Oolong knits

Hello you! It's been a long time! Here I am again to tell you about the book I have just read this morning. This post is about a short novella — I think I read it in one hour — written in 1939 by a Jewish Austrian writer exiled in Paris. Joseph Roth died of alcoholism very shortly after writing it. It is generally considered a masterpiece. It is also a very strange novel. It tells an extremely sad story in such a light way, and with such humour, that one cannot help smiling through it all. Even its tragic ending leaves the reader with a sense of almost joy. The story itself can be told in one single short paragraph, but I will refrain to do that and tell you to read it instead. It is very much worth it. Such a strange and precious thing. Michael Hofmann, the translator of my book, explains the lightness of this story in a single sentence: "A drinker's blackouts, confusions and carelessness — or liberality — are a way of experiencing the world." Roth, a heavy...

I expected very little from this book. I was not even expecting to finish it at all. You see, I got it from my local library, where it was labelled as romance. And, what you do not know, but I know all too well, is that, when it comes to fiction, my local library specialises mostly either in crime novels or in novels with nobility titles in the title (you know the kind...). It is awfully difficult to find anything worth reading in it. So I was really surprised to find out that Mr. Fox is a very nice read and Helen Oyeyemi a very good writer. It is not easy reading—it has a complex, very fragmented structure—but this actually makes it quite entertaining. It is formed of short stories that are connected by a single theme (at least most of them are, some seemed to me to be somewhat out of place). These stories span different times, places (continents) and genres, which, together with Oyeyemi's whimsical style, is what makes them so compelling. They are mostly fantastic, their...

I must confess this was a bit of a disappointment. Not because it is bad, but because it is not quite as good as I expected, based on the reviews that made me want to read it in the first place. Put quite simply, Saki's short stories are good, but I am not entirely sure they are worth the time considering how short life is. However, let me make myself clear, this is the only reason I doubt their worth, because they are pretty good. These stories are highly peculiar and imaginative, quite unique. So I understand people who love this sort of peculiar may love them passionately. In case you are wondering what sort of peculiar we are talking about, Saki has a very English appreciation of the eccentric and the absurd. He also has a certain obsession with children, which are the main characters in a lot of his stories. Most of the time the fact they are children is used to emphasize just how stupid adults are. Most often the adults involved are small-minded middle-class women, a major ...

After you have read Conversations with Friends , I can recommend this professional review , but not before, because it retells the whole story in detail. Here is my humble review, with a lot less spoilers. It is hard not to compare this book to Eimear McBride's The Lesser Bohemians . Both were written by young contemporary Irish female writers, both are romance novels in disguise that tell a love story between a young, virgin-to-begin-with, university student and an older man who is a relatively well known actor, both are first-person narratives. The Lesser Bohemians departs from standard romance novel mostly in its use of language and, despite its faults, its literary quality. Conversations with Friends goes a bit further by addressing a few absolutely forbidden subjects in standard romance. The main one being infidelity, the man in question is not only older, he is married. Oh my! There are other very modern and fashionable topics, such as open relationships and female bisexual...

I have been a bit unfaithful to this book club, reading books that I do not include here. Which is not a sin in itself, but it means the club has been unnecessarily quiet as a consequence. Most often than not, if I do not include a book I am reading, it is not done intentionally, but because I forget. This is exactly what this post intends to correct. I am currently reading: Conversations with Friends, by Sally Rooney Please join me! Even if I must confess the reasons I decided to read this one do not make it very commendable. It just happened to be one of the very few reasonable books available at my library. Which mostly caters crime novels and books with rogue, earl or duke in the title. I had heard about it and knew it was one of last year's darlings of the publishing world. Not something I would usually read, but let us read something fashionable and that "everyone" has been talking about for a change.

"Candide, or Optimism" is the complete title of this short novel or novella, if you prefer. This is black satire, but its full intentions go beyond mere literary or social satire. In it, like most of his other fictional work, Voltaire attempts to ridicule and refute the fashionable philosophy trends of his time. So Candide can be read not only as a funny little text, full of laugh-out-loud nonsense, but also as a more serious philosophical treatise in disguise. The optimism the title refers to is the philosophical idea that since God is good and loves his creatures, we must live in the best of all possible worlds, even if this is not obvious to us simple-minded human beings. Candide is introduced to this philosophy as a gullible young man by his tutor, Prof. Pangloss. By a series of unfortunate circumstances Candide is forced away from the idyllic life he knew while growing up in his family home and into constant travels that will lead him through several countries in Europ...

Disgrace is a very hard read. Its main character, a white middle-aged South African man, is a despicable man, but what will happen to him during the course of this short novel is a lot more than he or anyone else deserves. Without giving much of the plot away, I will only say that a lot will happen to him and his once comfortable life will change dramatically and irrevocably for the much worse in a short period of time. In this sense, this a coming of age story. Not the traditional coming of age that corresponds to the transition from childhood to adulthood, but that of a middle-aged man who has lived a protected and privileged life so far, but, as he starts to enter old age, discovers the world is a cruel place to most people (and animals). In my view, Disgrace's main subject is white man's privilege and the loss of some of it in the contemporary world and specifically in post-apartheid South Africa. Sexual harassment, racial conflict, sexual identity, animal rights and land...

I started reading this book two days before I was to travel to Bath and by the time Anne, its main character, moves to this beautiful city, I was already comfortably seated in the train on my way there. What a serendipitous coincidence! Jane Austen is an author which I am more than happy to return to. Her use of the English language is always a delight, her wit legendary and laughing-out-loud. Her novels (in the genre known as novel of manners ) offer the reader an intimate peek into the private world of the English gentry in the British countryside of the early 19th Century. And this is another reason I find them fascinating. But I must confess that I now regret having chosen this book for the book club. Even though nobody else is reading these posts, I know that there are a lot of nobodies out there that are extremely passionate about Jane Austen. I am just scared of writing nothing at all they may find extremely offensive. Thus I am trembling with fear and more than willing to c...

Borges has a fair reputation of being erudite, cerebral, and difficult to read. But what struck me the most in this book was its sense of humour and the extraordinary imagination. Was it only my impression or is he often making fun of the same erudition he is accused of? I cannot be sure if this was intentional or not, but I often found myself laughing in some of the most cryptic, scholarly passages. You can easily write several volumes on this book, every story is a world unto itself, rich of many possible interpretations. So the first challenge in writing a suitably modest blog post about it is to choose what to write in the first place. The main subject of this collection of short stories is perception and more precisely the gap between what we can know or perceive with our senses and intelligence and reality itself. The stories deal often with illusion in the platonic sense. The illusion of time, as in Funes the Memorious , of historical narrative, as in Theme of the Traitor an...

The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' is a novella (only 122 pages long, excluding the very good preface) and one of Conrad's best works. It is a story of the sea, like so much of Conrad's oeuvre, that begins with the 'Narcissus', a merchant sailing ship, leaving Bombay's port and ends at its arrival in London. I do not want to give any more of the plot away (I apologize for the little that my choice of illustration gives away), because, like much of Conrad's work, it is a story that keeps you wondering what will happen next (and even more how it will come to be). It is fair to say that the main character in this story is the crew of the 'Narcissus', since there is no single main character. The narrator of the story is at the same time an omniscient narrator and a member of this crew (who remains completely anonymous and we learn nothing of him, except the impressions and opinions expressed through the narration). This inconsistency does not devalue...

I have already reviewed My Brilliant Friend, the first book of this series. But after reading the other three I have realized these books are actually one single novel divided in 4 volumes for convenience. So instead of reviewing them one by one, I have joined my review in one single extra post. That said, much of what I have written in my previous post definitely applies to the entire novel. And I could leave it at that, but I do have a few more things to say. To begin with, a warning to the future reader, this is really a single book. For example, it can be argued that the first volume does not even end where a chapter should end, considering that the second book will continue to describe the continuation of the scene that ends it. None of the volumes ends in a way that feels like an ending has been reached, even if they do not end with a standard cliffhanger, they still end too abruptly. So, if you are planning on reading it, be prepared to read a very looooong book. Is it worth...

How is your Prometheus reading going? I have not finished it yet, but I am listening to Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan novels, not reading them. I like to listen to books while I knit. Some patterns require too much attention for synchronous reading and some books demands it too. Greek tragedy is definitely on the latter category. I have finished My Brilliant Friend yesterday and already downloaded the next book which is The Story of a New Name. I have found My Brilliant Friend a very, very interesting book. Amazing insight into childhood and teenage years. I understand why so many people believe the books to be autobiographic, but I think that is quite naive. Do you really remember your inner thoughts and feelings, the conversations with your friends and family word-by-word, from so long ago and with such vivid detail? What this book shows is that the author is an amazing observer of the people around her. A mind-reader almost. And that is what is so captivating to me. I am betting...

I have a shameful confession to make. I have been very, very unfaithful to my book club. The reason I have not written my post on Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges yet is that I have not finished reading it. On the contrary, I am only half way through. And the reason for not having finished is that I have read at least two other books for every short story. Shame, shame, shame. Currently I am reading Prometheus Bound and Other Plays by Aeschylus and if nobody wants to read it with me, feel free. PS: Do not take my lack of enthusiasm for Ficciones against the book, I say. Borges is well known for writing mysterious and wildly imaginative short stories that easily grip their readers and Ficciones is arguably his best collection. My excuse, rather than total lack of enthusiasm, is that I am reading it in Spanish and Borges' use of the language is quite challenging to me. I end up often feeling too tired to follow (because I usually read late in the evening, just before sleep) and fa...

My introduction to William Trevor was made through "Summer and Love", the last of his novels. I absolutely loved the unpretentious, nostalgic, tender, and absolutely perfect way this simple (but not simplistic, much less soppy) love story was told. William Trevor, who has also written novels and plays, is better known for his short stories and "Summer and Love" feels like a short story that has become too long to be one. After that I have read quite a few of his books, but I did not appreciate what Hermione Lee calls Trevor's "sensationalist appetite". In his stories, there is an excess of perversion (sexual or otherwise) that I prefer too believe is rare in real life (thank god for that) and why dwell on it more than necessary? Life is already cruel enough as it is. So I had put "A bit on the side" aside several years ago and did not read it until now. And it is thinking of this sensationalist appetite that I first notice that the first ...

I confess, this is the first book in my book club, just because it is the book I was reading when I started it. If you'd like a professional review, I can recommend this one . What follows is my humble opinion. This book is written through out in the first person. What you "hear" is the voice of Eily, she is a young Irish girl who has just moved to London to attend Drama school. In the beginning, you hear of her excitement for London and the people she meets, the friends she makes, the grown-up life she's just beginning to live. Then she meets a much older man and their relationship turns in to a vortex in her life. With him, she learns sex, desire, heartbreak, anguish, pleasure, and more. Their relationship is not an easy one, partly because they're mismatched (by their difference in age), partly because they each have to deal with the inner demons created by their past lives. Still, it is these inner demons that allow them to find a common ground, a reason a...

Rules: not many, not any, just reading a book after another at one's pace. Because some books are faster to read than others, I don't want to set any sort of deadline, like a book per month or something of that sort. To begin with I'll just follow my own pace, writing a review when I finish a book or, if I feel inspired, while I'm reading it. If someone else joins the club, I wish!, the choice of books and the pace will become democratic. I'll be very happy to share ideas for books to read and opinions on books read. That would be lovely. A list of books… I must think about this. The first book is easy, just the one I've last finished reading: The Lesser Bohemians, by Eimear McBride . I'll write my thoughts on it next week. I know this is not fair, nobody else's going to have time to read it so fast. But nobody else cares either, at least as long as nobody else joins this club. The second book is not so easy. I'm also reading The Iliad and ...

Last year was one of the least productive years of my life. I'm really very unhappy with what I've not accomplished. As this blog attests, knitting has become a bit of an obsession since I've started learning it about 2 and a half years ago. But until recently knitting was just one of my hobbies. I used to knit almost every day, but I'd also do other things. Not so last year and, no matter how much I enjoy knitting, I don't like the fact that it has swallowed up all my other hobbies. Nor do I want to live the rest of my life this way. Don't get me wrong, too much knitting is not responsible for my lack of achievements this last year. It is just one of the things I want to change in my life. I want to go back to making reading my main hobby. Book clubs! I always loved the idea of participating in a book club, but I've never done so because I can't find one with any books that I'd like to read. Now I'm sure there are book clubs for all tastes, b...