Amelie Nothomb - Journal d'hirondelle

My first book by her. Various friends kept telling me they loved her writing. So, one day, when I had a long train journey ahead and didn't see much choice on the newsagent's shelves, I decided to see for myself.

First and foremost, let's get one thing straight: I am the kind of reader that can appreciate a writer's craftsmanship despite disliking the story itself.

This is one of those cases. The story was too much (some would say "too strong"... whatever) for my taste, but Amelie Nothomb's style made it worth reading anyway. She's intimate, descriptive without excess, strange and simple, cruel and enchanting.

In fact, it wasn't the whole story that put me off, it was the last part - it turned too psychologically pathological in the character's sick obsession and choices, and my stomach refused to accept this last bite of the book.

However, since I had enjoyed the style and I had also heard it was not one of her best creations, I went out and bought two more: Stupeur et tremblements and Hygiène de l'assassin.

We shall see.

Marina Lewycka - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

Good book, nice style.

However, I wouldn't quite call it "mad and hilarious" or other such hyperbolic epithets quoted from various sources on its covers. Of course, it's a matter of taste. It always is.

Well-written, flowing and catchy, sometimes comical and sometimes really sad, the first-person narrative helps the integration of the reader into the world, inner universe and motivations of Ukrainian (or any other) emigrants of yesterday and of today. The author (of Ukrainian descent herself, but raised in the UK), blends fiction and autobiographical elements and intersperses the relatively-normal UK-based present with the horrors of Ukrainian far and near past.

The characters are realistic, there is the cultural clash, the generation clash, the old immigrant-new immigrant clash, a varied range of well-depicted human relationships, good memories and bad memories, present and past, life...

It is a good book and I recommend it.

Ryunosuke Akutgawa - Rashomon

This edition comprised, besides the title story, 5 other short stories:
In a Grove, The Handkerchief, The Spider Thread, Kappa, Mandarins.

They are all masterfully constructed and delightfully told. I enjoyed reading them - stories, legends and fantasies.

I especially liked "In a Grove", the way it was constructed: a murder "told" by means of 7 different statements taken by the police - a woodcutter, a wandering Buddhist monk, a policeman, an old woman (the victim's mother-in-law), the killer, a woman (the victim's wife) and the victim itself, via a medium. Each one has his/her own voice, piece of the puzzle and different story.

"Kappa" also stands out as a fantastic story built on imagination and the Japanese folklore "fairy-tale" creatures called "kappa", to create (it seems) a satire of Japanese society.

Alice Hoffmann - The Ice Queen

When I finished reading this book I thought I could not write a review on it. I liked it so much that I couldn't find my words. Eventually, with some heavy music in my ears, I managed to produce the following:

A first-person narrative, the book allows us (voyeur spectators) a very intimate peek into the inner universe of a 8-year old little girl with an extremely vivid imagination and personality, who turns pain into stories with definitive metaphor value, and it makes us share her sometimes frightening thoughts and feelings.

(I wonder... did we all feel so intensely when we were kids? I can't remember anymore. However, when I was 18 I surely felt this way. And now, sometimes, still... yes.)

Following a tragedy, her inner turmoil, ultimately selfish, turns into an altruistic self-penitence – guilty, she does not deserve anything anymore, she only exists to expiate her guilt by helping others. Fascinated by all the aspects of death and by the macabre and the fated, chased by the power of a strange desire that suffocates her and burns her tongue, she seems to be destined to an unhappy life of loneliness. A mature woman, we follow her and her thoughts, doubts, hopes, fears, questions and feelings, up to suffocating, lightning-ridden Florida. There, another pitiless whim of fate will introduce her to another dimension, another universe cruelly created by fate like a pocket cut into aching flesh in the “normal” trunk of this world - the universe of those who, having been hit by lightning - survived (crippled, marked for life, amazing, frightening and incredibly sensitive - people who were forever changed).

Pain.
Immensely.
Deserted.
Pain.
Again.
Lost.
Catharsis and love...
Loss and love...
Death and love...

Macabre children's stories transposed into life - cruel fairytale grafted upon reality. A very sensitive book, superbly written, with a flowing narrative that is full of colour and emotion beyond words. Read it.
And know that, in the end, I cried.
I really had no choice.

Junichiro Tanizaki - Diary of a Mad Old Man

When I started reading this book I thought "not bad", although the bushy footnotes were really annoying, because they took me out of the narrative (note to self: simple footnotes good, no footnotes probably best).

When I was about halfway, I remember complaining to friends that I found it disgusting and I really hated the character of the temptress woman who encouraged the old man's groping lust and took his money.

When I reached the passage were the old man happily described us how he whimpered because his arm hurt and how tears were flowing from his eyes and mucus from his nose.... that was too much for my vivid imagination and my sensitive stomach. So I simply gave up the book. Not for me, thank you.

Truman Capote - Breakfast at Tiffany's (Mic dejun la Tiffany)

"It's tacky to wear diamonds before you're forty; and even that's risky. They only look right on the really old girls. Maria Ouspenskaya. Wrinkles and bones, white hair and diamonds: I can't wait."

I read it in a heartbeat. Metaphorically speaking, of course. It's catchy, it's seamless, it's wonderful. And I must admit I'm an uncultured bumpkin - I haven't seen the movie yet.
But I've seen posters and pictures - and, given that I read the novelette before seeing the movie, my image of Holly Golightly is a bit different than what I've seen in those pictures of Audrey Hepburn. She looked too clean-cut, too nice. In the book, Holly had something wild and... I have to see the movie, then comment further.

"You musn't give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get, until they're strong enough to run into the woods or fly into a tree. And then to a higher tree and then to the sky. [...] It's better to look at the sky than live there. Such an empty place; so vague. Just a country where the thunder goes and things disappear."

Catherine Millet - The Sexual Life of Catherine M.

It was a hardcover, and it cost cheaper than a paperback.
That should've been a sign.

Much too easily overlooked.
I bought the book out of curiosity. Yes, I know, it killed the cat.
Curiosity, not the book; although I suspect this book may very well have lethal effects as well.
One could easily die of boredom reading it.

I intended to read it carefully and take notes, as I usually do, for an accurate and well-grounded opinion. At some point I resolved it was futile and, moreover, not worth it, when I realized I had already written two pages of negative comments and had no desire to continue reading the book.
It's not erotic, it's not xxx, the descriptions are very poor, worse than slam bam thank you ma'am, imagine that. It's not literature, it lacks any style whatsoever, if it's something more than nothing, then I don't know what it is.
What I know is that it's as uninteresting as a very bad adult movie, one that doesn't manage to arouse even 10% of what should be aroused.

Make that 5%; most of the time, at least.

Therefore, I cannot explain the blatant lies on the back cover, claiming it to be a sensation, a bestseller, a revelation as to women's sexuality (as if we'd still be living in the Victorian age or in the Dark Ages, only then I imagine this would've been revealing);
I don't get it: sell, sell, sell and to hell with integrity?

I wonder if Millet is her real surname. It's too similar to Miller's...

Verdict: absolute waste of money, time and reader's grey matter.