Two Women by Harry Mulisch

In November 2008 I spent a week on a studytrip in Amsterdam getting to know the new main library there. While a Dutch collegue showed me around she pointed to some glass cases with what seemed to be book covers without any pages inside of them and told me about Nederland Leest or Netherland Reads. Nederland Leest is based on the community reading programme One Book, One City which many of you might be familiar with. The idea is that everybody reads the same book and then various events, discussions ect. are arranged on that book. In Holland the public libraries gave copies of the chosen book free of charge for their members. The book chosen for 2008 Nederland Leest was Twee vrouwen (Two Women) by Harry Mulisch, a well respected Dutch author of whom, I must admit, I had not even heard before my visit to Amsterdam! 

Two special editions of Twee vrouwen were printed for the community reading programme, a regular edition and an easy reader version. My Dutch collegues gave me both and we joked that I might try the easy reader first and maybe even understand something, the joke being, of course, that I don't know any Dutch at all. Ever since my visit to Amsterdam I have wanted to read the book, a love story between two women first published in 1975, though. I soon found out it had been translated into English, but was not very easy to find. As this year I'm participating in the GLBT Challenge I thought, well, now or never, I'll try to find an English copy to read. I finally got it, through ILL from Germany!

Two Women is a little book, under 200 pages, and it starts out as a pretty average, though well-written, story about a past love affair. The narrator's mother has died in France and she decides to drive from her home in Amsterdam to Nice to arrange for the funeral. On the way she has time to reminisce about her relationship with the young Sylvia. But what starts as something average turns out to be anything but average! Two Women is a brilliantly constructed story of love and betrayal, where things are not all the time what they seem at first. The ending of the book is simply breathtaking! I finished reading the book a week ago and I'm still mulling the ending over in my mind. I urge anyone interested in reading a vintage story of love between two women to rush to find themselves a copy of Two Women! But be prepared, this is not a happy story.

The empty book covers in the Amsterdam Main Library were entries to the new cover for Twee vrouwen competition. Here are two pictures I took of them. The cover in the bottom picture was the winner. Designed by a 17-year old girl, if I remember correctly. The books you see in the photo above are the two Dutch editions of Two Women I was given in Amsterdam. The book was also filmed in 1979 (with Bibi Andersson, Sandrine Dumas and Anthony Perkins starring), and the bookmark is about the film.

I read Two Women for the GLBT Challenge and for the Women Unbound Challenge.

A Couple of Reviews

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

I'm totally lacking behind with posting in general and with my reviews in particular, so I'll try to combine a couple of reviews in this post. I have not been posting for a while, because I spent all too much time in front of the computer and did not take enough care of sitting in an ergonomically good posture plus I spent too much time reading in the metro, both of which are not good for my shoulders and neck, and I ended up getting a bit of a tension neck for a week or so. This is one of those "do I ever learn" things. I know how to avoid this and still... Well, my neck is better now and I'm back on posting. :)

Then on to the reviews:

1. Tariq Ali: Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree

Tariq Ali is a British-Pakistani writer adn filmmaker. See his website for more info about him and his work.

Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree is the first book by him I have ever read, but it will not be the last. Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree is set in Andalusia in 1500. The Christians have reconquered the southern parts of the Iberian peninsula and the Muslim population, the Moors, who for centuries have lived in peaceful coexistance with the local Christians, are unsure of their future. The story concentrates on one Muslim family, the leading family of a village and the people working for them. Ali does a great job in portraying  the cultured, liberal Moors and the intolerance of the Catholic Church of the time. But his portrayal is in no way one-dimentional. Not all Christians in the novel think like the archbishop who wants to make everyone convert to Christianity and who thinks there is no place for either Muslims or Jews in Spain. Also, the religious pragmatism of some of the Moors is well described. Many thought that by converting to Christianity they at least got to keep their land and property.

Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree is a well written and interesting historical novel about an interesting time period in European history. It is part one in Ali's Islam Quintet, five novels about the history of Islam. I'm most definitely going to read the other parts, too.

I read this book for the following challenges: What's in a Name 3, World Religion, and Reading the World

2. Rumer Godden: The River

This was my second book by Godden this year. It's a little book, mere 176 pages, and a very quick read. The book is set in Bengal, India and tells about some months in the life of an English family from the point of view of Harriet, the second oldest of four children. The structure of the book is very simple. The more complex use of flashbacks so prominent in In This House of Brede is absent here. The writing is simple, but enjoyable, crisp and flowing. What starts as a pleasurable story of ordinary life in an English family in India turns suddenly dramatic towards the end. This book was totally different from the only other Godden novel I had read before this, but is solidified my admiration of her writing.

I read this book for What's in a Name 3 and Reading the World challenges.

3. Rumer Godden: Greengage Summer

My third book by Rumer Godden, and another enjoyable read. There was, in fact, quite a lot in common with this book and The River. Greengage Summer is also told by a young English girl, this time second oldest of five children, and again what starts as rather a peaceful story ends up turning quite dramatic towards the end. The mother of the children wants to take them to France to visit some WW II sites, but when the mother is hospitalised due to, I think blood poisoning (the actual reason is not told in the book, only that there was in insect bite), in her leg, the children are left more or less on their own in a hotel, where some intresting persons live and/or work. In the hotel a somewhat mysterious Englishman called Eliot takes the children under his wing. This is a story of growing up, secrets, jealousy, and murder. Another highly recommended read!

I know it is not yet time for Mailbox Monday, but I cannot help mentioning a wonderful addition to my book collection I received today. Valentine's Day just happens to be also my birthday :), so I got a book present from my Dad. Usually he always asks beforehand, which book I would like, but this time he had taken the risk and bought me a special book without asking, if I already had it. Well, I did not, and I was delighted to find that he had bought me Pelaamisen lumo, the book by Finland's number one tennis player Jarkko Nieminen. And it is an autographed copy! Thank you very, very much, Dad! :)

January Wrap Up and Teaser Tuesday 2.2.2010

 

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

The rules are:

• Grab your current read.
• Open to a random page.
• Share two teaser sentences from somewhere on that page.
• Be careful not to include spoilers!
• Share the title & author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participiants can add the book to their to be read lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser today is from Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree by the British-Pakistani writer and film-maker Tariq Ali. This is the first novel of his Islam Quintet tracing the history of Islam. Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree is set in Southern Spain during the first years of the 16th century. Granada has fallen to the Christians and Muslims of al-Andalus, Moorish Spain, are faced with some hard decisions:

"I am not sure that they will let us live in al-Andalus without converting to Christianity. Hind marrying Juan is a joke, but the future of the Banu Hudayl, of those who have lived with us, worked for us for centuries. That is what worries me deeply." [p. 22]

I had a very good reading month in January. Here's a little wrap up:

Books read: 11

Books read in English: 8

Books read in Finnish: 3

Books by Finnish writers read: 1

Fiction: 9

Nonfiction: 2

Books reviewed: 5

List of books read in January with links to my reviews:

-Carlson, Kristina: Maan ääreen

-Gaskell, Elizabeth: Four Short Stories

-Godden, Rumer: In This House of Brede

-Godden, Rumer: The River

-How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity ed. by Michael Cart

-Kjaerstad, Jan: Rakkauden merkit (originally published in Norwegian)

-Manguel, Alberto: The Library at Night

-Marani, Diego: Sotilas ilman menneisyyttä (this novel, originally written in Italian, will be published in English in September with the title New Finnish Grammar)

-Robinson, Jane: Bluestockings: The Remarkable Story of the First Women to Fight for an Education

-Ryan, Sara: Empress of the World

-Woolf, Virginia: To the Lighthouse