The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

While We Were Dreaming by Clemens Meyer, translated by Katy Derbyshire

I see this as a contender to win. Has anyone read it?

David wrote: "I see this as a contender to win. Has anyone read it?"

Read about 100 pages years ago in French. i shall get back to it soon.
I have the same feeling as you Dave. I feel this or Whale would be a winner.

This is my favorite thing about our group. The book isn't out yet in English but Mohamed already has it in French.

David wrote: "This is my favorite thing about our group. The book isn't out yet in English but Mohamed already has it in French."
Thanks Dave.

I suspect it was out in some translations many years ago - it’s a 2006 novel originally

I haven’t clicked with the two previous books I have read from the author but let’s see when this one arrives (my subscription copy should be due soon). Meike is a massive fan of the original (but she also loved the originals of the two books previously in translation).

I’m interested in this and planned on getting it even if it hadn’t been longlisted.

Interesting article by the translators on her history with the author and some translation choices (including the thorny topic of book titles):

https://www.toledo-programm.de/journa...

Just for fun, I ran the German titles through Google translate. Here's what came out.

German title: Als wir träumten.
Google translate: When we dreamed
English title: While We Were Dreaming

German title: Die Nacht, die Lichter
Google translate: The Night, the Lights
English title: All the Lights

German title: Im Stein
Google translate: In the Stone
English title: Bricks and Mortar

German title: Die stillen Trabanten
Google translate: The silent Satellites
English title: Dark Satellites

The Night, the Lights she rejected as it rhymes, original doesn't, of course, and The Silent Satellites sounds like an Alanis Morissette song, which is ironic (or perhaps it isn't https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfpB0...)

It’s interesting how even titles have to be carefully chosen. I just finished the excellent Forbidden Notebook, in the foreword Jhumpa Lahiri writes that the Italian Quaderno Proibito literally translates to prohibited notebook, which sounds too legalistic, not as romantic as forbidden. Incidentally the translator was Ann Goldstein.

This one kept my interest despite being more than 500 pages long which is a good sign.

Good. I’ve been waiting for a book to be better than Boulder.

It's not better than Boulder.

So I should get Boulder. I planned on getting While We Were Dreaming, but for some reason I thought it wasn’t out yet.

It is out in a week or so but subscriber copy arrived.

Depends really if you want a 80 page novella that skips years at a time, or a 500 page chunky novel that covers scenes in blow by blow (quite literally given the number of fights) detail.

Actually, I should get neither. I’m not reading for the prize because I realized the other day that about half of the books on my shelf are unread. When it was 1/4, I thought that was reasonable, now it’s getting silly. I’m sure I have a few very good coming of age books, probably even one set in Germany.

Good to know subscriber copies are on the way!

Paul wrote: "This one kept my interest despite being more than 500 pages long which is a good sign."

I'm surprised. This was dreadfully boring in places. I thought it ultimately worked in the end, but it takes patience to see the pieces fit together.

I hated it - never has a book managed to encapsulate so many things I dislike. It will explained In a review on Monday

David wrote: "Paul wrote: "This one kept my interest despite being more than 500 pages long which is a good sign."

I'm surprised. This was dreadfully boring in places. I thought it ultimately worked in the end,..."

Well compared to The Birthday Party say - it was far more interesting to me, as it didn't read like a badly written genre thriller

I didn’t like that one either

My video review: https://youtu.be/sL7yWXlIq6M

Lots of interesting background Robert but I did not really get a sense of whether you liked the book.

😂

You showed great restraint not throwing the book, Robert! I was on the fence about getting this, but 500 of pages of “dumb guy” talk is not for me either.

I haven’t gotten to this one yet. If it’s shortlisted I’ll read it, but if not, I may just skim through to see if it’s worth it.

Feels one where M&G and the shadow panel are diverging as a lot of love for this one there.

That make sense though as it isn’t “nice” from what I can tell (but full of violence, objectification etc) so I suspect partly a backlash to the perceived “biscuit” bias of this year’s panel

Yes. It is also very well written and propulsive and makes you believe in the characters. It kept my attention for 500 pages.

I ended up really enjoying this one. loved what he did with time and memory within some chapters (I don't know what to call it besides a 'time collapse') and how information was revealed to us later

Now I’m re-interested. (Paul and I have a 93% similar rating for books we’ve both read.)

GY, your comment about this being partly a backlash to the “biscuit” bias is interesting because I wonder how books not in competition for a prize would rate on their own. What do you mean by biscuit bias?

This stands out from the rest of the longlist as the most likely to win, but I also would have said half the books on the longlist have no chance being there, so who knows.

Once again I’m the outlier 😂. I admit I’ll be disappointed if this wins

Wendy you must remember the biscuits surely - Paul posted on them multiple times as the longlist being too full of nice books whereas literature like music is not meant to be nice (it’s based on an Alexie Sayle sketch).

this longlist was a struggle David

It’s the long lists where you don’t get the books chosen that it is particularly hard to predict a shortlist

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "It’s the long lists where you don’t get the books chosen that it is particularly hard to predict a shortlist"

Yes - Paul's rule number something or other of predicting shortlists.

NB if it were a different group of judges choosing the shortlist, it would make prediction easier (as some books would obviously miss out). But for some reason these judges thought all these books were longlist worthy.

Yahaira wrote: "I ended up really enjoying this one. loved what he did with time and memory within some chapters (I don't know what to call it besides a 'time collapse') and how information was revealed to us later"

Time collapse is a good description of it. It felt to me like Meyer was dramatizing what happens when a narrative arc is removed.

yes! I love that idea, it's another structure that was falling apart.

I honestly wasn't sure about this book before I started, but once I saw what was happening with the writing and how intricate some of the translation had to be I really enjoyed it.

Yahaira wrote: "yes! I love that idea, it's another structure that was falling apart."

Yes! - that's a great way to say it too.

Robert wrote: "Once again I’m the outlier 😂. I admit I’ll be disappointed if this wins"

Let's be outliers together, Robert! I havent read the English translation but anything by Clemens Meyer gives me toothache. It's the type of German literature that just never works for me. And this one is his debut from 2006, and I really wonder why they publish the translation 16 years after its publication.

With the rise of right-wing politics in various parts of Europe (and elsewhere), this almost seems more relevant now than it would have been in 2006.

But I'm obviously not a German reader so I'm looking at it from a different persepectrive.

David wrote: "With the rise of right-wing politics in various parts of Europe (and elsewhere), this almost seems more relevant now than it would have been in 2006.

But I'm obviously not a German reader so I'm l..."

Yes, that might very well be, maybe I would get along with this author's work better if I weren't German. German lit can be so bloody ser.i.ous, and especially taking itself so ser.i.ous.ly. In short: I take Bret Easton Ellis over Clemens Meyer any day.

Britta wrote: "In short: I take Bret Easton Ellis over Clemens Meyer any day."

I would make that trade if I could :)

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Wendy you must remember the biscuits surely - Paul posted on them multiple times as the longlist being too full of nice books whereas literature like music is not meant to be nice (it’s based on an..."

I don’t remember, but I’ve not been on here as much as I’d like lately and not reading for the IB this year so I must have missed a biscuit reference. I guessed from the context that biscuit bias meant the books were too nice, but from what I’ve read in the comments the books weren’t all that nice: a wife kills her husband, an estranged daughter stalks her mother, the caste system, misogyny, etc., and Paul is right, the best literature is sad and serious!

David wrote: "Britta wrote: "In short: I take Bret Easton Ellis over Clemens Meyer any day."

I would make that trade if I could :)"

LoL.

I just read my first and last BEE

I think I would trade both authors for pretty well anything.

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I just read my first and last BEE

I think I would trade both authors for pretty well anything."

The Shards?