opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

The Literary Saloon Archive

21 - 31 December 2019

21 December: Best of the year in: Spain - the Netherlands | PEN Translates awards | Staff selections
22 December: Bestselling of the decade in the US | Berge review
23 December: Mircea Cărtărescu Q & A | The Destruction of the Temple review
24 December: PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants | The Riveter - Writing from Germany | Most-Read PW Book Reviews
25 December: The decade in the book industry: e-books - trends | The Invented Part review
26 December: Tom Stoppard profile | Not All Dead White Men review
27 December: Books of the decade lists | Kim Un-su profile | Gold Mask review
28 December: Alasdair Gray profile | Litprom winter 'best list'
29 December: Francis Bacon: Books and Painting exhibit | Obama's favorite books of the year | Alles schmeckt nach Abschied review
30 December: Alasdair Gray (1934-2019) | Coming in 2020
31 December: 1,131 T.S.Eliot letters soon accessible | Book of the year ? | The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree review

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       1,131 T.S.Eliot letters soon accessible

       As Princeton University has announced, T.S. Eliot letters, among best-known sealed literary archives, open at Princeton after 60 years, as on 2 January: "a collection of 1,131 letters from Nobel laureate and renowned writer Thomas Stearns Eliot, better known as T.S. Eliot, to his lifelong friend Emily Hale will open for research at Princeton University Library".
       They were actually 'unsealed' in October -- "for processing and cataloging" -- but starting 2 January they will be accessible -- "on a first-come, first-served basis". Since they're still under copyright until 2035 they will not be made available online (or, presumably, in print), so if you want to read them you have to head to Princeton.

       (Updated - 3 January): See now also Statement by T. S. Eliot on the opening of the Emily Hale letters at Princeton, published at the T.S.Eliot site

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Book of the year ?

       I won't get around to posting a review today, so that leaves the total at the complete review 209 reviews for the year (down slightly from 217 in 2018) -- 282,561 review-words, for an average of 1352 words per review (considerably up from the 1168 average in 2018) and a median review-length of 1213 words (2018: 1063).
       A full look at the year-in-reviews is forthcoming, once I go over all the numbers, etc., but meanwhile: while in 2018 there was one book rated A+ and two rated A, in 2019 only one book rate as high as A. It was a decent reading year, with quite a few impressive and memorable reads, but, yes, fewer works that were unquestionably top-tier.
       So I guess that makes the lone A title my 'book of the year' -- or at least the best book I read in 2019. It's a Knausgaard-novel -- but probably not the one you're thinking of .....

       (Updated - 2 January 2020): It turns out there is a second A rated title (mis-entered in my database, which is why I originally missed it ...): Waves by Eduard von Keyserling ! So ... co-books of the year ?

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Shokoofeh Azar's The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree.

       Iranian-born Azar moved to Australia in 2011; this novel, written in Persian, was published in English translation by Wild Dingo Press in 2017 -- and went on to be shortlisted for the Stella Prize; now there's a US/UK edition from Europa Editions.
       Big props to Wild Dingo Press for also publishing the Persian edition; see their publicity page.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Alasdair Gray (1934-2019)

       The great Alasdair Gray has passed away -- a great loss; see, for example, James Campbell's obituary in The Guardian and the Canongate notice.

       Quite a few of his works are under review at the complete review, though not his most famous, Lanark -- see the Canongate publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk -- which, along with other early work, such as 1982, Janine and The Fall of Kelvin Walker, I read long before I started the site; all are worth revisiting and I do expect to get to them again.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Coming in 2020

       The book-preview articles of what's coming in 2020 have been appearing for a while, and there's a decent variety out now; see, for example:

• Alex Preston on Fiction to look out for in 2020 in The Observer
  
  
• Melanie Kembrey on The books to read in 2020 in the Sydney Morning Herald
  
  
• Sana Goyal on 50 Books to Look Forward to in 2020 in the Huffington Post (India)
  
  
• Niamh Donnelly's Books preview 2020: Our vision for the year ahead in the Irish Times
  
  
• Emma Specter on 41 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2020 in Vogue
  
  
• At Paper Republic David Haysom collects 2020 Forthcoming Translations from the Chinese

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Francis Bacon: Books and Painting exhibit

       The Francis Bacon: Books and Painting exhibit at the Centre Pompidou is still on -- but only until 20 January; Tim Keane's new review at Hyperallergic, The Unsparing Pages of Francis Bacon suggests it's still worth seeking out.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Obama's favorite books of the year

       Former American president Barack Obama has released his list of Favorite Books of 2019.
       It looks like a pretty solid list -- though I'm afraid I haven't seen or read any of these .....

       I seem also to have missed the current occupant of the White House's list of his favorite reads of the year .....

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Alles schmeckt nach Abschied review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of the second volume of Brigitte Reimann's diaries, covering 1964 to 1970, Alles schmeckt nach Abschied.

       This is the follow-up to I Have No Regrets; it's not yet available in translation, but a translation is apparently in the works. Meanwhile, it has inspired a musical composition, by Jan-Willem van Herpen.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Alasdair Gray profile

       In The Herald Carla Jenkins profiles the great Alasdair Gray: A portrait of the artist as a Glaswegian -- good to see, even it comes with the disappointing observation by the master that:

I am not likely to be writing another novel, or work of fiction, or even play.

       Still, good to hear he's still producing a lot of art -- of course the books are well worth returning to.

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       Litprom winter 'best list'

       Litprom is a German organization that supports translation from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and they announce a 'best list' every quarter, the best translations published in German -- and they've now announced the Weltempfänger Nr. 45 | Winter 2019.
       Four translations from the Spanish top the list; one of them -- Jorge Comensal's The Mutations -- is under review at the complete review.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Books of the decade lists

       A few more international books of the decade lists:

        - Benzine has a best-novel list, Les meilleurs romans de la décennie 2010-2019

        - at La Vanguardia they consider Los libros de la década

       Meanwhile, in The Guardian, Alex Clark offers From The Big Short to Normal People: the books that defined the decade

       (Updated - 28 December): And in Elle Cristina Arreola offers The 15 Books That Defined The 2010s.
       (Updated - 29 December): See now also The Hindu's list of Best fiction books of the decade.
       (Updated - 30 December): See now also The 20 Best Books of a Decade That Unmade Genre Fiction by Jason Kehe at Wired
       (Updated - 31 December): See now also a German variation, Diese zehn Romane prägten das Jahrzehnt in Der Spiegel

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Kim Un-su profile

       In The Korea Times Anna J. Park reports that Powerful storyteller Kim Un-su touches global readers, in a lengthy profile of The Plotters-author.
       Kim describes his writing routine:

"In the past, I used to pack myself and go deep into the forest or a mountain and stay there for several months to write, as I could gain necessary focus and calm to write," he said. "But now I write at home. I live in the quiet countryside in a southern region of Korea. I usually wake up at around 3 a.m. every day and write until around 11 a.m. or noon.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Gold Mask review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Edogawa Rampo's 1931 novel Gold Mask, recently out from Kurodahan Press.

       This novel pits Edogawa's own amateur detective Akechi Kogorō against Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin. And, yes, the title was inspired by Marcel Schwob's The King in the Golden Mask, about which Edogawa wrote: "I have a boundless love for that wonderful fantasy novel"; it was also recently published in English by Wakefield Press.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Tom Stoppard profile

       Tom Stoppard's new play, Leopoldstadt, is opening in London 25 January -- see also the official site -- and in The Spectator Douglas Murray speaks with him, at some length, in 'I aspire to write for posterity': An interview with Tom Stoppard.
       Lots here of interest (though, alas , quite a bit of it only in summary form) -- including potential future projects:

He thinks there is a big play to be written on capitalism and the City of London. ‘I think a lot of what I think of as being criminal behaviour is done by people who don’t consider themselves to be criminals at all. I think the artist’s job partly is to remind us of what’s fair, but in moral terms.’ But he worries that he doesn’t have the time and energy to do the research into the big problem that capitalism currently presents. What about one of his other ideas ? He has all the paperwork upstairs (including the Leveson report and the transcripts of the House of Commons committee hearings) to write a play about the press. He’s been thinking about that ‘from long before Leopoldstadt and long before The Hard Problem’.

       I hope to get a look at the playscript of Leopoldstadt; see also the Faber & Faber publicity page, or pre-order your copy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Not All Dead White Men review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Donna Zuckerberg on Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age, in Not All Dead White Men.

       (Zuckerberg is the founder and editor of Eidolon -- "an online journal for scholarly writing about Classics that isn't formal scholarship" -- and, yes, she's the sister of that other Silicon Valley Zuckerberg.)

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       The decade in the book industry: e-books

       At Vox Constance Grady reports on how The 2010s were supposed to bring the ebook revolution. It never quite came.

       The focus is on the money (pricing) angle, but I continue to find e-books tremendously frustrating to deal with and fare much less well when I have to rely on them. Despite the apparent convenience, I find myself increasingly trying to avoid them, wherever possible.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       The decade in the book industry: trends

       In The Washington Post Ron Charles identifies 11 trends that changed the way we read this decade.
       (I do note that practically none of these have had any (more or less direct) effect on how I read -- I have not started to listen to audiobooks, etc. -- except possibly that: 'Instant-printing finally got real', as a considerable number of the titles I see (and seek out) are, essentially, printed on demand.)

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       The Invented Part review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Rodrigo Fresán's The Invented Part.

       This is the first part in a trilogy, and came out in English from Open Letter in 2017; it won the Best Translated Book Award in 2018 -- and the second volume in the trilogy, The Dreamed Part, recently came out; I should be getting to that one, too.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants

       PEN America has announced the recipients of the 2020 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants -- 11 projects selected from 262 eligible applications. (Great to see there were so many eligible submissions -- but of course a shame that only so many can be supported .....)
       Some interesting titles to look forward to.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       The Riveter - Writing from Germany

       The latest issue of The Riveter, Writing from Germany (warning ! dreaded pdf format !), is now available online -- 160 pages of excerpts, reviews (of books that have been translated, and some that haven't yet), and articles.
       Lots of interesting material, well worth a look (or, indeed, a couple of hours of your reading time ...).

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Most-Read PW Book Reviews

       I usually avoid lists like those of 'most borrowed books' from various libraries (since they depend a lot on how many copies of books a given library has and hence obviously favor the biggest-name and most heavily-publicized, bought-in-bulk titles/authors), but the huge number of reviews at Publishers Weekly makes for a more balanced pool for an exercise like their list of The Most-Read Book Reviews of 2019 (though it's disappointing that they don't specify how many reviews they posted in 2019). Not necessarily the titles I would have expected, and an interesting variety.

       (I will also list the most-read reviews at the complete review in 2019 -- but only once 2019 is actually over and the final totals are in.)

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Mircea Cărtărescu Q & A

       The latest in hlo's series of 'The State of Things' is their Q & A with Mircea Cărtărescu: The mainstream writer is no longer a star of the cultural world, nor an opinion maker.
       Among his observations:

Critical reception has no place or means to be exercised. The only criterion that decides on the visibility of an author is sales, as in the case of movies or music. This is the reason why it is not the critical expertise, but the publishing houses and the institutions of literary awards which are most important in creating an author’s image. Who publishes you ? How do they support you ? What literary award did you get ? These are the new questions that have replaced the classical ones such as: What kind of literature do you write ? What stylistic qualities does it have ? What literary movement does it belong to? What generation does the author belong to ? The “normal” writers, concerned with the human condition, descendants of Faulkner, Kafka, Virginia Woolf or Joyce, not to mention the poet or essayist, have increasing difficulties to assert themselves because their literatures seem to be “elitist” and barely accessible to today’s world. Therefore, despite having some awards and the appreciation of some critics, their literature cannot be sold (only as much as real literature has always been sold), so it only exists sporadically. A few small or medium-sized publishing houses carry on the tradition of three millennia of literary writing that no one cares about anymore.

       The English translation, by Sean Cotter, of Cărtărescu's Solenoid is forthcoming (though it will still be a while ...) from Deep Vellum, and is eagerly anticipated ...; see also the Hanser foreign rights page.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       The Destruction of the Temple review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Barry N. Malzberg's (very) 1974 science fiction novel, The Destruction of the Temple.

       I was unfamiliar with his work, but recently picked up a pile of Malzberg titles -- they sound intriguing, and he certainly has some fun ideas. This one didn't win me over completely, but sufficiently that I'll take a look at some of the others; aside from the concepts and how he plays them out, sentences like this one are enough to keep me going:

(I)n the repertory theater that is America nothing is quite as it seems but then again everything is exactly as it seems if we can bear the comprehension.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Bestselling of the decade in the US

       NPD Bookscan reports on the top ten bestselling adult titles in the US in the past decade, in Nonfiction and screen adaptations led U.S. book sales from 2010 to 2019, according to NPD Bookscan -- with actual numbers.
       The 'Fifty Shades'-trilogy took the top three places, selling a total of almost 35 million copies. Only two of the top ten titles were by men -- at numbers eight and nine -- including the only one of these titles reviewed at the complete review, Stieg Larsson's The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo.
       Particularly interesting:

When comparing the top 10 adult books each year throughout the past decade, more non-fiction titles topped the NPD Bookscan charts in the second half of the decade than in the first half. In 2010, nearly 80 percent of the top-selling titles were fiction, and by 2019 that percentage dropped to 32 percent.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Berge review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Jan Kjærstad's recent novel, Berge, just out in English from Norvik Press.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

       Best of the year in: Spain

       El País' Los 50 mejores libros de 2019 is now up, with Luis Landero's Lluvia fina the top selection, ahead of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk's Flights.
       Only a few of the titles are under review at the complete review: Ian McEwan's Machines like Me (19), Karl Ove Knausgaard's My Struggle: Book Six (26), and Jonathan Coe's Middle England (40), but there are certainly more I hope to see (especially when the Spanish titles appear in translation).

       El Mundo has also published Los mejores libros, discos, series y películas de 2019 -- by category, with Luis Landero's Lluvia fina their top (Spanish) book as well.
       Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli was their top novel in translation -- a book the otherwise often Spanish-writing author wrote in English .....

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       Best of the year in: the Netherlands

       Quite a few Dutch best of the year lists are now out.
       See:

• Dit zijn de beste boeken van 2019 (volgens NRC)
  
  
• De beste boeken van 2019 at De Groene Amsterdammer
  
  
• Dit zijn de 57 beste boeken van 2019 at de Volkskrant
  
  
• De beste boeken van 2019 volgens de redactie van De Tijd

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       PEN Translates awards

       English PEN has announced their most recent batch of twenty PEN Translates awards, for forthcoming books from eighteen countries and eleven languages -- some good books to look forward to

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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       Staff selections

       At Words Without Borders, "staff, contributors, and board members share their favorite works-in-translation of 2019 and the titles they’re looking forward to in 2020", in Our Favorite International Reads from 2019 (and What We'll Be Reading in 2020). Great to hear about some of these books to look forward to.

       At The Paris Review's blog they offer another good personal list, The Paris Review Staff's Favorite Books of 2019.

(Posted by: M.A.Orthofer)    - permanent link -

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