Month: April 2014

An Interview with Elena Poniatowska on the Event of her Cervantes Prize

~ bythefirelight

El Pais had an interview last week with Elena Poniatowska on the event of her wining the Cervantes prize

P. Cuando usted publicó La noche de Tlatelolco, un referente sobre lo ocurrido el 2 de octubre de 1968, el momento más duro de la represión del régimen, ¿se sintió amenazada?

R. Sí. Amenazaron a Tomás Espresate Pons [catalán exiliado en México tras la Guerra Civil, librero y editor] que era el que estaba imprimiendo el libro. Le dijeron que iban a quemar su negocio. Él respondió: “Mire, yo estuve en la Guerra Civil de España. Yo sé lo que es la guerra y este libro se publica”. Luego esparcieron el rumor de que el Ejército lo iba a incautar, pero eso fue la mejor propaganda. Todo el mundo salió corriendo a comprarlo. Se hicieron cuatro ediciones en un mes. La locura.

La periodista y escritora Elena Poniatowska, en un momento de la sesión fotográfica. / SAÚL RUIZ

P. ¿Se considera usted una feminista?

R. ¡Claro!

P. ¿Y qué es una feminista?

R. Es una mujer que pone ante todo el respeto a sí misma. En este país, 400 mujeres han sido asesinadas con total impunidad en Ciudad Juárez. Es aterrador. Y lo de las mujeres en general en México es aterrador.

Tenth of December by George Saunders – A Review

~ bythefirelight

Tenth of December
George Saunders
Random House, 2013, pg 251

It has been some time since I’ve read a book of short stories from an American writer and enjoyed them. For some reason I’ve had some back luck-that and I’m tired of reading about middle class problems, or, at least, the ones that I find when I read short stories. Which is not to say Sanders avoids these themes but Tenth of December takes some more interesting approaches to the avoids the easy outs and self satisfying conclusions and takes his narratives in different directions. He, too, uses a good dose of humor and the fantastical to flip what otherwise might be conventional into something perceptive.

The first in that line is the opening story, Victory Lap, which uses a multiple points of view to describe an attempted abduction. What makes the story worth reading is the different voices he uses, especially the boy who has been so smothered as he has grown up that he doesn’t have any idea how to make a decision of his own. When he finally decides to save the young girl who is about to be raped he can’t avoid thinking about his parent’s rules:

Then he was running. Across the lawn. Oh God! What was he doing, what was he doing? Jesus, shit, the directives he was violating! Running in the yard (bad for the sod);

And they go on that for sometime in a humorously panicked tone that at once makes fun of the parents and turns a story of heroism into a critique of it. The humor, the sharp edge that can descend easily into disrespect, is handled well in Tenth of December. And while the stories always have a knowing wink from Saunders, as if he knows this is all just a bit ridiculous, it doesn’t ruin them.

He is at his most successful when he keeps closest to the little defeats and accidents of everyday life, pulling from those the absurdity that is masked behind the common place. In the The Semplica Girl Diaries he creates a family that is trying to keep up with its neighbors, spending all its money on appearances. While it sounds familiar, there is something obscure, just off page, that is swirling around the family. The statues that they have bought, just like the ones everyone else has, have disappeared and now the family is at risk of arrest. Using the fantastical, the statues are more than stone ad to have let one escape is dangerous. It is in this play between the desire to keep up with your neighbors, the purchase of what ostensibly are tacky garden decorations, and the sentient statutes, that makes the story resonate with the absurdities and traumas of the lower middle class. Certainly, there is a lightness to the story, no dirty realism here, but that is what makes it refreshing.

The lightness comes at the expense of knowing the characters. Saunders is not necessarily a character driven writer but most of the stories in the collection revolve around their inner lives. Al Roosten is the best at looking inside the desperation of a man who doesn’t quite have it together, but is holding on as best he can. It is an internal monolog full of the desperate tropes that people use to convince themselves everything will turn out alright. Of course, for Roosten it probably won’t. Yet the story has a charm that keeps it from the looserus americanus style of writing. Roosten is human, his decisions are not fiat-acomplie, but the uncertain steps of a man who doesn’t know where he is going.

The sense that the characters don’t know exactly know where they are going gives Saunders a touch, not of hope, but an openness that evades the frivolous that is always wanting to enter his stories. He keeps that at bay by holding his characters close and giving them a life that resonates still, despite the absurdities that happen. I would like a little more complexity in his work, a deeper play amongst his character’s thoughts, but what he has on display here is still significantly interesting.

 

 

Jorge Volpi Has a New Book

~ bythefirelight

The Mexican author Jorge Volpi has a new novel, Memorial del engaño (The Memorial of a Fraud). It is a political-economic novel with various narrative games, including the use of an alternate J. Volpi as narrator.

Así, la novela no la escribe él, sino un tal J. Volpi, nacido en Nueva York en 1953 y no en México, en 1968; y no es un reconocido escritor, sino el fundador y director general de JV Capital Management, en paradero desconocido y prófugo de la justicia tras defraudar 15.000 millones de dólares en 2008. El estafador ha entregado una especie de memorias a su agente literario A. W., seguro el temible Andrew Wylie (exagente real del Volpi escritor), que ha dado pie a este trepidante relato, con traducción de un tal Gustavo Izquierdo y precedido por entusiastas críticas de supuestos grandes expertos internacionales que se reflejan en la contraportada y en las solapas del volumen.

[…]

La génesis de Memorial del engaño es triple, lo que se refleja en otras tantas líneas del relato, construido con estructura de ópera. Por un lado, la crisis de 2008 que se inició con la caída de Lehman Brothers: “No sabía que no iba a golpear a México, pero como he vivido ya tantas crisis, quería entender qué pasaba; luego ya la viví en directo en Madrid entre 2011 y 2012”. El segundo incentivo fue conocer la historia de Harry Dexter White, creador del Fondo Monetario Internacional, pero que fue llevado ante el Comité de Actividades Antinorteamericanas acusado de espiar para la Unión Soviética.

La tercera pata es la más literaria: “Me interesan los engaños familiares y la relación padres-hijos”, dice el Volpi escritor, marcado por “el carácter poderoso pero a la vez frágil” de su progenitor. Por ello hace que su Volpi financiero vague por la obra buscando a su padre, en una estructura que recuerda la del mítico Pedro Páramo de Juan Rulfo: la madre que cuenta al hijo sobre el padre y este sale en su búsqueda. “Mi Volpi engaña toda la vida, pero al final él es el engañado”, resume.

I’m always a little doubtful about his political novels but, still, it sounds interesting. The more I see his canon I think he is the heir of Fuentes.

April Words Without Borders: Writing from South Korea Out Now

~ bythefirelight

The April Words Without Borders: Writing from South Korea is out now:

This month we’re spotlighting South Korea. Although the country is among the ten largest book markets in the world, relatively few of its writers have been translated into English, and many emerging writers were largely unknown outside South Korea. Kyung-sook Shin’s Man Asian Prize sparked new interest and contributed to the increased visibility of the country’s thriving literary culture. The writers here, ranging from the perennial Nobel nominee Ko Un to the precocious Ae-ran Kim, demonstrate the depth and variety of contemporary South Korean literature. Kyung-sook Shin follows a lovesick young soldier. Ae-ran Kim’s disaffected teen tries to escape her battling parents, as Kim Young-ha goes in search of an absent father. Han Kang’s enigmatic wife gives up meat and sex. Han Yujoo mourns a death and battles writer’s block. Park Min-gyu and Yi Mun-yol find their workplaces transformed. In a poem from his multivolume epic Ten Thousand Lives, Ko Un depicts the human side of history. In other poetry, Shim Bo-seon yearns for magic, Kim Sa-in reminisces, Kim Soo-Bok reflects on fertility and the sea, and Jeong Ho-seung books a trip to hell. We thank the Literature Translation Institute of Korea for its generous support, and our advisors Martin Alexander and Sora Kim-Russell.

Elsewhere, we present poetry by two exiled writers, Iraqi Manal Al-Sheikh and Palestinian Mazen Maarouf, as well as the sixth and final installment of Sakumi Tayama’s tale of an accidental medium.

Going to the Emerald City Comic Con

~ bythefirelight

I read comics as a kid, mostly war. As an adult I read graphic novels from authors like Joe Sacco. Sure, I know who most of the big name super heroes are and I’ve seen more than my share of Star Trek, but superheros, sci-fi, fantasy, and gaming are not really my thing. Superheroes have always bored me: they always seem to be defeating an arch villain while spouting angst ridden thought bubbles wondering if they are strong enough, good enough, and not too much of a freak. I don’t mind a few who do this, Spider Man I’m looking at you, but every time I turn the page of a super hero comic I’m bored. So that I would go to the Emerald City Comic Con might seem a bit of a stretch, but I’ve always been curious and supposedly as someone who makes a living from programming I’m bombarded by my supposed interest in all things geek.

The first thing that struck me was at 10 AM the crowd of people to get in was enormous. I’ve been to big events before but I’d never seen that many people stuffed into a convention center. I was always bumping against people or close to, especially in the exhibition hall. The hall, as in most conferences, was the hub of everything and for someone who doesn’t buy much of what is on display at a comic con it was like going to a mall and not wanting to buy anything. The reality is I spent half of my time window shopping. Fortunately comics are books and I do like to flip through them, especially the different graphic novels, many of which were more geared towards fantasy and heroic, but interesting nonetheless. Of course, I paid a visit to Fantagraphic Books the local Seattle publisher of graphic novels and whose editions I own, and added to there. Perhaps the most interesting of it all were all the comic shop stores with their wares. Yet as much as I leafed through the books looking at issues of Sgt. Rock or GI Combat I’d read (yes, I still could recognize some) and those I had not, I didn’t know what I’d do with any of them if I were to buy them. It was a pleasant entertainment to  browse through them, nostalgic, almost.

What fascinated me the most, though, and what makes the fandom that goes to a comic con so interesting is the loyalty mixed with commerce. For $40 dollars average you could get an autograph of a star, the same for a photo with said star, and for around $20 a sketch or a drawing from one of your favorite artists. That same loyalty is found in the celebrity panels when the audience would come up and ask questions. You could see that many of them didn’t want just an inside story from behind the scenes they wanted to continue their immersive experience where what they love can expand the limits of its genre, whether it be the page or a 45 minute episode, and become larger than just a product, but a living thing that they too have interacted with physically. If you can buy that drawing, which to my mind was the best of the celebrity deals, you, the artist, the work, and you are just that much closer. As a prose writer I’m actually a little envious this. Sure I have signed books but there seems to be a more intense devotion here, or better said, a more wide spread devotion.

They did have enough panels I went to fit my. One on publishing contracts, on on Fantagraphic Books, and the requisite Star Trek actor appearance from John de Lance, Q. His was funny and had the perfect mix of insider information for the fan and enough distance to make fun of the fandom in a way that the fans enjoyed.

In all I found the experience fun and surprisingly entertaining enough to keep me going for the day. Three days? Perhaps not, but it was definitely worth the experience.