The Most Beautiful Book in the World
Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt
Translated from the French by Alison Anderson
2006
181 pages
Published by Europa

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FTC rigmarole: I bought this book, mostly because of the title and partially for the cover and partially because I think Europa puts something in the paper that makes you immediately want to buy their books. Could you look into that for me?

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Finally, a book that was originally published in French that I liked! Sometimes, persistence does pay off.

This is a book of eight novellas. I’m not really sure when a short story becomes a novella, but the cover says they’re novellas, and I’m hardly qualified to debate literary terms.

Novella the first is about Wanda Winnipeg. Yeah, I wasn’t too fond of the name, either, but by the end of the story she had won me over. It was kind of like she used her evil powers to do good, so I can forgive her (and the author) for renaming herself Wanda. And they’re not really evil powers in the sense of superheroes and villains. It’s more like a shallow socialite uses her scope of influence to do good in a bad sort of way.

I’m not going to go on about each of the novellas, except to share this passage from the final story, when Odette defends a famous author to his wife who doesn’t appreciate his work:

You must be proud of your husband: he makes thousands of people happy. Maybe among all those readers there are little secretaries and insignificant employees like me – but that is precisely why! The fact that he can fascinate us, and move us, people like us who don’t read a lot, who aren’t as cultured like yourself: well, that proves that he has more talent than all the others! Much more. Because you know, Madame, maybe that Olaf Pims writes magnificent books, too, but I would need a dictionary and more than one tube of aspirin just to figure out what on earth he’s talking about. He’s a snob who only writes for people who’ve read as many books as he has. p. 160

This pretty much sums up how I feel about this book compared to another Europa that I read, Tokyo Fiancée. The language in that one was so dense and unfriendly, whereas this book is friendlier both with its language and its stories.

Also, this last novella is where the cover image comes from. Odette mentions how the book made her levitate off of her seat. I love how the cover illustrates that line and Odette’s love for her favorite author. She’s even reading the book mentioned in the story!

Purge
Sofi Oksanen
Translated by Lola Rogers
2008
390 pages
Published by Black Cat

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Hey FTC, check this out: Я купил это. Also, ostin sen. Unfortunately, Estonian wasn’t an option.

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I seem to be reading a lot of books lately that alternate stories. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. This one falls somewhere in between.

Aliide Truu is an elderly Estonian living alone in her ancestral farmhouse. When a young woman appears asleep under a tree in her yard, Aliide is suspicious. She suspects that the girl is a thief, scouting out her house and lands for valuables. Yet, the girl also looks weary, and skittish, and Aliide has her doubts. So she takes the girl in, offering her food and a place to sleep.

Zara has escaped a horrific life as a sex worker. After a year of sexual slavery she has managed to evade the men keeping her captive and make her way to her family’s ancestral farmhouse. Yet she is wary of Aliide, a woman who does not know that she has taken in her great-niece. She offers up small lies, that she is running from her husband, that she has been overseas.

Aliide and Zara’s true stories are slowly revealed, as the author goes back in time. Aliide’s life as a young girl during WWII and a young women, and later wife and mother, living under Communism is parceled out, with minimal history to inform the reader. Zara’s tale, where she is tricked into captivity, is also shared, although Aliide is the true focus.

Did you know that cumin is grown in Estonia? I never would have guessed. While the author shared many details about canning and crops, the history was a little harder to come by. The Communists play a huge role in Aliide’s life, and there is mention of rebels who are fighting for a free Estonia, but it was hard to place it all into context. I was confuzzled. I am confuzzled. I think I need to find a book on Estonian history.

The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors
Michele Young Stone
2010
384 pages (uncorrected proof and .pdf file)
Published by Shaye Areheart Books, an imprint of Crown Publishing

Becca and Buckley both live lives dramatically altered by lightning. They both are either struck by lightning or witness to the deadly effects of lightning. Lightning shapes their lives, as it affects their relationships, their art and the path that their lives take.

However, Becca and Buckley are living in different places at different times. The author alternates their stories, starting with their childhoods and moving through tortured adolescence and into young adulthood. Becca is living a seemingly charmed life as a pampered rich kid. However, her father cheats and her mother consoles herself with alcohol. Buckley grows up considerably poorer, the son of an obese mother with incredibly bad luck. Buckley is both awkward and tormented, and just when you think things might turn around for him, they don’t.

Becca and Buckley’s stories are interspersed with advice from The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors, a book that Buckley will write. And since both their lives have been dominated by lightning, it seems only fitting that they will eventually meet.

This book is shaped by lightning. It is everywhere and practically everything, making for a unique plot. However, Young Stone has also crafted complex, dark characters with real problems. Becca finds solace in drinking and sex. Buckley is that socially awkward kid we all cringe for. His mom picks losers and struggles with her weight. Becca’s dad is a self-centered jerk who seems to have a reverse mid-life crisis. Her mom drinks. Her high school boyfriend is an ass. In other words, these people are real and their issues are believable. Ultimately, that’s what made this book so readable. And the lightning makes it different enough that it’s not just another book about people with problems. I could say that it grounds the book, but that would be a really bad joke.

Many thanks to Net Galley and Crown Publishing for making this .pdf available to me.

Tokyo Fiancée
Amélie Nothomb
Translated from the French by Alison Anderson
2007
152 pages
Published by Europa

Hmmm. I’m beginning to think I don’t get French authors (and Nothomb is Belgium, but she writes in French). Not that I’ve read scads of French authors. But of the few I’ve read in the last year, I’ve been left with a bit of an empty feeling. I think they’re too literary for me. Or something.

This is a short novel that is based on a year the author spent in Japan in her early 20s. It is autobiographical, although I don’t know how much is true. I suspect a lot, as she talks about writing a book, and that book actually exists.

Amélie returns to Japan (she spent the first 5 years of her life there) to learn Japanese. In an effort to improve her language skills, she hires herself out as a French tutor. A young college student by the name of Rinri answers her ad. Amélie begins to tutor him, and shortly thereafter they become involved in a relationship.

While Rinri falls in love, Amélie falls in like.

There was no name for what I felt for this boy in modern French, but this was not the case in Japanese, where the term koi was most appropriate. Koi, in classical French, might be translated by goût, liking. He was to my liking. He was my koibito, the man with whom I shared the koi: his company was to my liking. -p. 50-51

No, Amélie isn’t very romantic. But she enjoys some good times with Rinri, hiking Mount Fuji, eating okonomiyaki, visiting Hiroshima. Eventually, she falls into an engagement, partially due to a misunderstanding and partially because she doesn’t want to hurt Rinri’s feelings. However, she feels trapped and finally buys a return ticket to Belgium. Telling Rinri she is going to visit family and friends, she boards the plane and returns home. After the phone calls dwindle, poor Rinri finally gets a clue…Amélie is not coming back.

Pretty harsh, eh? Another thing that bugged me was Amélie’s constant references to Rinri as a boy. She was only one year older, yet she portrays herself as so wordly. And since she was the one that slithered out of the relationship, I’d argue that she wasn’t all that mature.

I did enjoy the glimpse into Japanese culture, particularly this insight into the idea of travel:

Here, if you like traveling without company, you’re crazy. In our language, the word ‘alone’ contains the notion of despair. -p. 56

However, there were times when I just couldn’t get past the phrasing. A few examples:

The polystyrene must have still been expanding in my brain, which was synthesizing the growth in the form of a delirium of experimentation. -p. 40

No sooner had I reached the peak than the cloud, acknowledging my avian nature, joined me there to fulfill the mountain’s etymological destiny. -p. 111

Oddly enough, there was no earthquake. Given the area where we lived, such telluric tranquility was an oddity that might be attributable to certain auspicious circumstances. -p. 44

Who the hell talks like that?

In the end, I’m torn. I don’t regret reading it, but I found the stiff language to be a barrier. I wasn’t able to fully immerse myself in the story. But I did like the brief glimpses into Japanese life and the different take on a young relationship.

Thank you to Europa, who gave me this copy at BEA. I’d love to pass it on, so if you’re interested (the cover alone is worth it…Europa does beautiful covers) please let me know and I’ll draw a winner this weekend.