holland and world literature

[lobelia321]

This post has two topics: Holland and World Literature.

1. Holland
Holland was lovely this time, and the visit with the parental units harmonious, relaxing and happy-making. What a contrast to Christmas two years ago! This goes to show that there is hope for us all and that seemingly insurmountable psychological poisons can be worked through, and that one can emerge from the other side of the tunnel. Also, I played mahjongg till I dropped. We always do in Holland.

2. World Literature
In the car, on our way back to the ferry, I asked t'hub to enumerate nations of this world with a view to boasting of my incredible knowledge and learnedness in the ways of World Literature. Alas, I was soon chastened. My erudition is sadly lacking and I am much less well read than I had supposed. When he said China, I had to um and ah and admit that I had read the first few chapters of Dream of the Red Chamber but that was about all, and when it came to Finland, I could only dredge up children's books, and as to Portugal or Spain: I had to pass altogether. T'hub reeled off novel after French novel which revealed my pathetic dipping-of-toe into the world of French literature.

So, to mend this sorry state of affairs, I have determined that I will no longer rely only on the vagaries of the book trade and the current Booker Prize list for my reading plans but will make a systematic list of Novels To Read from World Literature.

So my question is: Any recs?? Especially recs from literatures other than English, German, Italian and Russian.

My initial list:

Japan
Am reading The Makioka Sisters by Takinaki and I love it! I LOVE IT!

Next: Tale of Genji by Lady I forget-her-name (but it's always nice to read something written by a woman in a century long, long ago)

China
Dream of the Red Chamber
And um... I don't know any other Chinese titles even!! Help. How embarrassing.

Spain
Calderon, Life is a dream (not sure I got the title right)

Alas, La Regenta

Brazil
There must be something that's not too unbearably magic realist.

Denmark
Jens Peter Jacobsen, that Impressionist novel whose title escapes me right now

Australia
Thomas Keneally, Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith

France
Giraudoux, Trojan War something

Alain Fournier, Le Grand Meaulnes

Something by Balzac

Belgium
Something by Maeterlinck

Poland
Quo vadis by man whose name escapes me right now

Something by Andrzej Szczypiorski

Hungary
Something. But what?

Czech
Hasek's Sveyk (however you spell it)

Greece (ancient)
Homer, Odyssee

Something by Aeschylus and by Euripides and by Sophocles

Persia (mediaeval)
Nizami, Seven Princesses

Hafiz, poetry

German-speaking
Something by Stifter, Schnitzler, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Jean Paul, Kleist (um, I may have to choose one only; the year only has 12 months after all)

There are some writers I'm not going to bother with, e.g. Zola who bores me to death with his metonymic finicky realism. I can appreciate it but not love it. And I need more women. And more Asians. And more pre-19th century. Has anybody read Voltaire's Candide, and is it any good?

Comments

[jayest.livejournal.com]

I liked these...
Japan: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
China: Wild Swans by Jung Chang
India: A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (on of my all time favourite books)
Your list seems somewhat more "literary" than mine - I need to get out more!

[sophrosyne31.livejournal.com]

Candide is the perfect little fable. AND it will only take you half an afternoon. Though the pondering might take longer.

Pour encourager les autres.

[sophrosyne31.livejournal.com]

Also, if you're reading Australian, can I also recommend Tim Winton? He has a way of capturing an Australian essence, both in his characters and settings and in his style, which has a sober laconic feel but says so, so much, with grace and sincerity. A very compassionate writer.

[acari.livejournal.com]

Er... Africa is part if the world, too. Ex-African science student. It's a pet peeve of mine. Sorry.

Ken Zaro-Wiwa's Zoza Boy is magnificent. Also, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka,... Or if you're into biographies, Mandela's A Long Walk to Freedom is very interesting, though not a piece of brilliant literature.

France: I always liked Flaubert's Madame Bovary.
Columbia: Ever read One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Marquez?
Greece: How about Ovid's Metamorphoses?
German-speaking: I'm partial to Hesse.

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

This goes to show that there is hope for us all and that seemingly insurmountable psychological poisons can be worked through, and that one can emerge from the other side of the tunnel.

I believe you, which goes to show how much better I feel now than I did this morning, which just goes to prove your point. :) I'm so glad you had a good visit!

it's always nice to read something written by a woman in a century long, long ago

I have been dipping in and out of The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, which is quite entertaining, especially when she gets very cross with people for obscure, a-thousand-years-ago reasons. For instance: Things that are unpleasant to see: boys who wear high clogs with their trouser-skirts. I realise that this is the modern fashion but I still don't like it. Yes, that is unpleasant... Oh, heh -- I just opened it and read this:

Letters are commonplace enough, yet what splendid things they are! When somone is in a distant province and one is worried about him, and then a letter suddenly arrives, one feels as though one were seeing him face to face. Again, it is a great comfort to have expressed one's feelings in a letter even though one knows it cannot yet have arrived. If letters did not exist, what dark depressions would come over one! When one has been worrying about something and wants to tell a certain person about it, what a relief it is to put it all down in a letter! Still greater is one's joy when a reply arrives. At that moment a letter really seems like an elixir of life.

:)

[asynje.livejournal.com]

Very quick comment from work. Jens peter Jacobsen (whom we always call I.P. Jacobsen) - the title you're thinking of is likely Fru Marie Grubbe?

Chinese - perhaps The Pilgrimage to the West, I believe it's called. The tale of Hanuman.

[tvillingar.livejournal.com]

I read pathetically little but here are few that popped into my mind.

From Spain, Arturo Perez-Reverte and The Flanders Panel. Then there's the Danish Peter Hoeg and his book Smilla's sense of snow.

As for Finnish writers, I'll rec two women: Märta Tikkanen and Tove Jansson (who wrote more than the Moomin books but I'm not sure what's been published outside Finland). If you want to take the classic route, Mika Waltari would be a good one.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I adore, I love, I worship the very serifs on each letter of A Suitable Boy. It's in there with my top ten favourite novels of all time evah. So glad you like it, too!!! I have a copy *signed by Seth himself*. *falls over just thinking about it*

I've read Wild Swans but I don't really count it because it's more of a memoir / autobiography than a novel. But I enjoyed it a lot at the time although in retrospect I find it somewhat flawed, ideologically.

Memoirs of a Geisha I've heard a lot about and seen around but it's not by a Japanese writer so I can't count it as part of Japanese Literature.

Thanks for the recs, though!!!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It is so good to know that it will only take me an afternoon. I do like wading through lengthy tomes but it can be daunting, too.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I've read two novels by Tim Winton. One I liked a lot (can't remember title now, something about a man on a beach who goes bush in the north of Western Australia). The other is set in a town (Perth?) and about a family whose son dies at the beginning of the book -- that one I found crap, unfortunately. But thanks for the rec!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know Africa is part of the world! As is Iceland and the Caucasus and the Arabian peninsula but I couldn't list everything!! Also, I am somewhat more partial to Asian literature than to African but that's the lovely thing about novels: they make you crawl into the skin of others. I've read all of two African novels, a South African one (Disgrace by Coetzee which I found so-so) and one by Chinua Achebe which was also okay. Three, if you count Egypt as being part of Africa. So thank so much for your recs! I don't like autobiographies so won't read the Mandela although I think Mandela is one of the Great Men of the 20th Century.

All the others you mention I've read. I like some Hesses a lot, others a bit more of a chore. I love Mme Bovary but couldn't get past page 40 of Sentimental Education. I loved 100 Years of Solitude when I discovered it way back in the 80s (oh the heady days of pomo). And Metamorphoses I also like although I have not yet finished it.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, Pillow Book Woman! I love her!! I must read that! The words on letters are lovely -- sometimes it seems as if nothing has changed in history, only now the letters zoom across the world electronically and faster. But why else do we hang about LJ if not to 'express one's feelings' although we realise the person we want to read a certain post is in a different time zone and won't visit LJ for another ten hours? 'Still greater joy when a reply arrives' - or, indeed, a comment!

Oh, and I've often felt like that about men in clogs. Tut, tut.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Pilgrimage to the West, ooh? What is it? And Tale of Hanuman - Chinese? Or Indian? Is this part of the Ramayana?

No, the Jacobsen is not the Grubbe one but the other one. Ah, I remember: Niels Lyhne! I just thought of that one because the German poet Rilke liked it, and the German painter Paula Modersohn-Becker.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

P.S. How about contemporary Danes? Anyone good out there? I liked Peter Hoeg's books a lot -- well, Smilla and the juvenile-delinquent one, not the one about apes.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I have, of course, read all the Moomins! (That's what I meant by 'children's books don't count'). I've browsed through one of her other books but it didn't grab me, too atmospheric. Now Tikkanen rings a bell: is that very feminist? Or am I confusing it? And Waltari I've never heard of. Hah, I should perhaps read the Kalevala!!! 'Kullervo kalervon poika, sini sukka aion lapsi...' and so forth.

I've read Smilla (see comment above) and two other Hoegses. Not heard of the Spanish guy: thank you very much for the rec!!

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Welcome back! So glad Holland was lovely. Maybe in two years I'll be where you are. Right now, I think I've made myself ill to avoid seeing the parents. Or maybe it's just to avoid all-around family/emotional issues on all sides.

I hereby spam you with some of my favorite books and authors (in two posts):

So many books, so little time! I'm particularly fond of Japanese literature, so here are some of my favorites:

Kokoro by Natsume Soseki

The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon This is the first known work written by a Japanese woman. It's her journal of court life during the Heian period (pre-Shogunate Japan). It has nothing to do with that awful Ewan McGregor movie. Heavily footnoted and a cumbersome read, but fascinating nonetheless.

The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai

Silence, or really, anything by Shusaku Endo Endo is one of the top Japanese contemporary writers, and he's also a rare bird; a Japanese Christian, hailing from Nagasaki, the only place Christianity ever really took hold in Japan, thanks to the efforts of Jesuit missionaries. While most of the above books are pretty bleak, Endo's are just devastating, but beautifully written, all the same.

I don't know if you've read it, but one of my personal favorites is The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

Another great Indian writer is of course Salman Rushdie, and I particularly love Midnight's Children

And the rest . . .

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

For some reason, I don't have a good handle on Chinese literature, although I love anything by Amy Tan Amy Tan and Pearl S. Buck, who I thought for years was Chinese. It turns out she was an American missionary's daughter with the remarkable ability to channel the Chinese soul. Her historical novels are wonderful. In spite of winning the Nobel Prize way back when, her writing is not particularly "literary", but she knows how to hook you into a story and keep you there.

And while I'm at it, how about a few South Africans? Just a couple of my favorites are J. M. Coetzee and Laurens van der Post.

Wow. I sure love depressing books.

Now I can't stop. So I'll throw in a few South American women. How about Isabel Allende, Laura Esquivel and Gabriella de Ferrari who is actually Italian, but I believe writes mostly in Spanish.

[timberwolfoz.livejournal.com]

It's autobiographical rather than a novel, but have you read Nien Cheng's Life and Death in Shanghai?

[asynje.livejournal.com]

The Pilgrimage to the West is the tale of Hanuman the Monkey King and his rebellion. A friend of mine studies Chinese and she is very taken with it. Sorry that was a bit unclear (I wasn't supposed to be on, see? *g*) It has also been made into a crappy movie and a beautiful animated one. I remember the scene in which he urinates on Buddha's fingers because he believes them to be tall, tall trees.

I don't think I've actually read Niels Lyhne, although I did read and enjoy Marie Grubbe.

As for contemporary Danes, the problem is of course that so few of them have been translated. Sadly.

You might find some inspiration here (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/nordic.htm) for all of the nordic languages. Someone like Villy Sørensen, or Per Olav Enquist, who's Swedish (but I do believe neither have been translated, so that is fairly unhelpful). As for poets, Piet Hein (Dane) and Edith Södergran (Swede).

I'll try and see if I can locate a list somewhere.

[tvillingar.livejournal.com]

It is possible that Tikkanen is feminist, I've mostly read her poems (which is quite unusual for me since I read very little contemporary poetry) but not paid attention to her other books.

Waltari is more or less essential reading for the Finns (or at least used to be), he wrote mostly historical novels, like Sinuhe the Egyptian which, surprisingly, got made into a Hollywood-movie in the 50's.

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

French? My aunt made me read a Colette novel in the original French (which rather spoilt it for me at age 12, when my French-fluency wasn't at its height). And does Anais Nin count? It is not all pr0n (though to be fair most of it is). And good old Dumas, though 'The Count of Monte Cristo' doesn't half go on.

Spanish: Arturo Perez-Reverte, 'The Fencing Master'. And I think he wrote 'The Dumas Club' (which is what brought him to mind, and I believe is the basis for the movie 'The Ninth Gate').

Laura Esquivel +++good. Especially the one with the CD in it ('The Law of Love'?) 'Swift as Desire' made me cry.

Isabel Allende ('Aphrodite') is Argentinian, I think.

Indian: Chitra Banerj Divakaruni ('The Mistress of Spices' and I think a couple more recent titles)

Russian: Tatiana Tolstaya (no relation)

Danish: Ib Michael (I especially enjoyed 'Prince'). And don't give up on Peter Hoeg: the ape thing is frightful but there are others.

Japanese: Haruki Murakami (Ottakers are promoting one of his books, 'Norwegian Wood' I think it is, for 99p: personally I prefered 'A Wild Sheep Chase').

The only female German writer I spotted on a quick shelf-scan was Christa Wolf. There might be others lurking in the back row.

See, this is what happens when I sit down to check LJ after yoga, and my legs tell me to stay sitting down ...

[blythely.livejournal.com]

Another African Rec: The River Between by Ngugi Wa Thiongo (sp?) - read it in seventh form and still think about it.

Also, my 2p for NZ: anything by Witi Ihimaera (Nights in the Garden of Spain is a fab gay love story; The Matriarch is a brilliant riveting tale of families and the cultural milieu in NZ) ditto Janet Frame (To The Is-Land is my fave autobiography of all time; her short stories are brilliant) and I'm sure Maurice Gee would be your thing, esp his "childrens" stories.

[vasiliki.livejournal.com]

Greece (modern)
Astradeni by Evgenia Fakinou (found at Amazon too)

A wonderful book about a young girl who moves with her family to Athens, during the period of mass inner migration of Greeks to the capital city that brought about today's hundreds of deserted villages and islands. The original text is very eloquent, but I've no idea about the English or German translations.

[rosemending.livejournal.com]

China: The plot is like this: there is a tyrant emperor and four scholars/poets who did not want to serve him. So the poets pretend that they are demented. For example one poet cross dresses and gets kidnapped by a lustful local bully who then drops the poet off in his sister's room. The cross dressed poet and the sister and her maid get married. Another poet, who already had eight wives, disguises himself as a servant to woo a maid. Meanwhile his eight wives head off to track him down. etc. This may not have been translated but the rough title might be something like The Tales of Chen, Zhou, Ming, Yuen (or in some other order or might be actual other last names?!). Highly enjoyable with many dirty jokes in it and started as an oral story professional storytellers recites in tea houses a couple of hundred years ago.

[sophrosyne31.livejournal.com]

er, i should maybe have suggested someone like sue wolfe, instead. ;)

she has a couple of novels, one of which i've read - 'leaning towards infinity' which is about women, motherhood and mathematics. beautifully written.

and the 'ultimate' australian writer, supposedly (i haven't actually read any) is patrick white.

gosh, when it comes to one's own national literature, it's amazing how completely bloody blank one's mind becomes! thanks for writing this post, though, i'm getting lots of inspirations reading the comments. *peers*