Just finished Iphigenia, & I'm a tiny bit upset, due to spoilery reasons 😂 All I can say is my inner romantic is unhappy, but the ending makes sense & I would have rolled my eyes had it been any different.
There is a definite 1920s/30s flavour to the novel (think Mitford, Cold Comfort Farm, etc.)

Warning for offhand racist, classist, colorist and antisemitic remarks, mainly from the mouths of foolish characters

#FoodandLit
#Venezuela

Happy #WorldBookDay (or 1 of them) / #SantJordi / #DayofBooksandRoses / #SaintGeorgesDay everyone! It is celebrated on this day because it is the anniversary of the death of Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, but as it happens, the author I am reading right now - Teresa de la Parra - also died on April, 23rd.

I find Maria Eugenia (the Iphigenia of the title) deeply irritating but also lovable. I can't think of many early 20th-c. novels that show the mind of a teenage girl in such detail. She is bright but naive, superficial but thoughtful, bold but shy. And v. volatile. It's clear she is/will be used as a pawn by her family, at the v. least to maintain their status, but v. probably for money too. Impending doom 😬

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Very happy about my haul of second-hand books:
The Pear Field (tagged)
Papa, maman écoutez-moi vraiment (parenting/child psychology)
Austral (Costarican author)
Le héro qui pissait dans son froc (Vietnamese short story anthology)

Sister Deborah is a healer and prophetess in an early 20th c. African-American charismatic cult that traveled to Rwanda to await the Second Coming. She could well be the “reincarnation“ of a famous queen and witch. We explore her life and others' through 2 POVs. The author based her novel on local history, mythology and stories, so that's another rabbit-hole to fall into. BTW, I loved the ending!

Pic of Lake Kivu: Adam Jones via Wikimedia Commons

Maryse Condé died last week. To honour her memory, I read one of her novels I hadn't yet read. It tells the story of Rosélie, a Black Guadeloupean woman living in Cape Town, and whose white husband was mysteriously killed while on an errand in the middle of the night. Moving & insightful but requires close reading to get the most of it.

Pic of Cape Town's Malay Quarter (Octagon via Wikimedia), only mentioned in passing in the book, but so pretty

I made arepas, carne mechada (shredded beef) and caraotas negras (black beans), served with lettuce, cheese and avocado. Easy and tasty. I was really tempted to up the spice level, but didn't bc I wanted to keep the food authentic, at least for my 1st try. Can't swear I won't next time 😚
#Venezuela #FoodandLit @Catsandbooks @Texreader

My plan for the weekend: make arepas. Unexpectedly, I found the proper flour for them locally 😁Wish me luck for my 1st attempt...
Possibly also start on the tagged novel (a Venezuelan classic), if the book I ordered at the library doesn't turn up.

#Venezuela #FoodandLit @Catsandbooks @Texreader

A essay about friendship, how undervalued it is in our society, and its potential for making society more open & egalitarian, & less family-centered. Based on his deep, cultivated friendship with ÉdouardLouis and Didier Éribon. With quotes from Barthes, Foucault, Wilhelm Reich, etc. Can't say I agree with everything, but it is thought-provoking & pleasant to read.

#LGBTQI+

I can't help but think of Mrs Coulter in His Dark Material when I look at this page!
(Camille Alaphilippe - Woman with a monkey, 1908 and Janis Rozentāls, Princess with a monkey, 1913)

WWII hero Issak Manouchian's poems were republished earlier this year, right after his and his wife Melinée's remains were moved to the Pantheon. They are the 1st non-French nationals to be honoured in this way (Josephine Baker & Marie Curie were both naturalised French, whereas Manouchian was refused naturalisation in the 30s).
His poems are heavily influenced by Baudelaire & Verlaine (he sat in on lit classes at the Sorbonne w/ taking exams).

Maryse Condé died yesterday. She won the New Academy Prize (the alternative to the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded in 2018, when the Nobel Academy was on hiatus).
I read my 1st book by her when I was 11 - it was a middle-school novel called Haiti chérie. I had no idea she was a renowned writer then. I've been meaning to read her latest - The Gospel According to the New World. I should now.

My final book in my virtual Baltic trip: a huge coffee-table book about the Symbolism art movement in Baltic countries. Very enjoyable!

Beautiful writing, but I can't say I understood everything. You'd probably have to be an Estonian of the right generation to get the most out of it - which is OK: writers don't have to cater to everyone, and in any case, cryptic speech is central to the “plot“ (to get around surveillance) - hence the photo featuring examples of surreal WW2 coded messages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Fran%C3%A7ais_parlent_aux_Fran%C3%A7aishickleb...

Started this very poetic and slightly surreal, but so far very confusing novel, written by an Estonian author about an Estonian young woman, but set in Riga (Latvia). I got this much from the back cover - the 1st pages of the book itself are far from clear 😊
There is a sentence about The Lord who did not order His angel to put sticks (or penises - the French translation is ambiguous 😮) in salt for the main character?
I so wish for footnotes...

I thought this book would be about soft power & the way Western hegemony is reshaping 3rd world people's cultures. It is not. It's a political pamphlet against the IMF's & other international organisations' collusion with Western companies & local politicians. A bit disjointed & self-centered. Still v. interesting.
The picture shows how politicians tend to give up on trying to do something about their country's debt, as they climb up the ladder.

I am learning a lot about Baltic countries, but I am rather put off by the book's positive view of colonisation, with (what I think is) misplaced pride about the Duchy of Courland's (now part of Latvia) former colonial empire (Tobago and the area around the mouth of the Gambia river), and Kazys Pakštas's plan to create a new Lithuania in Angola, Rhodesia-style.

It looks like Zerocalcare is not a fan of cumin (the writing on the collection box says “Do something against cumin - Campaign against disgusting spices“). Funny how cumin and coriander/cilantro are so divisive...
A page of light relief in a rather depressing book 😂 This is NOT your usual feel-good Christmas story!

Highly-strung, very silly, very cringy. Possibly the first example of (non-explicit) slash “erotica“ written by a virgin young woman with access to a stash of “forbidden books“, but definitely not the last 😂
The politics are muddled but interesting. There is a lot of internalised classism and sexism, as should be expected in a 1884 book.

I'll read a more mature work from this author before passing judgment on her.

Our Korean meal was Ojingeo Bokkeum (Korean Spicy Stir-fried Squid), Korean Cucumber Salad (Oi Muchim), and kimchi from lidl (not buying it again - it was bland and seemed cooked, for some reason?) Will make everything again.

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“Faisant, dit-il, quelque effort en sautant, ses membres virils se produisirent : et est encore en usage entre les filles de là, une chanson, par laquelle elles s'entravertissent de ne faire point de grandes enjambées, de peur de devenir garçons“

16th-century philosopher Montaigne thought - as did other contemporaries - that too much jumping (or long walking strides), or thinking about it too much, could make a woman grow a penis. Easy!

And for something completely different from my current reads - a young children's non-fiction book about tigers. It was a chance find (1 euro second-hand), it's a bit tattered, but the content is perfectly pitched: neither too complex nor too babyish. I think I'll see if I can find others in the same series.

A young heiress plays gender-bending domination games in life and in bed with a young working-class man, who's trapped and unwilling. I can see how revolutionary and subversive this is for a 1884 novel written by a then 24-year old female writer, but it is a bit of a slog for me: decadent, fin-de-siècle works aren't my cup of tea. I can see that it would appeal to others, as it did to Oscar Wilde, who made a hidden reference to it in Dorian Gray.

Thank you Wikipedia for this useful graph recapping the various right-wing parties found in France from the 19th to the 21st century. The tagged book is very enlightening, but it's easy to get confused between all the different names and flavours of nationalism and economic liberalism. Also, the chapters on the thirties are scary - I can see parallels between now and then...

Oh look, a book where “it“/“this“ is used for a woman, described as if she was livestock for sale. I'll read on to see if that is due to the character's voice, or the writer's, but I am not impressed.

#Dordogne

A non-fiction graphic work about the former workers' neighbourhood of Annikki in Tampere (#Finland) that's both informative and graphically creative, with a wide range of styles. Loved the art. Slighly sad that the solution to save the old houses was to have them bought and done up by arty newcomers, displacing former poor(er) residents. #gentrification

Will definitely read more by Tiitu Takalo

Photo by Eino Ansio: Annikki Poetry Festival 2018

Just started this - very happy about it so far!

#Finland

Apparently, it's World Book Day today! Anybody sending their child off to school dressed up as a character from a book? I feel I am missing out: my child is an adult and my grandchild is too young, LOL. (Although to be fair, admiring cute dressed-up children is a lot less stressful than actually devising a costume and getting them ready in the morning!)
https://www.worldbookday.com/

#WorldBookDay

Gochujang chicken, stir-fried leek and rice. Very nice 😁
I haven't started The Nine Cloud Dream, and I'm not sure I'll manage to before the end of the month, but I did read another Korean book last week: The Story of Hong Gildong

#FoodandLit
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Spring has sprung! At least in vases, because in the fruit bowl, we're still firmly in winter. I could buy hothouse strawberries but I'd rather wait for the local ones.
And I started Moss yesterday. I didn't do it on purpose, but this is my 5th book originally written in German since the start of the year - more than any other language bar French and English.

Following a post by LolaWalser on LT, I read The Old Lady Comes to Call in preparation for watching Djibril Diop Mambéty's 1992 film Hyenas, where Dürrenmatt's play is seamlessly transposed to Senegal. I can recommend both warmly.

I finished the Story of Hong Gildong, a classic tale first written by anonymous Korean authors in the 19th c. It relates the woes, adventures and rise to power of the son of a high-born minister and his lowly concubine. The story was very interesting for its cultural/historical insights (Kang Minsoo's translation, notes and introduction are invaluable), but I can't say I was taken by Hong Gildong as a hero.

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I am all set for #FoodandLit in #SouthKorea in March! And in #Venezuela in April 😁
I must say the animé-type illustration on the cover of a classic work is rather disconcerting, but then the hero is compared to Robin Hood, and I can think of plenty of cartoon representations of him, so...

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I am reading Que notre joie demeure, Kevin Lambert's latest, multiple prize-winning novel, and I have been so confused by his use of the word “plusieurs“ I had to google “plusieurs + québecisme + définition“ to get to the bottom of this. 😂 Here's what the Office québécois de la langue française has to say. Now I know that “plusieurs“ means “some“ or “several“ in Europe, but can be used to mean “many“ in #Québec. Live and learn...

Turgeniev and Chekhov loom large in this epistolary novella written by a German author, but set in Russia at the turn of the 20th century, at a time of social unrest, when university students were revolutionaries and the upper class held the lower classes in easy contempt. Every character is self-absorbed but thinks they're more observant than the others. I wanted to knock their heads together 😂
Peirene Press always make interesting choices

This might be my favourite Rytkheu to date, although Unna is also very special to me. It is a novel, but you can tell he is working through personal stuff: the constraints of being a writer in the USSR, your work falling out of fashion, forgotten people, racial prejudice, the way the Russian/USSR system put minorities back in their place, alcoholism, & of course, Chukotka!
I wish the minority authors he mentions were available in translation

A children's picture book with lush illustrations. This one is a very good non-fiction about exotic fruit (exotic to Europeans, that is), written & illustrated by Dominique Mwankumi, an author originally from the #DemocraticRepublicOfTheCongo shortlisted 5 years in a row for the #AstridLindgrenMemorialAward. Given the number of copies of his various books in my local library network, he is well-known & loved, but I've only discovered him recently.

What a delightful book about a grandmother who crosses the jungle to go see her daughter and grandchildren! I read it online on everand, but will buy the paper version for the grandkid. I think it will speak to her just as much as it spoke to me.

#India

This is clearly the author's PhD thesis, and so far, not as informative as I'd hoped, but as I've only read 1/4, it might still change. It is centered on 6 French female translators of the Renaissance, only 1 of whom I'd read before, & 1 I'd heard of.

Picture of Anne de Graville offering her translation of Boccaccio's Teseida to Queen Claude of France, from Graville's wikipedia page

The mother is the heavily-pregnant bride of a Lutheran pastor and somewhat reluctant nazi soldier. She is stuck in Rome in 1943, looked after by the local German community, while her husband has been unexpectedly sent to fight in Africa. She is very young, ignorant and evidently torn between her jingoism and her religious values. She was 1 of the most annoying characters I've encountered these last few months, but I also felt pity for her.

A young man feels hard done by because he can't find work or love. He despises his father (too servile, too poor!), women and the world in general. He falls hook, line & sinker for an unnamed fascist/nazi ideology and volunteers as a soldier. The sense of pride and comradeship he gets from it won't last, however.
So much of what this book published in 1938 describes is applicable today to the alt-right/incel community it's scary.

Apparently, this is how gay men are born in Brittany? 😂

And the poem's missing lines on the next page:

Then a lion came prowling out of the jungle and ate the feminist all up.

So true for so many women, it's almost painful

Having just queued up in the cold for 50 minutes to be in the public of a radio show - all for nothing, I did not get it - before walking 40 minutes home, I am ready for my #Litsolace Sunday #Hyggehour! @TheBookHippie @Chrissyreadit @AllDebooks

On the flip side, I read the 1st 50 pages of my book while waiting in line, and I got some exercise 😇 And now, I get to curl up with a cup of Christmas Roiboos and an SF novel by a new author.

Crime and disappearances in #Guatemala, a country where corruption is rife and income disparities are breathtaking. I have read the first 2/3 of this novel by one of the best-known contemporary Guatemalan authors, and am loving it so far.

Photo of lake Atitlán (which features in the story) by FerociousFlaherty via wikimedia

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We had a #NewZealand lunch today:
- Homemade fish and chips (not pictured). Apparently, it's as much a thing over there as in the UK, and once I'd mentioned it, any other possibility (boil-up...) was immediately downvoted 😮
- And for dessert, a homemade pineapple, kiwi and kumquat pavlova, which looks a mess but was delicious 😋
Still enjoying the tagged poetry collection.

The most cheffy cookbook on foraged herbs I've ever read... It weighs a ton, too! I might steal a few ideas - especially the basic techniques (herb oils, flavoured sugars...) explained at the end - but I am unlikely to follow a recipe in its entirety...

Haka by Apirana Taylor, a poem found in the tagged book, and which could only come from #NewZealand

when I hear the haka
i feel it in my bones
and in my wairua
the call of my tipuna
flashes like lightning
up and down my spine
it makes my eyes roll
and my tongue flick
it is the dance
of earth and sky
the rising sun
and the earth shaking
it is the first breath of life
eeeee aaa ha haaa

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It's been 7 years almost to the day since my mother passed away, but this poem still made me tear up.

Here's my first #Litsolace post! Pancakes are traditional for Candlemas/Imbolc where I live, so dinner was a spicy tomato and carrot soup, followed by 2 pancakes with strawberry preserve 😁

@TheBookHippie @Chrissyreadit @AllDebooks