Read 22 of 2022. The Village of Eight Graves by Seishi Yokomizo. Translated from the Japanese by Bryan Karetnyk

Title: The Village of Eight Graves
Author: Seishi Yokomizo
Translated from the Japanese by Bryan Karetnyk
Publisher: Pushkin Vertigo
ISBN: 978-1782277453
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Pages: 352
Source: Personal Copy
Rating: 2.5/5

I was so looking forward to reading a good mystery and was disappointed to some extent by this read. The pacing clearly was one of the major reasons for this. It went on to become too long after a certain point, and I wish it had ended earlier.

Tatsuya Terada has been invited to become the heir of a wealthy Tajimi family in a remote mountain village. The village gets its name from a bloody legend of eight samurais who were murdered by the inhabitants in the 16^th century, letting loose a curse. Recently someone from the Tajimi family has murdered thirty-two villagers.

Tatsuya goes to the village only to become the prime suspect. Enter, Kosuke Kindaichi – a very hapless detective trying to solve the murders.

The writing is interesting in the first half and then it loses steam in the second half. I found myself getting bored and I wish there was more to the unfolding of the story. The characters are well-rounded and yet the plot doesn’t take it any far. The translation by Bryan Karetnyk manages to give the reader the much-needed imagination when it comes to a mystery and maintain the hold on conversation as well.

The Village of Eight Graves could’ve been so much more and isn’t. It would for sure make for a great binge-worthy Netflix series, but as a book it disappointed me for sure.

March 2020 Wrap-Up

March has been a fantastic month. For me, personally. I have struggled with anxiety and calmed it. I have switched off from the news, and trying very hard to keep away from it on social media as well. I’m just made this way. On the reading front, I read 23 very different books and I am on top of the world. I feel ecstatic. Here’s hoping we all get out of this sane. Much love.
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Here are the titles with the ratings:
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1. Death in her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh (4)
2. Fabulous by Lucy Hughes-Hallett (4)
3. And I do not forgive you: stories and other revenges by Amber Sparks (4)
4. Faces on the tip of my tongue by Emmanuelle Pagano. Translated from the French by Jennifer Higgins and Sophie Lewis (5)
5. The Seep by Chana Porter (5)
6. Fern Road by Angshu Dasgupta (3)
7. Apartment by Teddy Wayne (4)
8. The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar. Translated from the Persian (5)
9. Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara (4)
10. A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes (4)
11. The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta (4)
12. Girl by Edna O’Brien (4)
13. A Burning by Megha Majumdar (3)
14. Amnesty by Aravind Adiga (3)
15. Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann. Translated from the German by Ross Benjamin (2)
16. Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin. Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell (4)
17. Red Dog by Willem Anker. Translated from the Afrikaans by Michiel Heyns (2)
18. The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld. Translated from the Dutch by Michele Hutchinson (4)
19. The Other Name: Septology I-II by Jon Fosse. Translated from the French by Damion Searls (5)
20. The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa. Translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder (5)
21. Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor. Translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes (4)
22. The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara. Translated from the Spanish by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre (5)
23. Mac’s Problem by Enrique Vila-Matas. Translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa and Sophie Hughes (4).
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That’s it, folks! What was your reading month of March like? Any favourites?.
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Here’s to April 2020. Can’t wait.

Red Dog by Willem Anker. Translated from the Afrikaans by Michiel Heyns

Title: Red Dog
Author: Willem Anker
Translated from the Afrikaans by Michiel Heyns
Publisher: Pushkin Press
ISBN: 9781782274223
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 432
Source: Publisher
Rating: 2/5

I waited, and waited, and waited some more for this book to get better. I tried. I wanted to give it another chance, which I did. I did not not finish it. I persisted. I read. I read more. I braved through it. I finished the book and out come a big sigh of relief.

Again, Red Dog was hugely atmospheric, but the book somehow went nowhere. I do not say this because Anker was criticised for this novel, as some reviewers think it has similarities to McCarthy’s writing. I say this because I honestly thought that the bloody fictional biography of Buys, a real figure from 18th century South Africa, was just not something that I would read otherwise.

The book is told from the perspective of Buys, that gets plain exhausting after a while. Yes, the South African landscape helps to distract, and those descriptions are near-perfect, so that helps. There was something missing as I was plodding through this book. I love historical fiction. I love books that say it as it is – the violence, the colonial rule, the brutality, and vividly imagined daily life. Somehow though the book turned out to be hyper-masculine for my taste.

Red Dog is not everyone’s cup of tea, maybe just like Cormac McCarthy’s books aren’t. The translation also this time didn’t do it for me. It seemed patchy in most places, and did not seem to provide context in others. What could’ve been a masterpiece in so many ways (and probably is for most readers), fell flat on its face for me, the average reader.

Karate Chop by Dorthe Nors. Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken

Title: Karate Chop
Author: Dorthe Nors
Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken
Publisher: Pushkin Press
ISBN: 978-1782274322
Genre: Short Stories, Literary Collections
Pages: 96
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 stars

Dorthe Nors’s stories or books are not easy to read. Well, they are superficially easy so to say, till you think about them, mull over them a little and before you know it, you want to go back to the worlds created by Nors. The stories in this collection like I said may seem ordinary, almost run-of-the-mill really, but there are glimpses of the extraordinary lurking beneath the ordinary, which appear as you go along. These stories are also more like vignettes than anything else – fifteen compact stories – all about life and its ongoings, layered with multiple emotions, splattered all over its pages.

Nors’s characters are also quite twisted and strange. They aren’t the sort of people you might bump into the street or maybe they are but concealing their quirks as they go along life. A relationship between a father and son is tested and beyond emotions at that. A woman in an abusive relationship reflects on how she got there and takes responsibility without passing blame or trying to. A daughter and a mother’s tender and almost brutal relationship as the daughter is witness to the mother probably going insane. A man on the other hand is obsessed with female killers. A woman who suddenly finds herself in the possession of a giant tornado. You get the drift of these stories, don’t you?

I cannot categorize them under magical or magic realism as they say (though it might seem like that for most part). The only reason I am not categorizing them that way is there is more to them – the underlined human emotion and its complexity. All of Nors’s characters are lonely – wanting some companionship to get through life. At the same time, these stories do not end the way you would want them to. Most of them are open-ended and it is to the reader to decide the fate of these characters.

The translation by Martin Aitken is superb in the sense that you do realize of course you are reading a translated collection of stories and yet you do not. All nuances are there. All vignettes seem intact and the prose flows like it should. Also, since August is the Women in Translation month, I was so happy that this was the first book read as a part of that theme/project.

Record of a Night Too Brief by Hiromi Kawakami. Translated by Lucy North.

Title: Record of a Night Too Brief
Author: Hiromi Kawakami
Translated from the Japanese by Lucy North
Publisher: Pushkin Press
ISBN: 978-1782272717
Genre: Literary Fiction, Novella, Short Stories, Japanese Novellas
Pages: 156
Source: Publisher
Rating: 5 Stars

“Record of a Night Too Brief” is a weird book and that I say in a good way. It took me some time to wind my head around it, but it proved to be a very satisfying read, nonetheless. This book is a collection of three fantastical short stories and on the surface, while they all seem to be rather easy and direct, they are anything but that.

In the first titular story, there are dream sequences (reminded me a lot of Murakami when that happened), talking animals, shrinking girls, mathematics, and a night-sky that you should only experience while reading this story.

The second one titled, “Missing” is about a sister mourning for her missing brother, while her entire family is rejoicing the fact of his would-be-wife entering the household. This is my favourite story in the book and you will know why when you read it.

The last story is called “A Snake Stepped On” where a woman accidentally steps on a snake, the snake is transformed to a girl and follows her home, thus living with the woman and her family.

You might think it to be super strange but like I said before, while these stories are strange, they are entertaining and profound to a large extent. These stories are about three women, trying to make their way in this world, surrounded by strange circumstances. In this way then, all these stories are sure inter-linked.

The writing cannot be bracketed in any genre. It is refreshing, haunting and almost new (Like I said, it did remind me of Murakami to some extent). I’ve read Kawakami’s books earlier and I must say that this happens to be her best, according to me. She has truly evolved as a writer in this one.

Lucy North has translated this book to perfection, because I didn’t feel anything lacking in it. If you want to start with contemporary Japanese literature and understand its people and way of life, I would most certainly urge you to read this collection.