An Inventory of Losses (2020) by Judith Schalansky

Book Review

An Inventory of Losses (2020) 

by Judith Schalansky

   I've appreciated the recent increase in English language attention to works of literary fiction translated into English.  First, the Booker revamped its every-so-often recognition of a translated author to a yearly prize with the same format of its other awards(longlist/shortlist).  That was followed in short order by the National Book Awards announcing a new category for Translated Literature, which presumably should consist of all their formats, but seemingly omits poetry and children's literature in favor of a longlist that resembles the English language longlist in fiction.

   Something I've noted about both the National Book Award for Translated Literature and the Booker International Prize is that the authors tend more to the experimental/"High" literature than the English language longlist, which typically favor bangers written by proven commodities or first-novels written by promising new comers.  Experimental fiction tends to be relegated to maybe one or two titles for each English longlist, here it is the reverse.  The only non-experimental "banger" type book I've encountered so far on either longlist for 2021 is  Waiting for the Waters to Rise by known commodity Maryse Conde, a perennial Nobel Prize contender and actual winner of the one-off alternative Nobel handed out a couple years ago when the actual Nobel took the year off. 

  The New Directions Publishing product listing for An Inventory of Losses cites W.G. Sebald and Bruce Catwin- which are both good comparisons.  Also Rebecca Solnit, who I haven't read.  Those familiar with Scalansky's last book, An Atlas of Lost Islands, should know what they are getting into, those who aren't familiar with Atlas are probably not going to like An Inventory of Losses.  Inventory has discrete moments of joy- like when she describes the lost objects at the beginning of each chapter, but the actual chapters themselves are hard to connect. I honestly couldn't tell you what each is about without going back and referring to marked passages and notes, which I didn't bother to keep for this book.  It was like looking at a book of interesting photographs more than reading a book.