"The Hottest Dishes in the Tartar Cuisine" by Alina Bronsky

Sometimes a narrator will tell the story with real feeling, drawing you in and playing on your heartstrings. Giving you unlimited access to their thoughts and feelings and the way that they see the world. And some narrator's are just downright unreliable, giving you heir version of events and leaving it to you to figure out what really happened. Rosalinda, the main character of Alina Bronsky's "The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine" is one of those narrators. 

Rosalinda is, at least according to herself, a very capable woman. She is clever, intelligent, beautiful and with more energy and gusto than most. At least according to herself. In reality she is incredibly forceful and downright manipulative, stopping at nothing to get what she wants. When we first meet her, she is the mother of the 17-year-old disappointment Sulfia who is neither clever nor pretty and when it turns out that she is pregnant, Rosalinda does her very best to provoke an abortion. It doesn't happen which turns out to be for the best because her little grandchild Aminat becomes her most precious - I was almost about to write possession... 

In Rosalinda's view, noone can take care of Aminat like she can and she completely designs her life around Aminat and the many hopes that she has for her future. The book follows them for the next thirty years, as Rosalinda repeatedly marries off Sulfia to one hapless husband after the other and eventually succeeds to sell Aminat to a sleazy, cheap, disgusting German in return for him marrying Sulfia and bringing the three of them to Germany. It is a family tale like none you've ever read before and it's a fabulous story, fabulously well-written. 

I absolutely love the unreliableness of Bronsky's narrator. Everything she says is so tainted by her own interpretations that it is almost impossible to distinguish what actually goes on and her cunning ways and at times evil manipulation is depicted by herself as almost saintly behaviour. She never does anything for herself, everything is done for others. 

At the same time, the author manages to occasionally take a step back from her narrator and show us who she really is - but it is done with a sly, dry humour. Actually humour is what saves the storyline because if you look at it, it is an incredibly sad story. But it is told with such humour, compassion and attention to absurdness that it doesn't come across as sad. It almost becomes a testament to life despite trouble and difficulties, to survival even against the worst odds. 

It is a fantastic book  - I'm pretty sure that it'll make it unto the Best Books of 2013 list in a year's time. It's dramatic, sad, poignantly beautiful and told with skill, intelligence and humour!

Black Sisters in a Cold World

There are books that you almost fear to read because you expect them to be difficult, emotional, unpleasant or all of the above. This is sort of how I felt about "On Black Sisters Street" by Chika Unigwe. I had no idea what to expect from it - I liked the title but for some reason I didn't expect to like it, possibly because it deals with a wholly unpleasant subject. 

Sisi, Efe, Joyce and Ama are all African women who have been trafficked to dark, cold Antwerp to take up places in bars and windows as sex workers, second-class citizens in a country where they have no friends and no family. They have come to seek a better future for themselves and for those at home in Lagos and to reach this goal, they are willing to sacrifice anything. They have only each other and though they have little in common, they are bound together by their misfortunes and tragedies. 
Sisi is a university graduate who dreamed of  cushy job in a bank, enabling to support her family. When the dream turns to dust, she takes fate into her own hands and sets sail for Europe. Efe is a teenage mother who has to leave her son behind to pay for his school fees. Ama is met with lust instead of love by her Christian step-father and Joyce is a refugee of war. 

Unigwe tells the stories of these four, strong, tragic women who have met with so much pain, so much rejection and hurt, yet they still have compassion, they still dream of romance and of happiness. She weaves their stories together, braids them into one story of hope and human unkindness. It is deeply moving but without playing on your emotions. Elegantly written, it tackles difficult subjects - subjects that are violent, evil, in a dignified manner where the violence is present yet not overwhelming. The focus is on the women and the way they are shaped by their experiences. The way they survive it and come out on the other side. It is almost hopeful, but only almost... 

Read it if: You dare to confront the dark realities of the world by want to do so while reading a beautiful piece of literary fiction. 

The Boring Lives of Others

Some of you might remember "Privileges" by Jonathan Dee which I reviewed a while ago and today, time has come to review his novel "Palladio". I had looked so much forward to reading this book because "Privileges" was so amazing and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed Dee's writing. His writing is incredibly skilled and he can do things with words that few authors manage. He is an artist and his ability to tell a story is great. 

The story that Dee tells in "Palladio" is a story of star-crossed fates, maybe even star-crossed lovers. Molly grows up in suburbia in a dysfunctional home where love is sadly lacking and in depression, frustration and an attempt to find love, she does something that leads her to be ostracized not just from the town but from her family as well. She feels to Berkeley, where she meets John, a young, impressionable man who falls head over heels in love with her. When Molly one day disappears without any clue to why or where she is, she leaves behind a wound in John's soul that never quite heals. 
Years later, John is successful in the fickle world of advertising when the enfant terrible, the prodigy of the advertising world, Mal Osbourne, tempts him to leave New York in pursuit of art and adventure. John takes the leap to Virginia and becomes an important piece of the puzzle that is Osbourne's empire. But then one day, out of the blue, his and Molly's paths cross again. 

Despite all of his talent, his beautiful artistry, "Palladio" did not work for me. For a very specific reason.  The two main characters, Molly and John, are annoying, frustrating and I found them impossible to empathize with. John is a gutless whiner who takes no responsibility for his life and just lets it happen to him without taken active part. He is an anti-hero but not a lovable one. Molly is to be pitied. If John is not a pilot in his own airplane of life, she is not even an air hostess, hardly even a passenger. Throughout most of the book she is depressed and she lets the depression guide her life, lets it take control and steer her away from anything that might call on her passion, her will to live not just survive. It is impossible to feel any love, any  empathy, any interest in these two. 

The story is fantastic, it's a really good story, but the characters leave me cold. I can't help wishing that Dee had told the story from the angle of Mal Osbourne instead. This maverick of a man, a dreamer with little to no interest in his fellow men, is so much more interesting even if he is not more likeable. The story would still have been difficult to empathise with but at least it would have had the advantage of a dramatic protagonist. 

Read it if: You think your life sucks or you think you're a boring person -  Molly and John will put this into perspective!

Review: "The Sisters Brothers" by Patrick DeWitt

There are so many reasons to pick up "The Sisters Brothers" by Patrick DeWitt. The title which is cool and awoke my imagination, the cover art that is like a punch in the face in a bookshop (in the best way possible) and the author's headshot in which he looks exactly like a literary author should. 

Another good reason to pick up "The Sister Brothers" is that it is a bloody good book. It is a piece of intelligent, literary Western fiction taking place in 1850's Oregon and when you read it, you can smell the dust in the air and feel the electricity of the gold rush. 
Eli and Charlie Sisters are the brothers, not just any brothers, they are the Sisters brothers. The murderous Sisters brothers whose paths few dare to cross. They are riding South from their Oregon shack on a mission to find Hermann Kermit Warm and ... well... kill him. It is a mission and as professional assassins, this is what they do for a living so initially, it is just another job. 
However, as they travel the dusty roads, Eli starts considering the life they are living. Though he is murderous and doesn't feel any guilt killing people who he deems to have "deserved it", he is also a gentle giant who dreams of opening up a clothing shop and marrying a nice girl. 
His brother Charlie is not gentle, not by any meaning of the word. He is ruthless and on the hunt for more money, more power and more whiskey. 


On their travels they meet a strange cast of interesting characters - from men hunting gold in the riverbeds to whores with an alcohol problem and a dentist who has failed at everything else. It is a tour through another time, a cool and collected Western that takes aim and hits you right in the imagination. It is a great book. A pretty fast read but one that you will find hard to put down because it is utterly fascinating. 
I found myself really rooting for Eli - even though he is a bit of a psychopath (nowhere near as bad as his brother though), he is also quiet a reflected individual. He thinks about right and wrong, about life and living and surviving. It is hard not to identify with him, not to find him lovable when he makes a big deal out of brushing his teeth. 


It is no wonder that "The Sisters Brothers" was shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize because this is a winning novel, a really different (again, in the best way possible) book that makes an impression. It is clever, well-written, exciting - basically it is a good book!


Read it if: Your favourite cartoon figures are the Dalton Brothers from Lucky Luke. You usually like the novels that get nominated for the Man Booker Prize. You want to try something different that will leave you feeling rewarded at the end. 

Survival Kit for the Confused Reader

Today I am not reading a book but the Sunday Times  - it is Sunday after all and there is something about lazing indoors with a newspaper and a cup of coffee when it is raining outside. In the "Culture" section I came across a really interesting article about books; an author named Sandra Newman has written a book called "The Western Lit Survival Kit: How to Read the Classics without Fears". 

What is this, you now ask?

Basically, it is guide to all of the greats and goods of Western literature from a women who has read them all. Not only does she give you an idea of storyline and context but she also grades the books out of ten! Yes. Grades. Them. Proust, Austen, Dante. They all get a (fair) trial and are awarded points based on level of humour, importance and accessibility and some of them get a fair bit of criticism thrown in - Kipling, apparently, is irritating. 

From the interview in the Times, Sandra Newman sounds like a breath of fresh air. She tells it how it is, even when it comes to her collaboration with editors who apparently weren't that keen on a book about literatur: “They stubbornly wouldn’t believe that anybody was interested in literature. They thought we should do a book comparing literature to celebrities, or television...” 

Book bloggers of the world unite and prove them wrong. This sounds like a fascinating book and it will go straight on my TBR. Actually, if wasn't Sunday and it wasn't raining, I'd be heading straight for the book shop now!

Read the article here. 

Review: "Special Topics in Calamity Physics"

Let me be honest with you from the very beginning and tell you that "Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Marisha Pessl's debut novel, is one of my favourite books. It came recommended from my father whose opinions - on books as well as in general - I have a lot of respect for. So when he handed me his copy of this long book with the beautiful girly cover and the strange title, I knew that I had to read it - the dichotomy of title and cover alone was enough to intrigue me. This was a few years ago and now I re-read it recently and it was just as great as I remembered.

What is this novel about, you ask yourself? The title doesn't really give anything it away - and then maybe it does. But not in the way you expect. Blue van Meer is a motherless American teenager living a life less normal with her professor father who is specialized in development politics and social sciences and who takes up guest positions at three or four different universities a year. Together they travel the country, living as nomads while Gareth, Blue's father, tells her story of her beautiful late mother and fills her head with as much academical knowledge as he can force in there.
Blue is quite a child prodigy or a teenage prodigy, clever for her age, intellectual, with outstanding academic records and few friends. She is the narrator of the story where we follow her and her father as they settle in a new town where Blue is befriended by the mysterious high school teacher Hannah Schneider who has collected a group of talented students around her in a group referred to as The Bluebloods. From the very beginning she is eager for Blue to join their little merry group and though reluctant to do so at first, Blue suddenly has a group of friends though she doesn't exactly fit in with them. She is somewhat scared by the bohemian Leulah, the handsome Charles and the other Bluebloods who all have twisted, strange pasts. Then one day Hannah dies (this is not a spoiler - it is mentioned at the very beginning of the book) and then it all comes tumbling down. It is a story that wants us to reflect on what we actually know about the people that we know, it is about identities and narratives that twist and turn and make it impossible to find the truth.

When it came out "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" it received a lot of really great reviews and some critical ones. Overall though, it was quite popular and I have to say that I love it though it is probably not for everyone. There is not clearcut definition of what this book is in terms of genre - a coming-of-age novel, a crime novel, a mystery. A literary gem if you ask me! There is so much about this book that I love. The fact that the chapters are named after literary milestones such as Othello, the fact that Blue has an enormous knowledge about and love for books and quotes the all the time. The story is amazing and has one of the best and most well-thought-out endings ever.
Most of all, however, I love the characters. The pretentious Gareth who is not really a nice guy and who is definitely selfish and has a huge, inflated ego - his bad sides only remedied by the fact that he has unconditional love for Blue. Blue is, however, easy to love. She is a pretty honest narrator and her voice and story is full of the teenage worries that I think we all know. The "am I good enough?"s, the worry about the future, about boys. She is so clever, intellectually and academically, yet so socially awkward, and I found myself wondering what became of her after the book ended. For me that is one of the best indicators of a successful literary character.

All in all I can only recommend this book - but be aware that it is long and that the last part is unputdownable so reading it in bed when you really should be sleeping is dangerous to your beauty sleep.

Read it if: You love books and like your heroines clever and full of reflections on life. If love conspiracy theories, mysteriousness and a good story.

Review: "The Collector" - Obsessions

I had actually read this book before but I didn't realise it until I had read quite far and in the end it didn't matter because I couldn't remember anything about it anyway. That is one of the very few perks of having a bad memory - you get to re-experience great books and films over and over again.

"The Collector" by John Fowles is a great novel - his debut which I find extremely impressing. The narrator Frederick, who calls himself Ferninand, is damaged at best and outright crazy at worst. He is a 25-year-old orphan who has grown up in a loveless home with this aunt and cousin but who comes into a large amount of money when he wins at pools. Frederick is obsessed with Miranda, a 20-year-old art student from North London. Miranda is obsessed as well but not with Frederick whom she hardly notices. She is obsessed with being bohemian, arty, leaving her middle-class background behind and becoming part of the world that she adores and which is symbolized for her by G.P., an libertine and artist old enough to be her father.
However, Miranda comes face to face with Frederick's obsession with her and with love when she is kidnapped by him and imprisoned in his basement somewhere in the English countryside.

As the days go by Miranda and her captor circle each other in little power games where Miranda always has the upper hand except for the fact that Frederick literally has the key to her freedom and denies her the use of it.
What does Frederick/Ferdinand want from Miranda? She wonders and the reader wonders as well. I think Frederik himself wonders. He collects butterflies and Miranda is the triumph in his collection. He doesn't want anything from her except to have her.

It is a fascinating read because both Miranda and Frederick call for pity even though both of them are really quite annoying and caught up in their own webs of self-deceit. The story is more reminiscent of the plot in Lucy Christopher's "Stolen" which is like a YA version of "The Collector" than of "Room" by Emma Donoghue. However, all three books deal with the same topic, kidnapping, in a way that is worth reading.

"The Collector" is great. It is a piece of classic literary fiction and it deserves your attention.

Review: "Under the Skin" - it does actually get under your skin...

I read "The Crimson Petal and the White" by Michel Faber a couple of years ago and immediately loved it. Since then it has been one of those books that I use when I need a good present for someone because it really is an amazing book.
So a couple of days ago I read "Under the Skin" by Michel Faber, hoping for the same kind of amazing reading experience. I got a reading experience but not quite the one I had bargained for... It actually left me with physical reactions.

Isserley spends her days driving through Scotland, forth and back on the A9. She knows all the good place, she knows exactly where the good spots are. Where she will find the good hitchhikers. Isserley won't pick up any random hitchhiker, she only wants men and she only wants men with large muscles, men that have broad shoulders and big biceps. The scrawny ones she leaves behind. Then she cross-examines them: do you have a wife, girlfriend? Are you expected somewhere? Does anyone know where you are? Are you employed? As she questions them, she decides their fates. All I can say is that for the hitchhikers' sakes, I hope that they are found lacking because this will be the last drive of their life.

What happens with the hitchhikers? Where does Isserley take them? And what is it actually with Isserley? Why is she so different?

This novel was nothing like I expected. Nothing. Once I began reading it, it was impossible to put down. Even though it was not exactly a pleasant read. For every page I got more and more nauseous and even just writing this review, my stomach has started to turn. This was a nasty book that raised a lot of questions in my mind about the way we live, about how we treat each other, about what the world is coming to. It is a very very creepy book. If you like dystopia, fantasy, thrillers, mystery, great quality writing from a very accomplished author, then this is something for you.
Will I read it again? I seriously doubt it... At least right now, I can't stomach it.