A Cup Of Rage - Raduan Nassar (translated by Stefan Tobler) - Man Booker International Prize 2016

Don’t forget that in life’s rough and tumble motives aren’t the point.

Welcome to the “rough and tumble” world of Raduan Nassar and his short but bitter description of human relationships, and the motive? That’s not the point.

Here’s a short review for a very very short book.

The shortest book on the 2016 Man Booker International Prize longlist for many a year (I can only think of poetry books and chapbooks that I own that are shorter than this work), is the Brazilian “A Cup of Rage” by Raduan Nassar (translated by Stefan Tobler). Originally published in 1978, under the title ‘Um Copo de Cólera’, and running to a mere 45 pages this publication is not a weighty read, however it isn’t a shallow one either.

Our book opens with the distant allure of our male protagonist nonchalantly eating a tomato sprinkled with salt, he knows that his detached approach is fuelling a lustful desire in his partner. Our story then moves to the bedroom and we continue the detachment with distant observations that our male believes will be forthcoming in the love making, descriptions of feet, hands, hair, these are more detailed than the act itself.

A mere seven chapters, with six of them taking up less than fourteen pages, each chapter is written in long melancholic single paragraphs, in fact single sentences, pages and pages of single sentences, this work, although short, is not simplistic nor conventional;

It was already half past five when I said to her ‘I’m going to jump out of bed’ but she wound herself around me like a creeping vine, her claws closing where they could, and she had claws on her hands and claws on her feet, and a thick, strongly smelling birdlime over her whole body, and since we were almost grappling each other I said ‘let me go, little bindweed’, knowing that she liked it when I spoke that way, so in response she said. Feigning solemnity, ‘I won’t let you go, my grave Cypressus erectus’, her eyes beaming with pride at her impressive repartee (although there she wasn’t well versed in botanical matters, even less so  in the geometry of conifers, and the little that she dared flaunt concerning plants she has learnt from me and nobody else), and in the knowledge that there are no branches or trunks, however strong the tree may be, that can resist the advances of a creeper, I tore myself away from her while there was time and slipped quickly over to the window, immediately raised the blind and felt on my still warm body the cold, damp air that started to get in the room,…

Broken into seven chapters, as described above, the opening revealing our manipulative male alluring the younger woman and the subsequent sexual actions, the longer middle section containing a destructive, unexplained, bitter battle of words and wits, and an ending which I will not reveal here, this is a work that contains a raft of quotable observations, our rich older male landowner, moves from lover to enraged verbal abuser, the catalyst for his behaviour appearing to be him observing ants destroying his prized hedge;

…livid with these wonderfully orderly ants, livid with their model efficiency, livid with how fucking organized they are that they left the weeds well alone and ate my privet hedge

An observation that flies in the face of his own behaviour, an organised, calculating, efficient, scheming man who is now rebelling against all he stands for. Our counterpoint to his outrageous boiling over, is a younger successful journalist female, a wisecracking, often laughing, intellectual who can verbally deflate even the most boisterous of egos. “In short the little miss could never get enough of this ‘old man’.”

The wise observations are scattered throughout:

I who was – methodically – mixing reason and emotion into and extraordinary alchemical amalgam.

Not forgetting that reflection is nothing more than the excretions of the drama of our existence, foolishly put on a pedestal by us.

A work that explores the manipulative side to relationships, the allure, the sexual desire and then the destructive, often violent, reactions, the perpetual spiral of self-destruction, the slipping away from attraction and into rejection.

Although an intriguing work, with gems scattered throughout and a wise view on relationships, however, personally I feel this is a short story, even too short to be classed as a novella, and this has to be a major hindrance as to the book’s ability to even make the shortlist, let alone take out the Man Booker International Prize itself.  

Best Translated Book Award Longlist 2016

I may well be in the throes of reading the Man Booker International Prize longlist as a Shadow Jury member, however the world of translated literature doesn’t stop just because a few of us have teetering “to be read” piles.  The pre-eminent United States translated award “The Best Translated Book Award” have today announced their Fiction and Poetry longlists and that means thirty-five titles have now received a little more publicity and, for myself, the “to be read” pile has grown significantly.

I have read ten of the twenty-five listed on the Fiction Award and have managed to review seven to date (the other three are coming soon, trust me), only one of the Poetry longlist I have read, and depending upon my diary, free time, work and charity commitments I do intend to get to the missing titles over the coming months. It will not be in time for the shortlist announcements on 19 April 2016, but that doesn’t mean I won’t get to these featured translated works. I do have a couple of favourites on the fiction longlist, but will reserve my judgement until I've read a few more, however I do expect both "Arvida" and "Mirages of the Mind" to generate a bit of healthy debate amongst the judges.

The Man Booker International Prize and the Best Translated Book Award have four common titles across their longlists ("Tram 83", "A General Theory of Oblivion", "The Story of the Lost Child" and "The Four Books") with Eka Kurniawan featuring on the US list with "Beauty is a Wound" and the UK list with "Man Tiger" due to different publishing dates for his translations into English.

Links to reviews are included on the titles below and if you would like a more comprehensive listing of translated literature blogger’s reviews, Lisa Hill at ANZ Lit Lovers has done an amazing job compiling a list here 

FICTION LONGLIST

A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa, translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn (Angola, Archipelago Books)

Arvida by Samuel Archibald, translated from the French by Donald Winkler (Canada, Biblioasis)

Nowhere to Be Found by Bae Suah, translated from the Korean by Sora Kim-Russell (South Korea, AmazonCrossing)

The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud, translated from the French by John Cullen (Algeria, Other Press)

French Perfume by Amir Tag Elsir, translated from the Arabic by William M. Hutchins (Sudan, Antibookclub)

The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (Italy, Europa Editions)

Sphinx by Anne Garréta, translated from the French by Emma Ramadan (France, Deep Vellum)

The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov, translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel (Bulgaria, Open Letter)

Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman (Mexico, And Other Stories)

The Sleep of the Righteous by Wolfgang Hilbig, translated from the German by Isabel Fargo Cole (Germany, Two Lines Press)

Moods by Yoel Hoffmann, translated from the Hebrew by Peter Cole (Israel, New Directions)

Beauty Is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan, translated from the Indonesian by Annie Tucker (Indonesia, New Directions)

The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector, translated from the Portuguese by Katrina Dodson (Brazil, New Directions)

The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli, translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney (Mexico, Coffee House Press)

Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila, translated from the French by Roland Glasser (Democratic Republic of the Congo, Deep Vellum)

The Body Where I Was Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated from the Spanish by J. T. Lichtenstein (Mexico, Seven Stories Press)

The Things We Don’t Do by Andrés Neuman, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia (Argentina, Open Letter)

I Refuse by Per Petterson, translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett (Norway, Graywolf Press)

War, So Much War by Mercè Rodoreda, translated from the Catalan by Maruxa Relaño and Martha Tennent (Spain, Open Letter)

One Out of Two by Daniel Sada, translated from the Spanish by Katherine Silver (Mexico, Graywolf Press)

Berlin by Aleš Šteger, translated from the Slovene by Brian Henry, Forrest Gander, and Aljaž Kovac (Slovenia, Counterpath)

The Big Green Tent by Ludmila Ulitskaya, translated from the Russian by Polly Gannon (Russia, FSG)

Murder Most Serene by Gabrielle Wittkop, translated from the French by Louise Rogers Lalaurie (France, Wakefield Press)

The Four Books by Yan Lianke, translated from the Chinese by Carlos Rojas (China, Grove Press)

Mirages of the Mind by Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi, translated from the Urdu by Matt Reeck and Aftab Ahmad (India, New Directions)

POETRY LONGLIST

A Science Not for the Earth: Selected Poems and Letters by Yevgeny Baratynsky, translated from the Russian by Rawley Grau (Russia, Ugly Duckling)

Minute-Operas by Frédéric Forte, translated from the French by Daniel Levin Becker, Ian Monk, Michelle Noteboom, and Jean-Jacques Poucel (France, Burning Deck)

Rilke Shake by Angélica Freitas, translated from the Portuguese by Hilary Kaplan (Brazil, Phoneme Media)

Wild Words: Four Tamil Poets, edited and translated from the Tamil by Lakshmi Holmström (India, HarperCollins India)

Empty Chairs: Selected Poems by Liu Xia, translated from the Chinese by Ming Di and Jennifer Stern (China, Graywolf)

Load Poems Like Guns: Women’s Poetry from Herat, Afghanistan, edited and translated from the Persian by Farzana Marie (Afghanistan, Holy Cow! Press)

Silvina Ocampo by Silvina Ocampo, translated from the Spanish by Jason Weiss (Argentina, NYRB)

The Black Flower and Other Zapotec Poems by Natalia Toledo, translated from the Spanish and Isthmus Zapotec by Clare Sullivan (Mexico, Phoneme Media)

The Nomads, My Brothers, Go Out to Drink from the Big Dipper by Abdourahman A. Waberi, translated from the French by Nancy Naomi Carlson (Djibouti, Seagull Books)

Sea Summit by Yi Lu, translated from the Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain (China, Milkweed)

For more details on the awards, and the lists visit the Fiction page at Three Percent (University of Rochester) here and the Poetry list here. 

A Whole Life - Robert Seethaler (translated by Charlotte Collins) - Man Booker International Prize 2016

It has been a very busy few weeks here at Messenger’s Booker, the reading of the longlist for the inaugural Man Booker International Prize longlist continues, however the reviews have been a little thin on the ground as something had to give whilst I juggled numerous projects. I’m fully geared up to catch up, so over the coming fortnight expect a review every couple of days as I work my way through the backlog and reveal my thoughts on each of the works on the 2016 Man Booker International Prize longlist.

Starting the ball rolling with the novel “A Whole Life” by Robert Seethaler, translated from the German by Charlotte Collins, and originally published as ‘Ein ganzes Leben’. This is a simple tale of Egger, his whole life;

Andreas Egger was considered a cripple, but he was strong. He was a good worker, didn’t ask for much, barely spoke, and tolerated the heat of the sun in the fields as well as the biting cold in the forest. He took on any kind of work and did it reliably and without grumbling. He was as good with a scythe as he was with a pitchfork. He turned the freshly mown grass, loaded dung onto carts, and lugged rocks and sheaves of straw from the fields. He crawled over the soil like a beetle and climbed between rocks to retrieve lost cattle. He knew in which direction to chop different kinds of wood, how to set the wedge, hone the saw and sharpen the axe. He seldom went to the inn, and he never allowed himself more than a meal and a glass of beer or Krauterer. He scarcely spent a single night in a bed; usually he slept on hay, in attics, in small side rooms and in barns, alongside the cattle. Sometimes, on mild summer nights, he would spread a blanket somewhere on a freshly mown meadow, lie on his back and look up at the starry sky. Then he would think about his future, which extended infinitely before him, precisely because he expected nothing of it. And sometimes, if he lay there long enough, he had the impression that beneath his back the earth was softly rising and falling, and in moments like these he knew that the mountains breathed.

Opening in 1933, our novel is set high in the mountains and our protagonist Egger is attempting to take the local goatherd into town, on his back, as the old man is dying.  The natural world being one of the main players here, as Egger and the goatherd battle the blizzard and the elements to avoid death’s clutches. From the early pages we understand that the relationship between this ordinary man, Egger, and the natural world, will be a main theme throughout. As is the close relationship with death;

‘The Cold Lady…She walks on the mountain and steals through the valley. She comes when she wants and takes what she needs. She has no face and no voice. The Cold Lady comes and takes and goes. That’s all. She seizes you as she passes and takes you with her and sticks you in some hole. And in the last patch of sky you see before they finally shovel the earth in over you she reappears and breathes on you. And all that’s left for you then is darkness. And the cold.’

This work is a simple tale of a simple man, a whole life, taking the reader through the arrival of technology in the mountain village, the Second World War, marriage, simple work on the land or on the cable cars, with the shadow of the all-powerful, all pervading nature always shimmering on the horizon;

As he walked along the road that ended just behind the village, he had a strange empty feeling in his stomach. Deep down, he felt sorry for the old farmer, He thought of the milking stool and wished he could have a chair and a warm blanket, and at the same time he wished he could have death. He went on along the narrow path up the mountain, all the way to Pichlersenke. Up here the ground was soft and the grass short and dark. Drops of water trembled on the tips of the blades, making the whole meadow glitter as if studded with glass beads. Egger marvelled at these tiny, trembling drops that clung so tenaciously to the blades of grass, only to fall at last and seep into the earth or dissolve to nothing in the air.

In a novel that has very limited dialogue, this reflective piece takes us from youthful innocence to aged indifference. Later in the novel Egger attends a funeral and whilst trudging along in the incessant rain, he catches sight of a child watching television and laughing. This juxtaposition of comfort, progress and innocence against battle worn, dreary, weary and aged is one of the many wonderful elements of a celebratory tale.

Yes, this is a simple story, but it is a celebration of a simple man, a recognition of the ordinary, making such extraordinary. Putting major events, such as the Second World War, into the background, they are just further experiences in Egger’s life, this work presents ‘a whole life’ of a person on the periphery, but the reflections and experiences highlight that no soul is insignificant.

A meditative novel, written in simple language, which pauses on the wonders of the natural world, the mountains, the sunrise, the moon, the stars, the ice, the rocks, man conquering the heights with engineering, simple beauty such as the dew on the grass and always being celebrated, however nature being untamed is always present too, an example being avalanches.

As a contender for the Man Booker International Prize? Possibly not, without the experimentation of language that others display, nor a political edge, nor strong allegory, this book is one that will possibly slip at the shortlist hurdle, but as a poetic piece celebrating the ordinary this is a worthwhile addition to any translated fiction collection.

The Man I Became - Peter Verhelst (translated by David Colmer)

When I think about it, I can conclude that I was force to become human in a very reckless way and that I am trying very carefully to remain it.

The theme of displacement is a common one in world literature, but I’m pretty sure I have never read a novel that is narrated by a gorilla. The opening sections of award winning Flemish writer Peter Verhelst’s, eleventh novel, “The Man I Became” tells the tale, in a first person narration, of a gorilla being captured, taken from his home and put onto a ship. The parallels to captured slaves, to refugees fleeing their homelands could not be more obvious:

We sailed into the New World at night. The ship docked. We heard knocking. Only when the enormous lights turned on did we see hundreds of people behind the glass walls. Their mouths opened and closed, but we couldn’t hear what they were shouting. Or were they laughing? Why were they waving? Were they angry? We couldn’t hear them through the thick glass, we could only hear their hands slapping the glass. Some of us hunched down, trying to make ourselves invisible. Flashes of light on all sides. And among all those red faces, all those gaping mouths, I saw – and will remember forever – the face of a girl. She looked straight into my eyes, and hers were gleaming. And on her lips I saw the sweetest, quietest, most delicate smile.

Whilst not your everyday narration, the story told by a gorilla, the language, style and themes capture you straight from the opening page;

Now that this story has been completed, I realize I didn’t write it seeking forgiveness – life itself forgave me long ago – but because the emotions belong to everyone: the sorrow, the longing, even the happiness. And what is happiness anyway? Perhaps, after finishing the story, the reader, like me, will witness the way the evening sun can sink through a woman. The glow on the face of a woman that allows us to see the sun long after it has set – I come from a family who value things like that. Stay sitting where you are a little longer to wait for the stars, which will appear like embers years after the fire has gone out. That too is a miracle.

However, this is not simply the tale of a gorilla captured, sent to the “New World”, as our narrator is taught how to chat, how to act human, use cutlery, shave, wear suits and after “rehabilitation” he is required to pass the ultimate test of his assimilation by attending a cocktail party. To simply draw parallels to a world currently struggling with the Syrian refugee crisis, or to align the story with tales of people fleeing Eastern Europe, or Africa, then having to readjust to their new surroundings in a different environment with a different culture a different set of basic rules, would be to miss some of the subtler nuances and observations of daily Western life.

We spent that whole evening and night unlocking the secrets of our telephones, our memories growing with every second.

Our narrator has obviously progressed well, to the stage where he can write this novel, but the retrospective view of his life includes pertinent observations about humanity’s relationship with nature, about our obsessions with “humanising” or domesticating animals, viewed with an element of innocence as our narrator slowly becomes aware of human frailties.

As the protagonist progresses through his assimilation and training he becomes so adept at being human he becomes one of the actors in a “Dreamland” show, performed solely by animals, about the history of civilisation. The commercial success of Dreamland based on tourists coming to view giraffes, lions, monkeys, gorillas, all performing in a spectacular light show, about the history of humanity. Again the parallels to shows by circuses or by SeaWorld are startling, and to have this narrated to us in the voice of one of the animal performers could be blasé, however in this case it is pulled off with masterful aplomb.

Also containing technological references, not just our reliance on telephones as the quote above shows, nor our decline in memory as these tools replace our needs, but also to advances such as the internet, the anonymous online behaviours, are subtly planted throughout.

Being part of Peirene Press’ “Fairy Tale Series”, the first of three books under that heading for 2016, I feel this is a fair description, containing elements of class struggles, justice, judgement, growth and development this tale, although short, is a wonderful observation on numerous topical subjects.

Written in simple, sharp, detached language, it is almost factual in presentation, containing glimmers of mystery and corruption (what would an expose on human frailties or culture be without corruption?), the language reflects what a taught gorilla may use when writing his memoirs. Containing the detached innocence an animal may feel, by not understanding the complexities of human corruption, the pursuit of the almighty dollar and the exploitation required for that end, this is both a revelation and depressing. Holding a mirror up to our society and having the view not being all that pretty is a wonderful expose.

Peirene Press books all contain the quote from the TLS, “Two-hour books to be devoured in a single sitting: literary cinema for those fatigued by film” and this latest release fits that bill nicely. Peirene also donate 50p from the sale of this book to Counterpoint Arts, a charity that promotes the creative arts by and about refugees and migrants in the UK. As the directors of Counterpoint Arts say on the inner sleeve; “We are living in a time of human displacement. We need bold and imaginative interventions to help us make sense of migration. And who better to do this than artists who are engaging with this issue.” A book that is wonderfully aligned with that statement, a book about displacement, a surreal fairy tale, but one that lingers and will make you think twice before you buy that next circus or SeaWorld ticket.

2016 Man Booker Prize Shadow Jury

Here is the Shadow Jury's official reaction to the longlist of thirteen titles announced on Thursday.

The Shadow Panel for the 2016 Man Booker International Prize congratulates the official judges on curating a longlist of thirteen fascinating titles, a selection containing many familiar names, but with enough surprise inclusions to keep us on our toes. We are particularly pleased about the geographical spread of the list; with seven of the thirteen books originating from outside Europe, the longlist has a truly global feel, which was certainly not the case with the final Independent Foreign Fiction Prize longlist.

Of course, as with any subjective selection, there are some areas for discussion. Firstly, we note that female authors are underrepresented, with just four of the thirteen titles written by women.  We share the concerns Katy Derbyshire expressed in her piece for The Guardian and would certainly like to see more books by women translated into English. However, we also acknowledge that the figure of 30% is close to the current percentage of translated fiction written by women published in English – and that the percentage among the submitted titles may have been even lower. Unfortunately, with the list of submissions a secret, we are unable to test that suspicion.

Despite the pleasing geographical spread, some areas of the world have missed out. There is nothing from the Arabic-speaking world, and Russian, once again, seems to have fallen out of favour. The largest oversight, however (and one also referred to by Eileen Battersby in her commentary in The Irish Times), is the total omission of books in the Spanish language. In a very strong year for Spanish-language literature in English, we find it surprising (to say the least) that not one of these books made it onto the final list. We would like to mention just a few of these books at this stage to support our point: The Illogic of Kassel by Enrique Vila-Matas; In the Night of Time by Antonio Muñoz Molina; The Boy Who Stole Attila’s Horse by Iván Repila; Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera; My Documents by Alejandro Zambra; Thus Bad Begins by Javier Marías. Of course, some of these titles may not have been submitted (again, we are unable to clarify this), but we do find this oversight puzzling.

Still, despite these issues (and the omission of László Krasznahorkai’s Seiobo There Below, winner of the American-based 2014 Best Translated Book Award, when one of the MBIP judges was on the panel), the Shadow Panel is happy to accept the official judges’ decision and will not be calling any titles in this year. However, as always, we reserve the right to create our own shortlist, one which may diverge from the official decision. We look forward to reading, reviewing and discussing the thirteen longlisted titles – and we hope the official judges will enjoy seeing our take on their decisions.

Man Booker International Prize Longlist 2016

The Man Booker International Prize judges have whittled the entry list of 155 works down to their longlist of thirteen books.

As previously posted here, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Man Booker International Prize have “merged” from this year onwards, with the Man Booker award pretty much taking on the rues and criteria from the IFFP – for example it is now yearly, it is now for a single work instead of a body of work, the prize is shared between the writer and the translator. For a few years I have been a member of the IFFP Shadow Jury and that continues this year with an avid group of eight readers, including myself, who will read, debate, blog and decide our favourite work from the list. More on the Shadow Jury can be found here 

Here are the thirteen longlisted books for 2016:

José Eduardo Agualusa (Angola) Daniel Hahn, A General Theory of Oblivion (Harvill Secker)

Elena Ferrante (Italy) Ann Goldstein, The Story of the Lost Child (Europa Editions)

Han Kang (South Korea) Deborah Smith, The Vegetarian (Portobello Books)

Maylis de Kerangal (France) Jessica Moore, Mend the Living (Maclehose Press)

Eka Kurniawan (Indonesia) Labodalih Sembiring, Man Tiger (Verso Books)

Yan Lianke (China) Carlos Rojas, The Four Books (Chatto & Windus)

Fiston Mwanza Mujila (Democratic Republic of Congo/Austria) Roland Glasser, Tram 83 (Jacaranda)

Raduan Nassar (Brazil) Stefan Tobler, A Cup of Rage (Penguin Modern Classics)

Marie NDiaye (France) Jordan Stump, Ladivine (Maclehose Press)

Kenzaburō Ōe (Japan) Deborah Boliner Boem, Death by Water (Atlantic Books)

Aki Ollikainen (Finland) Emily Jeremiah & Fleur Jeremiah, White Hunger (Peirene Press)

Orhan Pamuk (Turkey) Ekin Oklap, A Strangeness in My Mind (Faber & Faber)

Robert Seethaler (Austria) Charlotte Collins, A Whole Life (Picador)

Stay tuned to this blog, and those of the other Shadow Jury members, as reviews of all of these works will be forthcoming.

The Vegetarian - Han Kang (translated by Deborah Smith) - Man Booker International Prize 2016

By no stretch of the imagination do I purport to have any knowledge of South Korean history or understanding of their current cultural situation.

Therefore a potted history taken from the preface of "Maninbo: Peace & War" by Ko Un may help to put some of the cultural themes to the fore:

In early 1960 the citizens began to protest, provoked by blatantly falsified election results. On 19 April 1960 thousands of university students and high school students marched on the Blue House, the presidential mansion, demanding new elections and calling for Syngman Rhee's (a US installed leader in the 1940's) resignation, the numbers growing to over 100,000. Police opened fire on the protesters, killing approximately 180 and wounding thousands. On 26 April, President Rhee stepped down from power and went into voluntary exile. This series of events is known as the April revolution.

South Korea adopted a parliamentary system which considerably weakened the power of the president and so, while Yun Bo-seon was elected president on 13 August 1960, real power was vested in the prime minister. Following months of political instability, on 19 May 1961 Lt General Park Chung-hee launched a cou d'état overthrowing the short lived second Republic of South Korea and replacing it with a military junta and later the autocratic third Republic of South Korea. Almost at once, he authorised the establishment 1961 of the Korean Central intelligence agency. This was the notorious office responsible for the repression of political and social descent throughout his time in power, and beyond. After Yun resigned in 1962, Lt General Park consolidated his power by becoming acting president. In 1963, he was elected president in his own right. In 1971, Park won another close election against his rival, Kim Dae-jung. Shortly after being sworn in, he declared a state of emergency, and in October 1972, Park dissolved the legislature and suspended the 1963 constitution. The so-called Yushin ('revitalising') Constitution was approved in heavily rigged plebiscite in November 1972.

Meanwhile, South Korea had begun the process of industrialisation and urbanisation that were to catapult it to its current position in the world. This was done at the expense of many basic human rights, with low wages, absence of trade unions, arbitrary arrests and random killings. Finally, as more and more people taking to the streets to do demand a return to democracy and a liberalisation of society, Park seemed to be preparing a violent crackdown when he was assassinated by Kim Jae-gyu, The head of the Korean Central intelligence agency, on 26 October 1979.

For a while, it seemed that the dreamed-of restoration of democracy might happen, but on 18 May 1980, General Chun Doo-hwan staged a coup while provoking an uprising in the south-western city of Gwangju which left hundreds dead. All the leading dissidents were thrown into prison and a new dictatorship began.

After continuing resistance and sacrifice on the part of many dissidents, climaxing in huge demonstrations in June 1987 which forced the dictatorial regime to accept the Democratic Constitution, Korea was finally able to elect a civilian president in 1992.

It is against this backdrop of dissent, rebellion and corruption that the themes of "The Vegetarian" become clearer.

Broken into three parts “The Vegetarian” opens with the first person narration by Yeong-hye’s husband, a plain man with no ambitions;

I’ve always inclined towards the middle course in life. At school I chose to boss around those who were two or three years my junior, and with whom I could act the ringleader, rather than take my chances with those my own age, and later I chose which college to apply to based on my chances of obtaining a scholarship large enough for my needs. Ultimately, I settled for a job where I could be provided with a decent monthly salary in return for diligently carrying out my allotted tasks, at a company whose small size meant they would value my unremarkable skills. And so it was only natural that I would marry the most run-of-the-mill woman in the world. As for women who were pretty, intelligent, strikingly sensual, the daughters of rich families – they would only ever have served to disrupt my carefully ordered existence.

He is married to a plain unremarkable woman, our protagonist, Yeong-hye;

However, if there wasn’t any special attraction, nor did any particular drawbacks present themselves, and therefore there was no reason for the two of us not to get married. The passive personality of this woman in whom I could detect neither freshness nor charm, or anything especially refined, suited me down to the ground. There was no need to affect intellectual leanings in order to win her over, or to worry that she might be comparing me to the preening men who pose in fashion catalogues, and she didn’t get worked up if I happened to be late for one of our meetings. The paunch that started to appear in my mid-twenties, my skinny legs and forearms that steadfastly refused to bulk up in spite of my best efforts, the inferiority complex I used to have about the size of my penis – I could rest assured that I wouldn’t have to fret about such things on her account.

The basic plot of Han Kang’s novel is Yeong-hye’s decision to become vegetarian (vegan in fact as she also avoids, dairy, eggs, wearing leather etc.) and the subsequent consequences. The first section is narrated by Yeong-hye’s husband, the middle section a third person story of Yeong-hye’s brother-in-law’s relationship with her after her vegetarianism and the final section another third person account from the view of Heong-hye’s sister and husband of the artist featured in section two.

Let’s forget the linear plot as the sub-plot is the more interesting account here. This is a novel that explores institutionalisation, in many different forms, what it means to push against the norm, to what extent to we really have “freedom of choice”? The simple act of declaring her vegetarianism leads Yeong-hye to undergo ostracising by numerous peoples, not just her husband and her family, but governmental bodies, health professionals and more.

This is a novel that raises all the social norms, the familial norms, governmental norms, general rules of society, for example when is it okay to go semi-naked, when is it okay to choose what you eat, when is it okay to have a different appearance?

As the novel progresses the “kicking against the pricks” crosses into art, nature, sexual mores and begins to question our beliefs of what constitutes beauty, is it in the eye of the beholder? Is it something we have been programmed or influenced to believe?

The whole situation was undeniably bizarre, yet she displayed an almost total lack of curiosity, and indeed it seemed that this was what enabled her to maintain her composure no matter what she was faced with. She made no move to investigate the unfamiliar space, and showed none of the emotions that one might expect. It seemed enough for her to just deal with whatever it was that came her way, calmly and without fuss. Or perhaps it was simply that things were happening inside her, terrible things, which no one else could even guess at, and thus it was impossible for her to engage with everyday life at the same time. If so, she would naturally have no energy left, not just for curiosity or interest but indeed for any meaningful response to all the humdrum minutiae that went on on the surface. What suggested to him that this might be the case was that, on occasion, her eyes would seem to reflect a kind of violence that could not simply be dismissed as passivity or idiocy or indifference, and which she would appear to be struggling to suppress. Just then she was staring down at her feet, her hand wrapped around the mug, shoulders hunched like a baby chick trying to get warm. And yet she didn’t look at all pitiful sitting there; instead, it made her appear uncommonly hard and self-contained, so much so that anyone watching would feel uneasy, and want to look away.

A novel that questions social norms and raises questions such as, when someone is different why do we see vulnerability? The inner sleeve tells us that Yeong-hye spirals further and further into her fantasies of abandoning her fleshy prison and becoming – impossibly, ecstatically – a tree.”

Why did you use to bare your breasts to the sunlight, like some kind of mutant animal that had evolved to be able to photosynthesize?

A wonderfully rich, multi layered work, that questions a raft of social issues on many levels. Written in a sparse, almost detached style, the translation is obviously reflective of a deeper South Korean cultural awareness and allows the reader to subtly become haunted by Yeong-hye’s journey from a meat eater to a natural being.

Surely a work that will feature on the upcoming Man Booker International Prize and Best Translated Book Award longlists, and one I expect to go far in both of these awards. A work of rebellion but without the ra-ra of some books, a haunting journey of what it means to resist.

Hope Farm - Peggy Frew - 2016 Stella Prize

On International Women’s Day it is only appropriate that I look at a novel that has been longlisted for the Stella Prize, a Prize for Australian female writers.

I was hoping to get to as many of the twelve longlisted novels before the shortlist announcement this Thursday 10 March 2016, however it looks as though I will only get to four of the longlist. Jen Craig’s “Panthers & the Museum of Fire”,  “Six Bedrooms” by Tegan Bennett Daylight  and Charlotte Wood’s “The Natural Way ofThings”. With the Man Booker International Prize announcing their longlist on 10 March 2016, and being a member of the Shadow Jury for that award, I am tipping I’ll be a tad busy reading international literature over the coming months, however there is always a chance that the longlist for the Man Booker International Prize contains a number of works I have already read and I may have more spare time to read Australian literature than I had planned, I know…I’m kidding myself, the last few years I have read only one or two of the longlist so have at least ten books to get through over a month!!!

Peggy Frew’s “Hope Farm” opens with an epigram by Margaret Atwood; “You don’t look back along time but down through it, like water. Sometimes this comes to the surface, sometimes that, sometimes nothing. Nothing goes away.” (from Cat’s Eye) – will memory will be the theme here? A short section then follows a short dreamlike sequence, a wish for our narrator to return to Hope Farm before the main novel commences, an opening section titled “Before”, it is imperative you understand, the epicentre here is Hope Farm, what comes before that is simply ‘before’, this novel is a hodgepodge of memories:

It’s hard to remember much from before Hope. We lived in so many places – and in my memory they’ve merged to form a kind of hazy, overlapping backdrop. Certain details leap briefly to catch the light: a kitchen where I climbed into a cupboard and watched a woman’s feet shuffle back and forth as she cooked the hem of her orange robe lapping; the chain-link fence of a school yard, cool under hooked fingers and tasting, when I put my tongue to it, of tears; a dog with new puppies under a verandah, lifting her head to growl when we came squirming in on our elbows, me and a girl whose name is now lost but whose pierced ears I recall perfectly – the wonder of those gold circlets entering the downy, padded lobes. None of these details are anchored though – these is no sequence, no scaffold on which to hang them.

Once our narrator, thirteen-year-old Silver gets to Hope Farm in Victoria from an ashram in Brisbane, with her mother Ishtar, it is winter and we see the failed attempts of the residents at self-sufficiency. Doped out, on the dole (welfare) or working meaningless fruit picking jobs and living on a dilapidated farm:

So the crops had failed, the goats were gone, the compost was rotten, but still they stayed, these people. I suppose they had nowhere better to go. It was the eighties – they were a dying breed. And they were tired; their ideals had seized up and grown heavy somehow, and they didn’t know how to put them down. That’s the only explanation I can come up with now. At the time, of course, I gave it no thought. They were just there, they did what they did – or didn’t – and we were there as well, and I would simply, like always, have to put up with it.

The novel is broken into small sections with every so often a childlike diary/memoir appearing, highlighted by a different font, and it is the voice of a young pregnant girl, whose voice is this?

Silver lives through the town stigma attached to being a “hippy” child, the branding of being dirty, crawling with parasites, worms, lice, “running wild no doubt”. As each page unfolds we have a slow layering of experiences through the eyes of an impressionable child, and how these ‘snippets” of experience and memories mould and shape the adult our narrator is today.

A novel steeped in memory, the unreliability of such, a life made of fragments, the voice of an unreliable narrator, of course a character or voice common throughout literature, in this case this is a prominent feature, skilfully woven throughout to ensure the reader is always questioning the validity of the story instead of simply falling into the narration. This is a well-crafted feature throughout this book:

Or is this only how I remember her? Perhaps she did turn, did set down the peeler and come and site by me at the table, to put her arm around me, to lean in close so her warmth filled my breaths, asking me a question and then waiting for the answer. I often wonder if I have done her a disservice in the way I recall her, in what I have managed to haul from the murk and lay out under the harsh beans of examination and analysis. But I am at the mercy of memory. All I can do is hang on, attend to what I’m supplied with, squint and puzzle over it.

Split into “before’ and “after”, containing the full breadth of the seasons, this is a novel exposing two sides to every story, we have the simple uneducated diary narration of the young innocent interrupting the reflective prose of a grown woman looking back at her childhood, reflecting on her upbringing on a self-sufficient “hippy commune” and wondering at all of the events that have moulded her into the woman she is today.

Early on we are privy to a mysterious event that would shape our narrator, that would “invoke all of those ghosts” and this hook, although easily identified, is a mystery that you need to decipher yourself. A well-crafted, readable and enjoyable novel about family relationships, memory, development of character, blended with a number of tragic stories that come bubbling to the surface. A worthy contender for the shortlist announcement later this week.