History by Elsa Morante

This is a huge (over 700 pages), magnificent novel set in Italy immediately before, during and immediately after the Second World War. When I picked it up I thought it might be hard going but it isn't. Admittedly there are scenes of great hardship and suffering and some sections are difficult to read. However mostly it is driven by the irrepresible optimism and liveliness of the central character Useppe, who is born near the beginning of the book and is still a child by the end of the book. His widowed mother Ida is a teacher, she is very timid and ignorant of world events. I wasn't convinced by Ida as a character, feeling that a teacher would have been unusual to have been quite so scared of the world, but teaching is possibly one of the few professions a woman in 1940s Italy could have had, and her ignorance was central to the book's effect. The book explores Italian history of the period very well but its focus is definitely on the lives of ordinary people who are living their lives, often in ignorance about much of the politics that was going on behind the scenes.

Ida and Useppe are bombed out of their original home, find a space in a crowded shelter then move through a succession of rooms. Useppe makes friends wherever he goes, though it is often difficult for him to find people to make friends with and his friends often disappear from his life without warning (which ultimately wears him down). He also finds two dogs, a cat, some rabbits and some canaries at various points along the way. Each of these animals is beautifully portrayed. Bella the dog is the most engaging fictional dog I've ever read about, she is a real friend for Useppe and a fully drawn character.


Useppe is also very much in tune with nature. There are several wonderful scenes where he visits favourite places to sit in trees and listen to the birds. He lives his life to the full and enjoys everything there is to enjoy around him.


Meanwhile history marches on, passing us all by, in our small lives, whether we choose to hide away from the world or embrace it.


History by Elsa Morante, translated from Italian by William Weaver

published in Italy in 1972, first published in the UK 2001 by Penguin


For Italy in Books

Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay

Red Dust Road won the Scottish Book of the Year Award and I was delighted to win copies of all the shortlisted books in a competition over on For Books Sake. (Just a week before the close of public voting on the winner, so I had to speed read all four books but I did get my vote in!).

Red Dust Road is Jackie Kay's account of growing up in Glasgow, black, lesbian and adopted. It also covers her search for her birth parents. It is a companion piece to her recent poetry collection Fiere (which I reviewed here for Book after Book).

It is a very moving and often entertaining story. Kay seems to have been very lucky with her adopted parents, who come across as wonderfully supportive in all possible ways. Her birth mother is a very nervous Mormon from the Highlands of Scotland and her birth father is a recently born again preacher from Nigeria.

Kay describes her search beautifully and reflects on nature vs nurture and the meaning of family. It's a book well worth reading, specially if you know Jackie Kay's work.


Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay, published by Picador

reviewed for the LGBT Reading Challenge

As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Free events at Edinburgh International Book Festival

There's always lots going on at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, but it can be very expensive. Tickets for most events are £10 and then if you do the expected thing and buy the speakers' books, an event can easily lead to you spending another £30 on top of your ticket price.

I'm delighted this year to have a press pass and so I've been able to get free tickets for several events (and you can read my reviews for these events over on Crafty Green Poet). However, some events are free for everyone! These include:

Story Shop - an up-and-coming Edinburgh writer reads a short story at 4pm every day in the Spiegeltent. You can see the list of readers here. (You may notice that I will be reading a story on Tuesday 23 August).

Unbound - two hours of entertainment for free from 9pm every evening in the Spiegeltent. Last night Kristin Hersh sang and read from her memoirs, it was a brilliant evening! Tonight the Golden Hour, Edinburgh's regular monthly cabaret of music, stories, poetry and cartoons comes to Unbound. You can see the whole Unbound programme here. You may need to turn up early to guarantee a seat!

Amnesty International Imprisoned Writers Series showcases the works of writers imprisoned for their words at 5.30pm every day.

There are also free taster events at 10am every morning. Ten minute readings from a randomly selected author from that day's programme.

As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks which take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Metallic Abstracts

taken in Kirkcudbright during our recent holiday to Dumfries and Galloway. More photos to follow, mostly on Crafty Green Poet.

Puppets and Flags at Traquair Fair

We went to Traquair Fair today, which takes place at Traquair House in Innerleithen in the Scottish Borders.

There is a mythical Traquair Fair in my mind, where the sun shines brightly all day and I get gently sunburnt sitting in the orchard listening to the music. This happened once, most times we've been to the Fair it has rained constantly and today was no exception. However we still had a lovely time. We enjoyed meeting these puppets:





and these flags brightened up the day:


and we enjoyed beer brewed in the Traquair Brewery and a pizza baked in this oven:

The orchard is lovely, and you can see photos of the apple trees and lichens over on Crafty Green Poet here.

Scottish Book Awards

I was delighted to win copies of all the books shortlisted for the Scottish Book Awards (thanks so much to ForBooksSake for this!). I received the books in the middle of last week and thought the deadline for public voting was in the middle of August, but no it's TODAY! I have quickly read the books (well I'm still reading one of them) and here are my potted reviews and I will be voting before the end of the day:

The Breakfast Room by Stewart Conn - the latest poetry collection from a well respected Scottish poet. I find Conn uses too many pompous words to describe ordinary events without offering the reader any real insights.

Lyrics Alley by Leila Aboulela - a novel of family life in 1950s Sudan and Egypt. This is very vividly told and the central narrative about Nur, an aspiring poet who fulfils his literary dreams despite major setbacks is inspiring.

The Death of Lomond Friel by Sue Peebles - a novel of family life in Scotland, centring around Lomond who has just had a stroke. Insightful and beautifully written.

Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay - a memoir about growing up in Glasgow black, lesbian and adopted. I'll post a review of this book for the LGBT Reading Challenge. This book is a companion piece to her latest poetry collection Fiere, which I reviewed over on Book After Book here.

If you have read these books and have an opinion you want to share about them then you still have time to vote for your favourite here.

As ever, coloured text contains hyperlinks that take you to other webpages where you can find out more.

Broetry by Brian McGackin

'As contemporary poets sing the glories of birds, birch trees, and menstruation, regular guys are left scratching their heads. Who can speak for Everyman? Who will articulate his love for Xbox 360, fo Mama Celeste's frozen pizza, for the cinematic oeuvre of Bruce Willis?'

So begins the introduction to Broetry, a book that claims to offer poetry for dudes who don't like poetry. So there's an instant problem for me here, I'm not a dude and I love poetry. So for this review, I used the services of Crafty Green Boyfriend, who doesn't like poetry (unless I wrote it!), though he's not a Bruce Willis fan and he does like birds and birch trees, so he's not perfect for this purpose, but he's the only guy I know who I can randomly read poetry to, so he'll have to do.

Crafty Green Boyfriend could relate to many of the poems, including Final Final Fantasy (though his weakness is computer games rather than video games per se) and When Patrick Stewart Rules the World (actually I think Crafty Green Boyfriend for a while thought Patrick Stewart did rule the world). He felt that The Road Unable to be Taken Because I'm Trapped Behind a Line of Dudes in Stormtrooper Armor Who Feel the Need to Take Pictures with Every Girl They See Wearing a Slave Leia Outfit was such a good title it didn't need a poem. Being a biologist, but not a fan of peanut butter in any form, Crafty Green Boyfriend was very entertained by On the Origin of Reese's a poem in 14 parts on the natural selection and development of peanut butter cups. He was also totally entertained by Modern Day Heroics, in which the narrator uses his skills at removing spiders from a room to win a woman (even though I'm not scared of spiders!).

I also enjoyed the poems here, they are engaging and clever and written on topics that most people (specially dudes) can relate to. Plus there's a good, self deprecating sense of humour in here:

Classical music. It makes you smarter.
And admit it, you could be more cultured;
you just picked up a book called Broetry.

from Why You Should Listen to Classical Music


So yeah, pick this book up and give it to the men in your life who don't like poetry. Or even those who do.

Broetry by Brian McGackin published by Quirkbooks.

Sul Po by Mario Bonfantini

This is a series of five stories set around the River Po. Most of them split themselves into descriptions (of for example the contrast between the river as it flows through towns and cities and as it flows through the countryside) and the story itself. I personally preferred the descriptive passages, but that probably has a lot to do with the fact that I found these passages easier to read. The Italian in these stories is quite colloquial in places! I actually find it quite difficult also to do a longer review of these stories, as I read them in between the novels I was reading and my memory has faded a wee bit, this happens more quickly when I've read something in a foreign language for some reason!


I've not been able to find out whether these stories have been translated into English, but they're definitely worth reading if you read Italian (specially if your Italian is better than mine!).



Sul Po by Mario Bonfantini published by Einaudi, 1975


For Italy in Books

Royal Mile

on of the many wonderful architectural details along the Royal Mile, Edinburgh. (Another is the sculpture in the blog header!).

Strangers

Our eyes meet
across the room

electricity

a sudden memory of us
hiding in an orange grove
as soldiers approached

previously published in Anon Magazine