Books May 2
I’m going to be negative here - maybe because I truly disliked almost everything I’ve read, maybe because I’ve been very critical of things lately. Maybe it’s because I’m training my critical eye, who knows.
Rabea Edel - Portrait meiner Mutter mit Geistern
I finished this book pretty much sitting in front of the library just before returning it. Until the very end, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to finish it - I’m happy that I did, but I don’t think it was worth it. Portrait meiner Mutter in Geistern is a novel that follows women from three generations of a family through their childhood until their early adulthood. The main character is the youngest, and is trying to figure out her mother’s past and who her father is. Bits and pieces of the past are unveiled every chapter, but it takes long until the puzzle pieces start to come together.
I’ve read a review that said there’s a repeating pattern of absence of men in each of the generations of women. However, what is really absent in the book is female friendship. The relationships between women that are shown in the book are largely each of the characters often strained and complicated relationship to their mother. I really liked the writing style, and I enjoyed how the stories are revealed little by little - while a lot stays hidden until the very end too.
NoViolet Bulawayo - Glory
An African retelling of Animal Farm, set in the fictional country of Jidada. NoViolet Bulawayo has originally set out to write about the political situation in Zimbabwe, her home country, but decided to rewrite it as a fable. I think this is quite noticeable in some sections. Animal Farm is already stretching the meaning of a fable quite far, and in this point, it starts to fall apart - to replace hands with hooves and skin with fur and person with animal, while the plot and action largely stays the same.
I really enjoyed her debut novel “We Need New Names” when I’ve read it in high school, but Glory was a bit of a disappointment. The plot line from the synopsis only really starts halfway through the book, and everything before that (and a lot of things after that) is exposition and so so so so much repetition. Bulawayo’s writing style is quite child-like and the immaturity that the repetition of words conveys, combined with the format of a fable cheapens the often violent and brutal reality depicted. A book that is better to write than to read.
Anne Stern - Wenn Die Tage Länger Werden
This is a book of many topics - mother hood, family history, antiquities stolen by nazis, friendship, illness… and none of them have been done particularly well. The novel follows a woman in her late 30s who is, for the first time since the birth of her son, all alone. Her son spends time with his dad, and she has time to discover herself, and uncovers the secrets of her families past - her grandfather was part of the SS, and it turns out that her violin she inherited from him through her mother has been stolen in the 1930s from an antiquity store owned by a Jewish family. The main character is conflicted about it and decides to donate the violin to an orchestra project that uses instruments with a history tied to war.
What I can say is that I liked the writing style a lot, and it’s close to how I like to write (in German - every language is different!). The story itself is a bit disappointing. From the blurb on the back, I expected a story about friendship between two women - that only really started showing in the last few pages of the book, and with little to no build up. The entire arc about the violin and how it relates to her families ties to the SS falls short in multiple ways, but not in unexpected ones. It made me uncomfortable how Stern portrayed the various German characters almost as victims, while the only Jewish character of the story - a descendant of the previous owners of the violin - gracefully absolves them.
Thomas Vaucher - Das Lied der Macht 3
I don’t think I have much left to say about this - It’s a good, enjoyable book, the end of a trilogy. I think it wraps up quite nicely, and even though some of it is quite formulaic - the evil is defeated in the end etc., there’s enough twist and turns to make it entertaining, and there’s enough tension to keep you hooked.
Sarah Wynn-Williams - Carless People
The only non-fiction book I’ve read so far (well, there’s technically another one, but I haven’t finished it yet, and it will probably be a while until I come around to it…). Wynn-Williams describes her time as a high-up in Facebook from 2011 to 2017. It was a very interesting - but depressing - read, and I enjoyed the book a lot. I only wished that it would have stayed more on the topic of Myanmar: it was introduced in the beginning as a major topic, but ended up only having a small section dedicated to it at the end of the book, if I recall correctly, just one chapter. It makes sense that this book was written by a New Zealander (or more generally, a non-American).
