№ 11 reading list: Middle Eastern and crime fiction

Sunday morning coffee, a new reading list and Gilead by novelist Marilynne Robinson. Take my word for it, it's an excellent start of the day. July hasn't finished and already I'm presenting a new list, the second in one month. The reason is simple: there were many short books on the last one. The new list has a taste of the Middle East. For years I have wanted to read Palace Walk, the first book in the Cairo trilogy by Egyptian author and Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz. Another first for me is the Israeli author Ayelet Gundar-Goshen. A fellow lover of literature on Instagram recommended her second novel Waking Lions (translated from Hebrew by Sondra Silverston) and gave three reasons: 1) It takes place in Beersheba (Beer-Sheva), which, according to him, is unheard of in Israeli literature. 2) It's the perfect setting for the characters, living on the margins of society. 3) The story sheds some light on racism in Israel; it revolves around Eritrean and Sudanese refugees. I was sold and luckily my library had a copy when I picked up the new novel by Arundhati Roy.

№ 11 reading list:
1  The Ministry of Utmost Happiness  by Arundhati Roy
2  Palace Walk  by Naguib Mahfouz
3  Waking Lions  by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen
4  The Black Prince  by Iris Murdoch
5  Gilead  by Marilynne Robinson
6  So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighbourhood  by Patrick Modiano
7  The Redbreast  by Jo Nesbø
8  Instead of a Letter  by Diana Athill
9  Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls  by David Sedaris

I am still reading Jigsaw by Sybille Bedford that was on my last reading list but I have already finished The Redbreast by the Norwegian Jo Nesbø on the new one. At some point this third book about Detective Harry Hole (the first in the Oslo series) became a page-turner and I couldn't put it down. Crime fiction isn't exactly my go-to genre but occasionally I have read everything available by a particular crime author (mainly the Nordic authors; it all started many years ago with the Icelander Arnaldur Indridason and his Detective Erlendur). Nesbø's Harry Hole is an interesting character and I intend to see what happens in Nemesis, the next book in the series.

I have started reading Sedaris but had to stop reading it before bedtime because my son, who likes to read with me, was unable to concentrate on his book because of my laughing. This is tears-running-down-your-face laughter. I tried to stifle it but it didn't work. Sedaris is, simply put, dangerously funny and I cannot wait to pick up his Diaries. Marilynne Robinson is an author I'm revisiting; I read Home when we lived in Luxembourg. I don't understand why it has taken me so long to pick up Gilead (both books take place in the same period and town, also her work Lila). The prose of Gilead is beautiful; no wonder it brought her the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2005.

I would like to finish with a quote by author Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) that I have already shared on Instagram and wanted to keep on the blog as well. Asked about her method of composition in an interview that appeared in the summer 1990 issue of The Paris Review, Murdoch replied:

Well, I think it is important to make a plan before you write the first sentence. Some people think one should write, George woke up and knew that something terrible had happened yesterday, and then see what happens. I plan the whole thing in detail before I begin. I have a general scheme and lots of notes. Every chapter is planned. Every conversation is planned. This is, of course, a primary stage, and very frightening because you've committed yourself at this point ... [Moving on to the second stage.] The deep things that the work is about declare themselves and connect. Somehow things fly together and generate other things, and characters invent other characters, as if they were all doing it themselves. (Issue 115, Summer 1990)

Book review: Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Earlier this year, the novel Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, an American-Korean author, was published by Head of Zeus (Apollo). My review copy appeared on my № 8 reading list. It's a story about a Korean family in Japan, about their immigrant experience, their struggles, and resilience, spanning eight decades in the 20th century. My feelings about the book are slightly mixed, mainly for its quick pace - its 490 pages read very fast - and the fault I found with the lack of character development. However, the book's message is important and historically valuable, for the author casts a light on a social problem I was unaware of: the treatment and oppression of Koreans in Japanese society for decades.

The title of the book, the word pachinko, needs explanation. It first appears halfway through the book. Pachinko is a pinball game and the pachinko parlours are a huge industry in Japan; their revenues are higher than the export revenues of the motor industry. The parlours were one of the few places that would hire Koreans. What is more, the only housing solution for Koreans was a tiny shack in ethnic ghettos for no one wanted to rent out properties to them.

Pachinko tells the story of four generations, beginning in 1911, in a fishing village in the south-eastern part of the Korean peninsula, the year after Japan's annexation of the country. To fast-forward slightly, a love affair with a married man leaves the fifteen-year-old Sunja pregnant. Her family is saved from ruin when Isak, a Christian minister from the north, offers to marry her and take her with him to Osaka, in Japan, where they arrive in April 1933.

At the start of their journey, around page 80, the story really takes off and becomes somewhat of a page-turner. The writing style is plain and because of conversations the pace is fast, which is also the book's main flaw. Instead of developing the characters, giving them more depth, and allowing the reader to stand still with them to gain a better insight, it feels as if the author is constantly moving the story along, perhaps to fit it into historical context. Min Jin Lee's story is certainly interesting but the storytelling lacks density.

She divides the book into three parts: The first two are mainly about the immigrant experience, about Sunja and her family's struggles in an ethnic ghetto, and on a farm during the war. The third part starts in April 1962 and mainly deals with her descendants. At that point the family is financially more stable, and the younger members later prosper with the help of the pachinko business. This is where the author derails; the third is the novel's weakest part. Min Jin Lee introduces a new set of characters - few I grew fond of - and leaves a gap by almost abandoning the older generation. Sunja and the older family members seem to fade into the background, as if they are no longer of much importance, when in fact it seems to me that so much is left untold of their story, especially of their feelings.

Sunja is a character that I grew to love and hoped to get to know better in the third part. About a hundred pages in, finally, came this glimpse of insight into her mind: 'All her life, Sunja had heard this sentiment from other women, that they must suffer—suffer as a girl, suffer as a wife, suffer as a mother—die suffering. Go-saeng—the word made her sick. What else was there besides this? She had suffered to create a better life for Noa, and yet it was not enough.' Alas, it was short-lived. The author took us straight into conversations and moved the story along.

Even though Pachinko isn't a literary masterpiece, one has to honour the author's effort. Part of me wants to root for the book because of its themes and its relevance to the times we live in: immigration and identity, and the treatment of immigrants and refugees. This is where Min Jin Lee is at her finest. There is scrutiny of Japan but she avoids feeding opinions to her readers and the pit of letting them see things in black and white. I completely trust her research for the book, on the Korean experience in Japanese society, and she leaves it to the reader to pass judgement.

Readers who are only looking for a story will enjoy this book, enjoy its fast pace. But readers who turn to literature for the writing style, for sentences they want to read again, and even write down, will be left a bit empty-handed.

Pachinko
By Min Jin Lee
Head of Zeus / Apollo
Hardcover, 490 pages
Buy here

Pachinko appeared on my № 8 reading list

№ 10 reading list: rediscovering Modiano

Sunday morning, latte, book podcasts, and a new reading list. When the skies are grey this is a delightful way to start the day. There are nine books on the list, which to some may seem a lot, but many of these are short and I have already finished a few, e.g. that second Patrick Modiano, In the Café of Lost Youth. My new favourite author. [Update: I changed the title of this entry when I realised shortly after posting it that I had indeed read Modiano before, years ago. It was this German edition of Villa Triste. I still remember buying it, in a small bookshop in one of those narrow cobblestone streets in Zurich. I need to reread it; I don't remember the storyline.] He is a French novelist who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2014. Luckily, many of his books have been translated into English, and are available at my local library.

№ 10 reading list:
1  The Ballad of the Sad Café  by Carson McCullers
2  Pedigree  by Patrick Modiano
3  In the Café of Lost Youth  by Patrick Modiano
4  Invisible Cities  by Italo Calvino
5  Stoner  by John Williams
6  Point Omega  by Don DeLillo
7  Jigsaw: An Unsentimental Education  by Sybille Bedford
8  The Captain's Daughter  by Alexander Pushkin
9  Dancing in the Dark: My Struggle 4  by Karl Ove Knausgård

It is time to continue with Knausgård's struggles; I was beginning to miss his voice. The only book in the stack that belongs to me is Bedford's Jigsaw, which is partly autobiographical. A fellow book lover on Instagram recommended it and something tells me I will soon be picking up her memoirs Quicksands.

I meant to include Arundhati Roy's new fiction, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, but I'm still waiting for the copy I ordered at the library. It will appear on the next list. Earlier this week she was a guest on the Guardian book podcast. Besides talking about the book, she also talked about her activism in India, which I found fascinating. The legal cases against her are many and ridiculous, but she has a wonderful sense of humour and doesn't hesitate to make fun of her opponents.

I have finished reading all the books on the Japanese reading list (№ 9), except The Tale of Genji (the one under my cup). It's long and I told you I would be reading it slowly. In case you were wondering, yes, I'm enjoying it very much. I still owe you two book reviews and some notes from my reading journal (right before sharing it, I accidentally deleted the draft of my Pachinko review! I sort of knew it by heart and I just have to finish typing it again). I hope July will be a good month for reading.