Elena Ferrante: The Story of the Lost Child

The 4th instalment in Elena Ferrante's Naples series hits this bookshops tomorrow and I'll be there to pick it up. I'm not writing a review of it today (not that I write reviews here really) but I did want to remind those who've read and and become fans of Ferrante to check out The Story of the Lost Child from Europa Editions.

Ferrante's books came onto my radar some time ago but after I started writing about her last year, several people picked up her books and told me that they really liked them a lot. At least eight people stopped me at the Festival in 2015 to thank me for introducing her here and on my social media.

Not everyone has raved about her: one person whose opinion I trust a lot told me that she just couldn't connect with the two young girls in My Brilliant Friend. Another person, a friend, told me that she didn't really connect with the books until about 1/3 of the way through the 2nd one, The Story of a New Name. Fair Enough. Not every book speaks to every reader. But the vast majority of people have really liked them a lot and become a bit crazy about the Naples series in particular.

We did an Elena Ferrante Breakfast at the 2015 Festival which was one of our biggest breakfast events ever. We generally try to keep these breakfast events at 10-12 but 27 people showed up to that one! And a very interesting discussion ensued (participants kept asking if the host was really Elena Ferrante which made us laugh hysterically afterwards).

Given the fact that Ferrante refuses to do publicity and is highly mysterious, when she does rarely agree to give an interview, it's a big deal. She spoke to the Paris Review several months ago and Vanity Fair managed to score an interview here as well. This one I find better than the Paris Review interview because there is so much about the friendship at the core of the books. But I wouldn't read them until you've read the books because lots is given away (not spoilers per se but one of the pleasures of reading the books is simply going in blind and discovering the world for yourself). Scott Esposito has a review here on SF Gate of the latest.

For those who aren't familiar with the series, they chart the friendship of two girls in Naples in the 1950s and each new instalment traces the women's relationships through the ups and downs of late 20th century Italian history. But that makes the books sound dry and detached and they are far from either.

The Story of the Lost Child is released tomorrow.

Book-scented candles, Margaret Atwood beermeister, Film Festivals, London Ontario as serial killer-ville, Marilyn Monroe in psychiatric hospital: Cultural Digest August 28

Mags' brew

• This creeps me out just a bit but if you're really crazy about books, you can now make your entire place smell like books with book-scented candles. I can't imagine old pages of Shakespeare are creating this smell; I'm sure it's chemicals made in some laboratory somewhere. Ik.
• Isabella at Magnificent Octopus writes about discovering Margaret Atwood's beer, made with her husband and a brewery. Cool label and cheers.
• Seven Italian films in competition at TIFF this year. I'm glad to see that Italian filmmakers are doing interesting stuff again after years of making shlock.
• Speaking of film, the MWFF, which opened yesterday, continues to rile controversy as Denis Coderre, Montreal's mayor, asks Losique (the Festival's long-time director) to step down. The Festival has pulled off an almost unheard of feat in Canada: putting on a festival this year and last with no government funding at all (469 films in total) after varying levels of government refused to support the Festival (after some fishy accounting possibly). This links to the story in French.
• An intriguing new book looks at London, Ontario, and all that exists beneath the surface, including the fact that at one point, it was considered the serial killer capital.
• One of her letters shows the terrifying experience that Marilyn Monroe went through when she spent time in a psychiatric hospital. 

Krakatoa Changed the World

An interesting Mental Floss article here on 10 Facts about Krakatoa, the volcano that erupted in 1883 and caused massive destruction, killed 36,000+ people and affected weather patterns for a generation.

The blast was so loud, apparently, it could be heard more than 2,500 miles away.

Simon Winchester's 2005 book, Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded, suggests that the eruption's

Munch's sky looks downright Krakatoan

effects were so far-reaching, even contemporary Indonesian politics and society still haven't escaped the long shadow of the horrific eruption nearly 150 years later.

Oddly (I've heard this before), so much ash and so much gas was released into the atmosphere after the eruption, that sunsets were brilliant for years and years later, so much so that many have speculated that the sky in Edvard Munch's iconic painting, The Scream (first painted in 1893), shows evidence of the effects of the eruption in how the painter approached the vibrant reds and oranges in the sky.

One of the most fascinating parts of the book is the role that the Colonial Powers played in disseminating news of the tragedy around the world via the new fangled technological advance, the telegraph. There's racism here. There are heroes. There is tragedy and there is triumph.

Winchester's books are consistently readable, and the range of subjects that interests him is quite impressive: from the tale of the Oxford English Dictionary, about the birth of modern geology, and the history of the US.

Anyway, the Mental Floss article just reminded me about what a great book Winchester's book is and I pulled it down off the shelf and re-read most of it last night. Such a great read!

Poetry attire, David Foster Wallace on audiobook, Joseph Roth, Fictionalizing Life, Gamache is back, World Press Photo and Film Festival Opens in Montreal: Cultural Digest August 27

Thomas Hirschhorn,  Subjecter (News-poetry), 2010

• Audiobook actor, Sean Pratt, who has recorded over 800 audiobooks, reflects on what it was like to read David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest for recording - all 56 hours of it. One of the challenges, apparently, was mimicking Quebecois Francophone speech (it figures widely in large chunks of the book).
• A moving and compelling piece at The Millions which I enjoyed immensely: the writer attempts to turn a painful part of his past & identity into writerly approaches so that he might turn the experience into a book. What emerges is a meta reflection on how we turn experience into something for other people, how we embellish and how we find truth.
• A review of the new Joseph Roth anthology, The Hotel Years (his journalism from the 1920s and 1930s Europea) which I wrote about yesterday.
• A dress made of poetry. That's all.
• Pickle Me This looks at Louise Penny's latest book, The Nature of the Beast.
• L'Actualité previews events and highlights at World Press Photo Montreal (Site is in French).
• Montreal World Film Festival opens tonight! Lots of things look interesting including their World Competition, a  Swedish documentary about Ingrid Bergman, a large number of Italian films and (one of my favorites) a number of Japanese films as well. And that's just the tip of the iceberg...

Gamache is back

Helping Syria through soup, Joseph Roth in hotels, Mona Lisa's grin, book covers in Weimar Era, Montreal's Chinatown: Cultural Digest August 26

• Some well-known chefs come together to publish a cookbook in order to aid Syrian refugees. A great indication that we can't all donate $20,000 nor can we hop a flight and work in a refugee camp on the border. But we can all do our part to remind the world that this crisis isn't over.
• On the occasion of Taschen's new book on book covers, Paris Review looks at a history of book covers and at the style and function of book covers during the Weimar Republic. Man, can Taschen do no wrong? I'd have 10 of their books if they didn't cost $150 a pop! I was in their shop in New York City once and could have spent $1,000. I didn't.
• Maisonneuve Magazine publishes a lovely little piece about Montreal's Chinatown. 
• We all recognize that self-satisfied smirk. Maybe not. New information about the intriguing smile of the Mona Lisa. 
• A new Joseph Roth collection (translated by one of the best translators in the world, honestly, Michael Hofman) comes out next month. This is a collection of Roth's journalism between the two World Wars as he battled alcoholism and attempted to re-establish his name and career after not being able to keep it together. What a brilliant mind and what an incredible writer.

Drago Jančar's The Galley Slave

One of the best parts of traveling is getting to know writers and books that I might not discover otherwise. A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I had been in Slovenia earlier this summer and how a few people had recommended Slovenian writer Drago Jančar to me. So I picked up his The Tree with No Name and was blown away by it.

I read several other Slovenian novels and other books in the Slovenian Series that Dalkey Archive has been doing. I enjoyed them but there is something about the voice and pre-occupation of Jančar that speaks to me. The Galley Slave tells the story of Johann Ot who in the late middle ages travels as a kind of spiritual renegade from village to village in the midst of a country-wide religious revival.

Suspicion is everywhere: villagers are suspicious of newcomers, the corrupt government is suspicious of any kind of underclass stoking revolution and uprising, and the criminal class is suspicious of the new religious temperature which sees witches and devils in every unknown action, face or mystery. Johann Ot's aim is merely to survive without being burned at the stake or being installed on one of the many torture devices he hears about.

Published in 1978 behind the Iron Curtain, many saw this as an allegorical portrait of life under the brutal Communist occupation (even if Yugoslavia, which Slovenia had been swallowed up by, had a more benign and less oppressive version compared with much of the Eastern Bloc and USSR). I think this simplifies the tale in a certain way and largely detracts from it: it may well have intended to be an  allegory but I found it alive in its portrayal of society in the Middle Ages where dogma had no basis in any kind of rational thought. And as is often the case in these kinds of tales (oddly, I kept thinking about Mad Men and how it portrayed the 60s and 70s), it attempts to tell us more about our own era than some time in the past we can never experience first-hand.

The novel starts out a bit slow and it takes a few dozen pages to really get into the story but once I was hooked, man, I raced through this book (read most of it this weekend). It's got long funny passages and moments when you have to stop and think for a while about how so much of what we worry about day to day is pointless since only the broad brushstrokes of life will be accessible at some distant point in the future. It made me wonder what people will think about life in early 21st century North America in 500 years and our religious devotion to scientific reason.

I have become a full-fledged Drago Jančar fan after this book. I still found The Tree With No Name more compelling (that one is set in WWII and in contemporary Ljubljana) but The Galley Slave was an excellent weekend read and when Jančar's latest is released in English in January, I'll definitely be adding that to my must-read list.

Elena Ferrante's 4th installment, WWB looks at Indonesian writing, Montreal's ruelles vertes in photos and maps, Wild at Heart, Walt Whitman animated and William Styron: Cultural Digest August 24

That's all she wrote: publishes Sept 1

• With the publication of the fourth in her Naples series, The Story of the Lost Child, the Elena Ferrante craze may now start to die down. I am very much looking forward to reading this myself as I've been waving the Ferrante flag for a long time and at least 10 people have told me they've picked up her works because of my recommendation. Nine out of ten people rave about the books (there's always the odd reader she doesn't connect with: that makes her even more intriguing to me).  Electric Lit has a nice study guide for those who might have read the books a while ago and would like a refresher. And Cora Currier at The Millions gives us a tour of other parts of Italy we might enjoy through books for those who won't have had enough after Europa Editions drops The Story of the Lost Child.
• This month the translation journal Words Without Borders focuses their gaze on Indonesia with a number of short stories and poems from this complex, amazing and highly under-represented (in literary terms) island nation.
• A walk through Montreal's charming ruelles vertes in Les Urbanites (website in French) and Kate from Montreal blog follows along, snapping photos the whole way. A great portrait of urban life in a contemporary Montreal summer. I just bought a place in one of these ruelles vertes though it's a big mess right now and I won't be able to move in for a year or two...
• Did you know that David Lynch's classic cult film Wild at Heart was predicted to be a major flop based on test audience reactions? Some 15 other wild facts about the film.
• Walt Whitman's poem "A Noiseless Patient Spider" comes alive through animation.
• Interview with William Styron with Peter Matthiessen and George Plimpton. Two of Styron's books continue to linger at the top of my best reads list: Sophie's Choice and The Confessions of Nat Turner.

Sheila Heti's first time, Mathias Énard in Granta, Atwood censored?, Assassination of Trotsky, Mia Coutu on Cecil the Lion: Cultural Digest, Monday August 24

Heti: amazing things happen while crashing in dad's basement

• Paris Review interviews writers on their first writing experiences. Here Sheila Heti talks about how she started out thinking she'd be a playwright but started writing stories while living in her father's basement. The first in the series is an interview with Tao Lin (I like his novel, Taipei).
• French writer Mathias Énard in Granta with a creepy little story that I've been thinking about for days.
• Odd goings-on: Margaret Atwood's article on Stephen Harper appears on National Post website, then disappears, then reappears again...
• Mental Floss retells the story of the assassination of Leon Trotstky. Long fascinated by the life and death of Trotsky, I didn't learn anything new here but it's still a story that I can't help but read again. I love all the intrigue, but all the peripheral characters are interesting too (people who include Frido Kahlo and Diego Rivera). For me, the best (fictional) version is Cuban writer Leonardo Padura's take on it in his novel The Man Who Loved Dogs.
• Mozambiquan writer, Mia Coutu (Blue Met 2013) spoke last week with The Guardian about Cecil the Lion, his legacy as a white African, and his latest novel, Confession of the Lioness. His book The Tuner of Silences was one of the best things I read in 2013.

Mags gets censored?

Gloria Steinem wins peace prize, NYT posts thousands of recipes, in stock at D&Q, New York City Reading List: Cultural Digest August 22

• New book alert: Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh is now in stock at Drawn & Quarterly (consistently impressed at the quality of their curation: every time I step into that shop, I want to buy 20 books). Get in on the ground before this writer is a household name.
• Hungry? The New York Times just put up 17,000 recipes online. Get feasty!
• Headed to New York? The Millions has an entire reading list to get to. Get cracking!
• Gloria Steinem wins Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
• James Baldwin and Malcolm X spar.

Gloria Steinem: longtime peacenik, now official

Marshland La Isla minima

Excellent Spanish movie Marshland (La Isla minima) is playing all next week at Cinema du Parc.

(No I have no deal with them! I just love the movies they show.)

Saw Marshland last night and was mightily impressed. Set in 1980 in southern Spain, the film is in a certain way a standard "whodunnit" but in the midst of the aftermath of a post-Franco government where nothing is what it seems and everyone has something to hide.

Filmed very beautifully with this aspect of nature that one rarely sees in Spanish film, the atmosphere is stifling, reflecting the small isolated town where it's set. When two sisters go missing, two police officers from Madrid are sent to investigate and they discover a series of young murdered women going back years. A plethora of red herrings and deliberate obfuscation part and parcel of all crime thrillers, but you're at the edge of your seat for much of the movie (and a few perfectly terrifying scenes).

The background is just as interesting though it's very understated (which seems to be the trend in these kinds of movies or TV shows where directors and writers make these broad political suggestions by simply planting a few clues about social things happening in the background): in the immediate aftermath of the death of Franco and Spain's slow transition to democracy, the past is still something people aren't willing to come to terms with and fear is a major part of the average person's response to any figure of authority. This colours, of course, our heroes' investigation and when one partner hears of the nefarious past of the other, it's not clear how this will end up.

Marshland has won a whole slew of awards and is widely acclaimed as one of the best films to come out of Spain in a few years (I love Spanish writing but their films rarely hit the mark except for the odd Almodovar film here and there). The film plays at Cinema du Parc all week next week. If you're a fan of crime thrillers, of the TV show True Detective (you can see the influence of that show on the movie), or of recent Spanish history, it'll be an interesting ride.

Montreal World Film Festival in Variety

Interesting article on the Montreal World Film Festival. Just last year it looked like it was curtains for this great Festival but, despite all odds and all the predictions that it would go down in history, the MWFF managed to pull off another year. And now this high profile (if rather surface-level) article in Vanity Fair.

I'd be curious to hear the inside story of how this article came to see the light of day. There's nothing in it that's particularly newsworthy, and I know how these things tend to work. Still, it surprises me that Variety is devoting space to the story.

It reflects what many people, including myself, have said about that Festival here: why do people assume that MWFF competes with Toronto? Toronto outspends and outperforms and has a far bigger market (audience, sponsors, government agencies, etc.) than Montreal.  We shouldn't be competing with Toronto: we have a totally different kind of audience here who are more sophisticated in a certain way, care less about the dazzle and are far more interested in the substance. And when I see the huge lines outside the theatres for some small independent Iranian or Indian or Indonesian film, I am so proud to live in this city. And no Nicole Kidmans or Jennifer Lawrences in sight...

It's the same for our Festival: Toronto is the centre of the publishing world and has far more support than we do. It's not what we do: our focus is international writers that never get a platform anywhere in Canada (or North America generally). And, of course, our Montreal writers which generally do very well for us.

There's this knee-jerk reaction from people in the entertainment, media, publishing or film world that "stars" are what makes a festival or movie or piece of art. And while it's true that we have to have a few stars each year, being famous doesn't make one a good writer or good actor or good anything. I can understand that some people become famous by being very good at their jobs, but being famous is not a value in and of itself.

Star power: a minor consideration for Montrealers

This cropped up recently when a famous daughter in a scion of American reality TV (I refuse to write the name, they don't need more publicity) had her birthday party here. The news stories annoyed the hell out of me but what really annoyed me is that a few hundred people actually went down to the riverbank and paid money to attend. She's not famous for anything except for being famous. Ugh. I was so disappointed that mainstream Montrealers gave into that crap. Who are these people exactly because everyone I know just rolled their eyes.

Because for me, I hold Montrealers to a higher standard: we don't need famous people or red carpets or $40,000 cocktail parties to make something successful. We want quality. We want edge. We want something that challenges us and makes us think. I find this year after year at our Festival too: a famous writer doesn't guarantee that an event will sell-out. It's more a question of how the event is shaped, the title it's given, the angle by which we will look at it. Local events sell out. Unknown writer events sell out. People are starved for something interesting with substance.

So I am encouraged by the angle that Serge Losique takes in this Variety piece.

David Byrne's library, More readers reading on phones, what vacations say about us, Neil Gaiman's 17 best, Ecuador's politics, Murakami's workspace: Cultural Digest for August 20

This is not my beautiful library. And these are not my beautiful books.

• David Byrne's personal lending library is now open. Lots of books on music history and the 80s punk scene in New York. You leave your credit card just in case you decide not to return a book, but other than that, you can read books that Byrne has read and often written in.
• Forget about e-readers and iPads: the future of reading will be done on the phone. This isn't surprising. Phones are getting bigger and bigger and it's the one item we almost always have with us.
• Though vacation season is ending, Arthur C. Brooks reflects on what vacation destinations say about us as individuals. And why do Americans get such limited vacations?
• Hear Neil Gaiman read 17 of his own short stories for free.
• A political cartoonist reflects on the war against the press in Ecuador.
• Haruki Murakami's workspace. His desk sure looks neat (this coming from a messy office-keeper).

Burlesque performers of colour, Ben Lerner in The Nation, Unreadable books, Raymond Carver's first published story, Yoko Tawada in Granta, and Antonio Tabucchi: Cultural Digest for August 19

Making burlesque history

• Performers of colour are radically changing the world of burlesque. This article also has an interesting history of burlesque and the role that African-American women played in it.
• One of Europe's most innovative writers, Yoko Tawada, who comes from Japan but writes in both Japanese and German, has a really excellent and interesting new piece in Granta called To Zagreb.
• The Nation has a long piece about the work of Ben Lerner, author of 10:04 and Leaving the Atocha Station.
• Three Guys and a Book reach back into the archives and review Pereira Declares by Antonio Tabucchi. I love to see books I like from the past getting looked at and praised. It's an novel that has stayed with me for a long time, mainly because one gets a rarely seen view of the Spanish Civil War from inside Portugal.
• On unreadable books by the always charming Sadie Stein.
• Pick a Card: Raymond Carver's first published short story.

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Between the World and Me

There are so many quotable bits from this book, one of the most buzzed about in recent months:

"All our phrasing - race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, event white supremacy - serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth...the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions, all land, with great violence, upon the body."

Excerpted in this month's Atlantic.

Cuba and the USA, Thierry Bouët photographs precious objects for sale, Two Brothers read by Michael Chabon, Hannah Arendt's personal library, 40 years of Rocky Horror: Cultural Digest for August 18

Likely has a Japanese diesel engine

• Avoid these common mistakes that writers make when they give readings. I see them all the time!
• Cuba won't be "saved" or that much changed by an opening of the US market, at least not according to Esther Allen.
• The Rocky Horror Picture show celebrates 40 years. Damn it, Janet. We love it!
• Fascinating project by French photographer Thierry Bouët who photographs the second-hand things that people are selling online. 
• Yet more pre-release publicity for Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá's much anticipated graphic novel, Two Brothers. This time by American writer Michael Chabon.
• A look inside Hannah Arendt's personal library.
• I thought this battle had been won?! Montreal's Lafontaine house still fighting to remain relevant, renovated and available for public use.

40 years of doing the Time Warp again

Writers wanted, Isaab Babel's new translation, Roxane Gay talks to Ta-Nehisi Coates, Pico Iyer on Las Vegas and Pyongyang: Cultural Digest, Monday August 17

• Writers wanted: where writers are finding agents and where writers are getting published.
• Excellent article on the "Brutal Lyricism of Isaac Babel." A new translation of the 1926 Red Cavalry. "Describing the absurdities and calamities of war, Babel undermines any version of Russian history that would have us think unswervingly nobel."
• Part of their interesting talks series, Barnes and Noble hosts a conversation between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay.
• Pico Iyer sets his razor-sharp intelligence on considering the differences and similarities between Las Vegas and Pyongyang, both being cities of "a mid-20th century spirit that saw what power and profit could be found in constructing mass fantasies..."

The Bicycle Thieves

As part of Montreal's annual Italian Week, I saw The Bicycle Thieves last night at Cinema du Parc. It's one of those films that I've known about and heard about and read about but never actually seen myself (I vaguely remember renting it once a long time ago but I never watched for some reason).

I can certainly see why the film is considered one of the best films ever made. Wow. So much going on in this rather straightforward tale of a family man on the hunt through the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle. Set in the immediate afterman of post-WWII Italy, the film is a master of understatement: the class issues are front and centre, of course, but the civil unrest and the images of authority and power and how they influence(d) the lives of ordinary Italians stand in the background and make up some of the most interesting things about the film.

I've spent time in Italy and only just returned, in fact, from a work trip there a few weeks ago and, naturally, much has changed. Yet much remains the same: Italians are not poor or living on the edge, but there is certainly poverty there (though it often remains relegated to immigrant communities). Of course, the church doesn't have nearly as much power as they did 70 years ago, but they are still front and centre in Italian society.

I'm certainly no expert on Italy or the Church or immigration to Europe, but these thoughts were ever present as I watched this seemingly simple tale, moved by the pain of an honest man sincerely trying to do his best for his family. (Incidentally, it's shocking how parenthood has changed! He lets his 7 year old son take the street car all alone and the kid actually has a job working in a gas station!)

There is little tenderness in the film, particularly between the father and the son, though in the final scene, there is a moment when all the pain and uncertainty comes together and the boy reaches for his father's hand. Rarely have I been so moved by such a common everyday gesture. The ambiguity with which the film ends is not totally unexpected or, rather, we know what the ambiguity means.

The film is one of the kick-off events for Montreal's Italian week with events through the 16th of August including other film, fashion shows, food, music concerts and more.

Tony Judt in Ukraine, Richard Blanco in Cuba, Jean-Michel Basquiat in Brooklyn, Patti Smith on Showtime: Cultural Digest, August 13

Basquiat at the Brooklyn Museum 

• A medieval sword contains a mysterious engraving that has been stumping experts and historians for years. 
• Reading Tony Judt in war-torn Ukraine. Tony Judt was one of our most important thinkers and when he died in 2010, it was a major loss for contemporary thinking, particularly on Europe and history.
• Jean-Michel Basquiat died on this day 27 years ago. The Brooklyn Museum is currently exhibiting some of his notebooks until August 23.
• Showtime will adapt Patti Smith's 2010 memoir, Just Kids, into a mini-series. 
• Cuba Through the Eyes of American poet Richard Blanco. Blanco reads a poem on the occasion of the opening of the US Embassy there, a first for an openly gay poet of Cuban dissent.

Kafka, a vanished Beirut, painter Paul P., creepy Edgar Allan Poe stories read aloud, Riad Sattouf's new one: Cultural Digest for August 12

• "Kafka belonged to his contemporary world and stood estranged from it."
• Young Lebanese graphic novelist discusses a vanished, haunting Beirut in two of her recently translated works.
• Paul P. is one of my favorite Canadian painters. That's all. Unfortunately, his works are in the $10,000 - $15,000 range at least. Out of my reach. 
• Edgar Allan Poe stories read by Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone. Should have saved this one for Halloween.
• Drawn & Quarterly shows off newest Riad Sattouf book now available in the shop on Bernard Street: L'Arab du futur. Sattouf is one of the rising stars of graphic fiction in France and in the Arab world. We almost had Sattouf at our Festival in 2015 but he had a last-minute conflict which meant a reschedule. 2016? Possibly (note that the links for Sattouf are in French).

Ages of Innocence by Paul P.

New publishing house for Muslim books based in Ottawa, Murakami on stage, Brazilian brothers' new graphic novel, Luis Alberto Urrea, Storylines at the Guggenheim: Cultural Digest for August 11

• Three sisters in Ottawa have opened a small publishing house to feature works by and about Muslim women and about the Muslim world broadly.
• Luis Alberto Urrea (Blue Met 2014) talks about his latest book, a poetry collection entitled "The Tijuana Book of the Dead."
• Haruki Murakami's book Kafka on the Shore has been made into a stage production that was performed at Lincoln Center in New York in July.
• Anticipation is building for the brotherly duo, Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, two of the comics world's biggest names, and their latest book, Two Brothers, which comes out later this fall. Their 2011 book, Daytripper, was one of the best graphic novels/serials I've ever read.
• The Paris Review looks at the connection between writers and the visual arts after a Guggenheim exhibition on the same theme, called Storylines.

Murakami on-stage

The Tribe

Now showing at Cinema du Parc, The Tribe is a 2014 Ukrainian film, written and directed by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy. The film is set in a boarding school for deaf kids but a very violent and nearly adult-less school where a small time gang runs all kinds of scams or crimes, from pickpocketing to prostitution to mugging pensioners to running visa scams.

The intriguing thing about the movie is that there is no dialogue: the entire film is done in sign-language but that takes surprisingly little time to get adjusted to as an audience member. Yes, we miss details, but the story arc is clear and easy to follow. Filmed with entirely deaf actors, the complexity of the film shoot must have been overwhelming (see a really interesting Vice interview here with one of the stars of the film).

What a bleak, depressing and dog-eat-dog world. I've been thinking a lot about the notion of power, particularly in how we (as in The West) deal with Russia, and this notion of power, physical power, being the end all beat all of respectability is one that isn't prominent in our law-based society. This thought came about because of an article I read a while back about what we don't understand about dealing with Putin, that power and how he holds on to power, is of deadly importance to him and explains all this visual imagery that is so key for him to maintain this reputation for being a strong man.  Obviously, the way we think about power is complex. But it seems to me that we approach power in a more subtle way in North America: power comes not just from brute strength but also from smarts, street smarts, intelligence and being one step ahead of one's enemy. But here power is open-faced, bloody, raw. There is no question that he who has the power is the one at the top and there is no room for things like diplomacy, intellectualism, or even just outmaneuvering one's enemy.

This is an almost operatic kind of tale, love, pain, betrayal, and murder. And there is no spoken dialogue. Quite an unusual cinematic experience on the whole. The critical reviews have been very solid, people comparing it to The Godfather and reacting to the fact that there are these long takes with very little cutting.

I have to say that this film is one that stays with you; I'm already replaying certain scenes in my mind, trying to work them out, wondering what the director was trying to do and, more importantly, how he did it.

Definitely worth seeing (I was surprised that there were so many people there) but don't see it if you're on the verge of feeling depressed or bleak. It's a dark and angry film though it's fascinating.

The Tribe plays this week and next at Cinema du Parc.

A History of Money, Toronto's waterfront investment, women of color in Hollywood, cultural activities and longevity: Cultural Digest August 8

Alan Pauls latest novel

• A recent study suggests that partaking in cultural activities can reduce inflammation and increase longevity. Plus it makes life more interesting, too, but that's just my opinion!
• Women of color are sorely underrepresented in Hollywood. What a surprise.
• Adam Thirwell in the New York Review of Books considers the fascinating work of Argentine writer Alan Pauls. Pauls frequently explores the ins and outs of contemporary politics in Argentina but through humane and interesting personal stories. I like his novel, The Past, and its exploration of collective memory. I've tried for a few years to get him at Blue Met... Pauls has a new translation of his 2013 novel with the simultaneously intriguing and blah title of A History of Money.
• Toronto is in the midst of their massive rehaul of their waterfront. Lots of $$, lots of hassle, but I have to say that the last time I was in Toronto, I was really amazed and impressed at how lively the waterfront has become where before it was like a shiny, glittery ghost town. Montreal keeps talking about something along these lines but so far, nada.

Investment in waterfront

The artwork in Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, Le Port de tête's best-sellers, Harper Lee refunds and abandoned Queen Vic: Cultural Digest, August 6

Pieter Brueghel the Junior, Donna Tartt's a #fangirl

• Disappointed readers of Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman are getting refunds. Fair enough. It was a travesty that this book was even published and speaks volumes about the desperate state of the publishing world in North America (or perhaps simply the cynical nature of the publishing world).
• Amazing Flickr photo gallery of the abandoned Queen Vic Hospital at the foot of Mount-Royal. The hospital moved in July and a big question mark still hangs over the fate of the gothic-style 19th century iconic building/compound.
• Le Port de tête, one of Montreal's coolest bookstores, publishes their list of the best-selling books for July. I find this to be such a fascinating snapshot of what Montrealers are buying. Highlights: Monique Proulx's latest book and Maylis de Kerangal's most recent novel (both Blue Met participants in the past). Also really happy to see two books by Italian writer and director Alessandro Baricco, too. He's a powerhouse, that guy. Site is in French.
• The Millions looks closely at the entire roster of artworks referenced in Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. From Frans Hals to Adriaen Coorte, the list really makes me want to read the novel again.

Vermeer, A Little Life, Hokusai in Boston and Coming Out Stories: Cultural Digest for August 5

Vermeer and love

• Really interesting interview at The Millions with the writer of one of this year's most buzzed about books, A Little Life. The work has been raved about, the writer seemingly coming from nowhere and creating a literary stir that has been praised almost universally. No, I haven't read it yet but the more I read about it, the more intrigued I am.
• Moving piece in The Paris Review yesterday about Vermeer's evocative & haunting scenes and what they can teach us about love, inspiring Michael White's book Travels in Vermeer.
• I'm really dying to see this exhibition on 18th century Japanese artist, Hokusai, now showing in Boston. Road Trip!
• Happy to see that the Montreal Gazette is doing this video series on Coming Out Stories by well-known Montrealers. 
• Chinese Guzheng player, Bei Bei, mesmerizes with her "strange instrument of beauty." 

Hokusai in Boston

The New Rijksmuseum

I saw this very interesting documentary last night, about the massive renovation of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

I knew very little about it so I went into it very vague about what the buzz was or even what the full scope of it was. I was almost immediately hooked.

It doesn't sound like it'd make that interesting a topic for a documentary: the ins and outs of city politics, planning officials, government officials, architects and museum staff as they go through a massive 10 year, 380 million Euro museum renovation. But the photography was so moving, the portraits of the individual staff members so compelling, the sense of the incredible bureaucracy of such a huge undertaking.

The love of the art is there, too: Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Japanese guard tower statues, Buddhas, Dutch Masters. You get a sense of Dutch society, too, the way people argue and negotiate work relationships, the varying personalities, the changes in staff (the Director quits halfway through the documentary and a new one is taken on, even though one of the other staff members hopes on camera that he'll be selected as the new Director).

Architecture takes front and centre stage and it really makes you see the complexity of creating public space for a specific public while still making other stakeholders happy (the head of the bicyclists' union is not portrayed particularly positively and this is a major them of the film, the battle against bicyclists).

It's a great film and plays the rest of the week at Cinema du Parc. By the end, when the museum opens anew, I almost teared up at the long effort and work that took place for all those years, getting the museum completed.

Montreal art mural, Iris Murdoch loved Titian, Ta-Nehisi Coates & James Baldwin, Historical Montreal walking tours and literary road maps: Cultural Digest, August 3

Iris Murdoch: Titian #fangirl

• Salon explains why all the recent buzz around the work of Ta-Nehisi Coates would have been impossible without the work of his predecessor and literary ancestor, James Baldwin.
• French Mural artist creates a stir with his fascinating Montreal street mural.
• Heritage Montreal announces new walking tours of various historical neihghborhoods of the city including Griffintown, St-Henri, and the Plateau, among others. Tours take place on Saturdays and Sundays from August 1 until late September and last two hours. Register here.
• Iris Murdoch talks about her favorite painting, Titian's The Flaying of Marsyas in this 1990 Paris Review interview.
• Youtube makes available this four-part documentary on the life and death of Caravaggio, hosted by Andrew Graham-Dixon, author of Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane.
• The Guardian reports on Atlas Obscura and their US literary map which maps in space scenes from the work and the lives of many American writers including Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and (one my favorite writers), William Least Heat-Moon and his book Blue Highways.