Orbis Terrarum Film Mini-Challenge: Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen

Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen
Directed by Margarethe von Trotta
Germany, 2009

While I'd been meaning to read something by Hildegard von Bingen for about the past five or six years, German director Margarethe von Trotta basically rescued me from my lethargy with this fine film portrait about the 12th century Benedictine nun, woman of letters, and mystic.  One of the interesting things about the director's approach is that she doesn't attempt to explain away or oversell Hildegard's visions--they just happen, throughout the film as throughout her life, the point being that they eventually begin to seem as natural as the sickly Hildegard's propensity for being laid up with various physical afflictions.  Another thing I liked about the film was its attention to small day to day details and people rather than platitudes.  While I think that Von Trotta was quite wise to sidestep the question of whether Hildegard's visions were the product of mental illness or supernatural spirituality (we'll all have our own opinions on that one anyway), an unexpected bonus of her neutrality on the matter is that Hildegard's role as magistra, and later abbess of her own convent, is given more play here than it would have in sensationalistic hands.  Partly as a consequence of this and partly as a result of the acting, the relations between nuns and nuns and nuns and priests felt real to me--more so than in most movies in any event.  In short, if you were ever curious about what it must have been like to try and lead a normal life as an outstanding woman, maybe even a feminist avant la lettre,  in a culture where that brought about more detractors than admirers, I think you could do a whole lot worse than this for an answer.  Nice solid effort, with a compelling performance by Barbara Sukowa in the lead role, although the U.S. movie poster's soulless imitation of a perfume ad from Vanity Fair may rightly make you question my judgement (I'd understand, believe me).

Margarethe von Trotta

Orbis Terrarum Film Mini-Challenge

Reviewing a foreign film in November?  Let me know, and I'll add the link to it to here.  Big belated thanks to Emily and Stu, who contributed movie reviews below, back in September.  Cheers!

Emily from Evening All Afternoon: Le million, Wild Strawberries, Babies, and Man on Wire

Stu from Winstonsdad's Blog: Wings of Desire

Wittgenstein's Nephew

Wittgenstein's Nephew [Wittgensteins Neffe] (Vintage, no date)
by Thomas Bernhard [translated from the German by David McLintock]
Austria, 1982

"Of all medical practitioners, psychiatrists are the most incompetent, having a closer affinity to the sex killer than to their science" (Wittgenstein's Nephew, 8).

Thomas Bernhard: where have you been all my life, you morose bastard?  An impressively sustained, mordantly observed 100-page monologue based on the author's real-life friendship with a relative of the famous philosopher, Wittgenstein's Nephew is yet another in a spate of works I've read of late where the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction are hopelessly blurred.  I loved it.  Taking on as his subject the equilateral triangle of a life-changing friendship, severe physical and mental illness, and two friends' awareness of their impending deaths, Bernhard somehow managed to have me laughing out loud at his frequent barbs at the same time as I found myself genuinely touched by the evocation of the friends' fragile and increasingly diseased relationship.  Although Bernhard isn't particularly kind to many people in this novel, preferring the loaded gun of the biting remark to the dishonesty of being diplomatic when it's not deserved, he reminded me a bit of Robert Walser in his ability to bring troubled souls to the printed page with unpredictability, vividness, and what seemed like genuine honesty.  A great--and even an exquisite--treat.  (http://www.vintagebooks.com/)

Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989)

The Laughing Policeman

The Laughing Policeman [Den skrattande polisen] (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard, 2009)
by Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö [translated from the Swedish by Alan Blair]
Sweden, 1968

Considering it's taken me nearly a full year to recover from that lumbering, overwrought, 1,124-page historical fiction hissy fit otherwise known as the Kristin frickin' Lavransdatter trilogy, I'm happy to report that all Scandinavian novelists not named Sigrid Undset and I are finally back on speaking terms after my long-overdue introduction to the Sjöwall/Wahlöö wife/husband crime-writing duö.  It's about time.  Although The Laughing Policeman may be (no, is) a little lacking in the writing pyrotechnics department compared to other works I've been reading of late, this fourth volume in the highly-regarded Swede police procedural series featuring detective Martin Beck more than makes up for it with a taut, stripped down tale focusing on the investigation into a mass murder on a Stockholm bus.  The novel's just expertly paced.  Other things I thought were kind of cool:  Sjöwall and Wahlöö, both Marxists from what I understand, work in at least two jabs at "consumer society" during the otherwise no-nonsense telling of their three-umlauts story.  In other words, the expected genre grittiness is accompanied by a different vibe than usual here.  Things I didn't think were kind of cool: Nothing, really.  However, it's kind of depressing to be reminded that the scientific study of mass murderers and sex crimes was still in its infancy in the '60s.  Is the world really all that much more evil today or does it only seem so?  Whatever, easily the "weakest" thing I've read all month and yet still entertaining enough to induce me to sacrifice the dinner part of my dinner break to see what happens at the end.  Yeah. (http://www.blacklizardcrime.com/)

Per Wahlöö (left) and Maj Sjöwall

El cojo bueno

El cojo bueno (Alfaguara, 1996)
por Rodrigo Rey Rosa
Guatemala, 1996

Aunque preferí su novela más reciente El material humano por varias razones, ya recomendaría esta novela corta (124 páginas) por Rodrigo Rey Rosa a aquellos lectores que buscan un buen puñetazo en la boca.  La trama es sencilla pero arriesgada.  Juan Luis Luna, hijo de un hombre de negocios adinerado, es secuestrado por una pandilla de rufianes violentos con apodos extraños como La Coneja, Carlomagno, El Sefardí, y El Horrible.  Cuando su padre no paga el rescate dentro del plazo convenido, Juan Luis pierde primero el dedito del pie izquierdo y, después, el pie entero como un mensaje.  Rescatado a última hora, el rehén hace frente a una nueva relación con su padre y una vida llena de recuerdos amargos en cuanto a lo que pasó en la gasolinera abandonada.  Años después, por pura casualidad el "cojo" titular se encuentra con uno de sus secuestradores en un restaurante en Marruecos.  Desconcertado por el encuentro sorprendente y también cansado de su vida de vagabundo en el extranjero, Juan Luis regresa a Guatemala para enfrentarse con la violencia en su pasado.  ¿Va a tomar venganza en los secuestradores que escaparon sin castigo?  A pesar del hecho de que el encuentro de Juan Luis con el secuestrador en Marruecos me pareció un poco increíble, me gustó el relato.  Aunque estoy tentado de llamarlo un Reservoir Dogs guatemalteco, eso sólo explicaría la mitad de la historia y no diría nada sobre el lado psicológico de la obra.  En resumen, un libro muy fuerte que se reune escenas horripilantes con la prosa sin adorno de Rey Rosa de manera incómodamente creíble.  (http://www.alfaguara.com/)

The Good Cripple [El cojo bueno] (New Directions, 2004)
by Rodrigo Rey Rosa [translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen]
Guatemala, 1996

Although I preferred his more recent novel El material humano for at least a couple of reasons, I'd still recommend this 116-page novella by Rodrigo Rey Rosa to anyone looking for a good punch in the mouth.  The plot is simple but daring.  Juan Luis Luna, the son of a wealthy Guatemalan businessman, is kidnapped by a gang of violent thugs with odd nicknames like Bunny, Charlemagne, the Sephardi, and El Horrible.  When his father doesn't cough up the ransom soon enough, Juan Luis first loses the little toe off his left foot and then has the entire foot amputated by the kidnappers as a warning that they mean business.  Ransomed at the last minute, the kidnapping victim faces up to a new relationship with his father and a life full of bitter memories regarding what went wrong in the abandoned gas station.  Years later, the title "cripple" runs into one of his kidnappers by sheer chance in a restaurant in Morocco.  Rattled by the surprise encounter and also tired of his life as a boho drifter abroad, Juan Luis returns to Guatemala to confront the violence in his past.  Will he now wreak vengeance on the kidnappers who went unpunished?  In spite of the fact that Juan Luis' initial run-in with his ex-kidnapper seemed a little farfetched, I really liked this book.  While I'm tempted to call it a Guatemalan Reservoir Dogs, that would only explain half the story and wouldn't say anything at all about its psychological aspects.  All in all, a very visceral read and one in which Rey Rosa's spare, unadorned prose makes the more lurid aspects of the tale uncomfortably believable.  (http://www.ndpublishing.com/)

Rodrigo Rey Rosa

Orbis Terrarum Film Mini-Challenge: Man on Wire

Man on Wire (Magnolia DVD, 2008)
Directed by James Marsh
England, 2008

Ridiculously entertaining documentary about French tightrope walker Philippe Petit's August 7th, 1974, 45-minute waltz back and forth across a wire illegally strung up between the Twin Towers in NYC.  Although Man on Wire benefits from some of Petit's own period footage (early training videos capture him and his friends as a bunch of essentially overgrown kids seemingly entirely committed to helping the aerialist pursue his daredevil dreams), I think its soul probably lies in the remarkable series of candid interviews assembled by director James Marsh.  The playfully boyish Petit (in his later years at least, sort of a John Lydon-lookalike), his contemplative ex-girlfriend, and other friends and misfit partners in crime seem to have shared a unique camaraderie while they planned the World Trade Center stunt, and Marsh manages to capture the feeling that they really believed Petit's high-wire act to be less of a potential suicide in the making and more of a gift of rebellious art to a public in dire need of it.  Overly idealistic?  Perhaps.  But while the part of me that's not particularly fond of heights and/or unnecessarily risky behavior in general may still reject that sort of thinking out of hand, man, what a rush to see that smiling dreamer dancing in the clouds over lower Manhattan!  (http://www.magpictures.com/)

Philippe Petit (l) and James Marsh celebrate Man on Wire's win for Best Documentary at the 2009 Academy Awards.

Note: I "forgot" to mention the Orbis Terrarum Film Mini-Challenge earlier in the month because I was the only participant last time, but I'll continue to "host" this mini-challenge every other month regardless of anyone else's interest in it.  No worries, really!  If you have any foreign film reviews to share for July, though, please send me a link and I'll include it below.  In the meantime, The Baader Meinhof Complex [Der Baader Meinhof Komplex] (Germany, 2008, dir. Uli Edel) was my first selection for the event back in May (a good time but no Man on Wire).  Out.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories (Harvest, no date)
by Flannery O'Connor
USA, 1955

Since I don't think I'd even thought of Flannery O'Connor since my high school days (note: in geological time, comparing the here and now to my high school days is a little bit like comparing the here and now to the Pleistocene Epoch!), I'd like to start off by giving Emily a great big thanks for putting O'Connor back on my reading radar/map with this review of A Good Man Is Hard to Find last July.  That being said, it's tough to know where to begin with this one.  While I enjoyed all ten of the short stories that comprise the collection, O'Connor's conception of the Christian South as a cracker heaven and hell was decidedly unpleasant for me at times: even without the title tale's serial killer, for example, her characters indulge in so much petty meanness and casual racism that it's easy to imagine a 2010 version of the volume being entirely populated by bathtub meth dealers in mullets.  I don't know enough about O'Connor to hazard a guess as to whether she meant this series of dysfunctional family portraits to serve as a metaphor for the South or as a reminder of the need for God's grace (the stated purpose of all her writing per the blurb on the back of the book) or what, but there are at least three things about O'Connor's writing here that I found totally arresting.  First, she's absolutely unflinching as an observer.  Of course, this is very much a pro that comes with some built-in cons: if you're at all uneasy with the use of the term nigger, for example, don't expect O'Connor to make you feel any less queasy about it.  Second, she's rarely predictable as a storyteller.  While I'd feared that she might be a little didactic when writing about the nature of grace and redemption, O'Connor was ballsy and unconventional enough to--as Emily points out--suggest that a four year-old boy in the river actually might be closer to God while drowning than back safe at home with his abusive parents.  Strong stuff, and not exactly what I expected from a wordsmith with a "religious" point of view.  Finally, O'Connor's a consummate craftsman in the sense that both the unexpected physical descriptions (the young woman in slacks "whose face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage" [1]) and the devastatingly casual nods to race relations in the '50s South ("Her Negroes were as destructive and impersonal as the nut grass," she writes of one character [136]) constantly keep you on your toes as a reader.  Can't say that I've found my new favorite writer or anything like that--but another misfit for the gallery is always, uh, nice.  (http://www.harcourtbooks.com/)

Flannery O'Connor

Up for Grabs:

Interested in reading A Good Man Is Hard to Find?  My "gently used" copy is up for grabs to the first person who asks for it in the comments box (U.S. addresses only, sorry rest of the world).

Los siete locos

Los siete locos (Tolemia, 2007)
por Roberto Arlt
Argentina, 1929

Esta atmósfera de sueño y de inquietud que lo hacía circular a través de los días como un sómnambulo, la denominaba Erdosain, "la zona de la angustia".

Erdosain se imaginaba que dicha zona existía sobre el nivel de las ciudades, a dos metros de altura, y se le representaba gráficamente bajo la forma de esas regiones de salinas o desiertos que en los mapas están revelados por óvalos de puntos, tan espesos como las ovas de un arenque.

Esta zona de angustia era la consecuencia del sufrimiento de los hombres.  Y como una nube de gas venenoso se trasladaba pesadamente de un punto a otro, penetrando murallas y atrevesando los edificios, sin perder su forma plana y horizontal; angustia de dos dimensiones que guillotinando las gragantas dejaba en éstas un regusto de sollozo".
(Los siete locos, 9)

Los siete locos debe haber sido un libro horrible.  Lo menos, su tema principal--el hombre moderno en busca de sentido--ya era la materia de cliché a la hora de su publicación.  ¿Por qué es entonces que la obra de Arlt, una novela que finge ser una crónica, es considerada hoy en día como un verdadero clásico dentro de la panorama de las letras argentinas?  Para mí, la mayor parte de la respuesta tiene que ver con la desmesura total de la imaginación y la escritura de Arlt.  Después de sufrir dos golpes crueles, lo de ser denunciado por robar seiscientos pesos de su trabajo y lo de perder su esposa a otro hombre, el protagonista Remo Erdosain se reune con una sociedad secreta encabezada por hombres con apodos pintorescos como el Astrólogo y el Rufián Melancólico.  Dado que el objetivo de la sociedad secreta es de fomentar revolución en el hemisferio financiándolo por la instalación de una serie de próstibulos, no será una sorpresa encontrar que este proyecto demente es digno del título del libro.  Sin embargo, Arlt parece completamente serio en cuanto a la angustia existencial de Erdosain (véase la cita arriba) y en cuanto al retrato sórdido de los bajos fondos bonaerenses donde los cafishios y las putas sifilíticas se destacan.  Porque Arlt está igualmente cómodo describiendo el plan de los locos de usar gasas asfixiantes y el bacílo asiático para cumplir su misión, sería entendible si uno sospechaba que Los siete locos es demasiado escandaloso para algunos lectores; no obstante, los que evitan la lectura de esta novela no aprovecharán algunos de los mejores discursos disparatados desde los días de Don Quijote.  ¡Un rarísimo libro pero un libro de puta madre, te digo!

The Seven Madmen [Los siete locos] (Serpent's Tail, 1998)

by Roberto Arlt [translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor)

Argentina, 1929

The name Erdosain gave to this mood of dreams and disquiet that led him to roam like a sleepwalker through the days was "the anguish zone."

He imagined this zone floating above cities, about two metres in the air, and pictured it graphically like an area of salt flats or deserts that are shown on maps by tiny dots, as dense as herring roe.

This anguish zone was the product of mankind's suffering.  It slid from one place to the next like a cloud of poison gas, seeping through walls, passing straight through buildings, without ever losing its flat horizontal shape; a two-dimensional anguish that left an after-taste of tears in throats it sliced like a guillotine.  (The Seven Madmen, translated by Nick Caistor, 5-6)

The Seven Madmen should have been a horrible book.  At the very least, its main theme--modern man's search for meaning--was already the stuff of cliché at the time of its publication.  So why is the work, a novel that tries to pass itself off as a chronicle,  now considered a classic within the panorama of Argentinean letters?  For me, a large part of the answer has to do with the unfettered nature of Arlt's imagination and writing.  After suffering the cruel double whammy of being turned in for stealing 600 pesos from his job and then losing his wife to another man, protagonist Remo Erdosain joins a secret society headed by men with colorful nicknames like the Astrologer and the Melancholy Thug.  Given that the goal of the secret society is to foment revolution in the hemisphere with income generated by the installation of a chain of brothels, it will probably come as no surprise that this harebrained scheme certainly lives up to the book's title.  However, Arlt seems dead serious when describing Erdosain's existentialist angst (see passage above) and the sordid Buenos Aires underworld in which pimps and syphilitic whores vie for the reader's attention.  That he's equally on message describing the madmen's plan to use asphyxiating gases and the Asian flu bacillus to accomplish their aims may make The Seven Madmen seem too over the top for some to enjoy, but skip it and you'll miss some of the greatest crackpot speeches in Spanish language literature since the days of Don Quixote.  A fucked-up classic, I kid you not!  (http://www.serpentstail.com/)

Roberto Arlt

-¿Y a usted le resulta lógico pensar que una sociedad revolucionaria se base en la explotación del vicio de la mujer?

El Rufián frunció los labios.  Luego, mirando de reojo a Erdosain, se explicó:

-Lo que usted dice no tiene sentido.  La sociedad actual se basa en la explotación capitalista, a las fundiciones de hierro de Avellaneda, a los frigoríficos y a las fábricas de vidrio, manufacturas de fósforos y de tabaco.  -Reía desagradablemente al decir estas cosas-.  Nosotros, los hombres del ambiente, tenemos a una, a dos mujeres; ellos, los industriales, a una multitud de seres humanos.  ¿Cómo hay que llamarles a esos hombres?  ¿Y quién es más desalmado, el dueño de un prostíbulo o la sociedad de accionistas de una empresa?  Y sin ir más lejos, ¿no le exigían a usted que fuera honrado con un sueldo de cien pesos y llevando diez mil en la cartera?

(Los siete locos, 37-38)

*

"But does it seem logical to you to base a revolutionary society on the exploitation of women through vice?"

The Thug curled his lip.  Then, shooting Erdosain a sideways glance, he replied:

"You're talking nonsense.  Our present-day society is based on the exploitation of men, women and children.  If you want to see what capitalist exploitation is really like, go take a look at the steelworks in Avellaneda, the meat-packing plants, the glassworks, or the match or tobacco factories."  He snickered unpleasantly as he said this.  "Those of us who run girls have one or two of them, but industrialists control a whole mass of human beings.  What would be the best name for them?  And who is more heartless, a brothel owner or the shareholders of a large company?  To look no further, didn't they expect you to be honest on a wage of 100 pesos while you were carting around 10,000 in your wallet?

(The Seven Madmen, translated by Nick Caistor, 40)

*Haz clic aquí para el post de Leox sobre Los siete locos en Devolución y préstamo el año pasado*

**Click here for Amateur Reader's recent Wuthering Expectations post on The Seven Madmen**

Miramar

Miramar (Anchor Books, 1993)

by Naguib Mahfouz [translated from the Arabic by Fatma Moussa Mahmoud]
Egypt, 1967

"Alexandria.  At last.  Alexandria, Lady of the Dew.  Bloom of white nimbus.  Bosom of radiance, wet with sky water.  Core of nostalgia steeped in honey and tears.

The massive old building confronts me once again.  How could I fail to recognize it?  I have always known it.  And yet it regards me as if we had shared no past.  Walls paintless from the damp, it commands and dominates the tongue of land, planted with palms and leafy acacias, that protrudes out into the Mediterranean to a point where in season you can hear shotguns cracking incessantly.

My poor stooped body cannot stand up to the potent young breeze out here.  Not anymore.

Mariana, my dear Mariana, let us hope you're still where we could always find you.  You must be.  There's not much time left; the world is changing fast and my weak eyes under their thinning white brows can no longer comprehend what they see.

Alexandria, I am here."

(Miramar, pp. 1-2)

I've been wanting to read Naguib Mahfouz's 1956-57 Cairo Trilogy for quite some time.  However, having already been burned by Nobel Prize-winning melodrama in Sigrid Undset's utterly exasperating Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, I must admit that I've been a little leery of the blurbs on the back of Mahfouz's books describing his penchant for combining "deep emotions" with "soap opera."  The 1967 Miramar, a much shorter novel at only 181 pages, thus became my introduction to the author.  Man, what a complete delight!  Four narrators (all from different walks of Egyptian life) take a revolving door approach to the storytelling here, describing the various paths that led each to a fateful stay as a boarder at the Miramar pension in Alexandria.  While much of the drama hinges on the younger boarders' pursuit of a beautiful cleaning lady named Zohra and the death--apparently by foul play--of one of the characters that ensues, Mahfouz uses the pretext of these intersecting lives as a launch pad to touch on the successes and failures of the Egyptian revolution and to specifically question the nature of male/female and city/country relations in the era (it's probably no accident that while the owner of the Miramar and Zohra are both female, it's the males alone who have the "speaking roles").  In any event, I loved the way the novel tackles such weighty issues in such casual, seemingly conversational tones.  Also loved the way that the octogenarian Amer Wagdi's poetic embrace of the city of Alexandria (see his apostrophe above) blends an old man's nostalgia with an awareness of the reality of changing times.  Don't know if all of Mahfouz manages to combine this blend of local flavor, intense historico-political introspection, and man of the street poetry/lyricism, but I'm now more eager than ever to immerse myself in the 1,500 page world of the Cairo Trilogy, soap opera or not!

Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006)

Word Portraits

"Amer Wagdi rambles on about the glory of his own past, deeds for which his own conscience must serve, alas, as the only witness; the old wreck wants to convince us that he was formerly a hero.  So no one is commonplace in this damned world.  And everyone sings the praises of the Revolution.  Even Tolba Marzuq.  So do I.  Take care, I say to myself.  Sarhan is an opportunist and Mansour is probably an informer.  Even the ancient scribbler...who knows?  Madame herself is probably required to keep her eyes open in the service of security."  (Hosny Allam speaking, 62-63)

"At breakfast I was introduced to the other guests.  What a weird assortment!  But I needed a pastime, and if I could get the better of my introversion, I thought, I could find some companionship here.  Why not?  But let's not even think about Amer Wagdi and Tolba Marzuq; they belong to a dying generation.  Then, I wondered, what about Sarhan or Hosny?  In Sarhan's eyes there was a native compatibility.  He seemed sympathetic, in spite of his awful voice.  But what were his interests?  By contrast, Hosny simply got on my nerves--that was at least my first impression of him.  He was arrogantly taciturn and reserved and I didn't like his massive build, his big haughty head, or the way he sat enthroned, sprawling in his chair like a lord, but a lord without any real sovereignty or substance.  I presumed he'd feel at conversational ease only with someone he knew to be even more stupid and trifling than himself.  He who deserts his monastery, I reminded myself, must be content with the company of the profane.  And as usual my introversion got the better of me.  They will say...  They will think..."  (Mansour Bahy speaking, 92-93)

"At breakfast I am introduced to two strange old men.  One of them, Amer Wagdi, is so old he's an actual mummy, but he's a merry old fellow.  They say he's an ex-journalist.  The other is Tolba Marzuq, whose name sounds vaguely familiar.  He's under sequestration.  I don't know what brings him to the pension, but I'm keenly interested in him from the start; anything out of the ordinary is interesting, a criminal, a madman, someone under a sentence or under sequestration.  He keeps his eyes on his cup, avoiding my looks.  Out of caution, I wonder, or pride?  I stare at him with mixed feelings, a sense of triumph over his class mixed with pity for his individual plight.  But I'm strangely alarmed at the thought of the state confiscating property.  After all, it could happen to anyone."  (Sarhan al-Beheiry speaking, 139-140)

The Baader Meinhof Complex

The Baader Meinhof Complex [Der Baader Meinhof Komplex] (MPI DVD, 2010)
Directed by Uli Edel
Germany, 2008

Whilst my Orbis Terrarum Film Mini-Challenge has been a spectacular bust up to this point, Uli Edel's high-energy, frenetic, and unmistakably adult The Baader Meinhof Complex (a 2009 Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film) was just what I needed to turn the page on yesterday's young adult-induced entertainment woes.  Covering 10 years in the life of the German urban guerrilla terrorist organization variously known as the Baader Meinhof Complex or the Red Army Faction, Edel's politically-charged drama is at its most daring following the kidnappers, car bombers, and political assassins from their radical anarchist points of view.  Early on in the film, for example, it's all too easy to identify with the frustrated idealism of the youth who are so torn up over the American war in Vietnam and the return of Nazis to state office that they feel a moral obligation to fight the power structures in place.  As the film progresses, though, this humanization of the killers pays unexpected dividends when it becomes clear that some of them are aware that they've become just as evil as the forces of oppression that inspired their armed resistance in the first place.  In watching the scenes where the group leaders turn on each other like rats and squabble for power inside and outside of prison, I began to wonder whether the real-life "success" of the group owed itself more to Andreas Baader, the mercurial thug with an apparent cult of personality over his followers, or Ulrike Meinhof, the one-time theoretician of the group who was a well-regarded journalist before turning terrorist.  The film, based on Stefan Aust's well-regarded nonfiction piece, Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F., and including at least two shots attesting to the group members' reading of Moby-Dick as a call to arms against the state, wisely never says, a tribute to its questioning as opposed to didactic style of filmmaking.  Not the greatest movie ever and maybe a little too slick for its own good with the editing in spots but basically a fine piece of work overall with a hyper "journalism" sensibility that reminded me of David Fincher's 2007 Zodiac.  Well worth watching.  (http://www.mpihomevideo.com/)

German film poster spotlighting Martina Gedeck, one of my favorite actresses, as Ulrike Meinhof.

Orbis Terrarum Film Mini-Challenge

Calling all movie buffs!  As I mentioned not too long ago, I'll be hosting an international film challenge off and on this year as a spinoff from Bethany's Orbis Terrarum 2010 Reading Challenge.  While the tentative plan is to do this every other month throughout the length of the challenge (i.e. May, July, September, and November), here's all you need to know for May if you want to join in.

If you review any foreign films on your blog this month (be they new favorites or ones you just enjoyed trashing), send me a link to your post with the name of the film and the name of the director included somewhere.  Please note that a movie's "foreign" status will be determined both by where you live (no American movies for U.S. bloggers) and the director's place of birth (and not the setting): Krzysztof Kieslowski's great Three Colors trilogy, for example, while mostly set in and associated with France, counts as a Polish film for the challenge, while Rob Marshall's virtually unwatchable Memoirs of a Geisha, although set in Japan, rather embarrassingly counts as an American film!

I'll add the links to the bottom of this post as the month progresses, and then hopefully people will feel free to hop around from blog to blog reading about and/or discussing the films in question.  In the meantime, please be aware that you don't need to be a participant in the main Orbis Terrarum 2010 Challenge to hang out at this film festival.  In fact, we can start talking movies now if you want to share your memories of some of your all-time favorites.  At Bethany's suggestion, I'll list a handful of my many foreign film favorites here to get the ball rolling.  1) Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie (France, 2001).  2) Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love (Hong Kong, 2000).  3) Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (Japan, 1963).  4)  Francesco Rosi's Salvatore Giuliano (Italy, 1961).  5) Carlos Saura's Cría cuervos (Spain, 1976).  Any questions?  Let me know!

Richard, The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany, 2008)

Life A User's Manual

Life A User's Manual [La Vie mode d'emploi] (David R. Godine/Verba Mundi, 2009)
by Georges Perec [translated from the French by David Bellos]
France, 1978

"Is he having us on?"

Gabriel Josipovici.  "Georges Perec's Homage to Joyce (And Tradition)."

In The Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 15 (1985), Anglo-French Literary Relations Special, p. 188.

Getting to know Georges Perec, the author of Life A User's Manual and hence the object of an incipient man crush on my part, through the reading of his most celebrated novel, I frequently found myself asking: Georges, where have you been all my life?  In between such possibly spurious moments, I really did laugh out loud and shake my head in disbelief throughout this work in appreciation of its extreme inventiveness and sheer narrative exuberance.  Oft labeled an "experimental" novel on account of its jigsaw puzzle-like structure and the fact that most book bloggers are too lazy to consider reading it, Life is perhaps better thought of as a sort of distant cousin to the reader-friendly likes of The 1001 Nights, Boccaccio's Decameron, and Ovid's Metamorphoses.  An exercise in storytelling for storytelling's sake.  A vast storehouse of stories enhanced and enriched by imaginative allusions to other stories and storytellers. While one thread of the ingeniously-constructed plot revolves around millionaire British eccentric Bartlebooth's fifty year project to assemble and then disassemble a series of 500 seascapes-turned jigsaw puzzles in an act of futility that may or may not hold any special meaning for him, another has to do with Bartlebooth's neighbor, associate, and puzzlemaker extraordinaire Gaspard Winckler's plan to exact revenge on the Englishman for some unspecified reasons.  As new details about the struggle between these "two senile monomaniacs churning over their feigned histories and their wretched traps and and snares" (250) begin to emerge from the void (seemingly bringing order to the descriptive chaos), the narrative itself takes on the shape of yet another 750-piece puzzle as it mimics the form of French artist Valène's scarcely less ambitious plan to paint the Parisian apartment building where all the principal characters live as if it were a giant doll's house with the facade removed: room by room, object by object in painstaking detail, as imagined at a moment in time later to be revealed as the precise moment of Bartlebooth's death.  The result is a mystery--or if you prefer, a puzzle--fragmentarily assembled in such a way that all of the characters' neighbors and many former inhabitants of 11 rue Simon-Crubellier become an integral part of the extended cast with a corresponding domino effect on the storylines that's just incredible to behold.  And the result is a mystery--or if you prefer, a puzzle--told in such a way that while the painter's perspective often seems to double as the narrator's, woe to the careless reader who succumbs to the page-turning charms of the story and doesn't take note of all the funhouse and trompe l'oeil effects Perec's set up as snares along the way.  Just a super fun read that makes me want to smack my lips and say...C'est magnifique!  (http://www.godine.com/)

Georges Perec

A Technical Note

I had some story-related thoughts I wanted to add here regarding Perec's use of altered quotations as a form of creative "plagiarism" and the significance of Gaspard Winckler's revenge and such, but I think I'll save those for the comments box if anyone in our little readalong group would like to discuss them.  For now, though, I'd like to touch on two technical aspects of Life A User's Manual that continue to blow my mind.  First, the constraints.  Many of you are probably aware that Perec imposed a series of constraints upon himself during the writing of this novel.  Although it's easy enough to find information on this in English online, I'd like to direct your attention to this French site here for the best one-stop visual grid I've seen of the various tables Perec used to pair specific author references and other allusions throughout the novel (my favorite categories: missing and false, two "wild cards" if you will).  To see how the table's used, click on any of the contraintes, say "citation 1" or "citation 2" or "couple 1" or "couple 2," to view the authors that needed to be cited or the "couples" (Laurel and Hardy, crime and punishment, etc.) required to be mentioned chapter by chapter throughout the entire novel.  Just nuts!  Second, I'd like to return to the Knight's Tour mentioned earlier in the month when I was first getting into the novel.  You don't have to know anything about this technique to appreciate Perec's storytelling for its entertainment value, but once again, man, is that crazy!  However, the extremely-observant Isabella of Magnificent Octopus recently pointed out that Perec seems to have "cheated" on one of his moves.  Her question: What happens between chapters 65 and 66?  Although I tried to figure this out using Perec's hint that a "little girl" was to blame for this problem, I couldn't figure out what he was talking about since the page numbers cited didn't have anything to do with my edition of the novel.  Doing a little detective work last night on JSTOR, I came across the answer and learned why it was such a mystery: it has to do with French wordplay that got lost in translation!  Bear with me for this fairly long but quite elegant explanation courtesy of Paul A. Harris:

A more consciously contrived perturbation in the formal structure of the book is that while the building has 100 rooms, Life A User's Manual has only 99 chapters.  The room described in the text, found at the extreme bottom left corner of the 10 x 10 board, would be the 66th chapter.  At the end of chapter 65, a list of knickknacks concludes with a square biscuit box on which a girl is seen "munching the corner of her petit-beurre" (318).  The girl has nibbled off the corner of the board map for the book, eating the chapter in the process.  The connection between the biscuit box and 10 x 10 square of rooms is conveyed through an operation of verbal transformation favored by Perec, that of homophones (see Magné 1986, 61-62).  In the original, the square tin box is "fer-blanc, carrée" (Perec 1978, 394); the result of the girl nibbling is "faire un blanc dans le carré" (Magné 1990, 14).  And the whole conception of this clinamen is contained in a pun in French, for one "pièce" (room and/or puzzle piece) in the book can't find its place--a foreshadowing of the piece that Bartlebooth dies holding, the last piece in a puzzle whose shape is an X, while the blank space forms a W.*

So what the heck is a clinamen?  I'm glad you asked because this further exposes the fine line between Perec's sense of humor, genius, and "madness"  if you ask me!  According to my trusty handbook, "For Oulipians, the clinamen is a deviation from the strict consequences of a restriction.  It is often justified on aesthetic grounds: resorting to it improves the results."  So far, so good--but check this out.  "But there is a binding condition for its use: the exceptional freedom afforded by a clinamen can only be taken on the condition that following the initial rule is still possible.  In other words, the clinamen can only be used if isn't needed [underscore added]."**  On that note, I'm off to bed but will be eager to discuss Life A User's Manual with any and all concerned in the morning (send me your links!).

*Paul A. Harris.  "The Invention of Forms: Perec's Life A User's Manual and a Virtual Sense of the Real."  In SubStance 23(2), Issue 74, pp. 63-64.

**Harry Mathews and Alastair Brotchie, eds.  Oulipo Compendium.  London: Atlas Press, 2005, p. 123.

un petit-beurre, yummy

(naturally, "lu" also means "read" [past participle] in French, ha ha!)

CAST OF CHARACTERS
Bellezza (Dolce Bellezza), 1
Bellezza (Dolce Bellezza), 2
Claire (kiss a cloud), 1
Claire (kiss a cloud), 2
E.L. Fay (This Book and I Could Be Friends), 1

Emily (Evening All Afternoon), 1
Frances (Nonsuch Book), 1
Frances (Nonsuch Book), 2
Isabella (Magnificent Octopus), 1
Isabella (Magnificent Octopus), 2
Isabella (Magnificent Octopus), 3
Isabella (Magnificent Octopus), 4
Isabella (Magnificent Octopus), 5
Julia (A Number of Things), 1
Julia (A Number of Things), 2
Julia (A Number of Things), 3
Julia (A Number of Things), 4
Sarah (what we have here is a failure to communicate), 1

La literatura nazi en América

La literatura nazi en América (Seix Barral, 2008)
por Roberto Bolaño
España, 1996

SILVIO SALVÁTICO

Buenos Aires, 1901-Buenos Aires, 1994

Entre sus propuestas juveniles se cuenta la reinstauración de la Inquisición, los castigos corporales públicos, la guerra permanente ya sea contra los chilenos o contra los paraguayos o bolivianos como una forma de gimnasia nacional, la poligamia masculina, el exterminio de los indios para evitar una mayor contaminación de la raza argentina, el recorte de los derechos de los ciudadanos de origen judío, la emigración masiva procedente de los países escandinavios para aclarar progresivamente la epidermis nacional oscurecida después de años de promiscuidad hispano-indígena, la concesión de becas literarias a perpetuidad, la exención  impositiva a los artistas, la creación de la mayor fuerza aérea de Sudamérica, la colonización de la Antártida, la edificación de nuevas ciudades en la Patagonia.

Fue un jugador de fútbol y futurista.

ANDRÉS CEPEDA CEPEDA,
llamado el Doncel
Arequipa, 1940-Arequipa, 1986
Entre los adjetivos de sus críticos destaquemos los siguientes: paleonazi, tarado, abanderado de la burguesía, títere del capitalismo, agente del CIA, poetastro de intenciones cretinizantes, plagiario de Eguren, plagiario de Salazar, plagiario de Saint-John Perse (acusación esta sostenida por un jovencísimo poeta de san Marcos y que a su vez desató otra polémica entre seguidores y detractores en el ámbito universitario), esbirra de cloacas, profeta de baratillo, violador de la lengua española, versificador de intenciones satánicas, producto de la educación de provincia, rastacuero, cholo alucinado, etc., etc.

(La literatura nazi en América, 57 y 79-80)

Aunque tuve muchas dificultades en encontrarlo, ¡$50 después puedo decirles con toda certeza que La literatura nazi en América va a ser uno de los mejores libros de mi año!  Una "novela" rara en la tradición de las Vies imaginaires [Vidas imaginarias] (1896) de Marcel Schwob, la Historia universal de la infamia (1935) de Borges, y La sinagoga degli iconoclasti [La sinogaga de los iconoclastas] (1972) de J. Rodolfo Wilcock, esta jodidamente divertida obra se parece mucho a un diccionario biográfico dedicado a las vidas y obras de varios derechistas, locos, y derechistas locos de la América filo-nazi.  Sorprendemente, este tema sórdido y deprimente parece haber abierta la puerta a Bolaño para escribir el libro quizá lo más chistoso y lo más más cáustico de todos sus libros.  Si la idea de una novela escrita como una enciclopedia de monstruos y basura humana parece un poco rara, no te preocupes.  Bolaño llena sus páginas acá con un catálago de personajes inolvidables (por ejemplo, el haitiano Max Mirebalais, "alias Max Kasimir, Max von Hauptmann, Max le Gueule, Jacques Artibonito", el plagio en serie a veces conocido como "el Pessoa bizarro del Caribe" [140]) y con una variedad de obras (Diálago con Hermann Goering en el Infierno, del poeta venezolano Franz Zwickau), pensamientos ("El único sistema político en el que creo a ojos cerrados, dice [la mexicana Irma Carrasco: Puebla, México, 1910-México, D.F. 1966] en una entrevista a la revista Labores de Casa, es el teocrático, aunque el generalísimo Franco tampoco lo está haciendo tan mal") y editoriales (mi favorito: El Cuarto Reich Argentino) igualmente inolvidables.  Aunque todo el mundo que le gusta una parodia virulenta junto a su "criticismo literario" podría disfrutar del inventivo de la escritura, los hinchas de Bolaño van a encontrar placeres particulares acá.  Entre el elenco de personajes, por ejemplo, se destaca la presencia del general del ejército rumano, Eugenio Entrescu, "al que crucificaron sus propios soldados en 1944", y del chileno Carlos Ramírez Hoffman, el asesino multiple y pilota de poemas en el cielo de una obra bolañesca más sobria, de las novelas 2666 y Estrella distante.  Bolaño mismo aparece como un personaje en la última biografia de La literatura nazi en América, "Ramírez Hoffman, el Ínfame" (a casi 30 páginas, el capítulo más largo del libro pero en realidad una versión condensada de los eventos de la novela corta Estrella distante), en un momento en cual la intersección entre la literatura y la realidad en la novela llama la atención a las sombras de las dictaduras militares latinoamericanas del siglo pasado.  Si es imposible ignorar la sugerencia que los nazis de verdad caminan entre nosotros y entre los monstruos inocuos que solo identifican con los nazi, también es difícil explicar cómo un libro tan escalofriante en algunos respectos puede ser tan enormemente cómico a la vez.  Para mí, casi una obra perfecta.  Para ti, ¿quien sabe? ¡Espectacular!  (http://www.seix-barral.es/)
*

Nazi Literature in the Americas [La literatura nazi en América] (New Directions, 2009)
by Roberto Bolaño (translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews)
Spain, 1996

SILVIO SALVÁTICO

Buenos Aires, 1901-Buenos Aires, 1994

As a young man Salvático advocated, among other things, the re-establishment of the Inquisition; corporal punishment in public; a permanent war against the Chileans, the Paraguayans, or the Bolivians as a kind of gymnastics for the nation; polygamy; the extermination of the Indians to prevent further contamination of the Argentinean race; curtailing the rights of any citizen with Jewish blood; a massive influx of migrants from the Scandinavian countries in order to effect a progressive lightening of the national skin color, darkened  by years of promiscuity with the indigenous population; life-long writer's grants; the abolition of tax on artists' incomes; the creation of the largest Air Force in South America; the colonization of Antarctica; and the building of new cities in Patagonia.

He was a soccer player and a Futurist.

ANDRÉS CEPEDA CEPEDA,

known as The Page

Arequipa, 1940-Arequipa, 1986

Among the expressions employed [by his critics] were the following: prehistoric Nazi, moron, champion of the bourgeoisie, puppet of capitalism, CIA agent, poetaster intent on debasing public taste, plagiarist (he was accused of copying  Eguren, Salazar Bondy, and Saint-John Perse, in the last case by a very young poet from San Marcos, whose accusation sparked another polemic opposing academic followers and detractors of Saint-John Perse), gutter thug, cut-rate prophet, rapist of the Spanish language, satanically inspired versifier, product of a provincial education, upstart, delirious half-blood, etc., etc.

(Nazi Literature in the Americas [translated by Chris Andrews], 47 & 69-70)

Although I had a hard time finding a copy of it in Spanish, $50 later I can tell you with all certainty that the Spanish language version of Nazi Literature in the Americas is going to be one of my favorite books of the year!  A strange "novel" in the tradition of Marcel Schwob's 1896 Vies imaginaires [Imaginary Lives], Borges' 1935 Historia universal de la infamia [A Universal History of Iniquity], and J. Rodolfo Wilcock's 1972 La sinagoga degli iconoclasti [The Temple of Iconoclasts], this fucking amazingly entertaining work resembles nothing so much as a biographical encyclopedia devoted to the lives and works of various right-wingers, nutjobs, and right-wing nutjobs from the Nazi-loving fringes of the Americas.  Surprisingly, this sordid and depressing theme seems to have opened up the creative floodgates for Bolaño to write what might have been his funniest, most caustic book ever.  If the idea of a novel written as an encyclopedia of freaks and human flotsam and jetsam seems a little dubious to you, not to worry.  Bolaño has peopled his pages with a full supply of unforgettable characters here (for example, the Haitian Max Mirebalais, "alias Max Kasimir, Max von Hauptman, Max le Gueule, Jacques Artibonito," the serial plagiarizer sometimes known as "the Caribbean's bizarre answer to Pessoa" [127 & 130]), not to mention the variety of equally memorable titles of works (the Venezuelan poet Franz Zwickau's "A Dialogue with Hermann Goering in Hell"), stray thoughts ("'The only political system in which I have complete confidence,' [the Mexican Irma Carrasco: Puebla, Mexico, 1910-Mexico City, Mexico, 1966] told an interviewer for the women's magazine Housework, 'is theocracy, although Generalísimo Franco is doing a pretty good job too'") and publishing houses (my favorite: The Fourth Reich in Argentina) included.  Although the creativity of the writing should appeal to anyone who can appreciate a nice, vicious parody to enjoy alongside their "literary criticism," hardcore Bolaño fans will find a couple of particularly nice surprises in store.  Among the colorful cast of characters, for example, Romanian army general Eugenio Entrescu, "crucified by his own soldiers in 1944," and the Chilean Carlos Ramírez Hoffman, the serial killer and skywriting pilot villain of a much grimmer Bolaño work, will stand out to those familiar with their appearances in the novels 2666 and Distant Star.  Bolaño himself appears as a character in Nazi Literature in the Americas' final biographical entry, "The Infamous Ramírez Hoffman" (at nearly 30 pages, the longest chapter here by far but actually a condensed version of the events narrated in Distant Star), highlighting a tense moment in which the intersection between literature and reality in the novel suddenly shifts to recall the shadows of the Latin American military dictatorships of the last century.  If it's difficult to ignore the implication that the real Nazis live and breathe among us amidst the mostly harmless freaks who only identify with them, it's also sort of tough to explain how a work so chilling in some regards can be so enormously funny at one and the same time.  For me, almost a perfect work.  For you, who knows?  Killer.  (http://www.ndpublishing.com/)

Orbis Terrarum 2010 Challenge

Since there are few things in the blogosphere duller than a reading challenge sign-up post (possible exceptions: the Teaser Tuesdays meme and over-caffeinated bloggers who prattle on about "discussions" they've just had on Twitter), please bear with me as I share how excited I am to join the Orbis Terrarum 2010 Challenge hosted by Bethany of Dreadlock Girl!  Although I've decided to eschew almost all reading challenges this year in favor of a number of shared reads with good friends and the old-fashioned idea of reading what I want when I want instead, I love Bethany's concept of reading a book a month from a different country based on the author's nation of origin.  That really speaks to me for some reason. On a personal note, I'm also very fond of this challenge because I've met many of my favorite bloggers (e.g. Claire, Emily, Gavin,  Sarah, and the super friendly Bethany herself) as a direct result of our participation in it during previous OT campaigns.  In any event, click here for more details on this year's challenge or click here for a round-up of what I read for last year's event.  I'll also be hosting a film mini-challenge of some sort for this year's event, and will keep you posted once Bethany and I iron out the details.  Cheers!

1) Roberto Bolaño's La literatura nazi en América [Nazi Literature in the Americas] (Chile)
2) Georges Perec's Life A User's Manual [La Vie mode d'emploi] (France)
3) Naguib Mahfouz's Miramar (Egypt)
4) Roberto Arlt's Los siete locos [The Seven Madmen] (Argentina)
5) Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories (USA)
6) Rodrigo Rey Rosa's El cojo bueno [The Good Cripple] (Guatemala)
7) Maj Sjöwall's and Per Wahlöö's The Laughing Policeman (Sweden)
8) Thomas Bernhard's Wittgenstein's Nephew (Austria)

Roberto Arlt's Los siete locos [The Seven Madmen], a distinct possibility for my Argentina pick.