Eduardo Mendoza – Mauricio, Choices

We already know Mendoza as the author of funny crime stories, like “The Adventures of Ladies Hairdresser”, so it`s the right time to get to know him better as a brilliant observer of Spanish society.

Mauricio, the main hero, is already known from “Adventures of Ladies Hairdresser” but this time he`s quite ordinary, a brilliant and intelligent dentist, who is induced to take part in the local government election. Mendoza forced him to do so in order to have enough reasons to show a rather merciless section of the Spanish society, of his beloved city Barcelona.

Mendoza wouldn`t be himself if if he wouldn`t mix Mauricio up in complicated romances and would force him to choose between two very attractive women. The local government selection is all in all a boring stuff, but to choose a woman and moral choices is something that rivets the reader`s attention.

Summarized by Fusinha

Pierre Mérot – Mammals

A novel of contemporary ennui, centered on uncle’s life, Mammals refers to the deformities of modern society and how people relate to them.

The mammals are the uncle’s family members, but the circle is as large as the entire society.

A dominating female that psychologically castrates her husband and uncle’s brother, fails to exercise the same powers on our main character. Not because this one is a strong individual in terms of social achievement, but because he chose to be the contrary.

A laid back individual that watches the human race doing all the tricks they were trained for. Like landing in a proper job, finding a long-term mate and paying for some small space they call apartment.

Solitaire, often unemployed, the uncle is drawn to alcohol, but he is harmless to the others. Not very often, though, he has brief episodes of envy for the normal life: a house in the suburbs, a pretty wife, kids, a dog and “some low key cancer”.

A sad novel with a funny twist, Mammals was awarded Prix de Flore 2003.

Most certainly, Mérot is not a flawless author, but is for sure refreshing after so many unsatisfying lectures picked up after reading upraising reviews.

Simone De Beauvoir – All Men Are Mortal

She’s more famous for her personal life than for her literary activity and when her works are mentioned, it’s always the feminism impregnated ones. But apparently she wrote other kinds of things as well. All Men Are Mortal is sort of a classic novel in my opinion. A book to be read when you’re a restless teenager of even later on, like for instance when you’re preparing for an exam and you are craving for an entertaining novel rather than a bunch of boring school books. It is a dissertation about life and death, or more precisely about the meaning of life and the dimension of eternity.

It can be seen with the naked eye that Simone has something from her beloved Jean Paul (Sartre). After all, she is believed to have been reading his volumes before they were sent further for publishing. Plus, she’s got verve.

The high interest and cultivated background in philosophy provided her the fertile ground for tackling a subject of this nature. And there’s plenty of fictional history inside, epic narrative sequences and colorful dialogues. As a mere plot spoiler, the main characters are a young actress and an immortal man whose voyage through time left him with countless memories to tell and plenty of reflective thoughts to share. So we are faced with an existentialist array of ideas, not novel ones at all, but none the less the book wraps up into a nicely told story.

Death at Intervals, Jose Saramago

It was when I realized that it gets more and more difficult to choose a book from the bookstores when the idea of Literary Agenda was born. Too much emphasis on the cover, on all those “A brilliant masterpiece, says Famous Newspaper” bling-bling paragraphs on the front cover, back cover, first pages, everywhere.

After I felt in several ‘compelling’ traps and paid some good money on disco-books (I’m not saying that books are expensive, just that I paid too much for some products that did not satisfy my expectations), I decided it must be me. I am not in touch with the latest literary news.

Literary Agenda is still in its early days, but it did help me slalom through the new releases and chose better.

It makes me happy to find out that Jose Saramago gives us a new novel, Death at Intervals besides all the news about fake memoirs, Rowling being on trial for the Potter Lexicon, or that an unauthorized biography of Tom Cruise, a bestseller in US has problems hitting the British market. Such a pity.

It doesn’t come as a complete novelty that  Saramago deprives his characters of a vital function. After an pandemic of blindness that spreads all over the society and brings chaos [Blindness], Saramago goes further in his new novel and takes from humans the right to die. Nobody, in the unnamed country dies anymore.

The discovery that death is still a possibility in a neighbouring country gives rise to nocturnal border-crossings. Language ceases to fulfill its descriptive function: “New Year, New Life” is hardly appropriate on 1 January, when death itself has died. [The Independent]

Having concluded that simply snatching mortals away without warning is not only cruel but also leaves a lot of loose ends, she begins to send little violet warning letters. The population’s reaction is predictably hysterical and the handwriting analyst contracted to examine the letters concludes, brilliantly, that death has the handwriting of a serial killer. [The Guardian]

Marc Chagall Jewish Encounters, Jonathan Wilson

His style is not so simple and sentimental like it might look at the first sight. Reading “Marc Chagall Biography”, Jonathan Willson lets us notice that his painting is something more than just characteristic creatures, dreamy, soaring hills under the Jewish Witebsk sky – it’s the vast history of 20^th Century.

Being merely 13, with self-confidence he announced:”Mum, I’d like to become the greatest painter.” And so he became the greatest Jewish painter of 20^th Century, who captured the colorful world of the small towns buried by Nazis for good. But except houses` roofs, domed synagogues and the streets of native Witebsk, appears Jesus. Thanks to the painting “Dedicated to Christ”, exposed and making a huge impression during the Saloon of Independent in Berlin in 1913, Marc Chagall had started his international carrier.

Chagall knew form the very beginning how he wants to paint. Subsequent Petersburg schools, in which he was learning could not change or effect his visions or style. Copying classic masterpieces Chagall had found them tiring, full of boring decorativeness. That is why in 1910, thanks to Maxim Winawer`s scholarship, he turned up in the international capital of arts – Paris. France had became the artist’s motherland; here he had spent the most fruitful years of his lifetime.

There came out the paintings recognized by the critics as the most excellent works: “Self-portrait with seven fingers”, “Rain”, “Woman and donkey” or “Me and village” from 1911, where melancholic features mix with the spirit of surrealism. The creatures from his paintings do not respect and agree with gravity and their world is filled up with intensive, bright colors.

Not only as an artist but also as a man, Chagall wasn’t easily influenced by environment. He wasn’t part of the Parisian bohemia, hasn’t been drinking and sitting in coffee shops on Montparnasse, even though very often friends were trying to take him out of the studio. Most of the time he has been spending with poets or being on his own.

Showing suffering Jews by using Jesus as a simple Jewish boy (“Golgota” 1912) and Christian motives, rose controverersy in the Jewish community. Like decorating Christian churches, what often Chagall was doing in his late years.

It is out of discussion that he had been seduced by France. There he had been treated and respected as a great painter. It doesn’t surprise anybody that in 1948, after almost 10 years, he had left New York and settled down in Orgeval near Paris. He visited after 50 years his motherland, resurrected so many times in his paintings. After coming back he said that “Life goes on in France.” In the distance between the remembered world of province and the cultural center of the world lies the power of his paintings.

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