Published in Germany in 1932, when author Irmgard Keun was only twenty-two, The Artificial Silk Girl, a bestselling novel of its day, is said to be for pre-Nazi Germany what Anita Loos’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) is for Jazz Age America. Both novels capture the frantic spirit, the eat-drink-and-be-merry ambiance, and the materialism of young people like Doris – and Lorelei Lee in the Loos book – who haunt the urban clubs as they try to work their way into a lifestyle much grander and more vibrant than anything their mothers could ever have hoped for. Doris, the “artificial silk girl,” has no politics, focusing almost completely on her own ambitions – finding wealthy men who will improve her life by financing a better lifestyle for her. She cadges a desired wristwatch from one potential suitor, extols the virtues of chocolates and fine clothing to others (and is sometimes rewarded), but fastens her clothing with rusty safety pins in case someone too unattractive gets too carried away. By the age of seventeen, she has already had a year-long affair with Hubert, her first and most lasting love, but when he ignores her birthday after she’s saved up for a new dress, and fails to produce a present, she retaliates. The authorities in Germany were not pleased with Keun’s published depiction of Berlin life as Hitler and the Nazis, preparing to take power, envisioned it. Within a year, Keun’s books were confiscated and all known copies were destroyed. Though she continued writing after World War II, it is this novel, rediscovered and republished in 1979, for which she is best known. Fun and funny and very important for its depiction of women in pre-Nazi society.
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The fine line between satire and farce is obliterated in this novel about the annual granting of England’s most prestigious literary prize. Author Edward St. Aubyn never hesitates to leap with both feet from satire into bold farce here, as often as some of his characters jump with both feet into each other’s beds. At the same time, however, he also maintains a bemused and distantly objective point of view regarding the machinations of those authors competing for the Elysian Prize, the judges who must decide the winner, and the literary establishment which recognizes the internal wheeling and dealing but still takes the whole process seriously. Though the author never mentions the name of the real prize he is satirizing, every reader of British literature will have an idea of which among several prizes is being satirized here. St. Aubyn’s parodies of various literary styles, represented by some of the candidates for the Elysian Prize mentioned here will bring smiles of recognition to all readers. All the World’s a Stage, a book favored by Elysian judge Tobias Benedict, an actor, shows St. Aubyn’s skill in writing very sophisticated parodies of Shakespearean drama here. By contrast, the writing of one candidate for the prize, wot u starin at, by Hugh MacDonald, is full of gutter language. A perfect book for summer written by a well-recognized author of historical fiction who is taking a different and much welcomed tack for those of us looking for a change of pace, Lost for Words is both unique and satisfying.
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In this short but beautifully compressed novel about writing, memory, and the Holocaust, French author Deborah Levy-Bertherat tells the story of Helene Roche and her great-uncle Daniel Roche, previously known as Daniel Ascher, and now known as H. R. Sanders, author of the Black Insignia series of young adult adventure novels. Divided into three parts which take place between September 1999, and July 2000, the novel focuses on Helene’s efforts to come to terms with her relationship with this much older family member, even as she is, herself, writing her thesis for a degree at the Institute of Art and Archaeology at the University of Paris. Helene has recently moved into a nearby garret apartment which her great-uncle has offered in an apartment building he owns nearby while he is off on one of his many travels. Not close to her uncle, she lives with her boyfriend Guillaume, a fellow student and a huge fan of the Black Insignia series of adventure novels which her great-uncle has written over the years. Ultimately, the reader stands in awe of the depiction of the creative process which the author presents, along with its responsibilities – and its inevitabilities. The true writer and committed chronicler of the past, wrapped in the atmosphere of another time, has no alternative but to follow his/her muse into the scenes and stories which have animated his/her own life, and as Levy-Bertherat shows here, relive and perhaps revise his/her own history in the process.
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Book Expo America, held at the Javits Center in New York City for the past few years, opened its last expo there on Wednesday, May 27, 2015 – May 29, 2015. Next year it, and its companion Book Con (which is held on the weekend after Book Expo concludes), will move to Chicago for the Big Event(s). As always, the enthusiasm was high as booksellers, librarians, reviewers, publishers, agents, and other book professionals gathered to see and hear what the publishers have planned for the next six months. Talks, panel discussions, breakfasts with authors, individual meetings with favorite publishers, and autograph sessions in which fans can meet favorite authors and receive signed advance review copies of new books make the lines long, the aisles crowded, and the excitement palpable. Here are some of the international selections getting noticed.
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Petterson begins the novel in 2006, as Jim, a man in his fifties who never knew his father, almost runs over an old man while driving through a snowstorm in the early morning hours. He wonders if the old man, who is uninjured, could have been his unknown father, a motif which echoes throughout. Jim is on his way to the suspension bridge that connects the island of Ulvoya to the mainland, a few miles south of Oslo. He fishes from the bridge a few times a week in the semi-darkness just before dawn, a peaceful activity for a man who must remember to “take his pills.” He resents the “classy cars” which have just begun crossing the bridge as dawn breaks, and he is shocked when someone in a new Mercedes stops and says, unexpectedly, “It’s Jim, isn’t it?” The speaker is Tommy Berggren, his dearest friend from childhood, with whom he has had virtually no contact for almost thirty years, a man who now looks “like Jon Voight in Enemy of the State,” but who miraculously recognizes him from the crowd. I Refuse is, I believe, Norwegian author Per Petterson’s most overwhelming and powerful novel yet, a novel which, even now, three days after I finished reading it, still has hold of my heart and still echoes in my memories throughout the day. I have read and reread passages just to be sure that they really do happen the way I thought they did, hoping that if I could just reread them one more time with a new vision that maybe I could keep the sad inevitabilities from happening in quite the same way, this time around. I don’t think I am the only one who will feel this way
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