"Leaving Home" by Anita Brookner-Woman UnBound Reading Challenge

Leaving Home by Anita Brookner (2005) is the second of her novels that I have read.   In August I read and posted on A Start in Life.   I loved the opening sentence of that book.

Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature.

Some people, even those who enjoy reading Brookner's novels, say they are all sort of the same.   The all deal with older (or prematurely aged younger people, mostly women) lonely bookish people who live cautious closed in lives.   The women in both of these works have issues with their  mothers.   Both do research of fairly arcane academic matters, one on women in the novels of Balzac and Emma Roberts of Leaving Home studies and is writing a book about 17th century garden designs.   Both spend a lot of time in libraries.   Both spend a lot of time reading.   

Emma, at 26, decides it is time to leave home.   She leaves London to go to Paris to study.   She leaves behind her mother (who spends most of her time reading) and her dominating Uncle.   The family is financially comfortable but not rich.   Emma meets and slowly becomes friends with a lady working in the library she frequents.    Unlike Emma her new friend, about her age, more interesting looking that pretty, has men friends and a love life.   She persuades Emma to move from her small apartment into a hotel, thinking she might have an opportunity to meet men that way.   There are men in the library, we see their bent over gray heads.

Francoise, her new friend, is pleased to see Emma develop a friendship with a young man down the hall.   In the world of Francoise women are defined by their relationships with men, be they fathers, husbands, or lovers.   Emma subjects here own feelings to microanalyses but does not come to any conclusions that might direct her to a course of action.    Life will start for her when she finds a man.   Her ability to pursue her studies and her writings comes not from anything she has done but from money her father made in commerce.    Without her father's money, we cannot quite fathom what Emma would do and for sure she would not have had the leisure time to develop the interests she did.   These interests define and also limit her life.   If  the male professors who dominate her research field approve her work then her book will be published.     Emma moves back and forth from Paris to London, each  city has a strong meaning for her.  Some times it feels like Emma is a character in a 19th century novel.   Emma does seem to care less about what others think than an early 19th century heroine might.   

The language in the book is beautiful.   Some of the turns of phrase are amazing.   There are some interesting plot twists.   As you read this book  you can feel the loneliness of Emma.   In fact I thought if Emma could simply get involved in book blogging or blogs on 17th century history her life might have been much happier. She then would have not been so effected by a feeling she was disconnected from the world by the seeming narrow range of her interests.   Emma is involved in a very beige toned search for a suitable mate, not so much that she wants one as she wants to seem ordinary.

Anita Brookner wrote her first book at age 53 and has since then written 22 more of them.   As I said, some people say all her books are alike.   I would say read an extract of one of her works on line and see if the writing style appeals to you.    Her books do tell us a lot about the dynamics of power in relationships and the struggle of women to define themselves.    I could see myself reading one every 3 or 4 months.  They do have a kind of claustrophobic feel somehow and some Goodreads reviewers have found her work depressing.

Mel u

"My Life" by Anton Chekhov-November Novella Challenge

I began to look through my books on hand to see what I could read for the challenge.   I wanted to pick something worthy of the challenge.   At first I thought I would read Hard Boiled by one of my favorite Japanese writers, Banana Yoshimoto as I wanted to read it soon and I could include it among my reviews for  the Japanese Literature 3 Challenge.   I decided I should give this new challenge the respect of dedicating a work to it only.   I saw The Complete Short Novels of Anton Chekhov, translated by Richard Peavear and Larissa Volokhonsky (2005-Vintage Press-originals from 1888 to 1896).  In early in 2008 I read two novellas from this collection.  "The Steppes" is a simply wonderful account of a journey across the great steepes of late 19th century Russian by a young noble boy of 12 or so who is being escorted to a boarding school by two of the family servants.   The trip is very long.   All sorts of dangers are encountered and imagined.   We really get the feel of just how huge the Russian steppes must have felt to those who traveled through them in the late 19th century.   We also see class struggles, stay at some pretty scary inns, eat some very strange to me food, and feel some real fear at night in he total blackness of the steppes.   I also read "The Story of an Unknown Man", a very sharply observed study in bad faith about a man who becomes a servant on a rich family so he can spy on them to aid those wishing to overthrow the Czarist system. 

Once I read these lines at the opening of "My Life"  in which he describes his early job experience I knew I would enjoy reading it.

I have changed jobs nine times.   I worked in various departments, but all those nine jobs were as alike as drops of water;  I had to sit, listen to stupid or rude remarks, and wait until they dismissed me.

As the story begins Misail, the son of an architect from a noble family in small town Russia in the 1890s decided, to the horror of his father, that it is morally imperative that he become a laborer.   His father threatens to disown him for this.   In the introduction to the collection Richard Prevear says that the story can be seen as in part a reaction to Tolstoy's belief that the true virtue of Russia resided in its peasants.  

The story is told in the first person by Misail.   We see the real difficulties he has in moving from the life of a pampered son of a noble man to the life of a common laborer.   As he adjusts he discovers that the corruption which so offended him in the upper echelons of society are mirrored at its lowest levels.   The noble worker might be seen as a myth believed in by sons of noblemen whose leisure time to reflect is built on the backs of the very peasants they idealize, without every knowing one.  There are some philosophical and political debates between characters in My Life however they do not go on forever.   The conversations in the work are long enough to be interesting but not long enough to lose credibility as an actual conversation between real people.  

We get a good look at life in small town Russia as Misail goes through a number of jobs.  (He is not very good at holding onto a job.)  He has romances with three very different women.   His father tries to scare him back to respectability with the Czarist secret police.   We get to know his sister.   We learn how painting contracts were completed and how one got a job as a clerk on the railroad.   The characters are well done and the narrative is well paced.  The narrator is not a complaining son of a noble.   Maybe his decision was not the right one but he makes the best of it and gets on with his life. 

I liked this novella a lot.   There are no very long meditative interludes, no thirty pages conversations about the meaning of life ( I am not saying these things are bad and in the right hands they are great but we do not always feel like them!).   My Life  is not Russian Lit Lite.   It is a work of art that will pay us back well for the time we invest in it.   To me it is classic work of literature that all can enjoy. 

Mel u

October 2009 Reading Life Month End Review Sunday Salon

October 2009 was a very good reading month for me.   I discovered a new to me writer that I added to my "read everything they have written" TBR list, I read some very moving  short stories about the Atomic Aftermath,  and I continued to read more Japanese novels.  

Books I read in October but did not blog about

1.   The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Zafon.   I enjoyed this book for its atmosphere, the use Barcelona between the world wars as a background, the idea of the library of forgotten book, the sense of being in a premall and preinternet book store and I liked the characters in the book.   I think I preferred this  book to his Angel's Game.  I think any body who likes books might well like it.  I did not blog on it mainly because there must already be fifty book blog posts on it.

2.   The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne-This was to me a good Y A book about the holocaust.   It is not, to me, on the level with Milkweed or The Book Thief  but for sure it is worth reading.   The day after I finished this my wife and I watched the movie.   We enjoyed it.   There are a few changes that took away a bit from the book but I thought the movie was better in showing the changes in the teenage girl, weaker in the ending and weaker in its treatment of the character of the mother.   I was struck in the book where the family is so proud (and scared) when Hitler comes to dinner.   It is mentioned that a member of the family is learning French, Hitler says "why would anyone want to do that?"

Books I posted about in October 2009

3.  The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea  by Yuko Mishima

4.  Barefoot in Fire:  A Manila WWII Childhood  by Barbara-Ann Gamboa Lewis-it is shame that this book is only available in Manila as it deserves a wide readership.

5.  The Power Book  by Jeanette Winterson-my first work by this author, it will not be my last.

6.  The Flower Mat by Shigoro Yamamoto

7.   The Giver by Lois Lowry-a very good Young Adult book that can be enjoyed by all ages.

8.   The Secret History of the Lord of Musaki   by Junichiro Tanizaki

9.   Arrowroot  by Junichiro Tanizaki (published by Vintage in the same book as # 8)-

10.  Some Prefer Nettles by Junichiro Tanizaki

11.   Quicksand  by Junichiro Tanizaki (he is now on my read everything he has written TBR list)

12.  The Noodle Maker  by Ma Jian-

13.  Prophecy of the Sisters by Michelle Zink-to me it seemed like one long cliche, others have liked it.

14.   Four Short Stories from Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath  edited and introduced by Kenzaburo Oe.   There are four more stories still to read and blog about in this wonderful and important book.   I expect to read the remaining four stories in November.

Challenges I am currently reading for

The Japanese Literature Challenge 3-greatest challenge of them all to me-open up a new world of reading.
China Challenge-3 of 5 complete-I have until Sept 2010 5 books and will try for 10

Challenges I will join in November

The November Novella Challenge-read either one or four Novellas-(defined here as 70 to 120 pages)
The Really Old Classics Challenge-read one pre 1600 book by Feb 2010-just have to pick my book
Women Unbound Reading Challenge-I will read at least 8 books related to women's studies by Nov 2010

I may joint read books for these new challenges along with the Japanese Literature 3 Challenge and The China Challenge-

"Some Prefer Nettles" by Junichiro Tanizaki

Some Prefer Nettles is the fourth work by Junichiro Tanizaki  that I have read.   (It was first published in 1928 in serial fashion in a literary publication.   The version I read was translated from Japanese by Edward Seidensticker in 1951.)   Like Quicksand  it has as its center a failed marriage, though of a different kind and among people of a very different sort.

Misako and her husband Kaname got married at a time of matrimonial transition from arranged marriages through family connections or brokers to marriages of romantic love.    They are in their mid thirties and have a son, Hiroshi, about twelve.  They do not hate each other, plot against each other or have horrible fights.  The husband simply feels no sexual attraction for his wife.   They can and do have civil conversations but they are described as like two strangers in an inn sharing a bed when the inn is full.   The husband even encourages his wife to start an affair with a male friend of hers to ease her into another marriage.   The father of Misako is the third central character in Some Prefer Nettles.    He is refereed to simply as "the old man".   He has been a widower for a long time, has enough money to live a cultivated life of leisure and keep a mistress the same age as his daughter.   Misako, of course, is embarrassed by the fact

that her father lives with a woman her own age and  she treats the mistress with thinly disguised contempt.  She sees her as sort of like a maid that has promoted herself via extra duties to a position above her station in life.   Kamame and his father in law have a cordial relationship.   The husband does find the father in law intimidating and cannot relate to the highly refined interests of the very cultivated older man.   He is a bit bored by him.   The father in law is very much "old school".   He scorns what he sees as the decadent Hollywood movies that his daughter loves and the romance novels she reads.   He is totally into Bunraku, a form of traditional puppet theater founded in Osaka in the late 17th century.    Puppet theater goes much further back than that in Japan.   Great care is lavished on the costumes of the puppets.   There are 100s of plays.  The father in law loves to talk about the smallest details in the plays, being especially interested in the costumes worn by the dolls.   He and his son in law go to a festival where many plays will be put on over a three day period.   The father in law is not really judgmental when his son in law tells him of the divorce that may be coming.   He feels the problem is caused by western corruption bringing people to false expectations about marriages.


Unlike Quicksand, characters in this work are basically sympathetic.   There are no real villains.  It is a lot of fun to see what happens in the marriage and how everyone deals with events in their own way.  I do not want to give away any more plot details as it is terribly clever. 

There is an amazing two page description of a minor character, a fifty year old Canadian woman who owns and operates a number of brothels, that is an amazing literary jewel.

In Some Prefer Nettles  we see a classic Reading Life type in the father in law, a man who has sort of cultivated himself into a isolated corner.   His inner life has been totally enriched by things those around him do not fathom and frankly find a total bore.   I did not at all see the ending of this book coming.  Tanizaki sort of plots his books so you have to continually rethink what is happening.  

As I was writing this post in my mind I began to imagine Tanizaki reading one of Henry James 1000 word descriptions of the inner life of a character and saying "Not bad Henry, but here is what you missed and by the way I edited out 800 words for you".   I see him telling Flaubert "Sorry Gustav but the women in your books are really dullards".   I see him telling Joyce, "I could put hidden references to things nobody will understand in my books to prove how smart I am but I do not feel the need".   I imagine him telling D H Lawrence that he can create more erotic power with veiled suggestion than Lawrence  could with all the banned words that can be found.  This does not mean he would be right to say these things but the thought was there for me.

 I endorse this book without reservations.   It is not simply an historical curiosity.   All of the characters are perfect.   There are no trite plot lines.   The ending befuddled me and may do the same to others.   As a side benefit we learn a lot about Japanese life in the 1920s.


Mel u

"Quicksand" by Junichiro Tanizaki

Quicksand by Junichiro Tanizaki (translated from Japanese by Howard Hibbert in 1993, first published 1928)

Forget the leading ladies in "Melrose Place", "Desperate Housewives", or the female villains in the latest Korean soap opera.   None of them are half as devious, manipulative, seductive, or beautiful as Mitsuko in Quicksand.   (It should be noted that those  are Mitsuko's good qualities.)

Sonoko and Mitsuko meet at an art class.   Mitsuko is posing,  covered only in a sheet , as the Kannon Bodhisattva for the class.   Sonoko cannot help but notice what a beautiful delicate face Mitsuko has as well as her flawless body.   The two women get to know each other over the course of a few weeks in class and begin to spend some time together.    One day Sonoko asks Mitsuko to come back to her house and pose nude for her so she can complete her drawing of her as the Kannon Bodhisattva.

We begin to wonder now who is the deceiver and who the deceived, of course someone can be both.  A rumor begins to go around the school that the women are lovers.   At first both women are shocked.  Then they become lovers.   They begin to deceive Sonoko's seemingly naive husband, who owes his status in life to the parents of his wife, something she likes to throw in his face every once and a while.   Unaccepted turns of events are everywhere, manipulations within ploys with schemes at every turn.  There are no explicit scenes in Quicksand  but there is more erotic power felt than in D H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, also first published in 1928.  

One day Sonoko learns under shocking circumstances that Mitsuko has a male lover also and might be pregnant.   Things begin to get really strange now.   A triangle of sorts develops between the man and the two women.   Then another triangle develops between the husband and the two women.   Then the husband and the man meet.   I was not able to see what was going to happen next and I think most readers feel the same way.   The plot is in no way cliched.   The characters are whole people, especially the women who are brilliantly realized.  

We get a good look at day to day life among financially comfortable (but not really rich) people in Japan in the 1920s.   We get a very good look a marriage in decline.   Quicksand does a great job with some family fight scenes.    We learn some things in passing.   We go alone when Mitsuko, who may or may not be pregnant, goes for a prenatal examination and we find out about a women's right to choose in prewar Japan.   I do not want to give away any more of the plot lines as the twists and turns are just so clever and so much fun.   The ending will make you rethink the whole book and wonder if maybe you got everything wrong as you were reading Quicksand.  

I really liked this book.   It is perfectly plotted and paced.   All of the characters, even the minor ones like Mitsuko's maid Una, are completely credible.   We see the dynamics of power in relationships.   We feel the beauty and erotic power of Mitsuko.

I have now created a new subcategory for my To Be Read List.  I call it my "read all they have written list".  Junichiro Tanizaki is now on this list along with Kenzaburo Oe.  I have already posted on his   Arrowroot and The Secret History of the Lord of Musashi.   It appears he has 12 works in print in English by Vintage Press.  I plan to read all of them. 

I endorse this book without reservation.

Mel u

"The Noodle Maker" by Ma Jian

The Noodle Maker by Ma Jian (1991, trans. from Chinese 2004 by Flora Drew) is the 3rd work I have read for Jeannie's Chinese Challenge.   The Challenges runs from Sept 1, 2009 to Sept 1, 2010.

The Noodle Maker is set China, in the 1980s.   It begins with two old friendly enemies having dinner together as they often do.   One is a writer of articles for the government about heroic workers giving their lives to save pigs on state farms.   The other is a professional blood donor who has found a way to become wealthy and have a big social standing by donating his blood.   (How this can happen is just part of the wonderful twisted humor of this book.)   The writer dreams of one day giving up his party propaganda work and writing the great novel he has been working on in his mind for years.   The blood donor tells him he is a delusional fool and should just try to write more and better stories about heroic workers who would rather work themselves to death than miss their factory production quotas.   After the opening chapter in which the two lead characters have a meal and solve the problems of China, the book develops into a set of very loosely related tales (each could stand on its own a short story) that are ideas for the book the writer hopes to write one day.   The blood donor feels free to but in at times telling the writer how stupid his stories are. 

There are eight stories.   The first one sort of explains how the blood donor got rich during the period of the open  door policy.   The second one is an insane story about a mother and her 35 year old son who run a for profit crematorium where much care is devoted to considering what songs to play while your love one is burned.    The son tells us all about dead bodies in China, what days certain types of people die on etc.  He is always happy to see a party official come in  as it is time for some well deserved revenge on the oppressor.  He has observations on all the people brought in, sort of summing up their lives in a few words,  grave yard humor at it best or worst.    (If you are a young attractive female I would not go here for cremation).

One of the stories is about a once beautiful actress (women are very much valued based on the appeal of their bodies in the world of The Noodle Maker ) who decides to kill herself by having a tiger eat her on stage.    The owner of the venue sees nothing odd about this and is maybe interested in allowing her to do it but then agrees when she offers to have sex with him, if he feels like it.    There is nobody with a healthy self image in this world.

One chapter "Let the Mirror Be the Judge" is a viciously nasty look at the reaction of the women in a small all female office to a new twenty year old coworker with what seem to be ideal breasts.   The character of women is somehow reflected in the size and shape of their breasts in common folk views.   Large round breast signify a virtuous wife and a good mother.   Medium size means  the woman is suitable as a mistress.
A woman with small breasts is normally the most intelligent sort.   The other women hate the new employee with perfect breasts as soon as they see her.   When she leaves the office  they speculate about her breasts.  The office manager, a totally loveless 51 year old, says her breasts are large because she has allowed many men to fondle them.   (This is presented as assumed to be true by all common sense.)   Some of the women insist she must make use of a breast pump, another speculates that she had implants.   All of them  assume the woman, who has never had any sort of romantic encounter in her life, is very promiscuous and freely tell everyone who knows her this.   One of the women pretends to be her friend then asks her to let  her see her breasts.   The woman is driven to despair by this and begins to take sleeping pills.   One take she decides to prove to everyone that her breasts are real by running naked through the streets.   Her and her family end up disgraced and they move to the country side.   She ends up married  years later to a farm worker, still never having had the first romantic episode in her life.   The farmer finds about her old reputation and assumes he has been tricked into marrying a woman with a very bad past and beats her for the rest of her life.   This is presented as if it were a  simple narration of normal events and attitudes.

No one in this book is spared.   Nobody comes off looking good.  Men are sexual predators and women are all one step above prostitutes.   This is not presented as if it were a bad thing, it simply life in China.   Every body is envious of anything someone else has and takes joy in the misfortunes of others.   If someone out ranks you, suck up to them until they are out of power then suck up to whoever takes  their place.   If someone is below you, exploit them as much as you can.   Personal relationships are power struggles not partnerships.  Life is a macabre joke so grab all the pleasure you can.  

One of the funniest chapters is a debate between a dog and a man who mouths the party line on everything because he is scared to do otherwise.   No one is seen as actually believing in the party doctrines but everyone pretends they do.  

The Noodle Maker is a very funny book.   It invokes a   nasty twisted kind of laughter.   I thought to myself, these things should not be treated as jokes then I wanted to get onto the next joke.  

If you can imagine George Orwell and Nikolai Gogol collaborating on a Mad Magazine article illustrated by R C Crumb and you sort of can see the flavor of this hilarious evil book.   Tyranny does not stand up well against laughter.  

I endorse this book  for those with a  bit of a twisted sense of humor but will advise parts of it shows misogistic actions and thoughts.  There is sexual violence.    In fact the only admirable character in the book is a talking dog.   Ma Jian's writings are banned in China.   He now lives in England.  

Mel u

"The Colorless Paintings" by Ineko Sata

"The Colorless Paintings" by Ineko Sata is the fourth selection from The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath (edited and introduced by Kenzaburo Oe) that I have so far read.   It is only thirteen pages long and was first published in a Japanese literary magazine in 1961.  

Ms Sata was born and raised in Nagasaki but was not there when the atomic bomb blast occurred August 9, 1945.    As "The Colorless Paintings" opens the narrator and her friend Y are at the opening day of an exhibit of painting at the very prestigious Tokyo National Museum.   They are looking for painting done by their friend K which are part of the exhibit.   K was a member of the communist party of Japan as was the narrator.   He also had advanced tuberculosis.   They find the paintings.  

The pictures seem like softly moaning heretics..The pictures even remind us of burnt bones...  These posthumous paintings of his completely deny all color.  K, while painting them, repeatedly rejected color..the paintings are powerful precisely because they are colorless, because we see them as an honest expression of the violent drama that took place within him, purity withdrawing into itself.

K's paintings were done after he was diagnosed as having radiation sickness from his presence on August 9, 1945.   K and the narrator were long time associates in the communist party of Japan but she never knew he was exposed to the atomic bomb.   He never spoke of it nor had her friend Y who was also exposed.   K lived the rest of his life in silent anxiety over what the effects of the blast on him might be one day.   Exposure to the bomb was known by the early 1950s to produce high rates of cancer and leukemia in those exposed to it.  They left the exhibit to go to an annually held memorial event for the victims of the bomb.   The event takes place at The Nagasaki Peace Park

Y spoke for the first time about the day when the atomic bomb was dropped.   And because she had done so, K also spoke about it, he too for the first time.   When describing the tragic scene, K seemed to be walking back and forth in the midst of the ruins.   "Everyday I was walking among corpses.   And even after I heard about how K and his friends had wandered around in the radiated area,  I somehow thought of them as being outside the radiation.

The narrator tells us that K died of liver cancer.

The name of the disease is liver cancer.   But what is the name of the thing that deprived this man of all color? What could it be called?   It seems that the ideas suggested by these painting preclude anything that is common place.   They appear to belong to another realm.   They rather seem to be produced by the will to defy, but that defiance had to be painted, even though the colors escaped the artist, and that's why they display an unnamable grief...Y sways and takes a step forward.   It seems as though her body automatically sways and takes a step..Y must have sensed deep in her heart what the paintings were saying.

Ineko Sata  was born in Nagasaki (1904 to 1998)  into a very poor family.   In her late teenage years she worked in a cafe frequented by young literary types.   From these associations she began to write and publish short stories focusing on the problems of  women from poor families.   She began also a life time involvement with the communist party of Japan.   She was briefly expelled from the party when she became an early denouncer of Stalinism.   She married one writer, divorced him and married another.  She was an early advocate of women's right in Japan.   She wrote several highly regarded and prize winning novels but "The Colorless Paintings" appear to be her only works in print in English.   Her longer works have never been translated.    Sata has a great affinity for the beautiful.   "The Colorless Paintings" has kind of a lonely feel to it.

In researching background information on the bombings, I came upon an article Mr Tsutomu Yamaguchi.   He is one of 165 people who were exposed to both atomic bomb blasts.   He wrote a book about his experiences but it is available only in Japanese.   In 2006 the United Nations invited him to take part in a documentary about double A Bomb Victims.   As of this writing he still lives, fighting cancer caused by the blasts.