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

"We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Continuing along my quest to read a number of dystopian novels this month, I recently finished re-reading George Orwell's 1984 . Next on my list was a re-read of We by Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin.

According to my book lists, I first read the novel in 2014. I searched my PC for a copy of the mobi file to upload to my Kindle with no luck. I wasn't surprised at not finding a copy - my PC had crashed last year and I upgraded my operating system. Some files were saved in the process, others weren't. After searching the internet for a replacement, I located the novel at Project Gutenberg.

In a number of places online, I read that George Orwell had made the claim that Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was derived from We ,which Huxley denied. In 2014 in addition to reading We, I re-read Brave New World to see for myself if Orwell had been correct. As I mentioned in a blog post at the time, I didn't see an obvious connection between the two novels.

After the recent re-reading of We, I concluded that, if anyone had used the novel as a guide, it was Orwell with 1984. I find too many similarities between the two for it to be coincidence. This article, written in 2015 further supports my thoughts on this.

In 1984, Winston Smith has memories of past events which contradict the official history of Oceania. Upon reading We this second time, I was experiencing the same sort of confusion as Winston Smith when faced with contradictory memories. Immediately, as I read the novel, I told myself that it was all completely new to me. I could not remember having read anything I came upon in the novel. According to my posted book list, I had read the novel in 2014, yet nothing in this novel seemed at all familiar.

Upon further investigation, I discover that the 2014 reading was from a ebook downloaded from Amazon.com - a modern translation by Natasha Randall. The Project Gutenberg copy was in the original 1924 translation by Gregory Zilboorg. Perhaps the answer could lie in the differences in the two translations. I was able to download a copy of the Natasha Randall translation to my Kindle. I don't intend to read this translation again soon, but I did read enough to notice some slight differences. There doesn't appear to be such a difference as to cause this confusion.

Without giving away too much, the mental state of the character D-503 makes following the plot of the story a little confusing. I believe it is the confusion in his diary that has lead to my forgetting so much of the novel.

According to a wikipedia article:
"Along with Jack London's The Iron Heel, We is generally considered to be the grandfather of the satirical futuristic dystopia genre".  

We is a definite must read for anyone interested in the dystopia genre. I was unaware of The Iron Heel when I posted my list of dystopian novels to read this month. I have since downloaded a copy and have placed it in the queue.