I've made good progress with my to-read list for the War Through the Generations challenge this week. I've read two books on my list of five and thought to review them both today. The books I read are Crabwalk by Günter Grass and Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. Let's start with Crabwalk:
Basic Facts:
Author: Günter Grass
Book: Crabwalk
Translated from the German by: Krishna Winston
First published in German: 2002
First published in Great Britain: 2003
I read the Faber and Faber paperback version published in 2004
Günter Grass is one ot the most important contemporary writers in Germany. He has written numerous novels, poems, plays, and essays. He is also a graphic artist. His work has been translated to many languages, but this was the first novel by him I read either in Finnish or English. My German is not good enough to try to read Grass in the original language...
Crabwalk tells the story of the most devastating maritime disaster of all time, and no, it is not the sinking of the Titanic. The deadliest maritime disaster in history was the sinking by a Soviet submarine of the German ship the Wilhelm Gustloff in January 30th, 1945. Over 9500 persons died, many of them children.
Grass tells the story through three generations of a family. The mother of the narrator is one of the survivors of the sinking. As a young pregnant woman she gave birth on the ship that rescued her the same day that the Wilhelm Gustloff sank. She has never really got over what happened that night. The narrator's life has always been marked by the evens surrounding his birth. He is a journalist and starts to research the sinking thinking first that he could keep the work from becoming personal, but later, it all becomes all too personal for him. The third generation is portrayed by the narrator's teenage son, who, we find out as the story progresses, sympatises with the far-right. The story begins with who was Wilhelm Gustloff and what happened to him and progresses forwards, backwards and sidewards from the past to present and back again, from the man Gustloff and the man sho shot him to the narrato'rs pregnant mother to his son to the U-boat commander Marinesko, who ordered the Wilhelm Gustloff to be torpedoed. Thus the name Crabwalk.
Grass has written an important book, and written it well. Of course you would not expect less from a Nobel Prize in literature winner! He won the price in 1999. In the Faber and Faber paperback edition of Crabwalk the year is given wrongly as 2000. I love how in the Nobel Prize web site he is portrayed as someone 'whose frolicsome black fabels portray the forgotten face of history'. There is certainly lots of that in Crabwalk.
As an interesting sidenote: just today I went to a store to look if they had any interesting DVDs, I would like to buy, and there on the shelf were copies of Gustloff, a made to TV film, made last year! And before first reading about Grass's book a short while ago I had no knowledge of the whole sinking of the ship! (And no, I did not buy that DVD, at least not this time :))
The other book I read for the challenge was, as I already mentioned, Sarah's Key. Let's start again with some basic facts:
Book: Sarah's Key
Author: Tatiana de Rosnay
First published: 2007.
I read: The John Murray paperback version, printed in 2008.
Sarah's Key is a story of a young Jewish girl, who with her parents is arrested during the Vélodrome d'Hiver round-up in 16 July 1942 by the French police. To save her little brother the ten year old Sarah locks him into a cupboard before the police takes her and the parents away. Sarah's Key is also the story of Julia Jarmond, an American-born journalist married to a Frenchman and living in Paris, who is assigned to write a piece about the Vél d'Hiv' round-up as the 60th commemoration of the events is approaching. The job leads Julia into a path of discovery, as it soon becomes clear that her husband's family is closely connected to the events of the Vél d'Hiv' and the story of Sarah.
The narrative moves first between chapters narrated from the point of view of Sarah and those narrated by Julia. Later it is only Julia who tells the story. Melanie commented on my Library Loot post that she liked the history parts of the book better than the contemporary ones. In my case it was actually the opposite. Maybe it was because I have read quite a lot about WW II and it was largely rather obvious what would happen to Sarah. Somehow Julia's side of the story, finding with her what had happened to Sarah, what connected her in-laws to the faith of the little Jewish girl, and also Julia's modern day sorrows, were more interesting to me. Also, in my opinion, sometimes Sarah's words and thoughts were clearly too adult for a 10-year old, even if the 10-year old had gone through such horrible events as Sarah had to endure.
All in all, both Crabwalk and Sarah's Key were good reads. However, personally I found neither book really captivating, not even Crabwalk. Even though it is a very well written work of fiction, because of the subject matter, it is not a book I would probably have read, had it not been for the challenge. I'm glad I read it, though!
If you want to read more about the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, there is a rather comprehensive website dedicated to the history of the ship. Here is a link.
Here is a link to a nice interview of Tatiana de Rosnay on YouTube.
Finally, if you would like to read a really great book about World War II from a child's point of view, I would recommend Book Thief by Markus Zuzak.
As a child I read an illustrated version of Oscar Wilde's Happy Prince in Finnish, and it made such an impression on me that I still remember vividly the picture of the crying prince with the sparrow. Later I have seen both An Ideal Husband and An Importance of Being Ernest on film, but I had not read more Wilde until now. Which is kind of incredible come to think of it! Well, better now than never, and I can assure you I am going to read more Wilde in the not too distant future.
The book I am going to talk about now is Wilde's play Lady Windermere's Fan which I read for the 9 Books for 2009 challenge hosted by Isabel. 9 for 9 is a challenge to help participants to make their to-be-read piles a bit lower. All the books read for the challenge should already be in the possession of the reader, and we are to read books from nine different categories. See the right column of my blog for a list of the categories.
For me Lady Windemere's Fan falls into free-category. The book was given to me as Christmas present in 1993 by a friend and has been waiting for the perfect moment to read it ever since! It is a gem of a book (I can almost here Lady Windemere exclaim 'What a dear little book!") printed in March 1913, and it has that lovely old book smell to it! :) As a nice curiosity there is also the list of actors and actresses that acted in the premiere of the play printed in the beginning of the book.
As you can see the play premiered in St. James theatre in London in February 22nd, 1892. Mr. George Alexander, manager of the theatre from 1890 to 1918, produced the play and also acted the part of Lord Windemere. Lady Windemere was played by the young Miss Lily Hanbury, who in 1908 died tragically of medical complications after the birth of a still-born child. She was at the time of her death only in her thirties. The third main character, Mrs. Erlynne, was played by Miss Marion Terry, who performed in some 125 plays during her career that spanned five decades.
Lady Windemere's Fan is a play about morals, especially about morals of marriage. Lady Windermere, a good and innocent woman, falsely suspects her husband of two years of having an affair with the notorious Mrs. Erlynne, and is outraged when Lord Windemere demands Mrs. Erlynne to be invited to her party. Later Lady Windermere puts herself in a compromising position and is rescued by Mrs. Erlynne.
I found the play charming. Wilde's writing was all I thought it would be, witty and precise, and he portrays the life of the upper echelon of Victorian society very cleverly. At the same time the play is a quick and easy read. Highly recommended!
Here are some amusing snippets from the play:
"Lord Darlington: It's a curious thing, duchess, about the game of marriage -a game, by the way, that is going out of fashion- the wives hold all the honours, and invariably lose the odd trick.
Duchess of Berwick: The odd trick? Is that the husband, Lord Darlington?
Lord Darlington: It would be rather a good name for the modern husband."[p. 16]
"Lady Windermere: Are all men bad?
Duchess of Berwick: Oh, all of them, my dear, all of them, without any exception. And they never grow any better. Men become old, but they never become good." [p. 23]
"Lady Plymdale: ...You are to lunch there on Friday!
Dumby: Why?
Lady Plymdale: Because I want you to take my husband with you. He has been so attentive lately, that he has become a perfect nuisance. Now, this woman is just the thing for him. He'll dance attendance upon her as long as she lasts him, and won't bother me. I assure you, women of that kind are most useful. They form the basis of other people's marriages." [p. 62]
Basic Facts:
Author: Jane Johnson
Book: Crossed Bones (published in the US as The Tenth Gift)
First Published: 2008
I read: The Viking Penguin Books trade paperback editionFirst sentence: 'There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they never happened before, like larks that have been singing the same five notes for thousands of years.'
I started my Great Summer Reads -reviews last week with The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and will now continue with another entertaining, if somewhat lighter, story: Crossed Bones by the British author Jane Johnson.
The book starts in contemporary London, where Julia Lovat, craft-shop owner and embroidery expert is going to meet her lover Michael, who she describes on the first page of the book as"...a lecturer in European literature, on which he took an uncompromising post-structualist stance, as if books were just meat for the butcher's block, mere muscle and tendon. bone and cartilage, which required flensing and separating and scrutiny." [p. 1.]
Ugh! Add to that the fact that Michael is also the husband of Julia's friend from university Annie, and you know from the start that he is bad news! I kept thinking why an earth had Julia fallen for him in the first place. Obviously there is something about him, as Julia explains:
"Women loved Michael. We couldn't help ourselves. Whether it was his saturnine features... the louche manner or the look in those glittering black eyes, the cruelly carved mouth or the restless hands, I didn't know. I had lost perspective on such matters long ago." [p. 2.]
Julia and Michael's meeting in a fancy Italian restaurant does not go to Julia's liking. Michael has decided to break up with her and try to patch up things with his wife. As a parting gift he gives the devastated Julia an antique book of embroidery patterns called The Needle Woman's Glorie.
Michael has, in fact, found two copies of the same book, one ordinary, and the other full of markings in archaic hand. It was his intention to give the marking-less book to Julia and sell the other one for a good price. By mistake he gives Julia the book with handwritten notes, and we will soon learn that he is ready to do almost anything to retrieve it, thus adding a sinister thread to Julia's storyline.
While reading the markings on the Needle Woman's Glorie, Julia becomes more and more interested in the story behind those notes, for they have nothing to do with embroidery. They are, in fact, a kind of diary written by certain Catherine Anne Tregenna starting in May 1625.
From there on the book moves between the 17th century story of Catherine 'Cat' Tregenna, a young servant girl, and the story of Julia as she starts a journey to forget Michael and to find out what happened to Cat, who in the summer of 1625 was among a group of villagers taken from a church in Penzance on the Cornish coast by Barbary pirates and taken to Morocco to be sold into slavery.
Johnson has weaved an intriguing tale of adventure and romance with interesting historical facts behind it. In the Author's Note at the end of the book she writes that the attack in Penzance is based on an actual event in July 1625 mentioned in the state papers. Johnson has used various studies on Barbary pirates as well as first hand accounts of English captive's experiences as source materials. She lists the most important sources on the last page ot the book.
I found Crossed Bones hard to put down. At first I had some reservations about the love story developing between Cat and her captor, simply because the captive maiden and the pirate captain falling for each other is such a cliché and exploited to no end in cheap romantic novels, but Johnson manages to pull it off. She portrays the changing emotions between Cat and Sidi Qasem convincingly and beautifully."One day, after Catherine had passed almost seven months in the house of her new master, the raïs appeared unheralded and found her sitting in the courtyard with her eyes closed, her broom at her feet, her face upturned to the sky.
'You look like a rose,' he said softly, 'with its petals drinking in the sun.'
Her eyes flew open in shock. She stood up, caught her foot on the broom and almost fell. The corsair caught her neatly and sat her down again. 'Thank you, Sidi Qasem,' she muttered, discomforted.
'Just Qasem is enough.'
'Qasem.'
...
He held the rose against Cat's cheek for a moment so that she smelled its aroma and felt its velvet texture brush her skin, and, although no part of him had touched her, she felt something burning in her nerves, as if a great fire had engulfed the pair of them and she could not breathe. Then the raïs crushed the flower in his had so that its scent filled the air, and walked to the fountain to scatter the petals in its pool.
Cat closed her eyes. When she opened them again, he was gone.' [p. 336-338]
I enjoyed both women's tales, but Cat Tregenna was undoubtedly my favorite character in the book. She has to live through terrible events, but she surely is no fainting damsel in distress! She is strong, opinionated, and she has a good head on her shoulders."They say God made mankind from clay. He make the djinn from fire. The djinn very dangerous, they have power to possess a man.' He pulled a strand of her red hair loose from the cotton wrap and ran it thoughtfully through his fingers. 'Which are you, Cat'rin: a woman or a djinn?'
'I am a flesh and blood woman,' she said sharply.
'I think maybe that is most dangerous thing of all.' [p. 274]
Crossed Bones is, what I call, a complete story. The stories of Cat and Julia twine closer and closer together until the satisfying happy end, when we will finally learn what connects them.
Highly recommended summer reading!
To learn more about the author visit her official site.
Since yesterday July 6th all the extant pages of Codex Sinaiticus, or the Sinai Book, one of the two earliest almost complete manuscripts of the Christian Bible (the other is Codex Vaticanus) are freely available in digitised form on the Internet. Codex Sinaiticus was written in the middle of the 4th century. It is one of the most important versions of the Septuagint, the Old Testament version used by early Greek-speaking Christians, and the New Testament. It is the most corrected early version of the Christian Bible, and sheds important light on how the Bible was constructed. It is also an important piece of book history.
Read more about Codex Sinaiticus on the wonderful Codex Sinaiticus website, where you now can also take a look at the manuscript itself. It is thrilling to browse those virtual pages, even if you do not understand 4th century Greek (I don't). Just think about all the centuries the manuscript has survived! There will be a book published for the general public about the Codex Sinaiticus project later. It will surely go onto my to-read list!
Basic Facts:
Author: Audrey Niffenegger
Book: The Time Traveler's Wife
First published: 2003
I read: The Vintage paperback edition, published in 2004
First line: It's hard being left behind.
I first read The Time Traveler's Wife in 2004 pretty soon after the paperback version was published, and I just loved the book! It made quite an impression on me. I still remember thinking that it was the best, most interesting book I had read that year, and it was a year when I read rather many novels! After rereading it now, I am able to say that I 'm still very much impressed by the story. I am a sucker for great stories :), and The Time Traveler's Wife truly is A Great Story! It is also very much current at the moment. The movie based on the book, and starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana, is going to be released in August 14th in the USA, and also in the UK and Canada. And even without the movie, it simply is such a great summer read!
The Time Traveler's Wife tells the story on Henry, a librarian, and Claire, an artist, who meet (from Claire's point of view) for the first time in 1977, when Claire is only 6-years old, and Henry is 36. Henry, on the other hand, meets Claire for the first time, when she is 20 and he himself 28. How is this possible? It is possible, because Henry suffers from a rare genetical condition that makes him travel in time. He explains how that feels in the beginning of the book:"It feels exactly like one of those dreams in which you suddenly realize that you have to take a test you haven't studied for and you aren't wearing any clothes. And you've left your wallet home."
When travelling in time he cannot bring anything with him from the present time. Thus he always arrives naked, and often has to succumb to crime in order to survive in the past or the future."When I am out there, in time, I am inverted, changed into a desperate version of myself. I become a thief, a vagrant, an animal who runs and hides. I startle old women and amaze children. I am a trick, an illusion of the highest order, so incredible that I am actually true."
Despite the time travelling aspect of the story The Time Traveler's Wife is not science fiction or fantasy. It is a gripping tale of sickness, sorrow, and loss, but above all it is a story about love. It is the extraordinary, and very touching love story of Claire and Henry, two ordinary people living in very extraordinary circumstances."I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going, and she cannot follow", laments Henry, and Claire's thoughts echo his:
"I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays. I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way."
The truth is that as the story progresses is seems more often than not that Henry is not okay, when he returns to present time, and the reader starts to feel, actually quite early on, that maybe there will not be a happy end in store for Henry and Claire. And yet. Audrey Niffenegger has weaved a beautiful tale, a well-rounded story that makes you laugh and cry in equal proportions. I did shed a few tears, when I first read the book, but many lines also brought a smile on my face, like when Henry teaches Claire how to cook.
"Henry holds up an onion and looks at me gravely and says, "This...is an onion." I nod. "Yes. I've read about them."
The author has managed to take a complex story that could be very incoherent, and tell it in a very coherent, easy-to-follow way from the start to the very touching, very bittersweet end. All in all this is a book you will not want to put down!
Audrey Niffenegger's new novel Her Fearful Symmetry will be out in the autumn.
More info:
I have decided to join two reading challenges:
1. War Through the GenerationsThis is a challenge hosted by Anna from Diary of an Eccentric and Serena from Savvy Verse & Vit. The aim of the challenge is to read before the year is over at least five books (fiction or non-fiction) where the second World War is either the primary or secondary theme.
I am planning to read the following 5 books for this challenge:- Tadeusz Borowski: This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen
A collection of short stories originally written in Polish. 180 pages. - Günter Grass: Crabwalk
In 1945 a Soviet submarine sunk the Wilhelm Gustoff, a German ship full of refugees. The novel tells about the the event and its consequences for postwar Germany. Originally written in German. 243 pages. - Ismail Kadare: Chronicle in Stone
A novel about a young boy growing up in a small town in Albania during the WW II.
Originally written in Albanian. 301 pages. - Tatiana de Rosnay: Sarah's Key
A novel about a 10-year-old Jewish girl in German occupied Paris, and an American born journalist in present time researching the Velodrome d'Hiver raid of 1942 when French police conducted a large round up of Jews in Paris in order to send them to Auchwitz. 294 pages. - Angel Wagenstein: Farewell, Shanghai
A novel about European émigrés and refugees in WWII Shanghai. 400 pages.
2. 9 books for 2009 This challenge is hosted by Isabel from Books and Other Stuff. The aim of the challenge is to shorten one's "to be read" -list with nine books already in one's possession. There are 9 different categories for the books. They are: long, free, dusty, used, letter, strange, distance, alive or not, and cover. I am planning to read the following 9 books for this challenge:- Long: Peter Rushforth: Pinkerton's Sister. 729 pages.
- Free: Oscar Wilde: Lady Windermere's Fan. A play in IV acts. Given to me by a friend quite a long time ago.
- Dusty: Frank Tallis: Mortal Mischief. Volume One of the Liebermann Papers. I bought this detective story in 2006.
- Used: David Mitchell: Queen Christabel. A biograbhy of militant suffragette Christabel Pankhurst. Bought in an antiquarian bookstore many years ago.
- Letter: Elizabeth Peters: Tomb of the Golden Bird. My name starts with a T, as does the name of this book by my favorite mystery writer. Why an earth have I not yet read this instalment of her Amelia Peabody series???
- Strange: Susanna Clarke: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Not only is one of the characters in this book called Strange :), but I don't very often read fantasy of this kind. My copy is a Finnish translation.
- Distance: Michael Cunningham: Specimen Days. All three stories in the book take place in New York. Distance between New York and Helsinki is 4118 miles or 6628 kilometers.
- Alive or not: Kim Wilkins: The Autumn Castle. Three time winner and two time finalist of the Aurealis Award, the Australian scifi, fantacy and horror award.
- Cover: Fan Wu: February Flowers. The cover is very beautiful: a flowering tree branch on a brick red background, a small strip of what seems to be Chinese flower painting, and a brick red, shadowy picture of a pot with some branches on gray background, and some calligraphy.
