1,001 Novels: A Library of America by Susan Straight

 

Huge news in the world of "1001 Books" fans- Author/Professor Susan Straight has launched her own project, 1001 Novels: A Library of America and it is free to view online.  Amazing, wonderful news.  I am starting with Maine and will attempt to complete the reading a la my largely completed  1001 Books Project- which is down to 219 tags these days but was in the 940's when I started consolidating the back posts.

1,001 Novels: A Library of America by Susan Straight

Book Review: A Girl's Story (2016) by Annie Ernaux

 Book Review

A Girl's Story (2016)

by Annie Ernaux

  I don't think anyone was shocked when Annie Ernaux, and avatar of French autofiction, won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year.  After all, Scandinavia is itself a hotbed of autofiction and you could probably argue that the French invented it.  Autofiction is itself uniquely suited to the internet era of relentless self-exposure. Although the roots of Autofiction trace back a half century at this point (1970's France is where the term was first coined), you could say that it took the internet and it's culture of self-obsession to really get a larger, international audience interested in these books.

    A Girl's Story will ring familiar to anyone who pays attention to influencer culture or youth culture- Ernaux's self protagonist is a young woman from a rural background studying at university.  From her current situation she reflects backwards on her adventures as a teen:  Experimenting with her sexuality as a camp counsellor (and being shamed and persecuted for it), dropping out of teaching school to become a nanny in London, shoplifting sprees with her nanny bff.  It sounds banal perhaps but there is nothing tedious about Ernaux's prose in translation.  I found myself fascinated with the depth of exploration of inner feeling.   

Book Review: The Offset (2021) by Calder Szewczak

Book Review:

 The Offset (2021) 

by Calder Szewczak

   First of all, Calder Szewczak is not one person, it's two, an arrangement you see infrequently in European literature and almost never at all in the Anglo-American world.  One is Natasha Calder the other Emma Szewczak.  Together they penned this interesting variation of dystopian fiction where the set up is that every child born needs to choose one of their parents to be sacrificed  on their 18th birthday.  Cheery, I know!  Calder Szewczak's dystopia is set in London, where Miri, a street urchin who happens to be the daughter of the scientist in charge of humanities last attempt at saving the world:  Planting radioactive resistant trees enough to cover the whole of Greenland (Don't ask it is extremely complicated!).  

  Miri, who, it must be said, does not come across as sympathetic in any way shape or form, has already declared that it will be her famous scientist mother to die, rather than her retired doctor mother.  The narrative shifts between the perspective of Miri and famous scientist mom- while Doctor Mom does her best to convince Miri to kill her, Doctor Mom, and not famous scientist mom.   Meanwhile famous scientist mom has discovered something amiss with her world saving tree farm and must investigate.

  There is much to like in The Offset, particularly the straight forward portrayal of a world where having children is frowned upon- they call it anti-natalism in this book, and it isn't entirely clear to me that they are supposed to be unsympathetic, but personally I've often wondered why more people aren't explicitly anti-having children.  Seems like an eminently reasonable position considering (gestures vaguely) all this but how could one even voice such an opinion in public without being castigated.   Life, after all, is precious, unless the baby is born in one of the many places on Earth where human live is almost worthless, in which case, good luck!

  On the other hand, the story snaps off at novella length, with a non-resolution that is seemingly going for some kind of O'Henry ending ala The Gift of the Magi.  

Book Review: Will and Testament (2016) by Vigdis Hjorth

 Book Review

Will and Testament (2016)

by Vigdis Hjorth

   Norwegian author Vigdis Hjorth is another nominee from the 2023 International Booker longlist.  I couldn't track down the nominated title- Is Mother Dead- the LAPL just recently got a copy of the Ebook which I have on hold- but I found an available Audiobook of her 2016 work, Willa and Testament.  I was intrigued by the description of a Norwegian writer of autofiction, since Karl Ove Knausgard is himself a Norwegian.  A quick internet search reveals that Hjorth has appeared with his ex wife, Linda Knausgard, who has penned her own version of the events chronicled in My Struggle.  Norwegian autofiction is a hot commodity- even if the French don't want to admit it. 

   One thing about Norwegian autofiction, read one book by an author, read them all, so I'm guessing that Will and Testament, a characteristically fraught tale about a family squabbling about an inheritance and deep family secrets (the narrator was molested by her father between the ages of five and seven, and the rest of her family, mother and two sisters, don't believe her).   That's not a spoiler- you know from page one that the narrator and her father don't get along because of something she did to her when she was a young child.  The continuous narrative is chopped up into 80 plus different chapters and presented non-chronologically.  It might have been confusing but the narrator is so obsessed with this single situation and it's impact on her family dynamic that it is impossible to get confused.  She simply doesn't discuss anything else. 

  As in every work of auto-fiction, the level of self-obsession is off the charts, mirroring culture and the way it has been impacted by the internet even when the protagonist of a work of autofiction never uses the internet, as is the case here. As an attorney who frequently represents women who were the victims of familial sexual abuse, I found Will and Testament fascinating, but it might easily trigger others for whatever reason.

Book Review: Ninth Building (2022) by Zou Jingzhi

Book Review:

 Ninth Building (2022)

 by Zou Jingzhi

  Congratulation to Time Shelter by Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov and his translator Angela Rodel, winners of the 2023 International Booker Prize for the English language translation of Time Shelter.  I was able to check out the Audiobook from the LAPL hours after the announcement, which should give you an idea of the ambient audience for Booker Prize winners among the citizens of Los Angeles/patrons of the LAPL.   I don't love it so far.

  Meanwhile, I'm finally getting my Ebook holds for books from the longlist, many of which weren't even out in the US when the list was announced.  Ninth Building, by Chinese author Zou Jingzhi, was the first title I've managed to obtain.  It's an episodic work of autofiction about the author's experience as one of the so-called "educated youths" who were instrumental to enacting the terrors of the cultural revolution, then essentially deported to the provinces in an attempt to regain control by the Chinese Communist Party.  It was a fascinating, horrible time, up there with other fascinating/horrible 20th century world events- well- I won't put a list together but the cultural revolution is like a top 20 world historical event for sure in the 20th century.

  Like much Chinese literature that makes it out of China, Ninth Building was vetted by the CCP- this means it bears the characteristics of all 20th century "Official" literature- authors are allowed to critique historical events within the context of individuals who are not "good" government officials, but the government itself is never criticized.  So, Ninth Building is interesting, but not very revealing about the subject.