The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I don't have a lot of time for reading this time of year since I'm overwhelmed with Festival-planning and several other projects next year but I have managed to read Carlos Ruiz Zafon's novel, The Prisoner of Heaven. Because I was in Barcelona last week for a work project, I started the novel the week before I left but have still only managed to get about halfway through it.

It's interesting. Set in the 1950s in Barcelona, the novel tells the story of a young man on the cusp of his adult life, newly married with a young child and working in his father's bookshop in the city. Due to a mysterious stranger he learns about the sacrifices made by a close family friend during WWII and the Spanish Civil War. The novel skips around in time which is an interesting aspect to the way the story is presented and the dry pages of history really come alive here.

Zafon's novels that I've read are engaging and very readable (translated from Spanish) but I also struggle with their lack of depth. Sure, there are historical secrets revealed and I love the setting which he so richly captures. But I don't really find the characters that alive or that realistic. They are too extreme: either all good and saintly or pure evil. As most of us know, that's just not how people are. I prefer characters that are more complex; I prefer more ambiguous, complex questions about morality and history.

Perhaps I'm being unfair since I've only read half the novel - and perhaps I will change my mind later - but this is what strikes me so far. I'm still enjoying it but I find these kinds of novels don't stay with me. In a few years, I'll be able to read it again and will remember very little about it. I contrast this, for example, with Elena Ferrante's main characters in her Neapolitan novels who are devilishly complex: sometimes you adore them; other times you detest them. They are not easy people to understand, their motivations are complicated and deep, like most humans are.

Still, it's a book worth reading and I can see why Zafon is such a broadly appealing writer.

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.

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.

The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante

Being a big fan of Ferrante's work and having read all volumes available in her Naples series, I reached back into her early work and read The Days of Abandonment.

I had a very different relationship with this one: it's too dark for me, too personal, too bitter.

I heard John Waters say once that Elena Ferrante was one of his favorite "angry women writers" and having only read her Naples series then, I found this comment puzzling. The series isn't necessarily "angry" at all. Certainly there are moments of anger but the book is far more complex than anger.

But after reading The Days of Abandonment, I can see what he meant: the protagonist relates the story of a short period of time she went through after her husband left her. The opening line:

One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me.

Olga, the protagonist, then falls into a mental abyss of fear, anger, doubt and pain. It's like one furious rant from beginning to end.

I am so glad I started with her Naples series which, to my mind, is far more interesting.

I don't know why I couldn't relate to this novel as well: the anger? The specifics of the experience? Olga's experience feels somewhat dated since she seems to have no life or interest or friends outside of her family life. I don't know if that would be a common experience in contemporary Italy but it certainly doesn't seem like it would be that common in North America.

It's a short, zippy book that can be read in a couple of evenings. Though be prepared for lots of negativity!

All this leads to our very special Elena Ferrante Brunch which we are doing as part of Blue Met 2015. Lynne Robson, former correspondent for The National, hosts the brunch and it'll be a great opportunity for anyone who's a fan of Elena Ferrante (or would like to become a fan perhaps) to come, discuss her work, meet other fans. The event is on Saturday late morning, April 25. It costs $25 and includes breakfast. But move fast: our breakfast/brunch events usually sell out. Tickets go on sale a week from today and can be bought at La Vitrine.

Blue Met's A Year in Reading: from Ferrante to Adelstein, Luiselli to Benedetti

Since everyone else seems to be doing it, I thought I'd weigh in on my personal favorites for 2014:

Best 2014 comfort reader: Eileen Chang's Half a Lifelong Romance: I've long been a fan of Eileen Chang, but this novel, which dates from the middle part of Eileen Chang's career, was a new one for me. It appeared in serial form in the 1950s but is set in 1930s Shanghai and tells the story of a doomed love affair in the tumultuous period leading up to the Chinese Civil War. It's a tale of a young woman trying hard to live life according to her own terms in a society where women are diminished and dismissed. It's not a perfect novel but it's engaging a fascinating tale of power, love and fate.

Best  2014 binge-read: Elena Ferrante's Neopolitan novels: in 2014 I read the first three books in a few months and was absolutely riveted by them. They tell the story of a friendship (sometimes enemy-ship) of two girls growing up in 1950s Naples (the first book starts then, the third book ends in the late 70s) while one girl manages to pull herself out of the neighborhood through study and hard work, the other relies on pluck and street smarts. It's the story of an Italy that's long gone, but also romantic & violent.

Best 2014 discovery: the work of Valeria Luiselli. One of Mexico's most promising up and coming Faces in the Crowd is still with me months after I read it. It is a fascinating novel that looks at time, art, writing and fate/choice. This is a writer who I will be watching for years to come because everything she's written so far is interesting.

Best 2014 shocker: A True Novel by Minae Mizumura: this novel is a retelling of Wuthering Heights set in post-war Japan. But that really diminishes the book in a certain way because it's only a tiny fraction of what's interesting about this book: it's fascinating formally and one keeps asking oneself throughout the book: is this the novel or the story on which the novel is based? Is this real? Then one wonders what real actually means: is anything real? But I'm making the book sound pedantic or possibly boring. It's anything but. It's an excellent novel that I highly recommend.

Best 2014 Guilty Pleasure (and best 2014 book by a man?!): The Rest of Jungle & Other Stories by Mario Benedetti: I loved this book. It's a collection of stories by a Uruguayan writer whose work is hard to pin down: it's about middle class love affairs, about jungle adventures in the bush, it's about office workers stuck in bureaucratic hell, it's about animals who are bitchy and judgmental.

Best 2014 non-fiction journalism: Tokyo Vice: an American Reporter on the Police Beat by Jake Adelstein: Adelstein is one of the only foreign reporters ever hired by a Japanese newspaper and he tells the tale of his work for one of Tokyo's biggest daily newspapers, including his involvement in writing stories about Yakuza and other sordid Japanese adventures.

Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante

I held out as long as I could but I read all three of the books so far (in English) starting in July.

So now I have to wait an entire year to read the next installment. Which hurts a bit. I just finished the 3rd one, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, over the weekend and now my hands feel idle and empty. I need another book to adore!

The fourth book in Elena Ferrante's Neopolitan novels comes out in September 2015!

Wow, they are so worth reading...I've also turned several friends on to them and a few people I know were reading them pretty much at the same speed that I was.

I can't recommend these books enough. But start with the first one, My Brilliant Friend.

If you haven't been paying attention (I've written about the books before), the novels trace the friendship (and sometimes "enemy-ship") of two girls growing up in 1950s Naples. They are full of pain, humour and psychological meanderings that are fascinating. They are highly readable and the two main characters are some of the most memorable characters I can recall in recent memory. As the 3rd book ends, it's the late 1970s and something momentous happens (though I wont' spoil it) involving a different character who runs through all the books and our protagonist. It's both surprising and kind of expected. But emotionally one can relate to her pain, her passion, her longings and her fear for the future.

I could go on. But if you find yourself in a bookstore or online, get My Brilliant Friend and be prepared to disappear into a world like none you've ever experienced.

New Elena Ferrante out today!

I am crazy about this Neopolitan tetralogy by Italian writer Elena Ferrante.

The novels chronicle the friendship between two girls growing up in Naples in the 1950s and through the 60s (I just finished the 2nd novel which ends in the late 60s). They are fascinating books and they detail a world that has vanished: a violent, rough and tumble neighborhood of working class kids in poverty who rarely, if ever, have the chance to get out and improve their lives.

Lina, the best friend, is from a desperately poor background and her best friend, Elena (the novels' protagonist), is no better. They are connected through their intelligence (it's never clear who "My Brilliant Friend" is supposed to refer to exactly: at times Lina seems the more brilliant one, though Elena is the one who manages to "get out" of the neighborhood through her intelligence and hard work) but their relationship is complex and contradictory, full of betrayals and resentments.

Anyone who's ever had a lifelong friend will relate to these books: the complex ways we love someone, the ways in which we compete, even if we don't want to.

I kept thinking of my first few years in Montreal: I was working at a community centre in Verdun and so many kids (people) who were born there never leave: they get pregnant at 16 or 17, get married, move a few doors down from their families and just stay. Once when some kids asked me where I lived and I said near McGill, they almost acted amazed that I lived "so far away," and only one had ever been there (once). I hardly ever go to Verdun nowadays and I wonder if things have changed much...

Of course, Verdun isn't nearly as violent as Naples of the 1950s but it reflects a similar kind of mentality: never put on airs, never try and forget where you come from. How place (poverty, dialect) is both a mark of identity and a limitation. How place is as much a badge as gender or race (maybe more so). It's something that North Americans, perhaps, don't quite understand in the same way as Italians which is so regional. In Verdun I witnessed a small aspect of it though perhaps it is something Canadians can grasp in a more limited way.

Another thing which struck me was the simple fact that violence is impossible to get away from: all the kids are beaten by their parents and then they get married and their husbands beat their wives and the wives beat their children. It's just the way life is. But that's not to say that the books are depressing or self-pitying, not at all. They are funny, moving, intelligent and the kind of book where you have to stop now and then and just reflect on what the author's doing or trying to communicate.

I raced through the first two novels and wanted moremoremore. The 3rd novel in the series (Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay) is out today but I am battling with myself: I want to read it but I also want something to look forward to reading over the Christmas break. So we'll see how long I can hold out.

Francisco Goldman: The Interior Circuit

I find that certain writers are often on many individuals' lips and because I am often talking about books for work and with friends, I hear about certain pieces or books or writers frequently. Elena Ferrante is one (more about her another day of which I have much to say). Andre Aciman's piece in the New Yorker from the spring was another: at least 10 people have mentioned this piece to me, even months later, even people who don't typically read the New Yorker.

At a summer deck party the other day someone went on about an "amazing piece" he had read a couple of years back about a man whose wife had died suddenly. He thought the man was Puerto Rican but I knew instantly he was talking about Francisco Goldman. His novel Say Her Name was one of the most moving and haunting books I read the year it came out (2011).

Goldman's latest book, The Interior Circuit, references his 2011 novel frequently (not the novel itself but the experience leading up to and immediately after the action of it) but it's a very different work. I can imagine how the conversation between editor and writer must have gone as Goldman pitched the idea behind The Interior Circuit: it'll be about me and my struggle to overcome my wife's death but this time with more about the politics and crime of Mexico City (his wife was killed on the coast in an accident, not by anything criminal), lots about drinking, oh and I will learn to drive by taking a course!

I can't imagine it was an easy sell and it is an odd book. I read it quickly: the opening chapters are quite compelling. But he meanders and not all the meanderings are productive or that interesting. I felt like I did learn a lot about recent Mexico City politics (and Mexico City is a city which has long fascinated me since it is a city much beloved by writers, artists and friends that I very much respect). But the whole driving metaphor seemed a bit forced and some of the political information was a bit of overkill. The question that kept occurring to me was: who is the audience for this?

Goldman is, of course, a very talented and moving writer and this is the first time I've skipped paragraphs

and skimmed pages to get to the good stuff. He shines when he writes about his personal experience, his grief, his pain, his attempts at moving on. He continues to write beautifully about his deceased wife in a way that's surprising given how much he devoted to this subject in his past book. But she's still there on the margins. I also found fascinating his analysis of how his friends dealt with his grieving process: the odd things they said, the awkwardness. And I very much appreciate his attempts to not make this "all about him," though essentially it is.

Tomorrow I am off to Edinburgh so stay tuned for a few updates about the happenings there. I have a very busy schedule and there are so many events and writers confirmed my head hurts just looking at the schedule (there are, in fact, four Festivals all going on at the same time). It's my first time at the festival, one of the world's biggest if not the biggest, so I very much look forward to seeing what it's all about and meeting writers, other festival directors and cultural organizers from around the world.