Native Realm. A Search for Self-Definition by Sceslaw Milozs (translated from the Polish by Catherine S. Leach. University of California Press, 1981). 300 pages. Poland.
First of all, "Native Realm" is a work written by a poet. It's not a poetic book, yet there is something special in poets' way to constract the sentences which makes their prose simply beautiful.
Milozs' autobiography, but not in its usual sense, but rather an intellectual/ideological journey of a 20th century Eastern European intellectual whom he represents. While definitely a Polish poet, his home-country is harder to define (as is often the case in Eastern Europe). Born in the beginning of the last century in Russian empire, in Lithuanian countryside; early childhood in Russia, in Siberia where his father worked as an engineer building bridges: October Revolution days in Russia; settling in Wilno which had become a Polish city again, schoolyears in Wilno Catholic school and Wilno University - enviorment full of Polish patriotism/nationalism which pushes him toward Marxism (as it did also with lot of Jews who lived there); travels in Western Europe and a year passed in Paris; settling in Warsaw to work for Polish broadcasting; September 1939 managed to escape back to Vilnius which by this time had become a capital of independent Lithuania until 1940 the Soviet Union coup and occupation; journey back to Warsaw crossing 4 times the state borders; war years in German occupied Warsaw, surviving the Warsaw uprising; after the war representing communist Poland as a diplomat in the USA, distansing himself from communist ideology and after brief return to Poland emigrating to France. This is the geography his life-story takes place, but the narrative is more about his ideological growing and changing: Catholicism, Marxism, communism, humanism...
Something which made me think quite a lot was his criticism of Polish society's ultra-patriotism in 20s and 30s, its attemp to hold onto old (anachronistic) aristocratic customs, which in many cases also included anti-semitism and which in his clame was a big cause of Poland's misfortune during the WWII. Lot of material for thinking applying it to today's Estonia for example.
Gate of the Sun by Elias Khoury (translated from the Arabic by Humphrey Davies. Archipelago Books, 2006). 539 pages. Lebanon.
A lyrical book about the fate of the Galilee Palestinians after the 1948 Israeli War of Independence.
The whole book is a monologue of a young man (actually about 40, but sounded young) as he speaks to an unconscious (dead) man, telling him stories about the Palestinians (in a very Arabic story-telling tradition). They have both been fighters, the older one - the younger one's intellectual father -being an archetypical fedayeen, now lying in hospital bed in coma; the younger one being unselected as non-fit for combat, has become a nurse. Both homeless men.
It's a story about homlessness, war, love and women... how the women carry on life while men choose fighting instead of living. The Palestinian forced flight from the villages in 1948, life in refugee camps, Lebanon civil war and massacre in Shatila camp... All this has been a reality for the Palestinians for almost 50 years. The author is not judgemental, doesn't point his finger to only one side in this complex issue, yet it's clear where his heart belongs - with the suffering people. The very first pages, I found myself a bit lost, disoriented as the story doesn't follow linear time-line, but quite soon everything fit in place and an epic story rolled out.
Through the protagonist the author doesn't criticize the endless fighting, but to my mind, questions it though - has it's been the best way, the wisiest, the most productive way for its people... and being a humanist he tends to sympathize rather with the women who carry on the life.
If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (Translated from the Italian by William Weaver. A Harvest Book, 1981). 260 pages. Italy.
Quite ambigous feelings after reading this book. In the end, quite tedious book for me, the last 4 pages I had to "chew" myself through. Yet, I think, I liked the narrative quite a bit - the little stories (beginning of different novels), were narrated rather vividly, I felt like watching a movie and I found the whole idea smart and intriguing, like a mystery... yet in the end while the story succumb into political allegory and the main story-line became boring, I lost interest.
I haven't given up on Calvino though, I think the next book could be "Invisible Cities" which I bought more than 10 years ago, but never got to reading it.
Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by Art Spiegelmann (Penguin Books, 1992). 144 pages. USA.
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (Scribner, 2009). 272 pages. Ireland.
It's amazing how well, smoothly written this novel is. I was totally immersed in it.
A story about a young Irish woman emigrating to the US, in Brooklyn in early 1950s. A glimpse of history - the economic hardships in Europe, a prosperity of America, race-relations (not only literally).
Eilis is an introverted girl, smart, analytical... Lot of reviewers have said that she was annoyingly passive, I don't find it so. But I found her to be strangely unemotional and passionless considering the young men she has close relations. The question remained to me - whether she didn't love Tony, whether it was her character - unpassionate?
