Fall reading....

Fall pokes its head around the corner and 2014 is beginning to take shape. Arab prize-winner confirmed, check. Metropolis Azul prize-winner confirmed, checked. Two pretty big stars confirmed. Several international writers confirmed. Still some big pieces to put into place and still a lot more writers to invite and events to confirm. But we're moving along...

Been reading like a madman:

Sarah Schulman's novel The Mere Future which was excellent. Robert Walser's Berlin Stories (ok, again, I read it last year). Carolina de Robertis' Perla, Jenny William's biography of Hans Fallada, then I read Fallada's A Small Circus which was slow-going at first but I managed to get into it after 100 pages or so...finally read Heinrich Boll over the weekend (his A Soldier's Legacy)

Picked up Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir trilogy and been racing through that.

And none of that even includes reading for the Festival! I've got a huge stack of books on my office desk that I am slowing making my way through though every few days, another one gets added to that pile. What a great problem to have...

Lately one of my reading obsessions has been fiction set in Europe between the wars. Again, this is personal reading, nothing related to the Festival (though I can always find some connection) and when I look at my day, it's amazing that I even have time to read at all since I am up at 6:30 every morning, running all day without even a chance to sit down until dinner, then to the gym and in bed at 11.

I guess I manage to get a lot of reading done over the weekend, but also on the metro, while I wait in lines, just before I fall asleep.

People who don't read don't know what they're missing...

Lazy Bastardism, Fed up with Hans Fallada, 2013 Programming, Poetry & Graphic Novels

Since I constantly have to change my routines or I start to get a bit batty, I've been "off" getting up early and writing here in the mornings. Instead, I get up early and take a long walk with the dog. Which means I have no time during the day to write here.

Almost finished with Hans Fallada's book (Every Man Dies Alone) and last night for the first time, it started to get to me: so much death, so much violence and mayhem and terror. It is a very large book and I have been reading it for three weeks at least. Only 50 pages to go but I may just drop it and try to find something more uplifting or funny to read. It's all clear how it's going to turn out anyway. And violent WWII novel combined with the usual pre-winter blahs is not a good combination.

Been slowly reading Carmine Starnino's Lazy Bastardism which I am really enjoying. My relationship to poetry is odd (or maybe not) in that although there are certain poets I read often and I return to their work again and again (Czeslaw Milosz, Adam Zagajewski, Wiszlawa Symborska, Marie Howe, Mark Doty and many others), I don't feel like a poetry expert in any way shape or form (my poetry reading is very sporadic and highly personal) so as I read Starnino's book, I am struck with how well-articulated his thoughts are on the work of so many Canadian poets. It's a great introduction to poets whose work I don't know at all and, of course, his very fluid and intelligent writing makes it even more appealing.

Working on a project with a local cultural institute which is kind of exciting. It's about graphic novels and I've been discussing with several publishing houses the feasibility of getting some "stills" in order to project images onto some public screens to promote this art form. This part of my job is really fun. So many graphic novels to explore, too!

Programming update: just about finished with our international programming for 2013. Been working for a week or two on Canadian and Quebec programming (and watching my budget drain away waah) which is a lot of fun and can see the overall programming plan really starting to take shape and have a personality. Still a lot more work to do but it is definitely coming along...for anyone who has submitted a proposal, I am moving high gear into these this week and next.

Every Man Dies Alone

Been reading Hans Fallada's Every Man Dies Alone, a bleak if not reflective title of a highly readable and exciting novel.

The book is set in Berlin just during the Nazi years and chronicles the lives of various individuals as they resist, acquiesce, escape, persecute, rob, manipulate, or love in the tumultuous period of the war. The book received a great deal of attention when it was first published (back) into English a couple of years ago but I can understand now why so many critics and readers raved about it. The pacing is excellent, the characters run the gamut from the downtrodden to the drunks to the powerful and the powerless.

The main protagonists are based on a real-life couple Otto and Elise Hampel who resisted Nazism in the only way their station in life allowed them. Without giving too much away, what they do is incredibly brave and terribly foolish. And it's not a voice we've heard too often on this topic: how Germans themselves fought against the Nazis, stood up to brutality, protected the persecuted. Though, all that said, there is nothing heroic about anyone here. And much tragedy. But it's also quite funny in many parts.

It's a great novel and a very easy read. I'm not quite finished with it yet (at this time of year I can only manage to read a few chapters a day in a book that's not directly Festival-related) but I look forward all day to the 30 minutes or so I can devote to it most evenings.

Hans Fallada is an intriguing author who struggled with mental illness, alcoholism and other afflictions during his short life. He wrote a good deal and though he had one big hit outside of Germany in his lifetime (translated as: Little Man, What Now?), his international reputation faded and he was largely neglected until Melville House re-translated several of his works in the last few years. Definitely adding some other of his works to my must-read list this holiday season.