The Reading Book Post, April 13th

Another Monday morning is here. The Easter in Greece was celebrated yesterday and soon the holidays will be over. In two days, I have my birthday and the cake is not a lie (actually it will be the Chocolate Celebration Cake from Jamie's Comfort Food). For once more, let's discover what happened in the literary world this week.

• This week's award news concern winners! Atticus Lish is the 2015 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winner for his novel Preparation for the Next Life. The other award in an art prize. To be precise, Tessa Farmer won the British Science Fiction Award for her sculptural tribute to Iain Bank's first novel, the Wasp Factory. 

• A story written by Queen Victoria when she was 10 years old will be published on June 8. The story is called The Adventures of Alice Laselles, and the young future queen signed under the name of Alexandrina Victoria, aged 10 3/4. 

• A fake play by William Shakespeare has been proved genuine. Double Falsehood was first published in 1728 by Lewis Theobald but was soon considered a forgery. Now a new study has proven that the play was indeed written by Shakespeare himself. 

• Colouring books for adults are a thing. And they are amazing! Johanna Basford, a Scottish illustrator, tops the Amazon bestsellers list with her impressive colouring books, Secret Garden and the follow-up Enchanted Forest. I think I've just found myself a new hobby!

• In a few days, 200 years from the birth of Anthony Trollope will be celebrated. To honour him, various authors pick their favourite novels, including The Way We Live Now and He Knew He Was Right. Have you read any of Trollope's works?

• The cover for the new novel by Jonathan Freedland has been revealed. It's the author's sixth novel and it's called The 3rd Woman. Expected date of publication is July 2. What do you think about the cover?

• Grimm Brothers' Fairy Tales are different to the versions and the retellings we are accustomed to. But how much do we know about the original ones? Test yourself with this quiz. Luckily I've read them quiet recently and I got 10/12, how about you?

Info on The Woman in the Dunes

After reading The Gracekeepers, I'm now ready to continue with the Japanese literature themed read. The next book on the list is The Woman in the Dunes, a book that is considered a classic. 

Title: The Woman in the Dunes

Author: Kobo Abe

Publisher: Vintage

Date of Publication: 1991 (first published in Japan in 1962)

Number of Pages: 256

Summary

After missing the last bus home following a day trip to the seashore, an amateur entomologist is offered lodging for the night at the bottom of a vast sand pit. But when he attempts to leave the next morning, he quickly discovers that the locals have other plans. Held captive with seemingly no chance of escape, he is tasked with shoveling back the ever-advancing sand dunes that threaten to destroy the village. His only companion is an odd young woman. Together their fates become intertwined as they work side by side at this Sisyphean task.

About the Author

Kobo Abe was a Japanese writer, playwright, photographer and inventor. He studied medicine at Tokyo University, although he never practiced it. His style of writing is often compared to that of Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia for his surreal explorations of individuals in contemporary society. In 1951, he was awarded the Akutagawa Prize (the biggest literary prize in Japan) for The Crime of S. Karuma. In 1962, he received the Yomiuri Prize for The Woman in the Dunes while in 1967 he was awarded the Tanizaki Prize for his play Friends. He was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize and Kenzaburo Oe (who has already won it) declared that he deserved it. 

The Woman in the Dunes was turned into a movie in 1964, directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara. This is only a small scene.

ARC Review: The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

Once upon a time the world was a big, endless ocean. There were only a few islands left, from the old world as we know it. The people who lived on those islands, the landlockers, were privileged compared to the ones that lived on boats, the damplings. Besides they were afraid of each other, they worshiped different gods and they rarely associated. The cases where a landlocker fell in love with a dampling and chose the sea were scarce. In fact, the people of the land considered the sea cursed and those of the sea felt unsteady on the steady land.

That was the way of the world where two girls, worlds a far from one another, grew up and tried to find what it means to be home. North was born and raised on the sea, making her living as a bear dancer in a circus. Her bear was her only true companion, the one who understood her and turned to keep herself calm during the nights. But she carries a secret that puts her position in the circus in danger, a baby that grows inside of her. On the contrary, Callanish was a landlocker. She was born with some physical peculiarities that connected her to North's baby and for that reason she was always wearing gloves and slippers. A terrible mistake, more likely a normal reaction for a small girl, made her leave her home island and she became a gracekeeper, the one that performed a resting for those who died at sea. The two girls met briefly but connected in a special way. This connection filled both of them with the hope that they can find the home they both longed for and a new beginning.

The story is relatively slow paced, although in the last ten chapters it speeds up. This fact though doesn't make the story less compelling. From the beginning you want to get closer to the characters, reveal their secrets and see them find what they've been looking for. The narrative, being from different points of view, allows you both to understand the way of thinking of each character and the way he behaves as seen from an observer. 

The characters are all well developed. North and Callanish are so likeable that you almost feel like you have known them for a very long time. Their hopes and their disappointments become your own. I really like the way that each character's motive is revealed, not only those of the two young women, but of the people surrounding them as well. Avalon, the wife of the ringmaster and the one that hates North, is one of the most complex characters in this book. In a way, you can even say that she is a tragic one too. Although in the end she gets what she wanted from the beginning, you never get the feeling of closure. The only thing is that I'd like to see more of the bear, to have a little more active role as the book processed.

What I really love about this novel, and it actually surprised me, is its theme. To find where you belong, the place you can call home and feel most comfortable in, is something that all of the characters desire. There are those that think they have found it, those who have lost it, and those that are on the way of obtaining it. This is not an easy journey and the obstacles are big because it's so easy to confuse what you really need with that you think that you need. Callanish is one of the characters that fall in this trap and is bitterly disappointed by the reality. 

No one would ever know what happened out there. Such small crimes.

I would recommend The Gracekeepers to anyone. I really enjoyed reading it and I basically couldn't put it down. I found this novel refreshing, well written with a fairytale-like feel. Don't expect a story filled with action, except for the climax which is pretty intense. The characters and the theme are what makes is worth the while. 

So my advice is...

Sail the world through its pages.

I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley, in exchange of an honest review.

Info on The Gracekeepers

Although I'm in the middle of the Japanese theme, I received this book via NetGalley and it seems so amazing that I simply had to read it straight away. So I will make a small exception and review The Gracekeepers first and then I will continue with The Woman in the Dunes.

Title: The Gracekeepers

Author: Kirsty Logan

Publisher: Harvill Secker

Date of Publication: May 7th, 2015

Number of Pages: 304

Summary

The sea has flooded the earth. North lives on a circus boat, floating between the scattered islands that remain. She dances with her beloved bear while the rest of the crew trade dazzling and death-defying feats for food from the islanders. However, North has a secret that could capsize her life with the circus.

Callanish lives alone in her house in the middle of the ocean, with only the birds and the fish for company. As penance for a terrible mistake, she works as a gracekeeper, tending the graves of those who die at sea. What drove her from home is also what pulls her towards North.

When a storm creates a chance meeting between the two girls, their worlds change. They are magnetically drawn to one another, and the promise of a new life. But the waters are treacherous, and the tide is against them. 

About the author

Kirsty Logan is a writer based in Glasgow. Her first book, The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales, is a short story collection and The Gracekeepers is her first novel.

Learn more about her on her personal site.

Review: Hotel Iris by Yoko Ogawa

When I first read the summary of Hotel Iris I didn't know what to expect. The pain and pleasure, would it be that of Marquis de Sade or something soft and mildly shocking? Either way, it managed to grab my attention and I dug into it with great interest. 

Mari is a seventeen-year-old girl, who lives with her controlling mother. They own an old and neglected hotel, the Iris. One night a past-middle-aged man checks in with a prostitute, but during the night they cause a disturbance and they are turned out of the hotel. Mari is drawn to the tone of the voice of that man, which is firm and commanding. Some days later she meets him outside and they start talking. Eventually they form a relationship, hidden from Mari's mother and the man, who we learn is a translator, initiates Mari to pleasure and pain.

The story is not something exceptional. On the one side, there is a middle-aged man who is widowed for many years and is taken with a girl much younger than him and so he feels much livelier. On the other side, there is a young adult who has dropped school and is trapped in a hotel with a mother too controlling. They both have their issues and their relationship has even more, but it's also a remedy to all those problems and they try to break free from. 

Both the man and Mari are difficult characters to explain. They both have likeable and unlikeable sides to them. The translator away from his house is very kind, he's shy and thoughtful. He's one of those men that try their best not to make the other feel uncomfortable in any way. But he has a tendency to violence when he feels threatened, for example when they don't let them into a restaurant. When at home he is completely transformed. He is authoritative, commanding and cruel. Mari is very observant, having grown up in a hotel. She is also very tolerant towards her mother and the translator, although being raised to such a controlling environment she seems familiar and even drawn to the cruel behaviour against her. Sometimes she even tries to make the man mad at her, for example when she betrays him with his nephew and when he finds out she admits it and hopes that he will humiliate her some more. 

The romance in Hotel Iris is bipolar as well. In his letters, the translator is very kind and gentle and professes his love in an amazing way. Anyone who saw me would think me odd indeed, but those with impoverished hearts cannot recognize simple miracles writes in one letter, and who can deny that those are some beautiful words to say and mean. Also, when they are together outside, they hold hands, they talk and they fall in that comfortable silence that you can only share with the one that truly understands you. If it was the only case I wouldn't mind the age gap between them, but it's not the only one. When they go to the man's house he disgraces her and humiliates her in every possible way, but Mari finds pleasure in it.

This pleasure though is brought with a cruel way. The man ties Mari in a way that she cannot move, he hits her with a whip, he slaps her and he even chokes her. He makes her put on his socks using only her mouth, she makes her move in the house and do several chores but without using her hands and she ties her in a way that her body forms different furniture in order to take nude photographs of her. But Mari enjoys it, even when she was losing her consciousness from the lack of air she felt pleasure. When she was putting on his socks she was turned on because it was the only occasion that she touched his skin. Ultimately they didn't have sex, the translator never took any of his clothes off. He explored Mari's body and she was enjoying it, but the act was never complete. 

To sum things up, Hotel Iris is a sexually-explicit novel. Both the sex scenes and the romance are disturbing and some might find them shocking. Cruelty doesn't bother me, so I was able to enjoy this book, although I would recommend it with caution. If you can get past this the narrative is excellent and there is so much to discover in both of the protagonists' psychology.

So my advice is...

Beware of the cruelty.