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Personal Lists 2014-2015
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Asma Fedosia's Book Journey
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Salut, Judy, a bright new year to y'all.
So far, Muse and Iceland's Bell are in my travelogue. Both are historical fiction, the former set in Avignon, France with a clever heroine, and the latter in and around Skalholt, southern Iceland mostly, with a willful heroine. Both contain problematic love stories set in turbulent eras. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Having read several more recent books written by the Turkish Nobel Laureate, I tried a relatively early novel The White Castle from about 1985, perhaps his third novel. Pamuk's novel shows many complications in the narrative, yet they never get tangled up, so the reader comprehends it. This one is particularly complicated in the use of a trope of double identity, or rather shared identity, by the two main characters. Yet it convincingly works out rather beautifully. This is postmodern historical fiction; even the seventeenth-century traveler Evliya Çelebi makes an appearance. But, Orhan Pamuk is not a character in this one.
The Haw Lantern, a small volume of poems by the late Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, draws upon personal experiences, makes allusions to the classics, and describes all of human activity and nature. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Ginkgo Light by Arthur Sze is poetry about all of life past and present. Underlying that theme is a hint at some disappearing cultures whose evidence survives (and Sze is the witness of them) and at some environmental changes. The very detailed poems depict the gamut of nature, culture, and individual people. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Kafka on the Shore is a well-loved classic by Haruki Murakami. Its surreal situations dwell side-by-side with earthy details; miraculous events happen yet you come away from this novel with a little more hope for fate's doing the right thing. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The anthology When the Tunnels Meet: Contemporary Romanian Poetry is a Romanian-Irish collaboration. Some poems in it reflect life lived in a former repressive political regime; others wax poetic about ordinary life or history/myth; still others are artful poetry. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Cutting for Stone, Ethiopian doctors' professional and personal lives.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... Just updated my review of Muse, a historical fiction of the fourteenth-century France.
Just read the children's book Dream of Rainbows by Goodreads author Srinidhi.R. In it, a schoolboy explains the workings of rainbows. Eventually, a real rainbow appears above in the sky. review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
After reading Mary Novik's recent novel Muse, I decided to read Petrarch's songs to Laura de Noves The Poetry of Petrarch, for the substance of the fiction is based upon the love triangle of Petrarch, Solange, and Laura. David Young's translation and introduction of the 366 canzonière bring out Petrarch's lyricism and Laura's muse-like guidance of the poet's eventually seeking salvation.review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
review of Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff by Rosemary Mahoney: Self-explanatory title. What stands out is Mahoney's tenacity to accomplish her desire. Neither custom nor constraints will change her mind.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Asma wrote: "review of Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff by Rosemary Mahoney: Great review, this sounds like a really interesting read.
Very kind of you, Kate, to tell me that you liked my review of Down the Nile :)
Mod
Self-explanatory title. What stands out is Mahoney's tenacity to accomplish her desire. Nei..."
Interesting book Asma. I'm not sure I'd be brave as Rosemary Mahoney but certainly sounds like she had an exciting adventure.
Lilisa, the final pages of Down the Nile bring in a rambunctious little boy at the railroad station, who frolics to-and-fro across the train tracks until his father's harshness turns his jollity into bawling. Similarly, though a skillful rower, Mahoney more fully realizes at the end of her journey the dangers of her enterprise. She quotes Flaubert, "Travel...washes one's eyes and clears away the dust."
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Thanks Asma - I sometimes wish there was a "like" option on Goodreads!
Asma wrote: "Very kind of you, Kate, to tell me that you liked my review of Down the Nile :)"I liked your review too, Asma. I added the book to my TBR list. Thanks!
Lilisa wrote: "Thanks Asma..."Cherie wrote: "...Thanks!"
You're welcome, Lilisa and Cherie. The author of Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff has courage, for sure.
The Waif Woman
by the Scotsman Robert Louis Stevenson. The story is adapted from an Icelandic saga. In it, the greed for lavish material possessions brings on ghostly hauntings.review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Dusk by F. Sionil José tells the story of an educated Filipino farmer caught in the tides of late-nineteenth-century history during the change of colonial governments and the ardor of revolution. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The White Castle is different, more experimental, I would say. Sort of the magic of a fairy tale or fantasy in which identities merge to keep the reader guessing.
Finished reading and reviewing H is for Hawk by historian Helen Macdonald. Reading about her and her goshawk Mabel was an uneven experience. The unusual topic bears witness to the declining diversity of wildlife and the organic movement for its restoration, to her accidental transgressions onto private game preserves, to her past and present life, and to the history of English falconry and the legend of King Arthur. Also worthy were insights into contemporary people's beliefs about Old England's land and heritage (actually, many of England's animals were introduced from somewhere else) and about the capturing of avian predators. Her incorporating the writer and falconer T.H. White throughout the story was illuminating. After reviewing this book, I came across an interview with Macdonald.my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Luminaries Glad to have read this Victorian novel of New Zealand, as I like mysteries and history. The author was good with setting, language, and plot. A combination of raw details and of mysticism.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I Do Not Come to You by Chance
Respectable, English-university educated, Nigerian parents lead their children in the same direction of formal education, but the unstable economic realities and the traditional responsibilities of "opara" (eldest son) make their son seek out his rich, uneducated uncle's help.
my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Lilisa wrote: "I loved The Luminaries - glad you enjoyed it too."Yes, I did very much. Fantastic writer about New Zealand. The detail of structure is incredible, going beyond historical fiction into a vision of the cosmos.
The Coroner's Lunch about Laos.The coroner's lunch ends with the dead coroner's lunch. Dr. Siri wishes he could retire instead of solving the murder mysteries. In doing so, he jeopardizes his own life (imagine how scary that can be). Laos is a landlocked country between Thailand and Vietnam, its left border the Mekong River. The story was a neat bit of history. Set after the government became Communist in 1975-6.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Silence and the Roar: country: SYRIAStory was written at least a decade prior to the current Syrian troubles. The Syrian, exiled author from Aleppo literarily responds to his personal experience in a tyrannical regime. Rather than morose or explicitly violent, the tone and narrative express confidence in the importance of "love" and "laughter".
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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You're welcome, Rusalka. The Silence and the Roar is one of the readings discussed at the new English Pen book club.
The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan is his latest and sixth novel to date. The next one, I understand, is on the way. The main character is an Australian POW who is captured to build the Siam-Burma railway for the Japanese captors. What happens in the camp and in the main character's personal and social life is the subject of the story. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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That's lectureS (plural!). I will be going along to listen, for sure.
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Andrea wrote: "...This is the first chair of its kind in Australia, which aims to support Australian writers and promote Australian literature..."I too noted that chair. He has it for five years so he can continue writing. He'd been a Rhodes scholar.
His lectures will likely be a wonderful experience. Glad that you are planning to attend them. Also glad that you pointed out the purpose of the chair. It is about time for the chair as Australian literature is plentiful. Patrick White won a Nobel Prize in 1973!
Lilisa wrote: "...I hope his lectures are videoed to share later."I was thinking about the possible video after Andrea mentioned the Melbourne lectures. Another thought (hoping he doesn't bring up Australian politics), what will be his literary themes.
Review of The Garden of Evening Mists an historical fiction by Tan Twan Eng: A deep book. One foot is in early twentieth-century southeast Asian history; another foot is in the multicultural arts (gardening, printmaking, music, poetry, archery, tattooing, crafts, etc) of multicultural Malaya. Its setting frames the British colonization, the Japanese occupation, and the Malayan Emergency. Though this story tells about some nonfictional events, the fictional plot and characters are equally memorable.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Around the World
Books mentioned in this topic
The Garden of Evening Mists (other topics)The Garden of Evening Mists (other topics)
The Narrow Road to the Deep North (other topics)
The Narrow Road to the Deep North (other topics)
The Narrow Road to the Deep North (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Patrick White (other topics)Richard Flanagan (other topics)
Richard Flanagan (other topics)
T.H. White (other topics)
Srinidhi.R (other topics)
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Asia's adventurous trip around the world Talk about the unplanned and hopefully serendipitous vacation, I present my literary adventure(s), one stage at a time.
AUSTRALIA
INDONESIA
ITALY
JAPAN
LAOS
MALAYSIA
NIGERIA
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
RUSSIA (CHECHNYA)
SYRIA
UNITED STATES