Two New Books I Really Like (With Pictures)

It's been a bit of a whirlwind day/week/month here at Green Apple, and sort of in my life, too. So perhaps it's in search of some simplicity that now, sitting down to blog, all I want to do is tell you all about two of my favorite new books, and to show you what beautiful pictures they have. Don't be fooled, though -- though both of these books are heavily illustrated in some form, they are Very Serious (but oh so delightful) Books. 

The first is Antigonick, the hotly anticipated (er, hotly anticipated by me) new translation/interpretation of  Sophocles' tragedy by the incomparable Anne Carson (and published, beautifully, by New Directions). Re-working a classic tale is nothing new for Carson, a classical scholar whose work often either references, re-tells, or analyzes ancient Greek literature, but her particular style of translation is so unique, poetic and adaptive that it must be read as poetry all its own (creative liberties included -- as in her previous work, Carson often alters the spellings of characters' names and broadens the restrictions of space and time, allowing her, in this case, to reference to Samuel Beckett and Virginia Woolf in the first five pages of a story from 440 BCE.) What really makes this book a lovely object to leaf through, though, is Bianca Stone's beautiful accompanying illustrations, done on translucent pages that overlap Carson's handwritten text. Turning each page feels something like dusting off a relic. 

Despite its modern voice, its wit and its aesthetic charm, Carson is not one to make the tragedy of Antigone easy on the casual reader. And in case you're not familiar, it's a doozy. If you are familiar with Greek tragedy at all (SPOILER ALERT for every Greek tragedy), it won't surprise you to know that pretty much everybody kills themselves by the end, while the Chorus doth protest and mourn and hem and haw. It's great, in a way best summed up by this page:

As Simon Critchley once wrote, "tragedy is like Guinness. It's not supposed to be good for you."

My other favorite book of late is my new kids' "staff favorite", and has been nearly impossible for me to talk about without forcing whatever patient listener I've tricked into listening into full-blown story time mode -- every picture must be shown, every detail of the adventure recounted. Its debatable classification as a kids book aside, this beautifully (and not particularly briefly) written book also has its roots in the oldest of stories, a journey fit for its own Joseph Campbell PBS special. The book is Taka-Chan and I, originally published in 1967 and now in a re-issued edition by the NYRB Children's Collection. It's narrated by Runcible, a Weimerarmer who, according to his author bio, is a firm believer in broadening international understanding ("The world would be a better place if more dogs would travel", Runcible says.) He knows, because, according to this story, he once dug a hole all the way from his home on the beaches of Cape Cod to Japan, where he met a little girl named Taka-Chan. This and all of the adventures that follow are documented in the stunning photography of Eiko Hosoe, and, well, c'mon. Look at this pair and just try not to be charmed to smithereens. 

 

       

Turns out, Taka-Chan is being held captive by a fearsome sea dragon. In order to free her, Runcible must find the most loyal creature in all of Japan and lay a flower at his feet. The challenge is accepted, the quest begins. 

I won't give away the ending, but let's just say this is a hero's journey, not a Sophoclean tragedy. No reader will close this book with a heart un-warmed. I can't recommend this highly enough for anyone, of any age, with two feet or four. 

The Best Books We Read 2011

As with most of us here, it is hard to narrow down the best book I read in 2011. But amid all the Faulkner and Bolaño, the DeLillo the Ondaatje, a new collection of Ambrose Bierce from Library of America, the latest from César Aira and Jean-Philippe Toussaint, and a new found favorite, The Land Breakers, (my new staff favorite that was recommended to me by Michael Ondaatje) by John Ehle. In all that fantastic reading and more I have narrowed it down to a new collection of classics and a new beloved author; Fairy Tales by the Brothers Grimm (TASCHEN) and The Armies (New Directions) by Evelio Rosero.

The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm

Leave it to TASCHEN to make the magical world of fairy tales that much more magical. They have pain-stakingly collected twenty-seven of these beloved Grimm fairy tales, newly translated for book lovers of all ages, paired with stunning vintage illustrations from the 1820's to the 1950's. Each story is separated and decorated with intricate silhouettes that were commissioned just for this edition. This is the perfect gift for children and adults alike to cherish these classic tales. For the art lover in you, TASCHEN has chronicled the artists and their history in the back of the book making this more than your typical collection of fairy tales. This book has also been Brain Pickings #1 pick for best illustrated children's and picture books of 2011.

The Armies by Evelio Rosero

Evelio Rosero has quickly become one of my favorite authors and Anne McLean one of my favorite translators. I picked up Rosero's latest short novel Good Offices and couldn't put it down. It is a dark and satirical look at the Catholic church, the politics of Colombia and the perceived worth we put on human life. And yet it is funny. The main character is a hunchback who is extremely smart and perceptive and not your typical Catholic hunchback. After finishing Good Offices I immediately (against my normal reading practices) read the first novel of Rosero's that New Directions translated in 2010, The Armies. This book kicked my ass. I have passed it on to others, and the response has been unanimous - this is a haunting masterpiece of writing and translation - everyone should read this book. Again Rosero writes of a small town in Columbia, this time it is a town caught in the middle of a war. Soldiers, paramilitaries, and guerrillas treat Bojayá and it's people as if they are nothing but a receptacle for their violence. Despite the violence and atrocities this book contains, you are constantly held by the stunning imagery and voice that Rosero brings to The Armies. This is the best book I read in 2011.

GAB + ND 4 EVA

New Directions, the innovative, trailblazing, super awesome publishing house that's introduced American readers some of the best international and experimental literature from the 19th to the 21st centuries, is celebrating its 75th anniversary. From early-to-mid-century stalwarts like Henry Miller, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, Dylan Thomas, and Louis-Ferdinand Celine (the first ND book I read was Celine's Journey to the End of the Night) to contemporaries Cesar Aira, Anne Carson, Enrique Vila-Matas, and Laszlo Krasznahorkai, New Directions is proving itself quite the feisty septuagenarian.

We've always had a deep and abiding love for New Directions here at Green Apple and would like to offer our gratitude and best wishes for another 75 years by offering you, gentle reader, a selection of our current favorites.


My Emily Dickinson is a poet's book about the life and work of a fellow poet. Largely through the lens of one of her best-known poems, Howe reveals Dickinson to have been astutely aware of the literary community and tradition in which she wrote, even as she famously did so from the confines of her room, raising some profound questions about fame, isolation, and what defines a writer in life and in death. It's not an easy book; Howe writes both as a scholar and as a poet herself, her style a windy mix between academic and poetic as she weaves together pieces of Dickinson's influences and wide-reaching world. The result is a breathtaking and revelatory examination of a poet, a poem, and a life.


If you don't already have a grasp on how incredible the work of Tennessee Williams is, well then let me emphasize his brilliance. Williams was a friggin' baller. We should be calling him Tennessee Chill-iams he is so cool. His presentation, slang, and many other things about his work can come off as antiquated, especially true for a child of the 90s like myself, but the guy understood some things about girls, dudes, ludes and bad attitudes. The plays in The Magic Tower range in tone from Williams' two best sides as an author, both stinking drunk and hilarious drunk. I cannot encourage people enough to take a look at this awesome new collection, especially if your only contact with his work is the already critically lauded.


I made the mistake of reading my first Bolano novel (By Night in Chile) on a flight to London in early 2008. As I finished the book somewhere over the mid-Atlantic, I realized with a sinking feeling that it would be weeks until I was able to race through the rest of his theretofore published work. And as soon as I returned home, I did just that: reading Amulet, Distant Star, Nazi Literature in the Americas, and Last Evenings on Earth all in about a week and a half.

The stories in Last Evenings on Earth are among the finest pieces he ever wrote. Concise, abrupt, and compulsively readable, they form a fine counterpoint to his later sprawling novels.

Each novel that I read by Queneau quickly becomes my favorite. Not just my favorite work by Queneau, but my favorite novel period. The Flight of Icarus is no exception. A novel masquerading as a play in which a cast of unruly characters decide they have better places to be than in this story promises--and delivers--on its riotous premise.


The first part of Vila-Matas' title refers of course to Melville's laconic clerk who answers all questions and demands with a mysterious and vexing "I prefer not to." The Co. refers to a cast of writers who, for reasons often mysterious (J.D. Salinger, or a lookalike, makes an appearance), sometimes heartbreaking (Juan Ramon Jimenez), and yes, even vexing, have become "artists of the refusal" or artists who prefer not to. Some of the names are familiar, some deserve to be more familiar, and others, in a fittingly Borgesian manner, never existed. Bartleby & Co. is that perfect book: one that leads to another, that leads to another, and another...

Carson's fans know her interest in deconstructing and reappropriating all things ancient--Greek myth, Sappho's poetry, the tango...--in her haunting poetic verse. And so it is fitting, while tragic, that her latest work Nox is a scrapbook of sorts eulogizing her late brother. Aside from being an eerily gorgeous object, this uniquely bound book will surely resonate with anyone who has lost someone and attempted to piece together what they left behind.



For more of our selections and recommendations, please visit the store or see our Staff Picks page (you'll see why most of us agonized over selecting just one book for this post).

And once again, Happy Anniversary, New Directions!

The Return...

Roberto Bolaño's The Return is a dark and twisted collection of stories. . .great, but definitely twisted.

Once again New Directions gives us a Chris Andrews' translation of the Chilean novelist.

These stories are some of the darkest I've read by Bolaño.  They include themes of murder, pornography, prison camps, prostitutes, politics, ghosts, soccer, necrophilia, and other haunting themes. They are Bolaño's short stories, so they're both easy to read and highly insightful as to his idea of "the secret story." Here is an excerpt of Stacy D'Erasmo's interview in The New York Times Book Review:

"That's what art is, he said, the story of a life in all its particularity. It's the only thing that really is particular and personal. It's the expression and, at the same time, the fabric of the particular. And what do you mean by the fabric of the particular? I asked, supposing he would answer: Art. I was also thinking, indulgently, that we were pretty drunk already and that it was time to go home. But my friend said, "What I mean is the secret story.... The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter. But every damn thing matters! It's just that we don't realize. We tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another, we don't even realize that's a lie."

Robert Wasler — Microscripts

New Directions has been putting out some really classy, good-looking books this year. I've mentioned Roberto Bolaño's Antwerp quite a couple of times, and last week I talked about Anne Carson's Nox; well here is another exciting and beautiful addition for your bookshelves...

The long awaited translations of Robert Walser's (The Assistant & The Tanners) Microscripts!

When Walser passed away in 1956 the executor of his estate, Carl Seelig, assumed that the small strips of paper were covered with markings around a millimeter or two high. Seelig figured that Walser had been writing in an undecipherable code while being hospitalized for schizophrenia in the Waldau Sanitarium.

What have now been termed Walser's Microscripts, turned out to be a miniaturized form of the Kurrent script, a kind of shorthand for German-speaking countries that was used until the mid-twentieth century. These Microscripts turned out to be early versions of Walser's novels and countless stories. New Directions has collected some of these stories, along with full-color plates of the original Microscripts.

These short stories are wonderful, masterful examples of the great storyteller Walser was. Susan Bernofsky has done an excellent job translating and Walter Benjamin's afterword is captivating.

Any fan of Walser (or literature) will get endless pleasure from this book.

Highlights From BookExpo America 2010...

This year BookExpo America was busy, a good time, and a lot of work. Everywhere we went people were spotting Pete from the Green Apple Book vs. the Kindle Videos, commenting on how much they like the store, or ignoring us to stand in very long lines to get some random author to sign some random book that may or may not be worth the time.

As for myself I was trying to find the few small press booths around to see what the Fall will bring. Some of what I saw just came out, some is set for the Summer. Here are the books that look like great reads to me...

Anne Carson's Nox hit our display table just as I was getting ready to leave for B.E.A. and it is beautiful. I haven't had time to dissect and enjoy this book yet, but what I have read is amazing. New Directions was prominently displaying this and Antwerp, which I previously wrote about here.
New Directions says of Nox, "Anne Carson’s haunting and beautiful Nox is her first book of poetry in five years — a unique, illustrated, accordion-fold-out 'book in a box.'

Nox is an epitaph in the form of a book, a facsimile of a handmade book Anne Carson wrote and created after the death of her brother. The poem describes coming to terms with his loss through the lens of her translation of Poem 101 by Catullus 'for his brother who died in the Troad.' Nox

is a work of poetry, but arrives as a fascinating and unique physical object. Carson pasted old letters, family photos, collages and sketches on pages. The poems, typed on a computer, were added to this illustrated 'book,' creating a visual and reading experience so amazing as to open up our concept of poetry."

Along with the new release of Joshua Cohen's book Witz, Dalkey Archive is getting ready for the release of Best European Fiction 2011, in their annual Best European Fiction series. I, for one, cannot wait for this collection, as 2010 was amazing.

Green Apple also got a big thank you for our Running Away video!

(Also check out Self-Portrait Abroad: A Novel Toussaint's newest release from Dalkey)

One of my new friends in the publishing world is Graywolf Press. They have been putting out quality books since the mid-seventies, but have really come into their own. What were they touting for the Summer/Fall? Well it shouldn't be too hard to guess since I put a picture of the cover just to the left of this...

That's right a new Per Petterson novel, I Curse the River of Time. It's short but this galley has already been making the rounds and looks to be just what it is...another fantastic book from Per Petterson!

I also got to meet Jessica Francis Kane, who's first novel, The Report, will be released in September.

And lastly (though there were a lot of great books to be seen this year I will update you on more later) The good people of Coffee House Press are very excited by Andrew Ervin's Extraordinary Renditions.

So stay tuned to thegreenapplecore and always check out our display shelves for the best in small press new releases.

The Fist Roberto Bolaño...

I know, I know more Roberto Bolaño recommendations from Green Apple...

But this is his first book ever! The book he waited twenty years into his career to publish. The book Bolaño himself said, "the only novel that doesn't embarrass me is Antwerp."

Here is what I will say: Just today opened my locker to see a small, black, hardcover book with gold foil stamping on the front (the picture to the left does no justice). I turned the book to look at the spine to see in the same gold foil stamping ND.

So I spent my breaks reading the first 20 pages of this magical book and trying to figure out just what to make of it. . . .

Well, I'm loving it, though I can see what Bolaño means in his introduction when he says, "I never brought this novel to any publishing house, of course. They would've slammed the door in my face and I'd have lost the copy."

All that Bolaño will later write is in this small, concise, beautiful surrealist murder mystery that travels countries and continents and literary borders.

Book of the Month/Books in Translation

Even with the amount of press that Roberto Bolaño has had over the last couple years, even from us, and with Horacio Castellanos Moya's- an author who's books She-Devil in the Mirror and Senselessness I consider to be a couple of the best books I read last year- article Bolaño Inc. damning North American press as being "squeezed dry", I would like everyone to read Monsieur Pain, the latest of Bolaño's novels to be released from New Directions.

My reasoning is this: Bolaño has been over marketed in the United States, primarily for Savage Detectives and 2666, both of which I found to be unstructured and a little to rambling for my liking and both of which I felt seemed a little unfinished.

But Bolaño is a master. He knew that his short fiction, short stories or novels, had to be exact and precise. This is the Bolaño that New Directions has been putting out since his death in 2003. These are books where every word matters, every action, description, and character planned out. They are books that deal with love, death, paranoia, and corruption. Monsieur Pain is no different.

Monsieur Pain is trying to cure César Vallejo, the Peruvian poet, who is on the verge of hiccuping himself to death from an undiagnosed illness. Meanwhile Pain is wandering through Paris trying to tie up the mystery that surrounds him.

If you want to read the true Roberto Bolaño, read Chris Andrews' amazing translations from New Directions...and why not start with Monsieur Pain? I guarantee you'll like it.

Books In Translation...

To continue with my books in translation series I realized that I hadn't written about the last three books that I had finished, not to mention that they are all recent works in translation from New Directions...

The first was put out in the beginning of February- Bad Nature, or With Elvis In Mexico. It is part of their New Directions Pearls Series, containing short works in a small and sleek format for around ten bucks. Others in this series have been Federico García Lorca's In Search of Duende, Tennessee Williams' Tales of Desire, and the forthcoming Everything and Nothing by Borges...

Bad Nature is a short novel by the amazing Spanish novelist/journalist/translator of major English works into Spanish, Javier Marías. Marías is best known for his three volume trilogy Your Face Tomorrow (each word is a link to each volume) also published by New Directions...

Bad Nature is a quick read, and definitely larger than its 57 pages. It is narrated by a young Spanish kid working on Elvis' 13th film Fun In Acapulco. It is short so I don't want to give anything away but this is a great read (and inexpensive at that).

Stay tuned next Sunday when I will talk about either one or both of the latest Roberto Bolaño novels to be put out by New Directions; Monsieur Pain and The Skating Rink.

Robert Walser...The Tanners

Robert Walser was an eccentric writer. Though I am only a fraction of the way through with the New Directions The Tanners, just recently released, I thought I would talk about it anyway.

First off...this book is funny. Funny in that offhanded, early 20th century funny. But funny in a timeless way. Funny as only the down and out and slightly insane can write funny. Walser wanders in and out of story & thought. In and out of letters to and from bothers. In and out of jobs and towns. His protagonist, Simon, is off-the-cuff and unremarkable (though charming and fascinating) except in his own eyes.

The book begins with Simon walking into a bookstore and telling the owner, "I want to be a bookseller...I yearn to become one, and I don't know what might prevent me from carrying out my intentions. I've always imagined the trade in books must be an enchanting activity, and I cannot understand why I should still be forced to pine away outside of this fine, lovely occupation. For you see, sir, standing here before you, I find myself extraordinarily well suited for selling books in your shop, and selling as many as you could possibly wish me to."

Just a few pages after this we read a letter, one Simon has not yet read, from his older brother Klaus chastising Simon for his wandering ways and his inability to stick with a job and then...

"When a week had passed, Simon entered his employer's office just as evening was arriving and made the following speech: 'You have disappointed me. Don't look so astonished, there's nothing to be done about it, I shall quit your place of business this very day and ask you that you pay me my wages. Please, let me finish. I know perfectly well what I want. During the past week I've come to realize that the entire book trade is nothing less that ghastly if it must entail standing at one's desk from early morning to late at night...writing like some accursed happenstance copyist and performing work unsuitable for a mind such as my own."

The other wonderful thing about this book is the introduction (though it is lengthy it is totally worth the read) which is an excerpt for a to be announced collection of essays by W.G. Sebald, A Place in the Country. This essay, Le Promeneur Solitaier: A Remembrance of Robert Walser is fascinating and incredibly well written. Next on my list to read is some Sebald. I can tell that I have been missing out.

3 New books From South of the Border

We all only have so much time to read & as our Canvas Bag says: So Many Books, So Little Time.
So I thought I would offer up some new books, just released that are quick, intense, & newly translated into English...

The first author is Horacio Castellanos Moya, author of Senselessness, She-Devil in the Mirror (both from New Directions) & Dance With Snakes (Biblioasis). We are lucky that in the past year these three of his novels have now been translated into English.

Roberto Bolaño says of Castellanos Moya: The acid humor of Horacio Castellanos Moya, resembling that of a Buster Keaton movie or a time-bomb, threatens the hormonal stability of imbeciles, who when they read him feel the irrepressible desire to hang the author in the town square. I can't think of a higher honour for a real writer.

I think out of She-Devil & Dance With Snakes I choose She-Devil as my favorite but they are both very quick, twisted reads that will make you smile & shiver at the same time. Senselessness will be an upcoming post as it will be my new staff-favorite soon.




The Armies is another new novel by Colombian author Evelio Rosero & is also a New Directions Paperback that has just been released. At 215 pages it is a quick & powerful read. It is NOT a lighthearted read though. Rosero deftly & masterfully tells the tales of a fictional town in Columbia from the viewpoint of Ismail, a retired teacher, who spends his days spying on his neighbor.

Soon the town is overrun by the violence that plagued Colombia for so long.

The Armies also just won the the Independent's Foreign Fiction Prize for excellence in translation.

azorno

It is a shame that Inger Christensen passed away just fourteen days before her 74th birthday in January of this year. The Danish poet, novelist & essayist has been an inspiration to many. Now New Directions Press has released a new translation of her 1967 novel Azorno by Denise Newman.

Azorno is a complicated (though very readable) almost schizophrenic tale that may or may not have 6 characters...maybe there are five women and then two men...it may be narrated by one...by all...or by none. Each woman merges from one to the next so we never really see who is telling the truth & who is not...who is writing the novel...or even who Azorno is.

We are misled from the start...

"I've learned that I'm the woman he first meets on page eight. It was Azorno who told me. Come to think of it, I've never dared asked him why he's called Azorno."

Some of the more impatient readers may have to jump immediately to page eight. Others will hold it in the front of their mind, as I did, to see who this woman is. That is the beauty of this book. Each turn in story & plot becomes more mysterious & more real, a very visceral experience.

"Inger Christensen manages to make wit, passion & questioning, & astonishing design serve each other's ends as one, & she does it in a way that is utterly her own." - W.S. Merwin

"Like Hesiod, Inger Christensen wants to give us an account of what is-of everything that is & how it is said & what we are in the midst of." - Anne Carson

The Halfway House by Guillermo Rosales

I have found one of my new favorite authors. Unfortunately I will be able to read little of his work. New Directions recently released The Halfway House- one of two surviving novels by Guillermo Rosales, & the only one translated into English thus far- & it is a haunting & extraordinarily beautiful piece of writing.

Rosales was a double-exile in his life, first from his native Cuba where as Rosales puts it, "Twenty years ago, I finished writing a novel in Cuba that told a love story. It was the story of an affair between a communist and a member of the bourgeoisie, and ended with both of them committing suicide. The novel was never published and my love story was never known by the public at large. The government's literary specialists said my novel was morose, pornographic, and also irreverent, because dealt harshly with the Communist Party. After that, I went crazy."

Though the character's name in The Halfway House is William Figueras, we know from Rosales own tragic biography that this is not far off from his real life story. After fighting with Castro to make Cuba a better place Rosales, & many others, fled for Miami & freedom in 1979. On his arrival though he is shunned by his well-to-do family & bounces around halfway, "those marginal refuges where the desperate and hopeless go," for as his aunt tells him in the beginning of the novel, "you'll be fine here...You'll understand that nothing more can be done." These halfway houses that Rosales was in & out of in Miami (though he did win the Golden Letters Award judged by Octavio Paz) is the bases for the decrepit, disgusting, & brutal setting in The Halfway house.

We still think of Nurse Hatchett & the sterile world of the insane asylum in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest but that world is completely different then the abuse of those with power in the Halfway House & the 'trapped bestial inhabitants' who have nowhere else to go. This book will open your eyes to the Regan-era disregard for the mentally ill.

As I stated before, it is too bad that I will be able to read little of Rosales work, since he destroyed all but two manuscripts before he committed suicide in 1993. Thankfully we have small presses such as New Directions to help preserve those that did survive.

I give this book my highest of recomendations, it is a quick read, & well worth reading a second or third time.