Three Shorties

I had a quiet weekend, both figuratively and literally! No dance practise, just some tennis on both days, but I also tried to talk as little as possible as my throat has been a bit sore and on Friday & Saturday I had a rather funny voice. Luckily it's almost back to normal now.

I must say that this post is a rather random collection of thoughts, as the three books I'm about to write about are all totally different and range from pretty heavy stuff to the lighter side of romantic fiction! But, here comes:

The Madman of Freedom Square by Hassan Blasim
Blasim is an Iraqi-born writer and filmmaker who came to Finland as a refugee in 2004. The short story collection The Madman of Freedom Square is his first book. He wrote it in Arabic and the collection was translated into English by Jonathan Wright. Blasim's stories are powerful pictures of what life has been and is like for Iraqis either in Iraq or in exile from the time period of the Iran-Iraq War to the present. There is war and insanity, nightmarish and macabre moments in the stories, but also atempts to love, to survive, to find a way to live inspite of all the odds. One of the stories that made the biggest impression on me was Ali's Bag, where Ali, disgusted by the way his older brothers and his father always treated his mother takes his revenge after the mother's death by digging up her bones and carrying them in her old travel bag all the way to Europe in the hope of finding a safe place to bury them. My favorite story, however, was the title story The Madman of Freedom Square, mainly because first it is almost fairytale-like and much more optimistic than most, if not all the other stories, and then the ending is so dramatic! Blasim's stories are not easy reading. He writes about difficult, ugly things, but that is exactly why this is an important book. As the backcover of the book tells us "these stories afford us a rare glimpse of Iraq from the inside."

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
Have you seen the 1999 movie made of this novel starring Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore? I haven't, but after reading the book I would really like to. This slim novel tells the story of a love affair between Maurice Bendrix (based on Greene himself), a writer, and Sarah Miles (based on Greene's then lover Lady Catherine Walston), the wife of civil servant Henry Miles, who Bendrix meets when he wants to get information on civil servants for a novel he is writing. We know from the start that the affair is going to end and we also know very soon than Sarah is going to die. What is interesting is how we get to the end and what happens afterwards. Greene himself has said that The End of the Affair is one of the only two books we wrote which is not melodramatic. Maybe so. At least the way some of the characters react to adultery and even death are almost too civilised. Henry Miles must really be the most understanding husband in the history of literature! Or how many betrayed husbands would not only befriend their late wife's lover but ask them move in with them? I had hard time believing some of the plot, but what I loved from the beginning was Greene's writing. This was the first novel by Graham Greene I've ever read and I want to read more just because he definitely was a very skilled writer. Mayde I'll try one of his spy stories next...

Lucky Loser by Yolanda Wallace
Last year the book I was most dissapointed in was Grand Slam by Samantha Brenner. It was supposed to be a satirical lesbian romance set in the world of women's professional tennis, but the satire was totally lost in me. When I learned that there was another novel, also this one a lesbian romance, set in the world of tennis, I approached the book with equal amount of fear and hope. :) I hoped it would be a nice read. It surely could not be as unlucky a reading experience as Grand Slam had been! And it wasn't! :)
I very seldom read romantic novels, but I'm happy I chose to read this one. Wallace had done her homework and the tennis bits were well researched, even though I must say Sinjin Smythe served a little too many aces in her Wimbledon matches! The story tells about Sinjin, a British player trying to come back from an injury and her French friend and former doubles partner Laure Fortescue, whose feelings for each other start to turn into something more than a friendship. I found it a bit amusing that Wallace had borrowed some characteristics of real tennis professionals for her fictional characters. And my only criticism (but just a tiny little one :)) comes from the fact that Laure Fortescue shared a bit too many characteristics with my all time favorite tennis player Amelie Mauresmo! However, all in all Lucky Loser was a lovely comfort read and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to read a feel good novel set in the world of tennis.
I'll add Lucky Loser into my list of LGTB books read this year.

Ok, now I'll retreat back to nursing my sore throat that is fast starting to turn into a runny nose... :-)

ps. The End of the Affair is missing from the photo as I already returned it to the library.