David Golder - Irene Nemirovsky (French)

Nemirovsky recounts the last days of a man who dedicated his life to the pursuit of money. She doesn’t condemn cold, stony David Golder – he’s the most sympathetic person in a cast of characters composed mostly of leeches, and his physical suffering and fear of death give him a humanity one can relate to. In the grasping world presented here a few people still value simple sensuous pleasures; the chapter that takes us with Joyce and her lover is a needed diversion from the rest of the book, which is dominated by gloom. This gloom eventually becomes monochromatic and overpowering. When the cruelties pile up (such as when Golder’s wife tells him that his daughter, the one bright thing in his life, is not his) the novel loses balance. Negativity (the first word of the book is “No”) is too extreme. And the ending is melodramatic; the author tries to give Golder a hero’s stoicism and to make his last moments evocative. But, whatever its flaws, this is a serious, ambitious novel. That Nemirovsky wrote it when she was twenty-three is beyond impressive.

Mrs. Eckdorf in O’Neill’s Hotel - William Trevor

Most of the people in this book are life’s losers, and many are deluded, but Trevor treats them all with compassion. This is an intricate, strange novel, but it works (e.g., the revelation about the Terrible Thing that happened at the hotel is handled in a way that’s surprising but believable). The characters form a dense tableau of thoughts and spoken words as each pursues his or her way of getting by in the world. They may not be ideal ways, but even the repulsive Morrissey is made comprehensible. And though Ivy Eckdorf is dangerously crazy, her transformation in the last chapter is moving. She finds the only possible way to bring peace and happiness to the suffering residents of O’Neill’s Hotel – and to herself. *

Botchan - Natsume Soseki (Japanese)

This second novel by Soseki was hugely popular in Japan. Though an easy read, it’s superficial, the humor is juvenile, and the main character is a one-dimensional blowhard. It gives no indication of the darkness and depth that would mark Soseki’s later work.

The Call of the Toad - Gunter Grass (German)

A well-written bore. The widow and widower’s cemetery plan is leeched of any interest it might have had by the oblique way in which it’s framed. An author (Grass, I guess) potters around with reams of material the widower has sent him. He reconstructs their story, but his many interjections and digressions slow everything to a toad’s pace. I stopped short of the halfway mark.

The Tin Drum - Gunter Grass (German)
A great novel. Wholly original. The big scenes are almost always successful, often to an inordinate degree – they amaze (such as the mother eating fish till she dies; and the appalling episode which precedes that one, about the horse head and the eels). It’s also a confusing book, elusive in its specifics, but successfully imparting an emotional impression. It’s a dark look at life, at this world. Little Oskar is one of the most imposing characters in fiction – him and his drum. His self-centeredness, his cruelty, his vulnerability. I sense that this book is partly about sexual longing (as for great sex scenes, the ones between Oskar and Maria are near or at the top; in fact, it’s when I read those scenes that a feeling for Oskar swept over me). The prose is perfectly attuned to its character and subject – dense, heavy, perverse, powerful. *

Get Ready for Battle - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Jhabvala is an accurate analyzer of people. She places them in the context of their contradictions, which creates a nice tension. She writes true-to-life tragic-comedy. At the end, when Mala violently asserts herself to Vishnu, I felt the emotion. I felt how slippery Vishnu is, how difficult it will be to make a caring man out of him. But I felt there may be a chance. The person I was most involved with was Sarla Devi. She’s fated to pursue, in vain, the just path. Jhabvala closes the book with her wandering the red light district, still on her futile quest. *

Journey to the Land of the Flies - Aldo Buzzi (Italian)
Buzzi veers from one topic to another, or abandons a line of thought, or introduces a new subject out of the blue. The apparent carelessness has its charm in a book like this. The impression I get is of someone very learned, who values (and knows well) literature, food, the beauty of things (especially women). He shares his knowledge, much of it arcane, as he travels the world. You can take from this book what you will. For me, Buzzi served up a generous helping of pleasure. *

The Poor Mouth - Flann O’Brien (Gaelic)
Very funny, raucous and wild. O’Brien presents the Irish in a state of abject misery and attributes to them a plethora of lowly characteristics. He exaggerates in a deadpan way, but the reader knows that O’Brien is pulling our leg – pulling it very hard. Despite the wild exaggeration, this is not nonsensical. O’Brien, an Irishman to the core, is making a point akin to the one Swift made in “A Modest Proposal.” *