Nobel Prize for Literature

Herta Müller wins Nobel Prize in Literature. Herta Müller, the Romanian-born German novelist and essayist who writes of the oppression of dictatorship in her native country and the unmoored existence of the political exile, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. Is this her?  I've never heard of her so am not 100% sure. Is that the Nobel Prize? It looks oddly like an Emmy. The outfit seems a little glitzy for the Nobels but hey---Doris Lessing can't win every year. Which gives us the perfect entre into viewing the video on YouTube of Doris Lessing's winning of the Nobel again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuBODHFBZ8k&feature=youtube_gdata

So much more adorable than Herta Müller and I believe the plaid shirted man behind her is holding not a Nobel/Emmy but an artichoke. She should win every year.

Books I Plan to Read

But have yet to purchase.

What is Written in Barcelona...

Stays in Barcelona. I left it there. This was pretty bad. Gothic and overdone. A blurb on the cover from Stephen King says something about even the subplots having subplots, like that's a good thing! George chose to read a more intellectually challenging Colm Toibin memoir of his time in Barcelona. He chose the high road, I chose the low road. I recommend following George on this one. But let's meet in Barcelona, it's a fantastic city.

Madame Bovary

I hardly think I need to throw my hat into the ring of literary criticism of Flaubert's Madame Bovary---and some of you may even question my having a hat to throw---but I will say that this was a very good book. A surprisingly modern, readable universal story. Emma Bovary's quest for material possessions was almost yuppie-like in it's superficiality (do I really need 15 black skirts?). Her mounting debt made me think humbly of all my bills stuffed behind the radio in the kitchen. Her adultery....phew! Saved! And that's why it's called Madame Bovary and not Madame Gentes.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Did Alice Munro wake up one morning and decide she was Russian? Too Much Happiness is a very odd story---a novella in Harpers---about a Russian woman scientist and her affairs of the heart. Apparently Alice Munro happened to read up on this woman in an encyclopedia (how old fashioned is that?!) and became fascinated by her and decided to write a story about her. It seemed very alien for me from her other work. In fact I'd say now Elizabeth Strout is more like Alice Munro than Alice Munro is like Alice Munro.
So if you want Tolstoy read Alice Munro , if you want Alice Munro read Elizabeth Strout. Put that in the encyclopedia!

Heroic Measures

I really liked this book. About an elderly couple in Manhattan forced to sell their million dollar walk-up apartment for a similarly priced one in an elevator building. Their elderly dachshund Dorothy tells some of the story while they deal with her health problems. It's told over a 48 hour period that coincides with their open house, Dorothy's hospitalization and a terrorist situation happening in NYC. It's a quiet little book but very good.

Jane Gardam

I read this when I was a teenager in Mexico. Libreria Cristal had a small section of British books. They didn't carry American books because this was way before NAFTA. They used to cost like $15 or $16 pesos.

A Long Way from Verona is a sort of British wartime female version of the Catcher in the Rye. Most Jane Gardam novels are out of print in the U.S. now for some reason. I found this copy in a used bookstore. I remembered quite a bit of it from over 30 years ago so either I have a great memeory or it really resonated with me. It's about a young girl who wants to be a writer. Simple enough but clever and well written.

I can't imagine a teenager nowadays having much in common with the narrator. I suppose the present day version would be a young woman who wants to be a blogger, or is a blogger. Adolescence seemed to be more about longing and desire then, now is seems to be all fulfillment and purpose. No more 'Long Way from Verona' simply 'Verona'!