Category: Book Reviews

Nada by Jean-Patrick Manchette

Posted September 28, 2020 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Pulp / 4 Comments

Title: Nada (Goodreads)
Author: Jean-Patrick Manchette
Translator: Donald Nicholson-Smith
Published: NYRB Classics, 1972
Pages: 256
Genres: Pulp
My Copy: Paperback

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

My reading tastes have changed so much in the few years that I have been a reader. When I first discovered my love of reading 11 years ago, I loved crime novels and that eventually led me to discover noir and hard-boiled fiction. Nowadays I spend the majority of my time reading translated literature, but I sometimes turn to crime for some palette cleansers, because that is what they are. The problem I find is that American authors seem to be the best at writing the crime novels I enjoy; it must be related to their crime rates and frivolous gun laws. There is one French author that I think bridges my two loves, pulp novels and translations, and that is Jean-Patrick Manchette (I am sure there are others, I am just yet to discover them).

Not to brag, but I recently read Nada while staying in a gorgeous treehouse up in the Atheron Tablelands. Nada is a leftist revolutionary/anarchist group that decides to kidnap the United States Ambassador to France while he is visiting a brothel. As you can imagine from a noir novel, things do not turn out too well. I do not want to explore the plot because I much prefer to explore themes when talking about literature. Besides, rehashing the plot is more for the back of a book, not a review.

What I was surprised to discover with Nada, was the way Manchette added so much political and social commentary into the novel without taking away from the fast, action paced plot. Relevant to today’s political climate, this group of anarchists wanted to send a message to the right. The problem was that each member had their own motivations besides making money. What fascinated me here was the way Jean-Patrick Manchette played with the concept of political terrorism and revolutionaries. Depending on your political beliefs these are two sides of the same coin. I was drawn to the disarray of the anarchist group, and to me it became a reflection of the problem the left-wing often faces, which is an insurmountable amount of social issues that need to be corrected in this world. Both Jean-Patrick Manchette and I are leftists, however my political ideology might be very different to Manchettes. Where the right-wing has a much smaller amount of concerns when it comes to political and social issues, meaning they tend to appear more united.

The way Manchette plays with this idea in the concept of a noir novel was masterful. At no point did he take the foot off the gas to explore these social issues, Nada was always a fast-paced thrill ride. He was skilful enough to add his ideas into the book for people interested in dissecting the plot. While I spent so much time thinking about the social commentary, other readers might find this to just be an entertaining crime novel. I am impressed at the way Jean-Patrick Manchette was able to achieve this in his writing.

This was not my first attempt at Jean-Patrick Manchette, I have read The Gunman (which was translated by James Brook) in 2018 and it did not give me the same level of enjoyment. I could not tell you if it was not a great novel or if I did not look hard enough to find the deeper meaning. I am often drawn to books that offer more than an exciting plot and I found that in Nada, but not in The Gunman. Donald Nicholson-Smith appears to be translating all of Jean-Patrick Manchette’s books for NYRB Classics and I am tempted to try them all. I do have Fatale, The Mad and the Bad and Ivory Pearl on my shelves, but not sure which to try next.

Vernon Subutex Trilogy by Virginie Despentes

Posted September 24, 2020 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 2 Comments

Title: Vernon Subutex Trilogy (Goodreads)
Author: Virginie Despentes
Translator: Frank Wynne
Published: MacLehose Press, 2017-2020
Pages: 1088
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: Paperback

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle, Wordery (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

How many translated series can you think of? Apart from Proust, or Elena Ferrante or Karl Ove Knausgård. Maybe, there are more than I expected; Virginie Despentes’ trilogy Vernon Subutex is currently the most talked about, with book three just being released in English. This trilogy started off as a cutting-edge look into the punk sub-culture of France but slowly, with each book the focus shifted, stepping away from the music industry, towards a mystery in book two and finally the third novel focusing more on a cult-like community. While Vernon Subutex is the focus of this trilogy, I found that the different styles of each novel become a little disconcerting for myself.

Virginie Despentes draws from her own career in these books, I suspect using some of her own experiences to drive the plot. Before becoming a novelist, she worked in a few fields including as a sex worker and a pornographic film critic. While these careers play a part in the Vernon Subutex trilogy along the way, it started with her experiences as a salesclerk in a record store and a freelance rock journalist. It is these aspects that I found the most fascinating, my love of music (particularly punk rock) really drew me to this series in the first place.

I loved how the first novel focused on the music, Vernon Subutex started working in this record store in his twenties. The store was legendary back in the days, but now thanks to the internet and digital music it is struggling. Even Vernon Subutex himself has a cult-like status (which plays out more later in the series) with people on the internet speculating that he owned the last recordings of musician Alex Bleach. What I loved the most about Vernon Subutex 1 was reading about the industry and exploring the dark side of the punk culture, from the violence and drug abuse often associated with this culture to the less talked about racism and sexism.

Unfortunately, the books slowly digressed away from exploring the punk scene, and maybe my interest did as well. That is not to disregard books Two or Three, my interest was the scene and I was less interested in following the character Vernon Subutex. The first novel focused on the punk scene, whereas book two focused on this one character and a small group of people around him, a group that have banded together at a bar in the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. While the plot of Vernon Subutex 2 focuses more on what happened to the lost tapes of Alex Bleach, I was more interested in themes than plot, so this became a book about class struggle.

This group of people hanging in the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont turned into a cult, which leads to the third novel of this trilogy, where Vernon Subutex has become a spiritual leader to the group. The final book in the series, for me is the weakest, but it was clear Virginie Despentes knew what she was doing and where she wanted to take this journey. There was a strong focus on social struggles that plays out here, focusing more on homelessness and the way these people banded together. The cast of characters slowly shrinks with each book, but I really like how Despentes brings in new characters and then they disappear after a short period of time. This might frustrate many, but I found it natural; sometimes you meet someone, and they are only in your life for a small period of time, they might make an impact but then they are gone.

Vernon Subutex 3 was more political, with the 2015 Charles Hebdo shootings playing a part of the plot. The satirical papers controversial depictions of Muhammad are believed to be the cause of that attack. However, it was Michel Houellebecq that was on the cover of the magazine when this attack happened. I bring this up because I find Virginie Despentes and Houellebecq have similar styles. Both are satirical French authors that make me question myself and their writing style. They leave me with an unease while reading them and I spend time contemplating their satirical nature. I even find myself wondering if they are actually satirical or just overdoing the transgressive. This is not easy reading and knowledge of the punk scene and modern French history became vital aspects of my appreciation of Vernon Subutex.

When I think about the writing of Virginie Despentes, I have a similar feeling as when I think about Michel Houellebecq, I am unsure how I feel about them as authors. I have read five Despentes novels and while I enjoyed the Vernon Subutex trilogy, I find it hard to fully appreciate her works. Her writing is a combination of the thriller genre, but it tends to be overly transgressive. I am not trying to be negative, just not the style of literature I tend to enjoy. I am curious to know more about Despentes’ life and might read her feminist manifesto King Kong Theory, which like the Vernon Subutex trilogy has been translated by the legendary Frank Wynne.

Honey, I Killed The Cats by Dorota Masłowska

Posted August 1, 2020 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 2 Comments

Title: Honey, I Killed The Cats (Goodreads)
Author: Dorota Masłowska
Translator: Benjamin Paloff
Published: Deep Vellum Publishing, 2019
Pages: 176
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: ARC from Publisher

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Wordery (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Polish writer Dorota Masłowska has had a stellar literary career so far, publishing her first novel (Snow White and Russian Red) at just 19. She has won the NIKE Literary Award (a prestigious Polish award) in 2006 for her second novel, which has yet to be translated into English. Out of her six books, half have been translated into English, the latest being Honey, I Killed the Cats which was translated by Benjamin Paloff. In this novel Dorota Masłowska tells the tale of two independent woman as they try to navigate their lives and friendship in our modern world.

Before talking about the novel, I want to quickly talk about satire, mainly because I am sick of seeing confusion around this literary device. There are two main types of satirical writing, Horatian is playful, while Juvenal is scolding. Satire is used to criticise social issues; it doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with humour. The reason I wanted to talk about these differences is because I think Honey, I Killed the Cats does a wonderful job in incorporating the Horatian and Juvenal satire into the novel. On one hand we have a playful, humorous look at mass-media and consumerism, then there is a harsh exploration into the dangers of corporate greed, diet culture and fitness fads.

Another reason why I wanted to talk about the different satirical styles was because I have an example of each that I think seem to share some similarities to Honey, I Killed the Cats. For Horatian satire, I had a similar vibe to Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, in the sense that it shared a very similar style of dark humour. Then the style of Juvenal satire similar to this novel, I think would be American Psycho, in the way it attempted to explore the destructive nature of modern trends, but it used advertising jingles in a similar way Bret Easton Ellis did with fashion descriptions.

On the back of the book is a quote that says this books a cross between Virginie Despentes and Blade Runner. While this is an apt description, especially since Blade Runner is set in 2019, the book that I am reminded of is Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart. There is a similarity here that is both playful and bitter towards modern consumerism that I find fitting. Needless to say, I appreciate a novel that knows how to both have fun and deal with some real issues.

I read this novel soon after finishing Ducks, Newburyport so I think I might have gone for some deeper interpretation. The plot became less important and even irrelevant to my reading experience. I had a great time with Honey, I Killed the Cats and am curious to explore more from Dorota Masłowska. I found it strange going from a book like Ducks, Newburyport to something like this novel but thankfully there was plenty to explore. Despite the fact that this review says nothing about the plot of this book, I hope I have said enough to interest others.

Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann

Posted November 1, 2019 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literary Fiction / 8 Comments

Title: Ducks, Newburyport (Goodreads)
Author: Lucy Ellmann
Published: Text, July 4, 2019
Pages: 1040
Genres: Literary Fiction
My Copy: Paperback

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle, Wordery (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Having spent the good part of a month reading Ducks, Newburyport might shock many of the readers here, the fact that I spend most of my time reading books in translation, the fact that I often have reservations about reading a 1000+ page book, not willingly but mainly because I can’t stop myself from fixating on numbers, and the fact that it is rare for me to pick up a hyped book like this one, but in my defence I wanted to read this before the Booker Prize, I had actually heard about it from the Three Percent Podcast and knew that I had to get my hands on this novel. I think many people are put off by the style, Ducks, Newburyport has been promoted as a single sentence stream of consciousness novel which might make people feel hesitant. However, I think this is a surprisingly easy novel to read, and once you are in the groove of things, you will really enjoy the journey. The book focuses on the inner thoughts of an Ohioan wife as she is backing pies.

I have always been fascinated with the stream of consciousness but sometimes it feels like a gimmick, with Ducks, Newburyport it feels natural. This woman has a lot on her mind, from her own health worries, her family and the state of America. The books length is designed to be intimidating, to simulate that crushing feeling of thoughts and emotions. What impressed me most was the way Ducks, Newburyport blended pop-culture, personal experiences, memories and even synonyms to progress her inner thoughts, then sometimes they are just random tangents.

I can’t stop thinking about the way this woman censors her own thoughts, there are many times where she censors phrases like Trump’s ‘grab ‘em by the p____’ or using words like derriere. I think it speaks volumes about her character, this need to act a certain way, even in her own thoughts. She really freaks out when the thought of anal sex pops into her head. I feel like Lucy Ellmann wants to explore these feelings surrounded acting the way the patriarchy wants her to act, those feeling of shame or surprise, and the need to censor her own mind. The glossary of anagrams at the back of the book have also been sanitised, so FFS means For Pete’s Sake.

Having the book set in Ohio was an interesting choice, admittedly I did have to look up the state’s politics. Ohio seems like a real melting pot of political viewpoints, there is a very close divide between Republicans and Democrats. This really allows Lucy Ellmann to explore the volatile political landscape of America at the moment. Looking at major issues like climate change, gun control, mass shootings, and so much more.

The structure of Ducks, Newburyport is something that needs to be addressed. I have seen many people freak out about the idea of a single sentence, stream of conscious narrative but I found it really easy to read. The repetitive phrase ‘the fact that’ quickly gets drowned out and I tend to use the phrase as the start of the next sentence. Having said that, I like that Ellman gave a middle finger to writing rules like ‘avoiding repetition’ or punctuation and really did her own thing, and it worked.

Lucy Ellmann has published seven books in the past, but her regular publishing house, Bloomsbury rejected Ducks, Newburyport. Leaving the book to be published by small indie presses, Galley Beggar Press in the UK, Canadian publisher Biblioasis for North America and Text Publishing here in Australia. Ellmann is the daughter of two literary critics, her father Richard has written a biography on James Joyce author of Ulysses which Ducks, Newburyport continuously gets compared to. However, her mother, Mary Ellmann often wrote about the representation of femininity in British and American literature, and I think that maybe she had just as much of an influence on Lucy’s writing and worth mentioning. The book focuses heavily on feminism, motherhood and female representation in pop culture.

As most people know, I love pop culture and really appreciated the content references throughout the novel. Not only recent references but also exploring classics like The Odd Couple and a favourite of mine, The Apartment. All through the novel the narrator burst into random songs, and thinks about film and television, as well as literature. Without these references, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed Ducks, Newburyport as much as I did.

Having said all that, while there are so many serious issues being explored within the novel, Ducks, Newburyport is extremely funny. I enjoyed every moment I spent with the novel. I loved the way the book advanced the narrative through memories. I found it to be a great way to develop the characters within the novel. Could a non-translated book be my favourite read for 2019? At this point, it is too close to tell. I highly recommend Ducks, Newburyport and think this book will require multiple reads in the future. It is the type of novel with mainly layers to unpack, and I look forward to reading it again. Also, I think this would make an amazing audiobook.

A Devil Comes to Town by Paolo Maurensig

Posted May 28, 2019 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 0 Comments

Title: A Devil Comes to Town (Goodreads)
Author: Paolo Maurensig
Translator: Anne Milano Appel
Published: World Editions, May 19, 2019
Pages: 120
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: ARC

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle, Wordery (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

In the small village of Dichtersruhe, situated by the Swiss mountains, there is a strong sense of literary kinship. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once visited the village. It feels like everyone wants to be a writer; everyone has a manuscript sitting in a drawer somewhere. One night a mysterious person comes to town, a hotshot working in publishing. In a town full of narcissistic writers, the devil has come to exploit their unsatisfied authorial desires.

Paolo Maurensig has delivered a dark comical Faustian tale in A Devil Comes to Town. What drew me to this novel was the premise and I went in with such a high expectation, I worried that it could not live up to what I expected. This novel screams ‘my type of book’, with its dark humour, literary references and a little theology. Thanks to the work of Anne Milano Appel translating this Italian novel, I was able to experience A Devil Comes to Town.

“Literature is the greatest of the arts,” the priest continued, “but it is also a dangerous endeavor.”
“In what sense, dangerous?”
“Each time we pick up a pen we are preparing to perform a ritual for which two candles should always be lit: one white and one black. Unlike painting and sculpture, which remain anchored to a material subject, and to music, which in contrast transcends matter altogether, literature can dominate both spheres: the concrete and the abstract, the terrestrial and the otherworldly. Moreover, it propagates and multiplies with infinite variations in readers’ minds. Without knowing it, the writer can become a formidable egregore.”

While the premise of the novel is what drew me in, what really stuck to me was the imagery. Outside the village of Dichtersruhe, foxes infected with rabies run rampant on the farmlands. The fog set in and created a dark creepy atmosphere. While this worked really well, it was a little on the nose when reading about foxes in the henhouses and then finding out the devil’s name was Bernard Fox. I never like when a novel explains its metaphors and thankfully it only did this in passing. However, once was all that was needed, it was such an obvious metaphor, that did not need any explanation.

While there is a lot of references to Goethe in the novel, it is obviously inspired by Faust as well. I felt like there was a nod to The Master and Margarita within the pages as well. Most notably was the use of a manuscript inside the novel. This is a great framing device for the plot but in my mind, it was more of a way to include Bulgakov as a literary influence.

A Devil Comes to Town was a joy to read, and it seemed to come at the right time. I had been reading the Man Booker International longlist and was looking forward to picking my own reading. While there was some imagery and literary references to enjoy, it felt like a palette cleanser in comparisons to some of the heavier books I had just read. Not that there is anything wrong with that, the dark humour was exactly what I needed at this point of time, and that made A Devil Comes to Town worth reading.

Sphinx by Anne Garréta

Posted May 4, 2019 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literary Fiction / 0 Comments

Title: Sphinx (Goodreads)
Author: Anne Garréta
Translator: Emma Ramadan
Published: Deep Vellum Publishing, April 21, 2015
Pages: 152
Genres: Literary Fiction
My Copy: Paperback

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle, Wordery (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

I may have read Sphinx by Anne Garréta back in November last year but there has not been a day go by where I have not thought about this amazing book. I had always planned on writing a review for this novel but kept putting it off in favour of reading other books; this feels like the story of my writing habits. Since the details are still burned into my brain, I have no problem talking about this masterpiece.

Anne Garréta joined the Oulipo in 2000, which is an experimental literary group of French speaking writers who like to put constraints to their writing. The idea is to force the writer to create new structures and patterns in their own writing. The Oulipo was founded in 1960 by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. Notable members include Italo Calvino and Georges Perec who wrote the most notable Oulipian novel La Disparition (English title: A Void), which was written without using the letter e. When translating these books, many translators chose to keep the same constraints, in the case of A Void, translator Gilbert Adair kept the same constraint of not using the letter e. The Spanish translation did not use the letter a (since e is used too frequently), Russian contains no о and Japanese does not use い (i).

In the introduction of Sphinx, Daniel Levin Becker talks about the Oulipian constraint found in this book and he is of the opinion that is best not to spoil it for others, allowing them to discover it organically. If you feel it is better not to know, then stop reading here.

Love in the New Millennium by Can Xue

Posted April 26, 2019 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 0 Comments

Title: Love in the New Millennium (Goodreads)
Author: Can Xue
Translator: Annelise Finegan Wasmoen
Published: Yale University Press, November 20, 2018
Pages: 288
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: eBook

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle, Wordery (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019
Longlisted for the BTBA 2019

There is something about Love in the New Millennium that I was not able to connect with. Out of the entire Man Booker International longlisted books for 2019, this is the one that I struggled the most with. It was not because of the unlikeable characters or toxic relationships, there was just something that did not work. I spent a lot of time wondering if I felt disconnected from the cultural aspects of this novel, but I have come to the conclusion that me and Can Xue do not agree, or at least with this book.

The premise of this book is basically love stories of the new millennium. It is a collection of interconnected stories that center around a few different characters. Love in the New Millennium is meant to be an exploration into modern day romance, dating and relationships, however there is nothing inherently modern about this novel. Has the author adopted same for a magical realism where modern people are living in a world void of technology? I do not remember a single mention of the internet or cell phones in the entire book. I know this a Chinese novel, so culturally things are different, but I find it hard to believe that technology does not play a part in their lives. Can Xue is 66 years old, so it felt like she did not truly understand how young people live.

“People like us, more dead than alive, always indecisive.”

Having said that, this book was packaged as a dark comical look at a group of women living in a world of constant surveillance. I went into this thinking maybe this will be an exploration into women living in a world of social media. An Orwellian look at dating in the computer age. However, this book feels more like Middlemarch in a sense that it is not the surveillance cameras that people have to worry about, it is the gossip from other people.

The main problem with Love in the New Millennium for me what probably the fact that I built this book up differently in my head. Generally I prefer not to know too much about the books I plan to read, but since this was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, as well as the BTBA, I felt like I needed to know more about this book in order to join in on the conversations before actually reading it. I was hoping for a satirical look into dating in the new millennium, as well as some insights into modern day China, but this novel delivered none of that.

“Before entering a dream, she thought, a little enviously, they must be so happy. In her dream, she heard the couple outside referring to her as “the orphan.” When she heard these two syllables, or—phan, her tears rolled down in waves, soaking the pillow. Her dreamscape was passionate, with two silvery forms always floating around her. She saw milkvetch all around, honeybees everywhere, to her right the houses of the disappearing village, and the maple leaves burning like fire.”

Having said all that, there is this weird dream-like, almost surreal quality to the novel that played a small factor in not abandoning this book completely. My main reason for sticking to the book was because it was nominated for the Man Booker International Prize. The writing was never really bad, Annelise Finegan Wasmoen did a great job of translating this into English. For me, my main verdict came down to the subject matter and my disappointment in not exploring these very important issues. There are so many different socio-political, philosophical and psychological avenues that were left unexplored.

When Can Xue is blurbed as the “most important novelist working in China today” and is also known as an avant-garde writer, I expected something more from Love in the New Millennium. She is also a literary critic who has written about Dante, Jorge Luis Borges, and Franz Kafka, so you cannot judge me for expecting so much more. Love in the New Millennium left me wanting a very different book, and I think that might have been what disappointed me the most about this novel. I have no idea why it made the longlist for both the Man Booker International Prize and the Best Translated Book Award, but clearly others see something in this book that I could not see.

At Dusk by Hwang Sok-yong

Posted April 12, 2019 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Contemporary / 0 Comments

Title: At Dusk (Goodreads)
Author: Hwang Sok-yong
Translator: Sora Kim-Russell
Published: Scribe, 2018
Pages: 192
Genres: Contemporary
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle, Wordery (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019

On the outside, Park Minwoo was the poster boy for success. Born into poverty, his parents owned a small fishcake store. He worked hard and now he is the director of one of Korea’s biggest architectural firms. However, Park thinks maybe he have missed the point of life. He has followed the ideal path to become wealthy but at the cost of his childhood love Cha Soona.

At Dusk is a quiet exploration into the life of a modern Korean businessman and his success, but it also reflects on the modernisation of Seoul. It is an obvious allegory; while Park doubts his success is the true meaning of a well lived life, the author begins to question the modernisation of Korea. The cost of progress really is the driving force behind the novella. As a Westerner, I feel like we are led to believe that all progress is good. The US goes to war with many countries because their values are different. We are forcing westernisation onto the rest of the world, and we are led to believe this is for the good of the country. However, it is books like At Dusk that often help me explore a different argument.

Park Minwoo’s family lived a simple life running a small business, while Cha Soona’s parents were noodle makers. Modernisation means the end of these small businesses. Mass production and making money is the only thing of value. Noodle houses quickly become franchised coffee houses. The Korean culture is dying, leaving only Taekwondo and K-Pop behind.

This was a simple little novel, just a quiet yet urgent meditation on the effects progress has on its people and their culture. I feel the author could have done more but I have heard that Park Minwoo appears in other Hwang Sok-yong books. While it is longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, I cannot see it making the shortlist. This feels more like a quick read the judges put into the list to get people to think more about the topic of westernisation and progress, what it means to the people, the country and also their culture.

Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin

Posted March 25, 2019 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Short Stories / 4 Comments

Title: Mouthful of Birds (Goodreads)
Author: Samanta Schweblin
Translator: Megan McDowell
Published: Oneworld Publications, 2019
Pages: 240
Genres: Short Stories
My Copy: ARC from Netgalley

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Kindle, Wordery (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2019

Samanta Schweblin has almost become a household name. Her novella Fever Dreams has been one of the most talked about books in translation in recent years. It won so many awards, including the Shirley Jackson Award (2017), The Tournament of Books (2018), it made the Man Booker International Prize shortlist (2017) and the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation longlist (2017). Needless to say, when it was announced Mouthful of Birds was getting an English translation there was plenty of buzz surrounding it.

I first discovered Samanta Schweblin from the New York Review of Books podcast, they were talking about three Argentinean authors about to take the world by storm, Pola Oloixarac, Mariana Enríquez and Samanta Schweblin. Naturally I had to read the three books that came out around the same time. Random tangent, both Samanta Schweblin and Pola Oloixarac have books out this year, so where is the next Mariana Enríquez? Out of the three it was Fever Dreams that got all the attention, but for me Things We Lost In The Fire was the true highlight.

I feel like the buzz now for Mouthful of Birds is just people projecting their love for Fever Dreams onto it. There is something rugged and unfinished about this collection of short stories that did not sit right with me. I think a truly great short story collection have the stories complements each other and often share an overarching theme. Take Things We Lost In The Fire by Mariana Enríquez (also translated by Megan McDowell) for example. Each story delivers a powerful punch and complement the collection as a whole. Now looking at Mouthful of Birds, it does not have that same feeling, it is just a group of stories anthologised for the purpose of publishing.

I see so many people loving this book and it always seems to be referencing the same stories, like the one with the merman. My opinion is they liked the individual stories they reference but nothing is really said about the complete collection. I know what I like and fairytale retellings and mythological based stories are not for me, so this is the main reason Mouthful of Birds did not work for me. I know short story collections are hard to review as a whole collection, so people point out the stories they love. I prefer to read something where the stories all work together and offer so much more than a good tale.

Mouthful of Birds will serve well for the readers interested in the whole creative process. This is a collection of her earlier short stories. There are fragments of ideas that are being explored in Mouthful of Birds that could blossom into future novels. I see elements of Fever Dreams taking form in this collection and get the feeling this collection was only published because of all the hype surrounding Samanta Schweblin. While this was not the book for me, I know many people will enjoy reading more from Schweblin. I personally recommend picking up Things We Lost In The Fire by Mariana Enríquez instead.

How To Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard

Posted December 28, 2018 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Non-Fiction / 2 Comments

Title: How To Talk About Books You Haven't Read (Goodreads)
Author: Pierre Bayard
Translator: Jeffrey Mehlman
Published: Granta, 2009
Pages: 176
Genres: Non-Fiction
My Copy: Library Book

Buy: Amazon, Book Depository, Wordery (or visit your local Indie bookstore)

Recommended for lovers of Translated Non-Fiction, or Books about Books

There are many books out there about how to be a better reader. The whole books-about-books sub genre is filled with both reading journeys and strategies to improve the way we read. There is only one book I know of that focuses on how to talk about books without having read them. Pierre Bayard’s How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read teaches us the art form of not reading.

“Because I teach literature at the university level, there is, in fact, no way to avoid commenting on books that most of the time I haven’t even opened. It’s true that this is also the case for the majority of my students, but if even one of them has read the text I’m discussing, there is a risk that at any moment my class will be disrupted and I will find myself humiliated.”

Pierre Bayard adopts the persona of a literature professor who is not interested in reading. While I do believe it as a persona, you must wonder how close the truth it might be; he is in fact a professor. He breaks up the books we have not read into four categories. Books You Don’t Know, Books You Have Skimmed, Books You Have Heard of and Books You Have Forgotten, taking the time to give the reader tips on how to talk about books, whether you have read them or not.

“When we talk about books…we are talking about our approximate recollections of books… What we preserve of the books we read—whether we take notes or not, and even if we sincerely believe we remember them faithfully—is in truth no more than a few fragments afloat, like so many islands, on an ocean of oblivion…We do not retain in memory complete books identical to the books remembered by everyone else, but rather fragments surviving from partial readings, frequently fused together and further recast by our private fantasies. … What we take to be the books we have read is in fact an anomalous accumulation of fragments of texts, reworked by our imagination and unrelated to the books of others, even if these books are materially identical to ones we have held in our hands.”

While Bayard has adopted a tongue in cheek approach to this book, there is a lot of useful information to be found within the pages. The key here is to develop the confidence to talk about books in general. Look at the BookTube community, one of the staples of that is the book haul. Here people discuss the books they have brought recently, most of which have not read been read yet. The idea is to develop the skills and the confidence to talk about these books. For example, if we talk about a book we have not heard of, we can make assumptions about the text based on the author, cover and many other aspects; we do this all the time when in a bookstore. We see a book and determine if it is something we want to read without knowing anything about the content. Books we have skimmed or forgotten about still mean we have valuable things to say, why did we skim? Why was it so forgettable?

While this was a lot of fun to read, the true message of the book really spoke to me. This idea that we need to develop the confidence to talk about books even when we have not read them or forget major points. I read a novel recently and I somehow skipped a very important event, while talking to my wife it became clear I missed it. Embarrassing? Yes, but it proves just how easy it is to forget or skim over an important part of the book. I know I need to develop more confidence to talk about books, and How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read served as a reminder of this fact. I joined a book club, started a BookTube channel, and even a podcast because I want to talk about books, but I know I still have a long way to go in building my confidence in talking about books in general, not just the ones I have read.