 |
Summer in Baden-Baden by Leonid Tsypkin {Reviewed by THOMAS}
Nothing drives an obsession to unsustainable extremes more than the unnameable terror that a more moderate degree of love would be overwhelmed by its complementary revulsion. Our so-called cultural artefacts and so-called social institutions are, likewise, mechanisms for privileging one pole of an ambivalence, mechanisms for giving a (usually) positive cast to what we think of as our individual or communal selves. For some individuals, including, seemingly, Leonid Tsypkin and, especially, Fyodor Dostoyevsky (the ostensible subject of Tsypkin’s novel), whatever it is that separates the existential extremes is either exceptionally rigid and brittle or unusually permeable when unattended or in some way unreliable or, possibly, sporadically assailable, which enables, for those individuals, transports both of remarkable insight and of psychological risk. In Tsypkin’s novel, the narrator Tsypkin (or ‘Tsypkin’) is travelling by train from Moscow to Petersburg to visit the Dostoyevsky museum. As he travels, he reads the diary of Dostoyevsky’s young second wife Anna concerning their time spent in Europe, mainly staying in various German towns and suffering, often, from the financial consequences of Fyodor’s gambling addiction (which he had written about in The Gambler and practiced thereafter). Tsypkin’s astounding book, in which each paragraph is a single virtuoso sentence building, often, to hysterical length, dissolves the distinctions between the author (or ‘author’) and his subject, slipping, unnoticed and often within a few clauses, over a century in time and deep into the inner life of Dostoyevsky, revealing the sufferings, tensions and passions that both caused hardship for Dostoyevsky and his wife and enabled Dostoyevsky to write novels of such psychological penetration. The uncommon access that the past has to the present and to cause harm there, what we might call memory, repeatedly damages Dostoyevsky — for instance the humiliations visited upon him during his imprisonment lead him to repeatedly set himself up for humiliations that replay that he had received at the hands of the commandant — but also provide him and us with an intimacy with aspects of human experience that might otherwise be inaccessible. Dostoyevsky’s cycles of enthusiasm and despair are described with great sympathy, both for him and for Anna, and Tsypkin’s unsparing portrayal of the faults of his literary hero produce a suitably ambivalent effect, often within a single sentence, moving at once towards both ridicule and sympathy (readers of Thomas Bernhard will appreciate the mastery here). How is it possible to love another (as Tsypkin loves Dostoyevsky, as Anna loves Fyodor) despite their faults, despite, even, their unforgivable faults? “Why was I so strongly attracted and enticed by the life of this man?” asks Tsypkin, who, like many other Jews, has found that Dostoyevksy and his novels possess a “special attraction” despite Dostoyevsky’s antisemitism. “It strikes me as strange to the point of implausibility that a man so sensitive in his novels to the sufferings of others, this jealous defender of the insulted and the injured … despised me and my kind.” While keeping strictly to biographical fact, Tsypkin has written a novel that provides the sort of psychological insight that is only available through fiction.
|
Saturday, 11 January 2020
>>Read Thomas's review.
>>"There's no such thing as no style."
>>On balance and coherence.
>>"A few words well chosen."
>>"Language is character."
>>A writer's writer's writer.
>>Advice to the young.
>>The art of fiction.
>>"Honour the syntax."
>>"My style is a reaction to Proust's long sentences."
>>"Did the idea of having your language corrected have a repressive effect on your talking?"
>>Davis's short — and often very short — stories are exemplars of the form, and her translations are outstanding.
Friday, 10 January 2020
NEW RELEASES
In 1934, the Austrian painter Christiane Ritter travelled to the remote Arctic island of Spitsbergen to spend a year with her husband, an explorer and researcher. They lived in a tiny ramshackle hut on the shores of a lonely fjord, hundreds of miles from the nearest settlement. At first, Christiane is horrified by the freezing cold, the bleak landscape the lack of equipment and supplies, but as time passes, and after encounters with bears and seals, long treks over the ice and months on end of perpetual night, she finds herself falling in love with the Arctic's harsh, otherworldly beauty, gaining a sense of inner peace and a new appreciation for the sanctity of life. A rediscovered classic.
Benson says that the terrifying sequence of Zeus poems that form the first half of Vertigo & Ghost emerged from ‘a long buried experience, and then a sudden pouring-in of words, that I can only explain as coming out of the woods’. The sequence makes palpable the sexualised violence latent in Greek mythology, with Zeus as abuser-in-chief, abetted and feared. It is followed by an exploration of the complex and ambivalent terrain of early motherhood.
Winner of the 2019 Forward Prize.
>>Interview.
>>In conversation with Daisy Johnson.
Really good. See also A Maori Word a Day.
109 photographs taken between 1962 and 1971 in what was Czechoslovakia (Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia), Romania, Hungary, France and Spain. A unique record of a vanished world.
A lonely psychiatrist in 1948 is preparing fro retirement when he is drawn to a seemingly fragile woman who comes to him as a patient.
"A shrewd, skilful tale of loneliness, the search for meaning and a place in the world, and the problems of truly relating to another human being.” —Independent
The Summer Isles are a sporadically inhabited archipelago off the west coast of the Scottish Highlands. Marsden reached them by sailing along the exposed western coasts of Ireland and Scotland. It is a course that has been followed for centuries by explorers and adventurers, fishermen and monks, all drawn to the western seas and their distant horizons. Combining travel writing, memoir and cultural history, this is a book about the search for real places, for imagined places, and for places that might always exist somewhere in between. Beautifully written.
A record of how a future Moscow was envisioned by a bold generation of architects in the 1920s and early 1930s. Through a wealth of rarely seen material, this book provides a window into an idealistic fantasy of the Soviet capital that was never realised and has since been largely forgotten. Focusing on six unbuilt architectural landmarks, Imagine Moscow explores how these projects reflected changes in everyday life and society following the Revolution.
“The material universe and consciousness are made out of the same stuff.” —Ernst Schrödinger
Is consciousness one of the fundamental properties of all matter? How would our understanding of our universe be altered if we took this to be the case?
"An illuminating introduction to the topic of consciousness. It addresses the real issue — unlike almost all recent popular books on this subject. It stands a good chance of delivering the extremely large intellectual jolt that many people will need if they are to get into (or anywhere near) the right ballpark for thinking about consciousness. This is a great thing." —Galen Strawson, Guardian
Breeze block is back. This surge of interest in the material, though, is more than a nostalgic yearning for the golden years of modernism. Contemporary designers are not only rediscovering the forgotten qualities that made it such an appealing medium for mid-century architects, but finding new ways to enhance and exploit them.
The Marquise of O— by Heinrich von Kleist $28
A crisp new translation by Nicholas Jacob of Kleist's comic novel of the clash between sexuality and respectability, set in northern Italy during the Napoleonic Wars.
How does our perception of the world change in the course of a lifetime? When Heike Faller's niece was born she began to wonder what we learn in life, and how we can talk about what we have learnt with those we love. And so she began to ask everyone she met, what did you learn in life? Out of the answers of children's writers and refugees, teenagers and artists, mothers and friends, came 99 'lessons' — each here delightfully illustrated by Valerio Vidali.
A hilarious collection of essays from "the premier observer of our world and its weirdnesses." —Adam Kay
Showcasing Hervé's signature bold colours and minimalist shapes and lines, this wildly graphic and highly intuitive card game will unlock every young (and old) artist's creative potential. Select WHAT to draw from one deck and HOW to draw it from the other; then flick the colourful spinner wheel to randomise the options. From "draw a tree with your eyes closed" to "draw a friend... upside down!", the combinations are endless — and endlessly fun!
Saturday, 4 January 2020
 | The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy {Reviewed by STELLA} Deborah Levy’s books are not what you expect and are better for it. A simple story-line, not predictable but understandable, is usually where she opens — but where she ends is a place of surprise and delight. And always with elegance and tenacity. Levy’s last three novels, including this one, The Man Who Saw Everything, have been long-listed for the Booker Prize. In The Man Who Saw Everything, Saul Adler is a young historian fooling around with his art student girlfriend Jennifer Moreau and readying himself to visit East Germany as part of his research. It’s 1988, just a few years before The Wall comes down. Adler is good-looking and idealistic, somewhat perplexed by his girlfriend, haunted by his mother’s death (he was twelve when she died in an accident) and tormented by his bullying father and brother. When we meet Saul has just been knocked down by a car on a pedestrian crossing. Bruised and a bit bloody he gets himself sorted and limps on to Jennifer's flat. Jennifer Moreau — photographer. Favourite subject of her final year exhibition — Saul Adler and his body. Or so he thinks: “It’s like this Saul Adler: the main subject is not always you. It’s like this Jennifer Moreau: you have made me the main subject.” In this situation, Levy turns the artist's-muse-as-role in on itself, reversing the gender stereotypes. In her work later, Jennifer Moreau is recognised for her observing eye — her ability to see a body in all its fragments through the lens. Saul is banned from saying anything about Moreau’s ‘beauty’ and must be content with the role of the observed rather than the observer. A day like any other — sex with Jennifer in the afternoon — turns out to be the last day of their relationship. Jennifer Moreau is off to America, and when Saul proposes she sends him packing. In East Germany, he meets Walter Müller and his sister Luna. He falls in love with Walter, sleeps with both Walter and Luna, and proceeds to make a hash of his time in East Germany by putting them both under suspicion with the local Stasi. Or so he thinks. There are some clues in this part of the novel to the state of Saul Alder’s mind — he is somewhat paranoid — often questioning people’s behaviour towards him, and the black telephone he sees in Mrs Stechler’s flat in London and in Walter’s mother’s flat are too similar to be ignored, especially when starts tapping the wall, looking for something, but what he is not sure. Levy is playing with her reader, but in the most humorous of ways, as she unpacks Saul for us. And when we arrive in 2016 — Saul is knocked down for a second time on the same crossing — we sense that some cogs have become undone. This time there is no brushing himself off and limping to Jennifer Moreau’s place. He's in hospital and Jennifer is there, as is Rainer the East German informer, and his brother, Matt. As this section of the novel unfolds, you are cast into confusion — not helped by our narrator’s concussion. Memory and time are flipping over each other and Saul Adler is no longer a reliable narrator, but he is our only guide — so read the prompts carefully. It will be rewarding. Excellent writing from Levy reminds me why I return to her work and am always impressed just a little bit more by her concepts of the self, of identity, memory and the impact that human action (and inaction) has on the other and oneself. In The Man Who Saw Everything, she reminds us that the truth is within our grasp but easily clouded by our own disillusion and self-importance. |
 | Exposition by Nathalie Léger {Reviewed by THOMAS} What is the relation between an atemporal — or, rather, idiotemporal — work and the temporality — or evanescence — both of its creation and of its reading? In photography, as in literature, as in any of the so-called arts — and here we turn back before proposing a ‘useful’ definition of ‘art’ — it is the relationship between passing and unpassing time that forms the unterlayer of our understanding of the work, and of what, if anything, we can see beyond it, if it can be said to have a beyond, and, as with all relationships, whether in the arts or in society, the first question must always be one of power. Who or what is affected by who or what at the instigation of who or what? Which forces are here promulgated and which forces are resisted? What is revealed and what is — perhaps by that revelation — concealed? And, more interestingly, what is concealed and what is — perhaps by that concealment — revealed? The ostensible subject, so to call it, in any work of art is of relative insignificance to these considerations, and to the mechanisms of representation to which they give rise. Ostensibly concerning a four-decades-long series of photographs taken of the Countess Virginia Oldoini Castiglione by the Parisian society photographer Pierre-Louis Pierson from the 1850s to the 1890s, Exposition reveals Léger's thinking on exposure, concealment and over-exposure, on representation and self-representation, on the politics of the gaze especially when concerning the power or otherwise of women, on the limited and limiting truths of photography, on time and history, and also, half-reluctantly but therefore crucially, on uncomfortable aspects of her own family history (for instance, on a childhood photograph of Léger that shows her face peering through some bushes was taken by her father’s lover, who was aware that Léger was gazing at their dalliance when thinking herself unseen). “They contemplated her beauty the way people enjoyed freak shows,” says Léger of Castiglione. From her youth, through her time as mistress of Napoleon III in Second Empire France, through to her declining years, Castiglione was obsessed with the way in which she was seen and conscious always of controlling her self-representation, directing Pierson in a stupefying series of lavishly staged and costumed photographs, some recreating — faking — key moments in her life. This project, with its vapid and cloying results, is the work of a woman determined at all costs to keep a gaze upon her but to reveal nothing of herself. She appears “at once defiant and imploring,” both monstrous and needy. Her self-representation is not that of Cindy Sherman for the first gaze in Sherman’s photographs is Sherman’s own, whereas for Castiglione the first gaze is that of the passive, male, invisible photographer. There is a tyranny in her command of the gaze of others but also a desperation, an existential insecurity, a sense that the subject is lost to herself and — impossibly — seeks assurance in the response of others to the fake self she presents (and long before instagram, too). Photography, “her only mask”, is what makes her both visible and impossible to be seen. There is nothing to Castiglione below the surface — or at least not as far as we can tell — she has made herself into an object, her so-called “beauty” is a characterlessness, a blandness; she is an object that demands no sympathies other than admiration, if admiration can be considered a sympathy. Léger is, rightly, not interested in Castiglione beyond her photographic project, but she is interested in the spaces, the absences, in which the ungraspable could exist if it did exist (“Like death, and one or two other little things the subject is simply the name for what cannot be spoken.”). If ellipses are a means of removing content from a sentence without altering its meaning, how much content is the greatest amount that can be removed while preserving enough meaning to at least simulate coherence? At what point does the process of ellipsis itself become the meaning? (>>Read my review of Léger’s Suite for Barbara Loden here) |
>>Read Stella's review.
>>"Writing this book was a weird seance."
>>Reading.
>>"My novel is more about the space between what we see and misunderstand, rather than understand."
>>The Psychopathology of the Doppelgänger.
>>How to live with death.
>>Blurring vividly.
>>"The new generation of young women can change the world."
>>Other books by Deborah Levy.
>>Come and discuss the book on 13 February!
Friday, 3 January 2020
NEW RELEASES
Ostensibly concerning a four-decades-long series of photographs taken of the Countess Virginia Oldoini Castiglione from the 1850s to the 1890s, this subtle book reveals Léger's thinking on exposure, concealment and over-exposure, on the gaze and its relevance to the power-status of women, on the limited truths of photography, on time and history, and also, half-reluctantly on aspects of her own family history.
"In Nathalie Leger's magnificent text, everything is turned on its head, everything is paradox. Exposition is the fragile and dangerous attempt to reconstitute the self, to seek, in the secret of another woman the very thing that eludes us within ourselves. Thus it is the ellipsis (the blanks between the fragments) that gives Exposition its beauty and its truthfulness." —Les Inrockuptibles
>>Read an extract.
A sharp, innovative novella from the author of When I Hit You. Karim and Maya are lovers. They share a home, they worry about money, and then Maya falls pregnant. But Karim is still finishing his film degree, pushing against his tutors' insistence that his art must be Arab like him. And Maya, working a zero-hours job and fretting about her family, can't find the time to quit smoking, let alone have a child. Framed with fragments and peppered with footnotes Exquisite Cadavers is at once a bricolage of influence, and a love story that knows no borders.
"Fascinating." —Guardian
An idiosyncratic exploration of mass consumption, both physical and digital, through our relationship with food.
"Ed Atkins is the artist of ugly feelings — gruesome and smeared and depleted. But everything he does in his videos or paintings, I’ve always thought, he really does as a writer. He uses language as a system where everything gets reprocessed and misshapen – a unique and constant mislaying of tone that’s as dizzying as it’s exhilarating." —Adam Thirwell
"Violent, emetic, immoderate, improper, impure – that’s to say it’s the real thing. Atkins’s prose, which may not be prose, adheres to Aragon’s maxim 'Don't think – write'." —Jonathan Meades
>>An extract of Old Food.
>>Hear the author reading another extract.
>>Visit the exhibition.
Kings, lords, liars, usherettes, goal-hangers, gun-men and prostitutes, Whether or not these stories bear any relation to life as it is lived in Endland [sic] is not my problem and good riddance to all those what prefer to read about truly good, lucky and nice people — you won't like this crap at all.
A series of 39 cautionary tales for our digital age, Endland is comical and brutal, set in strangely familiar locations that at times seem like Thatcher-era Northern towns under military rule or post-Brexit council estates after a Farage party bender. And things are leaking into Endland from all over the place. Nothing is stable. Now is also then and next year, a landscape that is future and medieval at the same time. What's more, the gods have started drinking at lunchtime, which can only lead to trouble. In narratives working a bit like poetry or cartoons, in empty tower blocks, midnight diners and bomb-site cities, Endland is a dysfunctional mirror of England.
"Scabrous." —Guardian
>>Read an extract.
>>Forced Entertainment.
>>Swimming against the tide.
>>Tim Etchells, Collector of language.
What do we know? And how do we know it? These are essential questions to consider when a functioning democracy is reliant on an informed populace. Yet at this moment in the information age something has gone awry with our public knowledge. Are we cultivating an environment for the sharing of ideas? Who has access to the institutions and practices that hold our collective knowledge? Do we know when to act and when to delegate to experts? Is our education, in the broader sense of the term, sufficient for us to meaningfully participate in public life? From archives and mātauranga Māori to formal education models and knowledge types that inspire action, this multi-author book explores the state of our public knowledge, its potential and how it affects our public life and conversations. With the need to find responsive solutions to the challenges facing us, the health of our public knowledge matters to us all. Contributions by Barnaby Bennett (designer), Golriz Ghahraman (Member of Parliament), Gwynn Compton (public relations), Hannah Benbow (cartoon librarian). Jared Davidson (archivist & historian), Joseph Hullen (Ngai Tuahuriri/Ngati Hinematua), Lana Lopesi (editor), Marianne Elliott (researcher & advocate), Michael Macaulay (Victoria University), Morgan Godfery (writer & trade unionist), Nicola Gaston (University of Auckland), Ruth Boyask (Auckland University of Technology), Sacha McMeeking (researcher & commentator), Sally Blundell (journalist).
Is boredom the enemy of humanity? Does boredom mean our time is being wasted? In this thoughtful picture book, a boy finds that this seemingly stagnant state is actually a portal into a dynamic, mind-blowing experience.
>>All of Shinsuke Yoshitake's books are both thoughtful and playful.
Wark argues that the all-pervasive presence of data in our networked society has given rise to a new mode of production, one not ruled over by capitalists and their factories but by those who own and control the flows of information. Yet, if this is not capitalism anymore, could it be something worse? What if the world we're living in is more dystopian than the techno utopias of the Silicon Valley imagination? And, if this is the case, how do we find a way out?
>>The ideas behind the book.
In this hypersharp, subtle and humane novel, Ginzburg portrays a family drawn to the brink of an abyss by one of its member's absence. Introduction by Claire-Louise Bennett.
"Ginzburg's beautiful words have such solidity and simplicity. I read her with joy and amazement." —Tessa Hadley
>>Read an extract.
>>"The novel’s new English title is evocative. That comma is like the pre–big bang universe shrunk to a pinhead."
>>Read other books by Ginzburg.
"Hanne Ørstavik crafts an atmosphere of unease out of the ordinary. An old man giving a young boy a pair of skates, a man inviting a woman over for coffee, in Orstavik’s hands these seemingly harmless moments become filled with an underlying sense of dread. Longing and loneliness fill these pages, while always there is a sense of the impossibility of real understanding and connection between people. Ørstavik is a true observer of human nature and Love is her masterpiece." —Emily Ballaine
"In Hanne Ørstavik’s Love, the equilibrium between a tense, disquieting plot and a gently experimental binary structure sustain the reader’s attention and awe from beginning to end. The aerial beauty of Martin Aitken’s translation contributes to make the novel a successful rarity: a book that is at the same time a thriller and a dense literary object. 'Perfect' may be the proper adjective to describe it." —National Book Awards citation
"Love is Hanne Ørstavik’s strongest book." —Karl Øve Knausgaard
One of the most important designers and architects of the 20th century, Eileen Gray (1878-1976) wielded enormous influence — though often unacknowledged, especially in her lifetime — in a field largely dominated by men. Today, her iconic designs, including the luxurious Bibendum chair and the refined yet functional E.1027 table, are renowned throughout the world. Resolutely independent and frequently underappreciated, Gray evolved from a creator of opulent lacquer furniture into a pioneer of the modernist principle of form following function. Definitive.
>>See also the graphic novel A House Under the Sun.
As humans evolved, we developed technologies to modify our environment, yet these innovations are increasingly affecting our behavior, biology, and society, as well as having dangerous cumulative consequences for our habitat. Now we must figure out how to function in the world we've created. New Zealand author.
In the late nineteenth century, Tomo, the faithful wife of a government official, is sent to Tokyo, where a heartbreaking task is awaiting her. From among hundreds of geishas and daughters offered up for sale by their families she must select a respectable young girl to become her husband’s new lover. Externally calm, but torn apart inside, Tomo dutifully begins the search for an official mistress.
The characters in the stories in Hall's third collection walk, drive, dream, and fly, trying to reconcile themselves with their journeys through life, death, and love. Science fiction meets folktale and philosophy meets mortality. A woman with a new generation of pacemaker chooses to shut it down in the Lakeland, the site of her strongest memories. A man repatriated in the near east hears the name of an old love called and must unpack history's dark suitcase. From the new world-waves of female anger and resistance, a mythical creature evolves. And in the woods on the border between warring countries, an old well facilitates a dictator's downfall, before he gains power.
"Sarah Hall is one of those rare writers whose short fiction has the same luminosity as her novels. But the short form allows her more room to probe and roam, to experiment with form, to sink her fingers into the earth." —The Observer
Discover a realm of travel writing little-known in the West - a literary tradition extending over a thousand years: here are asobi, the wandering performers who prefigured geisha; travelling monks who sleep on pillows of grass and listen to the autumnal insects; and a young girl who passionately longs to travel to the capital and read more stories. Interesting.
An interesting history and study of what used to be considered a natural state but which is becoming an increasingly elusive accomplishment.
A guide to 100 Bauhaus structures throughout Germany, often in unexpected places.
The world is not always what we think it is. This book presents unusual borders, enclaves and exclaves, divided or non-existent cities and islands. Numerous conflicts have left countries divided and often shattered. Remnants of countries can by design or accident be left behind as a legal anomaly in this complex world.
Beautifully presented.
A writer tires of trying to improve the literary aspects of his writing and concentrates instead on improving his handwriting as an access route to success. The novelist begins to keep a notebook of handwriting exercises, hoping that if he is able to improve his penmanship, his personal character will also improve.
Stunning photographs of Soviet Metro Stations from across the former states of the USSR and Russia itself. Astounding.
The second of Markovits's projected three novels following the Essinger family is as sharp — and funny — as the first, A Weekend in New York.
A clear analysis of the ways in which fear, and especially induced fear, disempowers society, undermines democracy, and plays into the hands of unscrupulous leaders.
"A brave and beautiful exploration into food, race, memory and the very meaning of life. I read it greedily - and so will you." —Meera Sodha, author of Fresh India
Laurenzo and Jiacomo are identical twins, as alike as two drops of water. No one can tell them apart (which comes in very handy for playing tricks on their teachers). And no one can split them up. But when tragedy strikes their carefree young lives, they must make their own way in the world. As each brother chooses his own path - hardworking Laurenzo to make beautiful objects from gold and silver, and fearless Jiacomo to travel, explore and become an unlikely thief - it is the start of a series of incredible escapades that will test them to their limits. Along the way they will face terrible danger, solve cunning riddles, become prisoners in a castle, sail across the ocean, fall in and out of love, stay at an enchanted inn, help save a priceless pearl, even become kings by mistake. They must use all their talents, wiles and wisdom to survive. From the author of The Letter for the King.
"We've finished the earthly tsars and we're coming for the heavenly ones!" A wonderful assembly of Soviet anti-religious propaganda.
Tuesday, 24 December 2019
Use the selector to choose your seasonal gifts and summer reading.
Use the 'click and collect' function on our website to reserve your copies, or pay on-line for delivery anywhere (let us know if you'd like them gift-wrapped). If you don't find what you're looking for here, come and talk to us: we have many other interesting books on our shelves — or browse our website.
List #1: FICTION
List #3: SCIENCE & NATURE
List #4: FOOD & DRINK
List #5: BIOGRAPHY, MEMOIR & ESSAYS
List #6: CHILDREN'S NON-FICTION
List #7: NEW ZEALAND POETRY
List #8: HISTORY & POLITICS
List #9: VISUAL CULTURE
List #10: GRAPHIC NOVELS
List #6: CHILDREN'S NON-FICTION
List #7: NEW ZEALAND POETRY
List #8: HISTORY & POLITICS
List #9: VISUAL CULTURE
List #10: GRAPHIC NOVELS
Saturday, 21 December 2019
Saturday, 14 December 2019
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)