>> This is how the book works.
>> Enter the pyramid of Cheops.
>> Meet some gods.
>> The real life of Ancient Egypt.
>> Listen to some Ancient Egyptian music.
>> This is how the book works.
>> Enter the pyramid of Cheops.
>> Meet some gods.
>> The real life of Ancient Egypt.
>> Listen to some Ancient Egyptian music.
 |
History of Wolves by Emily Fridlund {Reviewed by STELLA}
Emily Fridlund’s History of Wolves was the surprise listing on the Man Booker shortlist. A debut novel, it pushed out several contenders (Sebastian Barry’s Costa-winning Days Without End, the popular Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor, and the much-hyped second novel from Arundhati Roy,The Ministry of Utmost Happiness), and highlighted the surprising omission of Mike McCormack’s Solar Bones. This is the sixth and final of the Man Booker shortlist I’ve read and has the disadvantage of comparison with those that went before. Saying that, it is an assured debut with some fine writing and sharp observations about family, belonging and the ability to hold the truth at bay. Set in Minnesota, it’s a coming of age story with a hint of menace. We know from the beginning that things are not going to turn out well. Linda, a fourteen-year-old misfit (she’s an outsider at school referred to as ‘freak’ or ‘commie’), lives a semi-wild existence in a ramshackle cabin with her parents on the edge of a lake hemmed in by forest. The small family is all that remains of an idealistic commune long broken down. Linda is unashamedly robust, practical and unconventional, and you sense that little could phase her. Yet, under the surface, she is vulnerable, achingly sad and sometimes naive. Fridlund pushes our emotions around here - is Linda really as unaware as she makes out? She is observant, smart enough to recognise the predatory behaviour of a teacher. The change in Linda’s isolated lifestyle comes about with the arrival of a city family to their holiday home across the lake. Leo, Patra and their young child, Paul, arrive for time out from the city. Leo quickly leaves to get back to his work and Linda soon becomes the babysitter, taking Paul on walks into the forest and indulging his fantasy worlds. Patra, adoring and obviously fraught (you sense that not all is right in this little world) is fascinating to Linda. There’s a tense awareness and sexual tension between the two young women, one that mostly exists in Linda's head. She is obsessed by being wanted and noticed. A desire to belong to someone, to a family. Devoid of emotional care from her own parents and lacking close friendships, Linda’s ability to close her eyes to what is happening in front of her is stunningly brutal to herself and for those close by. This psychological emptiness continues to play out in Linda’s later life, accentuated by the incident that results in the death of a young boy. Fridlund allows us many glimpses into ‘what happens’, so there are no surprises, yet we are left with plenty to ponder on - religion, obsession and denial. |
 | Elmet by Fiona Mozley {Reviewed by THOMAS} Elmet was the name given to a separatist Brittonic kingdom that flourished in what is now Yorkshire from the 5th century CE until the early 7th, when it was destroyed by the neighbouring Anglian kingdom of Northumbria. As well as studying for her doctorate in early medieval history, Fiona Mozley grew up in Yorkshire and has written a remarkable (Man-Booker-shortlisted) first novel set on the outskirts of a small rural community there. 14-year-old Daniel (the narrator), his 15-year-old sister Cathy and their father squat in a copse on land that had belonged to the children’s mother, in a house built by Daddy, beyond the notice of the community (other than Vivien, a woman from whom Daniel learns a love of literature, and Mr Price, the landowner). Daddy’s immense physical strength and mental tension have earned him a legendary reputation as a winner of illegal prize fights, and as a heavy (an employment he has turned his back upon to protect his children in their woodland existence after growing tired of being treated as outsiders in town). Daddy and Cathy are brute phenomena, inexpressive, physically focussed to the point of fanaticism, amoral forces akin to earthquakes or lightning, survival engines, whereas Daniel is altogether softer, more evidently sensitive and impressionable. The past-tense portions (the majority) of the book are full of Daniel’s luminescent descriptions, with indelible details and observations that reveal information to the reader beyond the knowledge into which Daniel is emerging (knowledge of himself and of ‘what life has to offer’ (largely injustice, class prejudice and exploitation at the hands of the landowners, resulting in a form of modern feudalism unmitigated by reciprocal obligation)). Beneath the immediacy of the narrative, the reader can sense deep threat like a bowstring being drawn, the tension increasing as the narrative develops, fed by the sadistic Mr Price, towards the terrible moment at which, when the tension can no longer be borne by the reader or by the narrative or by the characters, all that tension is discharged in an episode of near-mythic violence for which Mozley can be justly compared with Cormac McCarthy. This moment explains the present-tense frame narrative, dispersed throughout the novel, in which Daniel is travelling and searching for his sister. Elmet is at once both delicately beautiful and compellingly brutal, and is entirely memorable because of this. |
 | Ginesthoi by Evangeline Riddiford Graham {Reviewed by THOMAS} The only words generally accepted to be actually written by Cleopatra VII of Egypt herself are “ginesthoi” or “make it so”, signing off a series of tax exemptions for Publius Canidius, one of Mark Antony’s generals. Although the exemptions and privileges are unromantic, and ordinary enough for a Ptolmaic court, the legendary and literary loading of the relationship between Cleopatra and Antony freight these words with subtexts and implications that exceed their denotation. The correlation or disjunction of inclination and obligation, of power and desire, of declaration and implication are themes that run also through Ginesthoi, a collection of poems by Evangeline Riddiford Graham published by the tiny and interesting Hard Press in Auckland. Presented as a series of fragments, much in the manner of the scraps of text discovered by archeologists, these poems are partial unearthings of an emotional life as intent upon concealing itself as it is upon revealing. What are we make of these twists of words, half earnest, half mocking, leaping back and forth across millennia, overlapping past and present while simultaneously reinforcing and dissolving the distinction between the two? There are two moments of awareness, one sealed in the past, encased in a museum cabinet or a memory, isolated from its context but preserved beyond a healthy span, resonating compulsively in its isolation until it has become little more than this resonation, and the other pausing in the present, gazing at the artefact in its current out-of-context context, attempting to make contact with the past moment, the past awareness or experience, to catch its eye, to pretend that the past reciprocates the gaze, or glimpse, or at least entertains the possibility of such a gaze or glimpse, to make believe, even to believe, if one can make oneself believe, that one can be not only aware of oneself in the past but that that past self can be somehow aware of the present self being aware of it, a game of memory working in both directions. In fact this is what we always do with memory: we are caught in a trap of tense, completed actions in the past are restrained there, playing in our memories or in our imaginations, if memories and imaginations can be distinguished from one another, but sealed in the perfect tense, whereas, though our present awareness may enter this case, cast itself backwards, project itself into the past, it can do so only at the expense of losing the capacity to act, to make things different to any effective degree. Expression is always ambivalent: to share a thought is to isolate oneself, to shut oneself within that thought; or, rather, perhaps, expression is quadrivalent: to share a thought is to shut oneself within that thought but, as the sharing of a thought is dependent upon a medium which necessarily replaces whatever is it applied to, both for the one to whose thought the medium is applied and the one, either specified or more generally implicated, to whom the sharing is directed, the act of sharing creates always a counterfeit artefact, at best a gloss, or label, upon the authenticity it causes to be lost. If poetry is the archeology of subjective experience, the poems of Ginesthoi are artefacts with all the clarity, obscurity and productive ambiguity of the papyrus fragment of Cleopatra VII to which they so playfully refer. >> Click through for some photographs of Evangeline Riddiford Graham's reading at VOLUME last week. |
NEW RELEASES
This silly, inventive picture book by the outstanding graphic designer of the protopsychedelic era will make your brain turn somersaults. Facsimile of the original 1960 edition.
An excellent and enticing survey of a period of great fertility and change in dustwrapper design, which started off as a way to protect bindings but soon became the arena in which the book's design first and most effectively attracts the eye of readers and buyers.
Urban teenager Cameron arrives in an uninhabited Arctic island. He's prepared for ice and storms and, stripped of his smart technology, possibly boredom. But he's not prepared for 24-hour daylight and erupting graves. At first Cameron believes the explanations of his scientist mother. But, as the island reveals itself to him, he begins to see, and hear, things that push him right to the edge of the possible. One of them is an Inuit girl. The other is a large white bear.
"Writing is how I attempt to repair myself, stitching back former selves, sentences. When I am brave enough - I am never brave enough - I unravel the tapestry of my life, my childhood."
Death, loss, memory, grief. Writing into and against silence, Zambreno's great project is to excoriate her own life and correlate its residue with works of art and literature that manifest similar equations of value and loss.
A collection of devastating short prose pieces from on of America's sharpest poets.
"The property that Ruefle deems private is the impalpable nature of the inner life we all share; it is at once ours and everyone's. Ruefle has shown a talent for elevating her acute observations and narrative inclination well above mere anecdote to create quietly disquieting moments. A literature of barbed ambiguity and unresolved disruption." - Bookforum
"Ruefle can seem like a supernally well-read person who has grown bored with what smartness looks like, and has grown attracted to the other side." - New York Times
The much anticipated first novel of a wonderful new series from the world of 'His Dark Materials', set ten years before Northern Lights and telling of the strange events surrounding Lyra Belacqua.
A gripping, eerie, and hilarious novel-in-verse from poet Matthew Rohrer. In a Russian-doll of fictional episodes, we follow a midlevel publishing assistant over the course of a day as he encounters ghost stories, science fiction adventures, Victorian hashish eating, and robot bigfoots. Rohrer mesmerizes with wildly imaginative tales and resonant verse in this compelling love letter to storytelling.
Can you be lost and not know it? Can other people stop you from being lost? 17-year-old Caleb’s world is disintegrating, his walls are closing in, his sky is threatening to fall. He’s barely holding on.
"A tremendous debut novel, both delicate and muscular, artful and honest. It’s changed the way I attend to those I teach. I cannot give it higher praise than that." – Bernard Beckett
"This novel is a striking chronicle of a young person watching the wall between himself and the world grow ever taller, and the small moments of brightness that reach him through the gaps." – Ashleigh Young
Cezanne wanted to emphasise the flatness of the picture plane and free our visual practices from the Renaissance conventions of perspective. Meyerowitz has photographed a series of Cezanne's still extant objects against the 'Cezanne grey' walls of his studio, undermining the traditional relationship between the subject of a painting and its background. One of the most quiet and beautiful books of the year.
A photographer and independent woman in the London bohemian circles in the 1930s, Joan Eyres Monsell met Patrick Leigh Fermor when she was on assignment in Egypt during the Second World War. At last we have a biography of this interesting free-thinking woman, whose photographic work supported Patrick in his writing.
"Engrossing." - Guardian
A very clear guide to the production of perfect patisserie, up to Michelin level (absolutely breathtaking).
"Bored of her life working in a Tucson, Arizona, mall, 23-year-old Colleen takes the life-changing plunge that so many millennials often consider - becoming an internet celebrity. Colleen posts updates about her life online, gaining followers and forming a double life teetering between young adult normalcy and the uncanny phenomenon of being sort of, kind of famous on the internet. The coming-of-age story offers a psychological dissection of the logic behind sharing your every thought with a mass of anonymous strangers, exploring the strange terrain where the personal and performative overlap and bleed into one another. Without altogether celebrating or condemning the contemporary obsession with online sharing, Stagg explores the roles we play and the selves we inhabit, online and IRL." - Huffington Post
This book is one long list of works of literature and art that do not exist, either because they have been lost or destroyed (either by the writer or artist or by external intention or by misadventure or natural disaster) or because they were never completed, or, in some cases, never started.
When Maori were defeated at Orakau in 1864 and the Waikato War ended, Tawhiao, the second Maori King, and his supporters were forced into an armed exile in the Rohe Potae, the King Country. For the next twenty years, the King Country operated as an independent state - a land governed by the Maori King where settlers and the Crown entered at risk of their lives. For twenty years, representatives of the King and of the British Queen engaged in a dance of diplomacy involving gamesmanship, conspiracy, pageantry and hard headed politics, with the occasional act of violence or threat of it.
Sally Jones is not only a loyal friend, she's an extraordinary individual. In overalls or in a maharaja's turban, this unique gorilla moves among humans without speaking but understanding everything. She and the Chief are devoted comrades who operate a cargo boat. A job they are offered pays big bucks, but the deal ends badly, and the Chief is falsely convicted of murder. For Sally Jones this is the start of a harrowing quest for survival and to clear the Chief's name.
"I don't know when I last read a book with such pure and unalloyed pleasure. It's ingenious, it's moving, it's charming, it's beautiful, it's exciting, and most importantly the characters are people I feel I know like old friends." - Philip Pullman
Aza Holmes is caught in the ever-tightening spirals of her own thoughts. The book also features lifelong friendship, an unexpected reunion, Star Wars fan fiction, and a tuatara. The long-awaited new novel from the author of The Fault in Our Stars (&c).
Following a Third World War triggered by the urgencies of climate change, nation states are a thing of the past and the world's population has been reduced by a third. When Mercy, a former soldier, and his brother travel into the wilderness to look for Ruby's children, he encounters situations in which his ethical compass is shaken and the traumas of the past threaten to destabilise his judgement.
Gessen follows the lives of four Russians born in the last days of the Soviet Union and considers how their prospects have dwindled as the country has descended into what is effectively a Mafia state.
The recent assumption by megacorporations of control of the interchange of information has reformed (or deformed) the way humans think and interact. With the intoxicating level of daily convenience and instant gratification offered us through the internet, can we any longer think, let alone act, in ways that do not merely further the interests of our digital Big Brothers?
A Haitian family is burdened by a curse lasting generations. This novel gives insight into the lives of disenfranchised women in the Caribbean.
"Lahens describes her country with a forceful beauty - the destruction that befell it, political opportunism, families torn apart, and the spellbinding words of Haitian farmers who solely rely on subterranean powers." - Donyapress
Winner (in French) of the Prix Femina, 2014.
A graphic novel about a refugee boy's journey of hope and desperation.
On Thursday 17 August, 1860, wealthy widow Mary Emsley was found dead in her own home, killed by a blow to the back of her head. What followed was a murder case that gripped the nation. A veritable locked room mystery, there were an abundance of suspects, from disgruntled step children concerned about their inheritance and a spurned admirer repeatedly rejected by the widow, to a trusted employee, former police officer and spy, until he was sent to prison for robbery. During the police investigation there were several twists and dramatic discoveries, as suspects sought to incriminate each other and fresh evidence was discovered at the last minute. Eventually, it led to a public trial dominated by surprise revelations and shock witnesses, before culminating with one of the final public executions at Newgate. Years later the case caught the attention of Arthur Conan Doyle, who was convinced that an innocent man had been convicted and executed for the crime. But Conan Doyle was never able to find the real murder. Now the case has been solved.
The Ghost: A cultural history by Susan Owens $45
"Five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has even been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it." - Samuel Johnson
A fascinating look at the literature and art that have been engendered or shaped by the belief or otherwise in the phenomenon, or should that be pseudophenomenon, of ghosts.
"A work of profound scholarship and imaginative engagement, beautifully written and elegantly constructed. It's the finest study of its kind I've read." - The Literary Review
"Angela Saini has written a powerful, compelling and much needed account that challenges deeply rooted preconceptions about sex differences - some blatant misogyny, others buried in thousands of years patriarchy. Inferior shows that both are fundamentally flawed, and beautifully illustrates how science is just beginning to tackle this staggering imbalance." Adam Rutherford
How have artists envisaged human and prehuman life in prehistoric times? Perhaps you have been moved or amused by the often poignant depictions of dinosaurs, mastodons or hominids in the books of your childhood. This vast volume collects the best of such art, in all its poignancy and ludicrosity, from 1830 to 1990. Beneath the dustwrapper, the book is bound in real dinosaur skin (or something very like it).
>> A tour through the book (then resist it if you can).
Pierre Niox is rushing through life, but life seems to be passing him by. Can he slow down enough to win the heart of languid Hedwige?
"Without doubt the best French writer of the twentieth century." - Philippe Sollers
"Admired both by Ezra Pound and by Marcel Proust as a pioneer craftsman of Modernist French prose. The sheer shapeliness of his prose recalls Hemingway; the urbanity of his self-destructiveness compares with Fitzgerald's; and his camera eye is as lucidly stroboscopic as that of Dos Passos." - The New York Times
First published in Spanish in 1975 and previously untranslated, Fantomas versus the Multinational Vampires is Julio Cortazar's genre-jumping mash-up of his participation in the Second Russell Tribunal on human rights abuses in Latin America and his cameo appearance in issue number 201 of the Mexican comic book series 'Fantomas: The Elegant Menace'. With his characteristic narrative inventiveness, Cortazar offers a quixotic meta-comic novella that challenges not only the form of the novel but its political weight in contemporary cultural life.
Death is common to all people but there is huge cultural variation in our relationship to the inevitable. This splendidly illustrated volume surveys the attitudes and practices and art relating to dying and the dead, both in memory and concerning the remains, through the world and throughout history. Compelling. Forward by Will Self.
A charming picture book from the author of The Lion and the Bird and the 'Mr Postmouse' books.
For Londoners of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, whatever their walk of life, the Marchelsea Debtors' Prison was only one step of misfortune away. White introduces us to the actual inmates and tells stories that give insight into a sphere of social history that is too-often suppressed by the families to which they pertain.
What if the universe was just a little bit different (or quite a lot different)? How would this affect the rest of the universe? New Scientist introduce us to alternative universes that are just as scientifically plausible as our own.
What can people's attitudes to food tell us about them and about the times in which they lived? Six women famous in their time (Dorothy Wordsworth, Rosa Lewis, Eleanor Roosevelt, Eva Braun, Barbara Pym and Helen Gurley Brown) show a surprising correlation between eating habits and social change.
A chorus of voices, from mudlarkers and fishermen to radio pirates and champion racers, capturing the diverse community of people who live and work in this ancient, wild and mesmerising place.
A wonderfully contrarian and satirical ABC. It is hard to share the planet with fools, pedants and nincompoops. Facsimile of the 1953 edition.
>> Visit the Themerson archive.
>> A microdocumentary about Franciszka and Stefan Themerson.
BOOKS@VOLUME #45
Our weekly NEWSLETTER of our reviews and recommendations, events, competitions and new releases.
14.10.17.
We are very pleased to be hosting a four-week hand lettering course taught by designer Holly Dunn, who has recently returned to Nelson from the UK. Holly specialises in book cover design and hand lettering. The course will be held on Friday afternoons, beginning on 27 October. Numbers are limited. >> Click here to find out more. 
N.Z. Bookshop Day will be celebrated throughout the country on Saturday 28 October. Activities at VOLUME will include a discussion of the Booker short list, and an open game of Bookshop Bingo. Click through to find out more, and to start filling in your Bookshop Bingo card (you could win a 6-month VOLUME Reading Subscription).
What could be better than a new cookbook entirely devoted to baking and desserts from the author of several of the best cookbooks on your shelves? Ottolenghi and his long-time collaborator Goh present recipes that combine flavours and ingredients in interesting ways and yet are achievable, either easily or with a small amount of pleasurable effort. Delicious, beautifully presented and absolutely recommended for everyone from children to accomplished bakers.
>> Would you eat this?
>> Ottolenghi introduces the book.
>> Don't burn your fingers.
>> What motivates Yotam and his team to push the frontiers of flavour?
>> All Ottolenghi's cookbooks are superb.
>> Some free recipes!
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Exit West by Mohsin Hamid {Reviewed by STELLA}
I have been a fan of Moshin Hamid’s writing since I read The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a clever look at a hostage situation through the conversation between the captive and the captor. His latest book, Exit West, has also made the Man Booker shortlist and I’m not surprised to see his work there. An observant writer of human nature, especially in situations of chaos or crisis, he cleverly weaves in ambiguities and humour, drawing you into the world of his characters without fuss. This was tellingly so in How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia - set in India it’s a remarkable cradle-to-grave story, rags-to-riches tale that wraps an impossible love obsession into the mix with candour and black humour. Hamid has the knack of taking you into the hearts and minds of his characters in a candid manner and lightly, yet precisely, making you aware of politics and contemporary societal issues. So I was anticipating more of this social realism. And Exit West is this, but also more. Set somewhere in the middle east, possibly Syria, we meet the young lovers Saeed and Nadia. Saeed works for an advertising firm, is moderately religious and lives with his parents. Nadia works at a bank, unusually lives alone in a small rooftop apartment, is not in the least religious but wears a full black robe (mostly so she is left alone and doesn’t draw attention to herself) and rides a motorcycle. As their relationship flourishes so too do the militants, gaining more control in the neighbourhoods where they live. People leave, others don’t return from holidays or work trips. After a short time, Saeed and Nadia find themselves out of work, watching their backs and keeping their heads down, obeying the new rules. After Saeed’s mother is killed by a stray bomb, they decide to leave their home country. So this a refugee story, yet it is not a story of the journey, but much more a story about being elsewhere. Curiously, Hamid uses an interesting magical realism element - the idea of doors: doors that start appearing and are portals to other places. They are black, very black doors, that one pays a ‘door agent’ a fee to be taken to and then walks through. During this transfer to the other side there is an element of being stunned, struggling through, but this is instantaneous. I found this aspect unusual, but intriguing, and I would be curious to know why Hamid chose this metaphor for the struggle of the journey, which we see and hear so much about in our media - but maybe this is precisely the reason. Nadia and Saeed find themselves in Mykonos and while the island is beautiful it is crowded and dangerous and they feel a need for something more. Next is London, squatting in an empty and grand house in a wealthy suburb along with other refugees from far and wide. Saeed feel himself more and more disconnected from his home country, and becomes more devout in his grief of leaving his father, family and friends. He finds it increasingly difficult to relate the other cultures, whereas Nadia is more open and curious and is accepted by the elders of the house as they try to organise themselves within the chaos, find enough food and keep the authorities and ‘native’ Britons at bay. The political relevance of Exit West is obvious, and Hamid is writing in the midst of growing intolerance, increasing numbers of refugees and the social fallout and uncertainty of Brexit. As Saeed is drawn increasingly to his own people and in particular a house where they are devoutly Muslim, it feels like this may be the end of the relationship under increasing strain in the struggle to survive and the couple’s different ways of coping with change. Yet Hamid doesn’t take the option of making Saeed an extremist or Nadia throwing off her own culture, which could have been a predictable conclusion. He takes them again through another black door, this time to America. The novel is primarily a story about the breakdown of borders, about the disintegration of nation-states as we know them. It’s also about the struggle to belong, to survive in chaos, and it is surprisingly hopeful. |
 | The Empty Grave ('Lockwood & Co' #5) by Jonathan Stroud {Reviewed by STELLA} If you are a reader of the 'Lockwood' series, you will understand the excitement and also the apprehension of reading The Empty Grave. Excitement because it is the fifth in the series and there is so much to find out. What were they up to on the Other Side? Why is ‘the problem’ getting worse? Will Lockwood, Lucy and George survive finding out? And who is Penelope Fittes, and what is she up to? And apprehension, because it’s the final 'Lockwood' book! And it's so good! If you haven’t read any of this series, it’s time to start with the Screaming Staircase immediately. The Empty Grave opens with our intrepid heroes in the final resting place of Marissa Fittes, the famous and supposedly dead ghost hunter. Unsurprisingly, a jaunt into the crypt doesn’t go exactly to plan, and things just get more dangerous from there on in. As the forces that police the ghost-hunting agents become more draconian in an attempt to stifle the truth, Lockwood & Co. become increasingly curious and determined to find out what is going on. The Fittes agency is on the offensive, the Orpheus Society more secretive, and someone wants Lockwood, Lucy and George eradicated. Whose empty grave awaits, and will this be the end of the road for our young agents? There are plenty of twists and turns in this last action-packed book, and also answers, some that may surprise you! Always a tricky thing, a final book to a wonderful series, but Jonathan Stroud expertly pulls it off. It has the classic intrigue, deceptions and scariness of the first four, as well as all the failings of our human team, their commitment to truth, and their determination to overcome the evil misdoings of others who are obsessed with the ghosts, the dangerous pull of the Other Side and the desire to manipulate life and death. Thrilling, frightening and altogether brilliant. |
 | This Little Art by Kate Briggs {Reviewed by THOMAS} A translator interposes themselves invisibly (or quasi-invisibly (invisible by convention)) between the author of a text, for whom the translator stands in the position of a reader, and the reader of that text, for whom the translator stands in the position of the author. The translator negotiates the text on behalf of a reader whose language is not that of the author, and adds, for the eventual reader, another layer in the suspension of disbelief in their willingness to accept that the words of the translator *are* the words of the author while at the same time acknowledging that they are entirely different words in a different language. To translate, in the words of Kate Briggs in her fine, thoughtful work on translation, “complicates the authorial position, sharing it, usurping it, sort of dislocating it.” Although the translator aspires to invisibility as a remaker of text, translators are not, and should not be considered as, by themselves or by others, “neutral, impersonal transferring devices.” The remaking of text in the person of the translator refracts both in their capacities as a reader and as a writer. “I read with my body,” says Briggs. “I read and move to translate with my body, and my body is not the same as yours. Translation is a responsive and appropriative practising of an extant work at the level of the sentence, working it out, a work-out on the basis of the desired work whose energy source is the inclusion of the new and different vitality that comes with and from me.” Translation is the most intimate possible relationship between two persons, though one of those persons may well be unaware of this intimacy. The translator assumes responsibility not only for the words and intentions of the author, but also for their identity as an author, at least in so far as the readers in the host language are concerned. The translator *becomes* the author for those readers. Or, rather, translation is the most intimate possible relationship between three people, for the willingness of a reader to allow the subsuming of their awareness by the author is replicated in the translator-as-reader who must concurrently become the translator-as-author for the host language reader. Briggs describes the relationship she has with Roland Barthes, whose ‘Le Préparation du Roman’ she is translating as ‘The Preparation of the Novel’, and, indeed there are passages in her account in which the identities of the two elide and it is uncertain whose words, and whose ideas, are on the page. Briggs sees the role of the translator as to *identify* with the author, rather than to supplant, or to be compared with, the author. The translator “undertakes to write translations not as a means to demonstrate their expertise but precisely because they know, without knowing exactly how or in what particular ways, doing so will be productive of *new* knowledge.” The constraint of the extant text liberates the translator-as-writer from the perils of self-expression and the impediments to discovery imposed by one’s identity. To express oneself lies within one’s capabilities and is a fundamentally reductive procedure. Only constraints will lead a writer beyond safe territory, and the constraints of an extant text can lead a translator-as-writer to new discoveries about language and about the limits and potentials of praxis of both writing and reading. “Don’t all writing projects,” Briggs asks, “involve working within existing rules and parameters that guide and to some degree direct what is possible to write? All writing is to some greater or lesser extent determined by constraints. The constraints on how far I can go, the limits on my making-up, the limits on doing what I want, are what interest me. They interest me because they instruct me, leading me (forcing me?) outside of what I might already be capable of writing, knowing and imagining. I don’t want to just make something up.” An effective way to make without making up is to remake. Praxis without ego reveals much about the mechanisms of personhood, so to call it, readership, authorship, and about the mechanisms of language that give rise to these roles of praxis. A translation is a product of its time can be replaced by new translations, more in keeping with the times of new readers, perhaps, in the way that the original cannot be so renewed or updated. An original text goes on being the original text. For someone to write it again in the original language is generally considered a crime against the text (except perhaps when the rewriting is so different from the original as to constitute a commentary or a riff upon it). A translation can be remade without affecting the authenticity of the work. Does this suggest that translation is more akin to reading than to writing (as in the generation of texts), in that the text is fulfilled in an interchangeable other? Is all reading in effect, in any case, a translation from the language of the text’s composition to the language of the reader’s comprehension, even though those languages are ostensibly the *same* language? Is an interlingual translator nothing more (and nothing less) than a textual vector, broadening the scope of the writing/reading project performed by persons whose intimacy is entirely inherent in this vector? In this respect, translation should be considered to take its risks on criteria of soundness and comeliness, rather than on criteria of exactitude or goodness. “My work is fascinating and derivative and determining and necessary and suspect,” says Briggs. “It is everywhere taken for granted and then every so often [inappropriately] singled out to be piously congratulated or taken apart.” |
 | The Absent Therapist by Will Eaves {Reviewed by THOMAS} To read this book is to be drawn into a kaleidophone of voices, first-person narrative fragments, tiny stories bearing the impress of larger, untold stories; wry observations unknowingly made by unobservant people, anecdotes with perfectly deflating punch-lines, almost-jokes that meticulously leave off at being almost-jokes without aspiring to be jokes; gauche quips, mundane miseries treated with both sympathy and humour; small lives writ small and at once satirised and celebrated for their smallness; an encyclopedic accumulation of human experiences of the kind that usually evanesce without being recorded even in the experiencers’ memories let alone on paper. All these thousands of voices are captured pitch-perfectly by Eaves, who, with a cold eye and a warm heart, and with an unbelievably sensitive ear for what all sorts of people say and how they say it (or, what they think and how they think it), has written a very enjoyable book that manages to be both sharp and blunt at the same time to the extent that the distinction between sharp and blunt has been removed. |
THE BOOKER 6
Which of the short list for the 2017 Man Booker Prize have you read so far? Which will be next?
Come along on NZ Bookshop Day (28 October @ 2 PM) to discuss (or to listen to others discuss) the relative virtues of the finalists.
The winner will be announced on 17 October.
Paul Auster’s first book in seven years, 4 3 2 1, follows the life of Archibald Isaac Ferguson born March 3, 1947. It’s not one life though: this Jewish boy born in Newark has 4 lives. Auster tells the story in four strands - in sliding door style. In each part a fateful event at Archibald's father’s business (a burglary, a fire, a tragic accident and a buyout) leads to a change in circumstances for the family, and Archie’s life is determined by how his immediate family respond. Fate plays her part and Archie’s life is altered. The minutiae of Ferguson’s life are delightfully told and, despite the variations in his circumstances, his characteristics along with those of his immediate family keeps the four strands linked together. Auster keeps many things the same, the characteristics, likes and dislikes, interests and talents of the main characters are constant. Circumstance dictates the roles they take and the choices they make. This is excellent writing, taking you into the mind of one life in all its fragmented realities, and capturing a time and place - the American mid-twentieth-century - in all its tumultuous glory. {S}
Linda, 14, and her parents are the last remaining members of a dying commune in the American mid-west. When she becomes attached to the family who move into the cottage across the lake, she begins to sense what has been missing from her life, but when the father of that family arrives, the relationships she had built there are quickly destroyed.
Can love stand against the threat of war? When lovers must flee as refugees, where can they find a safe have for their relationship? Is it ever possible to outrun a feeling of displacement? What hope is there for those who have nowhere that they can belong? Can decency prevail against prejudice and xenophobia? Are we all "migrants through time"?
Fiona Mozley’s Elmet is an unsettling portrayal of family and loss, of violence and deep love. Daniel is looking for someone following the path north - following the railway tracks across the moor and through the townships of Yorkshire, taking in the layers of time, of history, in a subtle, almost unconscious manner. It’s as though Daniel carries with him not only his own past, but the stories of all those wandering and searching. Mozley’s narrator is a gentle loving boy, a young man who lives for his sister, Cathy and to please his Daddy. The family have returned to the land eking out a life, their home built by Daddy’s hands from the woods that surround them, with odd jobs, trades of goods and services and hunting for food. Cathy and Daniel live a solitary life, no longer attend school, yet have an understanding of their environment and a care for the wilderness that surrounds them. Yet all is far from serene. Daddy is known for his fighting prowess and a violence that brews within him. Simmering under the surface are hurts and unsettled scores, pride and suffering. The setting is beautifully described, almost dreamlike at times, yet the prose always fizzes with an underlying tension, a sense of something dreadful to come, and of secrets, of things unsaid. The violence is raw and brutal, it has a gothic element reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, and the work is seething with history alongside its clearly contemporary setting. {S}
George Saunders is an astounding writer whose gift for story-telling makes Lincoln in the Bardo a pleasure to read and thoroughly absorbing. Using first-hand accounts and a cacophony of voices (from the spirit world) this is predominately a dialogue-driven novel. The year is 1862, the Civil War rages in America and Abraham Lincoln's son Willie dies of a fever. Lincoln is inconsolable and this is the story of his grief and his visits to the young boy's grave. Willie is in the Bardo and it is here that his father comes, stricken with grief. In this place, the cacophony of voices telling this story and their fascination with the living one who enters their world, are intriguing. Not only do these voices give an insight into the times, but their stories of woe are both tragic and entertaining. Saunders gets the pitch just right. A story of grief and familial love against a backdrop of tragedy and crisis, Lincoln in the Bardo is a gem for its stylistic endeavours and the interplay between lightness and dark. {S}
The first of Smith's projected seasonal quartet, set in post-Brexit Britain, addresses the subjective experience of time and the consequences this may have on personal and political relationships. Smith deftly weaves past and present, age and youth, desire and loss, hop and regret into something like the verbal equivalent of the torrent of modern life in all its contradictions, possibilities and limitations. Smith's use of language, both playful and precise, is hugely energetic and always a pleasure to read.
NEW RELEASES
(@ VOLUME now)
When Diana Wichtel moved to New Zealand as a child with her mother and siblings, her father, a Polish Jew who had jumped off the train to the Treblinka extermination camp in World War II and who had hidden from the Nazis for the rest of the war, failed to follow them as planned. In adulthood, Wichtel began to wonder what had become of him, both before and after his brief presence in her life. Her search for answers led towards the Warsaw ghetto and to consider the ongoing consequences of trauma. Very well written.
>> Wichtel talks to Kim Hill.
It's 1956 and Iola arrives on the island of Ibiza, on the fringes of Franco's Spain, with little more than a Spanish phrasebook and an imagination shaped by literature and movies. Soon she meets a fascinating American photographer who falls in and out of focus: is he really a photographer, and who exactly is the German doctor he keeps asking her about? Nothing is stable or quite as it seems, and the mysterious doctor, when he appears, takes Iola for a picnic on a salt island, where she is brought close to a brighter, harsher reality.
From the author of Gifted.
Learn to cook instinctively by increasing your awareness of four variables and learning how their interaction can achieve delicious results whatever the ingredients.
"Samin Nosrat has managed to summarize the huge and complex subject of how we should be cooking in just four words. Everyone will be hugely impressed." - Yotam Ottolenghi
>> In her own words.
A contemporary rewriting of King Lear, as part of the 'Hogarth Shakespeare' series, from the acid-tipped pen of one of the sharpest (and blackly funniest) satirists of contemporary mores. Henry Dunbar has handed over control of his global media corporation to his two eldest daughters and is stuck in his dotage in a care home in the Lake District. When he escapes into the hills, who will find him first, the two daughters keen to strip him of his estate or his youngest daughter, Florence?
"Of all the novelist and play matches in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, that of Edward St Aubyn with King Lear seems the finest. Shakespeare’s blackest, most surreal and hectic tragedy sharpened by one of our blackest, most surreal and hectic wits. Our ur-text about the decay of patriarchal aristocratic power reimagined by a writer whose central subject is the decay of male aristocratic power." - Guardian
Egan follows the Pulitzer-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad with this historical novel set in Depression era and post-Depression era New York, a period in which modern American history was put on a new track.
"This is a novel that will pull you in and under and carry you away on its rip tides. Its resonances continue to wash over the reader long after the novel ends." - Guardian
A completely absorbing consideration of the processes, impetus, experience and results of translating.
>> Translation in the first person.
In this sequel to Henry James's A Portrait of a Lady, Banville assumes not only James's mantle but his eye and pen.
“When I speak of style, I mean the style Henry James spoke of when he wrote that, in literature, we move through a blessed world, in which we know nothing except through style.” - John Banville
" Banville makes James something all his own." - Guardian
"Banville is one of the writers I admire the most - few people can create an image as beautifully or precisely." - Hanya Yanagihara (author of A Little Life)
Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. A wife refuses her husband's entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A sales assistant makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the dresses she sells. A woman's surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest.
"Carmen Maria Machado is the best writer of cognitive dysphoria I’ve read in years. " - Tor
"Life is too short to be afraid of nothing." - Machado
Everyone wants something different for breakfast, but what will Malcolm give them? A lovely story.
Images, moments, feelings, persons. Hoard acts as a great poetic sieve, scooped through Adcock's life in New Zealand and the UK, through her reading, dreams and relationships.
Appealingly presented, fun to use, full of authentically easy and manifestly delicious dishes, each with an easiness rating (ranging from "not so difficult" to "so not difficult").
>> You can make this.
Fox and Rabbit live quite far away, in a bright little house beyond the molehills. In each of these 11-and-a-half stories they try new ways to go to sleep and say good night. Sometimes they swing from the ceiling.
It was a family that fate drove into the siege of Stalingrad, the Vilna ghetto, occupied Paris, and even into the ranks of the Wehrmacht. Mazower's British father was the lucky one, the son of Russian Jewish emigrants who settled in London after escaping the civil war and revolution. Max, the grandfather, had started out as a socialist and manned the barricades against tsarist troops, but never spoke of it. His wife, Frouma, came from a family ravaged by the Great Terror yet somehow making their way in Soviet society. How did the confluence of these histories form the person Mark Mazower is?
Centuries of people moving about have left tracks on the landscape, many of them almost erased by other land use and movement patterns. Moffat follows some Roman roads, pilgrims' ways, drove roads, turnpikes, ghost railroads and sea roads to evoke for us a different and often surprising view of landscape and history.
A wolf who has never seen a rabbit and a rabbit who has never seen a wolf become the best of friends. What happens when they play at scaring each other?
>> And here they are!
Nixey shows that, far from being meek, the early Christians set about destroying as much of Classical culture as possible, and repressing, persecuting and murdering those who disagreed with their new religion.
"Simon Schama takes the reader through a grand sweep of Jewish history, but he makes it so personal you begin to feel you know the men and women whose lives shine out from the pages, and their foibles, and you get a sense of the fragility of their lives and their determination to survive. It's a brilliant piece of work" - Rabbi Julia Neuberger
"Profoundly illuminating." - Guardian
Short-listed for the 2017 Baillie-Gifford Prize.
>> An interview with Schama.
The aspects of ourselves that we hold as being the most human are in fact the ones that we share most widely with other animals.
From the author of The Hidden Life of Trees.
Pissing Figures, 1280-2014 by Jean-Claude Lebensztejn $20
An incisive illustrated essay on urinating figures in figurative and sculptural art.
>> No urinating in the streets of Belgium.
What is the relationship between Modernism and the development of literary nationalism in New Zealand? As colonial mores receded and gender and sexuality identities became more diverse, what did this mean for the production and reception of literature? Our literary history is not just about texts, but is a forgotten history of feelings and changing modes of experience.
The appearance in the political arena of white supremacists, xenophobes, militia leaders, and mysterious 'Alt-Right' leaders was not as sudden as it might have seemed.
A beautifully executed graphic novel telling of a sensitive boy's coming-to-terms with the complexities of the relationships within a family riven by unhappiness.
Sefia knows what it means to survive. After her father is murdered, she flees into the wilderness with her aunt Nin, who teaches her to hunt, track, and steal. But when Nin is kidnapped, leaving Sefia completely alone, none of her survival skills can help her discover where Nin's been taken. The only clue to both her aunt's disappearance and her father's murder is the odd rectangular object her father left behind, an object she comes to realise is a book, an item unheard of in her illiterate society. With the help of this book, and the aid of a stranger with dark secrets of his own, Sefia sets out to rescue her aunt and find out what really happened the day her father was killed.
A personal account of daily study of the Talmud, which contains the teachings and opinions of thousands of rabbis (dating from before the Common Era through the fifth century CE) on a variety of subjects, including Halakha (law), Jewish ethics, philosophy, customs, history, lore and many other topics. Can a life be entirely governed by text?
In shedding the last vestiges of colonial society in exchange for the trappings of a modern democratic nation, the 1920s and 1930s in New Zealand set a blueprint for state intervention and assistance that remained unchallenged for the next 50 years.
A selection of non-fiction and journalism, with topics ranging from sport to pornography to Princess Di.
"Amis is as talented a journalist as he is a novelist, but these essays all manifest an unusual extra quality, one that is not unlike friendship. He makes an effort; he makes readers feel that they are the only person there." - Rachel Cusk
Since Michael Illingworth assumed the first fellowship in 1966, Otago University has hosted a sequence of outstanding New Zealand artists. This book surveys, therefore, the changing flavour of New Zealand art in the last half century, and is supported with reproductions, commentaries and interviews.
A compelling blend of social and natural history, featuring a string of memorable characters from the back-country.
"A brilliant feat of screwball participatory journalism." - Jay McInerney
Baxter's prose (like his poetry) wrestled with contradictions, anxieties and competing impulses - just as he wrestled with the society in which he lived, or from which he withdrew.
Essays by Janet Wilson, Sharon Matthews, Paul Millar, Lawrence Jones, John Davidson, Nicholas Wright, Hugh Roberts, Kirstine Moffat, Paul Morris, Doreen D'Cruz, Peter Whiteford, and Greg O'Brien
With influences ranging from illuminated manuscripts, Persian miniatures, naive artists, European art history and popular culture, this Dunedin artist's distinctive work teems with figures and throngs with disconcerting detail.
>> Visit the artist's website.
When he was in his late 40s, anxiety and depression overwhelmed Wellingtonian Brent Williams and he walked away from his partner, four children and job. He tells the story of his journey back to the world in this outstanding graphic memoir illustrated by Turkish artist Korkut Öztekin.
>> Sample pages and information on the book's own excellent website.
>> How did the book come about?
>> Williams speaks with Kim Hill.
>> Images from the RNZ gallery.
>> Depression just said, "You've got to face this."
>> The dark secret of Wellington philanthropist Sir Arthur Williams.
>> Images from the RNZ gallery.
>> Depression just said, "You've got to face this."
>> The dark secret of Wellington philanthropist Sir Arthur Williams.
>> New Zealand help lines for depression and anxiety:
EMERGENCY: Call 111
EMERGENCY: Call 111
Lifeline New Zealand: 0800 543 354 (Help anyone - 24/7)
Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 (Help anyone - 24/7)
Youthline: 0800 376 633 (Help young people & their families - 24/7)
Find a list of specialist NZ helplines here
The Lowdown – Help young New Zealanders recognise and understand depression or anxiety
Depression.org – Help New Zealanders recognise and understand depression or anxiety |
Elmet by Fiona Mozley {Reviewed by STELLA}
One of the two debut novels shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker prize, Fiona Mozley’s Elmet is an unsettling portrayal of family and loss, of violence and deep love. Daniel is looking for someone following the path north - following the railway tracks across the moor and through the townships of Yorkshire, taking in the layers of time, of history, in a subtle, almost unconscious manner. It’s as though Daniel carries with him not only his own past, yet all the stories of those wandering and searching. Mozley’s narrator is a gentle loving boy, a young man who lives for his sister, Cathy and to please his Daddy. The family have returned to the land eking out a life, their home built by Daddy’s hands from the woods that surround them, with odd jobs, trades of goods and services and hunting for food. Cathy and Daniel live a solitary life, no longer attend school, yet have an understanding of their environment and a care for the wilderness that surrounds them. Yet all is far from serene. Daddy is known for his fighting prowess and a violence that brews within him. Coming back to the village also means returning to his past and the connection with the children’s mother, who has long disappeared. Simmering under the surface are hurts and unsettled scores, pride and suffering. Cathy is tough and sure, aware of her surroundings and the impending doom while her brother blithely carries on in his childlike way. The family’s presence on the land raises the ire of the landowner, Mr Price, and highlights a community riven between the landowning classes and the working and unemployed poor. Described as a 'rural noir', the story opens with Daniel on the road, the setting feels timeless - is it the past or some altered future? In fact, it is the present. It’s a beguiling opening that draws you in and endears the narrator to you: a young man searching, loyal to his family, as he tells his story of what has gone before, of their lives in the house, the simple pleasure of crafting their own way, making from scratch, following the rules of nature rather than the laws of man. The setting is beautifully described, almost dreamlike at times, yet the prose always fizzes with an underlying tension, a sense of something dreadful to come, and of secrets, of things unsaid. The violence is raw and brutal, it has a gothic element reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian, and the work is seething with history alongside its clearly contemporary setting. It’s a remarkable debut novel and a fitting contender for the prize. |
 | Worlds from the Word's End by Joanna Walsh {Reviewed by THOMAS} Language is the expression of intention, but to what extent does this intention spring from the utterer and to what extent does it inhere in language itself? (While we’re at it, we could (but will not) consider the extent to which the intentions inherent in the reader affect what is read or those in the hearer what is heard). The stories of Joanna Walsh’s latest collection are of such lightness that they ride the subtlest of semantic breezes and are carried to destinations implied in language that heavier material will not reach, falling from its vector under its own weight. Like those of Italo Calvino (who also saw lightness as a virtue), Walsh’s brief, crystalline stories imply more than they can objectively said to contain, even though they have objective rigour in their extrapolation of potential from scientifically isolated material, often linguistic anomalies that we had not thought of as linguistic anomalies, idiomatic remarks or the quirk of a turn of phrase to which we have been blinded by familiarity. Any of these stories could be subjected to an analysis that would exceed the length of the story. Walsh compulsively (for compulsively read scientifically) speculates upon the nature of lives in which an impulse becomes permanent or a tendency is liberated from the factors that ultimately, or immediately, ordinarily negate it. Would would it be like if words literally failed? What would it be like if waiting in a railway station was never ended by the appearance of the person waited for? What if a young girl really did kidnap the gangster Enzo Ponza and end up having him about the house forever after (“to challenge him would be to acknowledge his existence”)? Each narrator is indigenous to their story, and we are engaged in realigning our perceptions to match theirs, without the author performing the indignity of forcing the opposite upon them (a fairly usual narratorial method). In each, Walsh conducts a delicate interplay between detail and meaning, neither overwhelming the other which it embodies or which embodies it. Strangely familiar existences spring from language itself. “I am walked but, also, I am walking. Wait. What if I walked without being walked. Where would I (who would I) walk?” In ‘The Suitcase Dog’, Walsh not only imagines the language that would be used by a dog to distill its experiences of the world and of itself, but, at another step of remove, the language that would be used by a suitcase imagining itself to be a dog using the language that would be used by a dog, but contained within the fairly limited imaginative projections of a suitcase. Which sounds more complicated than it reads. It is Walsh’s ability to nuance the simplest of sentences that allows her/them to give access to the subtlest of observations and the narrowest (as in precisest) of perspectives. These brief paragraphs waft meaning that they can hardly be said to contain, but there is nothing vague or tentative in that wafting. In each, the reader’s reading faculties are sharpened in “thinking about the story - which is always to be thinking about thinking about the story.” |