~ James Lees-Milne, diary, September 9, 1979
I remembered my New Orleans days, living on two five-cent candy bars a day for weeks at a time in order to have leisure to write. But starvation, unfortunately, didn't improve art. It only hindered it. A man's soul was rooted in his stomach. A man could write much better after eating a porterhouse steak and drinking a pint of whiskey than he could ever write after eating a nickel candy bar. The myth of the starving artist was a hoax.
I remembered my New Orleans days, living on two five-cent candy bars a day for weeks at a time in order to have leisure to write. But starvation, unfortunately, didn't improve art. It only hindered it. A man's soul was rooted in his stomach. A man could write much better after eating a porterhouse steak and drinking a pint of whiskey than he could ever write after eating a nickel candy bar. The myth of the starving artist was a hoax.
~Charles Bukowski
This novel is an exciting development in Australian publishing. The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree is a novel written by Shokoofeh Azar, an Iranian author now living here in Australia, and translated from the Persian into English for publication by Wild Dingo Press. The only other novel that I know of that has a similar genesis isOh Lucky Country by Rosa Cappiello which was written in Italian and then translated for publication by UQP. And that was way back in 1984.
“OCW is a free and open publication of material from thousands of MIT courses, covering the entire MIT curriculum. That’s every MIT department and degree program, and ranging from the introductory to the most advanced graduate level. Each OCW course includes a syllabus, some instructional material (such as lecture notes or a reading list), and some learning activities (such as assignments or exams). Many courses also have complete video lectures, free online textbooks, and faculty teaching insights. While some OCW content is custom-created for online use, most of it comes straight from the MIT classroom…”
The Correspondent: “The ends of the Earth are melting at a rate not seen in at least 115,000 years. And over the past few months, there’s been increasing evidence that the changes we’re seeing at our planet’s poles are only growing more severe.
In his 2007 novelistic tour-de-force, the always impressive Paul Auster serves up the dreamlike (nightmarish?) experiences of a middle-aged man living (visiting? entrapped?) in an austere 12x15 foot room. Mr. Blank seems to be his name (at least that is what we are told), and the circumstances of his existence (fate?) within the room remain a mystery.
As his thoughts and emotions seem to fluctuate between guilt and fear, weariness and anguish, Blank - uncertain of the past, bewildered by the present, and wary of the endgame - passes time (at least as the narrator tells us) by reading from typewritten pages (a manuscript of some sort left on a desk?); other moments of Blank's day(s) are interrupted by apparent visitations from people with vaguely familiar faces (and names): James P. Flood, an ex-policeman from Scotland Yard; a nurse (lover?) known eventually as Anna Blume; a physician (Blank's physician?) calling himself Dr. Samuel Farr; and the lawyer Daniel Quinn, another enigmatic visitor. Blank, however, must also contend with intrusions (if that is the right word) in other forms by dozens of other characters from his (or another's?) past.
And while all of this is going on, a hidden camera records Blank's every movement and a hidden microphone records every sound. That, of course, raises the questions: Who is watching? Who is listening? (When you get to the end of the book - if you've been paying attention - the surprising answers will suddenly seem ironically obvious.)
Cryptic, allusive, revelatory, terrifying, and amusing, the not-to-be-missed Travels in the Scriptorium becomes a highly entertaining and wonderfully provocative metaphysical (meta-fictional) meditation on semiotics, epistemology, existence, and literature. However, don't let that scare you off from what is one of recent literary history's most fascinating Kafkaesque parables in which author Paul Auster confronts the bottom-line challenge facing all authors (and readers!): how does a writer (reader) go about the daunting task of telling (realizing) the truth?
Posted by: Lisa Hill | August 1, 2017
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree, by Shokoofeh Azar, translated by Adrien Kijek
This novel is an exciting development in Australian publishing. The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree is a novel written by Shokoofeh Azar, an Iranian author now living here in Australia, and translated from the Persian into English for publication by Wild Dingo Press. The only other novel that I know of that has a similar genesis isOh Lucky Country by Rosa Cappiello which was written in Italian and then translated for publication by UQP. And that was way back in 1984.
The timing of the release of The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree this August is just perfect for #WITmonth too. #WITmonth is an international reading project which shines a spotlight on women authors who write in languages other than English. It was started because the percentage of women writers published in translation is absurdly low (about 30%) and I am mildly pleased to report my own stats for this have improved markedly since I started monitoring them.
- 22% of all works in translation (54 books) reviewed on this blog are by female authors, skewed towards male authors because of my love of classics, but
- 25% of all 20th-21st century works in translation (50 books) are by female authors, up from a pathetic 10%.
What I particularly like about this improvement is that I haven’t set out to read to any agenda. I have read more women authors in translation simply because I’ve read enticing reviews of their books. So now I’m hoping to entice a good few readers with this review of The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree!
It’s a stunning novel. It’s written in a lyrical magical realism style, which seems bizarre at first – until the author’s purpose becomes clear. This style is both a tribute to classical Persian storytelling and an appropriate response to the madness of the world she is describing. The novel tells the story of a family living through the turbulent period of Iranian history when the Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war brought them overwhelming grief. While there is no solace to be had in the real world, the mystical world conjures it instead. When the eldest son Sobrah is arbitrarily arrested and executed along with thousands of others, the child narrator who was immolated when the Revolutionary Guards came to burn her father’s library, is there as a witness. She is there to tell the strange story of her mother Roza’s disappearance, the attacks on her sister Beeta, and the destruction of everything her father Hushang holds dear. The presence of ghosts everywhere seems almost realistic when the entire country is plunged into mourning by the Islamic regime. It is the regime which seems unrealistic because it was responsible for the execution of thousands and thousands of its own people: dissidents and conscripts in the senseless eight-year war…
The regime orders book burnings, the destruction of ancient Persian cultural artefacts, and arbitrary arrests and executions without trial. Roza will not set foot outside the house because she refuses to cover herself in accordance with the new rules, rigidly enforced by the Morality Police. Music is banned; any manifestations of pro-Western attitudes brings brutal punishment. The family leaves Tehran for the small village of Razan, hoping that its isolation will allow them some freedom. But sorrow follows them there too, along with all kinds of strange fantastical beings: fireflies that live in Roza’s hair; Jinns who avenge themselves on Beeta’s lover; and dragonflies which portend the future. The more I read, the more strange it seemed, and yet it made sense when the all powerful Ayatollah Khomeini goes mad in a mansion of mirrors and dies alone, haunted by the spirits of the dead. This is the magical world delivering the justice that this evil man evaded in the real world.
As Beeta – about to metamorphose into a mermaid, says to her sister, the narrator:
‘It’s life’s failure and its deficiencies that make someone a daydreamer. I don’t understand why prophets and philosophers didn’t see the significance of that. I think imagination is at the heart of reality, or at least, is the immediate definition and interpretation of reality.’ I was staring at her, thinking about her words. I was coming to the conclusion that she was changing, shedding her skin once again when she said, ‘Aren’t dreams part of life’s reality? Or desires? Who doesn’t believe that the Huma bird, who made whoever it was flying over, happy, really existed at one time? Or the Simorgh, to which the lives of [the great heroes of Persia] Sam, Zal and Rostam were bound. All these books have been written about it and all of these paintings painted. What’s common to all of them?’ She paused, gave a deep sigh, and then said finally, ‘I mean, when life is so deficient and mundane, why shouldn’t imagination supplement reality to liven it up?’ (p.185)
Roza’s wish to leave everything behind makes sense too:
She had left because she wanted to lose herself. She didn’t want to sit in her newly rebuilt house and look at the freshly-painted walls, and the new furniture and carpet, and imagine how Sohrab was killed or how I suffered as I burned. She didn’t want to think about the future and what other calamities might befall Beeta and Hushang. She wanted to run away from herself, from her fate. She didn’t want to be wherever she was. (p.109)
There are numerous literary allusions, to Persian poets and storytellers and also to famous authors of the western world. An allusion to a whole year, eight months and two weeks and the ten-page one-sentence story of the middle-aged ghost are allusions to the Arabic Iranian* classic collection of folk tales, One Thousand and One Nights,contrasting the Islamic Golden Age (from which these stories derive) with its contemporary perversion under an autocratic regime. There is a poignant note from the author at the front of the book:
I would like to thank my father for teaching me to fly in the sky of literature freely. I owe a debt of gratitude to my mother, without whose support I would not be living in the free country of Australia, able to write without censorship.I am profoundly grateful to the Australian people for accepting me into this safe and democratic country where I have the freedom to write this book, a liberty denied me in my homeland of Iran.
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree is a beautiful book: thoughtful, wise, funny and clever. The translation by Adrien Kijek is excellent, conveying the beauty of Iran along with its tragedy. I especially like the blessings that Hushang confers on his daughters, the living and the dead:
Then he kissed Beeta on the cheek and said, ‘Go to university. Study a subject that you like, and be someone that good people want to meet. Maybe you’ll return one day. I’ll be waiting for you here until then’. (p.143)In the end he came to me and said, ‘It’s time to leave. You leave too. Go to Sohrab. Get as far away from here as possible. Go. Go higher.’ Once he’d said this, he picked up his suitcase, locked the house doors, got in his silver Buick Skylight, and disappeared in the twists and turns of the grove leading to the city. But before leaving, he stuck his head out of the car window and said one last thing, ‘And if you don’t go, remember, I don’t want you coming to see me. Beeta was right. We have to forge our own path and learn to live with the living.’
It’s exciting to think that amongst the new arrivals who make Australia their home, there are storytellers like Shokoofeh Azar, who came here as a political refugee in 2011. I hope we see more home-grown novels in translation like this!
Update 28/2/20 This novel has been longlisted for the International Booker Prize, and you may notice that in the publicity the Europa Editions publication is stated to have been published by a translator, who wishes to remain anonymous. As I was gravely concerned that my usual practice of acknowledging the translator may be a possible risk to his or her safety, I urgently checked with the Australian publisher Wild Dingo Press whose edition is reviewed here, and have been advised that the translator I have acknowledged in this review has used a non de plume.
What Pricks The Conscience (And When): The Ethics Of Whose Money You Take
This Particular Moment: A Culture Of Meanness
“OCW is a free and open publication of material from thousands of MIT courses, covering the entire MIT curriculum. That’s every MIT department and degree program, and ranging from the introductory to the most advanced graduate level. Each OCW course includes a syllabus, some instructional material (such as lecture notes or a reading list), and some learning activities (such as assignments or exams). Many courses also have complete video lectures, free online textbooks, and faculty teaching insights. While some OCW content is custom-created for online use, most of it comes straight from the MIT classroom…”
The Correspondent: “The ends of the Earth are melting at a rate not seen in at least 115,000 years. And over the past few months, there’s been increasing evidence that the changes we’re seeing at our planet’s poles are only growing more severe.
- On 1 August, the Greenland ice sheet lost 12.5bn tonnes of ice on a single day, a new all-time record.
- On 18 September, the Arctic Ocean reached its second lowest extent of sea ice in history.
- On 9 February, the temperature reached an astounding 20.75C (69F) on Seymour Island, just off the coast of the Antarctic peninsula, the warmest temperature ever measured on the continent. “[W]e have never seen anything like this,” said Carlos Schaefer, a Brazilian scientist working on Seymour Island.
- These changes in the most remote places on Earth have huge consequences for our daily lives because our daily lives have huge consequences for the most remote places on Earth. Decades of routine human activities – going to work, driving a car, eating a hamburger, choosing a stock portfolio – have transformed the frozen parts of this planet on a scale never seen before. If we do not change our behaviour drastically to slow down and eventually stop the Arctic melt, rising sea levels and even faster rising global temperatures will threaten our very way of life…”
In his 2007 novelistic tour-de-force, the always impressive Paul Auster serves up the dreamlike (nightmarish?) experiences of a middle-aged man living (visiting? entrapped?) in an austere 12x15 foot room. Mr. Blank seems to be his name (at least that is what we are told), and the circumstances of his existence (fate?) within the room remain a mystery.
As his thoughts and emotions seem to fluctuate between guilt and fear, weariness and anguish, Blank - uncertain of the past, bewildered by the present, and wary of the endgame - passes time (at least as the narrator tells us) by reading from typewritten pages (a manuscript of some sort left on a desk?); other moments of Blank's day(s) are interrupted by apparent visitations from people with vaguely familiar faces (and names): James P. Flood, an ex-policeman from Scotland Yard; a nurse (lover?) known eventually as Anna Blume; a physician (Blank's physician?) calling himself Dr. Samuel Farr; and the lawyer Daniel Quinn, another enigmatic visitor. Blank, however, must also contend with intrusions (if that is the right word) in other forms by dozens of other characters from his (or another's?) past.
And while all of this is going on, a hidden camera records Blank's every movement and a hidden microphone records every sound. That, of course, raises the questions: Who is watching? Who is listening? (When you get to the end of the book - if you've been paying attention - the surprising answers will suddenly seem ironically obvious.)
Cryptic, allusive, revelatory, terrifying, and amusing, the not-to-be-missed Travels in the Scriptorium becomes a highly entertaining and wonderfully provocative metaphysical (meta-fictional) meditation on semiotics, epistemology, existence, and literature. However, don't let that scare you off from what is one of recent literary history's most fascinating Kafkaesque parables in which author Paul Auster confronts the bottom-line challenge facing all authors (and readers!): how does a writer (reader) go about the daunting task of telling (realizing) the truth?
From PBS’s FRONTLINE comes Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos, a feature-length documentary investigation into Amazon and its founder.
Jeff Bezos is not only the richest man in the world, he has built a business that is without precedent in the history of American capitalism. His power to shape everything from the future of work to the future of commerce to the future of technology is unrivaled. As politicians and regulators around the world start to consider the global impact of Amazon — and how to rein in Bezos’ power — FRONTLINE investigates how he executed a plan to build one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world.
One of the 10 key takeaways from the film is how deliberately Amazon attacked the publishing industry:
“Amazon took over a large market share of the publishing industry very, very fast,” James Marcus, a former senior Amazon.com editor, tells FRONTLINE — a situation that he says prompted publishers to realize, “‘Oh, wait a minute, they’re our partner, but they now have the beginnings of a boot on our windpipe’.” Inside the company, the team had launched a strategy that some called “the Gazelle Project,” because they’d heard Bezos wanted them to pursue publishers the way a cheetah pursues a sickly gazelle. “Well, you don’t go after the strongest,” Randy Miller, who ran the European book team, says of the strategy. “He’s like, ‘The cheetah. The cheetah looks for the weak, looks for the sick, looks for the small.’” That way, by the time it comes to take on the publishers at the top, “the noise has gotten back to them. They’re going to know this is coming, and chances are you may be able to settle that without a full-on war.”
Here’s a trailer but the whole thing is available online, embedded above and on YouTube.
Monday musings on Australian literature: Hidden Women of History
“This diagram, created by WordTips, breaks down the world’s 100 most-spoken languages by their roots (e.g., Indo-European for English and Spanish, or Sino-Tibetan for Mandarin) and by the number of native speakers and total speakers. The resulting chart helps reveal some interesting insights.” – Digg
Salt Lake City’s Arts Funding Rewards Largest Organizations At Expense Of Small. Should The Formula Change?
That system sometimes “reward[s] bad behavior. We reward those who keep spending without regard” and sometimes “penalize organizations that take thoughtful, correct and prudent cuts to their budget and then they get less as a result.” – Salt Lake Tribune
'Gay guys don’t do graffiti': Roxy loses AVO bid against Bitcoin trader
A
magistrate said Ms Jacenko's evidence about her confrontation with
Anthony Hess was "grossly exaggerated", "hollow and unpersuasive".