XX’in Erkek Kardeşiyim

by Fleur Jaeggy, Şemsa Gezgin (Translator)

XX’in Erkek Kardeşiyim’de çağdaş Avrupa edebiyatının sıra dışı kalemi Fleur Jaeggy’nin Ingeborg Bachmann, Oliver Sacks gibi dostlarını andığı fragmanvari metinler, olağanüstü bir hayal gücüyle kurguladığı öykülerle bir araya geliyor. Delilik, intihar, saplantı, intikam anlatılarıyla dolu bu öykülerde bir tür hasarlı, hissizleşmiş karakterler geçidine tanık oluyoruz. Yaşamak, yaşatmak ya da ölmek arasındaki ayrımlar sözcük düzeyine indirgeniyor, okur insanın içindeki tedirgin edici boşlukla, yalnızlıkla yüz yüze getiriliyor.

Susan Sontag’ın “harikulade, parlak ve vahşi” sözleriyle nitelediği Jaeggy, gerçek ile gerçekdışı, bilindik ile tekinsiz arasındaki çizgide ustaca ilerlediği hikâyelerde sözde gündelik olanın üstündeki tülü kaldırarak altında yatan çarpıklıkları, insanı yalnızlaştıran toplumun hastalıklı yapısını görünür kılıyor. XX’in Erkek Kardeşiyim, okurları huzursuz dünyalara davet ediyor.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Italian Literature, Horror, Gothic, Literature, Contemporary

112 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2014

About the author

Fleur Jaeggy is a Swiss author, who writes in Italian. The Times Literary Supplement named Proleterka as a Best Book of the Year upon its US publication, and her Sweet Days of Discipline won the Premio Bagutta and the Premio Speciale Rapallo. As of 2021, six of her books have been translated into English.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some are born to be unhappy… This boy surely is…

Once when I was eight years old my grandmother asked me, what will you do when you grow up? And I answered, I want to die. I want to die when I grow up. I want to die soon. And I think my sister really liked that answer.

Loneliness… Chrysanthemums as an attribute of solitude… Autumn… Winter… Iosif Brodsky on the promenade in New York…
He is an old bachelor… All is left behind…

His line ends with him and began with the portraits on the wall of a long hallway, having the features of Ursulina. Bride, mother and widow. Three theological virtues. Absent from the expression on the face was faith or hope or charity.

Fates… Destinies… Nowhere to run… No place to hide… Sadness and sorrow… Stories are like laments…

The crucifixion is to me without a body. Without a soul. Without an image. I know what nails and a crown of thorns are. Ornaments, as if in a dowry. But all of that means nothing more to me.

At times we lose some, in the end we lose all.

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jaeggy has recently been getting some hype, and rightly so: Born in Switzerland in 1940 and writing in Italian, her fans have included the likes of Ingeborg Bachmann, Susan Sontag, and Catherine Lacey. Rather befitting to (but not because of) the recent autofiction trend, her works like Proleterka and Sweet Days of Discipline are based on her own life, as are many of the 21 short stories in "I Am the Brother of XX", which was first published in 2014. The collection is a work of written portraiture, presenting us psychological images of real and fictional people that are often disturbing, sinister, or unsettling. The portrait theme is highlighted by the interspersed texts that deal with actual paintings depicting humans.

Death is a constant in many of the texts, as is the passing of time. The short, stark sentences reminiscent of mountainous panoramas are juxtaposed with distinct color descriptions that let me think of another Swiss author, Christian Kracht. While one story seems to directly reference Franz Kafka, the idea of the void, the abyss that human beings feel is another connection to the great master; or, to twist the famous line of Irvine Welsh: In Jaeggy's stories, no one wants to choose life.

Impressive, challenging, and relentless.

STORY OVERVIEW

I Am the Brother of XX
Orphaned siblings attend their mother's funeral; the brother was a poet when he was eight, wanting to die when he grows up; then he started obliging to conventional ideas of success as encouraged by his older sister and got addicted to sleeping pills; now the sister is the writer, telling stories about him.

Negde
The ghost of Joseph Brodsky roams New York and thinks of St. Petersburg.

The Last of the Line
An old bachelor with no family left is alone with two dogs in a house full of memories.

The Gentleman and the Lizard
Probably refers to the painting Portrait of a Young Man, or Portrait of a Gentleman in His Study by Lorenzo Lotto

Agnes
Told by a woman who has been left by her lesbian lover who married a man.

The Aseptic Room
The narrator visits Ingeborg Bachmann in the hospital after the writer was admitted for severe injuries sustained in an apartment fire (the fire really happened; Bachmann died in the hospital).

The Heir
A lonely woman lets a homeless child live with her, the child sets the place on fire.

Portrait of an Unknown Woman
Probably refers to the painting "Portrait of a Girl with a Glove", unknown artist

The Black Lace Veil
A depressed mother visits the pope (story inspired by a photograph of Jaeggy's own mother).

An Encounter in the Bronx
The narrator, Oliver Sacks, and a certain Roberto (Jaeggy is the widow of Roberto Calasso) go to a restaurant, the narrator communicates with a fish in a tank that can be chosen as a meal.

The Aviary
A man grieves the death of his overbearing mother while lashing out at his wife who was sexually abused by her alcoholic mother, a woman who was not married to one, but two Nazis.

The Visitor
Angela of Foligno, Agnes Blannbekin, and Venus walk in and out of paintings depicting them.

Adelaide
A priest denies a mentally ill mother the wish to christen her son, the mother plots to kill him and the father of the child who left her.

Tropics
A half-brother reminisces about the life of his older half-sister who shares traits with the author (see: Sweet Days of Discipline).

Cat
Ponders the fact that cats turn away from their killing and then gives a way too reductive definition of the German term Übersprungshandlung (which just could have been translated to displacement activity, but isn't German fancy? ;-)).

Osmosis
A pastor has twins with his sister, one child dies, the surviving girls turns a mandrake root into a puppet (which is a thing in Genesis and the Song of Songs).

Names
A young Polish woman visits Auschwitz and follows a blind woman with a dog (Jaeggy has really met a bind woman in Auschwitz).

The Hanging Angel
An old rogue takes care of a kid and in return, the kid has to preach and collect alms, then they meet an angel.

The Perfect Choice
A mother praises her son's decision to commit suicide at the Via Mala.

F.K.
The narrator is meeting with the legal guardian of a former friend who has been admitted to a psychiatry (while F.K. is supposed to be the friend, the theme of cruel bureaucracy is reminiscent of the great Franz Kafka).

The Salt Water House
Not included in all editions.

Interviews with Jaeggy:
https://magazine.tank.tv/issue-71/tal...
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the...

You can listen to our podcast discussion of Ich bin der Bruder von XX here:
https://papierstaupodcast.de/podcast/...

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A haunting collection of 21 short stories, the strongest of which evoke feelings of claustrophobia, discontent, nostalgia, and sadness. Jaeggy's stories center around some common themes: family dysfunction, personal losses traced across time and generations, traces of staggering inhumanity embedded in history's arc. In many of these stories, time seems to exist in layers, making it possible to see shadows of the past in the present. In my favorite story in the collection, "Negde," we follow Iosif Brodsky on a walk to the Promenade in Brooklyn Heights, during which he moves from Brooklyn to St. Petersburg, and time moves from across the 20th century to the 21st century:

“They saw them burning from the Promenade’s quiet zone. They witnessed the destruction. They were there, the spectators, they saw them burn, reflected in the water. The windows seemed to reawaken. Fire on the bay. Iosif may know that they are no longer there. The two towers are missing. There, in front of the Promenade. The glint of evil. They left grief and an abyss that are not wiped away by a hand or by words. Iosif revisited the Neva then turned back. Elsewhere, a night without shadows, in the month of May, he wrote by that light. The light was clear, rosy, faint. Now he writes in the dark. All he needs is a sheet of paper and ink as long as darkness lasts. Every place is to him a mental city called Negde, which in Russian means “nowhere.” And Iosif would go nowhere so as to breathe.”

A volume recommended for its revealing Jaeggy's ability to evoke so much pain and longing in so few words.

[Radioread · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disiplinli Güzel Günler’den 25 yıl sonra yazılmış sarsıcı metinler. Diyebilirim ki hemen her biri yakama yapıştı. Bir düş perdesini araladım, Sinyorita Jaeggy kimi geçmişlerini ve güzelliğinin bütün silahlarını kuşanmış, yüksek bir ip üstünde bir bardak su içer gibi rahat yürüyordu. İpin iki ucundan kimler tutmuştu? Clarice Lispector ve Sylvia Plath? Marguerite Duras ve Marguerite Duras? Füruzan ve Sevim Burak? Belki de tamamen boşluğa gerilmiştir uçlar.

[Blair · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Fleur Jaeggy (for the first time) after a couple of mediocre litfic novels was like having a glass of ice-cold water thrown in my face on a hot day. Invigorating, refreshing and something of a relief, if not exactly what you would describe as pleasant.

Jaeggy writes in staccato sentences and writes of the indistinctly strange. Her prose is the kind that forces you to sit up straight and pay attention. A single paragraph can contain so much that you will need/want to read it five times before moving on to the next. This is partly because details sometimes seem to be mentioned randomly, or related in the wrong order, but read again and it will become clear every word is placed deliberately. With unnerving precision.

This collection reads like a classic, a book that could just have easily been written in the 19th century as today. Something about it put me in mind of Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon, though I couldn't quite tell you what. Some of Jaeggy's premises – such as that of the sinister 'The Aviary', a queasy story which culminates in a young man imprisoning his wife in a birdcage – reminded me of The Doll's Alphabet by Camilla Grudova.

In the second story, 'Negde', I highlighted a sentence because I loved it, but now I come to look at it again, I realise it's also a perfect description of the book itself: There is calm, a vague stealthy disquietude, some void. I can't stop thinking about that phrase – some void. How perfect is that! You need to be prepared to grapple with some void in order to read Jaeggy. You will navigate eerie stasis, and sense horror lurking between the lines. For me, this was a thrilling experience. Certainly an author I will be returning to.

---
Favourite stories: 'I Am the Brother of XX', 'The Last of the Line', 'Agnes', 'The Aviary', 'Tropics', 'Names'

Favourite lines and passages:

And now there is the nightmare, the one and only nightmare, of living. – 'I Am the Brother of XX'

I am twenty-five. I have done what was, according to my sister, important. But when I was eight I was a poet and a writer. And no one had told me that it was important to write. Since then I have only done things that were important, according to my sister – studying, graduating, succeeding in life. In the street I look at people passing by, while I should be going to talk to someone about a job. I tell myself that every one of them perhaps is succeeding in life... – 'I Am the Brother of XX'

Winter, the real season of the year. As in Saint Petersburg. "The wide river lay white and frozen like a continent's tongue lapsed into silence." So he wrote. An arcane hypoborean breeze on the branches of trees. Iosif can't help living in watery places. He is like a sailor. He plays with the lunatic wind star that pushes him towards the river. He liked the blue uniforms of navy officers and their coats with double rows of gold buttons. Like avenues at night, their lights receding. – 'Negde'

Caspar is seized by nostalgia. Nostalgia for the children in the portrait. The food repels him, he throws it to the dogs. He fills a glass with port. It is night. – 'The Last of the Line'

There is a stillness in the room, a sound from afar, almost a primary sound that wants to be listened to as silence. – 'The Last of the Line'

I bought little orchid plants. They came from Holland. From South America. I had seen them in the Mediterranean. Growing in the damp. White, with purple eyelets. Rosy, pale, an evil expression. Acidulous. Yellow. They last a long time. Not much earth. Not much nourishment. They reawaken in the dark, at night. Avid for company. When they wilt, they become small skulls in tuxedos. Tiny night birds. They look at me. I look at them. – 'Agnes'

The vegetation reeked of an eerie maleficent calm, a brutal calm. – 'Agnes'

The girl saw her thoughts on the window panes like insects swollen with blood on the walls of a room. – 'The Heir'

She smiled sweetly. It is not clear to whom. But from one window insects flew. – 'The Visitor'

What names do nameless things have? And what are they? And if they had a name, would that alone make them recognisable? – 'Osmosis'

The flush of spring, the scent was nauseating, tainted and too strong. The solemn and glorious instant just before dissolution. In a field he saw flowers with small purple wounds. – 'The Perfect Choice'

I was always struck by her ineluctable delicacy of spirit, if one might call it that, in her way of approaching others, especially friends. As though she knew with the precision of a mathematician all the nuances that might hurt or wound. – 'The Salt Water House'

Memories are not properly a past. – 'The Salt Water House'

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[Maria Bikaki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ξεκίνησα το πρώτο διήγημα και λέω ώπα εδώ είμαστε. Μου κέντρισε το ενδιαφέρον η πρώτη ιστορία καθώς και το κονσεπτ των 21 ιστοριών- εσωτερικών μονολόγων. Δυστυχώς κάπου το χάσα στην πορεία και δεν κατάφεραν να με κερδίσουν στο βαθμό που πίστευα. Αισθάνομαι ότι ίσως υπήρχε κάτι πίσω από αυτές τις ιστορίες που δεν κατάφερα ν’ αποκωδικοποιήσω εντελώς.
Η γραφή σκληρή και ιδαίτερη, ένα στυλ που σίγουρα το κάνει άξιο να διαβαστεί αλλά όχι με εξαίρεση την ιστορία από την οποία δανείζεται το βιβλίο τον τίτλο και χάρη στην οποία η βαθμολογία μου είναι ελαστική και κανα δυο ακόμα δε μπόρεσαν να συνδεθώ ιδιαίτερα με την αφήγηση το έχασα.

[Mevsim Yenice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muhteşem öyküler sahiden. Hırçınlığı şiirsel bir etkiyle resmen ehlileştirip önümüze sunmuş Jaeggy.

Özellikle öykü okumaktan zevk alan, o boğuşmaya girmeyi kabul eden herkese öneriyorum.

“Ailece bir şöminede çıra gibi yandığımızı bile fark edemiyorsak bunun tek açıklaması bedenimizin bizi terk etmiş olmasıdır, belki de ruh olmuşuzdur, kendimiz olmaktan ne zaman vazgeçip başka bir şey olduğumuz belli değildir.”

“Ölmesi gerektiğini biliyor, artık hayattan hiçbir şey alamayacağını biliyor.”

"Çocukken o odada oyun oynardı, şimdi de gelecekle, basit bir adı olan çok soyut bir şeyle oynuyordu: Yarınla."

[Subashini · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm enchanted and disturbed. This is a brief book of very short stories, some only two pages. There's no traditional sense of plot or character development. I would call her style gothic minimalism. It's the sense you get when you know you're all alone but you see something move swiftly from the corner of your eye. Crystalline, laconic sentences. Death, theology, and the anxious, paranoid heart at the centre of all unhappy families. Love in its contorted form, deeply claustrophobic, poisonous, deadly. Characters range from suspicious siblings to deranged husbands to devoted 13th-century mystics to a fish in a restaurant aquarium. It's the final story, a loving tribute to Ingebord Bachmann stripped of all sentimentality, that's light as air. Her stories will haunt me.

(My full review appears here: http://www.full-stop.net/2017/10/25/r...)

[Murat Dural]

Tuhaftan bile tuhaf, sade ama o sadelik içinde rahatsız edici. Her gün bir öykü okumak bu kitap özelinden faydalı araç olabilir. Arka arkaya okunduğunda anlatıya vakıf olmak, ne denmek istediğini seçmek güçleşiyor. Bambaşka renkler ama hep o renklerin koyusu, bilinmez ya da bilinmezden gelen kısmı. Kolay bir okuma, kısa bir kitap gibi görünebilir; öyle değil. Zihninizi yormalısınız :)

[Coos Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

No les voy a mentir, los veinte relatos de esta antología te tiran un poco para atrás si estás en un mal momento. Sobre todo porque tienen una oscuridad tremenda, una carga tétrica que si te agarra mal parado te tira sin lugar a duda. La escritura es bella, melancólica, y me encantó poder conocer a esta autora.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is something of a "it's not you it's me" review as Fleur Jaeggy is clearly a wonderful talented writer, but this type of abstract short story isn't really to my taste, indeed had it not come as part of my And Other Stories subscription (a publisher I am proud to support), it is a book I would have been unlikely to read.

So despite the two star review, an author I would still recommend to others. Rather than my review below, I would instead direct the reader to:

1. One of my favourite stories in the collection - Perfect Choice - which is available in full on the Granta website, as a way to sample her work. https://granta.com/perfect-choice/

2. A review by someone far more erudite and better able to appreciate the book than me:
http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2017/07...

This from Joseph's review captures the experience of reading Jaeggy's contradictory style brilliantly

There is an unmistakable current of brisk, melancholic foreboding that courses beneath the surface of her prose. The chill can make you shudder, the stark beauty of her terse sentences catch your breath. Atmospheric. Disconcerting. And strangely alluring. It is a rare author who manages to sustain an emotionally intense voice that is at once distinct, abstracted, and tightly restrained.

--------------------
Jaeggy herself is a fascinating writer and well connected in literary circles with e.g. Thomas Bernhard, Italo Calvino, Ingeborg Bachmann (a strong friend) and Roberto Calasso (who she married). But she has a Ferrante like attitude to the role of the author in the interpretation of her work once published, as in this interview: http://tankmagazine.com/issue-71/talk...

Interviewer: Silence is omnipresent in your work; it’s the dense, cohesive medium of your stories, like highly leaded glass. In your stories, pervasive quietness is often cruel, brutal. A breeding ground for violence – and creativity?

FJ I believe you can almost write without me. Once I have finished a book, it doesn’t count any more; I don’t want anything to do with it any more. A little idea occurs to me now: about ten years ago I was in Germany, near Berlin, for a few months, and there I had a good friend – a swan. His name was Erich. I called him from my window, “Erich! Erich!” And he came. We took long walks together. This swan is very important to me. There were other people around, but he knew when I would get up, and he would come out of the water to see me. One time, someone in the park asked me, “Is this your swan?” In the winter, he swam under the ice.

Certain images reoccur in the collection - e.g. she is oddly fond of 'swamp green' as a colour of choice for clothes. Another was flowers, particularly purple orchids, mentioned in three stories - the quotes below giving a good feel for her work:

The walls of the room are bare, white and harsh. Bald. A sort of baldness adorns her rooms. On the bedside table is a little bell that hasn't been used for years now. In the corner of the room a bouquet. Regula prefers 'a bouquet' to 'a bunch of flowers.' About certain words she has prejudices. They are variegated orchids, minuscule, tattooed, humid. Who were they once? What were there intentions when they grew hidden in ravines and shadows? Once there were pictures on the walls. Regula can no longer bear to see art hanging on the walls.
(The Gentleman and the Lizard)

I bought little orchid plants. They came from Holland. From South America. I had seen them in the Mediterranean. Growing in the damp. White, with purple eyelets. Rosy, pale, an evil expression. Acidulous. Yellow. They last a long time. Not much earth. Not much nourishment. They reawaken in the dark, at night. Avid for company. When they wilt, they become small skulls in tuxedos. Tiny night birds. They look at me. I look at them.
(Agnes)

There was absolute stillness. An enamel landscape, innocuous, mute. And he, the boy, felt so well, in the shadowy peace. In the light malaise in the air. The flush of spring, the scent was nauseating, tainted and too strong. The solemn and glorious instant just before dissolution. In a field he saw flowers with small purple wounds. Tattooed flowers. A minuscule branding, such as is used on herds, or linens. Someone must have marked them as they went by. But who? He didn’t care. The flowers were coming back before his eyes, before his door. He had shut them out. When the vision faded, he saw the wall. He opened the door.

The mother was there, holding a tray. ‘I made you some dinner.’ Shellfish and something pink, boiled and grey, with two holes. His mother liked foods he couldn’t stand. Such as fish, for instance. No one could deceive him as to freshness. There are those who have an inborn gift for not being deceived in life. Neither by food gone bad nor by the Holy Ghost. She was pleased if the butcher gave her a beautiful cut of meat. And so, in the end, she was pleased with the death of her son. With the perfect choice. Understanding and charity begin in the mother’s womb. On the Via Mala.
Perfect Choice

In another story, Cat, she links how cats behave when toying with their kill to a style of writing, which she ascribes to de Quincey but would serve as a review for her own work:

On reaching the target, a cat suddenly becomes distracted. Animal behaviourists call this movement Übersprung. It happens just before the deadly blow ... as though he had forgotten the fluttering wings that only moments earlier had inspired his total dedication. That which had possessed him before, as thought it were an idea, a thought...

... maybe this Übersprung is a delectatio morosa. A melancholic doing away with any connection to the victim. Übersprung: a word that involves us, too. It is a turning away, going on to something else, manfacturing a gesture of detachment, like a goodbye. Wandering from the theme, escaping from a word - at once hunting for words and doing away with them: these are a mind's mode of writing. Some write according to delectatio morosa. Thomas de Quincey, for instance, once hinted at the 'dark frenzy of horror.'

[merixien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kitabın da öykülerin de kısalığına rağmen oldukça dikkat isteyen bir okuma.
Çünkü yazar sizi rahatsız etmeye kararlı. Kitap genel olarak melankoli, kayıp, psikolojik sıkıntılar, güvensizlik, insanların arasında aşılamayan mesafeler ve çaresizlik gibi yaşamın karanlık yönlerine odaklanmış durumda. Bunun üstüne yazım tarzında da okuru huzursuz etme düsturuna sonuna kadar sadık kalarak kimi yerde kısa, durağan zaman zaman da “rahatsız edici bir sessizlik” anının ortasında kalmışsınız gibi hissettiren ve hikayenin orta yerinde anlatıcının habersizce değiştiği bir dil tercihi var. Kitaptaki öykülerde gelenekselin ve normalin çok dışında anne, aile bağı ya da insan örnekleri bulunuyor. Gerçekten çok farklı ve zaman zaman anlayamayıp başa dönmenizi gerektiren, sarsıcı bir öykü seçkisi. Asla “herkesin sevebileceği öyküler, mutlaka okuyun” diyemem. Benim ise en çok etkilendiğim öyküler; kitaba adını veren ve kitabın en uzun öyküsü olan XX’in Erkek Kardeşiyim, Büyük Kafes, Kedi ve Ziyaretçi oldu.

“Kedinin bakışını neden başka bir yöne çevirdiğini bilemiyoruz. O biliyor. Kim bilir, belki de bu Übersprung bir delectatiomorosa’dır. Kurbanla olan bağın melankolik kopuşudur. Übersprung. Bu sözcük bizleri de ilgilendirir. Başka yöne dönmektir, başka şeye geçmektir, oradan koptuğunu gösteren harekettir, tıpkı bir veda gibi. Konudan kopuş, bir sözcükten kaçış ama aynı anda tekrar sözcük arayışı içine girme, sonra onları tekrar yok etme: Bütün bunlar yazı yazmanın zihinsel yöntemleri.”

“Ailecek bir şöminede çıra gibi yandığımızı bile fark edemiyorsak bunun tek açıklaması bedenimizin bizi terk etmiş olmasıdır; belki de ruh olmuşuzdur, kendimiz olmaktan ne zaman vazgeçtip başka bir şey olduğumuz belli değildir. Bilmediğimiz bir şeye dönüştük..”

[Béla Malina · Rating 5 out of 5]

“(…)an eerie maleficent calm, a brutal calm.”

That phrase about perfectly incapsulates this collection of vignettes.

In this brief little book every sentence serves a purpose, every sparse sentence establishes an atmosphere of still solitude, an eerie kind of grief, or a sense of impending doom.

Violence is all over this. In a very subtle and disconcerting way it permeates even the quiet, seemingly non-violent scenes. A brutal, beautiful kind of calm is being evoked in every phrase.

Her sentences are often short, sharp and perfectly cut down, close to the point of falling into silence. At many points the reader might sense an unwillingness of the text to even communicate anything. It feels as if Jaeggy wrote this out of necessity not out of pleasure (take this in the best way).

The prose reads as if it’s uttered under the breath. With a pained constraint. And time between each sentence. Without rush. Without peace, but with a violent sense of fate and the ability to make use of just the right words, the perfect words…

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 3 out of 5]

A peculiar concoction of short sentences and fever-inducing Surreal images. Out there and scattered and succinct in their compact movement, constantly whirling around damaged characters who all appear to me indistinguishable from one another. Jagged, a bit like Agota Kristof. Unmemorable only because it's difficult to settle in when the sections are so short, choppy and irregular. May not be to my taste, but experimentation with meat and daring, dreamlike quirkiness.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In these short stories (some only a few pages long), Jaeggy proves herself to be a poet of despair. She writes in one story, "Creation can be an act of destruction", and that feels like a good tagline for many of these stories. There is a muted violence in them, suicides and murders but all smothered under a blanket of mute suffering. A young man who felt loved only by his sister but nevertheless believes she used him for his drama, kills himself. An orphan taken in by an elderly woman burns her alive.

Despite the intense drama, there is a curious lack of feeling in these stories. Brief, even terse, they are moments that contain lifetimes. It's amazing how much story Jaeggy apparently effortlessly compacts into a few pages.

The writer is apparently something of a recluse. She has had few friends that she speaks of, other than the famous writer (beloved by me) Ingeborg Bachmann who is a featured player in the last story of the collection, a writer who needs "little encouragement not to speak".

Sadly, I can only read these stories in translation, not in their original Italian. If her prose is striking in translation, I can only begin to imagine the original.

The only problem I had with the stories was their unremitting sadness. As I began, this is poetry of despair and I could only read this very slender book for short periods of time, alternating with more hopeful works. I found myself feeling numbed and cold after reading her for longer than a half hour.

A brilliant writer but perhaps one to read in moderation.

[Sinem A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Çok özgün karanlık ve güçlü öyküler.

[JimZ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had this book on my coffee table in my living room for two weeks and I couldn’t bring myself to open it. I think it was the description of the to-be-read stories that made me reluctant…I would inevitably read something else over the 2-week period. Here were the descriptions, one from the publishers of the book and one from the Paris Review:
“A wife is suspended in a bird cage; a thirteenth century visionary senses the flesh of Christ on her tongue; ‘for the blasted glory of it’, a homeless orphan immolates the aristocrat who took her in. Whether telling of mystics, tormented families or the inner lives of famously private writers, Jaeggy’s terse, telegraphic prose is always psychologically clear-eyed and deeply moving, always one step ahead, or to the side, of her readers’ expectations. In this, her long-awaited return, we experience her ‘eerie, maleficent calm, a brutal calm’, and recognize the timbre of a writer for whom a gothic world seethes with quiet violence.” (JimZ: I don’t reckon an orphan immolating an aristocrat as ‘quiet’ violence but maybe I am splitting hairs.)

“I Am the brother of XX” is twisted and hypnotizing and, somehow, downright lovely. Reading it is not unlike diving naked and headlong into a bramble of black thorn bushes, so intrigued you are by their beauty: it’s a swift, prickly undertaking, and you emerge the other end bloodied all over.”

There are 21 stories in this collection. I did not understand a number of them…and others that were described as above were accurately described…I’m sorry but the only positive thing I have to say about this collection was that most of the stories were at most 6-8 pages and so the end was in sight for each of them (to put me out of my misery). You might ask why I continued to read – it’s just my style. Plus I really liked her two other works that I had read (‘S.S. Proleterka’ and ‘Sweet Days of Discipline’) and was the reason why I ordered this book as well as another collection of her short stories ‘Last Vanities’. I’ll probably sit on that for a month. 😊

So I can only give this collection 2 stars. Stories that were “good” in my eyes (difficult for me to define right now!) were: I am the Brother of XX; The Black Lace Veil, Tropics. But I am not sure you should go by what I say…☹…I just read the reviews (see below) and they are more positive than I….so this could be “what’s not good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Just a couple of notes:
• I had to look up a couple of words. Words perhaps you know…’lugubrious’ (mournful, gloomy…not the first time I saw this word…I guess I keep on forgetting its meaning) and ‘mimetized’ (imitative, mimicry).
• One story, “An Encounter in the Bronx” involves her and the famous neurologist-writer, (The Man who Mistook His Wife for a Hat) Oliver Sacks, at his house in the Bronx and then eating at a restaurant. I guess she knew Dr. Sacks.
• In another story (last story of the collection), The Saltwater House, she mentions a number of real-life characters (alive or deceased): Ingeborg Bachmann, Roberto Calasso (her husband), Italo Calvino, Josef Schwarzenberg, Uwe Johnson.
• In two stories, one or more characters are taking sleeping pills on a chronic basis, including Rohypnol. (I’m a pharmacology geek 😊)

Here is a review of the book by none other than the translator, Gini Alhadeff (was written in Italian)! It’s a very well written review about her editing Jaeggy’s work and her writing style and personality: http://bookanista.com/never-dull/
Very good review, about Jaeggy’s oeuvre: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/bo...

[Xenia Germeni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ένας κρυμμένος ανοιξιάτικος θησαυρος μικρων ιστοριων, απο μια εκπληκτικα γοητευτικη συγγραφεα! Συντομες ιστοριες με μικρες κοφτες προτασεις που θυμιζουν viewmaster νεανικων χρονων..Το κενο και η περιγραφη του αφηνουν περιθωρια ενος μεταφυσικου και σουραλιστικου ταξιδιου στον αναγνωστη μεσα στο χρονο. Η Jeaggy δημιουργει ενα ιδιομορφο ντομινο μικρης φορμας που σε πολλα σημεια θυμιζει Καλβινο, λατινους συγγραφεις και λιγο απο την προζα του Thomas Bernhard. Προσωπικη φιλη της Ingeborg Bachmann περιγράφει στις δυο ιστοριες-σχεδον αυτοβιογραφικα- τη φιλικη σχεση τους. Σε αλλη ιστορια αναφερεται στον Iosif Brodsky. Τα θεματα αντλουνται απο την μοναξια, το κενο, την ποιηση, τα βιβλια, τη μελαγχολια, το τελος και την ιστορια. Η υποδειγματικη μεταφραση της Gini Alhadeff στα αγγλικα υποβαλουν τον αναγνωστη σε εναν σαγηνευτικο υπνωτισμο μεσα στον κοσμο του λεκτικου ντομινο της Jaeggy. Το βιβλιο κυκλοφορει στα ελληνικα απο τις εκδοσεις Άγρα! ΥΓ...να το διαβασεις εαν εισαι φιλος των βιβλιων, του Καλβινο, του Bernhard, των λατινων συγγραφεων...κατα προτιμηση να διαβαστει απογευματα σε κηπο..

[Shatterlings · Rating 1 out of 5]

This lady read a book. Sometimes she wears glasses. Sometimes she does not. She likes chocolates. The room smelled of vanilla. The light changed. She finished it with quiet fury. She was put in a cage.

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as compelling as the novels or the essay collection, but these thematically linked micro-fictions are well worth reading. Pick hits: Title story, The Last of the Line, Negde, Agnes, Tropics, Names, The Hanging Angel, F.K., The Salt Water House.

[Marie-Therese · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exquisite, highly polished little gems of mostly abstract tale-telling.

These stories are quintessential Jaeggy: cool, brainy, slightly perverse. Settings and descriptions are kept to a minimum, characters are rarely named, and emotions are controlled. While violence is nearly always in the background, Jaeggy manages to maneuver her protagonists in such a way that we rarely see them engaging in it-violent denouements are almost always a fait accompli or something we think may happen in the future; as readers, we rarely see any character "doing" anything and outcomes are left to our imagination. This curiously detached telling allows Jaeggy to indulge in some outrageous scenarios without ever making them explicit or too unsettling to absorb-incest, child abuse, sadism, and domestic violence all feature in these stories but in such a way that they never seem too shocking or gross; we read, we observe, and only at the end do we feel uneasy, as what we've read sinks in and spreads out. Jaeggy somehow manages to make her readers complicit without giving us a chance to know quite what it is we're condoning. Her work is unsettling for that reason, and that's also why I recommend it.

[D · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of fascinating short stories with sharp edges: unusual and surprising story lines, sometimes even cruel. Much as I appreciate the style, I strongly prefer the novel Sweet Days of Discipline where the same qualities are spread over a larger surface. Or maybe it's just that I don't like short stories in general.

[Francisca · Rating 3 out of 5]

no es el mejor de Jaeggy, pero me pareció estupendo

[Hulyacln · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Gitmek istiyor, sadece sonsuza dek gitmek istiyor.
Son diye adlandırılan bir yer yoktu.’
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Bazen eliniz öykülere gider. Kısa ama yoğun öykülere. Hem birden fazla hayata bulanırsınız hem de oradan oraya savrulur durursunuz. Tanıdık evlere de girer çıkarsınız, bilmediğiniz haneleri gözetlersiniz. Tam da bu isteğim sonucunda Fleur Jaeggy ile kesişti yolum. Ondan yirmi öykü dinledim. Tedirgin eden, okudukça havada bırakan ama kökleri olan öyküler. Her öyküyü sevdim, en çok da kitaba adını veren öyküyü.
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Yazarın dilimize çevrilen bir diğer eseri Disiplinli Güzel Günler ise yakın zamanda okumak istediğim bir eser.
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Şemsa Gezgin çevirisi, Başak Nur Vanlıoğlu kapak tasarımıyla-

[Mayk Can Şişman · Rating 4 out of 5]

İsviçreli yazar Fleur Jaeggy’nin öykü kitabı ‘XX’in Erkek Kardeşiyim’e bayılmadım belki ama gayet sevdim. Özellikle kitaba ismini veren öykü favorim oldu, o öykü için “Keşke bağımsızlığını ilan edip bir novella olsaymış” dedim. ‘Mirasçı’ ve son öykü ‘F.K.’ da beğendiklerim arasında. Kitaptan asla ‘Disiplinli Güzel Günler’ kadar etkilenmesem de yazarın öykülerini akıcı bulduğumu söyleyebilirim.

[Malice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una colección de relatos un tanto curiosos. Como siempre, hay algunos que me gustaron más que otros, y hay varios que resultan algo inquietantes al final, creo que esos fueron los mejores.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una escritora que me gusta, que tiene una voz propia muy singular, pero este libro de cuentos es muy desparejo. Una lástima. 3.5

[Gokce Atac · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fleur Jaeegy ile tanışma kitabım… en çok kitaba adını veren öyküyü sevdim. Tekinsiz, depresif ve ürkütücü, havada kalan…

[Noam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nu dat ‘De waterstandbeelden’ van Fleur Jaeggy vertaald is, las ik dit boek, het vorige boek van haar dat in het Nederlands vertaald is in 2019. Ik hou namelijk van haar werk en omdat ze helaas zo weinig publiceert koop ik haar boeken en wacht ik lang met het lezen. Zo kan ik er langer van genieten.

En het was de moeite waard om te wachten. De verhalen van Fleur Jaeggy zijn net zo goed als haar novellen. Ze heeft weinig woorden nodig omdat ze haar woorden met een enorme precisie kiest. Niets ontgaat Fleur Jaeggy, niks wordt aan het lot overgelaten. Dit past eerder bij een dichter. Misschien zijn het wel lange afstand gedichten.

De stijl van de meeste verhalen is kalm. Het is de inhoud die verontrustend is op een fascinerende manier: Ze gaan om mensen die langs elkaar heen leven, mensen die verlangen naar onmogelijk contact. De kansen, als die ooit waren, zijn gemist. Wat blijft is uitzichtloos. IJskoude relaties met een onmogelijke hunkering naar warmte als ondertoon.

Het verhaal ‘Portret van een onbekende vrouw’ is een adembenemend voorbeeld van wat ze kan: In iets meer dan 2 pagina’s ontleedt Fleur Jaeggy een schilderij die ze ziet. Haar haast chirurgische nauwkeurigheid maakt dat zij (En wij!) haast samensmelten met dat portret.

‘Ik ben de broer van XX’ is een verhaal dat juist geschreven is in korte, staccato woorden en zinnen (Die soms niet af zijn). De relatie tussen de broer en zijn schrijvende zus (Jaeggy?) is zo pijnlijk beschreven dat je glasscherven in je mond proeft.

Neem na elk verhaal de tijd om bij te komen. Een hoogtepunt van wat taal kan doen.

[Sub_zero · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ya en Las estatuas de agua Fleur Jaeggy me demostró no ser una escritora al uso ni estar sujeta a ningún tipo de convencionalismos. Pero en este volumen de veinte relatos no he conseguido ver en su particular narrativa algo más allá de la curiosidad o lo meramente anecdótico. Las piezas aquí reunidas muchas veces ni siquiera encajan en la categoría de relato: más bien, se trata de flashes, experimentos, fotografías literarias que tratan de capturar un paisaje, una emoción o un concepto, por lo general algo perturbador y grotesco. Imágenes sugerentes, resquicios que hubiera sido interesante explotar a más larga escala. Pero esto, sin ser intrascendente o una pérdida de tiempo, a mí no ha logrado convencerme demasiado.