The March, 2024 Reading List

 

Anyone who is even slightly familiar with this blog knows that I am an avid reader; I am constantly looking for recommendations for books to download. When a book recommendation does pique my interest, I'll go to a particular website that is basically an online library where almost every book imaginable is available. I'll come upon the name of an author and download everything the author has published in English. As a consequence, I have more e-books than I can read in my lifetime. The e-books will be filed away, to be retrieved later.

Just before finishing 1Q84by Haruki Murakami I went to my digital library for an e-book to put into the queue for March. I don't recall exactly when I downloaded Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck - the file properties says Feb.14- and I couldn't remember where the recommendation for the novel came from. I did a web search for Erpenbeck and the reviews I found for her work were very impressive. Visitation was the first book I read this month. Sadly, I was disappointed.

From a review on themodernnovel.org:
"Erpenbeck really does an excellent job of showing German history of the twentieth century in such a short book. The valuables hidden in the lake when the Soviets arrive and buried when the architect leaves the area are equated with the burial of the bodies of local Jews found in the forest. Erpenbeck has written not a Holocaust novel nor an East German novel but a German novel, warts and all, showing us that Germany has buried its past but, like the bodies of the Jews or the valuables hidden in the lake, everything come back to the surface sooner or later. Everything except the gardener, who disappears."

If you're looking for a fictionalized account of German history of the twentieth century you be better off reading Günter Grass.

Next on the list for March is The Girl of his Dreams by Donna Leon. This is #17 in Leon's Commissario Guido Brunetti series. It's no secret that I'm a fan of the series.

From time to time, I'll get book recommendations from the books I'm reading. That was the case when I reread,last year, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when I discovered the book was a favorite of Japanese writer Kenzaburō Ōe. It was also the case when I came upon a character in a book by Haruki Murakami who had a copy of Oliver Twist in their library. At one time, both books would have been considered classics in literature, but have fallen out of favor due to the racist views of Twain and Charles Dickens.

Oliver Twist became book # 3 for March. Dickens' antisemitism may have been typical for people of his social class in the 19th Century, but it makes reading his books today difficult. In Oliver Twist, Fagin is particularly despicable - so is Bill Sikes for that matter; but in the case of Fagin, Dickens is forever reminding us that he is a Jew. Dickens could have just as easily portrayed Fagin as a villain without the antisemitism.

Ring by Koji Suzuki is the first in a series of Japanese mystery horror novels by the writer. His second book in the series will be the first in April's reading list.

#5 on the March book list is Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami. Wikipedia describes the novel as..... "a Bildungsroman that tells the story of Japanese railroad engineer Tsukuru Tazaki". Haruki Murakami continues to live up to my expectations.

Next on the list is The Three-Body Problem by Chinese Sci Fi writer Liu Cixin. The book is the first in a trilogy, Remembrance of Earth's Past. The book has recently been released as a Netflix movie and was highly recommended by the folks at the Commentary Magazine podcast. I have to say that I can't add my recommendation. Most of the book went right over my head and I had difficulty following along. It's unlikely that I'll finish the trilogy.

Reading Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki as a bildungsroman brought to mind another novel which falls into that category - Demian by Hermann Hesse. I read Demian fifty years ago, so needless to say, I remembered very little of it. It was so long ago that I'm not 100% certain I actually finished it. I have two translations of the book in my digital library; the 1965 English translation by Michael Roloff & Michael Lebeck and the 2013 translation by Damion Searls. I couldn't decide which version I should read so I read the two simultaneously. I have to say I prefer Searls translation. According to Wikipedia, there are three additional English translations, although I was unable to locate a free ebook version of those. There is, however, an English translation from 1923 by N. H. Priday available as an audiobook at Internet Archive.

The next book on the list was also a recommendation from the Commentary Magazine podcast. A Brutal Design by Zachary Solomon is a nightmarish, dystopian novel. It starts off Kaffaesque and then quickly branches off into a world that is a cross between Yevgeny Zamyatin and Mikhail Bulgakov.

Now, for the list:

Visitation    by Jenny Erpenbeck
The Girl of his Dreams    by Donna Leon
Oliver Twist   by Charles Dickens
Ring    by Koji Suzuki
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage  by Haruki Murakami
The Three-Body Problem  by Liu Cixin
Demian   by Hermann Hesse (Tr. Michael Roloff & Michael Lebeck)
Demian   by Hermann Hesse (Tr.Damion Searls)
A Brutal Design   by Zachary Solomon

The Danzig Trilogy

Having finished reading the three novels in Günter Grass' Danzig Trilogy (The Tin Drum - Cat and Mouse - Dog Years ) I cannot honestly say that I am close to fully understanding this monumental work. As I wrote earlier regarding The Tin Drum , the protagonist of the first novel, Oskar Matzerath writes his memoirs while confined to a German mental institution, and it's difficult understanding which portions of the novel Grass wants us to accept as "true" and how much of what Matzerath writes is to be considered part of his mental illness.

Part of that question is answered in the other two novels where there is mention of a three year old boy who plays a tin drum. Evidentially, we are expected to suspend reality and accept that Oskar somehow maintains his 3 year old body into adulthood.

For the most part, the events in the three novels occur in the Free City of Danzig during the Second World War, although there is some mention of other places and other times.

Oskar Matzerath and his "presumptive father" Alfred Matzerath appear in all three novels, although their appearances in the second and third novels are minor.

One character who does play a significant part in books two and three is the young girl, Tulla Pokriefke. In Cat and Mouse we learn a little about Tulla's personality. The best way to describe her in that book is "unruly". As a teen, the girl encourages teenage boys to masturbate while she watches. However, it is in the third novel that we learn the full extent of Tulla Pokriefke's character - or rather lack of character as she is decidedly evil in Dog Years . Her treatment of Jenny is despicable.

Of the three, Cat and Mouse is my favorite. In The Tin Drum , it's difficult understanding what's "real" and what isn't. I had some difficulty understanding many of the allegories in Dog Years , and there are also several references to political events in Germany during the 1950s which often go over my head.

In 1999, the Swedish Academy awarded Günter Grass the Nobel Prize in Literature and when I understand what he's trying to say, I can appreciate his great writing ability. Unfortunately, there is much in Grass's writing which I can't claim to fully understand.

December's Reading List

For several years, I've been posting a list of the books I'd read that particular year. The annual book list would be posted either on the final day of the year in which the books were read, or on January first of the year following.

This year, I began posting a monthly list. Today being the final day of 2021, I will post the list for December. Tomorrow, I will do the list for the entire year.

As I mentioned in my post on The Tin Drum , it had been my original intention to read Günter Grass' Danzig Trilogy before years end. With the coming of typhoon Odette early in December, it looked as if I wouldn't be able to do that. Without electricity, it was impossible to keep my Kindle's battery charged, so I was obliged to read two printed books until the power was restored.

When the electricity returned, I wasn't certain I could finish reading Grass' Dog Years in time to make this list. It's a long novel, and not an easy read but I did manage to finish it today.

Within a day or two, I will do a post on the Danzig Trilogy .

So, for what it's worth, here is a list of the books I read in December, 2021.

I Am a Cat                      Natsume Soseki
Republican Rescue         Chris Christie
Norwegian Wood            Haruki Murakami
There Is a God               Antony Flew / Roy Abraham Varghese
His Monkey Wife           John Collier
Buddha                          Karen Armstrong
The Bhagavad Gita       Translated E. Easwaran
The Tin Drum                Günter Grass
Cat and Mouse              Günter Grass
Dog Years                      Günter Grass

On Reading "The Tin Drum".

In his novel, The Tin Drum , Günter Grass notes that attending funerals often reminds one of other funerals attended in the past. I suppose a similar principle might hold up when thinking about, or writing about books one has encountered.

In an earlier post, I wrote of how I came to read His Monkey Wife . While window shopping in a bookstore frequented by a friend and myself, I came upon a collection of short stories by John Collier. The selling point for me were the words on the book's cover - "By the author of His Monkey Wife ". Although I had never heard of Collier or his earlier book, these words intrigued me enough to purchase and read the short story collection. A similar thing happened in the same bookstore around the same time, regarding Grass' novel Cat and Mouse . Again, I was unfamiliar with Grass or his earlier novel, but the words, "By the author of The Tin Drum " was enough to convince me to read Cat and Mouse .

Back in the day (when we didn't even use the phrase "back in the day") it was difficult to get ones hands on every book one might want to read and I had been unable to find a copy of The Tin Drum . It was the blog post on His Monkey Wife that led me to search for The Tin Drum online. It was then that I learned that those two novels by Günter Grass are considered books one and two of his Danzig Trilogy - the third being Dog Years . I downloaded the three books with the intention of reading the three before year's end. I began reading the first book in the trilogy on December 12; certainly enough time left in the year to read all three.

Typhoon Odette had other ideas.

While we were lucky that in our area the typhoon caused few serious problems, we were without electricity for several days and when my Kindle's battery went down, I wasn't able to recharge it until the power returned. During those days, I was forced to read the 20th Century way......books printed on paper - Buddha by Karen Armstrong and The Bhagavad Gita translated by Eknath Easwaran.

The Tin Drum is not an easy read by any means, as a number of reviewers at goodreads.com have pointed out. The protagonist, Oskar Matzerath writes his memoirs while confined in a German mental institution and is viewed by most readers as an unreliable narrator. It is difficult to understand how much of Oskar's account is "real" and how much is delusional. In the end, I had to wonder if Oskar Matzerath was indeed a dwarf (or midget) or if this idea was part of his mental illness.

The novel is bizarre and disturbing, although it finally pulls together (more or less) at the end.That said, I'd like the novel much more if it were shorter.

I'm reading Cat and Mouse now. It's considerably shorter than The Tin Drum so I should be finished soon, though perhaps not soon enough to read Dog Years before the year is out.