№ 30 reading list: Proust in spring

Spring has arrived and it's time to update the blog with a new reading list. I shared the last one in January but in my defence, I'm more active on my Instagram account with book-related content. For over a decade I have wanted to read Marcel Proust’s masterpiece In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu) and recently bought the 1st volume of 4 by Everyman’s Library. The novel has seven parts and this volume contains Swann's Way (Du côté de chez Swann), which most are familiar with, and the first part of Within a Budding Grove (À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs). I’m only a few pages in and am already captivated by the narrative voice and the rich prose. Proust in spring will be a gratifying pastime.

№ 30 reading list:

1  Essays Two  · Lydia Davis
2  Swann's Way  · Marcel Proust
3  What I Loved  · Siri Hustvedt
4  Der Untergeher  · Thomas Bernhard [German]
5  The Makioka Sisters  · Jun'ichirō Tanizaki [rereading]

Translated by: 1) Swann's Way: C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin;

5) The Makioka Sisters: Edward G. Seidensticker

Reading Essays Two spurred me on to read Proust. Lydia Davis translated the latest available English edition of Swann's Way and discusses the project in some of the essays. (The Moncrieff translation I’m reading is older but has been updated.) These essays are my first Davis and I’m also reading Siri Hustvedt’s fiction for the first time. A fun fact: Hustvedt has been married to American writer Paul Auster (4 3 2 1, The New York Trilogy) for forty years who before was married to Davis.

I have mentioned before that each time I’m disappointed with a book and decide to toss it I reread one of my favourite books. On my last list, I had My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, the first book of her Neapolitan Quartet. I truly made an effort but gave up on Chapter 20. Neither the plot nor the characters appealed to me, and the style felt repetitive. To make it up to me I decided to reread The Makioka Sisters, a Japanese classic by Tanizaki. Before going to sleep, it's comforting to spend some time in the company of the Sisters.

Richard Diebenkorn, Untitled, 1981

image by me | Diebenkorn art via Richard Diebenkorn Foundation on Instagram

№ 29 reading list: Woolf starts the new year

Happy New Year! This week I realised that I completely forgot my New Year's tradition, reading Little Women into the new year. This tradition started in Scotland; I used to read a few pages or chapters into the new year while others were letting off fireworks or whatever entertains them, but this year I watched the fireworks with my son. I made up for my forgetfulness by watching Greta Gerwig's film adaptation (2019), starring Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh and Timothée Chalamet. It's great. On New Year's Day morning, I relaxed on the daybed in pyjama bottoms and kimono with coffee and the fourth volume of Virginia Woolf's diary, which starts in 1931. It's on my new reading list.

№ 29 reading list:

1  My Brilliant Friend  · Elena Ferrante
2  The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume 4 1931-35 
3  Mrs Dalloway  · Virginia Woolf [rereading]
4  Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold  · Stephen Fry
5  Wittgensteins Neffe: Eine Freundschaft  · Thomas Bernhard [German]
6  Póetík í Reykjavík: Erindi 14 höfunda  [Icelandic]
7  Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch 1934-1995  · edited by Avril

Horner and Anne Rowe

Translated by: 1) My Brilliant Friend: Ann Goldstein

The list has undergone many changes. Stephen Fry and the Icelandic book (14 literary essays) are the only works that were on the original one, which I meant to share last autumn. I don’t know why it took so long to put this one together, probably a mixture of being busy with my studies and restlessness. I read a few pages, even a few chapters, in a book that I wanted to have on the list only to put that same book aside a short time later. Wanting to read a book is sometimes not enough for me, the time and place have to be right.

I found many wonderful books under the Christmas tree which will appear on lists in the near future. I gave myself a few, e.g. used books that have never been read. Among these are the first two books of the Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante, the pseudonymous Italian writer. I also bought the Everyman's Library edition of The Makioka Sisters by the Japanese writer Jun'ichirō Tanizaki (№ 6). It's one of my all-time favourite books.

Richard Diebenkorn, Untitled, 1949

images by me | Diebenkorn art via fan page on Twitter

№ 27 reading list: Erpenbeck, Stepanova and Roth

In an April blog entry, I promised a new reading list after finishing the third volume of Simone de Beauvoir's autobiography. I broke that promise because shortly after I was offered an unexpected assignment. Despite being busy, I have maintained a good reading routine that begins in the very early hours with my cup of coffee: I have finished Jenny Erpenbeck's book, I'm more than halfway through both Maria Stepanova and Philip Roth's biography, and I have started the others on the list. Two years ago The Years by Annie Ernaux became one of my all-time favourites and recently when I gave a friend a copy, I knew I had to reread it.

№ 27 reading list:

1  Philip Roth: The Biography  · Blake Bailey
2  In Memory of Memory  · Maria Stepanova
3  Not a Novel: Collected Writings and Reflections  · Jenny Erpenbeck
4  The Radetzky March  · Joseph Roth
5  Heldenplatz  · Thomas Bernhard [German]
6  Himnaríki og helvíti  · Jón Kalman Stefánsson [Icelandic]
7  The Years  · Annie Ernaux [rereading]

Translated by: 2) In Memory of Memory: Sasha Dugdale; 3) Not a Novel: Kurt Beals;

4) The Radetzky March: Joachim Neugroschel; 7) The Years: Alison L. Strayer

If you follow books news you must have read about the fate of the much-anticipated biography of Philip Roth. Following sexual assault claims against its author Bailey, the publisher, W. W Norton & Company, first halted the shipping of the book and eventually pulled it (Bailey, who has not been convicted in a court of law, has already found a new publisher). I pre-ordered the book long before this happened and believe I would have ordered it anyway, as I'm fully capable of separating the art from the artist. The book is well researched and written (Roth handpicked Bailey to write it) but I do admit that my mind sometimes goes Why do I need to know this? when I come across details of Roth's sexual encounters.

Not a Novel was my first by Erpenbeck, who is one of the major contemporary novelists in Germany. It's an English translation of her non-fiction, but not a complete one: it only contains a fragment of the original, Kein Roman, which is twice as long. I enjoyed the reading but parts felt slightly repetitive and after finishing I was left with this sense of a gap. I don't believe this shorter English edition does justice to the original and once my German improves I will definitely read the latter.

The cover of Philip Roth: The Biography by the now-infamous Blake Bailey

Five years have passed since I shared my first reading list. As I select the books carefully, there have been few disappointments. On my last list was a short essay collection by Vivian Gornick that I cannot recommend: Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-reader. The introduction appealed to me, and probably raised my expectations, but as I read on it became clear that Gornick and I are very different readers. She is character-oriented and seems very occupied with failed fictional relationships. Her approach tested my patience. A certain paradox revealed itself to me: Gornick is an active feminist but the tone of voice in these essays didn't give me the sense of a strong woman. There was one piece I liked, about the Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg, who is still on my TBR (list of to-be-reads). On that list are still a few Gornicks but honestly, I now feel little desire to prioritise them.

The COVID-19 lockdown in Austria has finally been lifted after constant extensions since last autumn. We still have to wear FFP2 masks and there are some restrictions, e.g. a negative test or a vaccination certificate is needed to enter cafés and restaurants. I got my first vaccination dose recently and get the second one in a few weeks and will then be able to get my latte fix whenever I want. That's all I ask for. Until then life continues to be rather lockdowny - I may have coined a word.

images mine, the 2nd and 3rd appeared on Instagram 22/04/21 and 15/06/21

Playwright Thomas Bernhard and white Austria

If you follow me on Instagram you know that I usually don't write long captions, nor do I copy nor share them on the blog. Sometimes I use the same pics. Yesterday, however, I wrote about my experience in Austria and would like to keep these reflections on the blog. You can look at this as a peek into my next reading list, which includes the play Heldenplatz by the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard. I will probably write about it later, in a Reading journal entry. That said, here is yesterday's caption with added links:

Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) is an Austrian novelist and playwright that I still haven't read. For my next reading list, I bought a Suhrkamp edition of his play Heldenplatz, which he wrote on the 50th anniversary of the 'Anschluss', the annexation of Austria by Hitler's Germany [the Anschluss took place on 12 March 1938]. Anti-Semitism is the play's major theme.

Austria is my adopted country and I believe literature is one of the best ways to learn about the history and culture of a nation. By that, I'm referring to the things the history books usually leave out. Most of my time in Austria has been spent in this pandemic, which has limited my chances to be out and about; to meet people.

The Austrians I have met are all very friendly. However, what I cannot help noticing is that in magazines this country is depicted as White. Whether it's done intentionally, I cannot say. As I'm white, I have no experience of racism, but I have sat in waiting rooms and leafed through Austrian magazines, which present an idyllic view of a rich country with beautiful landscapes and white people. Lots of white people. I have searched and counted: In one magazine I found a group photo with one Asian woman and in another a small one with a black man. I wonder if the Austrians themselves even notice this.

Anyway, Bernhard's play, which some Austrians found hard to swallow, is one way for me to practise my German during the pandemic.

(Bloomsbury has published an English translation of the play Heldenplatz by Meredith Oakes.)

Adding to yesterday's reflections, I do realise that Austrians are in the majority, about 80%, but in light of history and increased immigration, I would have expected growing awareness. I have lived in several European countries and perhaps there I didn't notice this white image in magazines. Yet, I don't think so. I don't remember this kind of evident whiteness. By the way, I found an interesting article from 2018 on the website of The Irish Times, called Vienna is ranked world’s ‘most liveable city’, but for whom? (with the subtitle: For some of my immigrant friends here, the welcome has been far from warm). It focuses on the situation in Vienna and its author paints a completely different picture than a white one, of a multinational community to which the magazines I have leafed through do not seem to make an attempt to appeal.

Well, spring has sprung with sun and seventeen degrees so there is no reason to complain about the Austrian weather.

image by me, appeared on Instagram 25/03/21