Flemish fiction

I've been pretty busy the past weeks with articles and reviews that I forgot to blog. Shame on me! I did however, get a lot of reading done so there's plenty to say.

I read Erik Vlaminck's Brandlucht (among many others) this month because he was the star of September's bookpage and I was amazed by the fact that I actually liked his novel, something that never happens because Flemish fiction and I rarely get along for the simple reason that I don't have any affinity with all things Flemish or Belgian seeing as my upbringing was unconventional and British at best. The language, the situations and the day to day life in these novels usually feels alien and slightly contrived to me, so I was stunned that Brandlucht didn't make me feel queezy which is quite an achievement.

It's the story of Elly, daughter of a Dutch mother and a Flemish father who grows up in Saint Thomas, Canada, and goes in search of her roots. The story is told from multiple perspectives and deals with emigration, truth and the difficulty of shaking one's past. The story was sweet and simple and had some interesting characters and vivacious dialogue which drew you in and gave the novel a simmering pace meaning, I liked it and I wouldn't mind reading more of Vlaminck's novels.

Since I started with my bookpage last December I've read more Flemish fiction than I have in the past 29 years combined, which really took my by surprise. If it hadn't been for my monthly page in Flanders Today I wouldn't have encountered the poetry of Joke van Leeuwen, the illustration's of Eva Cardon, the horror of Yves Petry, the beauty of Bart Moeyeart, the roots of Annelies Beck or had the chance to take down one of my former professors, not the mention the countless reviews I had to write that widened my literary horizon. Thanks FT for paving the road to local fiction! Who knows, we might even become friends.

Lonestar Bordello

Last Friday, the Pumpkin had a gig with his band, Lonestar Bordello, at the Nazomerfestival in Ham. It was the first time I'd seen him perform because the last time he took to the stage was over six years ago, just before we met so I was almost as excited as he was, and it was great! Beautiful melodic and melancholy music that pulls at your heartstrings filled an otherwise chilly and noisy tent with warmth and atmosphere. And I'm not just saying this because he's my Pumpkin but because I really loved the songs, which I previously had only heard recordings of that didn't do them justice. Anyway, I was as proud as I could be of the little fella and I'm already looking forward to their next gig, no pressure boys.

Thursday's trailer

Goodreads

I’ve always been a big fan of keeping lists. Even when I was a little girl I’d keep a log of all my toys. Worse, I’d keep files on my Barbies: name, address, occupation, marriage certificate... yes, I was that weird. I’ve always had this unexplainable need to organise and kept records of everything in several hundred notebooks, hence my addiction to pretty little blank books that I can massacre with my loopy (the Pumpkin’s word, not mine) handwriting.

The only thing I keep track of these days are the books I read, in a girly pink leatherbound notebook embroyded with swans which sounds worse than it is. I love flipping through these books to reminisce and see what I’ve loved and loathed over the years, something I’d otherwise quickly forget.

Nowadays most people do this online, comforting me that I’m not the only nut out there. Sure, it’s not as romantic as a notebook but it’s easy to manage, you can add friends and keep track of what they’re reading but most importantly, these sites are filled with reviews.

I started out with LibraryThing back in 2006 and spent hours (I was a student back then) putting my books on there. Sadly, you had to pay a membership fee so I went over to Shelfari when the time came to renew, seeing as this is a free book cataloguing site where I’ve spent many happy years.

Most of my friends however, have now also caught the bug and have started accounts with Goodreads, making me take the plunge with them because it’s fun to share book related comments like “Why the hell are you reading that!?!” or discovering new titles that my peeps loved. I’m just not sure I’ll add all my books like I did when I transitioned from LibraryThing to Shelfari because we’re talking several hundreds here. Best to start fresh from 2011 onwards.

So what about you? How do you keep track of all the books you read?

Books at Bedtime

I recently discovered the radio programme Books at Bedtime on BBC Radio 4. Every weeknight at 22:45pm they read for 15 minutes from modern classics, new works by leading authors and literature from around the globe. After an average of two weeks you'll have tackled an entire novel. I don't follow these readings live but listen to the podcast the next day which is available for limited time. It's perfect for people who have little time to read or love the spoken word.

I listenend to The Reluctant Fundamentalist last week, a novel I probably would never have read otherwise, and I really loved the fact that these podcasts introduce me to new material in a quick and highly enjoyable fashion. Plus, now I get the chance to get even more “reading” done. I'm already looking forward to tonight's new novel: On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry.

So True

Twirling around my laptop, throwing herself on the keyboard, dabbing the screen and knocking things off the desk, this is Molly to a T.

We need to talk about Kevin

After several years of should I? Shouldn’t I? I finally caved and read We need to talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver. I had read several stunning reviews and heard lots of people say it really gets under your skin but to be honest, the story didn’t appeal to me so I kept putting it off. Now that the movie will be released next month, I thought it’s as good as a time as ever if I’m ever going to read this controversial novel.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the novel, it’s about a woman (Eva) whose son has killed several people in his high school. In a series of letters to her estranged husband, she tries to come to terms with the events as well as the fact that she never really liked her son to begin with, opening the whole nature versus nurture debate. Was she to blame? Was her son just a troubled kid? Who’s to say?

To be honest, I never liked epistolary novels so the idea of writing to your ex bugged me from the get go. It’s perfect if you want portray someone’s psyche, which Shriver clearly intended, but the result of this in-depth portrait is that the novel lacks pace and direction,. Eva simply reminisces about her marriage, Kevin’s childhood and her present life in which she has become a social pariah. It was interesting, but seeing as that’s all the entire novel has going for itself; it became a bit tedious and could easily have been 100 pages shorter although the pace did pick up in the end.

Eva admits that she had her son to please her husband and struggled to bond with her child which isn’t out of the ordinary. I personally know several women who love their child but don’t particularly like them at times. Now one of the reasons the novel intrigued me was that it was labeled as horrifying and shocking but sadly it failed to deliver. Maybe I’m just blasé but there was nothing I hadn’t read or seen before in this media obsessed world we live in. I wasn’t particularly shocked by Kevin’s actions but by the way society responded to them really: 7 years in prison for killing 10 people? I doubt that will put youngsters off in the future.

Is Kevin evil? Who knows because sadly not much is said about the boy’s thoughts or feelings seeing as Eva is doing all the talking, creating a one-dimensional portrait. Did Eva ruin her son by being a cold mother? I sincerely doubt it. I personally don’t believe in the supposed goodness of mankind. Call me a cynic, but I think everyone is capable of horrendous things, depending on your perspective and situation. If the “right” buttons are pushed and if you mix that with some psychological / social issues, all bets are off. Illustrated by this passage:

"I hate you, you stupid creep!" she screamed. "I hope you fry! I hope they shoot you full of poison and I get to watch you die!" It was a rapid conversation. Only one month before, she'd written an impassioned essay denouncing capital punishment.

We need to talk about Kevin gives us a clear and interesting look into the psyche of a woman who is filled with doubt, regret and above all guilt. Who is to blame in such circumstances? Biology or society? In an age where kids are being saturated from an early age by violence, drugs and radical thinking on TV, the internet and in schools, it’s not that farfetched to say they go hand in hand, making the end not all surprising. Society just nudged biology in the wrong direction.