Friday, November 25, 2011

ANNO DRACULA–Kim Newman

 

What would happen if  Van Helsing and his friends failed?  What would happen if Dracula not only succeeds in surviving the attempt on his life, but takes over England by marrying Queen Victoria?

This is the premise behind the book, it’s Van Helsing that ends up dead, his head on a spike and Count  Dracula now rules as Prince Consort, leaving no reason for vampires to remain in the shadows. In fact it soon becomes the height of fashion to become a vampire, with society dividing along the lines of Vampire and Warm (not vampire). The vampire elite rise rapidly taking the status positions, but  society doesn’t change that much – the slums are overflowing as usual but now added to the mix are the un-dead poor, trying to eke out an existence on a diet of pigs blood, or by pimping themselves in exchange for a quick bite. With the vampire gene now in ascendency and the warm either dying or choosing to become vampires (which is the same thing), you’d be safe in thinking all was well for vampire-kind, but there’s an individual stalking them – Jack the Ripper aka The Silver Knife, is prowling the streets of Whitechapel, murdering vampire prostitutes with a silver scalpel. Into this tale steps our hero, Charles Beauregard (non-vampire) agent of the secret & yet infamous  Diogenes Club,  who have given him the task of tracking down the killer, whose name we, the reader, know from the beginning as  Doctor John Seward, best friends with Quincey Morris and Arthur Holmwood (all three propose to Lucy Westenra the same day). He is also the administrator of an insane asylum not far from Count Dracula’s first English home, in the original Dracula (Bram Stoker) in fact it’s Seward who calls in  Abraham Van Helsing. We also have the beautiful Geneviève Dieudonné who remains looking as she did at sixteen, although she’s an elder of the vampire world at around four and a half centuries of living(?). All of this book is played out against the backdrop of a grimy, dirty, Victorian London, a London immersed in the thickest peasouper (fog), overseen by a bloodthirsty ruler. Here’s a couple of segments from  Doctor John Seward/Jack’s  diary for the date the17th September….

Last night's delivery was easier than the others. Much easier than last week's. Perhaps, with practice and patience, everything becomes easier. If never easy. Never ... easy.
I am sorry: it is difficult to maintain an orderly mind and this marvellous apparatus is unforgiving. I cannot ink over hasty words or tear loose a spoiled page. The cylinder revolves, the needle etches, and my ramblings are graven for all time in merciless wax. Marvellous apparatuses, like miracle cures, are beset with unpredictable side-effects. In the twentieth century, new means of setting down human thought may precipitate an avalanche of worthless digression. Brevis esse laboro,* as Horace would have it. I know how to present a case history. This will be of interest to posterity. For now, I work in camera and secrete the cylinders with what remain of my earlier accounts. As the situation stands, my life and liberty would be endangered were these journals exposed to the public ear. One day, I should wish my motives and methods made known and clear.

“'I have some mistletoe,' the dead girl said, detaching a sprig from her bodice. She held it above her.


'A kiss?' she asked. 'Just a penny for a kiss.'


'It is early for Christmas.'

'There's always time for a kiss.'


She shook her sprig, berries jiggling like silent bells. I placed a cold kiss on her red-black lips and took out my knife, holding it under my coat. I felt the blade's keenness through my glove. Her cheek was cool against my face.
I learned from last week's in Hanbury Street - Chapman, the newspapers say her name was, Annie or Anne - to do the business swiftly and precisely. Throat. Heart. Tripes. Then get the head off. That finishes the things. Clean silver and a clean conscience. Van Helsing, blinkered by folklore and symbolism, spoke always of the heart, but any of the major organs will do. The kidneys are easiest to reach.”

 

Anno Dracula, was first published in 1992  by British writer Kim Newman (my copy published May 2011), and is an alternate history fiction, set in a 19th century England that differs from our version of reality and yet still uses settings and personalities from that period, along with characters from popular fiction. In fact half the fun of this book is finding these individuals, whether they existed or were fictitious, for example;anno dracula

Bram Stoker (author of Dracula) is in a concentration camp for revealing censored material, as is Sherlock Holmes, who fell foul of the gov’t, due to differing opinions, as is Lewis Carroll.  Oscar Wilde’s in it, though skating on thin ice, obviously Dracula, Van Helsing and most of the original characters. Beatrice Potter (not the writer of Peter Rabbit) but the one from the Fabian Socialist movement,  William LeQueux, John Reid (from the Lone Ranger), Inspector  Lestrade (A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle), Ivan Dragamilloff (The Assassination Bureau Ltd., Jack London), Annie Besant, Sergeant Dravot (The Man Who Would Be King, Rudyard Kipling), Basil Hallward (The Picture of Dorian Gray,Oscar Wilde)W. S. Gilbert, Henry Wilcox (Howards End, E.M Forster),Orson Welles, Catherine II of Russia, George Bernard Shaw, etc. In fact for a more comprehensive idea of the range of the characters check here.

 

This is the first in a series of books depicting an alternate history, all featuring characters both historical & fictional of the period. The metafictional style was inspired by the Wold Newton Universe of Philip José Farmer. Neil Gaiman helped develop the series (and was originally going to be its co-author): Neil Gaiman  is also the reason I read this book, to be honest I found this in my favourite Charity Bookshop*, whilst looking for some books for my daughter, because Gaiman’s name takes prominence on this book it was placed in the same area as the rest of his work. I saw the reviews and purchased it, and although it proved unsuitable for a ten year old, I loved it, romped through it, like one of its blood-crazed characters, here’s a couple of the reasons for original decision to buy it.

“A marvellous marriage of political satire, Gothic horror and Alternative History. Not to be missed” The Independent

“A tour de force which succeeds brilliantly” The Times

“A Brilliantly witty Parallel-World saga… Builds sure-footedly to a bravura climax which entirely redefines Victorian values” Daily Telegraph

Titan books (Anno Dracula)

Kim Newman website

Kim Newman(Wiki)

*Brevis esse laboro - Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio; sectantem levia. Nervi deficiunt animique.When I try to be brief, I become obscure. Aiming at smoothness, I fail in force and fire. From Ars Poetica, by Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace) who was instructing writers that it may be difficult to achieve brevity without sacrificing clarity.

* Oxfam Charity Bookshop, Canterbury UK.

Friday, November 18, 2011

The Faber Book of–

20Th Century German Poems.

Edited by

Michael Hofmann.

In this book  Michael Hofmann puts forward his case for Germany’s inclusion on the table for best poets of the 20Th century, stating his claim that a nation with a roster of poets such as  Rilke, Brecht,  Benn, poets like Celan, Bobrowski, Stadler, Müller and Trakl, others such as,Bachmann, Grass, Enzensberger and Grünbein -  the placemat should  already be  in situ, the setting card already printed. The poets represented start with  Else Lasker-Schüler born 1869 , a Jewish German poet and playwright famous for her bohemian lifestyle in Berlin. She was one of the few women affiliated with the Expressionist movement and despite  winning the Kleist Prize in 1932, as a Jew she was physically harassed and threatened by the Nazis, forcing her to flee her homeland. The book then ends with Jan Wagner,  born 1971 in Hamburg ( living in Berlin since 1995) and who, as well as being a Poet, is a translator of poetry from the English (including Charles Simic, James Tate, Simon Armitage, Jo Shapcott, Louis MacNeice and Kevin Young) and is considered one of the most important German-language poets of the younger generation.

 

On the way we pass through world war one, the Weimar Republic and it’s failure, followed by the  great depression, which pathed the way for Adolf Hitler’s brutal totalitarian regime, the holocaust and the second world war, which then leads on to the Cold war crisis, Berlin and the Iron curtain, before unification and the joys and frustrations this has seen arise. All these points in time have been marked by Germany's poets as they themselves have been marked by the events, some faced them, whilst others were more oblique in their references, but all in one way or another had to come to terms with the world they found themselves in .

9780571197033

Throughout this book Michael Hofmann guides us with a confident hand, always in command, whether discussing Rilke’s lyricism or whether Brecht was better as a poet or as a playwright (according to Hofmann the former) or even how Gottfried Benn was heartrending in a way that the likes of Lowell, Jarrell & Berryman could only aim for, Hofmann’s makes his case with a clarity and passion, backed by a knowledge and a willingness to argue his case with a certain pugnacity for his cause and against any detractors.

This collection has the works of fifty-four poets, but seems to work between the two points of Bertolt Brecht with 19 poems and Hans Magnus Enzensberger with  14 (including the 8 & a bit page poem, Foam) and although there are other books covering this ground for example, Michael Hamburger’s and Christopher Middleton’s Modern German Poetry from  1910-1960. As an introduction to a poetry that can hold it’s head high on the world stage, this book will take some beating, No, It’s not Bilingual, yes it would be probably improved if that was the case, but to most -  myself included - that won’t matter, what does matter is that this book will serve as a key to a door that can open up a whole world of poetry. Earlier this year I wrote a post on Faber’s Book of 20Th Century Italian Poems and this will sit nicely alongside that one on my bookshelves.

The List.

Christian Morgenstern , Else Lasker-Schuler,  Rainer Maria Rilke,  Paul Klee, Ernst Stadler, Gottfried Benn,

Georg Heym,  Jakob van Hoddis, Georg Trakl, Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Franz Werfel, Nelly Sachs,

George Grosz, Bertolt Brecht, Peter Huchel, Gunter Eich, Ernst Meister, Johannes Bobrowski,

Rainer Brambach, Paul Celan, Friederike Mayrocker, Ernst Jandl, Heinz Piontek, Inge Muller,

Ingeborg Bachmann, Oskar Pastior, Gunter Grass, Hertha Kraftner, Gunter Kunert, Heiner Muller,

 Hans Magnus Enzenberger, Adolph Endler, Jurgen Becker, Reiner Kunze,  Sarah Kirsch

Christoph Meckel, Kurt Bartsch, Nicolas Born, Elke Erb, Volker Braun, Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, Karin Kiwus,

Michael Kruger, Jergen Theobaldy, Joachim Sartorius, Uwe Kolbe, Durs Grunbein, Lutz Seiler, Marcel Beyer

Volker Sielaff, Hauke Huckstadt, Matthias Goritz, Jan Wagner.

Biography

Michael Hofmann, who was born in 1957, in Freiburg, Germany, and came to England in 1961, first residing in Bristol and later Edinburgh. He is the son of the  Novelist Gert Hofmann. Michael Hofmann was educated at Winchester college, before going on to study English Literature and Classics at Oxford University. In 1979 he received a BA and in 1984 a MA from the University of Cambridge. In 1983 he started working as a freelance writer, translator and literary critic. Hofmann has held a visiting professorship at the University of Michigan and currently teaches poetry workshops at the University of Florida.  He divides his time between London and Gainesville. He has received the Cholmondeley Award in 1984 for Nights in the Iron Hotel and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1988 for Acrimony.

The same year, he also received the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of Patrick Süskind's The Double-Bass. In 1993 he received the Schlegel-Tieck Prize again this time for his translation of Wolfgang Koeppen's Death in Rome. He was also awarded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 1995 for the translation of his father's novel The Film Explainer, and was nominated again in 2003 for his translation of Peter Stephan Jungk's The Snowflake Constant. In 1997 he received the Arts Council Writer's Award for his collection of poems Approximately Nowhere,and the following year he received the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for his translation of Herta Müller's novel The Land of Green Plums. In 1999 Hofmann was awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize for his translation of Joseph Roth's The String of Pearls. In 2000 Hofmann was selected as the recipient of the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translator's Prize for his translation of Joseph Roth's novel Rebellion (Die Rebellion). In 2003 he received another Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of his father's Luck, and in 2004 he was awarded the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize for his translation of Ernst Jünger's Storm of Steel.  In 2005 Hofmann received his fourth Schlegel-Tieck Prize for his translation of Gerd Ledig's The Stalin Organ. Hofmann served as a judge for the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2002, and in 2006 Hofmann made the Griffin's international shortlist for his translation of Durs Grünbein's Ashes for Breakfast.

                   N.’s Identity

N.’s wife had, even before the war, left him and married

somebody else. The destruction of Dresden turned his street

into rubble and ashes, later into a field. A bombing of

Nordhausen murdered N.’s parents. Both his sisters died flee-

ing, God knows where, they had no children. One friend was

gassed, another was and remained missing. His brother fell

in Holland. N. himself was a prisoner of war in England. He

had helped build villas, not a single one remained standing.

The only thing that, after the war, reminded us of N., was N.

                                                                              Elke Erb (Trans: Rosmarie Waldrop)

Friday, November 11, 2011

(An Impression Of) Nude - Nuala Ní Chonchúir

What is the difference between Naked and Nude? This is a question that  passes back and forth between the stories in Nuala Ní Chonchúir’s  third  collection of tales “Nude”. In these stories we  read of individuals of  both  sexes as they attempt to fulfil their desires and come to terms - or are broken apart - by their frustrations, in these tales we follow lovers in various states of undress, and of love, we have examples of nudity as a weapon, and tales so heartbreakingly naked that all the defences have been removed, stripped away. This book has tales so beautifully written that the horror, only visits later and tales of a slow pervading fear that your choice will be your undoing, no matter how beautiful it seemed at the choosing. nudecover

In the preface we read that  Nudity can be a garment worn out of choice, as though one was sky-clad and with that premise comes a certain sensuality, an idea that you could allow yourself to be clothed with the gaze of a loved one and yet where is the line between nude and naked drawn. Is it in who has control, who has the power,or is there a far more subtle shade to it than this, Nuala explores this idea via the artists and models, by the lovers and those left bereft, left naked by their experiences.

In this collection of twenty tales, there are some that will make you smile, even laugh, some will leave you with questions concerning your attitude to the naked form, whether as living flesh or as works of art and others will just break your heart. Nuala writes with a sexuality that explores all it’s nuances, she writes of individuals, people, you, me with all the bumps and bits we’d rather keep hidden, highlighted, but highlighted with a poets sensibility, leaving us with this beautiful sensual collection of stories.


I’ve just re-read this post and, to be honest, I’m struggling to describe this collection of tales, this is no fault of the book – but in trying to pin it down, I feel like I’m placing it in some killing-jar. The problem is  I want to use phrases like the tales have a corporeal sensuality, or that it’s sexuality has a visceral nature, but  I’m worried that by using  this language I’ll turn people away from a truly beautiful book. Yes there is a sexuality, but it’s not mechanistic, not of a kit-formed detail, these tales are a first person perspective of the heights and depths of human emotion – with no point of return, no  comeback and none wanted. Below is a poem by Nuala, that although is not from this collection of stories – I  think traces some of the themes present within the book.

Tattoo
My body is a palimpsest
under your hands,
a papyrus scroll
unfurled beneath you,
waiting for your mark.
I clean my skin,
scrape it back to
a pale parchment,
so that your touch
can sink as deep
as the tattooist’s ink,
and leave its tracery
over the erased lines
of other men.
You are all that’s
written on my body.

                        NUALA NÍ CHONCHÚIR (From: Tattoo : Tatú)
 For a brilliantly reasoned and clearer idea of this book, please check out Mel U, From the wonderful Blog – The Reading Life



Nuala Ní Chonchúir is a novelist, poet and short fiction writer. She was born in Dublin in 1970 and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, Dublin City University and NUI Galway. Her first full poetry collection “Molly’s Daughter” appeared in the ¡DIVAS! Anthology New Irish Women’s Writing (Arlen House). Her bilingual poetry collection Tattoo:Tatú (Arlen House, 2007) was shortlisted for the 2008 Rupert and Eithne Strong Award. A pamphlet Portrait of the Artist with a Red Car (Templar, 2009) was one of four winners of the 2009 Templar Poetry Pamphlet competition.
    Nuala’s début novel You (New Island, 2010) was called ‘a heart-warmer’ by The Irish Times and ‘a gem’ by The Irish Examiner. She also has a new collection of poetry published now  - The Juno Charm, this has been described by fellow poet & writer, Órfhlaith Foyle as they “ play with and worship the ordinary life, yet they also lift life to extraordinary heights through love and guilt, sex and sorrow;…”

Nuala Ní Chonchúir (Wiki)
Nude (Salt Publishing)
Women Rule Writer
Órfhlaith Foyle ( Nuala Ni Chonchúir’ interview )

Update On the 22nd  of December I will be taking part in a virtual tour, where I will get the chance to ask  Nuala, some questions concerning the writing of her new book of Poetry The Juno Charm, if like myself you can't wait to find out her responses to questions on the process of writing, click on the picture of the book in my sidebar to see the other people/bloggers taking part. the tour started with another writer Órfhlaith Foyle, whose wonderful book Somewhere in Minnesota,  I posted on awhile back.
Thanks, Parrish.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Short Treatise on the Joys of Morphinism - Hans Fallada

 

Hans Fallada was born Rudolph Wilhelm Friedrich Ditzen (21.7.1893) in Greifswald, Germany. His father was  a magistrate, who would soon become a supreme court judge and his mother was from a solid middle-class background. In 1899 the family relocated to Berlin following the first of several promotions his father received. 1901 saw Fallada entering his first school, which was not a success and lead to the child burying himself in books, eschewing literature more in line with his age for authors such as Flaubert, Dostoevsky and Dickens. By 1909 the family once more relocated, this time to Leipzig,  following his father's appointment to the Imperial Supreme Court. A road accident in 1909, followed by the contraction of typhoid in 1910 marked a major turning point in the now 17 year old Fallada’s life  and was also where the life-long drug problems were born - due to the pain killing medication he needed for his injuries. The end result of this was several botched suicide attempts culminating in the death of his close friend (Hanns Dietrich),  this time disguised as a duel, because it was considered a more honourable death. This was somehow bungled with Fallada surviving. . Nonetheless, the death of his friend ensured his status as an outcast from society. Although he was found innocent of murder by way of insanity, from this point on he would serve multiple stints in mental institutions.

Whilst in a sanatorium he started  writing poetry & also tried his hand at translation, without much success, before finally hitting his stride as a writer, with the publication  of his first novel, Der junge Goedeschal (Young Goedeschal) in 1920. During this period he lost his younger brother in the First World War, and was he also struggling with morphine addiction.Penguin mini classics

Which brings me to the  Short Treatise on the Joys of Morphinism by Hans Fallada, this wonderful little book by Penguin (Mini Modern Classic) contains two stories – the title tale and Three Years of Life, both published in English for the very first time*. Both draw heavily on the writers own history of addiction – in the first story we follow the protagonist, who has one obsession that being his next hit, everything is subservient to that desire, there is no friendship, no relationship that doesn’t have it’s roots in the feeding of the addiction, every second, every nanosecond is a slave to that one impulse.

 

“I knew I had to have morphine at any price. My whole body was painfully jittery, my hands shook, I was full of a crazed thirst, not just in my mouth and throat, but in every cell of my body.

I picked up the telephone and called Wolf. I wanted to  catch him off-guard, so, with a faltering voice, I croaked out: “Have you got any benzene? Hurry! I’m dying!”

And fell back on to the pillows, groaning. A deep and solemn relief.”

Wolf is the closest thing the hero(?) of this tale, has to a friend, not counting the drug itself and yet his sole purpose is as a conduit to more highs, this is understood by both the individuals in this relationship.

In the second tale “Three Years of Life” the narrator (Hans Fallada) has reached an impasse in the way his life has gone, completely disenchanted, he knows things can’t go on. This doesn’t stop him downing half a pint of cognac before proceeding with his plan to embezzle his employer of twelve thousand marks before what seems like a failed attempt to escape his addiction…

“I walk out of on the street, to the station. More train rattle. My flight begins. Hamburg. Most of the day asleep. At night St Pauli. Then following morning I fly to Berlin. Let them come for me. After that, Munich, Leipzig, Dresden, Cologne.

Always the same scenario: the poison won’t let me go. I am unable to eat at all. Sleep – what passes for sleep – is a vividly tormenting blackout”

Eventually the money runs out and he hands himself into a police station, followed by a comic attempt to get himself arrested, before prison and the DT’s* or bedbugs I’m never quite sure which, we then watch him replace one addiction for another (tobacco) which we then learn all about, as well as the codes of practice in prison.

 

In this fantastic work of autofiction, Hans Fallada, paints a darkly comic surreal world where everything is reduced to a simple impulse – to feed ones addiction, all else is subsidiary.

 

Hans Fallada (Wiki)

About the life and work of Hans Fallada(A fantastic Resource)

Translator

Poet and translator Michael Hofmann was born in Freiburg, West Germany in 1957.The son of the German novelist Gert Hofmann, his translation of his father's novel The Film Explainer won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 1995. He grew up in England and attended schools in Edinburgh and Winchester. He read English Literature and Classics at Magdalene College, Oxford, and studied as a postgraduate at the University of Regensburg and Trinity College, Cambridge from 1979 to 1983. Since 1983 he has worked as a freelance writer, translator and reviewer. for more information check out the links below..

 

Michael Hofmann(Wiki)

British council(Michael Hofmann)

* Both were first published posthumously in German, in the form translated here, in 1997 under the title Drei Jahre Kein Mensch: Erlebtes, Erfahrenes, Erfundenes. This English translation is by Michael Hofmann.

* Delirium Tremens - An acute, sometimes fatal episode of delirium that is usually caused by withdrawal or abstinence from alcohol following habitual excessive drinking and that is characterized by sweating, trembling, anxiety, confusion, and hallucinations.