So the London Book Fair has come and gone! We have also moved flats (note to self: never, ever do that again so close to LBF!). I feel like things are almost back to normal... sort of... I'm terribly behind on my reading. In fact, this is the Theme Park March read that I finished on time but didn't get a chance to review properly before now. I may be able to read but probably not review on time April's read: In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield as I had already purchased the book.

I've missed March and April reads for Shannon's Around the World in 12 Books which were Guatemala and Tanzania. I do plan on coming back to these at some point during the year as I had a few authors in mind for these countries. May is Cuba. I don't have any ideas yet but I'm looking forward to finding the right book/author.

The thing is I'm probably going to have to take another pause in those challenges in October for the Frankfurt Book Fair... anyway, we'll cross that bridge when we get there!

Title: The Monstrumologist - The Terror Beneath
Author: Rick Yancey
Series: Book 1 of the Monstumologist series
Genre: YA
Originally published: 2009
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Pages: 448

This read was for the 2012 Theme Park book club, March theme: Michael L. Printz Awards and Honors.

*MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD*

These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed.

But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets.

The one who saved me...and the one who cursed me.

So begins the journal of Will Henry, orphaned assistant to Dr. Pellinore War throp, a man with a most unusual specialty: monstrumology, the study of monsters. In his time with the doctor, Will has met many a mysterious late-night visitor, and seen things he never imagined were real. But when a grave robber comes calling in the middle of the night with a gruesome find, he brings with him their most deadly case yet.

Critically acclaimed author Rick Yancey has written a gothic tour de force that explores the darkest heart of man and monster and asks the question: When does a man become the very thing he hunts?

I am always pleased to return to YA as there's generally something cosy and familiar about it (and I don't mean this in a boring kind of way as YA is also in my mind the place where authors are allowed to be more creative in how they express ideas, more so sometime than in adult fiction), probably because I've read and enjoyed so much of it. However, there is nothing cosy about the Monstrumologist, nothing at all.

When I saw the UK paperback cover (see below), I was really expecting something along the lines of Darren Shan, and as much as I enjoyed the Cirque du Freak series, it's a nicely wrapped candy compared to what Rick Yancey delivers here! This was completely unexpected in many ways and at some point I even thought back on my days as a private tutor and asked myself if I really would have given this to read to my students... That being said I can think of one student in particular who would have appreciated but I'm not sure what his mum would have thought about it!

Back to the UK paperback cover. You think you can't possibly be scared of a monster is no head and jaws in the place of its stomach? Well think again. Rick Yancey made these creatures all too real for me and while I had my doubts upon first seeing the cover, I quickly realized that it didn't do justice to the horror these creatures unleashed (I like the US hardback much better - see above). By the time the monstrumologist was dissecting one of the creatures and explaining their living, eating and breeding habits, I wished I could have closed my eyes!

The Monstrumologist is one of those books that makes you question what truly separates YA from adult fiction? Is this categorized as YA because the main character is a teenager? Rick Yancey never talks down to his readers and while his prose is a bit wordy, the book is meant to be the journal of a man living in New England in the early 1800s so I guess in that regard it served its purpose. On top of that, I found that it served the detailed scientific explanations very well while also making the gory descriptions vivid.

Also, compared to many other YA titles, this one takes its time. It's a dense and slow book and while there's clearly a lot going on to justify its length, the characters and their relationships take a while to fall into place and in turn the reader also takes a while in truly connecting with them. The doctor in particular is a character that I have grown to understand, if not like. He is initially portrayed as this one dimensional despicable, selfish and privileged man with an over-sized ego whose work is all that matters and while this is all well, it made it difficult for me to understand why Will Henry even bothered to try and please him. Of course, their relationship is a lot more complex then this but it unravels over several hundred pages. It's a risky business for a YA novel but a well worth risk here. 

Among the elements that I really enjoyed were the setting and the general atmosphere. Perhaps I should have started by stating that I read very little horror, or rather I read very little pure horror. I guess that if you are a genre reader, chances are certain tropes, creatures and characters often specific to the horror genre creep up in a lot of your urban fantasy titles. So I'm tempted to say that this was a refreshing change for me but I'm really not sure refreshing is the word here. There was something almost oppressive about reading this novel as though I was the one trapped underground with the monsters that could come out at any second, as though I was the one that couldn't escape and wasn't left a second to rest (the author clearly suffers from the Dresden syndrom which translates as a nasty habbit of never letting your main protagonist rest, let alone sleep!).

The descriptions of some horribly gory and gruesome scenes stayed with me after I'd closed the book (metaphorically as I was reading this on my Sony Reader). But while these described the gore and ugliness of the monsters, they also served to depict the nastiness of humanity and stressing the sometimes narrow gap between the creatures and their hunters (for heaven sake, a man in a psychiatric ward is left to be eaten away by maggots!). I suppose this is quite common to the horror genre but like I said I'm a tourist here.

There were some other elements to the story that felt a bit forced to me. I am sure it's because they were merely introduced in this first book and will have their importance in coming installments but I personnally feel that the story did perfect well without them. I'm thinking for instance of Will Henry's parasite and the long life side-effect, the suggestion that one character was in fact Jack the Ripper. I felt that this character's purpose was mainly to help humanize the doctor but I am not sure how well he actually stood on its own.

But this is really me nibbling at the narration here. I really enjoyed it and was really looking forward to finding out more as I was reading it. Yet, as much as I found this engaging, I don't feel an instant urge to read the rest of the series. I would be happy to, but it's nothing quite the 'OMG I need to get my hands on the next installment NOW!' feeling that I sometimes get. I think this is because I do feel like this could be read as a standalone and I don't consider it a criticism to say so.

Overall, this is definitely a book that I would recommend but not to the fainting kind! This is not the accessible fun YA that I was expecting and was all the more enjoyable for it.

Title: The Good Muslim
Author: Tahmima Anam
Genre: Historical Fiction
Originally published: 2011
Publisher: Canongate Books
Pages: 304

This read was for the 2012 Around the World in 12 Books Reading Challenge hosted by Shannon at Giraffe Days (February: Bangladesh)

In the dying days of a brutal civil war, Sohail Haque stumbles upon an abandoned building. Inside, he finds a young woman whose story will haunt him for a lifetime to come... Almost a decade later, Sohail's sister Maya returns home after a long absence to find her beloved brother transformed. While Maya has stuck to her revolutionary ideals, Sohail has shunned his old life to become a charismatic religious leader. And when Sohail decides to send his son to madrasa, the conflict between them comes to a devastating climax. Set in Bangladesh at a time when religious fundamentalism is on the rise, The Good Muslim is an epic story about faith, family and the long shadow of war.

Even as a child, I never really found that reading a book was a challenge. Of course, there must have been the random imposed read that I didn't enjoy but overall it's never been something I had to force myself to do. And yet, reading The Good Muslim was and writing this review was equally as challenging. I was really excited about this novel, having heard the most wonderful things about the author's debut, A Golden Age. And to be perfectly honest, I don't think the fault lies with the author or the novel. I think as a reader you're meant to meet the author half-way (I'm aware that many readers will disagree with this but I really see the act of reading as a shared experience with the author; they more often than not offer you something very personal and it's also up to you to let them in and give them a fair chance - that might be a discussion for another day). So in a way I feel like I do share part of the responsibility. But if there's something to blame, I'll blame marketing.

Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of the connection between the author's two books as they seemed to be presented as standalone novels. Having now read The Good Muslim, I feel realize that I really should have started with A Golden Age. The truth is my choice was very much guided by finance and practicality: The Good Muslim was at my local library; A Golden Age was not. So again, I do share part of the blame here.

The Good Muslim takes place in the early 80s, in post-war Bangladesh, and focuses on two siblings, survivors of the war. The novel aims at rendering the country's contradictions and oppositions by describing the two very different ways the siblings come to terms with their actions and choices and the war's aftermath. Maya turns to science and decides to reconnect with her country by becoming an itinerant doctor, going from village to village to help women and children. Sohail on the other hand has turned to religion and in the light of his wife's death, decides to raise his young son in the very strict ways imposed by his faith. It is upon Maya's return to their mother's side and their native town that two siblings meet again after years apart to find that the gap between them has not closed, to the contrary.

While I found that there were a great many things to applaud in this novel and very interesting points, it somehow failed to grasp my full attention. I failed to connect with the main characters which is crucial in a novel that relies so strongly on empathy and characterization. As I said, I don't think the fault lies entirely with the novel; perhaps my mood also played in this? This did cross my mind while I was reading and I tried to put the book aside for several days to see if that could change. Unfortunately, I did not miss it like I normally do when I'm deeply engaged in a novel. I didn't miss Maya, I didn't think of the novel or only to panic at the idea that I was completely off my reading schedule (this is February's read posted at the end of March *ahem*!). Reading these 300 pages took me more time than I'm willing to admit.

There are several reasons for this, one being, as I have already mentioned, that I did not know much about Bangladesh and its history. The country as it is now is only 40 years old and emerged following a war with Pakistan in 1971. Unfortunately, not clearly being aware of all this, I failed to understand all of the characters' motivations and all of the implications. I was often confused whenever the characters alluded to the war. I wasn't who was fighting whom, for what reasons, who had been imprisoned, etc.

I felt particularly distant from Maya's character. I think the distance with Sohail's character was intended as the novel is told from Maya's perspective and emphasizes on how alien her brother has become to her. Maya's ambivalent relationship to love, marriage and religion were the highlight of the novel for me and yet, sometimes I couldn't fully understand her and it frustrated me. I felt like I was on the verge of discovering something amazing but never really got to that point where you're carried away by the plot and characters.

The whole point of this reading challenge is to learn more about foreign countries, their geographies, histories, religions and cultures and in that sense, reading The Good Muslim has helped me realize how very little I knew about Bangladesh and despite my frustrations, I did learn quite a bit. While reading I frequently googled words, events, etc. in an attempt to gain this background knowledge that I severely lacked. I grew even more frustrated when I realized that had I chosen to read A Golden Age which takes place during the war with Pakistan, I wouldn't have had to do so and I probably would have enjoyed this second novel much more, or at least given it a fair chance.

I've been putting off writing this review because I'm always a bit wary of posting a negative review. I know how much work goes into producing a novel and I respect authors too much to just go around claiming their work is crap. And it's really not that The Good Muslim is not a good novel, it's just unfortunately one that I failed to connect with for various different reasons.

This also came at a time when Shannon's cleverly summed up the ongoing debate about the legitimacy of bloggers and their rights to call their posts "reviews". I have been maintaining this blog for eight years and needless to say that the entries posted when I was 17 are very different from the ones that I'm posting now and that will probably be true in eight more years. Some bloggers change platforms regularly and like to reinvent their blogs so they fit the need of the moment. I've chosen to have the blog evolve but not the platform. I'm not terribly proud of some of those old entries and re-reading them I often wince at some of the wording I used to describe my reaction to a novel or have simply changed my mind on a given topic but they reflect who I was and what I thought at the time.

But let's not go off on a tangent as the heart of the argument is: can you call a blog post a review if you're not a professional reviewer? I've often wondered how legitimate was my opinion or anyone else's really? Does my perception weigh more because I work in publishing or because I studied literature at University? I honestly do not think so. In the end, it all comes down to reactions, sensations and feelings and explaining them. Negative reviews have never stopped me from reading a novel. I generally try to evaluate how much I have in common with the reviewer to see if the things that bothered them would affect me in the same way.

To conclude this all-over-the-place review (should I really call it that?), while I didn't enjoy The Good Muslim as much as I thought I would, I honestly don't think that should stop anyone else from reading it. In fact, I think future readers should learn from my mistakes and either do a bit of research or even better begin with the author's first novel.

I also recommend viewing the video that's available on the author's website.


So now that I'm more than a month behind on this challenge and that I have the London Book Fair coming up, it's going to be tricky catching up and I'm not really sure how best to proceed. For now, I am in need of a pause because I need to be reading as many manuscripts as I can in the next two weeks. I'll pick this up again post-fair and go from there. I had planned on reading Miguel Angel Asturias's Hombres de Mais / Men of Maize as Guatemala is March's selection. The plan was to read it in Spanish too but I think I'm being a tad ambitious there. I'm afraid I'll have to reschedule that one and perhaps read it when things get a bit more quiet at work.

Title: Redemption in Indigo
Author: Karen Lord
Genre: Speculative Fiction
Originally published: 2010
Publisher: Small Beer Press
Pages: 224

This read was for the 2012 Theme Park book club, February theme: Black Women Writing Speculative Fiction.

Karen Lord’s debut novel, which won the prestigious Frank Collymore Literary Prize in Barbados, is an intricately woven tale of adventure, magic, and the power of the human spirit.

Paama’s husband is a fool and a glutton. Bad enough that he followed her to her parents’ home in the village of Makende, now he’s disgraced himself by murdering livestock and stealing corn. When Paama leaves him for good, she attracts the attention of the undying ones—the djombi—who present her with a gift: the Chaos Stick, which allows her to manipulate the subtle forces of the world. Unfortunately, a wrathful djombi with indigo skin believes this power should be his and his alone.

Bursting with humor and rich in fantastic detail, Redemption in Indigo is a clever, contemporary fairy tale that introduces readers to a dynamic new voice in Caribbean literature. Lord’s world of spider tricksters and indigo immortals, inspired in part by a Senegalese folk tale, will feel instantly familiar—but Paama’s adventures are fresh, surprising, and utterly original.

Here's another book I'd been meaning to read since its release and it probably would have taken me a lot longer to get to if it hadn't been selected for the Theme Park book club (I need to remember this whenever I feel like I've taken up more than I can chew when it comes to reading challenges and book clubs this year... I am swamped but it's all worth it!). Karen Lord's debut novel has received and been nominated for a ridiculous number of awards (World Fantasy Award, Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, William L. Crawford Award, among many others) but really let's face it, it's mainly Nalo Hopkinson's quote that made it a must-read for me: "The impish love child of Tutuola and García Márquez. Utterly delightful."

So of course I was one happy camper when this turned out to be selection for February! And I was not disappointed.

Karen Lord's novel relies strongly on both Caribbean and Senegalese folklore, both being inexhaustible resources for speculative fiction writers that are sadly too seldom tapped into. Redemption in Indigo tells the tale of one remarkable and yet ordinary woman, her encounter with djombi, which seem to be halfway between poltergeists and skin walkers, and the choices she is consequently faced with. This short and yet dense novel is written in an uncluttered style. I don't think it holds a word too many. It's subtle, sensible and unexpectedly humorous.

Much as in the oral tradition, the novel is as much about the characters and the plot than it is about the way it is recounted. In fact, the narrator soon becomes a character in his own right. I generally find it difficult to get into written stories when the narrator is too intrusive. For some reason, it feels a bit like I'm getting a glimpse at what's taking place behind the curtain. Note that I don't have that problem with oral stories for some reason but I've not often felt that it transcribed well in the written form. It can easily sound forced and awkward. Not here though, the story is constantly tainted by the narrator, his interruptions and explanations, the unheard comments from his audience who disagree or would like him to expand on certain points. It almost felt like a work in progress, demanding the intervention of the audience. And although the narrator does not necessarily enjoy these interruptions, he does take them into account. It's something that I've previously encountered in other forms, in speculative fiction works written by black women although it's clearly not a process limited to this demographic group. But back to the novel, the process makes the novel engaging, especially because the narrator has dry sense of humor.

I always try to do a bit of research before putting together a review, I read other reviews but most of all I read bit and pieces of the author's blog (if they have one) and also interviews. I feel like they give me a better sense of what tools the author drew upon to write his/her novel, what message they were trying to convey and it's always interesting to compare all this with my own personal impressions. I guess it's my background in research showing there. Anyway, I came upon this wonderful conversation between Karen Lord and Nalo Hopkinson that I found fascinating on many levels. It's about an hour long but at some point, while discussing oral tradition, the authors mention Paul Keens-Douglas whom I hadn't previously heard of but whose performances are hilarious (there are tons on youtube if you're curious). Anyway, Karen Lord quotes him as an influence and I could really see how absolutely amazing it would have been had Keens-Douglas narrated the audio edition of the novel. At any rate, I can see why the novel would make a great audio book anyway.

Despite the importance of the narrator, Paama's character remains central to the story. Her character could easily have been the fourth of Marie N'Diaye's Three Strong Women. Paama is indeed strong and not because of the Chaos Stick. Her strength and power reside in the fact that she's managed to remain true to herself and maintain her identity despite difficult circumstances. The appearance of the Chaos Stick and the Indigo Lord challenge that of course, but it's because of her inner strength and because she keeps on believing in the importance of choosing one's path, even when one has very limited power, that in the end she turns out to be wiser than a thousand year old supernatural creature.

The novel also holds a great many other secondary characters that I'd enjoy learning more about (I believe there was talks of a sequel at some point): the Trickster of course, but also the sisters and Patience. The novel's ending comes almost too soon and I don't want to spoil it but let's just say that when some writers would probably have taken the most evident route and turned the Indigo Lord into Paama's love interest, Karen Lord has other things in mind and it works that much better.

Redemption in Indigo is a delightful little gem filled with humor and colorful characters, that weaves in Caribbean and African folklore. You're never quite sure where Karen Lord is taking you but you'll come to trust her grumpy and sarcastic narrator.

I had it all planned out before I went on holiday: I was going to finish reading Redemption in Indigo for calico_reaction's Theme Park book club (this is actually the only thing that I managed to do), read The Good Muslim for Shannon's Around the World in 12 Books challenge, write both reviews and also read a few things for work... well 10 days and a food poisoning later, I'm really behind and haven't even started reading The Good Muslim! I hope to get my review of Redemption in Indigo (which I greatly enjoyed!) up this week.

That's it for now but hopefully more very soon!

Title: Zoo City
Author: Lauren Beukes
Genre: Science Fiction
Originally published: 2010
Publisher: Vintage
Pages: 256

French title: Zoo City
French Publisher: Eclipse
Publication date: 2011
Translated by: Laurent Philibert-Caillat

This read was for the 2012 Around the World in 12 Books Reading Challenge hosted by Shannon at Giraffe Days (January: South Africa)

Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheck, she’s forced to take on her least favourite kind of job – missing persons.

Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a teenybop pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions live in the shadow of hell’s undertow.

Instead, it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she’ll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives – including her own.

As many will know, Zoo City is the 2011 winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and its film rights were optioned a few months ago, but South African Lauren Beukes's novel had been the center of attention long before that. So, Shannon's reading challenge was merely an excuse to get this title at the top of my reading pile... and the very attractive price of the ebook edition on the Angry Robot ebook store finished convincing me. While it took me a while to get into it, Zoo City lived up to its high expectations!

Zinzi December lives in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, in a world very similar to ours except for the magic and/or science. I've read elsewhere that the novel takes place in near future dystopian South Africa but since the novel takes place in 2010, I suppose parallel dystopian South Africa is more accurate. At any rate, the world changed with the appearance of an "Afghan warlord and a penguin" (as Zinzi puts it), marking the appearance of aposymbiotism. Individuals who have committed various levels of crimes and misdemeanors are faced with the appearance of an animal with whom they have a special psychic connection and from which they cannot be separated. Some will be reminded of Philip Pullman's dæmons in His Dark Materials, but I suppose familiars are fairly common in speculative fiction... don't get me wrong, nothing in Zoo City is "common" or rehash. With the animal comes the threat of the Undertow and also the manifestation of a unique talent.

Zinzi has Sloth and a talent for finding lost things.... and also another talent for getting herself into shitty situations but I guess there wouldn't be a story otherwise! Aposymbiotics or zoos as they are referred to, live on the outskirts of society. While their living conditions are not exactly ideal, zoos living in South Africa are not nearly as bad off as zoos in other less liberal countries where they are openly experimented on, mistreated, tortured and killed. Still, zoos are clearly perceived as stained and once an animal is at your side, there's no turning back or even simply going on living your normal life. Accommodation will become impossible to find in certain areas, not to mention jobs.

Zoo City is a dark thriller that depicts an urban South Africa where technology intersects with magic and culture. It's fascinating in the way it mixes science fictional elements with an urban fantasy setting: voodoo in slums, magic with a scientific explanation. One example would be the sangoma that Zinzi consults at some points in the novel. This practitioner of traditional African medicine has a D&G logo on his vest and a cell phone which in case your didn't know, really comes in handy when you need to get in touch with the other side:

"I didn't know the ancestors were SMSin now."
"No, he calls me. The spirits find it easier with technology. It's not so clogged as human minds [...] data is like water - the spirits can move through it. That's why you get a prickly feeling around cellphone towers."
"And here I thought it was the radiation."

While I've never been to South Africa, I have had the opportunity to travel to other African countries and while each was very different, one thing that struck me pretty much everywhere was this strange combination of tradition and modernity. For example, I often saw women dressed in traditional outfits, driving a scouter, a designer bag on their shoulder. Zoo City clearly illustrates these interesting multi-layered identities, these intersections between multiple cultures and it also throws in a nice bit of magic in the mix.

The existence of zoos, or rather the appearance of their mashavi (their animal) is what I found to be most fascinating. While scientists have tried to explain their origin and sudden appearance, while they have applied technical terms such as "aposymbiots", there is really no explanation for their existence. Is it a spreading virus? Has the phenomenon always existed but at a smaller scale? Is global communications responsible for its spread? Is the Undertow a black hole that swallows whole the zoos when it's their time? Or is it the hand of God that's come to punish sinners?

No real explanation is given although many interpretations, both scientific and religious, are put forth. One character ventures:

"Maybe that's all your talent is for, a distraction to keep you preoccupied until the blackness comes rushing in."

To be honest, Zinzi and the other zoos have other problems to deal with and are not too concerned with the origin of this mysterious condition. They are more concerned by its immediate consequences and how it affect every aspect of their lives, putting them in a precarious situation, regardless of their race, gender and social background. Zoo is a new class of its own.

I must admit that I first struggled with Zoo City's first person narration. Everything is so alien, you're not sure what you're stepping into. Lauren Beukes doesn't take her reader by the hand, she dumps you in Zoo City and leaves you to fend for yourself and piece together the background story. Like any new zoo, you'd better figure it out fast and by yourself in order to survive. While I'm always grateful for limited info dumps, this process can put off some readers. Should that be the case, do persevere because it's well worth it! There's a lot going on in those 256 pages, this is dense novel, nothing in there is superficial. 

Zinzi's character is not your coy heroine; she's guile, cynical and morally dubious at the best of times. But that only makes the novel's first person narration all the more witty and engaging (if you're a fan of dark humor which I am).

Context is provided by a series of interview transcripts, scientific reports and other supports that nicely complement Zinzi's story. All those elements add something raw, real and almost authentic to the novel. In a strange way, despite its parallel dystopian setting, Zoo City is very much anchored in the now. This is also helped by the bits of South African slang, the various references to contemporary musical artists and pop culture that are spread throughout the novel.This is somewhat unusual in scifi (less so in urban fantasy I suppose) which is either grounded in fandom with a lot of geeky allusions or projected so far in the future that it wouldn't make any sense to include references to pop culture.

When I started reading Zoo City, I wasn't really sure if it fully qualified for Shannon's challenge which mainly aimed at discovering or learning more about a country, its culture, history and geography. Zoo City taking place in a futuristic Johannesburg, I didn't really know how much I was going to learn about contemporary South Africa. However, Lauren Beukes's projection of Johannesburg, while subjective and somewhat pessimistic, tells a lot about the issues the country has faced in the past and is still currently facing. The lady is in her own words a "recovering journalist" and perhaps this is the reason why social awareness is such an integral part of her writing. I read in an interview that a lot of research was done on the actual inner city slum of Hillbrow, as well as interviews of immigrants, refugees and social outcasts, so I do believe that her descriptions of life in the slums fairly reflect reality.

Zoo City is not novel about the apartheid although racial issues do crop up here and there. While the treatment of zoos is clearly an allegory of xenophobia and zoos are stigmatized, forced to carry their guilt for all to see, the focus seems to be more on class than race. Like in current Western societies (post-racial societies as some call it but there's a whole other debate here, isn't there?), racism is not quite as open and transpires in more vicious ways in everyday life.

Interestingly enough, I'm currently reading the memoirs of a white Englishman who grew up in South Africa during the years of the apartheid. So this has turned out to be a very South African month for me (though I've dragged it well into February) and I'm approaching this in a somewhat backwards manner... from the future to the past and also from fiction to non-fiction. Still, while the novel's events are not in any way tied to the apartheid, the memoir is adding some nice insights into the country's history (and also making it painstakingly clear how little I actually know about the apartheid!).

Zoo City is an ambitious and audacious novel that lives up to all the buzz around it and that I would highly recommend.

One note on the covers, while my preference goes to the UK cover (black and white cover which I think is super cool), I'm quite happy that the US cover displays a character of color. I thought it worth noting after the last years' cover-fails.

Title: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
Author: Charles Yu
Genre: Science Fiction
Originally published: 2011
Publisher: Vintage
Pages: 256

This read was for the 2012 Theme Park book club, January theme: Genre in Mainstream.

From a 5 Under 35 winner, comes a razor-sharp, hilarious, and touching story of a son searching for his father... through quantum space-time.
 
Every day in Minor Universe 31 people get into time machines and try to change the past. That's where Charles Yu, time travel technician, steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he's not taking client calls, Yu visits his mother and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. The key to locating his father may be found in a book. It's called How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, and somewhere inside it is information that will help him. It may even save his life.

I'm not sure how to start reviewing this novel. To be perfectly honest, I probably wouldn't have turned to this title if it weren't for the Theme Park book club even though I'd vaguely heard positive things about it before. The title was what put me off as it gave me the feeling that it was a non fiction science fiction title, like some sort of textbook and not an actual novel. Boy was I wrong! So this just goes to prove that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover and that book clubs are good for you.

Where to start? Well, perhaps I should begin by saying that while I enjoyed this thoroughly and found it to be brilliant and original, I do think it's not a novel that will appeal to everyone. It's a bit of a non identified literary object and you have to give it a chance to blow your mind because trust me, it will... and literally at times. It's one of those novels where you need to accept that not everything is going to make sense in the beginning... not the end for that matter. It's not perfect but it is unique.

Some readers, especially non SF readers, might be put off by the scientific jargon, as it can be overwhelming in the first few pages. But this is not Jules Vernes describing in details the workings of his balloon for an entire chapter. Charles Yu's time traveling is an idea, a concept that serves the narration more than actual HG Wells time traveling. To my surprise, I found the novel to be more voice driven and introspective than plot driven, especially in the final chapters as Charles Yu (the character) desperately reminisces on his relationship with his father. But the novel's scientific concepts allow for interesting questions on determinism, memory and perception.

In that regard, I understand why the book was part of the book club's January selection which theme was "Genre in Mainstream". That is not to say that it's not science fiction, it clearly is and as it's taking place in a science fictional universe, there are various references to science fiction authors (Ursula K. LeGuin and Heinlein, for example) and science fiction universes (such as Star Wars) but also just random geeky things. It is an ode to geekism. But it's the book's intricate narrative, voice and introspection, not the science, that make it experimental and unique.

Here are few interesting quotes:

"Most people I know live their lives moving in a constant forward direction, the whole time looking backward" (page 27)

"Time is a machine: it will convert your pain into experience. Raw data will be compiled, will be translated into a more comprehensible language. The individual events of your life will be transmuted into another substance called memory and in the mechanism something will be lost and you will never be able to reverse it, you will never again have the original moment back in its uncategorized, preprocessed state. It will force you to move on and you will not have a choice in the matter." (page 51)

Equally as fascinating is the fact that Charles Yu (the character) is at some point given the very book we are reading by his future self, whom he shoots, thus becoming stuck in a time loop. Before collapsing, his future self tells him that the key is in the book. Charles Yu (the character) then runs away in his time machine and slowly realizes that he has to write the book to be able to give it to his past self when we comes out of his time machine and be shot so as not to create a time paradox. Thanks to voice recording systems and various other hi tech gadgets in the time machine, a copy of the book is actually being written as Charles Yu (the character) is reading it. So that means that the very book we're reading has no real origin, it's a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy, etc... as there's no way of knowing how long Charles Yu has actually been in this time loop... metafiction indeed. This leads to some interesting questionings:

"I am typing what appears to be somewhat digressive and extemporaneous rambling, all of which is starting to make me have serious doubts in terms of the whole free will versus determinism situation" (page 89)

"The book is just like the concept of the 'present', is a fiction. Which isn't to say it's not real. It's as real as anything else in this science fiction universe. As real as you are." (page 160)

I'm not even going to pretend that I got everything happening in this crazy metaphorical metafiction. The novel is short but engaging and can easily be read on several levels. I was pleasantly surprised by the emotional resonance and the description of the touching father and son relationship. Despite its unappealing title, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is a strange and unique reading experience, well-worth forcing yourself in the beginning should you initially find it a bit difficult.

More reviews and discussion on this title.

Title: Trois Femmes Puissantes
Author: Marie NDiaye
Genre: Mainstream
Originally published: 2009
Publisher: Gallimard
Pages: 316

English translation: Three Strong Women
First translated: April 2012
Publisher: MacLehose Press

This read was for the 2011 French Female Writers Throughout the Ages reading challenge, 21st century novel.

Forty-year-old Norah leaves Paris, her family and her career as a lawyer to visit her father in Dakar. It is an uncomfortable reunion - she is asked to use her skills as a lawyer to get her brother out of prison - and ultimately the trip endangers her marriage and her relationship with her own daughter, and drives her to the very edge of madness. Fanta, on the other hand, leaves Dakar to follow her husband Rudy to rural France. And it is through Rudy's bitter and guilt-ridden perspective that we see Fanta stagnate with boredom in this alien, narrow environment. Khady is forced into exile from Senegal because of poverty, because her husband is dead, because she is lonely and in despair. With other illegal immigrants, she embarks on a journey which takes her nowhere, but from which she will never return.

There were quite a few books I wanted to read in the 21st century category. I picked this one for several reasons, one of which being that having studied African-American literature and especially African-American women writers, I thought it might be interesting to have a look at what black women were doing in France. Second of all, the author was involved in some sort of scandal (at least that's what the press called it) for having spoken her mind on Sarkozy's election. Not exactly being a fan of the man himself, I couldn't help but sympathize. Also, it didn't hurt that it'd won the Goncourt in 2009.

Marie NDiaye is a woman of color struggling with her black inheritance (if there is such a thing). The lady was born in Pithiviers which is not too far from where I used to live in France and believe me, there's NOTHING exotic about Pithiviers. Her Senegalese father returned to his native country when she was a year old and since then, she's only seen him three times. In fact, Trois Femmes Puissantes is the only novel of hers in which she mentions Africa. Was I being prejudiced when I picked this book for the reasons mentioned above? Most certainly, and I clearly wasn't the only one (not that it makes it okay in any way, mind you!) as Marie NDiaye has often had to explain her strange situation in the face of her black inheritance and has even come up with the phrase "truncated mixity" which is quite interesting: Marie NDiaye doesn't feel that she can be referred to as African or even as mixed as there was no one to pass on any "African" knowledge or culture to her as she was growing up. It's an interesting perspective that probably deserves to be debated but I guess what it basically mean is: "I may be a black woman but my books are not all going to take place in Africa, I want to be free of your expectations in that regard, free to write what I feel like writing, Africa or no Africa"... which is fair enough and really something most black women writers could relate to, truncated inheritance or not.

At any rate, Africa or no Africa, I really enjoyed reading Trois Femmes Puissantes and I'm surprised that even winning a prestigious European literary prize doesn't mean that foreign fiction will be translated into English quickly. When I see foreign publishers struggling to match US or UK publications for fear that their readers will have gone to read the English edition instead of waiting for the translation, I'm always amazed and a bit sad to see that English speaking editors clearly do not have the same concerns.

But back to the book... Marie NDiaye's prose is quite distinctive. Having only read this one title, it's hard to know if it's her usual style or just a one-time experiment for TFP. I'm quite tempted by the former explanation possibility though. Her sentences are long, very long sometimes (I had to adapt my read-as-I-walk pace!). In fact, they're not so much sentences as stanzas at times. It nicely complements the touches of magical realism spread throughout the narrative and also highlight the poetic metaphors and recurring images that travel from one section of the novel to the next (as you might have guessed there are three sections to this book). These images sometimes echo the meaning they had in the previous section, but more often than not their meaning changes subtly. I'm especially thinking about the use of that of the bird which can translate into vengeance or a harbinger of death.

TFP revolves around three main characters: Norah who's come back to Senegal following her father's request, Fanta who's left Senegal years ago and now lives a mediocre life in France with her alienated husband, and Khady, the most touching of all three, who's forced into exile by her in-laws following the death of her husband.

All three stories reveal each woman's inner strength by showing that despite past and present circumstances, they are not altered at their core. They know who they are and what they are capable of and no father, brother, husband, child or other can change this. They give, take, love, are betrayed, break down and fall, die but deep down inside they retain their humanity.

While I had clear preference for Norah's storyline (I would really have wanted to read more of it), the book's overall strength resides in its diversity. These three stories are told in very different ways. While there are strong touches of magical realism in Norah's story and she's very concerned with other people's behavior and intentions, their perception of herself and also the past, Fanta's character is solely described through the eyes of her husband Rudy, and Khady is the most self-aware and self-sufficient character of them all although her story is quite a tragic one.

I really enjoyed reading this novel and would recommend it to anyone looking for something original, something touching and poetic but also strong and determined.

This concludes the Dame de Lettres reading challenge on French woman writers throughout the ages hosted by Céline at Le Blog Bleu. It was really interesting and I'm glad to have discovered all these authors. It also made me realize how many other French author I've yet to read. It felt a bit like being back at Uni and well, if I could have stayed there and made my life one long string of masters and doctoral dissertations I probably would have.  

Other reviews for this challenge:

Mémoires de la vie d'Henriette-Sylvie de Molière de Madame de Villedieu
Adèle de Senange by Madame de Souza
La Mare au Diable by George Sand
Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan

Title: Bonjour Tristesse
Author: Françoise Sagan
Genre: French classics
Originally published: 1954
Publisher: Julliard
Pages: 162

English translation: Bonjour Tristesse
First translated: 1955

This read was for the 2011 French Female Writers Throughout the Ages reading challenge, 20th century novel.

Cecile leads a hedonistic, frivolous life with her father and his young mistresses. On holiday in the South of France, she is seduced by the sun, the sand and her first lover. But when her father decides to remarry, their carefree existence becomes clouded by tragedy. United by the theme of love, the writings in the "Great Loves" series span over two thousand years and vastly different worlds. Readers will be introduced to love's endlessly fascinating possibilities and extremities: romantic love, platonic love, erotic love, gay love, virginal love, adulterous love, parental love, filial love, nostalgic love, unrequited love, illicit love, not to mention lost love, twisted and obsessional love...

While I haven't totally completed this reading challenge I think Françoise Sagan might just be the greatest discovery that's come out of it! I instantly fell in love with her voice and style which have something airy, casual and nonchalant but are always precise and spot on. There's something effortless that transpires from Bonjour Tristesse, a novel she wrote at the age of 18 and which mainly focuses on the discovery of female sexuality in the fifties.

I read the whole think in one seating on the plane. Granted it's a short novel but I was quite literally glued to the page from start to finish.

Bonjour Tristesse is the story of seventeen year old Cécile who lives with her father, a widower for the past fifteen year and who indulges in women and alcohol. Together, they have fun, attend a number of parties and drink too much. It's now Summer; Cécile has failed her latest exams but isn't really bothered by it (neither seems to be her father). They've rented a villa in the South of France, right on the ocean, lazying in the sun and their nights clubbing. Cécile's father has brought along his mistress of the moment, Elsa. Days go by, and the trio seem happy and content. Cécile meets Cyril, a young man with whom she goes sailing. Their lazy bubble bursts upon the arrival of an old family friend, Anne Carsen.

Anne was a friend of Cécile's mother and when Cécile first came out of boarding school two years before, she spent the first few weeks with Anne who clothed her and made sure the girl knew how to behave in society. Anne is everything Cécile's father is not: balanced, classy, constant and also perhaps condescending at times. While Cécile clearly admires her, she's also a bit scared of her and knows that Anne's arrival marks the end of the Summer, or at least of her holidays.

To sum up the following events without giving too much away: Cécile's father grows clearly interested in Anne and his mistress Elsa is no competition for the mature and elegant woman. Elsa moves out, Cécile's father announces his engagement to Anne and the latter starts to meddle in Cécile's life, locking her in her room when she misbehaves and forcing her to study. Cécile then starts elaborating a scheme to rid herself and her father of Anne, manipulating her father, Elsa and Cyril, all to a tragic end. Throughout the novel, Cécile is clearly torn between her feelings for Anne and her longing for the easiness of her old life with her father and his many mistresses.

Several times, she tries to back out but is either too lazy to do so and in too deep to do anything about it.

I fear I may have already given too much away so will stop now. What I can say is that while there is a plot, it's Cécile's voice (the novel's told in the first person) that drove the entire novel. It made it intense intimate and striking. I can see how the novel's theme could have caused quite a scandal in the fifties when it was first published but there's nothing provoking about it as it merely voices what is there and is honest without trying too hard to be ground-breaking and thought-provoking. And it's perhaps for these very reasons that it is.

It's interesting to watch Cécile's growing feelings for Cyril, her inner conflicts and external conflicts with Anne who's really just trying to give her a bit of stability and balance and be the adult Cécile's father can't live up to be. Anne is also a woman, who's clearly fallen for Cécile's father like so many other women before her but hoping that this time, he will be able to commit and stick to his promises.

I think it's one of those novels that can easily be read over and over again at different stages in life and the reader will be sure to discover something new each time. I wonder how I would've perceived it ten years ago and if I would've enjoyed studying it in high school. It's one I highly recommend and I'll be sure to read more of this author in the coming years.

Other reviews for this challenge:

Mémoires de la vie d'Henriette-Sylvie de Molière de Madame de Villedieu
Adèle de Senange by Madame de Souza
La Mare au Diable by George Sand
Trois Femmes Puissantes by Marie NDiaye

Happy New Year everyone!

Here at the Honeyed Knot, 2011 has not quite come to a close as I have yet to post all my reviews of the French Female Writers Throughout the Ages reading challenge. It's good that Céline granted us challengers an extension so I have got until the end of January to post three more reviews including the one below! And then I'll start on 2012 for which I've already sign up for two reading challenges... clearly biting off more than I can chew but that's material for another post.

Title: La Mare Au Diable
Author: George Sand
Genre: French classics
Originally published: 1846
Publisher:
Pages: 272

English translation: The Devil's Pool
First translated: 1901

This read was for the 2011 French Female Writers Throughout the Ages reading challenge, 19th century novel.

This novel is one of the French classics you are meant to study in school so I am not quite sure how it happened that I had to wait for Céline's reading challenge before I got around to reading it!

La Mare au Diable can be acquired in pretty much any French bookstore from your tiny local one to the big Fnac and should not cost you over two Euros. Quite a nice change from the other books I had to track down for this challenge and it's also a nice proof (if any was needed) that Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin, aka George Sand, is a writer that has left its impact on French readers and literature.

I think many foreigners have heard of George Sand, a woman ahead of her times, if perhaps not for her literary talent, at least for her unconventional lifestyle (namely cross-dressing and extramarital affairs). In fact, I think her life is as fascinating as her fiction but that would really be the topic of another post so let's get back on track.

La Mare au Diable is a short novel, part of a series that is referred to as George Sand's "champêtre" novels, set in the countryside of her native Berry region which was dear to the author. The novel is a criticism of certain simplistic and stereotypical perception of countryside folks and clearly aims at giving a more accurate and flattering portrayal of farmers and people raised and living in rural environments. Over the course of 130 pages, George Sand depicts these people as experiencing a wide range of complex emotions, emphasizing the notions of justice and morality. It's worth mentioning that this of course ties in perfectly with George Sand's socialist views as she had very liberal political views.

The novel opens on the depiction of an engraving by Holbein and the author's reflections on the land, the balance between nature and death. The narration then zooms in on a young farmer, Germain, widower, father of three, who works hard on his father-in-law's land. Germain is a handsome fellow in his late twenties who sincerely mourns his wife, Catherine, and has so far expressed no desire to remarry. However, his father-in-law, Father Maurine, who appears as the omnipresent, god-like father figure in the novel, is always ready to strike a good deal. Father Maurice has a lady in mind, and should Germain find her to his liking, the resulting union could bring some more than welcomed assets to the family. Since Germain has no financial wealth of his own and that his three children are being raised by their aging grandmother and Catherine's sisters and sisters-in-law, he accepts to go and meet this woman, who's also a widow and who lives several kilometers away. Germain is a good natured man, quite happy to surrender to his father-in-law's keen sense of business and profit, provided the lady pleases him. He also sees how remarrying would benefit his children and release his mother-in-law and sisters-in-law of the burden of raising them. On the day prior to his departure, it is decided that Germain will also travel with sixteen year old Marie who's to start working in a farm close to where Germain is heading, as her mother and herself desperately need the money.

As they set off, events take an unexpected turn. Germain and Marie are delayed by the appearance of little Pierre, German's eldest son who is about seven years old. Little Pierre disobeyed his grandfather and run off as he was too upset at the idea of being left behind by his father. The group's progression is slowed down by the presence of this uninvited fellow and because Little Pierre soon grows hungry they stop in a tavern, adding further delay to their journey. The travelers then come across a pond and decide to stop for a rest, again on Little Pierre's account as the child now grows tired. As the boy falls asleep, Marie and Germain start chatting and the reader can only presume that the characters have reached the pond that is referred to as the devil's pool. Indeed, the landscape's changed and acquired a nearly supernatural element (veiled moon, fog, etc.). Later, as the travelers try to set off again and walk for several hours before ending up right where they'd started, at the devil's pool. As it seems best to wait for daylight before setting off again, they decide to spend the night near the pond. 

Germain spends a difficult night torn between his growing feelings for Marie, which has turned out to be very resourceful during this trip, taking care of Little Pierre, all the while putting together a decent meal when all is thought lost. Witty, clever and down-to-earth Marie appears as a nothing short of a good fairy. However, Germain's feelings appear to be one-sided as he confesses his love to the young girl. The novel takes drastic turn, while during its first half, Germain's quest seemed to be dominated by reason, the second half sees his feelings taking over.

As it is later revealed, Marie is also undergoing an inner transformation although she's trying very hard not to give in to her feelings. During this trip, Marie will grow from young girl to woman. This is perhaps pure speculation on my part as I have not read nearly enough titles published around that period to properly claim this, but it certainly feels like George Sand is somewhat feminizing the traditional quest by adding Marie's perspective and personal growth to the narrative.

By the time Germain reaches his destination (he's parted ways with Marie and left Little Pierre in her care for a few hours), his quest has clearly changed and we don't expect him to find anything where he's headed. And indeed, the widow Guérin is presented as a haughty and spoiled woman who already has quite a number of suitors. Seeing this, Germain lies about his presence there, claiming he's only in town to purchase a pair of bulls for his father-in-law. I admit that while I understand the reasons why the widow has to be depicted in a negative light so as to make the reader regret Mary, I grew slightly annoyed at what Germain's held against her. The widow Guérin is lucky enough to have a second chance at life, after the death of her husband and if we assume that her first marriage was not one of love, as it was often the case, one can certainly understand why she would be taking her time this time around, exploring all of her options. But all these reasons do not seem to make it in Germain's reflection as all his thoughts are bent towards Marie as he keeps opposing Marie's simple manners to the widow Guérin's fake sophistication.

Meanwhile, Marie is experiencing some trouble of her own. Still accompanied by Little Pierre, Marie soon flees her new employer, who clearly had other things on his mind when he hired her and who's portrayed as the devil himself. The little group is reunited again at the pond, although Marie's employer has followed them. If he is the devil, Marie appears as the Virgin and Germain as the figure of Saint George. His confrontation between the two men feels like the reenactment of the mythical between Saint George and the dragon. This marks the social elevation of Germain's character and also coincides with Marie's realization of her feelings for Germain which she'll admit at the end of the novel. At any rate, Saint George is a strong figure in rural folklore, especially for George Sand as she's taken on his name.

An old lady also makes an appearance, her description will inevitably remind the reader of that of a witch but she's the one to name the pond and explain that none will find their way away from it at night.

Once they find their way home safely, despite social obstacles, Marie and Germain find their way to one another. Thanks to Little Pierre's intervention (who on more than one occasion seems to stand for divine intervention with his angelic features) and thanks to Germain's father-in-law's kindness and understanding, their marriage is celebrated by the entire village.

La Mare au Diable includes a strange mix of pagan ideology (witches, fairies and supernatural setting) and Christian elements. In many ways, it's an idealized depiction of farmers but a very liberal one nevertheless considering the fact it was written in 1846. It's social aim is clear, so is its spiritual and mystical aim, with its strong focus on morality and pious values, and its romantic sensibility that implies that an individual can be at one with nature.

Other reviews for this challenge:

Mémoires de la vie d'Henriette-Sylvie de Molière de Madame de Villedieu
Adèle de Senange by Madame de Souza
Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
Trois Femmes Puissantes by Marie NDiaye

I believe your previous published works included several picture books and a series of middle grade novels. The Goblin War series seems to be your first attempt at a YA series. How did you prepare yourself as a writer to address a different age group? Is there a particular reason why you decided to turn to the fantasy genre for this new writing
project? Or is it all just a question of marketing?

It was all a question of time. I have wanted to tell this story since I was ten years old. I had to wait until my children were out of the house before I could settle into it, though. When I am writing, I am very, very focused, to the point that the rest of the world becomes a shadow land. While my children were at home I limited myself to writing picture books and MG novels so that I wouldn’t disappear from this reality completely. Even so, the children only survived because they learned to call out for pizza at a very early age.

The Goblin Wars was planted in my heart when I met Lina in George MacDonald’s book The Princess and the Goblin. Lina was a hideous creature with green eyes lit by amber fire, and a huge mouth with icicle–like teeth. Curdie, the hero of the story, could
feel the real hand of the real creature inside its flesh glove. When Lina put her paw in his hand: “a shudder, as of terrified delight,
ran through him…instead of the paw of a dog, such as it seemed to his eyes, he clasped in his great mining fist the soft, neat little hand of a child! The green eyes stared at him with their yellow light, and the mouth was turned up toward him with its constant half grin; but here was the child’s hand!”

When I read those lines I knew I wanted to pull a child out of a goblin one day.

Goblins are not generally portrayed in a positive light in fantasy so it's highly unusual to decide that your main character is going to be part Goblin. Talk about multiculturalism! The second book in the series, In The Forests of the Night, particularly focuses on the dilemma between inheritance and education, i.e. genetics versus experience. Is this a topic that's particularly close to your heart or am I just reading into your prose this dilemma that's particularly close to mine?

It is close to my heart. I’ve told the story of getting the idea for the Goblin Wars series from MacDonald’s book many times. But what I haven’t said is: I didn’t relate to Curdie, the hero in that scene. I related to Lina, the goblin beast. When I read it, I suddenly understood why the world treated me the way it did. I was at least as distressing as Lina on the outside. I was very, very poor and unkempt. I had no mother to look after me. I had crooked teeth and no health care. My father chopped off my hair and dressed me  in my brothers’ hand–me–downs. I did my own laundry in a bathtub, so I didn’t smell very nice. Add to this the fact that I am a dysgraphic dyslexic—and it was a perfect storm. When people looked at me they saw a dirty, smelly, retarded child. No one knew what was inside me. No one cared to find out.

My childhood taught me to be still and listen to people, to wait and discover what and who they are on the inside—no matter what they look like. And it gave me something to prove. I hope I never write a character who doesn’t manage to surprise readers with
something magical they have hidden inside.

One of the many things I'm enjoying in the series is the way Teagan and Finn's relationship is portrayed in a believable way. They know being together is not going to be easy, they are aware of their differences and of how little they know one another. They're also aware that Teagan's father has a say in the matter. Unfortunately, this seems to be a bit of a rarity in YA fantasy, where teenagers meet, fall in love at first sight and the whole relationship appears solely based on looks and appearances and parents are generally quickly whisked out of the way. What do you think about this trend in most YA paranormal romance series? Are believable romantic relationships between teenagers too scary or
difficult to comprehend for the reading audience?

I think the lack of family leads to shallow characters and superficial stories. Part of the reason I chose Celtic mythology was because of their sense of family as community. It is very different from our Western/American ‘loner’ meme.

In our culture, and most of our stories, we make the hero a loner and a rebel. But in the Celtic tradition, no one makes a hero’s journey alone. The Celts believed that we can only journey in companionship. Everyone needs at least one anam cara—a soul friend that you can trust with the deepest secrets of your heart—to walk with them.

Teagan has a very Celtic community, and more than one anam cara.

I’m not sure you want to get me started on romance in modern YA novels. :-)

They almost always confuse sex and sexual tension with love and romance. And even the sex they present is sometimes confused. Let me state it bluntly: a stalker is not sexy. He is sick. Abusive and
controlling relationships are not sexy. They are destructive. Obsessing about someone to the point that you lose contact with friends and family is not sexy. It is disastrous.

Romance involves growing and deepening relationships – getting to know someone in both a sexual and a more than sexual way. Sex is between the two of you. Love invites your significant other into emotional relationship with family. It includes them, and makes everyone’s life richer. If you are not lucky enough to have family, it draws them into relationship with the friends you have
gathered and trust. Your tribe. And, since they know you and love you, you would be wise to listen to their thoughts on the person you are drawing into relationship with them, because with luck, all of those relationships are going to be there for a very long time.

Do you believe there's a main theme to the Goblin War series? And if so, what would you say it is?

You can be still and listen not only to people, but to creation herself. And when you do, like the ancient Celts, you will hear the heartbeat of the Creator. You’ll find that that creation is deeply good, and the choices we make, even small choices, really do matter.

Any chance of getting your editor to release a soundtrack for the series? What role did music play in bringing this series to life?

I wish…but it will have to play in my reader’s heads and hearts.

Do you have any favorite YA and/or fantasy reading recommendations?

I am so many years behind in my reading that I’m not sure my recommendations would be helpful to a modern reader! The problem is as a teen I started out to read all of Western Literature. I soon discovered that it was impossible—but by that time I was completely hooked on old books. Do you suppose people will listen if I tell them to read Dickens? :-)

What are you currently working on? What other exciting projects do you have in store for us?

I am an eclectic writer to say the least. I am very eclectic in my reading and my writing. I have just sold a very fun steampunk chapter book The Mesmer Menace, set on the eve of the Great Mesmer War of 1901, featuring a boy inventor, President Teddy Roosevelt, evil hypnotists, robots, a lightning harvester, and a dashingly brave and loyal dachshund named Noodles. I am finishing a “Holes”–esque older MG dealing with suicide, Catholicism, immigration issues and one undead school administrator. After that, I have a TOP SECRET YA project in the works…

Thank you for interviewing me, Roxane!

:-) Kersten Hamilton

This read was for the 2011 French Female Writers Throughout the Ages reading challenge, 18th century novel.

Here is the second review of the five books I'm reading for the French Women Writers Throughout the Ages challenge organized by Céline at Le Blog Bleu. See below for links to my other reviews for this challenge.

Title: Adèle de Senange ou Lettre de Lord Sydenham
Author: Madame de Souza aka Madame de Flahaut
First Published: 1798

Reading this epistolary novel was a surprise in many ways. Adelaïde de Souza or Madame de Flahaut as she is sometimes known, is only given a few lines in the issue of Magazine Littéraire that inspired this reading challenge so I really didn't know what I was getting into. I'll admit that my choice was greatly guided by the fact that I could find this novel for free and in electronic version thanks to the online library Gallica of the BNF (French National Library) which makes available classics that are otherwise out of print or very expensive. So it only took a few clicks to get this 18th century novel on my Sony Reader... which I think is very cool. I was expecting a mushy love story (and you could certainly read it as such) but there's also something bittersweet about Adèle de Senange that I'm sure the author put there on purpose.

Let's start with a few words on the author. Adelaïde Filleul (1761-1836) was born at the heart of many political and romantic intrigues. Her mother was the mistress of Louis XV and some even claim that he was her father, though most seem to agree that it was a tax farmer's general in pre-revolutionary France. Adelaïde lost her parents at a young age and was raised by her older sister, Julie. She grew up in a convent and only left it upon her 18th birthday to marry a man her eldest by 36 years, the Count Charles-François de Flahaut. Adelaïde thus became the Countess of Flahaut. According to her, the marriage was never consummated. As you will see there are many similarities between Adelaïde's life and Adèle's story.

For 10 years, Adelaïde was the mistress of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand who was a priest in a previous life. Together they had a son, Charles Joseph, Count of Flahaut. But soon the French revolution was upon them and Adelaïde fled to London with her son. Her husband who had stayed in France, was executed in 1794. While Adelaïde started writing it in the early years of her marriage, her first novel, Adèle de Senange, was only published when she was in London, in 1798.

With the help of a few lovers, Adelaïde eventually made her way to Switzerland and then Germany where she met her second husband, the Portuguese ambassador in Denmark, Dom José Maria de Souza, also a widower, rich aristocrat and patron of the arts. From then on, they settled in Paris where, years later, they both died. Adelaïde published several other novels but Adèle de Senange is perhaps her most well-known work and was extremely popular upon its release.

Adèle de Senange is an epistolary novel told from the point of view of an English nobleman, Lord Sydenham, who is writing to his French friend, Henry. Lord Sydenham meets Adèle on the day she comes out of the convent where she was raised, having been ignored and neglected by her mother only cared for her two sons during all those years. Adèle is taken away from the only home and friends she's ever known to marry a 70 year old aristocrat. Of course, Lord Sydenham is immediately taken by Adèle as soon as he rescues her, following an accident of her carriage. Classic romance so far.

Here's the twist: the 70 year old man frequently visited Adèle when she was in her cnovent. He is the owner of a great fortune but has no one to inherit it. By marrying Adèle, he hopes to set her free and offer her the freedom of choice. When she will inherit his fortune, she will be able to do as she pleases. Considering the man's age and Adelaïde's own personal history, the reader can easily assume that Adèle's marriage was never consumated.

Another twist is that M. de Senange is somehow tied to Lord Sydenham's family. He fell in love with Sydenham's grandmother when he went to England in his young days. Though she was already married at the time, Lady B. (as she is named in the novel) helped the angry and impulsive young man to make peace with life and especially his father. Since then, M. de Senange seems to have acquired much wisdom and seeks to help all those he encounters. And so, he invites Lord Sydenham to join him and Adèle who grows fond of him, in their house in Neuilly. Lord Sydendham accepts the invitation and from then on becomes torn between his feelings for Adèle and his feelings for the old man he comes to regard as a father. But M. de Senange's health deteriorates and upon his death bed, he gives Lord Sydenham who's confessed his love for Adèle to the old man (though not to Adèle herself), his consent to love and eventually marry Adèle.

So the reader only assumes that the two lovers need only respect the mourning period before they can live happily ever after, but it's not quite as straightforward. Adèle's mother has other plans in mind and would like for her daughter to marry another young man who could offer her a title in French society. However, by then Adèle shares Lord Sydenham's feelings but cannot seem to stand up to her mother. Wounded, Lord Sydenham flees Paris and takes refuge in Neuilly, in the house that M. de Senange has left him. Eventually, Adèle finds him and they manage to sway Adèle's mother. However, in order for Lord Sydenham to prove that he truly loves Adèle and is not interested in her newly acquired fortune, Adèle must give up her inheritance that will go to her brothers before marrying Lord Sydenham... ah, true love... or an error of youth... the reader will never know as the novel closes when the two lovers are finally free to love one another openly.

It seems completely ironic that Adèle must give up the money that was to be her ticket to freedom as she marries her true love. Adèle is forced to completely surrender her freedom for this second marriage. In my opinion (which is perhaps that of someone completely jaded), Adèle is far worse off than she was at the beginning of the novel, marrying a 70 year old man!

Of course, the novel can easily be read as love story the likes of La Princesse de Clève but as it's written from the Lord Sydenham's point of view, there's no knowing what is going on in Adèle's mind. I can't help but think that when she is initially unable to go against her mother's wishes (her mother asks her to wait a certain amount of time before she agrees to marry either Lord Sydenham or the other young man), Adèle is aware of all that's at stake and is clearly thinking of what to do with her newly inherited freedom/money. There's no way to prove this of course since in the end Adèle does surrender everything and goes off to England with Lord Sydenham. Her inheritance goes to her brothers and here she is, aged 17 and married for the second time. There's something inheretently sad about her situation though of course, she's a lot better off than many women at the time.

Readers can also see Lord Sydenham as Adèle's eternal rescuer, but throughout the novel, he is hardly depicted as the ideal lover. Lord Sydenham is prone to fits of jealousy and anger; he doubts Adèle and her feelings on several occasions. I believe the ambiguity is deliberate on the author's part. Adèle's second wedding and the outcome of the novel can be seen as both a happy ending but also a testament to women's position in sociaty at the time. No matter what you do or how much money you may acquire, social conventions will never let you enjoy your freedom.

Another thing that must be mentioned is that while the novel was written in the midst of the French revolution, there are hardly any mentions of political events in the story which clearly takes place in pre-revolutionay France. Of course, we do encounter a florist who works to sustain his large family but everyone seems quite content with their lot and there are no talks of social injustices.

In light of all this, I found Adèle de Senange to be interesting on more than one level. It was an amazing discovery that is clearly nostalgic of the previous era, but also critical of women's position in society. Clearly, the French revolution has not done much for women...

Other reviews for this challenge:

Mémoires de la vie d'Henriette-Sylvie de Molière de Madame de Villedieu
La Mare au Diable de George Sand
Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
Trois Femmes Puissantes by Marie NDiaye

My only reading challenge for this year is the French Female Writers Throughout the Ages. I guess it says a lot about what's been going on this year in RL that I've only started reading the first of the five books of this 2011 challenge in October...

Title: Mémoires de la vie d'Henriette-Sylvie de Molière
Author: Marie-Catherine de Villedieu
Genre: French classics
Originally published between 1671-1674
Publisher: Desjonquères in 2003
Pages: 272

This read was for the 2011 French Female Writers Throughout the Ages reading challenge, 17th century novel.

It's always with great pleasure that I take these reading journeys in the past and meet these women writers that were then perceived as eccentric, mad and severely lacking virtue when all they were trying to do was live with the freedom that was only bestowed upon men.

It reminded me of my work on the fascinatingly enigmatic Margaret Cavendish and of how much I admire these women and the way they fought against the establishment no matter the cost. I certainly envy them their strength and how they were fearless in the face of alienation.

Marie-Catherine de Villedieu, born Marie-Catherine Desjardins (1640-1683), was a professional writer, one of the first French female writers to claim so. She wrote novels, plays and letters and was a pioneer in more than one aspect as Mémoires was the first fictional autobiography of its kind.

Villedieu is a pen name taken from a lover who promised to marry her before withdrawing his promise. Although, their relationship later resumed, no marriage ever took place. In fact, the young man ended up marrying someone else before dying in battle. Marie-Catherine took his name after his death. While this was quite a bold decision, what is even more surprising is that the young man's family accepted that she did so based on the multiple promises the young man had made when he was alive.

Madame de Villedieu as she is now referred to, was not notably beautiful but she seems to have benefited from a lot of freedom from a very young age. This probably encouraged her fiery temper. She was lucky enough to have a lot of connections with the world of literature and arts and became quite famous for a poem entitled Jouissance (which can be translated as "climax" or "orgasm") when she was just 18. The poem was destined to the lover who never married her and the existence of the poem was not so shocking as the fact that it had been written by a woman. As it was often the case, it seems that her bad reputation had more to do with her free spirit and her liberty of speech than anything else.

Mémoires was published between 1671 and 1674 anonymously. I'm not quite sure why given her reputation and the fact that the book contains nothing particularly scandalous, Madame de Villedieu bothered with trying to hide the fact that she had written it. The book's success was immediate and durable though it was eventually forgotten. Like so many women writers, Madame de Villedieu greatly influenced the evolution of the novel but as she didn't follow the regular norm of conduct, her legacy was unfortunately set aside.

As previously mentioned, Mémoires is a fictional autobiography, a "roman-mémoires", the first of its kind in French literature (as far as I'm aware of anyway... which should probably not count for much...). Mémoires can be easily dated as Madame de Villedieu quotes battles, cultural and many historical events. A lot of historical figures and famous people of the time also make appearances in her tales. Yet, I wouldn't regard Mémoires as a piece of historical fiction per say. It's more an account of what life was at the time: clandestine weddings, cross-dressing, life in convents, duals and trials.As far as I know, this mix of history and fiction is quite unusual for the times. Even more unusual is the idea of a memoir for an ordinary woman and not someone famous, well at least not famous for the right reasons.

Mémoires is by no means meant to be serious but entertaining and light. The main protagonist, Henriette-Sylvie de Molière, is writing her story to a female noble person she addresses as "Your Highness". From the first sentence, it appears that Henriette-Sylvie's name has been wrongly associated with certain scandals and that she is attempting to clear her name, explaining the "innocent mistakes" of her youth. Nevertheless, the aim is to please and entertain and Henriette-Sylvie has a lot of stories to tell and she is not at all as innocent as she could be... and the wonderful thing is that she makes no apologies for it, despite the novel's initial aim.

It all begins with Henriette-Sylvie's birth which is shrouded in mystery: birth on a beach, a mother's disappearance, childhood among farmers and here comes in a duke who sees something different in this child and knows she's destined for more than this. The duke places her with wealthy friends of his who have children of their own. Henriette-Sylvie grows up to be a young woman of breathtaking beauty. The one she then believes to be her father attempts to rape her when she is thirteen during a hunt. Henriette-Sylvie accidentally shots him trying to defend herself. She is then rescued by her "mother"'s lover who also falls in love with her and that is only the beginning of her adventures...

Henriette-Sylvie is not afraid of enjoying life and its multiple pleasures. Her tale is in drastic opposition to the literary inheritance of the classical age. And yet, I'm not quite sure why Madame de Villedieu chose anonymity to write this. It's been said that those who knew her and her story could easily recognize her style and aspects of her life. Mémoires is not an autobiography (well, only a fictional one) but some elements and places frequently visited do echo ones from Madame de Villedieu's life. Henriette-Sylvie is meant to be a sort of role model for women who have been accused of not being virtuous enough for their times. Though one must admit that it is hard to believe that Henriette-Sylvie is completely innocent; she does put herself in the strangest situations, and yes, she does admit to having had lovers. If there really needs to be something scandalous about the whole novel, it's probably it's total lack of guilt, but even that is drowned by the humorous aspect. Though the novel is meant to be a clarification, Henriette-Sylvie does not make any apologies for her behavior as she often depicts what courtship and what takes place around and after passion.

I really enjoyed reading this. I'm sure I didn't get all of the humor, not knowing enough of the times' lifestyle and famous figures, but I got enough to make it worth while. And so, even if you're reading this novel on a superficial level and don't really care in what ways it relates to the life of the person who wrote it, you'll enjoy it. But if you read it bearing in mind the reputation of Madame de Villedieu's, you'll enjoy it even more. Highly recommended for entertainment but also for the historical and feminist perspectives.

Other reviews for this challenge:

Adèle de Senange de Madame de Souza
La Mare au Diable de George Sand
Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan
Trois Femmes Puissantes by Marie NDiaye

So yes, I'm still alive though barely... I've been reading loads but reviewing very little and almost let this blog die... In fact, all of my online activities have taken a coup recently and it's not just because of work! In fact, it has nothing to do with work and everything to do with LIFE and how it can immensely suck sometimes.

I'll spare you the drama, the flat-hunting, the dealings with letting agents and also the part where I was harassed out of flat after 5 days and it's taken me over two months to get my deposit and rent back... let also forgot about the staying with friends, the legal procedures, the stress that comes with harassment, the humiliation, the indignation (is all this happening to me because I'm a girl or just because I'm naive?) and the incapacity to focus on anything else!

Yes, please let's forget about all that and talk about books because really there's nothing nearly as good in the real world!

I do hope some of you remember Kersten Hamilton from my review of the first book in her Goblin Wars series, Tyger, Tyger. It was one of my favorite reads from last year and not only because I had the chance to read it before everyone else. I couldn't quite believe it when Kersten got in touch with me a few months ago to ask if I wanted to read an ARC of book 2... how's a girl suppose to say no? The catch is, she isn't. Hence, what follows...

Title: In The Forests of the Night
Author: Kersten Hamilton
Series: Book 2 in the Goblin War series
Genre: YA / urban fantasy / goblins
Published by: Clarion / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Date: November 2011
Pages: 288

The battle against goblinkind continues... but which side will Teagan be on?

Teagan, Finn, and Aiden have made it out of Mag Mell alive, but the Dark Man’s forces are hot on their heels. Back in Chicago, Tea’s goblin cousins show up at her school, sure she will come back to Mag Mell, as goblin blood is never passive once awoken. Soon she will belong to Fear Doirich and join them. In the meantime, they are happy to entertain themselves by trying to seduce, kidnap, or kill Tea’s family and friends. Tea knows she doesn’t have much time left, and she refuses to leave Finn or her family to be tortured and killed. A wild Stormrider, born to rule and reign, is growing stronger inside her. But as long as she can hold on, she’s still Teagan Wylltson, who plans to be a veterinarian and who heals the sick and hurting. The disease that’s destroying her—that’s destroying them all—has a name: Fear Doirich. And Teagan Wylltson is not going to let him win.

As always when continuing a series you particularly enjoyed, there's always a strange mix of excitement and apprehension. What if the sequels don't live up to the first book? Well, there's no point in maintaining any melodramatic suspens here, I loved the second book as much as I loved the first though these are two very different books.

In the Forest of the Night picks up right where we left Teagan, Aidan and Finn. It seems somewhat surreal that after journeying and surviving Mag Mell, Teagan and Aidan actually need to start their daily routines again (school, medical appointments, part-time jobs, etc.). Things are quite clear though, Tea has not given up on her dreams and ambitions despite her mother's death, the revelation that she is part goblin, her love for Finn and the diminution of her father. This is one strong and inspiring female character Kersten Hamilton has created and it's so good to see that her mind hasn't evaporated because 'Sexy Beast' (as he likes to be called) has come into the picture. Tea has her plan and she will try to fit Finn in it but they need to have their own lives and be able to stand on their own two feet before becoming an item. 

This is how book 2 differs from Tyger, Tyger. We are familiar with the characters by now, we know the background, we know the stakes. This second book contains less action than the first but then action is not what the book is about. That doesn't mean that there's nothing going on, there's actually quite a bit going on but this time, it's all about discovering new facets of the main characters, especially Teagan.

There's of course her growing love for Finn but even that is broached in a way it hardly ever is in a lot of YA novels. Generally, parents are too quickly done away with because well, they're parents and we always think we're better off without them. Plus, their deaths or disappearances also serve as good plot devices to explain the main protagonist's vulnerability... Not here, Tea does miss her mother and her father has yet to fully recover from his visit to Mag Mell but he still maintains his role as a parent. It seems in a lot of YA novels, teens end up living under the same roof due to impossible circumstances. All those hormones, someone has too keep an eye over them. John Wyllston's character is endearing, charming and witty and he makes sure that both Finn and Tea keep a foot in the real world. Love is all nice and well, but there's a lot more to it than just love at first sight. John makes Finn and Tea wonder how well they actually know one another and the answer is of course, not very much. It's interesting to see such topics raised in a YA novel, especially in a fantasy one when more often than not the story stops when the main characters run off into the sunset and the reader can only assume that they'll live happily ever after. I really appreciate this level of reality being thrown into an epic fantasy story. It's unfortunately too much of a rarity.

This is what best describes the entire novel: in Tea's image, it finds its roots into two worlds, one is that of fantasy and Mag Mell and the other is the real world. 

Tea is also face with another dilemma. She has mixed heritage and her actions will decide which part will overcome the other. Ideally, we wouldn't want it to be the goblin part, but what Tea did to make sure Aidan, Finn and herself escaped Mag Mell in book 1 has somehow tipped the balance. And her dear goblin cousins intend to make it tip yet further. This inner struggle which also has physical consequences is very interesting to withhold, especially if you analyse it through the angle of cultural diversity. Tea is convinced that she will become evil as the goblin side of her grows and matures but as Finn remarks, her new powers have not changed who she is at the core and it's really about hanging to your beliefs and staying true to yourself no matter how original and mismatched that self might be. Your identity needn't be black or white (pun not intended) but generally comes in all shades of gray and in fact, in all shapes and sizes as it shouldn't be a homogeneous whole.

In that way, despite their differences, the first two books in this series share a similar strength: excellent characterization.... okay and let's not forget witty dialogs... and references to very cool songs (I think this series should come with a soundtrack). 

Some say that the second book in a series is often the calm before the storm, that it builds up for the final chapter (the third might not be the final). The ending of book 2 will certainly makes you feel this way. There's a reason why the series is called The Goblin War, a war is coming. And it's hard to think you'll have to wait a year to know what's coming next.

I feel like there was so much in this book that I haven't touched upon (I haven't even mentioned Aidan... how I love Aidan... and the Turtles... well, they're not real turtles... and some many more). I cannot recommend this series highly enough. Not only is it original and fun, it's also clever and unputdownable. If you haven't had a taste of it yet, now's your chance to read Tyger, Tyger before In the Forests of the Night comes out this November!

Title: The Tiger's Wife
Author: Téa Obreht
Genre: Mainstream fiction
Original Publisher: Random House
First published: March 2011
Pages: 352

Set in war-torn Yugoslavia, The Tiger's Wife is a tale steeped in local fables and driven by one woman's experience of the never-ending violence that swept the Balkans. As Natalia and a friend travel across the former Yugoslavia, immunizing villagers, the body of her grandfather turns up in a hospital in the middle of nowhere. She and her family have no idea why. Recalling stories he told her as a child, she becomes convinced that he went in search of the Deathless Man, a mythical figure, that her grandfather claimed to have met a number of times in his life. In her quest to find out how her grandfather, a man of hard fact and science, could turn to this fantasy, she discovers something particular about his childhood: a tiger escaped from a zoo during Word War II bombings and wandered deep into the woods, settling just outside his peasant village. It terrorized the town, the devil incarnate to everyone, except for her grandfather and 'the tiger's wife'...

The Tiger's Wife is one of those novels you pick up because you simply have to; its author was part of The New Yorker 's 20 under 40 selection, the novel has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize (among other things) and it's been positively reviewed almost everywhere. You start reading it and can't really seem to understand what the fuss is all about... until, at some point, you're not quite sure when or how this brilliant author's done it, but you're hooked and you want more. 

I'll admit that, as it is often the case with novels I end up thoroughly enjoying, its main theme, the one that drives the present-day narration, hit home. Though circumstances never allowed me to grow up knowing my grandfather as well as the main character does hers, I knew him enough to regret that he no longer is a part of my life fours years after his death; this man of the past, this connection to my mother's culture, language and country, one that no longer exists as it was, except in memories; this remarkable man who was also a doctor and who refused to flee his country even when it was in deep political turmoil. I too have always wanted to know more about this almost mythical grandfather, his childhood, his trips to Africa and France where he met my grandmother, his dreams and if all of them had come true, his fears, the best years of his life as it seems I was only there for his death. I too knew that he was ill and had been dying for a long time. 

However, The Tiger's Wife cannot solely be reduced to its theme. Its form and structure are equally important and here all readers of folk tales and mythology will find themselves on familiar ground and enjoy the multiple story-lines and how they nicely tie in with another at the end. Though the novel never properly falls into magic realism, it comes very close to it.

The Tiger's Wife is as much a story about History as it is about stories and the power of storytelling. Its History, though never clearly stated, is that of Yugoslavia and the many wars that led to its divisions. The novel's towns and villages cannot be found on maps and, as such, might as well be imaginary. It's just as well, a too strong historical background might have required too much explanation and ended it up drowning the rest of the narration(s). 

Its stories are that of the Deathless Man, the Tiger's Wife and how they defined and shaped the main character's grandfather. But they are also the stories the grandfather did not know, that of Luka the butcher, Galina's blacksmith and Darisa the bear. I found these stories to be more engaging than the present-day storyline, but they also echo with it and give it a strength it may not otherwise have possessed. Throughout these stories, the main protagonist hints at the research and people she's had to interview to unearth these tales from the past. Nevertheless, the narrator (and the reader) is well aware that these tales cannot possibly be entirely true; some have been twisted, others embellished or truncated. But isn't that what folk tales are? Collective stories that live on in the minds of entire populations? Isn't there some kind of truth to these collective retellings and reinterpretations? In a way, what we take out of folk tales reveals more about our nature than the story itself.

Some have criticized the novel's structure and how it gives too much space to these past and parallel subplots at the risk of drowning the main narration. I think those who agree with this have missed the point of the novel. The Tiger's Wife is about these 'subplots' (for lack of a better word but they're more than that) and about how these folktales and the magic they hold shape our lives and our understanding of the world. Perhaps, their inclusion is a bit too neat and systematic, but I've never found them to be dispensable. In the end, they confer this story which has no date, or place, its universality.

Some of you may remember this post in which I mentioned what was then a promising project: a bilingual (French-English) speculative fiction webzine. Well, after long months of hard work, Onirismes is now up and kicking!

Prepare to be blown away in two languages and a variety of formats and all for free!

Onirismes' first issue features short stories by Lavie Tidhar, Michael J. DeLuca and Claude Mamier. All three stories are available in English and French in written form and soon, in audio format (though some already are!) thanks to the amazing voice talents of Mike Borris, Ray Sizemore and Amy H. Sturgis on the English side, and Vanessa Terral and Cécile Goguely on the French side. 

So there you go, share the love and spread the word people! Go read, comment on our forums, make suggestions and send us your texts.

I decided to participate in this 2011 reading challenge organized by French fellow blogger Céline over at Le Blog Bleu, at the end of last year. It took me some research and time to actually decide which authors I wanted to read (there are so many!) and so this explains why I'm only posting about this now!

There are several levels in this challenge. Considering the alarming number of books that already are in my to-read pile, I thought it best to stick to the first level, Demoiselle des Lettres. This reading challenge consists in reading one title by one French female author per century, starting with the 17th century. It can be a poetry collection, novel, play, anything at all. That's five titles in a year, well nine months now!



Here is my selection:

17th century: Mémoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de Molière (1672-1674) by Marie-Catherine de Villedieu (272 pages)

18th century: Adèle de Senange by Madame de Souza (240 pages) which is available for free through the French National Library's Gallica (their online library which contains thousands of French classics often out of print and makes them available as downloadable pdfs). 

19th century: La Mare au Diable by George Sand (122 pages), a French classic which I am ashamed to admit, I have never read.

20th century: Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan (153 pages), a novel she wrote at the age of 19.
I've been wanting to read this author for ages. It wasn't an easy choice, as I would really like to read Colette and Marguerite Yourcenar, but one that needed to be made!

21st century: Trois Femmes Puissantes by Marie NDiaye (375 pages) which won the Prix Goncourt in 2009.
Again, not an easy choice as I also really wanted to read Apocalypse Bébé by Virginie Despentes which won the Prix Renaudot last year, but again, I had to decide!

So there you have it folks! Doing all this research has made me realize how little I know about French literature, having spent the better part of my life studying American literature. This challenge is a good excuse to correct this and will make for a nice introduction.

Reviews from the challenge:
Mémoires de la vie d'Henriette-Sylvie de Molière de Madame de Villedieu
Adèle de Senange de Madame de Souza

Title: Black Milk
Author: Elif Shafaf
Genre: Non fiction
Original Publisher: Dogan Kitap
Original Title: Siyah Süt
Language: Turkish
Pages: 288
US Publisher: Viking
US pub date: April 2011

While I've heard a great deal about Elif Shafak and her novels in the past few years, I'll admit that this is the only title of hers I've read so far. And surprisingly enough, it's a non fiction title. From online interviews I could tell that her novels broached themes that were close to my heart: questions of identity related to culture, language, race and gender. 

For those who know nothing about her, Elif Shafak is a Turkish writer, born in Strasbourg, France, and raised in Spain and Turkey (among other places). Having briefly met her (I made her tea! Oh the joys of being an assistant!), I can also tell you that she is a very calm and classy lady.

In Black Milk, Elif Shafak tells her readers about her postpartum depression following the birth of her first child. I think it to be a very sensitive subject to approach. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to open up and tell your insecurities about being a mother to the rest of the world. Especially, when most of the world still assumes that if you are a woman, you will be a mother at some point. That is after all what you were made for, weren't you? Whoever said "one is not born a woman, one becomes one" really didn't what they were was talking about!

But Black Milk is not just an intimate account of the author's experience before, during and after her pregnancy, it's also a wonderful insight into the lives of female writers throughout the ages and how, each in their own way, tried to resolve this dilemma posed by motherhood. In Black Milk, you will read about the lives and works of Sylvia Plath, Zelda Fitzgerald, Dorothy Parker, Ayn Rand, Anais Rand, Doris Lessing, Lou Andreas Salomé, Rebecca West, Audre Lorde, Sandra Cisneros, George Eliot, Toshiko Tamura, Yuko Tsushima, Carson McCullers, to quote but a few. In that aspect, I found the book to be a great introduction to feminist criticism and literature. I've compiled quite a list of female writers that I need to get to. Elif Shafak interweaves her personal experience with that of these writers of the past and present to try and comprehend the notions of womanhood, motherhood and how they can be balanced with the life of a writer. I'm no writer, but I know these questions hit home and so, her approach has more to do with personal space and the need to continuously grow as a human being, than simply the activity of writing.

All mothers will at least agree on this, having a child changes everything, for better or for worse. And so, at some point in your life, are you supposed to simply stop being you to become a mother, entirely dedicated to childrearing? Can you ever get back what you lost (I'm aware that motherhood is not without its rewards, but come on, you have to at least sometimes reflect nostalgically on the moments when you could sleep late and step out of the house on a whim with nothing but your purse). How do you balance the needs of a little one, entirely dependent on you, with your own needs? And does the fact that I'm worrying about this means that I will be a bad mother? These are questions I've been asking myself for quite some time and even more so now that most of my friends are getting married and having children of their own and I don't feel ready for that. And it's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one!

I was amazed at the extent to which I could relate to Elif Shafak's experience. It's true that, at first glance, apart from being born in the same city 14 years apart and having traveled quite a bit from an early age, our lives don't have much in common. And yet, I could completely relate. I've always been one who enjoyed solitude and never get bored when I'm left to my own devices. I think it's a good thing my parents had a second child after me, otherwise I fear I might have felt even more alien than I do now! I'm too often caught up in my own little world and never seem to be on the same page as everyone else. One has to be very precise and specific when addressing me, if there's any ambiguity, consequences may be tragic. For that reason, I'm really bad at getting jokes. When everyone will understand Meaning A and see that there's also a Meaning B which makes the joke a joke, I will find a Meaning C without having understood A or B. Yes, it's that bad. 

Dating and living with someone that's very practical, down-to-earth and logical in everything that he does (my complete opposite) has been very enlightening in that respect. And it's the source of daily miscommunication and misunderstandings that while most of the time are funny, can also offend or hurt people when I don't really mean to. In brief, I am socially retarded! How can I ever possibly be a good mother?! I sincerely fear for the child. And to get back to Black Milk, it's something Elif Shafak asked herself and part of the reason behind her postpartum depression was because she didn't feel that she would be up to the task. She feared that she would lose herself, her writing, her career, her intellect and not even manage to be a good mother in return. 

One thing that bewilders me in our society is how when you are young, people encourage you to complete long studies, during which you read in vast quantities, discuss, debate and write about a variety of issues, only to find a job that is mostly admin and repetitive (as most jobs are) and expect you to be happy about i!. I stayed in university for seven years and while I wasn't quite sure why I was there the first three, my master's degree changed everything. It gave me a chance to formulate questions about identity, race and gender that I had carried with me for years but didn't have the tools to express. I know a lot of people remember their university years as parties and getting pissed, I did do that, but it also felt like my brain was buzzing, like I was being intellectually challenged on a daily basis, because I had the time and luxury to think. Let's face it, when you come home from work, you're not going to sit down and read philosophy (well at least my brain can't process much at the end of the day!). You merely switch on your TV and let others do the thinking for you. 

It's sad to realize at 25 that your best days are behind you and that you will never have that freedom of thought back. It's simply not compatible with society as it is. I've been thinking that working part-time is probably more suited to my personal needs, but besides the financial impossibility of that, there's also the pressure that I need to have a career and that working part-time will leave me an assistant ten years from now! Imagine, adding a child into the mix! When will I find the time to read, blog, think and live inside my little bubble?  (But then, ten years ago if you'd told me that I would be in a stable relationship and sharing a flat with roommates, I wouldn't have believed you!)

If Elif Shafak seems to have resolved these issues, I've yet to. It's fascinating to see the author's fragmented selves argue and lash at one another and finally come to some sort of a peaceful understanding, at least for a little while. I know this is a bit of a weird review, it's a very subjective and personal reaction to this book, but that's what it triggered in me. It does not read like non fiction at all. It's both a powerful and emotional account of a woman's journey into motherhood and a writer's historical analysis of the lives of female writers of the past. I can't recommend it enough.  

And on a final note, I had a chat with one of my roommates about Black Milk last night and the issues it raises and one of them has kindly lent me The Jar Bell by Sylvia Plath.

Author: Siri Hustvedt
Title: The Summer Without Men
Genre: Mainstream Fiction
Original Publisher: Sceptre / Hodder & Stoughton
Date of first publication: March 2011
Pages: 224

Out of the blue, your husband of thirty years asks you for a pause in your marriage to indulge his infatuation with a young Frenchwoman. Do you: a) assume it's a passing affair and play along b) angrily declare the marriage over c) crack up d) retreat to a safe haven and regroup? Mia Fredricksen cracks up first, then decamps for the summer to the prairie town of her childhood, where she rages, fumes, and bemoans her sorry fate as abandoned spouse. But little by little, she is drawn into the lives of those around her: her mother and her circle of feisty widows; her young neighbour, with two small children and a loud, angry husband; and the diabolical pubescent girls in her poetry class. By the end of the summer without men, wiser though definitely not sadder, Mia knows what she wants to fight for and on whose terms. Provocative, mordant, and fiercely intelligent, The Summer Without Men is a gloriously vivacious tragi-comedy about women and girls, love and marriage, and the age-old war between the sexes - a novel for our times by one of the most acclaimed American writers.


Though I've had What I Loved on my shelf for over five years now, The Summer Without Men is actually the first book I've read by Siri Hustvedt and considering the extent to which I was blown away, I can easily affirm that it won't be the last!

This short tale is part literary criticism and part feminist manifesto, but very little of it is actually a novel in the traditional definition of the genre. There is a story, a main character, a set of secondary characters more or less developed, there is an intrigue, though admittedly, not much goes on. This is definitely a cerebral novel if such a thing exists. It's a bowl of fresh air, one that I will gladly re-read in a few years time and take notes next time.

Though this is not the first time this has happened, I am always amazed when an author manages to make his readers identify with a character who is miles away from them. Mia Fredricksen and I have a very little in common and yet, I understood and felt all that she was going through and took pleasure in following her progression throughout this summer without men. A pleasure owed to the author's talent.

There are so many parts I wish I'd bookmarked so that I could quote here to give you a feel of this peculiar novel. Here's one:

"It is not that there is no difference between men and women; it is how much difference that difference makes, and how we choose to frame it. Every era has had its science of difference and sameness, its biology, its ideology, and its ideological biology, which brings us, at last, back to the naughty girls, their escapades, and the instruments of darkness. We have several contemporary instruments of darkness to choose from, all reductive, all easy. Shall we explain it through the very special, although dubious otherness of the female brain or through genes evolved from those "cave women gathering food near the home" thousands of years ago or through the dangerous hormonal surges of puberty or through nefarious social learning that channels aggressive, angry impulses in girls underground?"

As you can see, the novel's intrigue serves as an overall reflection on women, their position and perception in society. Here, Mia's poetry teenage students have pulled a nasty little prank on one of the class' members. These are questions that I often ask myself, to what extent are our action our truly our own or socially-constructed?

The book has just come out but there are already a few mixed reviews online, proof that every reading experience is different and resonates in a specific way with its reader. For me, this pushed all the right buttons.

A few weeks ago, I let author Crystal Connor in command of The Honeyed Knot for the time of a blog post. I also mentioned that a review of her debut novel, The Darkness, was coming up. Well, here it is!

Author: Crystal Connor
Title: The Darkness
Series: Book 1
Genre: Dark Urban Fantasy
Original Publisher: Bennett & Hastings Publishing
Date of first publication: December 2010
Pages: 266

Artemisia, a scientist who also practices alchemy, is wealthy beyond imagination. She is one of the founding members of the Skyward Group, a privately funded, secret, research facility conducting experiments that erase what tradition has established as the boundaries separating the realm of man from the realm of God. Artemisia has everything she wants - money, fame, knowledge and power - except for a child. Inanna is a powerful and dangerous witch, also wealthy beyond imagination. Her powers are greater and more deadly than any in the long tradition before her. Inanna has everything she wants - money, knowledge and God-like power - except for a child. The Child has nothing. At three months of age, he knows only what he has experienced through the bars of his locked cage. He has nothing. He doesn't have a mommy. He doesn't have a daddy. He doesn't have a name. The scientists who created him do not handle him, because they know The Child is dangerous. In The Darkness, Two women clash in a vicious battle that has been fought since the days of King Solomon - the fight over a child. One woman unleashes the nightmarish arsenal of modern science while the other dispatches the weaponries of witchcraft. And as The Child grows up, his love for one and resentment for the other will change the fate of both these women, forever.


The Darkness, Crystal Connor's debut novel, is an interesting blend of dark fantasy bordering on horror, science fiction and urban fantasy that completely does away with traditional genre categories. In fact, it does away with a lot of other elements traditionally found in speculative fiction and literature in general, such as the portrayal of motherhood, womanhood and characters of color. Like a lot of debut novels, there are quite a few things to praise here, but also a few to nitpick.

The opening chapters are among the best I've read in a while, as Connor is quick to set up an uneasy atmosphere that successfully grabs hold of her readers from the very start. You'll get chills down your spine by the time you read these words "I used to call you mother". And you'll want to know who this child is and what could possibly have happened for him to hold such hatred towards the one who rescued him. And here's the double-edged sword, because Connor will tell you this story.

She takes you back to the days when The Child was but a child, albeit with extraordinary abilities he couldn't always control, sometimes to dreadful consequences. The novel's pace slows down then, though I'd be hard pressed to ever call it slow, because Connor smartly alternates between past and present narratives. But the novel does start to lose some of its initial steam as we get to know more about Adam and identify with Artemisia's feelings for him. We know he's dangerous, and yet, he seems to be such a cute little baby that it's hard to re-conciliate the initial perception we had of him as a dangerous stalker, lurking and simply waiting for the right moment to strike, and this little child acting like any child, manipulating his environment to obtain what he wants. Again, this was a necessary step in the narrative, the reader's understanding of the past and Artemisia's feelings towards her child, otherwise the ending wouldn't have that much of an impact. But while building up for the ending, it also slowly unravels the atmosphere of gloom and unease that made the opening pages so gripping. And I never seemed to be able to reconnect with it later on. It felt like the fog had lifted and I could see the background tricks. I do realize this is a probably me being picky as I haven't read any other reviews that hinted at this and truth is, I don't think there was any way around it; except perhaps starting the novel at another point? But truly, I can understand that it was too tempting for both author and editor to have the novel start then and loose steam later on, rather than the other way around. Anyway, the character of Adam annoyed me as we got to know him. I struggled to see him as the psychopathic murderer the author wanted us to see, all I could see was an annoying little brat with special powers going through a teenage crisis.

I did however greatly enjoyed the characters of Artemisia and Inanna, both embodied different types of womanhood and motherhood (one could argue that where one is science and rationality, the other is magic and emotions, but it's a bit more complicated than this simplistic dichotomy), but both are strong, ambitious women who will stop at nothing to get what they want and they don't look for excuses or pretend to be sorry about it. I think the novel's greatest asset resides in the opposition of these two characters. Had the novel only included one and not the other, and had opposed Artemisia/Inanna to what I'll refer to as the traditional mother character, Artemisia/Inanna would have inevitably been set up as the dark side, the evil one, the ambitious black woman with an agenda. In The Darkness, because they share these traits, one is not set up as good and the other as evil. Both obey their own laws whether these happen to fit the laws of man or not, both love Adam and want to be a good mother to him, and so neither is good or evil. Without spoiling the ending, if the reader manages to rid himself of his traditional perception of motherhood and what it implies, and simply puts together the pieces scattered throughout the novel, the decision taken at the end of the novel makes perfect sense. That's all I can say and keep this review spoiler-free.

The Darkness is a short novel, with a gripping opening and a shocking ending. And while I do have queries about some of the middle parts, it must be recognized that it's a far from being your usual urban fantasy novel, especially when it comes to the portrayal of women of color and motherhood. Also know that a sequel is in the making, Artificial Light. 

And here's another self-published title...

Author: Siobham Curham
Title: Dear Dylan
Genre: YA
Original Publisher: Self-published through AuthorHouse
Date of first publication: April 2010
Pages: 208

French rights are with Flammarion

“I’m so tired of feeling sad. And waiting for other people to make me happy and they don’t. And if no-one else is going to make you happy, well maybe you just have to do it for yourself?”

Fourteen year old Georgie Harris feels as if the summer holidays are over before they have even begun. Banned from going to the local drama workshop by her bully of a step-dad and her increasingly fragile mum, she is consigned to six long weeks of looking after her tooth-fairy obsessed kid sister. Sick of feeling like the outsider at home and at school, she starts emailing the one person she thinks might understand; Dylan Curtland, star of the popular soap opera Jessop Close. And when Dylan starts emailing back, Georgie finally feels a spark of hope. At last she has someone who really gets her, someone who really wants to help. But in the faceless world of email all is not as it seems…

This self-published has an interesting story. In 2009, Siobhan Curham was offered a two-book deal and turned it down. She self-published Dear Dylan in April 2010 and in November, it won the YoungMind Book Award. Earlier this month, it was acquired by Egmont as part of a two-book deal and it will be relaunch in July.

Dear Dylan is the last novel I read for my previous job and I consider myself very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to read it. 

It's not often you encounter YA 'issue novels' that are a) engaging and b) not actually depressing. That is not to say that I don't enjoy a nice tragic story once in a while, but there seems to be this trend, especially in YA, of novels that are just a succession of tragic events with no light at the end of the tunnel. And these novels tend to leave me feeling hollow, depressed and wondering 'what's the point?' I'm not a partisan of the 'every YA/children titles should have a happy ending' argument, but if I can't find any purpose to the endless stream of suffering, something to take away with me as I turn the last page, then I'm not a happy reader. I'm glad to say that Dear Dylan is not one such story.

The novel's format is unusual and presents a great many challenges for any author. The story is entirely told as a series of emails, recounting the life of 13-year-old Georgie whose Summer holiday is just about to begin when she decides to write to her favorite TV actor, the young Dylan Curltand via his website. And well, she's quite surprised when she starts receiving responses to her fan mail. Oh go on now, admit it, the teenager in you has fantasized about this... more than once, I think it's safe to say...

I'm not going to say anymore than that because there's no point in ruining the surprise.

I admit I was a bit skeptic about the whole epistolary aspect. I didn't think it could work throughout the novel. Surely, at some point, the author would have to find a clever way around this or risk the overall pace of the novel slowing down and the whole thing collapsing on itself. Well, it didn't. The narration stayed strong till the very end. 

The very element that endangers the whole exercise is also what makes the novel's original and so engaging in the first place. The main character's voice is a strong one and the words flow, accessible, light and funny. You can't help but tun the pages to know what's going to happen next, but it's also just to follow the voice. 

And yet, the story is far from being light and carefree. Curham broaches some very delicate and important issues, similar to those raised by Jacqueline Wilson or Melvin Burgess. In fact, there seems to be a discrepancy between the level of writing, the age ground targeted, and the maturity of the issues raised. Again, this goes to prove that children's writing is not and should not all be all teletubbies and smiley faces. I think most kids are able to approach and comprehend delicate issues, it's all a question of presentation or representation. And I must say that in Dear Dylan, it's done brilliantly.

I would recommend this to those looking for something different in children's literature, something a bit heavier than you'd initially expect it to be, but whose package you just can't resist.