Review: Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji

Cover of the book 'Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art' by Shizuo Tsuji, featuring a watercolor illustration of a fish and text indicating it's the 25th anniversary edition.

Japanese Cooking [1980/2007] – ★★★★1/2

November is a non-fiction reading month, and I thought I would review something from a non-fiction genre I have hardly touched – food non-fiction. Japanese food may bring to mind certain stereotypical images, such as a conveyor belt sushi or raw seafood. However, Japanese food is so much more than this. This book by chef and teacher Shizuo Tsuji (1933-1993) explains clearly and succinctly traditional Japanese cuisine and food, its types and preparation, focusing on special recipes, and Japanese eating customs, which centre on a balanced diet that prioritises aesthetics and seasonal changes. Everything you have ever wanted to know about Japanese food and its intricate preparation is in this book, which includes over five hundred drawings, and more than two hundred recipes, from hot pots and rice dishes to sushi and grilled cuisine.

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Daphne du Maurier’s Novels: Ranked

Daphne du Maurier’s novels are moody, haunting, and psychologically suspenseful – making them perfect for autumn reading. So, while thinking about her novels recently, I came up with this ranking of her books. This list reflects my personal preferences and only includes those novels I have read so far – seven in total, excluding her short-stories.

My Cousin Rachel [1951]

Book cover of 'My Cousin Rachel' by Daphne du Maurier featuring elegant typography and a decorative green and gold floral design.

“People who mattered could not take the humdrum world. But this was not the world, it was enchantment; and all of it was mine” [Daphne du Maurier, Virago Press, 1951/2003: 117].

It must be jarring not to see Rebecca in the first place, but I have my reasons. My Cousin Rachel finds du Maurier at the peak of her narrative powers. It is a dazzling story of relentless obsession, torments of youth, and endless questioning. I love it the most because it is so nuanced, clever, mysterious and psychologically-intriguing. In the story, Philip Ashley finds himself smitten with the wife of his older cousin, Ambrose, who passed away suddenly in Italy. Rachel presents herself as a woman of much beauty and sophistication, but awestruck Philip finally begins doubting himself, questioning whether he is not falling into the same trap Ambrose did…I love stories about hidden dangers slowly unravelling or characters hiding themselves or pulling strings from behind the scenes, and My Cousin Rachel struck a chord with me like Rebecca, which is perhaps more thrilling, but also more predictable, never did.

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Hieronymus Bosch: The Conjurer

A group of spectators watches a street performer at a table, displaying tricks with cups and balls, while a dog observes nearby.
The Conjurer [c. 1502] by Hieronymus Bosch.

I love delving into mystical, dark-themed artworks come Halloween season, and, this time around, decided to talk about the painting The Conjurer by Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516). In it, he presents an arresting scene: a street magician, dressed in a scarlet robe and reminiscent of the Magician from the Tarot deck, has gathered a crowd of onlookers and performs a trick using cups and balls. The crowd is engrossed in the proceedings, and while almost everyone fixes their eyes on the ball in the magician’s hand, a person dressed in black and white, and looking towards the sky, has his hand around another man’s purse. The distraction seems to be working, and the theft is almost complete. The thief’s dress suggests that he belongs to a religious order, probably the Dominican order, and Bosch’s aim was likely to point out the hypocrisy of authority figures by suggesting that the friar is working in tandem with the magician to steal.

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Chinese Literature: 5 Novels I’ve Recently Added to My TBR

Cover of 'Fortress Besieged' by Qian Zhongshu, featuring two characters standing by a railing with a serene landscape in the background.
Book cover of 'Green River Daydreams' by Liu Heng featuring a blend of colorful backgrounds and historical imagery.
Cover of the book 'To Live' by Yu Hua, featuring an illustration of a man carrying a bundle of straw.
Cover of the novel 'Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out' by Mo Yan, featuring a red background, a central image of a smiling doll, surrounded by yellow symbols of zodiac animals, and a Nobel Prize badge for literature.

Fortress Besieged [1947] by Qian Zhongshu

Qian Zhongshu (1910-1998) was a talented literary scholar, researcher and polyglot. He published his novel Fortress Besieged in 1947, but it received its due attention only in the 1980s. It is now considered “one of the masterpieces of twentieth century Chinese literature”. Set on the eve of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937, it tells the story of Fang Hung-chien, a young man who returns home to Shanghai after years of aimless and fruitless studying in Europe. Without a proper degree, he then jumps from one job to another, and from one love affair to the next, becoming disillusioned with both his career and his eventual marriage. Penguin Publishing describes this contemporary Chinese classic as “a glorious tale of love, marriage, war, calamity, disillusionment and hope, this is one of the greatest Chinese novels: combining Eastern philosophy, Western traditions, adventure, tragicomedy and satire to create a unique feast of delights.”

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20 Best Japanese Novels I’ve Read

Below is the list of twenty best Japanese novels I have read so far. At first, I wanted to review either How Can My Manager Be So Stupid? [2019/26] by Hayami Kazumasa or Dinner at the Night Library [2023/25] by Hika Harada, but neither of them engaged me enough to write a proper review, so, instead, I have decided to look back at the Japanese books I have read, and pick out those that stayed with me for one reason or another, making this list of best Japanese novels (I have reviewed eleven out of the twenty below). I still want to read quite a number of books by Shūsaku Endō and Natsume Sōseki, so this list is not final, but rather a work in-progress. I am excluding manga, short stories and non-fiction. One caveat, though, is that I don’t get along with the hugely popular Haruki Murakami, nor with the fiction of Junichirō Tanizaki, though I love his essay In Praise of Shadows.

Book cover of 'The Tale of Genji' by Murasaki Shikibu, translated by Edward Seidensticker, featuring traditional Japanese artwork with figures and landscapes.
Book cover for 'Silence' by Shūsaku Endō, featuring a stylized illustration of a figure against a large red sun with a blood-like droplet, and text indicating it will be a major motion picture.
Book cover of 'The Waiting Years' by Fumiko Enchi, featuring a young woman in traditional Japanese attire against a monochrome background.
Book cover of 'The Old Capital' by Yasunari Kawabata, featuring a floral design and the text 'Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature'.
Book cover of 'How Do You Live?' by Genzaburo Yoshino, featuring a child sitting on a large, colorful abstract shape against a light background, with the title prominently displayed.

The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

Silence by Shūsaku Endō

The Waiting Years by Fumiko Enchi

The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata

How Do You Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino

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Review: The Parade’s Gone By…by Kevin Brownlow

The Parade’s Gone By…[1968/76] – ★★★★

Today (29th September) is the National Silent Movie Day, celebrating early cinema and raising awareness about film preservation, and I am reviewing this non-fiction book on silent cinema by film historian Kevin Brownlow (1938-).

Safety Last! (1923), Sherlock Jr. (1924), Greed (1924), Battleship Potemkin (1925), Metropolis (1927), Sunrise (1927), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), City Lights (1931) – these are some of the greatest films ever made, and they are all silent. Brownlow’s argument is simple: silent film is not some primitive, crude relic of a bygone era, but part of the richest tradition in cinema history. It is a unique mode of cinematic expression, and should be preserved and cherished in its own right. In the book, Brownlow alternates chapters on the craft of silent film-making (camerawork, editing, acting, etc.) with the insights into individual directors and actors, producing an intelligent, eye-opening book.

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Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky: Short Stories

Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky (1887-1950) was a Russian writer, playwright, philosopher, and historian, and a man who is “known for being unknown”. This is because most of his work was never published during his lifetime, but only posthumously. Often linked to Bulgakov, with whom he shared certain autobiographical details, Krzhizhanovsky eventually became known for his fantastical, absurdist stories and parables that remind of the works of Borges, Gogol, Calvino and Kafka. In his stories, storytellers lose control of their characters (The Bookmark) or thoughts (In Line/The Life & Opinions of a Thought), for example, and body parts or clothes inexplicably run away (The Runaway Fingers/Comrade Punt).

Below, I have selected for review five stories from three short story collections published by the NYRB: Memories of the Future (2009), Autobiography of a Corpse (2013), and Unwitting Street (2020). Some of them reminded me of the short stories of Dino Buzzati – see my reviews of Catastrophe & Other Stories and The Siren, and Kōbō Abe (The Magic Chalk). Both authors were influenced by Gogol and Kafka, as was Krzhizhanovsky.

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Review: Miaow by Benito Pérez Galdós

Miaow [1888/2025] – ★★★★

This satirical novel introduces Ramón Villaamil, an honourable man and an ex-employee of the Ministry, who spends all his days petitioning hopelessly his previous employment and begging his friends for favours so he can get a job at the Ministry in any capacity. Living with him are his wife Doña Pura, her sister Milagros, his daughter Abelarda (the three cruelly nicknamed “Miaus” for their cat-like appearance), and his grandson Luis, the child of Luisa, Ramón and Doña Pura’s late daughter. As Ramón Villaamil doesn’t have a stable employment, the family is falling deeper and deeper into poverty and debt, especially since the women of the family are haughty, pretentious and do not manage their finances well. But then, on the scene comes the father of little Luis – the handsome, but wayward Victor Cadalso, and starts play-acting in pursuing Abelarda, while offering money to the family. That is trouble already, but then Villaamil also discovers that Victor is after a governmental post, too, and will exercise more ruthless methods to get what he wants. Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920) is considered the greatest Spanish author after Miguel de Cervantes, and seems to have had a real talent for ascertaining where dramatic interest may lie and going there in his narrative. This is a novel of hope and the absence of it, of “keeping up appearances”, of people living in denial, and of daily cruelties and societal indifference.

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Review: In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming

In the Castle of My Skin [1953] – ★★★1/2

G is a boy growing up in a fishing village in colonial Barbados in the 1930s. Living in poverty with only his mother, who is the sole provider, he spends his days causing mischief around the village with his friends: Bob, Trumper and Boy Blue. At the centre of this world is an English landlord who resides in a large brick house surrounded by a high wall. He represents the strict divide between the two different “worlds” of the village: G’s world of poverty, where people live in shacks, and the realm of “the Great” or white people, who live on clean, well-trimmed avenues patrolled by overseers. The days pass unnoticeably for the residents of the village, but trouble may soon be brewing as Mr Slime, a popular ex-schoolteacher, is gathering around himself a crowd and has revolutionary ideas on how to improve the lives of “small people”. There isn’t a single strong narrative thread in the story, but Lamming is still observant and captures poetically the rhythmic life of the village, from its bathhouses to its markets, dotting his story with references to the injustices stemming from colonialism. This is a compassionate, nostalgic account and a glimpse into another world.

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Review: The Village of Stepanchikovo by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 

The Village of Stepanchikovo and Its Inhabitants [1859] – ★★★★1/2 

When a young man named Sergei received a letter from his uncle, retired Colonel Yegor Rostanev, summoning him to Rostanev’s village to meet a potential bride, never in his wildest dreams did he imagine the absurd situation that would confront him at his uncle’s house – or the uncle’s strange, submissive state, all stemming from the immense influence and control that a mere “nobody,” a penniless, petty and resentful middle-aged man called Foma Fomich Opiskin, exercises over the whole house and village. But, who is this man really, and why does he have everyone under his thumb? This most Gogolian of Dostoyevsky’s works, which was first conceived as a play, is a whirlpool of dramatic events and nightmarish scenarios that introduces the most colourful of personages who each, in their turn, play their roles in a wild sequence of astonishing incidents, including romantic rendezvous, forced elopements and covert money-making schemes. This is a highly entertaining comedy revolving around insidious villainy and blind, cult-like worship that infected the whole village like a contagion.

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My Recent Trip to Paris: Art, Literature, + Maritime History

I have recently returned from a short trip to Paris, and am sharing my highlights. The weather was warm, and I managed to visit a couple of parks, but below am focusing on the museums, including the Maison de Balzac, found at the 16th arrondissement, and which I have been wanting to explore for ages because I love Balzac’s work. It is hard to tell which of Balzac’s novels is my favourite, though – Le Père Goriot has great characterisations, Lost Illusions and The Black Sheep are masterpieces of dramatic contrast, & Eugénie Grandet is compact, but emotional, and has a special place in my heart.

Maison de Balzac

Exhibits at the Maison de Balzac
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Artist’s Studio: 5 Paintings

Artists’ studios are curious places. Part domestic and part commercial, they can be viewed as an extension of the artistic process itself and function as a kind of self-portraits where we can observe the reflection of an artist’s mind. But, how have artists depicted these spaces in art? Have they portrayed them as sacred abodes where geniuses dwell and labour, or presented them as tattered lodgings of talented, but increasingly hopeless, desperate and poor individuals? Below are five paintings of artists’ studios (in no particular order). Some are idealised versions, while others poke fun at the messiness and misunderstanding of artistic creativity. *The header image is a fragment of an illustration by Anton Pieck.

In the Studio [1881] by Marie Bashkirtseff
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The “Reading Spain” Challenge

Following on from my post Literary Musings (thank you all again for your recommendations!), I have decided to create this reading challenge with the goal to read more books from Spain. It will run until September 2027 (any number of books goes – see the banner below). The only rule is that authors must be from Spain (either born in Spain, nationality is/was Spanish, or who strongly identify(ed) with Spain, rather than Latin America). I will do mid-way check in and wrap-up posts, and will leave the banner with this page (+ any participants and updates on their reviews) in my widget area. I have also created an external link page for anyone who wants to add their reviews. Below are my preliminary list of fifteen novels I want to read for this challenge.

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Literary Musings

  • I have recently noticed how little I read from Spain, and I don’t mean Spanish-language authors, such as from Latin America, but just Spain. This year I read Tristana by Benito Pérez Galdós, but I feel like I barely scratched the surface with this author, and such lists as this one – The Greatest Spanish Literature of All Time – certainly inspire me to read more Spanish authors. Perhaps some of my readers are very versed in this, but I have only recently discovered that there are many great books and hidden gems. There are novels The Hive (La Colmena) and The Family of Pascual Duarte (La familia de Pascual Duarte) by Nobel Laureate Camilo José Cela, and The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazán is also highly praised. When it comes to Javier Marías, I am now less convinced. Though I still want to read his novel A Heart So White, I found myself almost DNFing his book Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me. Though it is beautifully written, I found the story lacking in logic and believability. The situation there was really too preposterous, and I was not at all convinced that the main character was really “trapped” in an impossible situation.

    Then, there is Time of Silence by Luis Martín-Santos Ribera. It is said to be “one most important Spanish novels of the twentieth century”, and I have also recently put into my TBR list Eduardo Mendoza’s The City of Marvels, which is “a novel describing the rise of the unspeakable Onofre Bouvila, an honestly self-seeking mafioso who starts in the gutters of Barcelona and leaves a trail of broken egos as he climbs up to his place in the sun” (goodreads). Perhaps I should do a Spanish Literature Challenge, similar to the one I did for Italy. Would you be interested to participate? 🇪🇸
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“10 Books of Summer” Challenge – Completed

This is just a post to say that I have completed my “10 Books of Summer” reading challenge hosted by Annabel at AnnaBookBel (thank you, Annabel, for being such a great host this year!) Being such a mood reader, I ended up replacing more than half of the books I initially planned to read for this challenge, and also reviewed half of them. I have discovered through this challenge that I am very bad at sticking to lists of books planned to read 🙂

I. Explosion in a Cathedral by Alejo Carpentier – ★★★★★ – REVIEW

II. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton – ★★★★

III. A House for Mr Biswas by V. S. Naipaul – ★★★★ – REVIEW

IV. The Murderess by Alexandros Papadiamantis – ★★★★ – REVIEW

V. Botchan by Natsume Soseki – ★★★★ – REVIEW

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Review: The Murderess by Alexandros Papadiamantis

The Murderess [1902/83/2010] – ★★★★ 

Alexandros Papadiamantis (1851-1911) was one of the most influential Greek authors, and also an eccentric, reclusive man who wrote about the lives of the poor. One of his best-known novels is The Murderess, a strange, but spellbinding offering. It is a dark fairy-tale-like story about a far-off community in Greece that is in a constant state of want and sorrow. At its centre is an ageing woman called Old Hadoula or Frankissa or Frankojannou, whose family is also mired in poverty and who increasingly sees all the little girls around her as a liability instead of living and breathing human beings. Papadiamantis paired a Greek pastoral fable with a disturbing character study, and the result is one horrifying, but riveting read.

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Song “Over the Rainbow” vs. Mascagni’s Opera Guglielmo Ratcliff (Intermezzo) – A Case of “Plagiarism”?

Everyone knows the main melody of the Intermezzo (Ratcliff’s Dream) from Mascagni’s opera Guglielmo Ratcliff (1895) even if they have never heard of this opera or the composer before, and this is because it is very similar to the song we all know – “Over the Rainbow”, composed by Harold Arlen for the classic film The Wizard of Oz (1939). I have always been interested in music/film similarities, and possible plagiarism claims, and have decided to investigate this further in this ranty post.

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Throwback Thursday

“Throwback Thursday” is a meme hosted by Renee at It’s Book Talk. It provides opportunities for bloggers to share old favourites or highlight old posts. I have decided to highlight books that I read and reviewed in August 2019.

Half a Lifelong Romance by Eileen Chang
cover of book The Interestings with colourful stripes
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
Miracle Creek by Angie Kim
A Maze of Death by Philip K. Dick

Half a Lifelong Romance by Eileen Chang – ★★★★★ – SEE REVIEW

I still think Half a Lifelong Romance is a fine novel, though I have also recently discovered that Chang might have relied too much on the novel H. M. Pulham, Esq. by John P. Marquand to craft her story and characters. I have not read it, so I cannot say for sure, but I do want to read The Late George Apley [1937] by the same author, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I have also since read Chang’s novella Red Rose, White Rose, but found it rather lukewarm.

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The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh

I am sharing a few quotes from an amazing book I have finished recently – The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh. The artist wrote more than 2000 letters in his lifetime, principally to his brother Theo, and this Penguin edition reproduces some of them with commentary.

“The need is for nothing less than the infinite and the miraculous, and a man does well to be satisfied with nothing less, and not to feel easy until he has gained it…That is what all great men have acknowledged in their works, all those who have thought a little more deeply and searched and worked and loved a little more than the rest, who have plumbed the depths of the sea of life. Plumb the depths, that is what we too must do if we want to make a catch, and if we sometimes have to work the whole night through without catching anything, then we do well not to give up and to cast the net once more at dawn.“

“One should never feel secure just because one has no difficulties or cares or handicaps, and one should never be too easy-going. Even in the politest circles and the best surroundings and circumstances one should retain something of the original character of a Robinson Crusoe or of primitive man, for otherwise one cannot be rooted in oneself, and one must never let the fire in one’s soul die, for the time will inevitably come when it will be needed.”

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Classics Club Spin #45

I joined the Classics Club with this list of 50 classic books only this spring, and this will be my second spin. In the last spin (#44), I got Jezebel’s Daughter by Wilkie Collins (#9), but, regrettably, I haven’t read it. Hopefully, this second time, I will be more committed and read the book chosen by the spin. The rules are: go to your blog; pick twenty books that you listed as “to read” for the Classics Club challenge; and post the list, numbered 1-20, on your blog by 16th August 2026. The number will be announced on that day, and the challenge is to read the book that falls under the announced number by 4th October 2026.

My spin list this time:

1. In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck
2. The Violent Land by Jorge Amado
3. Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
4. Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton
5. The Lily of the Valley by Honoré de Balzac
6. The Bridge on the Drina by Ivo Andrić
7. Embers by Sándor Márai
8. Bomarzo by Manuel Mujica Lainez
9. The Awkward Age by Henry James
10. The Wild Ass’s Skin by Honoré de Balzac
11. Redburn by Herman Melville
12. The Illustrious House of Ramires by Eça de Queirós
13. Doña Bárbara by Rómulo Gallegos
14. The Relic by Eça de Queirós
15. The Wayfarer by Natsume Sōseki
16. The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch
17. The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
18. The Village of Stepanchikovo by Fyodor Dostoevsky
19. Home of the Gentry by Ivan Turgenev
20. And Then by Natsume Sōseki

The Nine Muses

The nine muses are the daughters of Zeus and Titan goddess Mnemosyne (of “memory”) who lived on Mount Helicon where they cultivated their creative gifts near the streams and geysers made by the hoof of winged horse Pegasus. Those streams and lakes, created by the hoof, were said to endow anyone who drunk from them with unlimited creative potential, intellectual curiosity and prophetic insight. In this environment, Mnemosyne taught her daughters various arts and trained their voices, and they later danced and sang at parties held by gods and heroes. The daughters are Calliope (Epic Poetry), Melpomene (Tragic Drama), Thalia (Comedy), Terpsichore (Dance), Clio (History), Erato (Lyric Poetry), Euterpe (Music), Polyhymnia (Mime & Sacred Lyrics), and Urania (Astronomy). All of them brought artistic inspiration to mortals, igniting the human spirit to explore and express the arts, and the word “museum” is from Greek “mouseion”, meaning a sacred shrine built to honour the muses, that now refers to a building that houses all things art.

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Review: Botchan by Natsume Sōseki 

Botchan [1906/2012] – ★★★★

In this novel by Natsume Sōseki, one reckless and boisterous young man from Tokyo somehow manages to finish school and an institute and gets the position of a mathematics teacher in a small town on the island of Shikoku. The fun begins then and there because “Botchan” (this young man’s nickname) never actually stopped being his frivolous and naughty self and now, apparently, has to be a role model for others. Sōseki’s story is humorous and delightful. Through the first-person narrator, who is a cheeky, self-assured young man, we see the contrast between the small town and the city, Japan’s hierarchical structures clashing with attempts at modernisation, and daily formalities going head-to-head with hearts full of fire and childish honesty.

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Review: Explosion in a Cathedral by Alejo Carpentier

Explosion in a Cathedral (El Siglo de las Luces) [1962] – ★★★★★

When Victor Hugues, a merchant sailor, enters the quiet life of a trio of adolescent orphans, bringing with him revolutionary spirit and new ideas, they do not immediately suspect the consequences of their newest attachment or the corrupting influence he will unleash. Left directionless after the death of their father, ambitious Carlos, grounded Sofia, and feeble, asthma-prone daydreamer Esteban are taken in by this stranger who has vivid tales to tell them of his Caribbean exploits. Soon, the orphans are entangled in an adventure that takes them across the Caribbean as an insurrection is brewing in Port-au-Prince. This is a magnificent novel with wondrous, erudite prose that, as is usual with Carpentier, is all about that fine line between freedom and slavery, the liberator and the enslaver, and violence and peace.

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German Renaissance: Matthias Grünewald

Matthias Grünewald is one of those Renaissance painters who were forgotten for a long time before being rediscovered in the nineteenth century. Grünewald was born c.1470, and gained some recognition during his lifetime for his work in the late medieval style, even as the world turned to classicism. Much of his work was lost at sea, and his art was often also mistaken for that of Albrecht Dürer, with the result being that what remained were just ten paintings and thirty-five drawings. Grünewald’s most famous work is the Isenheim Altarpiece, completed in 1515. Since the nineteenth century, he has been championed by several notable authors, including Joris-Karl Huysmans, Elias Canetti and W. G. Sebald. I love Grünewald‘s dramatic use of colour, and the fact that, like Bosch, he emphasised spiritual struggle and the grotesque in mystical contexts.

Temptations of Saint Anthony
Visit of Saint Anthony to Saint Paul the Hermit
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Review: Genius by Harold Bloom

Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds [2002] – ★★★★

Using the structure of Lurianic Kabbalah, American literary critic Harold Bloom (1930-2019) talks about one hundred literary geniuses in this book that presents each of the authors’ major works, biographical trivia and Bloom’s own insightful commentary. Virgil, William Shakespeare, Thomas Mann, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, Henry James, Lewis Carroll, Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, George Eliot, Miguel de Cervantes, Jorge Luis Borges, and Fernando Pessoa are just some of the authors included. Since there are so many, I chose to briefly comment on only seven of them in this review.

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Symbolist Art: Gustave-Adolphe Mossa

Gustave-Adolphe Mossa (1883-1971) was a French artist and museum curator from Nice who worked in a Symbolist style from roughly 1900 to 1911, before discovering Flemish masterpieces and Gothic art, and switching directions. In the production of his art, he was heavily influenced by novels (Joris-Karl Huysmans), poetry (Charles Baudelaire), and the styles of Art Nouveau and the Pre-Raphaelites. His paintings are characterized by vivid transformations of well-known characters and scenes from mythology and folklore, and are truly an idiosyncratic bouquet of the macabre, beauty, dark satire, eroticism and psychological intensity.

Les Mortes (The Dead Women) [1906] by Gustav-Adolf Mossa
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Mini-Reviews: A House for Mr Biswas, & Wittgenstein’s Nephew

A House for Mr Biswas [1961] by V. S. Naipaul – ★★★★

Set in colonial Trinidad, A House for Mr Biswas is a novel about a man who always finds himself on the fringes of society and affection, desperately trying to gain independence in life and own his own house, which stands for acceptance and unconditional love in the story. However, Mohun Biswas is disadvantaged from the start. For one thing, he was born under an unlucky star. When he was only a small child, his sneeze was already deemed to bring misfortune, and, on the advice of a local sage, he was also kept away from water “in case something happens”. And, something did happen. Later, Mohun learnt how to be a shop sign painter, and also worked as a rum-bottler, shopkeeper and a sub-overseer at a plantation, before finally settling into the profession of a journalist in Port of Spain. All he ever wanted in life was “to paddle his own canoe”, but, first, he lived under the thumb of his own poor family, and then under the direction of his wife’s sprawling dynasty – the Tulsis. This book by V. S. Naipaul is probably an allegory of living in a colonized country, in this instance, a country under the British rule, and touches on many themes, including familial power dynamics, freedom vs. responsibility, and desire vs. duty.

Continue reading “Mini-Reviews: A House for Mr Biswas, & Wittgenstein’s Nephew” →

10 Authors I Haven’t Read, But Want To (Part II)

Back in 2022, I wrote the post 10 Authors I Haven’t Read, But Want To, and am now thinking that the second part is overdue. From my previous list, I have read seven out of ten authors I mentioned, including Molière, Cortázar and Llewellyn, the latter’s book How Green Was My Valley becoming one of my favourites. So, here is another list of authors I still have not read, but really want to:

I. Natalia Ginzburg

I cannot believe it, but I am still to read any Natalia Ginzburg (1916-1991), an Italian author whose fiction explores family, politics and the World War II events, and that is even after my Italia Reading Challenge, when I first earmarked this author as “to read”. I am particularly drawn to her novel Family Lexicon, which was reissued by NYRB publishing, and is said to be “intimate, enchanting and comedic”, “an unforgettable novel about language, memory, and the lasting power that family holds over all of us” (Daunt Books Publishing).

II. Elizabeth Bowen

I have heard great things about Anglo-Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen and her books. I want to read The Death of the Heart, and The House in Paris, the former has been named one of the 100 best modern novels, while the latter has some intriguing themes, including time, motherhood, and betrayal and secrecy.

Continue reading “10 Authors I Haven’t Read, But Want To (Part II)” →

Remedios Varo: Solar Music

Solar Music [c. 1955] by Remedios Varo

Originally titled Music of Light, this surrealist painting by Spanish artist Remedios Varo (1908-1963) is about artistic inspiration and creative process, a theme to which Varo would return again and again in her works. The artwork’s central figure is some kind of a forest nymph wearing a grassy cloak and making music with a bow using the sun’s rays. The music she produces affects crystal casings that enclose birds, freeing them from their little prisons. The artist wanted to emphasise the liberating nature of art-making, and the fact that nature functions as a source of divine energy for the artist, imbuing her with mystical qualities needed to produce great works of art.

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French Literature Recommendations for Each Zodiac Sign

I recall I had so much fun compiling lists Japanese Literature Recommendations for Each Zodiac Sign 🇯🇵 and Italian Literature Recommendations for Each Zodiac Sign 🇮🇹, that I have decided to do another version, recommending French books 🇫🇷 this time (not least because this FIFA World Cup, I am, as usual, supporting the French team).

ARIES (March 21 – April 19)

The Horseman on the Roof by Jean Giono

Jean Giono (1895-1970) was a famous French author who is probably best known for his short story The Man Who Planted Trees. His adventurous novel The Horseman on the Roof would appeal to the fiery temperament of Aries who will enjoy the book’s excitement and intrigue. The story concerns nobleman Angelo who returns to his homeland after years of absence. He finds the land in the grip of a cholera epidemic.

TAURUS (April 20 – May 20)

Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery

Sensuous, comfort-loving Tauras will find a lot to love in this novel from best-selling author Muriel Barbery (The Elegance of the Hedgehog). The novel’s extravagant narrator, Pierre Arthens, is a world-renowned food critic who is now on his deathbed and looks back on his life full of culinary adventures. As he imparts his lifetime wisdom, he is also dying, both figuratively and literary, for that one final taste.

Continue reading “French Literature Recommendations for Each Zodiac Sign” →

Cry, the Beloved Country

I have recently finished the classic South African novel Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, and am sharing a few quotes:

“The tragedy is not that things are broken. The tragedy is that they are not mended again“.

“…there is only one thing that has power completely, and that is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power“.

“…while there is life, there is hope for amendment of life“.

“The truth is that our civilisation is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of high assurance and desperate anxiety, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions“.

“For mines are for men, not for money. And money is not something to go mad about, and throw your hat into the air for. Money is for food and clothes and comfort, and a visit to the pictures. Money is to make happy the lives of children”. Alan Paton, 1948

7 Great Books on Consciousness

British psychologist Stuart Sutherland wrote in 1989: “Consciousness is a a fascinating but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved. Nothing worth reading had been written about it“. Despite this sentiment, which has quite a bit of truth to it, below are seven great books on consciousness to read.

I. The Ancient Origins of Consciousness: How the Brain Created Experience by Todd Feinberg and Jon Mallatt

This is a great book for anyone interested in the evolutionary bases of consciousness. It rightly points out that solving “the hard problem” of consciousness requires recourse to philosophical, neurobiological and neuroevolutionary domains. The book starts with the Cambrian explosion, and demonstrates how vertebrate consciousness evolved from an amphioxus-like, invertebrate stage. This is a clear and very readable account of the evolution of consciousness, even if it only provides a sound theory on the development of a sensory consciousness, as opposed to a subjective, all-encompassing one.

Continue reading “7 Great Books on Consciousness” →

7 Great Books on Shamanism

Shamanism refers to spiritual practices that centre on a shaman (from a Manchu-Tungus word “šaman” meaning “the one who knows”) who is capable of entering altered states of consciousness for the purposes of healing, communication with the unseen world, etc. Below are seven great books on shamanism, a practice that remains misunderstood. Some of the books below are quite introductory, while others delve into certain intriguing aspects associated with the ancient practice.

I. Shamans, Healers, and Medicine Men by Holger Kalweit

In my review, I called this book by eminent German ethnologist Holger Kalwait “comprehensive, endlessly perceptive, & inspiring.” Kalwait impressed me with the depth with which he tackles shamanism and its concepts, and with the sheer number of tribal cultures he gives as examples. The author not only provides detailed explanations of shamanic training, testing, competitions, and healing practices, but also ties them to our innate humanity, and the meaning of consciousness and myth.

Continue reading “7 Great Books on Shamanism” →

Review: Dreamtime & Inner Space: The World of the Shaman by Holger Kalweit

Dreamtime & Inner Space [1988] – ★★★★

“Our scientific methods remain disassociated from actual life, whereas the shaman seizes life by its roots and experiences blazing reality” [Kalweit, Shambhala Publications: 243].

This book may be called a companion piece to Kalweit’s Shamans, Healers and Medicine Men (see my review), and explores how different tribes across the world, from Australia’s Warumungu to Panama’s Guna, view death (afterlife), mortality and soul, and how shamanic rituals, including initiation ceremonies, provide evidence for the communality of all human knowledge and experience. This is a clear, lucid account that provides as much depth as it does breadth.

Continue reading “Review: Dreamtime & Inner Space: The World of the Shaman by Holger Kalweit” →

Review: McTeague by Frank Norris

McTeague: A Story of San Francisco [1899] – ★★★★

Perhaps better known as the silent film Greed (1924) and based on a real murder case that shook San Francisco in 1893, McTeague is Frank Norris’s naturalistic novel about a sham dentist named McTeague and his “prim” wife Trina Sieppe, who at first have all the attributes of becoming members of the respectable middle class, but who then slowly spiral into degeneracy and destitution. ASan Franciscostory through and through, McTeague first focuses on one unlikely romance and one equally unlikely marriage before transitioning into a dramatic tale of a fight for survival.

Continue reading “Review: McTeague by Frank Norris” →

Mini-Review: Tristana by Benito Pérez Galdós

Tristana [1892/2014] – ★★★★1/2

“…the young woman had
her own ideas, hurling herself into the empty spaces of thought and
displaying the boldest of aspirations…” [Benito Pérez Galdós, Margaret Jull Costa, NYRB Classics, 1892/2014].

Don Lope Garrido was a man already past a certain age when he took under his wing the daughter of his friend, who died in bankruptcy. The girl, Tristana, found herself orphaned, penniless and facing a sorrowful fate – but she did not realise it back then. Don Lope took advantage of pristine, innocent Tristana and started living with her as his wife, without marrying the girl, of course, and Tristana’s gradual re-awakening to her plight forms part of this Madrid tale, which at first looks like a simple tale of female emancipation, but soon transforms into something more thought-provoking – a “circular” story of rising hopes and dreams, and the final resignation.

Continue reading “Mini-Review: Tristana by Benito Pérez Galdós” →

Classics Club Spin #44

I have never before participated in the Classics Club spins, but as I have recently joined the Club with this list of 50 classic books, I thought it would be a great idea to start my challenge with a spin. The rules are: go to your blog; pick twenty books that you listed as “to read” for the Classics Club challenge; and post the list, numbered 1-20, on your blog by 17th May 2026. The number will be announced on that day, and the challenge is to read the book that falls under the announced number by 5th of July 2026.

So, here is my list:

  1. The Masterpiece by Émile Zola
  2. The Illustrious House of Ramires by Eça de Queirós
  3. The Village of Stepanchikovo by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  4. The Tragedy of the Street of Flowers by Eça de Queirós
  5. Elective Affinities by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  6. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
  7. Roderick Hudson by Henry James
  8. Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham
  9. Jezebel’s Daughter by Wilkie Collins
  10. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
  11. As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams by Lady Sarashina
  12. New Grub Street by George Gissing
  13. A Time to Love and a Time to Die by Erich Maria Remarque
  14. The Village by Ivan Bunin
  15. The Song of the World by Jean Giono
  16. Virgin Soil by Ivan Turgenev
  17. The Comedians by Graham Greene
  18. Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant
  19. Salka Valka by Halldór Laxness
  20. The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

📜 Only time will tell if I am too ambitious with this list. Are you participating? With what classic books?

10 Books of Summer

Annabel at AnnaBookBel is hosting the 20 Books of Summer reading challenge this year, and I thought I would try to participate. This is the challenge to read 20, 15 or just 10 books from one’s TBR list in the summer months, and the good thing is that we can swap books at any time. So, I have decided on this list of 10 books:

The Ice Palace by Tarjei Vesaas

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

A House for Mr Biswas by V. S. Naipaul

Wittgenstein’s Nephew by Thomas Bernhard

The Earth by Émile Zola

Continue reading “10 Books of Summer” →

Review: Stranger to the Moon by Evelio Rosero

Stranger to the Moon [1992] – ★★★★

“What’s important to me is that I can see without being seen” [Evelio Rosero, translated from the Spanish by Victor Meadowcroft & Anne McLean].


Evelio Rosero is an author from Colombia, and this is his completely surreal, nightmare-inducing novella which starts with a being emerging from a wardrobe. He is a member of the clan of the “naked” ones who are crammed into one enormous house. They are ruled over by the “clothed” ones, the more powerful beings, who continuously use, mistreat and abuse the weaker “naked” ones. Sometimes, the “naked” ones, who are also described as having “two sexes”, venture outside their house, and it is there their biggest misfortune awaits them – their horrific encounter with the “clothed” ones, and this meeting may even lead to death. The “clothed” ones do not suspect, though, that our narrator, that “naked” one from the wardrobe (“a wandering gaze”), starts having rebellious thoughts as the idea of revengeful killing is slowly taking hold in his otherwise submissive mind. This highly imaginative, disturbing, but also fascinating, novella is an allegory of deep societal distress, inequality, control, power, and oppression.

Continue reading “Review: Stranger to the Moon by Evelio Rosero” →

Review: The Yellow Arrow by Victor Pelevin

The Yellow Arrow [1993] – ★★★★1/2

“How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?”, Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

This is a sci-fi gem from Russia that centres on Andrei, one of the passengers of the mysterious, seemingly endless, train The Yellow Arrow, that makes its way without stops. Its journey already numbers years, but the passengers inside the train seem to treat their endless trip as though it is the most natural course of events, and for them, it is simply their daily life. Andrei and his friend Khan are probably the only people who are slowly realising that something is amiss in their lives. However, other passengers are too distracted by daily trivialities to question anything or ponder over some fundamental questions: how they ended up on this train in the first place? Why their journey takes so long?, and when will they finally reach their destination, which some believe to be one collapsed bridge? And, then, Andrei discovers letters from unknown persons lying around that may have hidden meaning, shedding light on what their seemingly eternal journey actually means. Pelevin, once dubbed “Russian Vonnegut”, crafted an allegorical novella that is perceptive and deeply philosophical. It is a satire bold in content, but subtle in meaning – like the very best of them.

Continue reading “Review: The Yellow Arrow by Victor Pelevin” →

Review: River of Darkness by Buddy Levy 

River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana’s Legendary Voyage of Death and Discovery Down the Amazon [2011] – ★★★1/2

After the success of the Spanish conquests under Cortés and Francisco Pizarro, much thirst still remained for the New World and all energy was thrown to discovering one thing that still stirred the imagination, making men restless – the mythical El Dorado, the City of Gold supposedly tucked away somewhere in South America. This non-fiction talks about the exploration of the New World by Francisco Orellana (1511-1546), a conquistador from Extremadura, Spain, who teamed up with his kinsman Gonzalo Pizarro in search of the City of Gold, and sailed down the entire length of the Amazon River in 1541, becoming the first ever European to do so. Levy’s narrative often reads like an exciting adventure story, rather than a historical non-fiction, and has certainly filled the gap in popular accounts of this part of the Spanish conquests.

Continue reading “Review: River of Darkness by Buddy Levy “ →

Ranking NYRB Classics (Ones I’ve Read So Far)

I have read a number of NYRB classics recently, and decided to compile this list, ranking my favourite and least favourite NYRB classics I have read so far from this series dedicated to publishing both fiction and non-fiction, unearthing forgotten or overlooked books and drawing attention to various gems of world literature. I put books into three star-rated categories, but their placements within each category are pretty much without any particular order. I excluded Russian titles, many of which I read in the original language, and such major works as Proust’s Swann’s Way and Dante’s The Divine Comedy (which are also available through this series).

🟥 5 – 4½ stars

The Seven Madmen by Robert Arlt
The Stronghold by Dino Buzzati
Stoner by John Williams
Don’t Look Now & Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier
The Liar by Martin Hansen

Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
Havoc by Tom Kristensen
The Gate by Natsume Soseki

The New York Stories by Edith Wharton
A Visit to Don Otavio by Sybille Bedford
Skylark by Dezso Kosztolanyi
The Other by Thomas Tryon

Continue reading “Ranking NYRB Classics (Ones I’ve Read So Far)” →

Review: The Lime Works by Thomas Bernhard

The Lime Works [1970/86] – ★★★★

“I am interested only in “nonsense”; only in that which makes no practical sense. I am interested in life only in its absurd manifestations.”Daniil Kharms

“The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.” Albert Camus

The Lime Works is a slowly suffocating narrative with a cobweb-like structure, inside which one can find both a spider (“monster”), Konrad, a man with peculiar obsessions, and its caught wrapped prey (“victim”), Konrad’s loyal, but disabled wife Zryd. Both have moved into a very expansive, but, paradoxically, also claustrophobic lime works in the town of Sicking, Austria, and have lived there in relative seclusion. Konrad’s sole purpose in life has revolved around his strange auditory experiments with which he pesters his wife incessantly so that his dream materialises – the finishing of his book titled The Sense of Hearing. He fantasises about the conclusion of this task even as he is still to write the book’s first sentence. Then comes the horrifying murder. What happened, and how the man with such abundant academic ambition living apparently peacefully could have gone so wrong? The writing, with its restlessness and peculiarly Bernhardian anxiety, crafts a tale of obsession, expectation and one quiet, horrifying descend into madness.

Continue reading “Review: The Lime Works by Thomas Bernhard” →

Recent Reading: American Short Stories

Winter Dreams by F. Scott Fitzgerald – ★★★★1/2

“As so frequently would be the case in the future, Dexter was unconsciously dictated to by his winter dreams“. Apparently, this is the story that Fitzgerald fleshed out to then produce The Great Gatsby. The focus is on Dexter Green, a very dreamy and aspiring young man who loves all things prestige and luxury, and who gets infatuated with one lovely, rich girl, Judy Jones. The issue though is that Judy is very popular and he faces much competition: “She had brought him ecstatic happiness and intolerable agony of spirit”. The Great Gatsby themes are everywhere in Winter Dreams: the abundant, unreasonable hope, the rags-to-riches narrative, one beautiful, unattainable and fickle woman. It is a flowing narrative that necessarily invites much comparison with Fitzgerald’s most famous novel and, therefore, feels lacking and less subtle, almost an exercise in the anticipation of a real thing. Still, there is this nostalgic, melancholic quality to this tragic tale that simply spellbinds.

Continue reading “Recent Reading: American Short Stories” →

Recent Trip to Paris: 3 Museums

I have recently returned from my trip to Paris, and thought I would talk about the three museums I managed to fit into my itinerary.

Grande Galerie de l’Évolution

Situated inside the Jardin des Plantes, Paris’s botanical garden, the Gallery of Evolution has its roots in the seventeenth century France and was reopened in its present state in 1994. It is an exhibition across four expansive floors displaying 7.000 specimens categorised by the steps in evolution. The focus is on biodiversity, evolution of life, marine life, human inventions and humanity’s impact on the environment. Not to be missed is also the cabinet of extinct and disappearing species, where there are on display such extinct species as the thylacine or Tasmanian tiger, once native to Australia (land), Tasmania and New Guinea (see the picture below), and the quagga, an extinct subspecies of the plains zebra. I thought it was a lovely place with a modern feel, impressive immersive elements, such as natural sound effects (storm, insects sounds), and a well-curated collection.

Address: 36 Rue Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 75005 Paris.

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Repin: Sadko

Sadko [1876] by Ilya Repin

Ilya Repin (1844-1930), one of Russia’s most renowned painters, turned briefly to folklore and fantasy after the success of his painting Barge Haulers on the Volga and in response to his viewing of the Impressionists’ collection in Paris. In the artwork above, he depicted merchant, musician and adventurer Sadko, an East Slavic folklore hero, later also popularised by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in his 1898 opera of the same name. According to the folklore, Sadko of Novgorod got rich after the Sea Tsar heard him play on his gusli musical instrument and was so enchanted that he decided to reward him. In the painting, Repin portrays Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom. The Sea Tsar of the Kingdom demanded that Sadko choose his bride among the presented sea maidens, who each represents different overseas countries. Sadko is seen looking at Chernava, the Sea Tsar’s daughter, instead (pictured near the top of the painting), obviously picking her as his bride, as one of the sea maidens is seen eyeing him slily, obviously being displeased by her potential suitor’s interest in another girl.

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Alfred Schnittke: Declaration of Love

Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998) was a Soviet/Russian composer who developed his own, easily recognisable polystylistic technique used in his many symphonies and concertos. One of the most talented composers of the twentieth century, Schnittke also scored over seventy films, including Larisa Shepitko’s war masterpiece The Ascent (1976), Ilya Averbakh’s philosophical Faratyev’s Fantasies (1979), and Konstantin Lopushansky’s post-apocalyptic tour de force A Visitor to a Museum (1989). Declaration of Love is probably Schnittke’s most lyrical and nostalgic composition that featured in film The Story of Voyages (1983). The piece is deeply poignant, melancholic and romantic, and we can clearly discern Schnittke’s intention of always trying to convey much meaning through music, as well as the sense of an intimate, soulful, personal struggle.

Schinkel: Castle by the River

Castle by the River (Schloß am Strom) [1820] by Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841) was primarily a successful Prussian architect working in the style of Neoclassicism and Gothic Revival, but he was also a talented artist, and the painting above is one of his dreamy, fantastical works where Schinkel’s eye for astonishing architectural design meets mystical, symbolic ideas about the man and nature. Castle by the River was allegedly first a mere draft conceived on a bet between Schinkel and his friend Romantic poet Clemens Brentano. The two argued over whether or not art can possibly match the swiftness with which a poet or writer can come up with narrative ideas, and whether art or poetry can better articulate complex narratives. Brentano came up with one story of an elaborate, castle-like hunting lodge near a river, which was left abandoned and overgrown, with its owner being long dead and buried across the river because the castle grounds were too rocky. Schinkel drafted these ideas on the spot and with ease, proving his point that the artist can match any poet’s imagination. His sketch was later seen and commissioned as a painting.

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Review: Fear by Gabriel Chevallier

Fear: A Novel of World War I [1930/2014] – ★★★★

“Above all, I must not think…What could I expect? To die? I must not expect that. To kill? That is the unknown and I have no wish to kill…I have no hatred, no ambition, and no motivation. Yet I must attack…”

“…we only have one homeland: the world” [Chevallier/Imrie, 1930/2014: 70, 110].

Gabriel Chevallier (1895-1969) was a soldier in the World War I and this experience shaped his novel Fear, a story where nineteen-year-old Jean Dartemont is cleared by the medical committee to serve in the war against the Germans. Dartemont is curious, but highly sceptical about the war, which he, like everyone else around him, first treats like an exciting explorative adventure, but which soon unveils itself to be what it really is – absolute horror. Fear is a passionate anti-war account, which gets progressively harrowing as the events in Dartemont’s life unfold in a spiralling motion. At the core of the novel is one simple statement – war is not a glorious feat but a dehumanising folly.

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7 Beautiful Pieces for Early Intermediate Piano Learner

This March I want to get back to my piano practice which I abandoned some time ago (lack of time). I have been in the beginner stage of my learning for far too long and can now finally say I have comfortably transitioned to the late intermediate stage. However, before I reach any advanced repertoire, I thought I would tackle both early and late intermediate piano pieces, and would like to present below seven beautiful pieces for early intermediate piano learner. I think these are great if a student has tackled his beginner pieces and is looking to bridge the gap between the beginner stage and more serious, intermediate pieces. Some of those below I have already successfully played, such as Old French Song by Tchaikovsky, while some I want to tackle this March and April, including Round O and Brahms’ waltz. My apologies if this post is not of interest to every reader of my site, but I hope it will provide a nice musical interlude.

“Lustig und Traurig”, Bagatelle in C major WoO 54 by Ludwig van Beethoven

Beethoven‘s whimsical piece Lustig und Traurig was written around 1798, showcasing the composer’s magnificent use of contrasts: joy, the cheekily flowing, light-hearted melody, and sorrow, the pompous, sombre tone, compete for our attention. One is easily replaced by another. A full drama of life takes place in one unassuming, but still masterful composition. It is great for this stage of piano learning because it opens itself to interpretations.

Continue reading “7 Beautiful Pieces for Early Intermediate Piano Learner” →

Six Degrees of Separation – From Wuthering Heights to The Mirror

It has been ages since I completed this meme, so when I saw that the starting book for this month was Wuthering Heights, I jumped at the chance (find out more about the meme at Books Are My Favourite and Best).

Wuthering Heights is set on the wild moorlands of West Yorkshire, England, and another beautiful novel I highly enjoyed and whose locale is also one very rural area is The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas. The plot takes place in southern Norway and concerns Mattis, a mentally disabled man living with his sister Hege. When Jorgen, a lumberjack, becomes Hege’s prospective suitor, the situation becomes uncomfortable for sensitive Mattis, though he soon has compensation – he set his eyes on becoming a lake ferryman. This is an astonishingly good Norwegian classic.

Continue reading “Six Degrees of Separation – From Wuthering Heights to The Mirror” →

The Other Side of the Carnival: “Sad Jester” Art

“-I’m gonna join the circus and laugh my head off (when I grow up)“. “-You got it backwards, Dill”…”Clowns are sad, it’s folks that laugh at them” (Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird).

Jesters/clowns are associated with circuses, tricks and laughter, but, behind the scenes, there is at times a different situation. Below are four paintings that depict clowns in a more subdued atmosphere, providing powerful juxtaposition.

Stańczyk during a ball at the court of Queen Bona in the face of the loss of Smolensk [1862] by Jan Matejko
Continue reading “The Other Side of the Carnival: “Sad Jester” Art” →

10 Best Last Lines

Much has been made of opening lines in fiction, but what about closing ones? Do last lines matter as much? Should aspiring authors learn to perfect them? Below are 10 best last lines (in no particular order) that showcase a mixture of poetic, chilling and moving book closures that leave a memorable impression on the reader.

I. “Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, ‘Wait and Hope’.” …”Who knows if we shall ever see them again?’ Morrel said, wiping away a tear. ‘My dearest,’ said Valentine, ‘has the count not just told us that all human wisdom was contained in these two words – “wait” and “hope”?’ – The Count of Monte Cristo

II. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” – The Great Gatsby

III. “After all, tomorrow is another day.” – Gone With the Wind

IV. “He loved Big Brother.” – 1984

V. “But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.” – The House At Pooh Corner

Continue reading “10 Best Last Lines” →

Review: Japanese Gestures by Michitarō Tada

Japanese Gestures: Modern Manifestations of a Classic Culture [2004] – ★★★★

It is known that the Japanese communicate ideas through manners, as well as through language, and this book by prominent Japanese critic and academic Michitarō Tada cuts to the core of understanding Japanese mentality and culture as expressed through gestures, manners, and facial expressions. Much of the Japanese culture reveals itself through little nuances and details, rather than through sweeping generalisations, and in just around forty-two short chapters Tada elucidates the peculiarities of the Japanese, shedding light on their intricate traditions and behaviour. From posture, squatting and “standing to attention”, to smiling, laughing and crying, the book provides plenty of insight into the Japanese mannerism, while also talking about such concepts as mimicking, spontaneous gift-giving, and aizuchi (“unconscious” agreement with the speaker). Below I will focus on only three points discussed, having grouped and categorised them myself.

Continue reading “Review: Japanese Gestures by Michitarō Tada” →

Review: Being You: A New Science of Consciousness by Anil Seth

Being You [2020] – ★★★★

“The hint half guessed, the gift half understood…” T. S. Eliot

Consciousness is considered the “last frontier” of science, the deepest and most elusive of all scientific mysteries. It seems incredible that, although we explored the whole planet Earth (at least the land), built robots, and are now rolling out detailed plans to go to Mars, we still have little to no clue as what is really going on inside our own heads, and how our most primary function operates – our consciousness. Anil Seth, Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, looks at a number of theories on consciousness in his book before proposing his own – consciousness is a form of “controlled hallucination”. Evolution made sure that we survived. It had no imperative to make sure that what we perceive in our daily life is, in fact, the true objective reality.

Continue reading “Review: Being You: A New Science of Consciousness by Anil Seth” →

Rumi on Love

Since it is Valentine’s Day today, I thought I would share some poems (sections) from Rumi (1207-1273), a Sufi mystic and poet.

🫀 “The secrets of the mind’s attainment

can only be found in madness

whoever has become insane with love

becomes the wisest one of us all

whoever gets familiar with the mysteries of

the heart

becomes a complete stranger to himself.”

🫀 “The essence of insanity is love

the soul has gone and gotten lost

and the mind has turned itself upside down

hundreds of deserts are burning

with the fires of our love.”

🫀”Love entered me

and became blood in my veins

emptied me of myself

and filled me with the beloved

every single particle of my body

is soaked in the beloved

my name is all that’s left of me

he became the rest.”

🫀”…lovers would give up worlds

and sacrifice hundreds of years of life

for just one moment together

they jump through thousands of hoops

after the smell of one breath

and would sacrifice thousands of lives

to satisfy a single heart.” Rumi

Love at First Sight by Marcus Stone (1840-1921)

10 Books That Made Me + The “Five Questions” Tag

I first spotted this tag on YouTube (probably at CriminOlly), and thought I would also give it a shot. The goal is to list 10 books that influenced or shaped you the most as a reader. The books listed below awakened my curiosity about literature, introduced me to its true power, and also shaped my literary taste (something that cannot be taught, but can only be acquired, right?) I do not think I will ever outgrow my existentialism reading phase that I started as a teenager, and I will also not list books that influenced me in my childhood as I had already done a similar list – see here, where I included such authors as Jules Verne, Jack London, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Alexandre Dumas, Gianni Rodari, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Below is also the “five questions” tag, which is a variation of questions found in the Pianist magazine.

Bleak House by Charles Dickens 🏠
The Cave by José Saramago 🦇
The Stranger by Albert Camus 🏖️
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut 🪖
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy 🚆

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Kersting: Introverted Pastimes

Man Reading by Lamplight, 1814 by Georg Friedrich Kersting

Georg Friedrich Kersting (1785-1847) was a German painter associated with Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich. His Biedermeier-style paintings usually captured people performing solitary activities in the interior, such as reading, sewing, or painting.

Man Reading by Lamplight

Kersting was known to portray upper or middle-class people going about their leisurely pursuits, and the painting to the right is an example of the uncanny sense of cosiness that the artist created within his art. A person here is reading a book, but it is not so much the man who seems to be the main subject here, but rather his focus, attention. The subject is reading itself. We can almost see the engrossed reader’s imaginative world being created. The fantastical shapes swirling in his mind are symbolically reflected by the fanciful play of light and shadow cast by the lamp. Though Kersting often showed solitary people, there is never a feeling of them being “alone” or lonely in his artworks. They seem at home, at peace and in the company of what they treasure and enjoy. In this case, a book.

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Review: Suspicion by Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Suspicion [1952/2017] – ★★★★

“Suspicion is a terrible thing, it comes from the devil. There’s nothing like suspicion to bring out the worst in people” Dürrenmatt/Agee [1952/2017].

Inspector Barlach is terminally ill, staying at a hospital in Switzerland where one day his friend points out to him that one photo in a medical journal resembles a man he used to know – Dr. Emmenberger. However, the photo caption says that this is known Nazi doctor Nehle, responsible for countless deaths. So, how is it possible for two people to be so similar in their appearance? The Nazi doctor (Dr. Nehle) supposedly poisoned himself in 1945, and the man known to Barlach’s friend now runs a successful clinic whose patients leave him property after their death. That’s suspicious. What if the identities were switched? Could it be that this ex-Nazi never actually killed himself and is now possibly killing off his patients for their property? Barlach reckons that the only way to find out for sure is to become Emmenberger’s patient, but that soon proves risky. In no time Barlach is drawn into a dangerous cat-and-mouse game and at stake is possibly his own life (or what is left of it). Can he expose the man for what he is before that man gets the chance to silence him forever? Dürrenmatt is at the top of his form in this novel: succinct, philosophical, and endlessly thought-provoking.

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Kahlil Gibran: “On Self-Knowledge” & “On Death”

“And a man said, speak to us of Self-Knowledge.
And he answered, saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.
And it is well you should.
The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure; And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’
Say not, ‘I have found the path of the soul.’ Say rather, ‘I have met the soul walking upon my path.’
For the soul walks upon all paths.
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”

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Review: Rituals by Cees Nooteboom

Rituals [1980/92] – ★★★★

“He regarded life as a rather odd club of which he had accidentally become a member and from which one could be expelled without reasons having to be supplied”(Cees Nooteboom, translated from the Dutch by Adrienne Dixon [1980/92]).

This novel centres on a man who drifts through life aimlessly as though in a haze, writing horoscopes and dealing in art for a living, albeit possessing money. Preoccupied with control, or rather the lack of it, Inni Wintrop lets events in his life happen to him, rather than actively trying to change something, while his guiding forces in life inexplicably become two very strange men – apathetic recluse Arnold Taads, and his son, distant and mysterious Philip Taads. Intensely philosophical, witty and sharp, the novel illuminates life as seen through our routines, mirages, actions, inactions and the influence of others.

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Franz Liszt: La Campanella

I am sharing today Franz Liszt’s “La Campanella” (Italian “the little bell”), which is the third of the six etudes in Liszt’s work Grandes etudes de Paganini, where the composer reworked Paganini’s Violin Concerto No.2 in B Minor for piano. The composition below is played by American pianist André Watts (1946-2023), and I somehow prefer it over other hastier renditions. This piece is considered challenging not least because it requires a very light touch (to sustain the bell-like quality of the notes) and excellent dexterity to take on its fast, large leaps, trills and tricky ornaments. The piece’s gentle start soon unveils surprising buoyancy and vibrancy, a flowing (“torrent of water”) progression, before culminating in a passionate, even violent, coda, making it a very memorable piece. Overall, a virtuosic gem.

Review: Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker

Cassandra at the Wedding [1962] – ★★★★

Cassandra Edwards is a graduate student who is supposed to be finishing her thesis and enjoying her student life. Instead, she is an emotional and mental mess, a state that no one sees and only her twin sister Judith guesses. When the date of Judith’s wedding approaches near, Cassandra drops everything and goes back home to attend the event, but the homecoming is not altogether joyful as Cassandra (packed with her bitter-sweet memories, unrealised hopes, deep attachments and her neurotic fears of betrayal) starts to spiral out of control. Judith’s impending wedding may be a catalyst for Cassandra’s final unravelling. Baker’s novella is direct and unrelenting; a book that examines closely one unbreakable bond and one fractured mind, all from the point of view of one subversive, unforgettable narrator.

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A Boyar Wedding Feast

A Boyar Wedding Feast [1883] by Konstantin Makovsky (1839-1915)

A Boyar Wedding Feast is a painting by Konstantin Makovsky that showcases a very important social event in old Russia, a wedding feast that united two prominent Boyar families. In a richly decorated room, the lavishly attired guests (with gold trimmings in their clothing) are caught in the key moment of the event – the groom is about to kiss the bride during a toast, as a dish of fried swan, in turn the symbol of fertility, is presented by one of the servants. As everyone cheers the couple on, the groom is trying to turn the bride to his side, while the matchmaker is seen behind the bride, prompting her to action. However, the bride herself is looking down shyly, almost with a sad or resigned expression. The unspoken feeling is that she should be happy to get married and it is unlikely that her own wishes in the matter were ever considered.

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Orpheus and Eurydice

I hope all my followers and readers had a very Merry Christmas, and I would like to wish all a very Happy New Year. We are now in January, named after Roman God Janus, who is in charge of beginnings and transitions. He is often portrayed as having two faces, one looking into the past “with memory” and another – into the future “with foresight”. This duality somehow reminded of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice that I am sharing below. This a moving tale of the power of love and music as its hero journeys to the Underworld to try to bring his beloved back to life.

Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld [1861] by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
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Review: The Medici by Paul Strathern

The Medici [2003] – ★★★★1/2

The Medici. No other family in history stirs the imagination as much while, at the same time, inducing so many contradictory feelings—awe, amazement, trepidation. One of the most powerful and influential families in history, the Medici ascended from banking experts to the height of papal rule and European royalty, an astounding achievement. Their contribution to the Renaissance movement was unparalleled. Based in Florence, then an independent republic, they were overseeing the works and being behind the scenes of most major Renaissance projects, from Brunelleschi’s Dome of Santa Maria del Fiore to Michelangelo’s fresco The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, influencing and/or providing finance to such major Renaissance figures as Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Rafael, Michelangelo, Machiavelli, Galileo Galilei, and others. Paul Strathern’s book traces the family’s ascend and fall, zooming in and out of major events that shaped the course of Italian and European history. This non-fiction laces historical information with interesting trivia, being an almost perfect blend of insight and entertainment.

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Review: King, Queen, Knave by Vladimir Nabokov

King, Queen, Knave [1928] – ★★★★

This is Nabokov’s second book, written in Russian in Berlin in 1927 when he was 28. At first glance, the novel may appear to be a rather banal take on a bourgeois love triangle, but Nabokov’s inventive use of language, his obsession with minute details to capture moments in time, and his uncanny humour all soon unveil a curious story with deep psychological portrayals, moments of delicious suspense, and one unpredictable ending. The plot revolves around one young man from the provinces named Franz Bubendorf, who comes to Berlin to work for his “uncle” and successful businessman Kurt Dreyer. Franz becomes immediately smitten with Dreyer’s beautiful young wife Marta, and his love is returned, but, barricading their path to happiness, is always the ever-present, annoying and “permanent” Dreyer. Will the couple find the way to be together, while also enjoying Dreyer’s hard-earned money?

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Autumnal Trip to Paris

I have just got back from my (and my twin brother’s) birthday trip to Paris, and I thought I would share some highlights. The weather was surprisingly warm, and my family and I enjoyed the city’s autumnal foliage, tucking into our French onion soups, and just wondering around Paris at this time of the year. Below are the four cultural stops I made during this trip.

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Chopin: Favourite Ballades

I got inspired to write this post by the recent International Chopin Piano Competition held in Warsaw, Poland. Chopin’s four ballades are among the most beautiful of his works, and my favourites among the four have been shifting over the years. Currently, my favourite is Ballade No. 3 in A♭ major, Op. 47. Chopin dedicated it to his pupil Pauline de Noailles (1823–1844), and it is said to be inspired by Adam Mickiewicz’s poem Undine. I love this ballade for its sophistication and thematic shifts.

I love the interpretation of it by Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman (1956-), the winner of the IX International Chopin Piano Competition in 1975. Although his take is considered now quite restrained and conservative, I still prefer it over modern versions because the ballade already has quite a number of eccentric, expressive elements, and it is Zimerman’s understated precision that brings the best in it without overdoing it or distracting.

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Enigmatic Paintings: Salem

Salem (1908) is a painting by English artist Sydney Curnow Vosper (1866-1942), who is mostly known for painting landscapes and people of Brittany. It depicts Welsh lady Siân Owen (real person, then aged seventy-one), dressed in traditional Welsh costume, attending a service at Salem Baptist Chapel in village Pentre Gwynfryn, Wales. The painting gained notoriety after some pointed out that Siân Owen’s shawl hides the face of the Devil (see the picture below where possible facial contours are outlined). Vosper himself denied his intention of the Devil in the artwork.

Salem (1908) by Sydney Curnow Vosper.
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The Departure of the Train by Clarice Lispector

The Departure of the Train [1974/2015] – ★★★★★

This is Clarice Lispector’s short story about two women who board a train at Rio de Janeiro Central Station. They are strangers to one another, and find themselves on “opposite sides of life”. Dona Maria Rita is an aging widow, who has seen everything in her life and now is going to her son’s farm “to spend the rest of her life there”, while Angela Pralini is an independent, vivacious young woman who begins a new life chapter since she has recently broken off her passionate relationship with one cerebral Eduardo (“because you can’t prolong ecstasy without dying”). She is going to spend time with her aunt and uncle in the countryside, and is looking forward to this new adventure and simple life on the farm. We read these two women’s contrasting thoughts as they ride in a shared train carriage.

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Nabokov’s Pale Fire: An Illusion Within an Illusion

Pale Fire [1962] – ★★★★★

Pale Fire is one of the most inventive and original literary works of the twentieth century. On the face of it, it is nothing more than a 999-line poem titled Pale Fire by poet John Shade, presented with extensive commentary by self-appointed editor Charles Kinbote. But, dig deeper, and there emerges a narrative full of red herrings, secret meanings, and psychological and philosophical insights into the nature of authorship, interpretation, and truth. Erudite academic Charles Kinbote and now deceased brilliant poet John Shade were apparently acquaintances and neighbours, and, by publishing a commentary to Shade’s work, Kinbote desires nothing more than to pay a touching tribute to his dear friend. But, is it really what it is, or there are other hidden motivations behind his work on Shade’s poem? In his commentary, Kinbote veers off on his own paranoid obsessions with Shade, the manner of his death, and his own country of Zembla. At every turn in his work, Nabokov encourages us to read between the lines, question narratives (what is reality and what is fantasy?) and try to find the truth by ourselves. Below, I will try to see the novel through the four “illusions”: (i) the illusion of objective literary criticism; (ii) the illusion of language; (iii) the “illusion (delusion) of grandeur”; and (iv) the illusion of identity.

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Sudden Light by Dante Gabriel Rossetti 

            Sudden Light

          I have been here before,
              But when or how I cannot tell:
          I know the grass beyond the door,
              The sweet keen smell,
    The sighing sound, the lights around the shore.

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Japan’s Autumn Moon Festival: Sakuraco Box Experience

Continuing with my Japan theme from the previous post, my readers probably know that I study Japanese and am interested in Japanese culture, but being away from Japan, it is hard at times to feel connected to the country. But, there are ways to do so, and one of them is through “Japan experience” sold in a box. I have already gushed about the Sakuraco box experience in my other post, and am now fortunate enough to be gifted a Sakuraco box for review. This is a monthly Japanese subscription box that includes traditional Japanese snacks, teas, and tableware. Each month features a different theme, and the box is especially irresistible this month since the Autumn Moon Festival is upon us, and in Japan, it means tsukimi (moon-viewing festivities). This is the most tranquil and mysterious of seasons that, among other activities, involves the poetic contemplation of Harvest Moon.

Tsukimi (Moon-Viewing), attributed to Kawahara Keiga (1786-1860)
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Review: The Man Who Died Seven Times by Yasuhiko Nishizawa

The Man Who Died Seven Times [1995/2025] – ★★★

Who doesn’t like a time-loop in their fantasy story? The idea that one can go back to the past and relive it, changing it or gaining particular insight from it is irresistible for fiction lovers. In novels The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North and Replay by Ken Grimwood, there are people who have a chance to relive their lives, and such films as Back to the Future and Groundhog Day popularised the concept of time-travel/loop in action and romantic comedies. Of course, the most famous example of a time-loop in detective fiction now is Stuart Turton’s The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, and in Japanese fiction – probably still a light novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka titled All You Need Is Kill (later Hollywood film Edge of Tomorrow). Since Nishizawa’s book of 1995 predates Sakurazaka’s light novel of 2004, it was one of the first in Japan to break into the market with the theme, and the idea of mixing sci-fi time-loops and a detective mystery. Now, it is published for the first time in English under the title The Man Who Died Seven Times, translated by Jesse Kirkwood.

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10 Book-Music Pairings

I have recently read a number of articles on book and music pairings, including by Richland Library and Cassava Republic Press (where they paired (perfectly!) Nina Simone’s feverish Sinnerman with Baldwin’s novel Go Tell It On the Mountain), and decided to compile my own list (in no particular order). Literature and music at times make a perfect pairing, and in the list below, I tried to capture the similarities in both theme and mood. The music below is diverse, from classical to rock, J-pop and jazz.

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The paired music: Masquerade – Ballet Suite: 1. Waltz by Aram Khachaturian

My Reasons

Initially envisioned for the production of Mikhail Lermontov’s play Masquerade, this piece of music was turned into an orchestral suite in 1944. I think its sweeping, almost violent theme is suitable to describing Anna Karenina’s inner world of burning, overwhelming passion for Count Vronsky in Tolstoy’s story of one complicated love affair. That whirlpool of abundant, conflicting emotions comes to its climax as Karenina watches Vronsky compete in a horse race. The masquerade theme is also fitting here as Karenina and Vronsky have to wear masks of indifference in their daily life.

listen to the composition – buy the book

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A Trip to York, England

I have just come back from my amazing trip to York, and am sharing my highlights. Founded by the Romans in 71 AD and previously being a Viking stronghold (from 866 to 954 AD), York proved to be a city with a hundred things to do, much more than I expected. There is a lot to explore, from the historic York (the thirteenth century cathedral and city walls) to the funky and unusual York (Wizard Tours, and shops dedicated to ghosts and cats). Below, I detail the stops that I made on my trip, and will also recommend food & drink establishments, as well as give some travelling tips.

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Japanese Book Covers (Favourite Books)

This will be my 500th post, and I thought I would do something different. I have recently been exploring world literature translated to Japanese, and have stumbled upon some beautiful book covers I want to share. The general tendency of Japanese book covers seems to be either intricate, detailed artworks or minimalist designs, with few covers falling somewhere in between. The book covers below appear to fall into the former category. You can see that many Japanese book covers favour the long distance/panoramic perspective, rather than one focusing on the individual being the centre as western book covers usually do. This is an echo of Asian philosophy that we are all part of the whole, a community, being interconnected.

The stunning Japanese edition of Umberto Eco’s historical novel The Name of the Rose (on the left) depicts artworks from Beatus of Liébana’s The Commentary on the Apocalypse (commentary on the biblical Book of Revelation) written around 776. There is a number of copied versions of this manuscript, and, in particular, the first book cover above is the Vision of the Lamb, the Four Cherubim and the Twenty-Four Elders from the 1047 version painted by Facundus. As book covers, these are excellent choices because they capture the mystery, monastic life and the religious folklore of the novel.

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Review: Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum

Grand Hotel [1929/2016] – ★★★★★

Like Vera Caspary’s Laura and Luigi Bartolini’s Bicycle Thieves, Grand Hotel is yet another novel that is likely best known as its ecranisation – the 1932 Oscar-winning film Grand Hotel, starring Greta Garbo, John Barrymore and Joan Crawford. And, indeed, the story is cinematic. Austria-born author Vicki Baum puts at its centre one of the most intriguing tourism inventions of the late nineteenth century – a grand hotel that, in its heyday, was the pinnacle of travelling luxury, providing all kinds of exclusive comforts for its rich clientele under one roof, creating “a home away from home”, and catering for each of their guests’ whims, rather than passively accepting them into the accommodation. Into this already intriguing institution, Baum puts the most diverse characters, from one capricious aging ballerina to a lowly bookkeeper suffering from an incurable illness who just so happens to find himself amidst all the luxury thanks to his life savings. Together, this cast of curious characters presents a microcosm of the Berlin society of the mid-to-late 1920s, a roller-coaster period of changes characterised by the questioning of moral norms and the gender roles shift. By juggling her colourful characters and their situations so skilfully in the novel, Baum delivers one of a kind, part tragic part comic exposé of lives lived.

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The Caravan’s Bells

“Love and patience do not go together.
Reason cannot stop your tears./
Ecstasy is like a beautiful town
that cannot be controlled
by any one of its inhabitants./
The caravan of life is passing us by,
but no one can hear the sound of the bells.”Rumi

Rumi (1207-1273) was a poet, Sufi mystic, faqih, and theologian. Written largely in Persian, his poetry reflected the teachings of Sufism on love, unity, and spiritual enlightenment.

Caravan by Charles-Théodore Frère (1814-1888).

Review: Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel Barbery

Gourmet Rhapsody [2000/09] – ★★★★

Muriel Barbery rose to international fame with her bestseller The Elegance of the Hedgehog, a quirky novel that revolves around one Parisian apartment block and its concierge Renée Michel. But, before The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Barbery published her debut Gourmet Rhapsody, which is as unusual an offering, and would also delight fans of extravagant, charismatic narrators. Pierre Arthens is a world-renowned food critic, but is now on his deathbed, craving that final forgotten taste that eludes again and again. He looks back on his life full of culinary discoveries and pleasures, as people he once knew also have their say on the man and his place in their world. With the economic ingenuity of a sumptuous three-course meal in some upscale French restaurant, Barbery delivers a different perspective and much food for thought within each of her elegantly presented short chapters.

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The Penguin Book of French Short Stories

The Penguin Book of French Short Stories is comprised of two volumes, and the first volume spans almost 400 years, from the 16th century to the ​fin de siecle. As with my review of The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories, I am focusing on just six stories from this collection of more than forty. If The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories revolved around limitations, hardships or eccentricities, then it can be said that many stories in The Penguin Book of French Short Stories are all about absurdities, lost chances, and strange phenomena.

A Passion In The Desert by Honoré de Balzac – ★★★★1/2

“…they ended as all great passions do end – by a misunderstanding. For some reason one suspects the other of treason; they don’t come to an explanation through pride, and quarrel and part from sheer obstinacy.’

This is a story about the French expedition in Upper Egypt. A French soldier is captured by a group of Arabs, and after escaping the “death march”, he finds himself all alone in a desert without a horse. He has already resigned himself to dying when he spots a sleeping panther, whose paws are covered in blood, sleeping next to him. As ever astute when it comes to human relation and unsaid emotion, Balzac concocted a curious story laced with suspense about a man’s relationship with a wild animal.

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Charles Kuwasseg: Coastal Life

Charles Kuwasseg (1833-1904) was a French landscape artist, and the son of Austrian painter Karl Joseph Kuwasseg. Once a sailor, he later received his formal training in art under Jean-Baptiste Durand-Brager and Eugène Isabey. Influenced by the Barbizon School, he painted land and seascapes around the coasts of Brittany and Normandy, and scenes of Paris. The four paintings below showcase his skill in evoking the atmosphere of life by the sea.

Harbour of a Coastal Town by Charles Kuwasseg.

Buildings or dwellings near water often take the central stage in Kuwasseg’s works, and this further emphasises the intimate relationship of a man with the sea in his paintings. The buildings’ close proximity to water means that we can deduce that water and its mood govern virtually all the aspects of these people’s lives. In line with the Barbizon school, the realism here is offset by romantic artistic overtones. There is much colour, but also softness of form.

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Mini-Review: The Cabinet by Kim Un-Su

The Cabinet [2006/21] – ★★★1/2

For the lovers of the incredulous and highly imaginative, this book details a number of extraordinary cases filed in Cabinet 13. The man in charge of the cabinet is Research Assistant Deok-geun Kong (the narrator), and even he does not know the full extent of the cabinet’s mystery or why the organisation known only as the “syndicate” is after it. There are medical mysteries here in the vein of Oliver Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat), but completely fictitious, as well as Italo Calvino-inspired whimsy (see also The Musical Illusionist, a Borges-inspired book-encyclopaedia of fantastical curiosities that mixes facts and fiction). Deok-geun Kong’s boss is Professor Kwon, who is researching the world’s various “symptomers”, people who allegedly evolved “beyond humans” to the next phase, and are displaying surprising abilities or conditions. For example, there is a man who has a ginkgo tree growing out of his hand, a woman who has a doppelganger pestering her, and there are “time-skippers”, people who mysteriously disappear for days, months or even years only to reappear in distant places with no memory how they got there.

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7 Fiction Books About Anthropologists

There are not many fiction books out there about anthropologists, but those that do exist often shine with insight, erudition and thrills of a real adventure. Below are seven books featuring anthropologists who often grapple with the meaning of their profession and the ethics of their research. Their field-works take them to various continents and countries, from Papua Guinea to Thailand, and from Congo to Peru. Let’s hope writers will be more inspired to write stories featuring anthropologists!

The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa

With the very sad passing of Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa (The Time of the Hero) this year, there has probably never been a more appropriate time to delve into his work and its meaning, and there has probably never been a more intriguing or colourful character-anthropologist than in Vargas Llosa’s novel The Storyteller (El Hablador). This is a story of brilliant man Saúl Zuratas and his obsession with the tribe of Machiguengas in the forests of Peru. Told at first from the perspective of his university acquaintance, this fiction book about anthropology then details Zuratas’s eventual transformation. Steeped in indigenous folklore and knowledge, the story raises many thought-provoking questions, including on the proper way to preserve indigenous tribes and their traditions, and on the role that the tradition of storytelling plays in indigenous cultures.

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Review: The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier

The Kingdom of This World [1949/57] – ★★★★★

One always comes to Alejo Carpentier’s books with a kind of trepidation mixed with delicious expectation. The knowledge that threading through his labyrinth of prose will come with transcendental insights or unheard-of wonders makes his novels hard to resist. If I previously termed his novel The Lost Steps “a stimulating read of one extraordinary journey of self-discovery,” Carpentier’s The Kingdom of This World is a less introspective but also much more intense reading experience as the author turns his attention to the 1791-1804 revolution in Haiti, a place Carpentier visited in 1943. In turbulent Haiti, we see the world through the eyes of slave Ti Noël, whose master is squire and plantation owner M. Lenormand de Mézy. Ti Noël’s early idealization of one-armed man and mystic Macandal, the Mandingue, will eventually involve him in one of the world’s bloodiest revolutions. Mixing mythology, superstition, and the alleged cyclical nature of history, Carpentier takes no prisoners in this increasingly provocative, horrifying, but also absolutely enthralling novel of hell born of good intentions.

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The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories

The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories is an anthology of forty Italian short stories edited by Jhumpa Lahiri. It includes stories by such authors as Alberto Moravia, Natalia Ginzburg, Primo Levi, Italo Calvino (The Baron in the Trees), Elsa Morante (Arturo’s Island), Dino Buzzati (Catastrophe & Other Stories), Luigi Pirandello (Six Characters in Search of an Author), Cesare Pavese (The Moon and The Bonfire), and others. I am reviewing six of the short stories below, and they all seem to revolve around limitations, hardships or eccentricities.

Silence by Aldo Palazzeschi (translated by Erica Segre and Simon Carnell) – ★★★★1/2

“There was not a moment in the day when silence did not fill the place entirely; there was not a single nook or cranny that the silence had not filled with the imposing solemnity of its presence.” Eccentric, reclusive man Benedetto Vai seems to have taken a vow of silence because he does not utter even one word to anyone, not even to his housekeeper Leonia, and this state of affairs seems to have been ongoing for years and years. And, then, he starts to accumulate the finest cutlery that seems to exist in the world. Is he preparing for some feast, and will the house be finally filled with voices? Palazzeschi gets his reader’s attention effortlessly by presenting, and with much finesse, a very unusual character who has one strange lifelong whim. The melancholic cadence is not as strong, but there is still this clear message that, at times, the greatest fight in a person’s life is their fight with themselves.

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Damascus Nights by Rafik Schami + Reading Around the World (Vol. 2)

Damascus Nights [1989/95] – ★★★★

German-Syrian author’s novel relies heavily on the Al-Qaskhun/Al-Hakawati or Storyteller tradition of the Middle East (think One Thousand and One Nights) to tell the story of one coachman Salim, who, inexplicably, lost his voice even though he is a gifted storyteller. The year is 1959, the place is Damascus, Syria, and Salim’s seven loyal friends started to devise ingenious ways to enable Salim to talk again. One of the solutions proposed is that each of Salim’s friends should tell him his own story, and when Salim hears them all, he would be able to speak again (“the curse of his muteness will be broken”). So, begins the whirlpool of fables blending seamlessly reality and fiction to one spellbinding effect, as each of Salim’s friends – locksmith Ali, geography teacher Mehdi, barber Musa, former statesman Faris, Tuma, the “emigrant”, café owner Junis, and once unjustly imprisoned Isam, all try to outsmart and outspeak each other. However, is Salim the cleverest and slyest of them all in the end?

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Rafail Levitsky: Bridge in the Woods

Bridge in the Woods, 1885–1886, Rafail Levitsky, The Stavropol Regional Museum of Fine Arts, Stavropol.

This Sunday, I am sharing a lyrical, slightly unsettling Romantic artwork titled Bridge in the Woods by Rafail Levitsky. It depicts a wooden bridge over a ravine deep in a forest. A lone woman, dressed elegantly in white, stands on it, looking unsure. The natural light and the woman’s white dress give her a phantom-like appearance that contrasts drastically with the natural surroundings. The place is undoubtedly deep in some woods due to the dense vegetation and sparse natural light seen reaching the location. The precarious nature of the bridge and the woman’s proximity to its most unstable point give this otherwise serene artwork the element of slight unease. Metaphorically, the bridge may also function as a crossing to other, unexplored side of things, and its haphazard nature gives off a sense of risk/danger that follows any adventurous pursuit.

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How I Study Japanese (Beginner’s Guide)

I apologise for being absent from the site, and if this post is not of interest to every reader of my blog, but since I have now reached a strong intermediate stage in my Japanese-learning journey (yes, after years of study), I thought I would share some traditional learning resources which I found useful in my beginner stage of learning Japanese. I know that language immersion and listening to podcasts, Japanese YouTube, etc. is popular nowadays and very important, but here I will talk about some books that I personally found useful in my language-learning journey, and which I believe don’t get enough attention or promotion on the Internet.

First, I believe that the very best introductory textbook on the market for a Japanese learner is Minna no Nihongo (Books 1 and 2). This is the most thorough, the most detailed textbook for a beginner you can get. It may appear daunting at first since the textbook is in Japanese, but there is separate book you can buy that would explain the grammar in your native language and also translate everything in the text. What makes it so great is that it presents the material in the most logical and progressive manner with no big jumps or chaotic presentation of topics. This is very important for learning Japanese in particular – that there is logical, step-by-step progression in the presentation of grammar. Minna no Nihongo is also more detailed and provides much more words and grammar explanations than the Genki I and II textbooks, its main competitor. Moreover, the Minna no Ningono textbook has separate booklets available to practise each core skill – listening, kanji, writing, grammar and reading. For kanji (a hieroglyphical system that is part of the Japanese writing system), I also highly recommend the Kanji Look and Learn book, together with its workbook.

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A Poem by Emily Brontë

Today, I thought of sharing a five stanza-poem by Emily Brontë, the author of Wuthering Heights. It is titled “Often Rebuked, Yet Always Back Returning”, and despite its tenderness, showcases the author’s steely determination to seek freedom, follow her own inner voice, and forge her own path forward irrespective of all the scholarly dogma and independent of her sisters or society. Her creative realm would be a place neither wholly imaginary nor objectively perceivable, but still real, like her characters Heathcliff and Catherine’s emotional world, unseen by others, but still as real to them as any observable-by-others objective reality.

–//–//–//–//–// –

“Often rebuked, yet always back returning

    To those first feelings that were born with me,

And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning

    For idle dreams of things which cannot be:

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My Recent Trip to Paris: Cultural Highlights

I have recently returned from my trip to Paris, France and am sharing my highlights. Though the big attraction of my trip was the Musée de Cluny, there are some smaller, “off-the-beaten track” museums in Paris that I have also always wanted to visit, and I present two of them at the end of my post.

Musée national du Moyen Âge, Paris @ Thoughts on Papyrus.
  • Musée de Cluny

Address: 28 Rue du Sommerard, Latin Quarter, Paris; Metro: Cluny – La Sorbonne. Admission: Ticketed.

The Museum of the Middle Ages is one of the largest collections of medieval art and artefacts in Europe, and is located in the former town-house of the Abbots of Cluny, which also has elements of Gallo-Roman ruins. It has medieval sculptures, tapestries, metal-work, carvings, religious, household and war items, and stained-glass examples on displays. My highlight was, of course, The Lady and the Unicorn series of tapestries, which I have wanted to see for a long time. The beautiful tapestries, with elegant depictions of animals and plants, were woven in the late fifteenth century, and each represents one of the five human senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste. The sixth tapestry, titled A mon seul désir, is said to represent the sixth sense of the heart or intuition.

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The Enchanted Garden

The Enchanted Garden, 1889 by Marie Spartali Stillman; artwork currently in a private collection.

Marie Spartali Stillman (1844–1927) was a talented British Pre-Raphaelite painter who painted scenes from Dante’s Divine Comedy, Boccaccio’s poetry, mythology and other areas. I am particularly attracted to her artwork The Enchanted Garden because it features one of my favourite themes in folklore on which I also previously wrote this post – the so-called “impossible task”, and in this case, the one going against the rules of nature (see also Czech fairy tale The Twelve Months).

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The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories

The Penguin Book of Dutch Short Stories is an anthology of thirty-six Dutch short stories spanning almost a century and edited by Joost Zwagerman. The majority of the stories appear in the English translation for the very first time, and I am reviewing five of them below.

The Opera Glasses by Louis Couperus (trans. Paul Vincent) – ★★★★1/2

This is a very well-written short story that keeps you on your toes throughout. It is about a young man in Dresden who decides to go and see Wagner’s opera The Valkyrie in theatre one night. He thinks he needs some opera glasses and hastily buys some heavy ones from one sinister-looking optician. What follows when he takes his theatre seat is one bewildering turn of events that even he cannot explain, and it concerns his sudden urges, obsessions and audience fixations. The object in his hands – those heavy opera glasses – may be the cause. Louis Couperus (1863- 1923), one of the renowned Dutch authors, weaves into this effective tale of a “haunted” object the themes of fatalism, premonition, and obsessive thought.

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Thomas Hardy: 3 Short Stories

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was an English novelist who wrote such classics as Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd, Jude the Obscure, and The Woodlanders. He was also a poet (Wessex Poems) and short story writer. Hardy’s collection of ten or so short stories is compiled in The Fiddler of the Reels & Other Stories, Penguin Classics, and I am sharing my thoughts on three of them from this collection below. These are tales of romance, tragedies, and fate working in mysterious ways.

The Fiddler of the Reels [1893] – ★★★★

“Crowds of little chromatic subtleties, capable of drawing tears from a statue, proceeded straightway from the ancient fiddle, as if it were dying of the emotion which had been pent up within it ever since its banishment from some Italian city where it first took shape and sound…” (Thomas Hardy).

This is a story about eccentric fiddler “Mop” Ollamoor who can make any woman swoon with his almost devilish in its effectiveness fiddle-playing, and one of the “victims” who fell for his charm is young woman Car’line Aspent of Stickleford, who is already engaged to Ned Hipcroft, a mechanic. What began as one-sided romance soon morphed into something else – something more. We see in this story Hardy’s common love triangle – a woman chooses between a down-to-earth, hard-working man of practicality (Ned) and a visually-striking, albeit unreliable, man of shiny appearances and whimsies of all kinds (“Mop”). Hardy writes with elegance, passion and humanism, and this heart-breaking story, that is also set against the backdrop of the Great Exhibition of 1851, reminds very much of his other, heavier tragedies. Even in his short stories, Thomas Hardy can provoke us, surprise greatly, and deeply move.            

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Vasily Vereshchagin: The World Tour

Vasily Vereshchagin (1842-1904) was a Russian artist, writer, traveller and collector famous for his detailed artworks of world cultures, and by-that-time unorthodox paintings of war. Born in a family of nobility, he was enrolled into a military school as a boy (as was expected of his family’s standing), but his passion was painting, so he also studied art at the Academy of Art in St. Petersburg and under French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme in Paris. He was later accepted to be a war artist in Samarkand, and much later lived in India, and travelled extensively all over Europe, Asia and America, while continuing to paint prolifically. Below are some of Vereshchagin’s paintings that showcase his incredible observation of other countries’ architecture, traditions and modes of life.

Japanese Woman, 1903; A Buddhist Lama at Pemionchi Monastery, 1875; Japanese Beggar, 1904 by Vasily Vereshchagin.

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Ferdinand Hodler: Symbolism II

Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) was a Swiss symbolist painter known primarily for his enigmatic depictions of people and surrealist scenes, but he also produced striking realist land and waterscapes. His artwork aims to penetrate the mysteries of the natural order, universe, and our own minds. The three paintings below, which are the continuation of my previous post Ferdinand Hodler: Symbolism I, present Hodler’s curious philosophy, and ideas of life renewal and spring.

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South Korea: 5 Intriguing Short Stories

Miss Kim Knows [2021/23] by Cho Nam-Joo – ★★★★

In this short story collection, Cho Nam-Joo (Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982) focuses on the lives of eight Korean women, showcasing issues in contemporary Korea. In the titular story, even before starting her first day at her new job in a hospital advertisement agency, a young woman gets more than an eyeful of that company at an organised workshop for employees hosted over a weekend. Her predecessor, mysterious Miss Kim, a lowly employee, seems to have run the agency almost single-handedly, but where is she now and what happened to her? Cho Nam-Joo’s story idea and its beginning are definitely much stronger than the somewhat underwhelming finale, but this is still one memorable “a person against the system” tale that provides an incisive, humorous insight into the workings of a Korean company filled with nepotism and incompetence. I read this short story in Miss Kim Knows and Other Stories by Cho Nam-Joo [translated by Jamie Chang, Scribner UK, 2023].

The Glass Shield [2006/23] by Kim Jung-hyuk – ★★★★

Translated by Kevin O’Rourke, this is a story of two inseparable young men (our narrator and M) who go to a series of job interviews together because they cannot bear the thought of not working for the same company. They try very unconventional techniques to impress their interviewers (including untangling a yarn), but because of their togetherness and unique interviewing style, they have had no luck so far landing anything. That is, until the two friends-pranksters become an internet sensation, and finally have a chance to shine in the crowded job market. This story brims with comic originality, and is about trying to triumph through one’s eccentricity and individualism in a big city governed by monotony and predictability. It ends on the reconsideration of one’s life purpose. The story is part of The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories [edited by Bruce Fulton, Penguin Classics, 2023].

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Chabouté: To Build a Fire

To Build a Fire [1902/2007/18] – ★★★

Based on short story To Build a Fire by Jack London, this graphic novel by French artist Christophe Chabouté (Alone, Moby Dick) recounts one day in the life of a man newly arrived to north-western Canada as an ardent prospector in search of gold. The year is 1896, and our man is just one of many finding their feet in the environment of bitter cold (minus fifty), treacherous ice lakes, and few provisions. His dog is his only companion, but, otherwise, he is alone, making his way to his mates’ camp.

This is a survival story that emphasises the importance of fire and of making fire to survive in inhospitable conditions. The man was told many times how dangerous it is to travel alone in such freezing temperatures, but he is sure of himself, or is he? The story is also about the arrogance and presumptuousness of the mankind who think they can outsmart Mother Nature. The man in the story learns his lesson, but at what cost?

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