11 Peru – The storyteller – Mario Vargas Llosa, May 2014

The unnamed Peruvian narrator is in Florence when he comes across an exhibition of photos of “The Natives of the Amazon Forest”. He recognises some of the tribespeople as being Machiguenga, and knows that one of the people is a “storyteller”. The book is infused with the presence and absence of the storyteller.

We then learn that he met Saul Zuratas (known as Mascarito from his large florid birthmark) when they took university entrance exams. They became good friends. Mascarito later changed from studying law to ethnology. He has a parrot called Gregor Samsa.

We listen to Saul when he discusses the way of life and the customs of the Amazonian peoples, and the ways in which the actions of “civilised” men are destroying the Amazonian habitat with its irreplaceable flora and fauna which the tribes need to continue their way of life, and the tribes themselves.

We come across the age-old problem of whether the modern world has the right, or a “duty” to “modernise” the tribes at the expense of destroying their lives, their cultures, their languages, and their very reason for a separate existence.

The myth told on page 37 reads like the effects of a natural disaster seen through the eyes of people trying to make sense of what is happening to them (see Note 1 below).

The Machiguenga are (again on page 37) “The men of earth”. Many tribal, ethnic and national groups have names which translate as “the men”, “the people”, “the ones”, “true people” (see Note 2).

We read about a Machiguenga’s first experience of a Viracocha (see Note 3) sneezing. He was terrified. This could also be the introduction of the deadly common cold which has decimated swathes of Native American peoples.

There is also discussion of the problem of contact between peoples of different culture levels (see Note 4).

The constant use by Mascarito of “pal” to translate “mi amigo” comes across as sarcasm, although Mascarito does not seem to be like that. It might have been better to leave “mi amigo” (which we are all used to), or simply omit it.

Saul tells the Kafka story of himself being turned into an insect. He even calls himself Gregor-Tasurinchi.

At page 215 we read the story of Jesus, told as if he himself were an hablador, breathed out by Tasurinchi, yet himself still Tasurinchi.

At the end, when there is an earthquake, possibly caused by a smaller volcanic eruption since there is a dark cloud across the sky, Saul starts the group he is living with walking in the old way so as to keep the sun in the sky.

I loved this book, with its interaction between cultures and, particularly for its telling of the myths, legends and creation story of the Machiguenga people. I scored it at 9.5, which is my highest score for any book read during our book group’s nearly eleven years of travelling “round the world”.

Note 1 – There have been many such worldwide events caused, for example, by massive volcanic eruptions such as Mount Toba in Indonesia about 70,000 years ago.  A similar event brought about the Dark Ages in Europe by causing a sharp fall in temperature, loss of crops, and consequent starvation and mass movements of people. Refer also to the world-wide effect of Krakatoa closer to our own times. Descriptions of the earlier events discuss the massive amounts of dust thrown into the atmosphere, circling the world, darkening the sky, and blotting out the sun for a generation. This all caused plants to wither, water pollution, animals and humans to starve and die. There were massive rains, tsunamis travelling across the oceans, and flooding on a huge scale.

Note 2 – This applies also in some situations which you might not expect; “Deutsch” means “the people” and “English” means “the fisher folk”.

Note 3 – Viracocha was an ancient Peruvian bearded and light-skinned sun god adopted by the Inca. He disappeared to his home across the ocean by walking on the water, but promised to return to help his people when they needed him. He was known as Tezcatlipoca in Central America, with a similar legend. Unfortunately, he chose to return in the form of the leader of the Conquistadors.

Note 4 – We need look no further than the Europe of 2000 years ago to see the effects of the encroachment of the Roman Empire on the tribes of these lands. Most lost their original language – France, Spain, Portugal, and Romania now speak Romance languages having lost their languages, and much of their culture. Had the legions not been withdrawn from Britannia to defend Rome modern England, at least, may well have been speaking a Romance language with a Celtic substrate.

10 United  States – "A tree grows in Brooklyn" – Betty Smith, April 2014 (Score 8.33)

We meet Francie, a girl of eleven, living in a slum in Brooklyn. There is much humour in the writing. For example, people who go out to enjoy themselves on a Friday night and stay out all night will go to early mass at six on the way home “to get it over with”. That way they can sleep all Saturday with a clear conscience.

 Francie is a member of the local library. She reads a book a day and two on Saturdays, those latter being recommended by the librarian. Like Brooklyn, unemployed men in Glasgow sang in the streets for coppers. My grannie lived on the top floor of a four storey tenement building. She didn’t have much (sixty years ago), but would wrap some coins in paper and give them to me to throw down to the men in the back court.

 They would always shout up their thanks. They were especially grateful to get some cooked meat in a plain loaf bread and butter sandwich. It was always butter because spread hadn’t been invented. These men were frequently short of a limb, lost in one or other of the World Wars, and had come back to a supposed “Land fit for Heroes”. Many had lost jobs, families and homes in the depression between the wars.

 I frequently smiled at the book, and occasionally laughed out loud. On page 410 Francie’s mother Katie and her sister Sissy (Francie’s aunt) were talking in the bedroom about how Sissy and Steve’s adopted baby looked so much like Steve. It turned out that Steve had mentioned to Sissy about the young Italian girl’s pregnancy, and Sissy got the idea of passing the baby off as her own new-born after ten still-births by home-delivery by midwife. Francie, doing her homework in the kitchen, heard her mother groping for a word, and shouted out “You mean ‘coincidental’ Mama”. There was a sudden silence in the bedroom, followed by whispers, and accompanied by my chortling.

 I enjoyed this book very much, and I can fully understand why it was such a massive success on publication, and why it has continued to be so popular.

 I scored it at 8.5 for its humanity, its depiction of the hard lives of the people of Brooklyn, and the way many rose above their poverty, living good lives and helping those even worse off. This is all described in a straightforward and unsentimental way.

9 Japan – "The Samurai Banner of Furin Kazan" – Yasushi Inoue, March 2014 (Score 7.88)

This book is set in the time of the Warring States in Japan, and tells the true story of an early stage in the eventual unification of the country. The banner of “the title shows the four Japanese Kanji for “wind” (fu), “forest“ (rin), “fire” (ka) and “mountain” (san). The last two, read together, can be “kazan” or “volcano” (fire-mountain).

 The protagonist, Yamamoto Kansuke, is a ronin, or masterless samurai. Ronin means “Man of the waves”. Eighteen months after the story opens, Kansuke receives an invitation from the Takeda clan to enter their service. The head of the Takeda is Harunobu who, as a method of honouring Kansuke, gives him the additional name of Hariyuki (part of Harunobu’s name) to add to his (Kansuke’s) own name. This was a common practice.

 Warriors, and other people, frequently changed their names at various stages of their lives, or when great things happened to them. Harunobu became Takeda Shingen. Kansuke became Doki when he became a priest along with Harunobu.

 After the construction of Kaizu castle opposite the future battlefield of Kawanakajima (the island in the middle of the river) Shingen suggested that it should be used for a tsukimi, or moon-viewing, platform. Moon viewing is an integral part of Japanese culture, along with cherry blossom viewing in spring, and maple leaf viewing in autumn. These traditions are very much alive in Japan.

Before the final battle, when Kansuke was in the mist, he was approached by a horseman who called out “Fu”. Kansuke answered “Zan”. These passwords are the first and last syllables of the samurai banner of Shingen. Kansuke died in the battle in which Shingen was triumphant. Takeda Shingen died later in 1573, without achieving his dream of uniting Japan. Takeda Katsuyori, Shingen’s son, became clan leader and committed seppuku when he was betrayed in battle against Oda Nobunaga.

 Nobunaga’s ally, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, continued the dream which was finally realised in 1600 by Tokugawa Ieyasu. The Tokugawa shogunate ruled Japan in peace until the attack by the American navy, aided by the British and French, in 1868.

 There is a Japanese saying –

 Nobunaga mixed the dough,

Hideyoshi baked the cake,

Ieyasu ate it.

 Because this story stuck so closely to the history of the time, and dealt well with various aspects of the associated Japanese customs, I scored it at 8.0.

8 Austria - "The piano player" – Elfriede Jelinek, February 2014 (Score 1.57)

Erika’s mother is a monster, a self-centred control freak. She treats Erika Kohut, in her late 30s, as a five year old child. She sits up till all hours at night waiting for Erika to come home.

They invariably have a dreadful row, followed by a reconciliation. There is only one bed in their home so they even sleep together with no apparent sexual connotations.

We read Erika’s thoughts during a journey on a trolley-bus, in an extended stream of consciousness. I feel that her mother may be driving her towards madness. When younger, she self-mutilated by cutting the back of her hand, and continued this throughout her life in ways which are graphically described, but are too horrible for me to repeat here. She is deranged, this conjecture being supported by her behaviour when visiting, not for the first time, a sordid peep show.

Herr Kohut was taken to a kind of care-home years before, possibly suffering from dementia. The owners are clear about their purpose in life, having converted their big country house for two purposes, one being to bring in as much income as possible, the other being to provide somewhere for people to dispose of their troublesome relatives. Making money is by far the most important in their eyes.

Erika is a piano teacher, having failed in her mother’s desire to make her a successful concert pianist. She earns a living from teaching pupils sent to her for “improvement”, most having little or no interest in music. Walter Klemmer is an atypical student. He has some skill, but he is much more interested in his ulterior motives with regard to Erika.

Much of the story revolves round the interaction between Erika Kohut and Walter Klemmer. I won’t describe this, but it is clear to me that Erika is seriously disturbed, and that Walter is in the way there. His behaviour towards Erika is, ultimately, brutal and totally unacceptable in any age or time.

This shocking story does not chime with the, at least initially, beautifully descriptive writing. For example, on page 12 we read “Its (Vienna’s) buttons are bursting from the fat white paunch of culture”. A person who thinks this does not like Vienna, nor perhaps even culture. On the other hand, on page 138 we read, as Erika leaves an amusement arcade in the Prater, “The lights grope towards her, find nothing to hold on to, run their fidgety fingers over her kerchief, slide off, draw a regretful trail of colour down her coat, and then fall on the ground behind her, to die in the dirt”. This is so descriptive.

The translation from German is into American English and, while I have no real fault with this, one or two places in the text grated so badly because of their sudden total lack of fit into the sober flow of the language.

For example, on page 13 we have “She’s still got her Mom, she don’t need no Tom”. We understand what it means, and the translator may have thought it necessary to achieve the rhyme effect of the original (Mütterlein versus frei’n). The original German is “Sie hat noch ein Mütterlein und braucht daher keinen Mann zu frei’n”. In line with the style of the language I would have read this as something like “She still has her dear mother, and so doesn’t need a husband to set her free”.

On page 124 Walter Klemmer’s mother and father own a “mom-and-pop store”, and Walter will have to return to that if he fails his exams again. An internet search revealed that is an American expression for a small business, typically owned and run by members of a family. The German reads “Er kommt aus einer kleinbürgerlichen Greisslerfamilie und wird dorthinauch wieder zurück müssen”. This translates as “He comes from a petit bourgeois grocer family, and so will have to go back there”. The American version isn’t too exact here, and again doesn’t meet the style of the surrounding English.

Or am I just being a pedant?

I’m afraid though that the book began to bore me and I speed read most of it from about page 200, I really couldn’t score it at more than 2.0, and wondered how the Nobel panel could have awarded Jelinek a Nobel laureate. I had the same problem when we read Herta Muller. Could it be that in the case of both authors we happened to select and read their only turkeys?