Places of Interest

It’s been a long time since I have bookmarked these links with th purpose of sharing them.

»Tam Tam Books

is a publishing house that came to my attention after reading the review of “The Dead All Have the Same Skin” by Boris Vian, in LA Times.

TamTam Books is a publishing house that specializes in 20th Century international literature and is devoted to the purpose of reprinting lost masterpieces and presenting them to a large English speaking audience.

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The Real Gaze: Film Theory After Lacan

Summarised by Fusinha

Here the author develops a psychoanalytic theory of the movie, which took the movie as a starting point. Avoids telling about historical context of film production as well as it`s reception.

When McGowan says about the audience he doesn`t mean the empirical spectator, but the one which is expected by movie text himself. Of course none of the movies ignores its historical context as well as context of those who watch it, but neither the context nor the spectator don`t exist out of the movie text.

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Franz Kafka - The Zürau Aphorisms

Summarized by Fusinha

In 1917 Franz Kafka went to Zürau in Czech Republic because of health problems. It was a small village placed between mountains, meadows and groves. The life there had been concentrated on growing hop-plant and the habitants there were mostly animals rather than humans. On the spot Kafka realised that he was caught in small zoo lead under different and new rules.

Kafka took up residence under his sister`s roof near the market place by the church. He had been living there on his own and how he wanted for eight months. Can man find better place to write aphorisms? Doubtfully.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Rodrigo Fresan - Kensington Gardens

His book, already translated into few languages gave the author the position of one of the best Latin American writers of new generation.

English writer, Peter Hook, is the narrator of “Kensingston gardens”. Very skilfully, he tells the story of James Matthew Barry, the creator of Peter Pan, by revealing his own mysteries: childhood in 60s soaked with drugs, carrier of the writer of the bestsellers about Jim Young, murky sin and gloomy intentions.

Barrie, similar to his famous hero, never wanted to grow up. Peter Hook shows in his novel an analogy of his life to the biography of “Peter Pan’s” author, whose inspiration became mysterious and carefree childlike Neverland.

Fresan`s story is hard to define as a one genre because it links reality with fiction. It`s a read with hold breath.

Summarized by Fusinha

 

Amos Oz - Fima

You can say that Amos Oz is a moralist who can describe tragedy of feelings, history and complicated paradoxes of life. It`s very possible that “Fima” is firstly a unique satire about Israel from late 80s, secondly with schlemiel as its main hero. Schlemiel, this eternal shmack who is always spilling out the tea, that we already know from different novels, fits perfectly to this kind of literary games. Fima dreamt up that he`s Israel`s prime minister and has difficulties in finding the right person for the right position in his government. Of course, this problem appears when the other obstacles go away. Those “other” are mostly women who are very attracted by him. He doesn`t know if it`s because they love him or feel sorry for him or maybe because of his poetical past. As a result he tries to make all their wishes and desires come true what causes even bigger problems.

Summarized by Fusinha

Gary Shteyngart - Absurdistan

This edition starts with three pages of appraisals. Additionally, both the front and the back covers are filled with similar quotes from Time, New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly, you name it. I hope everybody can do like me and cunningly skip all these and dive into the book itself.

The synopsis is surely intriguing and whoever gets a glimpse of it would like to know more, ending up by picking the book off the shelf and throwing it in the basket case.

It’s all about the humor and, whether it is terribly dark, burlesque, satiric or ironic, Gary succeeds in putting together a storytelling that will keep your fingers turning the pages until you realize you reached the end. Obviously this won’t actually happen, but you get the idea. It’s catchy, funny, witty, and while I personally think it has its flaws, it all glues together quite nicely. The kind of a best selling book that is pretty good, despite its commercial success. Sometimes there are too many divagations, too many metaphors, too many descriptive scenes. The momentum is somehow pushed and pulled sideways, cause there’s drama and subtle existentialist issues inside as well, which are not always welcome. But if your critic eye is not in a bad mood that day, you’ll just enjoy the reading and fall in love – or at least sympathize, c’mon - with the central character. And that will do.

All the happy families - Carlos Fuentes

Master of Spanish literature who will celebrate this year 80^th birthday, finally decided to do this, what every decent writer thinks of – pertain to the first sentence from Lew Tolstoy`s “Anna Karenina” and develop it on his own way. Tolstoy starts with the statement that: “All the happy families are similar, every unhappy family is unhappy onits own way.” This sentence opens for the writer many new doors and gives plenty of possibilities.

Fuentes did realize it very well, that`s why he wrote sixteen different stories of different families and divided them with choirs which sound and look like poems written by American representatives of Big-Beat generation.

After lecture, putting all the plots and pieces together – it requires from the reader plenty of attention and it`s not so easy – we are given a picture of Mexican society torn apart. A society convincingly different from the one we already know from other charming novel “Summer with Laura Diaz”.

“Violence, violence” are last words of the book, dangerously coexisting with Tolstoy`s sentence. When family falls apart, everything falls apart.

Summarized by Fusinha

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