Foreign Language Friday: Le Bal by Irène Némirovsky

Dear blog,

This is two novellas put together in one volume, so I'll review each one separately.

Original titles: Le Bal and Les Mouches d'automne, respectively.
Written by: Irène Némirovsky
First published in: French

Translated by: Sandra Smith

Summary (from Goodreads): Le Bal is a penetrating and incisive book set in early twentieth century France. At its heart is the tension between mother and daughter. The nouveau-riche Kampfs, desperate to become members of the social elite, decide to throw a ball to launch themselves into high society. For selfish reasons Mrs. Kampf forbids her teenage daughter, Antoinette, to attend the ball and banishes her to the laundry room. In an unpremeditated fury of revolt and despair, Antoinette takes a swift and horrible revenge. A cruel, funny and tender examination of class differences, Le Bal describes the torments of childhood with rare accuracy.
Also included in this volume is Snow in Autumn, in which Némirovsky pays homage to Chekhov and chronicles the life of a devoted servant following her masters as they flee Revolutionary Moscow and emigrate to a life of hardship in Paris. 

Review: Le Bal- This was definitely my favourite of the two.  Of course, I didn't like Antoinette, I didn't think much of her father, and I didn't like her mother either.  But then I don't think you're meant to like Madame Kampf and her daughter, so much as just read from both their perspectives and observe both of their actions, and see how they clash. 

Although they both strongly disliked one another, they both had a lot of mannerisms in common, and the same desperate desire to be appreciated, loved, to show themselves off to society.   At the same time their thoughts are written in such a subtly tender way, and I think on some level it's possible to sympathise with and relate to every single character, even those who are somewhat minor and don't play too large a role, which is something I love her for; the way portrays family dynamics in such a horribly truthful way.  Her characterisation is absolutely spot on. 

The scene where Antoinette is hiding behind the sofa is, by the way,  without a doubt one of the best that I've come across in literature over the last few months.  If this makes sense, reading it from Antoinette's perspective, makes you feel almost kind of guilty.  I don't even know what for... just being, I suppose, being able to identify with some of her thoughts and emotions, and to know that they were messing things up.  For such an outwardly simplistic story, there are a lot of motives that you're left pondering for a long time after you read it.

In three words: Vivacious, insightful, tense.

Rating: 5.

Snow in Autumn- I was pretty surprised at how different this was from Le Bal, which felt lively and sort of fierce in a controlled kind of way.  But the best thing for me to compare Snow in Autumn to is actually snow.  It's so quietly beautiful and sorrowful.  It's told from the perspective of a faithful servant when the wealthy family she works for flees persecution in Russia. Wealth and social standing is another big theme, but it's a total contrast from Le Bal, which is kind of a rags-to-riches story, .  Snow in Autumn is the complete opposite, and the central family are left .  Themes of loss and nostalgia, I've noticed, are also a recurring theme in all the Némirovsky that I've read so far, and she writes it very well. 

But for all its haunting glory, I don't know why, but it felt kind of...incomplete.  The story of their journey from Russia to France was perfectly alright, and the way they initially settled in, but I felt like it could have been a lot longer- maybe even a novel in its own right.  I felt like there were some characters that I would have loved a lot more if I had had more time to get to know them, but I didn't, alas.  Still, it's an entirely beautiful novella in a subtle sort of way, and I highly recommend it.

In three words: Lyrical, sad, haunting.

Rating: 4.

Another Ten Books I Absolutely Can't Wait For

Dear Blog,
I haven't done one of this posts in an insanely long time, it seems. Well, I should.  Because there are a lot of books that I'm looking forward to that are released later on in the year or in 2012.
So. Without further ado.


The Diviners by Libba Bray- Libba Bray= possibly my favourite historical fiction writer.  New York City in the 1920s = possibly one of my favourite eras. The summary on Goodreads tells me it will be "a wild new ride full of dames and dapper dons, jazz babies and Prohibition-defying parties, conspiracy and prophecy—and all manner of things that go bump in the neon-drenched night."  All I can say is oh my God yes.  Bring it on.

Perfect by Ellen Hopkins- companion novel to Impulse, and is released this autumn.  And look at that cover.  It's so delicious, I could eat it. In fact, when I get a copy I may well have to do so.

Smoke by Ellen Hopkins-Another Ellen Hopkins.  This is a sequel/companion novel to Burned, the ending of which was intense  but very vague.  I haven't heard much of a synopsis about Smoke, either, and it doesn't come out for a good while yet, so we'll see.

 A Million Suns by Beth Revis- Goodreads is killing me. Although it shows the cover, which is by the way absolutely gorgeous, all it says as a synopsis is "The plot of this book is a mystery."  Aaaaargh I want to know what happens right now *explodes*. 

The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges- Russia.  1888.  Teenage debutante and member of the nobility who is also a necromancer. Need I say more?  I must have this book.   

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver- Although I dislike the cover (maybe it will tie in with a paperback cover of Delirium?) which is nothing like that of its predecessor, I am totally looking forward to reading this. The ending of Delirium was so intense and dramatic. However. If there's a love triangle of sorts in this book, I may well scream and rip my hair out, because honestly I dislike nothing more in books, especially when couples go together as well as Lena and Alex and then some unnecessary other character is thrown into the equation for drama.

Audition by Stasia Ward Kehoe- I've probably said before that although I haven't taken ballet lessons for about seven years, I still absolutely love ballet and I just about died when I went to see Swan Lake in London last year.  So when I heard about this book, I was like, Yes!  Also, apparently it's a novel in verse.   Double yes!  There aren't half as many of these sorts of books as there ought to be.

All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin- Even though I wasn't too into Elsewhere, this book does sound interesting. Among other things that intrigue me about this book, I cannot imagine a world without chocolate, i.e the one this book is set in, and it would be interesting to see how the human race functions without the food of the Gods.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin- So, so, so much excitement for this book. I don't really know much about it, because the synopses  I've read have been rather mysterious.  Which probably just adds to my anticipation.  

 

 The Carrier of the Mark by Leigh Fallon- I was initially interested in reading this book because it was discovered on Harpercollins' YA writing site Inkpop, which I was a member of until I forgot my password various other commitments lead me to stopping being addicted to so many websites.

 Although it's true I don't tend to enjoy a lot of the paranormal romances I read, there's very little YA set in Ireland so I look forward to reading some that is. 

Also, the cover intrigues me.  The girl on the front looks both like she's being dragged up and pulled downwards at the same time.

So, there you go.  Are you looking forward to any particular releases at some point in the future?  Any of these?

That's all for today.  Over and out.

Review: Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Dear blog,

Summary (from Goodreads): Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously—and at great risk—documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.

Review: Before I read this, it had been the longest time since I'd read some actual proper young adult historical fiction.  Things like  A Dead Man's Memoir and Le Bal and such don't really count because they were written in that era.  So Between Shades of Gray was a refreshing change from the stuff I've been reading at the moment.  It is also what can only be described as an epic literary win because it's set in the Baltic states and Russia.  The deportation of thousands of Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians and Finns is probably something that I only know about because I've been an utter history geek since I was like five.  But it's such an important part of eastern European history, it totally shouldn't go unread about. 

It's heart-wrenching from the first chapter, jumping straight into the story. The last sentence of the first chapter is some intense foreshadowing; "We were about to become cigarettes"... I just...when I read that, I wanted to burst into tears, put the book down and seek out some fluffy shojo manga as fast as I could.  But then on the other hand, once you've seen Lina's terrible journey begin, you have to follow it through to see if she's strong enough to emerge at the other end.   Lina's experiences are in turn humiliating, disturbing, terrifying and harrowing, and Ruta Sepetys shields the reader from nothing.

The characters.  Every one was valuable, as if each of them was meant to be there, and served a purpose, even if it was ultimately do die.  I quite liked the way that some characters were never given names; like the man who wound his watch, for instance.  I wondered at first if this would become quite annoying if Lina kept referring to people by their distinguishing features as opposed to their real names, but in a way it seemed very real, and such characters still had real personality and depth to them. 

I liked Lina, of course I did.  How could I not? She was an entirely ordinary teenage girl, her reactions to the nightmare that she was thrown into were so...natural, complete with actual fear that radiated off the page and everything.  If I said that the whole way through that she was strong and brave and willing to do whatever she could to keep her family together, that would be lying, because she wasn't always like that; there were points where she was scared, where she'd done things that she had regretted.  But that made her all the more human, to my mind.

Lina's mother Elena was also pretty awesome, for lack of a better word. I totally admire how she managed to keep her chin up for her children all the way through like that. And her brother Jonas was so sweet.  He was an interesting character to observe throughout the story, because at the start he seemed very much like a boy and then by the end, a young man.

I also liked the writing style. It was very spare, but in an entirely flowing way.  I haven't read many books recently that have been such an ideal balance of simplicity and poetry; at some points it seemed very relevant to the harsh Russian landscapes, and not a word is wasted.   Throughout the book, at the end of some of the chapters, there were little flashbacks to Lina's past life in Lithuania that were somehow relevant to the present plot.  In turn it was kind of a relief to detract from the present events, but on the other it just seemed to make the contrast between her past and present life all the more saddening.  Some of the flashbacks were kind of foreshadowing to their deportation.

So, this is an entirely essential read for anyone, whether history is in general something they're interested by or not.  I look forward to seeing what Ruta Sepetys writes next.

In three words: heartbreaking, enlightening, haunting.
Recommended for: Everyone with a box of tissues to hand.
Rating: 5

Foreign Language Friday: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Dear Blog,

note: This review is going to have to be way too short and undeserving of such an awesome book. Sorry.

Original Title:  It was originally published in English, then in Czech, but the Russian is Мы/Miy.

Original Language: ^^

Translated by: Natasha Randall
Summary (from Amazon UK): In a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, ruled over by the all-powerful ‘Benefactor’, the citizens of the totalitarian society of OneState live out lives devoid of passion and creativity – until D-503, a mathematician who dreams in numbers, makes a discovery: he has an individual soul. Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, We is the classic dystopian novel and was the inspiration for George Orwell’s 1984. It was suppressed for many years in Russia and remains a resounding cry for individual freedom, yet is also a powerful, exciting and vivid work of science fiction.

Review: So unless you have been hiding in a cave, or the nonfiction section of your library, you are probably away that dystopian fiction in young adult literature is like the new paranormal vampire-werewolf-fallen-angel thing.  With reason.  We fear the unknown, but at the same time it's something entirely, morbidly fascinating.  But recently I've been kind of tired of that, and all these apocalypses have blended into one.  However, the one dystopian novel I've still wanted to read for a long time is We.

  We is like the grandfather of the dystopic, but totally gets the short end of the stick because so many people have read Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World, and seem to believe that's where things got started.  I haven't read either of those yet, so I shouldn't say that We is the most influential book in the genre or anything, because I wouldn't really know. 

It's both at the same time fantastically forward-thinking from something of its time and gloriously kitsch.  It reminds me a lot of the film Metropolis in that respect.  You've got to admire Zamyatin for constructing what was then such a groundbreaking world, which was apparently supposed to be relevant to the political regime in Russia at the time, so it was pretty controversial too.  There's some interesting foresight- id est, Zamyatin foresaw electric toothbrushes.  Yes, ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSHES.  Therefore Zamyatin wins. 
The book is only about 200 pages or so, but it's surprisingly hard to get through.  The writing style is very, very strange.  It's almost dream-like in a way, and in some parts it seems almost hysterical, and then because of that kind of vagueness, the perception of things feels kind of skewed and unclear.   It's pretty fragmented, as well, and seems to jump around a lot.  This can be kind of irritating if there's some particularly interesting scene, or thought,  and then suddenly the subject changes. 

D-503 was, in a word...a strange character.  The emotional journey he went through in the book was pretty similar to that of the characters in other dystopic novels I've read; at the beginning of the book his belief in his society is totally unwavering and almost darkly amusing, but then he falls and love with someone who doesn't buy into the society, and is then entirely confused.  But I think the way that confusion of feeling love, that emotion which D-503 had never really encountered before, was fantastically portrayed. 

I-330 was a pretty interesting character; I wish there had been more to her, or that there had been a better picture of her personality, if such a thing exists in the One State.  I knew she was supposed to be mysterious and beautiful and intelligent; that was it.  There was so much focus on the emotion, and the scenario, and the confusion when the two collided, that things like descriptions seemed almost disregarded.    I quite liked O, too, bit in a pitying sort of way. I think she meant well, but in the entirely unindividual manner of the One State, and hence when D-503 was presented with the Exciting World Outside the state, he had to kind of abandon her.  Their relationship was pretty interesting, too; were they in love? Weren't they?  They would get together for the designated hour in which they could lower the blinds in their glass houses and...you know... anyway, good on her for appearing now and again to try and get D-503 back, even though it was pretty futile.

So, I'm glad I read it.  Though it isn't entirely flawless, you have to admit it is pretty damn awesome for being so subtly influential.

In three words: under-rated, clever, convincing.
Recommended for: all fans of science fiction. 
Rating: 3.5. 

In My Mailbox 22

Dear Blog,
IMM is hosted as ever by Kristi of The Story Siren.

This was another week in which my taste in books led me further afield than the local library.  I went to the Great Big Library in the centre of town, which is full of Exciting Shiny Novels I couldn't dream of finding in the library closer to home. 
Also, I've been reading a lot more recently.  Of late I'd kind of been in something of a reading slump; that doesn't seem to be so much of the case any more.  Maybe it's because I'm finding more books that I truly want to read, or my tastes have changed slightly.
Excuse the random bottle of water in the picture.  My desk is a mess at the moment, but left long enough it will clean itself.

BOUGHT

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

LIBRARY

We by Yegevny Zamyatin [currently reading]
Le Bal by Irène Némirovsky [read; next week's Foreign Language Friday post] 

The Plague by Albert Camus

Junk by Melvin Burgess

So that was my bookish week.  What about yours?

In My Mailbox 21 or Some More Classics

Dear blog,
hosted as  ever by Kristi of The Story Siren fame.

This week was another in which I found myself in the classics section of my local library, which has been happening increasingly of late (probably because I've read almost all the YA books I want to read there.  Oh the joys of having a pitifully tiny village library).

BOUGHT

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

FROM THE LIBRARY

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle [currently reading]

Cathedral by Raymond Carver

A Dead Man's Memoir by Mikhail Bulgakov

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

So, there you go. That was my bookish week.  What was yours like?