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2015 Where in the world have you been? (Book finished and review linked)
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Lilisa
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Jan 02, 2015 09:43PM
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I finished Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea by Kira Salak, for Papua New Guinea. It was a quick read and the author is a fierceless solo traveler who has stories to tell! My review is here.
Still in Papua New Guinea, hanging out and drinking the coffee, where I just finished From Modern Production to Imagined Primitive: The Social World of Coffee from Papua New Guinea. My review is here, but one little anecdote I didn't include there is that women in PNG, who do all the growing, sing to their sweet potatoes but not to their coffee plants.
I've been in the Catalan countryside of Spain reading Stone in a Landslide and then in ex-pat German, Rome with a lone, young, pregnant Nazi wife of a German solider (who has been redeployed to Tunisia) in Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman.
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In the end, for me it was a 3.5 ★ read.
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I read The Narrow Road to the Deep North, but did not count it towards the challenge. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I read that last year when it was nominated for the Booker, and like Andrea says, it is grim. Grim, grim, grim. It doesn't start out grim, which makes it more of a surprise. It caught me off guard.It's also about something historical I didn't know a thing about.
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Oh goodness, I just finished Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art by Carl Hoffman, and it was a fascinating read from New Guinea, the western half - at one time called Irian Jaya, now more often referred to as West Papua. Well-researched, well-documented. My review is here.
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I read a fairly good novel from Gibraltar:The Escape Artist: A Gibraltarian novel by M.G. Sanchez
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The narrator is quite long-winded and repetitive, so if that would bore you, try some of the author's short stories instead if you are looking for a book for Gibraltar.
I also read a short cultural case study from Palau:
Being a Palauan by Homer G. Barnett
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
A brilliant read set in 1976, Argentina, Marcelo Figueras's Kamchatka, shortlisted for the Independent Fiction Prize in 2011.Inspired by the authors own experience of being a young boy when many whose political views, including his parents were reason enough for the authorities to make people 'disappear'. Compelling reading.
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Inspired by the authors own experience of being a young boy when many..."
Oh dear - I must stop reading your reviews and start reading...:-) nice review and now added to my oversized list.
Lilisa wrote: "Claire wrote: "A brilliant read set in 1976, Argentina, Marcelo Figueras's Kamchatka, shortlisted for the Independent Fiction Prize in 2011.Inspired by the authors own experience of being a youn..."
I know the feeling, I am guilty of the same. But I like to think of reading reviews as my kind of window shopping and keeping up with books as an alternative to fashion :) Ok, back to the book!
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I see you made no mention of Dorrigo's affair (or affairs) in your review Lilisa. Did you find it an essential part of the book, or a distraction better left out of an otherwise powerful book (as I did)?
Val wrote: "I see you made no mention of Dorrigo's affair (or affairs) in your review Lilisa. Did you find it an essential part of the book, or a distraction better left out of an otherwise powerful book (as I..."I know you weren't asking me, but those were the only tolerable parts of the book to me!
Thanks for a different point of view Jenny. I could take that as confirmation that the two strands don't fit together very well.
Val wrote: "Thanks for a different point of view Jenny. I could take that as confirmation that the two strands don't fit together very well."
I wonder if he felt he needed something to break up the horror. But you're right, it felt like two very different novels. I would have preferred the relationship one. Still, I wonder if he felt the need to show that sharp contrast between the drama of "normal life" and this Other Thing of war.
Jenny (Reading Envy) wrote: "I wonder if he felt he needed something to break up the horror."I think that may have been his intention and I often take a break from books which cover difficult material to read a light book instead, so I suppose the only difference is that I decide when I need the break.
I felt the schemes with the veterans in the bar and chip shop showed the contrast with real life better; they don't talk about their experiences but their actions show that they remember them and that, more importantly, they remember they shared them.
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Unfortunately The Narrow Road was a big fail for me, I couldn't get past the horror, despite three attempts, the relationship story in the beginning was fine, but I started to feel allergic to reading it in the POW camps and the operating theatre and so read something else and tried to return, twice, then decided to stop. Happy with my reads of Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth and Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, which I did manage to read without flinching. I know I am in the minority, but that was my experience...
I have been in Cuba with Margarita Engle's The Poet Slave of Cuba, a biography of Juan Francisco Manzano.A wonderful recounting of his young years before his liberation, touching and heart breaking, a wonderful tribute to an incredible voice.
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Claire - Yes, I did see your comments on the book. I agree, parts were rather graphic and one had to steel oneself in more ways than one. I'm glad you found other books to distract you and enjoyed them!
You are not in a minority Claire, I think most of us found this difficult to read. I am not sure why the Booker judges chose this over the others, but perhaps they felt we 'ought' to read it, in spite of the difficulty, because it is a true story in novel form.There are quite a lot of memoirs and novelisations about the holocaust. We know it happened, the many books about it often make for difficult reading, but should we not read about it because it makes us feel uncomfortable?
I don't think we should ignore unpleasant aspects of history. We should confront them with the intention of preventing them happening again. I am not so certain about novels which deal with those unpleasant aspects of history, as I am never quite sure whether the author is trying to raise awareness of the history or cash in on it. Primo Levi is absolved of any attempt to cash in, he experienced it, tried to write out his experience and resolve it, and then committed suicide after trying to explain his experience to the rest of us.
Richard Flanagan is trying to do the same thing, but it is not his experience, it is his father's. I don't think he is trying to profit from history, he is an established and respected author who could write about almost anything and make a living from the book sales, so this is a book he felt he had to write. I do not think he got it quite right, perhaps a joint memoir with his father would have.
I read a lighter book for Australia because I had it on my review copy list - Lost & Found by Brooke Davis. My review is here.
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I don't think he is profiting from history at all (haven't read the book, going off his interviews). I know he wrote and rewrote this book again and again as he really wanted to tell the story. However, he nearly had to go off and work in our mining industry as he was going broke (and this being a particularly hard decision as a Aussie greenie). Very hard to live off book sales really any more unless you win the Booker and other prizes to give you prize money and buff up your sales.
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Started my New Year in Canada with All My Puny Sorrowswhich was a beautifully written novel that explores how far we would go to take care of ones we love and also the ethics involved in assisted suicide. Following that I went onto Sweden with A Man Called Ove which was a humorous novel but also broke my heart at the same time.
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I've got A Man Called Ove coming up soon, too - looking forward to having my heart trampled now!
Lilisa wrote: "I just had to add A Man Called Ove to my list Melissa."The premise of this book sounds a little like Julio Llamazares The Yellow Rain, which was a brilliant read, though no one moves in next door to rescue him from his misery sadly.
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The premise of this book sounds a little like Julio Llamazares The Yellow Rain, which was a brilliant read, t..."
Twist my arm Claire!:-) thanks - a 5-star book for you - must check it out too.
Andrea wrote: "I've been sitting on my review of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (England) for a week or so, until I could try to explain why I wasn't bowled over. Here it is https://www.goo..."I had a similar experience, almost felt guilty for not loving it the way everyone else seemed to!
Lilisa wrote: "Claire wrote: "Lilisa wrote: "I just had to add A Man Called Ove to my list Melissa."The premise of this book sounds a little like Julio Llamazares The Yellow Rain, which was a br..."
Its kind of rare for me to give 5 stars, I wish more books did that for me, but this little gem left me in awe. Just today it made someone comment on my blog and say it made them realise that they had little awareness of books not written in English, something they wanted to rectify. Love that kind of inspiration! Of course that wouldn't happen in this group. :) This is the source!
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Also crisscrossed a bunch of cities in The Disciple of Las Vegas. Review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
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I've been suffering from the flu, so decided to take the novel cure and chose to read an advance copy of the newly translated (from French) Antoine Laurain's The Red Notebook which put me in a local quartier of Paris following the life of a bookshop owner who comes across an abandoned handbag and tries to track down the owner. The best cure ever! Loved it!
Lilisa - I am glad to hear you enjoyed it, I actually have that one sitting on my bookshelf to read. I shall look forward to reading it now :)
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Melissa - You'll have to let me know what you think of Louise Penny's characters and writing. I enjoyed Still Life but I enjoyed the books later in the series even more - The Beautiful Mystery and How the Light Gets In. I'm currently listening to another of her books - A Rule Against Murder.
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Around the World
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