Books on the Menu

Man Tiger, Eka Kurniawan. Indonesia

@brittarnhild

Finding books for this Reading My Way Around the World - project will be a challenge, but a funny, intereting one. For the moment I have enough books to read, and every time I visit a bookstore I am looking for new ones. Man Tiger I found a few weeks ago in a bookstore in Oslo, and reading the back cover, seeing that the book is by an author from Indonisia, I knew I wanted to give it a try. Coming home I found that Ann Morgan, my inspiratior for this project, has also read the book and gave it a very good review.

Man Tiger is a crime novel, but not at all in an ordinary way. I don´t care much about crimes, though when I put Man Tiger down ten minutes ago, after reading the last page, my one and only word was "WOW!"

The book start with an introduction to the crime, Margio, a young Indonesian man, kills Anwar Sadat, one of his naihgbours. In the start of the book we knbow nothing at all, neighter of Margio, nor of Anwar Sadat, but as the tale unfolds we are told the tales of two Indonesian families, interlinked in love and death. The way the tale is told bringhs the tale forward with a strong force, and though it is different from most western literature, the fascinating tale is almost impossible to put down.

Finding books for the project is a challenge. The mind broadening the project gives is enriching beyond borders.

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Photo: it is not easy to find photos to illustrate the books I am reading. Man Tiger mention banana trees and banan tree leaves several times, so here are bananas photographed in Malta some years ago.

 

Benjamin Dove, Fridrik Erlings. Iceland

@brittarnhild

We are in Iceland this week, for a family celebration, and of course I have been reading my Icelandic Visiting the World Through Books - book. My sister in law told me about Benjamin Dove many years ago, pointing it out as the best young adult book she knew. Written in 1992 (some sources says 1995), it is already a classic. I bought the book in Icelandic many years ago, I don´t read the language, but as a book lover that doesn´t always matter. But a couple of years later I was able to find it in an English translation.

Benjamin Dove is about the friends Benjamin, Jeff, Manny and Roland. The tale also has an old woman, Grandma Dell, and a few bad guys. To fight evil, the boys set up a knighthood, The Red Dragons. A dramatic young adult tale of fights, bullying and good deeds unfolds. Most of the book is told through Benjamin´s voice, but to help the readers understand while evil deeds are done, the author gives the reader insight in their minds through out the book.

A fatal fight in the end of the book, and innocence is lost forever.

The author, Fridrik ERlings, was born in Iceland in 1962. In 1986 he founded the rock band The Sugarcubes, together with Einar Ôrn Bendiktsson and Björk. He has over the years worked as a writer, screenwriter, graphic designer and musican.

The book is make into a film, but as far as I know it is not for sale any more. That´s a pity.

 

Ali and Nino, Kurban Said. Azerbaijan

@brittarnhild

September 2010 says the writing under my name on the first page of Ali and Nino. I remember I had heard of this book, was tempted and bought it. A little later I found The Orientalist by Tom Reiss, a book about the mysterious author Kurban Said. Since then both books have been in my shelves, from time to time crying out my name, "read me! read us!". I had to start this Visiting the World Through Books - project to actually come around, reading the books. Well, so far only Ali and Nino, but The Orientalist is also here on my desk. As it has no natural space in my world reading project, it might take some time still until I read it, but who knows, my curiosity might kill the cat earlier.

Ali and Nino is a love story of a young couple living in Azerbaijan before and during WWI. Ali a Muslim, Nino a Christian, and though their love story the book tells the difference between Europe and Asia and the fatal challenges when the two different worl meets.

Kurban Said, the author of the book, is a mystery, and scolars, even today, do not agree who he is. He might have been a Jew from Azerbaijan, and the country count Ali and Nino as one of their country´s most famous book. Identity is a main topic of the book, and is focused already in the first sentences when Ali and his school mates are forced by their geography teacher to turn towards Europe, put their back to Asia. Ali refuses to do this, he feels stronly an Asian, and throughout the book this will be a constant fight for him in his relationship with Nino who loves the European ways.

Though originally published in 1937, the tale is just as relevant today with Europe´s terrorism and refugee situation.

 

The Little Paris Bookshop, Nina George. Germany

@brittarnhild

I have read quite heavy books lately. I like that, but when they are both heavy and brick stone long, they take quite some time to finish, and after Wild Swans I needed something simple. A couple of weeks ago I was tempted by a book which I saw in a bookstore, tempted because of its title and because of its front cover - Nina George´s The Little Paris Bookshop.

Titles are interesting, Nina George is German and the original title of the book is Das Lavendelzimmer (the lavender room). I have the Norwegian translation and in Norwegian the book is called Det litterære apotek (the literary pharmacy). I love the Norwegian title and after reading the book I don´t hesitaty to say it is the best title to describe the plot.

The Little Paris Bookshop is an easy read. In between working and other things on my agenda, it took me less than two days to finish the 330 pages. I am left with a sweet story, though most of the time I found it boring. No food for the soul, if you see that I mean. 50 years old Jean Perdu owns a floating bookshop on Seine. For more than 20 years he has mourned the loss of his lover Manon, who left a letter when she suddenly left him. Perdu has kept the letter, but never read it......not until now, the summer he is never to forget, the summer which is to change his life.

It is written in a style which is meant to be funny, and I guess many readers find it so. For me it was only boring, and I felt something nice was taken away from me, as the setting is so promising.

Well, my German book, which is written by a German author but has nothing at all about Germany in it, is finished and I am ready to travel on.

 

Wild Swans, Three Daughters of China. Jung Chang. China

@brittarnhild

15 books now, 14 shown here + one read on my kindle. This last one, Wild Swans, Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang, was not originally my own choice, but when it came up as the next book for my reading group (9 friends meeting every sixth week or so, discussing one partivular book every time), I decided it was actually a good choice for my world reading tour. It turned out the be quite long though, almost 700 pages, and at times a bit boring, with a kind of listing of the events of the lives of the author Jung Chang, her mother and her grandmother. Through their lives, spanding from the beginning of last century and almost until the book was published in 1991, we learn the dramatic history of China, lived the hard way by Jung Chang´s family, and millions of other people.

Colin Thubron, one of many favorite writers of mine, writes about the book:
"Of all the personal histories to have emerged out of China´s twentieth-century nightmare, Wild Swans is the most deeply thoughtful and the most heart-rending I´ve read. It moves, in part, like a ghastly oriental fairytale, but the authority and the reticent passion with which Jung Chang  speaks her memories - and those of others - is unmistakable."

Wild Swans won the 1992 NCR Book Award and the 1993 British Book of the Year Award.

 

 

The Other Side of Israel, Susan Nathan. Israel

@brittarnhild

Last summer, during the St. Olav Festival in Trondheim, there was an open meeting with the title "The Middle East - the knot of the world. Political Christendom, political Judaism, political Islam" One of the speakers were Susan Nathan. Nathan is a British born Jew who left Britain in 1999 to take up the "Law of Return" which were offered to all Jews around the world.  Through her childhood and adult life until then, she lived with the belief shared by so many - Israel is the promised land for Jews. Most of her Jewish family lives in South Africa, a fact which had made Nathan aware of rascism from her early childhood. She was totally unprepared though to meet rascisim in Israel, the promised land.

Not long after she came to Israel she took an extraordinary decision. She moved from Tel Aviv to Tamra, a town of 25.000 Muslims. Here Nathan witness the hardship the Muslims are living under.

The book has the subtitle - My Journey Across the Jewish - Arab Divide, and is a brave, open minded tale about life in Israel, for Jews and for Muslims. I don´t want to put myself on a spesific side in this "knot of the world" conflict. When asked I always say that I am on the side of the people, both the Jewish and the Muslims. I know there are wrongs on both sides, severe wrongs. It might be too easy to not to take side, but which side am I to take as long as there are children, woman, men involved?

I want to share with you the last paragraph in the book:

I realise as I finish wriitng the book that my journey was not really about crossing a divide, but about a far harder journey: one in which I have learned that the divide is really an illusion. It is an artefact we have created in our imaginations - just as we have built a concrete wall in the West Bank - to protect us from the truth. It is not about living in Tamra or Tel Aviv, or for that matter Umm al-Fahm or Jenin. It is not about where we live, but about how we live. It is about learning to look honestly at the places we inhabit and want to call ours, to understand the past, and to face up to the crimes committed in our names. Then we Jews will be ready to apologise and to reach out a welcoming hand across the divide. To embrace the Other, who is really ourselves.

 

 

The Secret River, Kate Greenville. Australia

@brittarnhild

13 books now. 12 shown in the picture + one read on my Kindle. It will take some time to visit all thr countries in the world, but I am moving :-)

I belong to a reading group here in Trondheim. Last week we discussed a Norwegian book by Edvard Hoem, Slåttekar i himmelen, a historical novel based on his own family story. In the book, several family member immigrated to the Mid-West in the USA. When we decided to read the book, several weeks ago, I knew I had it already, still unread, and left at our cabin. We did not go back to the cabin until a few days before the reading group night, so in between reading my Australian book, I also had to squeeze in some serious reading group reading. One book about Norwegians immigrating to the US in the late 1800. One book about British sent to Australia in the early 1800. Kind of the same theme in both book, but oh so diferent still.

The Edvard Hoem book made a huge impact on me, and going back to The Secret River felt a bit hard. After the pause I was not sure if the book could get hold on me again. But it didn´t taka many pages before I was deeply back in the lives of William Thornhill, a waterman on the river Thames, and his childhood sweethart and wife Sal. They live in deep poverty in London, and as so many others, the only way to keep fame outside their door, they have to steal. One day William is caught and sentences to death, then the punishment changed and he and his famly are sent to the other side of the world, to New South Wales

Life in Australia is just as challenging as in London, and here they don´t have only poverty to fight, but also the black savages already living in the country.

Kate Greenville´s ancestors came to Australia just like William Thornhill did. Greenville had originally planned to write her family tale, but ended up using it as inspiration only, writing a fictional book. And a book which, in a very good way, enlightens this part of our world´s history.