What I read in May
Lots of translations, some Australians.
Hello!
Books
The Ruiners, by Ellena Savage
I really enjoyed this. It’s Savage’s debut fiction (following her excellent essay collection, Blueberries, from 2021), about a woman who inherits $50,000, quits her job as a Lobster Shack-esque waitress in Melbourne, and decides almost on a whim to buy a run down house on an obscure Greek island with her new boyfriend. The plan for their move is that Sasha will use the enforced solitude to write, and Pip will have the space to figure out what to do with her life.
Of course, when they arrive with barely any money left between them, the house is even worse than they expected, the island is a dumping ground for landfill, and they begin to notice that they don’t actually know each other very well. Pip’s best friend Viv arrives from Berlin, heartbroken and needing to find a story to revive his journalism career, and from there, the novel really takes off: climate crises, socialism, migrants (and their differently-classed digital-nomad counterparts)…
I didn’t realise that it was going to have multiple narrators (love), and I think that Savage does a very good job of having their sections cross over with one another just enough to give their moments of missed connection, or lost communication, enough weight. I really loved the final section — told from Sasha’s perspective — and I feel like he needed to close the story, being the character with maybe the least sympathy.
I think if you liked the madness of Madeline Cash’s LOST LAMBS, you’ll like this. And it’s got cool bookmarks!
Taiwan Travelogue, by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ (translated by Lin King)
The International Booker Prize winner! I - of course - did not get through the list in time, but we persevere.
This is the translation of a novel disguised as a translation of a rediscovered fiction novel, Taiwan Travelogue, by a Japanese author who was also writing a series of non-fiction essays and articles under the title of Taiwan Travelogue. It’s introduced by a fictitious translator and has footnotes throughout from that translator, though the ‘real’ English translation adds another layer of footnotes too. It was originally published as a true found text, with Yáng Shuāng-zǐ (itself a penname for the two sisters who actually wrote it in 2020) credited as its translator. Still with me?
Aoyama Chizuko, a young, famous Japanese author has been invited to Taiwan, and paired up with a Taiwanese interpreter/translator while she travels around and writes about her experiences. It’s set in the lead-up to WWII, so the colonisation of Taiwan really leads the story, with Taiwanese cuisine often used as a vehicle to talk about colonial politics (Chizuko’s “monstrous’ appetite, and her delight in finding another monster, means that they mostly eat their way around, and the politics of fusion food is a whole thing of its own). There’s a distance between the two women, as they navigate languages and culture and colonisation. I went into this expecting more of a queer love story, but it’s more layered and experimental. Make sure you have snacks while you read, because I was HUNGRY.
On the Calculation of Volume IV, by Solvej Balle (translated by Jennifer Russell and Sophia Hersi Smith)
I’m late to book four partly because I had to wait for my US edition to arrive, and partly because the TBR actually might topple over and suffocate me.1 It’s sneaky of me to put this on the list because I haven’t finished it yet (reading off-list has taken a serious backseat this month), but I want to hear from other people who are as invested in this series as I am.
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert (translated by Adam Thorpe)
This one is for classics club, but I’ve actually never read it before. (Victorian) classics are a big gap in my reading, despite two Literature degrees, so it’s as much a book club for me as anyone else. I’ve not finished yet (book club is at the end of June), but I’m enjoying this so far!
Also: HEXES OF THE DEADWOOD FOREST by Agnieszka Szpila, (translated by Scotia Gilroy) // THE BLOODY CHAMBER by Angela Carter // THE GOOD WITCH by Lucianne Tonti // I AM YOU by Victoria Redel // a reread of PHANTOM DAYS by Angela O’Keeffe
Online reads
On Tokarczuk and how many different timelines a body of work can have when it’s translated.2
Next month, I’ll have two big flights so I’m hoping to get comfy with some of the books I’ve been trying to catch up on for the last few months. Wish me luck! (In all likelihood, I’ll be asleep.)
Terri-Jane x
Shot myself in the foot with the US editions of books 1&2 because I was too impatient for a non-US publisher, so now I have to order the US ones every time because otherwise they will look wrong. I don’t mind, I think the US covers are beautiful.
Related: I have read the Lithub stuff out of order; Tokarczuk’s apology/clarification first, then their piece (which used AI to translate the original, which seemed to be the problem in the first place?). Mostly I think the saddest thing is that Tokarczuk has said that she won’t be writing anymore, as the market is failing its authors so badly and people “don’t want” literary work. I want it!! I have a shop full of it!!
Can’t wait to debrief on The Calculation of Volume!