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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

Connections: The Sweet Indifference of the World & The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die & Coming up for Air

13/7/2020

8 Comments

 
Mmm, seems I’ve chosen books with long titles for this threesome! But the reason I couldn’t bear to choose a couple and leave the other on the sidelines awaiting a partner is that they are all about characters connecting in unconventional ways. Firstly, I review a novella in translation about a writer meeting a man who seems to be a younger version of himself. In a second translated novella, a woman ensures that more than her memory lives on after her death. In the third, a literary novel, two women are linked via an invention that a third character plays an active part in developing.

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The Sweet Indifference of the World by Peter Stamm translated by Michael Hofmann

Christoph, a middle-aged writer, has come to Stockholm where he attended a screen-writing workshop at a pivotal point in his life sixteen years before. From early afternoon to late evening, he wanders the city in the company of Lena, an aspiring actor, whom he feels he knows intimately, although they’ve never previously met.
 
Lena reminds Christoph of another actor, Magdalena, and their doomed love affair that inspired his bestselling novel. Yet more uncanny, Lena’s new husband, Chris, is also a writer, torn between lofty literary ambition and the more lucrative TV screenplays. Chancing upon Chris years ago on a book tour, Christoph was shocked to come face-to-face with his doppelgänger. When he finally got to tell the younger man his story – part warning, part a yearning for connection – on the beach in Barcelona, Chris searched the Internet and told Christoph his book didn’t exist.
 
What’s real, what’s fiction? Can we choose the life we lead or is it predetermined by fate? Do different versions of ourselves live simultaneously in parallel universes? Can we trust our own memories? How do we know we exist?
 
It’s not so unusual for literary authors to explore these existential questions. Although I prefer to interact with fiction on an emotional rather than intellectual plane, this is one of the best of the philosophical novels I’ve read. Thanks to publishers Granta for my review copy.

The Aunt Who Wouldn’t Die by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay translated by Arunava Sinha

When we commit to sharing our lives with another person, their relatives are sometimes included in the package. That’s especially the case in multigenerational households, such as the one eighteen-year-old Somlata marries into in North Bengal. She’s luckier than some in traditional Indian families in that her husband doesn’t beat her and her mother-in-law isn’t the typical harridan, but her aunt-in-law is a bitch. Widowed before she was properly old enough to be a wife, she’s terrorised the family – and continues to do so after her death.
 
Perhaps because she’s the youngest, perhaps because she’s the one who finds the body, but the ghost of the despotic matriarch singles out Somlata for special (mis)treatment. Despite Somlata’s struggles to save the family from destitution, and to keep them fed, things don’t run as smoothly as they might. When Somlata and her husband try for a baby, the ghost continues to interfere.
 
A contemporary classic in India, where it was first published in Bengali in 1993, this is a light-hearted take on family tensions with a supernatural twist. Thanks to British publishers John Murray for my review copy.


Coming up for Air by Sarah Leipciger

Paris, 1899, a young woman removes her coat and boots before plunging into the Seine; what made her decide to drown herself and what will be the consequences of her death? Norway towards the middle of the twentieth century, Pieter, a toymaker with a particular interest in moulded plastic, tells the story of his family to the son who will never be more than four years old. In present-day Canada, a journalist with a love of open water prepares for a lung transplant that, if all goes well, will put an end to her forty-year struggle with a life-limiting disease.
 
Time and circumstances keep these three stories apart, but they are linked by an invention which, although not a household object, many of us will know. But since the blurb does not refer to this, and the author doesn’t reveal it until towards the end of the novel, I won’t name it, although I think I would have enjoyed it more if I’d known what it was about.
 
As it was, I found the women’s strands more engaging, although Pieter perhaps makes the greatest contribution to the end result. I enjoyed the history and science, and plus points for featuring cystic fibrosis, which I don’t think I’ve encountered in fiction before. The prose is fine but, overall, it didn’t feel as special as it could have been.
 
Published by Doubleday, Coming up for Air is Canadian-born Sarah Leipciger’s second novel following her acclaimed debut, The Mountain Can Wait, a poignant tale of family and fatherhood and the conflicts between work and home.

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When the Carrot Ranch got severely spammed by a character with the unlikely name of Monreal Dorb, Charli Mills transformed it into a flash fiction prompt. I thought they might have confused the Ranch for portal to a parallel universe, until I realised I hadn’t posted a pandemic rant for over a week! Which is itself like inhabiting parallel universe – here’s what I did with my 99-words:

Monreal Dorb regrets (sort of)

I regret the inconvenience, but I acted in good faith. Times are tough and, if the boffins can’t create a vaccine, we must apply ourselves by fair means or foul. When a president advocates bleach and hydroxychloroquine, what’s wrong with tinkering with spam? When spiced ham couldn’t cut the mustard, I went digital. Viral. If you thought my behaviour brutal, be thankful you’re no virgin, raped as a fantasy cure for AIDS. So carrots, why not carrots? Avoiding the stick, they help us see in the dark. In the current leadership vacuum, don’t you yearn for some of that?

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Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
8 Comments
Charli Mills
13/7/2020 11:41:24 pm

Long titles for short reads (novellas). I like to see that translations still make their way to market from previous decades, as I think I'd enjoy reading through the evolution of literature out of India. I used to watch Bollywood movies with a friend and her brothers (their paternal grandmother lived in India) and they'd explain all the relationship woes. Thus, I can imagine what this ghostly aunt must be like!

Ah, yes, the pandemic. We are through with it, alas, it is not through with us. I think you hit all the low notes of modern spammers, but yes, I'll eat more carrots to better see as the darkness descends. I'm thinking,

Reply
Anne
14/7/2020 03:49:43 pm

Oh yes, Bollywood! Did you see the one about the two brothers separated at birth? There was a time when they ALL seem to be about two brothers separated at birth! But I'm sure they have moved on a bit – it must be almost 20 years since I last watched one. There was a time, maybe ten years before that, when our local cinema showed them on Sunday afternoons, but that fizzled out where everyone got VCRs. I used to enjoy the specially segmented adverts.

Anyway, yes, keep eating and promoting the carrots!

Reply
Norah Colvin
14/7/2020 12:45:59 pm

I think I'd quite enjoy the Sweet Indifference of the World, Anne. I don't mind a bit of the intellectual as well as the emotional plane. I've put it on my list. I'm not sure about either of the other two. Next life, perhaps, if, like the aunt, I don't really die. (How's that for a comma count?)
You did well with your story about Monreal Dorb. Why not go viral during a viral pandemic? No better time. Eating more carrots to help us see clearly - now that's a plan. It might even be as effective in fighting the virus as some of the other remedies you mention; maybe even more so.

Reply
Anne
14/7/2020 03:54:59 pm

Let me know how you get on with Sweet Indifference – and yes I'm impressed with the commas (deliberately excluded here).

Glad you liked my take on the prompt. It took a while to find but then I thought, why not just go crazy in these crazy times.

Reply
D. Avery link
15/7/2020 01:39:32 am

That's a clever flash that rounds all the bases. (Don't know where that came from, I'm not a team sport sort)
I'm with Norah, interested in the first book, time allowing, no time for the others.
I'm amazed at the volume of books you get through. Takes me forever to get through a book, though I mostly only read before bed. Too many distractions- SQUIRREL!

Reply
Anne
17/7/2020 02:57:08 pm

Sadly, those details weren't difficult to find. The idiocy goes on and on. Regarding the reading, although I'm ahead of my official target, I'm behind on the unofficial of 140. Maybe I'm squirrelling too!

Reply
Roberta Eaton Cheadle
16/7/2020 07:48:23 am

Very evocative or maybe provocative. Clever and thought provoking, Anne.

Reply
Anne
17/7/2020 02:57:49 pm

Thanks, Robbie. Glad it worked for you.

Reply

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