A classic essayist – over @ShinyNewBooks #montaigne @PushkinPress

I have a new review up on Shiny New Books today to share with you, and it’s of a collection of essays by the man who’s considered one of the foremost practitioners of the form – Michel de Montaigne.

I’ve read a number of books by and about the great author and he was a fascinating character. His essays are wonderful reading, ranging far and wide over subjects and drawing in inspiration from the classical writers. This new collection from Pushkin Press is a lovely clothbound hardback with a really interesting selection of pieces, all freshly translated by David Coward. The book is a real treat and you can read my full review here.

…in which Mount TBR gets even more out of control! 😳 #bookpost

It’s been a while since I did any kind of bookhaul post on the Ramblings (apart from the birthday/Christmas arrivals) as I *am* trying to be a little more careful about what arrives here, bearing in mind how many unread books I already have. I do share incomings on X/Twitter but tbh the state of the world is so rotten at the moment that I feel a bit bad being jolly about books on there. However, there were quite a few bookish arrivals in February, including a rather lovely treat, and so I thought I would do a little post sharing them! Here they are in all their glory…

I thought I’d split them up into rough categories, so here’s a closer look!

Purchases

Six of the books in the pile are purchases (all second hand, from various sources) and so I’ve snapped them in sets of three for ease.

All of these purchases were prompted by online sources. “Deaths of the Poets” came about thanks to a discussion on Twitter, and as you might have seen from my end of February post, I’ve already read it. It’s a stunner, and has had a really bad effect on the wishlist/TBR! More will follow in the review. Roubaud’s “The Great Fire of London” was on my radar following my reading of various Oulipo things (and also Anthony’s blog, Time’s Flow Stemmed); it’s hard to find a reasonably priced copy so when I saw one online I snapped it up. Alas, it was under-described and is an ex-library edition, with lots of annotations. Fortunately, these are in pencil, so I should be able to read it without too much pain. As for the Lange, this is the only other title available in English (as far as I know) and so after loving her novel, I thought I must read her memoir too.

Here we have “The Road” by Vassily Grossman; after reading “Chevengur” I was checking out other translations by the Chandlers and making sure I had all of their Grossman renderings. Well, I didn’t have this one, so now I do! The Kawabata is a collection of short stories, and having enjoyed his writing during January, I was keen to read more. This sounded very appealing… Finally in the purchases is another book by Richard Holmes, an author of whom I think very highly. His “Footsteps” was something of a revelation and “Sidetracks” got a mention in the notes of “Deaths of the Poets”. It sounds absolutely marvellous – a collection of his writings over the years on the topics which interest him and end up in his main books – but as the print is a bit teeny I may have to read it in bits…

Review Copies

Publishers have very kind sent in some review copies recently, for which I’m always grateful!

The Borodin and the Montaigne are from Pushkin Press and I’ll be covering them for Shiny New Books – both sound absolutely fascinating. Also for Shiny New Books is “A Bookshop of One’s Own”; this is about the wonderful and pioneering feminist bookshop in London, ‘Silver Moon’, which I used to love to visit back in the day. Very much looking forward to reading and covering this. And the Buzzati is courtesy of NYRB – this is another I read last month, although it’s not actually out until May so my review won’t be up for a while. But, spoiler alert, I think it’s brilliant!

A rather wonderful surprise!

Finally, some very special incomings, which have a little story behind them…

I was lucky enough recently to win £50 worth of Penguin books, and this is the result! It’s frankly very hard to choose when you get a prize like this, and it did take me a while to decide on what I wanted, what would be a treat that I wouldn’t necessarily buy for myself at the moment, and the best configuration of books to come near to the total (these added up to £49.96 so I felt a bit smug!!)

As for my choices – Simone Weil is an author I’ve been keen to explore, and this title is a newly released one. Likewise with Foucault, I’ve wanted to read him for ages, but been slightly intimidated, so I figured a Reader would be a good way to get to know him and find out if I want to go further. Clarice Lispector needs no justification; “Too Much of Life” is a collection of non-fiction, and “An Apprenticeship…” is a fiction title I’d not come across before.

I confess to being ridiculously excited when the box turned up, as I’m not a person who generally wins things – so these were a particular treat!!

Anyway – that’s the explanations of all the new books which have arrived at the Ramblings recently. A lovely variety of texts, as far as I’m concerned, as I do like to have lots of choice of different kinds of reading. Have you read any of these? And which book would you want to pick up first???

A strange house, a locked room murder, storms and terrors = a perfect read! #themillhousemurders @pushkinpress

I do like a little contrast in my reading, and I suppose going from a book on Proust to a classic Japanese locked room mystery is quite a jump! But that’s where we are today, with a rather wonderful book recently issued by Pushkin Press. The titles is “The Mill House Murders” by Yukito Ayatsuji, translated by Ho-King Wong, and it’s the second in the series featuring the amateur detective Shimada Kiyoshi – how I managed to miss the first of these, “The Decagon House Murders” is beyond me, as this is right up my street!

The book opens dramatically, with a prologue set on 29th September 1985. A storm is raging around the Mill House, a mysterious private residence built away from prying eyes in the middle of nowhere. And a group of people are about to be met with a series of fearful events: a woman falling from a tower, a valuable painting disappearing and a man vanishing under impossible circumstances. The discoveries which follow, down in the furnace room, are grim; and although a seemingly plausible explanation is found, it’s clear that all those present will be changed by these unforgettable events.

The house belongs to the troubled Fujinuma Kiichi; son of the late Fujinuma Issei, a lauded and visionary artist, he lives as a recluse as following an accident some years back, he wears a mask and gloves to hide his scars and is confined to a wheelchair. Alongside him live his wife Yurie and his butler Kuramoto Shoji, and there are housekeepers, live-in or live-out, depending which part of the narrative you’re reading. Other characters are a varied bunch who visit the house on an annual basis: art dealer Oishi Genzo, professor of art history Mori Shigehiko, surgeon Mitamura Noriyuki and priest Furukawa Tsunehito. Then there is Masaki Shingo… Once a disciple of Issei, he’s also a friend of Kiichi and was present during the car accident where the latter was so badly injured. At the time of the dramatic events in 1985, he’s been staying in the Mill House for some months…

The structure of the book is fascinating, with chapters alternating between the events of September 1985, and a year later, where the annual visitors are making their pilgrimage to the Mill House. This is so they can see Kiichi’s collection of his father’s paintings; and they all have hopes of persuading him to make a sale of one or more to them, and also gaining a sight of Issei’s last work – a painting called “The Phantom Cluster” which apparently horrified its creator so much that it’s never been seen. However, the 1986 visit is a strange one, as inevitably the attendees will start to revisit the events of the earlier year. And things are complicated by the arrival of one Shimada Kiyoshi who basically invites himself in. His presence there is for a good reason, as he was a friend of Furukawa – and the latter disappeared after the events of 1985, which were mainly blamed on him. As Shimada explores and investigates, inevitably there are further killings and mysteries; and it remains to be seen if the detective can discover the truth before there are any more murders!

“Mill House…” is a really wonderful read from start to finish, and I was gripped from the opening pages. Yukito Ayatsuji certainly knows who to ramp up the tension and create a wonderfully atmospheric and dramatic setting, which is vividly portrayed. Pleasingly, the book comes with a list of characters as well as two plans of Mill House, and in fact the house is very much a character in itself. There were references to the architect who designed it (I think that element may well have played a part in the earlier book) and they added to sense of unease running through the book.

The characters are an entertaining bunch, too. Kiiji is seen differently because of the two narrative strands, one from a year ago which is written in the third person, and that in the present which is a first person point of view of ‘the master of the house’ as he calls himself. Butler Kuramoto is vital to the running of the house, and indeed to the narrative; and each guest has a clearly delineated character. Then there is Yurie… One of only a few female characters in the book, she’s a little more problematic. The orphan child of a disciple of Issei, she was in effect brought up, and perhaps even groomed, as a wife for Kiiji. Sequestered away from the outside world, her presence is as a physical object, a doll more than anything else. But she too will be vital to the mystery.

“Mill House…” is a fiendishly clever and deliciously devious book, in terms of both its plot and its construction; it’s not until you read the very final pages that you realise quite how brilliantly it’s been done, when you’re hit by a number of “ah, so that’s why….!” moments. And that ending is stunning and quite unforgettable! However I can say so little about the plot really, because the surprise element is essential and quite marvellous. As I mentioned above, there is a locked room mystery here, and so it’s not unexpected to see a little reference to John Dickson Carr’s characters, Dr. Fell and H.M., at one point in the narrative; and though I’m reluctant to use the world ‘classic’ for something published relatively recently (or at least it seems so to me!), this book is closer to GA crime than to modern violent stuff, and so that’s another reason to love it.

The blurb on the back of the book asks if the reader can solve the mystery of the Mill House Murders before Shimada does and I have to say that I couldn’t. I did have glimmerings of some elements, but not the overall solution – and there are certainly things on the last page or two which I never would have got in a million years! So “The Mill House Murders” was a total success as far as I was concerned: a brilliantly written, thoroughly entertaining and completely unputdownable mystery with a wonderful setting, and all I can say is that I have to get my hands on “The Decagon House Murders” as soon as possible!

(Review copy kindly provided by the publisher, for which many thanks!)

“…one always paints women who never exist…” #ReadIndies @PushkinPress #MonaLisa

My first book for #ReadIndies comes from an indie publisher who I’ve loved reading for many years, and an author who’s become a recent big favourite! The book is “Mona Lisa”, by Alexander Lernet-Holenia, translated by Ignat Avsey, and the publisher is Pushkin Press.

I came across ALH when I picked up a copy of his “I Was Jack Mortimer”, an energetic noir thriller also published by Pushkin; I read this back in 2015 and enjoyed it very much. Last year, I reconnected with him via his “Baron Bagge”, an atmospheric tale of impossible love, and was convinced he was an author for me. There’s not an awful amount of his work available in English, but I did manage to search out a copy of the slim “Mona Lisa” novella and decided this was a perfect way to kick off #ReadIndies.

“Mona Lisa”, not surprisingly, is set in early 16th century Italy, and follows the misadventures of a young nobleman by the name of Bougainville. Sent as a member of a party of nobles to claim tribute from Naples, he accidentally stumbles upon the workshop of Leonardo da Vinci and the WIP that will become the titular painting. Bougainville is immediately smitten with the woman in the picture, and bereft when he’s told that she died in the plague. He sets out on a quest to find out if this is true – but does the woman in the painting really exist and who, in truth, was she??

ALH’s story is a short one (88 pages) yet provides much food for thought while being very entertaining! “Mona Lisa” offers a surprisingly vivid pen portrait of the mercurial mind of Leonardo at work, and the scenes set in his studio are hilarious. Bougainville is a man obsessed, refusing to accept anything the great artist tells him, covinced Mona Lisa is still alive, and prepared to go to any lengths to find her. This involves battles with locals, invading tombs and all manner of shenanigans; and the end result is frankly not a happy one.

It is certain that nothing, or almost nothing, is ever accomplished to the end, and the little that has been may, in the last analysis, be a delusion.

Underlying the occasionally slapstick action is, of course, a more serious message. ALH explores our obsession not only with the ‘Mona Lisa’ painting and the effect it has on us; he also makes more general points about how paintings actually relate to their subjects, whether there is one true inspiration for a great work of art, and if all art is simply something seen through the eye of the artist rather than existing separately. That alone is fascinating enough, but there is also an element which seems to me to run through all of the author’s books I’ve now read, and that is of lost or impossible love.

In “Jack Mortimer…” the title character was in pursuit of a mysterious and beautiful woman; in “Baron Bagge” the love transcended the most impossible boundary; and here Bougainville is consumed by a passion for a woman who most likely doesn’t even exist. Certainly, this thread which runs through his work seems to be one which really preoccupied him, and I’ll be interested to see if it makes an appearance in the other translated work I have of his on the TBR, “Count Luna”.

So a great start for #ReadIndies month, with a slim but very affecting story from a publisher and an author I love. I enjoyed “Mona Lisa” a lot, and it’s a shame it seems to have slipped out of print (although second hand copies can be tracked down!) I don’t know if I’ll get to “Count Luna” this month (though it would be eligible for #ReadIndies as it’s published by New Directions); but I shall certainly try to get to it sooner rather than later! 😀

 

A lyrical look at a lost life – over @shinynewbooks @PushkinPress @Bryan_S_K

I have a review up on Shiny New Books today which I’m really happy to share with you, as it’s from a favourite publisher, author and translator! The book is “An Evening with Claire“, the author is Gaito Gazdanov, the translator Bryan Karetnyk and the publisher Pushkin Press!

Gazdanov is one of my favourite recent discoveries; an émigré Russian author who slipped out of the limelight after a fascinating career and life, he’s been rediscovered thanks to the wonderful translations of his work by Bryan Karetnyk which have been issued in lovely editions by Pushkin Press. I’ve reviewed all of them so far, and the newest one is a real treat as it’s Gazdanov’s first published work. It was a delight to read and cover it, and you can read my post here.

Now I just hope that Bryan and Pushkin will turn their talents in the direction of his novel “Night Roads”, as I would love to read that one soon…. ;D

Exploring the life and philosophy of a fascinating woman – over@shinynewbooks @PushkinPress

Today I have a little bit of a digression from my week of reading Rose Macaulay, as I have a new review up on Shiny New Books of a fascinating new book.

The writer and philosopher Hannah Arendt is best known for coining the phrase ‘the banality of evil’; it’s a concept which has caused controversy over the years, but her life and thought make for intriguing reading. This new work “On Love and Tyranny” by Ann Heberlein, translated by Alice Menzies, explores both aspects and is a really thought-provoking read. You can find my full review here!

“It is impossible to live in a void.” #ReadIndies @PushkinPress #Montaigne #StefanZweig #WillStone

I was really glad when Lizzy proposed that we allow an extra week for #ReadIndies reviewing as, like many, I ended up reading far more books during February than I could squeeze onto the blog! And for my last review for the event, I was very keen to cover the wonderfully-named Pushkin Press, one of my favourite indies and a publisher whose books I’ve featured regularly on the Ramblings. They’ve produced any number of books I love, but during February I spent time with a very special title that took in two favourite authors: “Montaigne” by Stefan Zweig.

Both subject and author of this little book have appeared on the Ramblings regularly; Zweig is a wonderful author who’s deservedly been rediscovered after decades in the wilderness; Montaigne crossed my path more recently, and his work and life are inspirational (as are those of Zweig). So to discover that one had written a monograph on the life of the other was a real treat!

“Montaigne” is translated by Will Stone, who’s also appeared on the blog as he’s produced wonderfully rendered English versions of a number of books I’ve loved. Most recently, I read his translation of Zweig’s “Journeys”, which was fascinating and poignant; and Stone’s foreword to this volume makes sobering reading, as he reveals that this was the last book Zweig was working on before he took his life in 1942. Zweig took comfort from reading Montaigne’s work, hanging on to the threads of hope as long as he could; but in the end, the collapse of the civilised world he loved so much was too much for him.

… one of life‘s mysterious laws shows that we only notice the authentic and essential values when it’s too late: youth, once it has fled, health at the moment it abandons us, freedom of the soul, that most precious essence, at the very moment when it is taken from us, or has already been taken.

So in typically Zweigian fashion, the author explores the life and work of his great forebear and how it’s still relevant to the modern world. Interestingly, as I read through the book I found much of the biographical detail was familiar from my reading of Sarah Bakewell’s excellent book, so Zweig obviously did a wonderful job in encapsulating Montaigne in a much smaller work.

Only the contemptuous stand in the way of freedom, and Montaigne despises nothing more than “la frénésie“, the violent madness of those dictators of the spirit who crave with supreme arrogance and vanity to impose on the world their “glad tidings“ as the sole and indisputable truth, and for whom the blood of hundreds of thousands of men is as nothing in the fanatical pursuit of their cause.

However, what was particularly fascinating was seeing Montaigne through the prism of Zweig’s sensibility; much of the book is about his current experiences, how Montaigne’s words, writtin during a period of world conflict, resonated with Zweig as he was living through the catastrophe of World War 2, and how Montaigne’s life and work can stand as advice on the best way to stay true to yourself in difficult times. We are still in the middle of a particularly trying period of human history, one which Montaigne would have recognised as he lived through a plague era himself; and so reading his words brings comfort now, as it did to Zweig back in the 1940s.

Stefan Zweig (via Wikimedia Commons)

Zweig’s “Montaigne” was a joy from start to finish; a beautifully written little book which not only brought to life the great essayist, but also gave me a glimpse into the author’s mind at that late stage of his life. Reading this little gem from Pushkin Press was a poignant, deeply moving and yet uplifting experience, and I’m so glad I chose it as my last book for #ReadIndies month (and a bit…)

#ReadIndies – some independent publishers from my shelves!

As you might have noticed, we’re edging ever closer to February and Reading Independent Publishers Month! Hopefully you’ve all been trawling your TBRs to find suitable reads, or even purchasing the odd book or three to help support our smaller presses. However, I thought it might be nice to share a few images of some of my indie books – let’s face it, gratuitous pictures of books are always fun, and this also might give you a few ideas for interesting reads, should you need them. So here goes!

First up, let’s take a look at Fitzcarraldo Editions, the subject of Lizzy and my Fitzcarraldo Editions Fortnight last year:

These are books from the publisher I’ve read – quite a few of them actually! And all were marvellous, whether blue fiction or white non-fiction titles. However, I still have some unread:

All of these look wonderful, and there are also some ARCs hanging about the house too. There will definitely be Fitzcarraldo titles read during February – watch this space to see which ones! 😀

Next up let’s have some Versos:

Verso are a left-wing publisher with a wide range of publications from politics and philosophy to fiction and biography (and they do a diary and a notebook…) I signed up for their book club last year and haven’t regretted it – some fascinating physical books (and shedloads of ebooks) have come my way and I am also certain there will be Verso books appearing in Febuary’s posts. I mean, look! A Saramago I haven’t read yet!!

A more recent discovery for me has been Little Toller:

A smaller collection of these so far – but both were recent successes (the Skelton is here and the Thorpe here). I have another Little Toller lurking which promises to be just as good!

One of my all time favourite indie presses is Notting Hill Editions, and I have a larger collection of these:

NHE produced beautiful books, often essay collections or anthologies, but also works which are unclassifiable – but all are wonderful, and since they published my beloved Perec and Barthes they’re always welcome on my shelves. Plus, they *also* do notebooks… ;D

Let’s see what else I can track down – well, here’s a few things from another lockdown discovery, Sublunary Editions:

Based in the USA, they publish all manner of fascinating texts in different formats and I’ve loved what I’ve read from them so far. Like many of the indies, they push the boundaries in terms of both form and content, which is wonderful.

Based ‘oop North’ in Manchester, Comma Press produced some amazing books; as well as two wonderful collections of M. John Harrison’s shorter works, I loved their Book of Newcastle.

Here are the MJH books; Comma is definitely an imprint worth exploring!

A publisher I’ve been reading for a bit longer is Pushkin Press and here’s some of my collection (probably not all of them, as I they’re not all shelved together):

Not shown here are my Russian author Pushkins which are on my Russian shelves. But you can see a few other interesting publishers like Peter Owen, Calder, Granta and Melville House Press (assuming they’re all indies…)

Some poetry next, in the form of Bloodaxe Books:

Again, this is not all my Bloodaxes – I have several on the poetry shelves and also the TBR. The great Basil Bunting features here and plenty of stuff which hails from Newcastle. Really, I should consider doing a month of reading only poetry…

Back to US publishers, and here we have some works from NYRB Classics – again, I’m presuming they count as an indie press. I’ve read a *lot* of their books and have many TBR – always fascinating, and lovely to see them reissuing so many lost works.

And last, a couple of more recent finds, in the form of Fum d’Estampa and Renard Press:

Here you can see a few of my Fum d’Estampa titles – beautiful translations from the Catalan, and in such lovely covers. At least one of their books will be featuring in #ReadIndies month! And next to them is the beautiful shiny edition of Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” from Renard Press – here is another image:

Both of these indies are presses I’ve subscribed to, and haven’t regretted it; a regular supply of interesting and beautiful new reading material has been helping keep me sane in these pandemic times.

So there you go – just a few of the indie books on my shelves. There are so many other publishers I could have mentioned or featured, had I more time and space (and been able to find them – where *is* my small collection of Peirene Press books???) But hopefully this might give you some ideas of what to read during February – there are riches to be found from independent publishers! 😀

“Once again a terrific hurricane has broken on the world…” #stefanzweig #willstone

Journeys by Stefan Zweig
Translated and with introduction, notes and photographs by Will Stone

Do you ever get that feeling where you’ve read so many novels and novellas and short stories that you’re kind of all fictioned out and need a change? That happened to me recently, and I suddenly had the massive urge to read some kind of non-fiction. It’s a genre I do love, from history to philosophy to essays to biography to travel writing, and it’s not as if I don’t have many unread choices on Mount TBR to select from… In the end I turned to Stefan Zweig; I had thought of him recently when Pushkin were promoting his titles and I spent some time tracking down a copy of his “Montaigne”. So I plumped for a slim collection of his writings about his travels, “Journeys” – and it definitely turned out to be the right book at the right time!

My edition of the book has been lurking for a number of years, and is a lovely Hesperus edition from 2011. Translated by Will Stone (who I’ve encountered on the blog before – I do love his translations!), “Journeys” collects together a number of pieces by Zweig on a variety of European destinations he visited, presented in chronological order from 1902 to 1940. Stefan Zweig was of course a peripatetic man, constantly on the move either from temperament or external pressure. As a Jewish man from Austria, the period in which he was living of course necessitated constant relocation, until his final journey to Brazil where he took refuge from the Nazi scourge in Europe. Alas, his stay there was not for long…

Stations and ports, these are my passion. Four hours I can stand there awaiting a fresh wave of travellers and goods noisily crashing in to cover the preceding one; I love the signs, those mysterious messages that reveal hour and journey, the shouts and sounds dull yet varied that establish themselves in an evocative ensemble of noise. Each station is different, each distils another distant land; every port, every ship brings a different cargo. They are the universe for our cities, the diversity in our daily life.

Whether visiting Ostend and Bruges, meditating on Hyde Park, spring in Seville or a food fair in Dijon, Zweig simply writes beautifully. He brings alive the location, considers the architecture and the history of the place, and records his impressions with an experienced traveller’s eye. His early journeys were at a time when the concept of tourism was in its infancy, and he could move from place to place on his own, spend quiet time assimilating his impressions and explore a town or city or area in peace. That, of course, would change…

In truth, Zweig’s writings always had a somewhat elegiac tone which I guess perhaps represented his temperament. However, inevitably this tone changes as the book goes on. There is the First World War and its aftermath; and Zweig visits many places affected by the conflict and decries the effect of war. In fact, his piece from 1928, “Ypres”, is one of the most powerful things I’ve read by Zweig (and I *have* read a number) as he revisits a place he knew before the conflict to see how it is now, and whether there has been reconstruction.

Not a shop exists where they don’t profit from the dead. They even offer curios made from shell splinters (perhaps those very same shells tore out the entrails of a human being), charming souvenirs of the battlefield…

In fact, this particular piece leads on to another issue in a changing Europe, that of the increase in mass tourism, the threat this poses to the places visited, and the modernisation taking place to enable this. Zweig is unhappy about coachloads of tourists turning up, being force-fed a tour of some place of historical significance, buying a souvenir and ticking the visit off their list. This is particularly pointed in somewhere like Ypres, where he titles one section “Jamboree upon the Dead” and I am completely in sympathy with his view; turning a place of massacre into a tourist attraction seems wrong, and this  resonated with the horror I’ve felt when seeing people posting selfies of themselves laughing and posing at Auschwitz. We can’t spend our life wringing our hands over past horrors, but we can remember and respect those who suffered and certainly we shouldn’t be trivialising these places and those victims.

Young Stefan Zweig (via Wikimedia Commons)

But there are lighter moments; his lovely essay of how the British cope during wartime by gardening is a delight. Then there is a piece on the Jewish Shelter in London, a haven for refugees, which is very moving. “To travel or be travelled” attacks the package tour head-on; acknowledging that although journeying on your own involves more planning and risk than having someone else whisk you from place to place on a coach, the rewards are worth it. Only by travelling on your own do you really stand a chance of getting to know a town or city, spending time exploring and perhaps having one of those chance pieces of seredipity when you stumble upon something unknown or unexpected.

Each morning the paper barks in your face wars, murders and crimes, the madness of politics clutters our senses, but the good that happens quietly unnoticed, of that we are scarcely aware.

Stefan Zweig started writing and travelling when it was easy to move around Europe from country to country. He saw that freedom eroded and eventually had to flee the continent to a kind of life which became unacceptable to him. I fear we’re actually regressing into those times again, having had the luxury of free movement for so many years; and it’s chilling to read Zweig state: “Is it the premonition that a time is approaching when countries will erect barriers between them, so you yearn to breath quickly, while you still can, a little of the world’s air?” His writing is always elegant and beautiful (and as you can see from the amount of post-its, I could have quoted half the book); these pieces are evocative and atmospheric; and the more I read of Stefan Zweig, the less I can understand why his books were neglected for so many years. “Journeys” was a moving and transporting read, and if you’ve never read Zweig you could do no worse than to start here!

*****

I wanted to say a little bit about this edition of the book, because it has so many lovely elements to it. As I said, the translation is by the poet, Will Stone, and as well as rendering the pieces in English he also provides an erudite introduction. There are useful notes and a little biography of Zweig, and most delightfully a selection of Stone’s own photographs of some of the places Zweig writes about. This was an element Stone added to the excellent “Rilke in Paris” and it’s a wonderful idea, helping to bring alive the places the author visited. As I mentioned, my edition is a Hesperus Press one, but “Journeys” is currently in print from Pushkin Press, so I imagine it will also have the extra material as it *is* the Will Stone translation. Definitely most highly recommended…

Tackling mortality the Russian way…. @pushkinpress #tolstoy #borisdralyuk

Lives and Deaths: Essential Stories by Leo Tolstoy
Translated by Boris Dralyuk

Following on from my last post, where I considered a lovely new collection of Gogol’s essential stories from Pushkin Press, I’m today going to be looking at a similar collection bringing together some of Tolstoy’s shorter works. Tolstoy was, of course, more prolific than Gogol (well, he lived a lot longer, for one thing…); and so translator Boris Dralyuk has perhaps had a more difficult task in choosing which works to feature. He’s made what I think is an exemplary selection, one which focuses on what seems to me to be the main thrust of Tolstoy’s shorter works – death, how we prepare for it and how we meet it (as well, I suppose, as the life we lead beforehand).

The four works Boris has translated are “The Death of Ivan Illych”, “Pace-setter: The Story of a Horse”, “Three Deaths” and “Alyosha the Pot”. Of these, two I’ve read before (“Ivan..” and “Alyosha…”) and two are new to me; and certainly I sensed similar themes in each work. “Ivan…” in particular is a very dark story, dealing in the main with the illness and impending demise of the titular man. He’s again hide-bound by that Russian civil service and rigid social structure, but aims for a happy life, marrying and settling down. A random minor accident seals his fate and we watch his gradual deterioration, his wrestling with his mortality and his attempts to reckon his life. It’s a grim struggle for him, and throws up all manner of issues for the reader, as I found before…

“Alyosha the Pot”, which I recognise but must have read pre-blog, is a short tale of the life and death of a simple peasant who spends much of his life doing things for others and can therefore meet his end with serenity. And “Three Deaths” is a fascinating story, new to me, where Tolstoy considers three different types of demise: that of a consumptive rich women, an ancient peasant and – well, of the third death I will say nothing, as does Boris in his introduction, for fear of spoiling the effect. But it is a remarkable piece of writing!

I’ve left “Pace-setter…” till last because it really is something special. It is indeed the story of a horse; the Pace-setter of the title, a piebald gelding of good breeding who nevertheless had a hard life. We initially see him as old and worn out, tormented by the younger horses and struggling to carry on. However, he speaks out at night, telling his tale to the other members of the horse community, and it’s a story of suffering at the whim of humans, cruelty and betrayal, and the loss of a master with whom Pace-setter had a strong bond. Pace-setter’s story opens the eyes of the other horses to what kind of animal their companion was, and it’s a remarkably moving and powerful piece of writing (and excruciatingly sad in places).

via Wikimedia Commons

I’ve had my struggles with Tolstoy in recent years, finding it difficult to deal with his dogmatic attitudes at times; and indeed re-reading “Ivan…” I was struck again by his need to constantly blame women for the problems of human relationships. The extreme attitudes of “The Kreutzer Sonata” were starting to creep in, and his narrator’s lack of any empathy at the changes his wife was undergoing during pregnancy is shocking (although perhaps not unusual at that time).

Nevertheless, “Pace-setter…” does much to redeem him in my eyes. It’s tempting, of course, to see the life and hardship of the horses as analogous with that of the peasants. However I think it also reflects Tolstoy’s deep connection with the natural world, an element that comes through in some of the other stories. Deep down, Tolstoy seems to be saying that we should lead a *useful* life, and if we’ve done that we can face death with equanimity. That isn’t in fact a bad philosophy and if more people adopted it nowadays, we might have a nicer world around us…

“Lives and Deaths” is, therefore, an excellent collection and gives a really good flavour of Tolstoy’s writing and core beliefs. The translations read beautifully, there are useful notes where needed, and the stories flow thematically. If you want to get to grips with the essence of Tolstoy, his beliefs distilled into his short works, there can be not better place to start.

(Review copies of this book and Gogol’s Essential Tales kindly provided by Pushkin Press, for which many thanks! Both of these books would make a wonderful introduction to these Russian authors if you haven’t read them before;  but even if you have, these collections are a great way to get reacquainted… :D)