came across Hrabal six years ago when I took a Slavonic literature course as an elective at University and read his novella Closely Observed Trains; I would like to reread it as all I can remember of the somewhat bizarre book is that Milos, the apprentice signalman, had attempted suicide after the humiliation of his first sexual experience. I Served the King of England had been on my radar at that time but I promptly forgot about it until coming across it whilst working in a bookshop last Christmas and then it featured in the comedy section of The Guardian's 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. The entry for the book, written my Joanna Hines, caught my imagination:

Ditie, the hero of Hrabal's comic masterpiece, learns early in his career to keep his ears open without hearing, keep his eyes open without seeing. From busboy he progresses to become a waiter in a Prague hotel, and then a millionaire with a hotel of his own; but his personal parameters remain those of the small man. Building on the rambling style of Hasek's Svejk, the novel's humour and bathos achieve universal significance in the contrast between Ditie's meagre resources and his eternally grandiose ambition.

I was curious whether the comedy would translate and it did, albeit perhaps not as well as it may have in the original Czech (although credit to the translator Paul Wilson who has translated Hrabal who, the Czechs say, is "untranslatable"). The important thing to take note of from the synopsis above is "his personal parameters remain those of the small man" because Ditie -which means "child"- is a small man, complete with small man issues; an interesting hero in himself but especially with the backdrop of WWII where megalomaniac dictators with their own small man issues wreaked horror on the "sub"-man. Ditie is reminded by his first manager that as a busboy "you don't see anything and you don't hear anything ... But remember too that you've got to see everything and hear everything". Hrabal, via Ditie, then shows us everything in an overly descriptive first part of the novel. Ditie's escapades -because they can only really be called that- are ludicrous and at times hilarious. In his first job Ditie saves his money to visit Paradise's, the local brothel, so he can have his first sexual encounter. The novel becomes quite lewd, surprisingly so, at this point and Ditie lavishes a cast of prostitutes with visits, attention, and a lap-full of flowers (hence the fabulous cover of the newly re-issued edition from Vintage Books).

Described accurately as a "novel of two halves" by Polly of Novel Insights, the first part of I Served the King of England is a lighthearted expose of the hotel industry with some very amusing -and detailed- descriptions of the tricks of the trade; the second half, however, takes on a far more serious subject matter albeit still with an irreverent tone. The juxtaposition of the horrific German occupation of the now Czech Republic and the subsequent Blitzkrieg, the unbelievable coming true, with the comically farcical is superbly done. Hrabal injects black humour into the unimaginably abhorrent and I found myself chuckling uproariously at the most shocking of moments, that in a straight novel would be far from humorous (moments that in The Glass Room by Simon Mawer were uncomfortably haunting). To share Hrabal's achievement and to demonstrate the style of writing, I have shared a scene where Ditie goes for German testing to see if he is fit to mate with an Aryan woman:

And so while execution squads in Prague and Brno and other jurisdictions were carrying out the death sentence, I had to stand naked in front of a doctor who lifted my penis with a cane and then made me turn around while he used the cane to look into my anus, and then he hefted my scrotum and dictated in a loud voice. Next he asked me to masturbate and bring him a little semen so they could examine it scientifically because, as the doctor said in his atrocious Egerlander German--which I couldn't understand, though I got the gist well enough--when some stupid Czech turd wants to marry a German woman his jism had better be at least twice as good as the jism of the lowliest stoker in the lowliest hotel in the city of Cheb.

Ditie is then presented with pornography and when that doesn't arouse him is masturbated by the nurse. Hrabal certainly knows how to create an image and one that doesn't jar but does make an impact in its ridiculousness.

As a group we were mainly ambivalent towards this book and even after discussion most of us could not make up our minds what we felt about it; none of us hated it and Linda even loved it and saw qualities in it that many of us missed but we were not jumping up and down eagerly in our seats or agreeing that it is a novel that everyone must read. I am glad however that I have read it as I had been meaning to and in reading the very informative introduction by Adam Thirwell, I appreciate it the more. I will leave you with one passage of his, where he certainly sees the profound in I Served the King of England:

A sense of humour, in Hrabal, is really a sense of proportion: the ability to diminish the things of the world to their true and miniature size. This, in the end, is the real way to be a hedonist: to be content with how small the world's pleasures are, to be happy with humiliation. But this sense of proportion is so rare.
Ditie's diminutive stature, which leads him to try to impose himself on the world in such grandiose ways, is really metaphysical. It is universal. For everyone it is miniature, but with grandiose ambitions. So everyone is laughable.

African Literature

Recently I have been contemplating gaps in my reading or areas of literature where I would like to be more knowledgeable. I am a relatively diverse reader and do read a number of books in translation. Primarily any reading in translation that I've done this year has been French; there has also been a handful of texts ranging from Eastern Europe to Russia to Japan. However, this isn't necessarily about reading books that aren't written in English, my native tongue, but more about continents and cultures that I want to read more about.

The noticeable gap in my reading this year has been African Literature. So far I have only read The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Disgrace and Summertime by South African writer, JM Coetzee., which is hardly encompassing of a disparate continent. Tackling literature from any continent is always going to result in gaps that can't quite be painted over and would be quite the undertaking in full. My experience of Africa is so slim that some of the countries are unknown to me and geographically I wouldn't know Afrikaans literature from Zimbabwean, which is partly why I want to read more to fill in the gaps and become less ignorant. I intend to take it a book at a time, mostly from the collection of African literature I have built up over the last few ears. Nigerian literature is rich and varied and where most of my African reading experience comes from; I intend to read more from the Nigerian authors I have on my shelves -I have thoroughly enjoyed what I have read so far- as well as sampling from different countries where I can.

This is a list of books I currently have unread on my "African" shelf. Have you read any of these? If so, which would you recommend? More importantly, have you read any African literature not on my list that you enjoyed (especially something that isn't Nigerian to move me out of my obvious comfort zone)?

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwean)
The Book of Not by Tsitsi Dangarembga
The Famished Road by Ben Okri (Nigerian)
The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola (Nigerian)
The Beautyful Ones are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah (Ghanaian)
The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta (Nigerian)
Anthills of the Savannah by Chinua Achebe (Nigerian)
Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe
Weep Not, Child by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (Kenyan and referred to as Ngũgĩ)
Petals of Blood by Ngũgĩ

Tomorrow I will be reviewing a title not on the list that is West African in origin.

Belated Birthday Gift

On Friday evening I received a welcome and wonderful surprise in my e-mail inbox. An exceptionally generous friend had sent me an Amazon gift voucher as a belated birthday gift with apologies for forgetting. I jumped up and down in glee. Large Amazon purchases of books used to be a regular feature in my life but it's been over a year since I'd placed an order of more than one book at a time that was for myself. I've been trying not to buy as many books and, to be quite honest, my current economic situation doesn't allow me to, so you can imagine how ecstatic I was to be able to SPLURGE (guilt-free) on books. Even though Amazon sells more than just books it was only for a fleeting moment that I considered buying anything other than them. I also decided to buy items from my wish-list that I had been coveting for a while, books that I had never read before, and ones that would be a welcome addition to my library.

For most of Saturday I added and removed and added again and amended and evaluated my Amazon basket until finalising upon these (collectively photographed above):


Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson
The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
Couples by John Updike
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Therese Raquin by Emile Zola
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Of Human Bondage by William Somerset Maugham
The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr.





So, one writing handbook, one Finnish Children's book, two English classics, one French classic, one Russian classic, one German classic, and one American classic. Those six classic novels are all ones that the Guardian recommend that I must read. Cumulatively I have 2882 pages to read. Have you read any of these? Are you wanting to read any of them?

I have overdone it with the photographs a little but in my enthusiasm I wanted to show you some of the lovely covers; my particular favourite is the Penguin edition of The Day of the Triffids to the right. The cover art is by Brian Cronin and I covet the entire set. I already have the similarly striking copy of The Midwich Cuckoos, which was a novel I enjoyed earlier this year.

Now I am off to admire my books for a while.

The Summer Book

I liked The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal) but I didn't love it. I enjoyed its gentle simplicity and its understated beauty. I also enjoyed the fact that each chapter was a vignette and that the book had no actual plot - the events of each section take place during one Summer spent on a Scandinavian island but are stand alone occurrences - which lends itself to a subtle wisdom but overall the book didn't captivate me. Don't get me wrong, I don't require gripping plot to enjoy a book, and I did enjoy this book, but I was left feeling a little ... underwhelmed. Perhaps I will grow to fully appreciate its understatement and discover its literary merit and understand why it is a Scandinavian Classic upon further reflection.

The exchanges between Sophia and her grandmother fall between poignant and humorous; their close -but sometimes guarded- relationship is well conveyed. The evocation of Summer is well done. The meditation upon death is bittersweet. The whimsy is whimsical. I preferred the witty exchanges and found the darker ones heartbreaking sometimes.

My favourite Sophia/Grandmother exchange was when Herdice/Berenice, Sofia's new friend, came to visit and was afraid of everything.

"On the third day, Sophia came into the guest room and said, "Well, that does it. She's impossible. I got her to dive, but it didn't help."
" Did she really dive?" Grandmother asked.
"Yes, really. I gave her a shove and she dived."
"Oh," Grandmother said. "And then what?"
"Her hair can't take salt water," explained Sophia sadly. "It looks awful. And it was her hair I liked."

The dry wit of this thouroughly amused me. The pithy dialogue between Grandmother and Granddaughter is the best part of the book for me. All in all, I think I am disappointed because I didn't immediately love this book and I wonder whether that was my failing.

I read The Enchanted April in April and in the flourishing of Spring; the Summer Book in the outset of Summer (before the sun stopped shining here); Autumn reading will hopefully include The Autumn of the Patriarch; any suggestions for Winter? It could well be Tove Jansson's The Winter Book; I certainly won't be giving up on her work through a little disappointment and I am even waiting as we speak for a copy of Finn Family Moomintroll to arrive in the post.

Miss Chopsticks

The premise of Miss Chopsticks by Xinran excited me:

From the author of the bestselling "The Good Women of China" comes the uplifting story of three sisters who, like so many migrant workers in today's China, leave their peasant community to seek their fortune in the big city. The Li sisters don't have much education, but one thing has been drummed into them: their mother is a failure because she hasn't managed to produce a son, and they themselves only merit a number as a name.Women, their father tells them, are like chopsticks: utilitarian and easily broken. Men, on the other hand, are the strong rafters that hold up the roof of a house. Yet when circumstances lead the sisters to seek work in distant Nanjing, the shocking new urban environment opens their eyes. While Three contributes to the success of a small fast-food restaurant, Five and Six learn new talents at a health spa and a bookshop/tearoom. And when the money they earn starts arriving back at the village, their father is forced to recognise that daughters are not so dispensable after all. Xinran has become known for her wonderful ability to take readers to the heart of Chinese society. In this new book she tells not only a human story, but the story of a city. As the Li sisters discover Nanjing, so do we: its past, its customs and culture, and its future as a place where people can change their lives. (synopsis courtesy of Waterstones.com)

The book itself disappointed me.
The characters of Three, Five, and Six irritated me.
The situation of the majority of women in Chinese villages angered me.

Certainly Xinran achieves something in eliciting the last response from me; the evocation of the gender bias and hopeless situation of most women is well done, albeit dry. In many ways Miss Chopsticks is a feminist text but it could have been a famous feminist text if only Xinran had created fully-fledged characters. Instead, Three, Five, and Six were, as I have said above, irritating. I sympathised with them but their naivete wore on my patience; I suppose the point of the novel was to demonstrate how behind the times village women could be and how as migrant workers their eyes were opened in startling ways but it backfired with me. This could indeed be a failure in me as a reader, that the culture shock and alien way of thinking (in contrast to mine) was too much to bear but I have read a lot and I have, in the past, read a number of books set in China, many with female protagonists, and none has annoyed me in this way. To be honest I thought that Xinran was condescending of her own characters and failed to depict them as more than stick figures/chopsticks unable to hold up a book.

Image courtesy of Amazon.co.uk

Some Prefer Nettles

I have been intrigued by Japan of late; some friends have or are planning to go travelling there and it has heightened my desire to one day visit. I love the food, the culture, the cinema. A few books I have read recently have had Japanese elements to them as well as reading some Haruki Murakami (Sputnik Sweetheart), although his books are so surreal and the setting can be so non-descript that they could almost be set anywhere... is that just me? To me Murakami is almost quintessentially un-Japanese.

It was for this reason that I thought I would read Some Prefer Nettles by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, which is considered one of Japanese literature's great novels, without being a typical example. I am curious to know what then constitutes as a classic Japanese novel, classic in the sense of standard; I have I am a Cat by Soseki Natsume and Out by Natsuo Kirino on my bookshelves so perhaps one of those fit this elusive sense of Japanese.

The synopsis of Some Prefer Nettles intrigued me:

The marriage of Kaname and Misako is disintegrating: whilst seeking passion and fulfilment in the arms of others, they contemplate the humiliation of divorce. Misako's father believes their relationship has been damaged by the influence of a new and alien culture, and so attempts to heal the breach by educating his son-in-law in the time-honoured Japanese traditions of aesthetic and sensual pleasure. The result is an absorbing, chilling conflict between ancient and modern, young and old.

The prose is elegant and to begin with I was caught up in the emotional turmoil of the marriage break-up and the rendering of Japanese culture but, in the end, I was disappointed. The ending was abrupt and inconclusive and the passivity of Kaname and Misako irritated me. The descriptions of Japanese drama (puppet theatre with traditional dolls) were lengthy and over-bearing; I was interested in the outset but the frequent and dry history lessons bored me.

What I have taken from the text though is an ongoing interest in Japanese culture and a desire to read more Japanese literature. Coincidentally, the lovely Nymeth has just informed me that I have won her prize draw for a copy of The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson, which she kindly had dispatched to me today. I am very excited as I have been wanting to read this since reading her review of the text; it could not have come at a better time as I find that after a reading disappointment it is best to jump right back on the horse, in this case the horse is Japanese literature.

Don't get me wrong: Some Prefer Nettles wasn't awful, by any means, but it did not live up to my expectations. As mentioned above I took other things from it, including the fact that I love reading literature in translation and yet can be unconcious of doing so (it surprises me how many different books in translation I have read this month -Icelandic, French, Japanese- almost unintentionally) and I am going to endeavour to read more.

The meditation upon Japanese culture also provided me with a new-found understanding of Angela Carter's short story collection, Fireworks, which I re-read earlier this year. The stories collected in Fireworks are mostly set in Japan, written -and influenced by- Carter's time living there; insight into Japanese tradition and aesthetic from reading Some Prefer Nettles allowed me further appreciation of these stories and the vivid rendering of the culture that Carter achieves. I may even go back sooner than planned and re-read some again, especially "The Loves of Lady Purple" about a life-size Japanese puppet manipulated to life at the necromantical hands of the puppet-master.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Yesterday I watched the film Roman Holiday for the first time. Yesterday I updated my facebook status to "Claire fell in love with Roman Holiday and had her heart broken in the end". Yesterday (well, last night) I finished reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery and had my heart torn out in the end. Yesterday was not a good day for my heart; today it feels battered and bruised.

This is the synopsis of the book: Renee is the concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building, home to members of the great and the good. Over the years she has maintained her carefully constructed persona as someone reliable but totally uncultivated, in keeping, she feels, with society's expectations of what a concierge should be. But beneath this façade lies the real Renée: passionate about culture and the arts, and more knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful but emotionally void lives. Down in her lodge, apart from weekly visits by her one friend Manuela, Renée lives resigned to her lonely lot with only her cat for company. Meanwhile, several floors up, twelve-year-old Paloma Josse is determined to avoid the pampered and vacuous future laid out for her, and decides to end her life on her thirteenth birthday. But unknown to them both, the sudden death of one of their privileged neighbours will dramatically alter their lives forever.

This is a key quote (and one of my favourites): "Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside, she's covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary - and terribly elegant."

The Elegance of the Hedgehog is not quite what I was expecting: it is deeply philisophical; it has its literary prentensions (its style one I liked); it is charming; it is surprising; it is joyful; it was one of those things of beauty you find in a bleak world; it is a book that will remain on my wishlist as I desire my own copy, instead of a library one; it is a book I highly recommend as it is original and a welcome read.

I would like to point something out about the synopsis (from the book dustjacket): it is not the unexpected death of one of the neighbours that changes the lives of Renée and Paloma irrevocably but the introduction of Kakuro Ozu (who moves into the apartment of the dead neighbour) into their world. Inadvertently, the death of the neighbour affects the lives of the concierge and the suicidal girl. Anyway, I wanted to make the distinction as Kakuro and the joy he brings with him are crucial to the plot.

Read this book. Fleurfisher wrote a review that prompted me to read it here.

There are many disparate things that made me like this book that defy description; suffice to say that it was one of those books read at the right time. I like when there is a place I know in the book, rendering it more realistic to me (specifics mentioned below). I enjoy reading books in translation, without being fully conscious that I am. I was conveniently reading a Japanese book in translation at the same time, convenient because of the influence of Japanese culture on this book. I love when my reading at a particular times comes together ... almost as if it was divined.

"After the rigmarole with the umbrella stand, we went to eat some cakes and drink hot chocolate at Angelina's, a tea room on the Rue de Rivoli ... It's symbolic. When you go to have tea chez Angelina, you are in France, in a world that is wealthy, hierarchical, rational, Cartesian, policed,"

I finish with reference to the above quote because it made me happy to read it as I have sat in Angelina's in Paris drinking hot chocolate; reading the pages set there made me nostalgic for my romantic visit to Paris a few years ago and I want to revisit. I live much closer to Paris now so perhaps I will soon.

The Blue Fox

I read about The Blue Fox by Sjon last week here and as it is based on Icelandic folklore I thought it would make an interesting read for the folklore section of Carl's Once Upon a Time Challenge so I hunted down a copy.

A surreal novella set in Iceland in the late 19th Century (translated from Icelandic) following two apparently separate stories that intersect in an unexpected way. There is Reverend Baldur who is hunting the elusive blue fox, a rich symbol in Icelandic folklore myth, and the herbalist, Fridrik, and his charge Abba, who has Down's Syndrome, and their fates are bound together. This is an unusual and thought-provoking read, especially upon the subject of Down's Syndrome and technology (how does destroying Down's Syndrome babies at birth in 19th Century Iceland differ from aborting them now?)

The sparseness of the first section, sometimes a page with no more than one line, is symbolic of the Icelandic landscape and the snow upon which the blue fox is hunted (the hunted and the hunter both camouflaged at times). An effective technique, this economy of words upon the page underscores the brevity yet poignancy of the tale. I was also interested in the effect editorially; Kamila Shamsie (or likely her Bloomsbury editors) does something similar in the Hiroshima section of Burnt Shadows, representing the flashing white light, and it is highly effective.

Without a prior knowledge of Icelandic/Norse folklore it was difficult to determine how this tale used it, embodied it, and adapted it, and the little research I attempted didn't get me very far; it is certainly a subject that I would like to read about more, given the chance. From what I did find out, the title holds a double-meaning: on one hand the blue fox is the subject of folk-tales, the offspring of a cat and a fox, but it also means an evil spirit or a sinister person, and both are represented within the novella. The Blue Fox is on the surface a simple, magical, tale but it is curious and has hidden depths, that with further knowledge would be further of re-examination. Furthermore, it is a favourite of Bjork's, which to me is an amusing blurb.

"Metamorphosis"

Why have I not read any Kafka until now? Truth be told, I thought he was as literary high-brow and as inaccessible as Proust, Joyce, Dante (not to say that I won't read Proust, Joyce or Dante at some point as I want to but previous attempts have failed); I was, however, wrong.

From the famous opening line, "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect", Franz Kafka's short story "Metamorphosis" is both accessible, intelligent and enjoyable. First published in 1915 this entomological tale is surprisingly modern and simultaneously timeless. Flippant and simple the short story is tragic from its wonderful opening line above to its cyclical conclusion, where Gregor's sister Grete has also metamorphosed in a young woman.

Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman who financially supports his parents and younger sister, wakes from nightmares to find he has become the Samsa beetle (coined by Vladimir Nabokov) but retains his own thought processs, which is at casual odds with the phsyicality of the beetle. It is interesting to observe this thought process deterioriate; Gregor remains himself within the grotesque form and his bias does not allow him to understand and appreciate that he is not the same as he was to his family. His perception of his family's words and actions in their shocked, disgusted and mourning state is darkly humorous. Gregor sees them through his own mind's eye, he even closes his eye-lids but beetles have no eye-lids; his family see only the monstrous beetle. It's a very scientific approach: what we see is informed by our brain, not our eyes themselves.

If this is Kafkaesque then I had nothing to be scared of and I am excited to discover such great writing; I look forward to experience more (albeit limited) Kafka in the future.