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       They've announced that Gerbrand Bakker's The Detour (published in the US as Ten White Geese), translated by David Colmer, has won the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. (Interestingly, the Readers' Prize and the shadow iffp selection both went to other books.)
       Ten White Geese (i.e. the US edition of The Detour) only came out in the US in 2013, so it wasn't eligible for the most recently (just a few weeks ago) awarded Best Translated Book Award (for 2012 titles), but will certainly be in the running next year.
       In 2010 Bakker won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for The Twin, so he already has two of the major English-language international book awards under his belt -- impressive (though two other author have also managed this particular double: Orhan Pamuk and Per Petterson (the latter with the same book)).

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       Last year was the Patrick White centenary, and among the highlights surrounding that was the posthumous publication (in Australia and the UK) of a novel he had begun in 1981 but left unfinished.
       Now Picador has brought out a US edition (as a beautiful little (i.e. appropriately -- more mass-market than trade -- sized) French-flapped paperback original) of The Hanging Garden -- and my review of it is the most recent addition to the complete review.
       It got good but not great critical attention in the UK (a lot of papers skipped it), but it's great to see that US coverage begins with a bang: apparently the cover-review of the coming (26 May) issue of The New York Times Book Review will be John Sutherland's take on the novel.
       (White has been critically and, especially, popularly neglected in recent years, and only a few of his titles are still in print (barely any in the US) -- but it wasn't always quite like that: recall that even something like The Twyborn Affair had been reviewed in, of all places, People (!) back in the day.)
       As longtime readers know, I'm a huge fan of White -- a batch of nine reviews (rather thin ones, I'm afraid) of White titles were among the first fifty-odd to appear on the site, more than 14 years ago (yes, back in April 1999), and almost all of his work is now under review (I'm saving up The Tree of Man, for a last hurrah -- and I still need to get my hands on a copy of Happy Valley).
       Unfinished and posthumous it may be, but The Hanging Garden is well worth your attention.

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       Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has been visiting India, and this has led to a variety of protocols, agreements, and 'memoranda of understanding' getting signed, as the two nations try to work more closely together in a number of areas.
       There's exciting stuff like 'coöperation in the field of sewage treatment' (something we certainly want the two most populous countries in the world to coöperate on) and 'coöperation in the field of water efficient irrigation'
       The one I'm most curious about, however, is number six: the "Memorandum of Understanding [...] on Cooperation in Mutual Translation and Publication of Classic and Contemporary Works".
       Yes, this:

MoU provides for a Joint Working Group that will coordinate translation and publication of 25 books of Classic and Contemporary Works of each side over a period of 5 years in to Chinese and Indian languages respectively.

       I'd love to see the list of books each side submits -- but regardless of the exact titles, it sounds like a very worthy undertaking (and maybe the start of something even bigger and better ?). Translation -- and cross-cultural exchange --, after all, is always something good.

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...have been announced.

The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book went to: 

Fair Coin, by E.C. Myers!

See this post for the rest of the shortlist and this post for the rest of the winners.

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...I wrote about M.M. Vaughan's The Ability, which wasn't a perfect match for me, but will very likely please younger fans of Roald Dahl.

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In Out of the Easy, Ruta Sepetys had me at hello. It begins:

My mother's a prostitute. Not the filthy, streetwalking kind. She's actually quite pretty, fairly well spoken, and has lovely clothes. But she sleeps with men for money or gifts, and according to the dictionary, that makes her a prostitute.

Seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine doesn't want to follow in her mother's footsteps. She's known that for years, and even though she still works at the same brothel as her mother—cleaning rooms, mind you—and even though she's on good terms with Willie Woodley, the woman who owns it, she's independent enough that she's kept her own apartment since she was eleven years old.

She works part-time at the bookstore below it, and she dreams of going to college. But when Josie dreams, she dreams big: she wants out of New Orleans, to start over somewhere up North, somewhere where she can reinvent herself—where no one knows who she is or what her mother does.

LOVE: THE DIALOGUE. Out of the Easy is set in 1950, and Sepetys' characters sling slang without sounding phony or overblown, and the dialogue zings back-and-forth like in an old movie. The characters speak in distinctive voices, and unlike in Strands of Bronze and Gold, those differences in vocabulary, rhythm, and diction are affected by economic class, vocation, and education, rather than being purely dictated by the color of one's skin.

LOVE: JOSIE. Her narration has a touch of the noir hero: deadpan, world-weary, and with an understanding of ironic humor. Unlike a noir hero, though, she is open about being emotionally affected by... things that are emotionally affecting. She's smart, she's canny, and rather than blushing and wanting to melt into the ground in embarrassing situations, she treats them as opportunities—I cheered out loud when she turned one around by becoming an impromptu blackmailer, and I swooned during another when she threw herself into a cute boy's lap to save herself (and him, to a degree) from some catty mean girls. 

LOVE: HER MOTHER. Well, no, actually, I loathed her mother. But I loved that she wasn't the Pretty-Woman-hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold, I loved that she wasn't secretly sympathetic, or selfless or particularly smart. She was completely self-absorbed, and while her behavior makes her come off as rotten and somewhat stupid, it's important to remember who's telling the story: Josie isn't exactly an objective party. The other women who work for Willie are a mixed bag of funny/serious/witty/quiet/ruthless/rude/mothering/mean/sensitive and everything in between, and it's easy to imagine that if another person had told the story, Louise would have come off as more human. Maybe. Then again, SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST TERRIBLE.

LOVE: THE BOOKS. Josie works in a bookstore, and she and her best friend Patrick have an ongoing game where they predict what sort of book customers will want. There are references to Dickens and Keats, Capote and even L'Engle. And, tangentially, Poe: Josie ends up with a dead man's watch—THAT'S RIGHT, ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ELSE, SHE INVESTIGATES A MURDER—under her floorboards, and she swears she can hear it ticking, ticking, ticking. Which, of course, evokes The Tell-Tale Heart.

LOVE: EVERYTHING ELSE. Sepetys is true to the era and her characters in how Patrick's story plays out; the romance is sweet and heartfelt; the details about 1950s life and culture work themselves in fluidly; Josie wants what she wants so badly that I was never quite sure about how far she'd go to get it; and while the ending certainly has some fairy-tale elements, there's enough bitter in the sweet to keep cynics (like me) from getting all up on their high horses.

Oh, I loved this book. As it's got the same combination of fantastically-rendered historical atmosphere—the dialogue is TO DIE FOR—and mystery elements, I highly, HIGHLY recommend it to fans of Judy Blundell's What I Saw and How I Lied.

____________________________

Author page.

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Amazon.

Publisher.

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Book source: Review copy from the publisher.

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       Tomorrow 21 May at Sotheby's in London, at 19:30, there will be An auction of fifty contemporary first edition books, annotated by their authors, with all proceeds benefiting English PEN .
       Check out all the lots -- some great stuff here -- and if you're in London you can view the items before the sale, today and tomorrow.
       See also the Sotheby's official page.

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       SaharaReporters has a Q & A with Wole Soyinka -- mainly about Chinua Achebe.
       Interesting stuff, including his early doubts about the Heinemann African Writers Series (whereby Sri Lanka might not be the best example -- given how little-known Sri Lankan literature remains abroad, a series might have been damn helpful ...).
       Of course the Nobel comes up, too -- which Soyinka won and Achebe didn't. As I noted a few days ago, the Swedish Academy has just settled on the five finalists for this year's prize. As a laureate, Soyinka can submit a name each year -- not that he gives much away here:

As a 'club member,' however, I can nominate, and it is no business of literary ignoramuses whom, if any, I do nominate. My literary tastes are eclectic, sustainable, and unapologetic.

       That sounds promising, at least.

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       Telegram Books have been publishing Icelandic author Sjón's books in the UK for a while now, and now he finally gets the proper treatment in the US as well, as Farrar, Straus and Giroux brought out a trio of his novels last week; two of them are the most recent additions to the complete review:

• The Blue Fox
• The Whispering Muse

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And now we come to the end of my re-read of Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War.

Previous installments are here, here, here, and here.

This is, hands down, the most bizarre cover I've come across. Is that a girl? Dancing? With a sock puppet? I don't even. THERE AREN'T EVEN ANY MAJOR FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE BOOK.

Chapter Twenty-nine: The sale turns around.

• Thanks to the Vigils, selling chocolate is suddenly cool. Carter hands wads and wads of money over to Brian Cochran and then tells him who to credit the sales to: it takes Cochran a few days before he realizes that Carter is distributing the sales to make it look as if EVERYONE is participating in the sale—not counting Jerry, of course—even though it's really only a few students doing all of the selling.
• Boys cheer when Cochran updates the sales roster, and it makes him feel like a football hero... which is ironic, as it's actually Jerry who's the football player.

Chapter Thirty: Brother Leon is now enjoying homeroom IMMENSELY.

• As in previous homeroom scenes, we get this from Goober's perspective: Goober, by the way, has stopped selling chocolates to stand in solidarity with Jerry. He hasn't gone so far as tell anyone—not even Jerry—but nonetheless, he did stop.
• Meanwhile, now that selling chocolates is cool, many of the other students have turned on Jerry. Which Brother Leon loves. Apparently everyone—including Brother Leon—has forgotten about that whole Nazi lesson back in Chapter Six.
• Later, Goober is dismayed to discover that his sales numbers have been updated: according to the roster, he's sold 50 boxes, rather than the 27 that he actually did sell: Out in the corridor, The Goober's breath came fast. But otherwise he felt nothing. He willed himself to feel nothing. He didn't feel rotten. He didn't feel like a traitor. He didn't feel small and cowardly. And if he didn't feel all these things, then why was he crying all the way to his locker? Again and again, Cormier highlights the feelings of shame that the victim feels: Jerry felt it when his locker was vandalized, and Goober feels it now. In each case, the wronged party is the one who feels guilty.

Chapter Thirty-one: The return of Janza.

• Janza accosts Jerry and tries to goad him into starting a fight by calling him gay. Which literally almost makes Jerry vomit. (I'd like to say that everything about that situation is another example of dated material in the book, but... sadly, not so much.)
• Rather than beating Jerry personally, though, Janza does him one worse and hires a bunch of LITTLE KIDS to do it. I hate Janza.

Chapter Thirty-two: But, oh no, beating the crap out of him isn't enough.

• Jerry drags himself home and into bed, but the phone calls continue. And now they're staking out his apartment building, cat-calling and stage-whispering "Jerry, come out to PLAAAAYYYYYY" and the like. Which, of course, made me think of this bit from The Warriors. (Twin Peaks fans: NOTE THAT THAT IS A YOUNG JERRY HORNE. Always crazy, is our David Patrick Kelly.)

Chapter Thirty-three: Janza and Archie.

• As if anyone had any doubt, it was Archie who put Janza into beating up Jerry. (Using the kids, though, was Janza's own brilliant idea, and Archie isn't happy about it: not only because he likes being completely in control, but because strategically, the less people involved, the less possible problems.)
• Archie also suggests to Janza that there might not actually be a blackmail photo: a statement that makes Janza feel both relieved and angry.

Chapter Thirty-four: Jerry's day of invisibility.

• Everyone ignores Jerry. They don't just ignore him, they look through him. EVEN THE TEACHERS. His locker has been emptied and scrubbed clean, like he's been erased. Goober isn't in school that day, so he has no anchor.
• But then, something snaps, the period of invisibility is over, and someone tries to push him down a flight of stairs.
• Meanwhile, the final tally has been done, and, according to the numbers, every single box of chocolates has been sold. Well, every box except for Jerry's 50. Brian Cochran briefly starts wondering about Jerry, about this one stubborn kid standing against the Vigils, against Brother Leon, against Trinity itself, and he has a moment of almost-compassion. But then he figures, oh, whatever, who cares, I'm out of here at the end of the year.
• Archie informs Obie that there's going to be a school-wide, students-only assembly the next night, and it will involve Jerry Renault, the last fifty boxes of chocolates, and a raffle.

Chapter Thirty-five: If Archie Costello promised you anything "fair and square", would you believe him?

• Archie promises to give Jerry a chance, "fair and square" at revenge, and Jerry goes along with it. So, now he and Janza are standing in a boxing ring, stripped to the waist, and waiting for the raffle tickets to be sold. 

Chapter Thirty-six: And what, exactly, is the deal with those raffle tickets?

• Well, I'll tell you: on each raffle ticket, the purchaser writes down a boxer's name—Renault or Janza—the move said boxer is to execute, and then the purchaser's own name.
• If you think that many students are going to allow Jerry to throw any punches, you're going to be sorely disappointed: Archie might be a sociopath, but he's got a decent-if-pessimistic understanding of human nature: "You see, Carter, people are two things: greedy and cruel. so we have a perfect set-up here. The greed part—a kid pays a buck for a chance to win a hundred. Plus fifty boxes of chocolates. The cruel part—watching two guys hitting each other, maybe hurting each other, while they're safe in the bleachers. That's why it works, Carter, because we're all bastards." 
• That explanation leaves Carter—who apparently has always thought of himself as "one of the good guys"”feeling understandably uncomfortable and guilty. But, you know: he doesn't do anything about it.
• Obie—along with, it turns out, Carter—makes an attempt to take Archie down by bringing out the box of marbles. In the Hollywood version of this story, Archie would draw a black one. But not in Cormier's world: Archie is forced to draw two marbles, one for Jerry, one for Janza, and his luck holds both times.
• HA. On a hunch, I just looked it up, and SURPRISE, SURPRISE, they changed this scene in the movie: Archie pulls a black marble and has to take Janza's place in the boxing match. Also, crazily enough, ADAM BALDWIN PLAYS CARTER.

Chapter Thirty-seven: The fight.

• It's just as awful as I remembered it being.
• And, of course, Brother Leon stood there and silently watched the whole thing happen.

Chapter Thirty-eight: The aftermath.

• Goober holds Jerry's broken body in his arms as he and a few stragglers wait for an ambulance. And Jerry tries to tell Goober what he's learned from all of this, but there's "something wrong with his mouth, his teeth, his face" and so the words won't come out right. But this is what he wants to say: They tell you to do your thing but they don't mean it. They don't want you to do your thing, not unless it happens to be their thing. It's a laugh, Goober, a fake. Don't disturb the universe, Goober, no matter what the posters say." Not one for sugar-coating things, was Cormier.
• Archie and Brother Leon, meanwhile, get away with everything, their power and reputations intact: Beautiful. Leon and The Vigils and Archie. What a great year it was going to be.

Chapter Thirty-nine: Obie and Archie, back in the bleachers.

• Judging by their conversation—much of which mirrors their first conversation in the book—not much of anything appears to have changed: if Jerry overheard it, he'd be likely to assume that his attempt to disturb the universe had no affect whatsoever. But Goober will be forever changed by it, and possibly even Carter. And someone informed Brother Jacques about what was happening. So, on the surface, no. Nothing was disturbed. But underneath? Maybe.

Ag. Now I'm all emotionally drained and busted. I need a nap. And maybe some ice cream.

Links!

Kelly: Inspired by -- and Read Alikes to -- The Chocolate War

Liz: The Chocolate War Wrap Up

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I'm going to finish up my re-read of Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War with TWO BIG POSTS.

Previous installments are here, here and here.

Okay, settle in!

Chapter Eighteen: In which Jerry has a long dark night of the soul.

• It turns out that Jerry didn't mean to continue to refuse to sell the chocolates. He'd been looking forward to the ordeal being over: the tension with Leon, the shunning by the other students, being watched by the Vigils. But that 'No' just popped out of his mouth.
• He lies there in bed, these thoughts going round and round in his head, and even thinking of the girl he saw downtown in a sweater that "bulged beautifully" (<--gross) doesn't help to distract him.

Chapter Nineteen: In which Jerry fully commits to his stance.

• Before homeroom, Jerry is approached separately by three other students: two upperclassmen and The Goober. The upperclassmen praise Jerry; The Goober pleads with him to back down, because "Brother Leon won't let you get away with it."
• A poster in Jerry's locker with a T.S. Eliot quote—Do I dare disturb the universe?—is described in detail, as it's one of those images that always comes to me when I think of the book (like the eyes on the billboard in The Great Gatsby), I was surprised that its appearance came so late in the story.
• And the chapter ends with this: He was swept with sadness, a sadness deep and penetrating, leaving him desolate like someone washed up on a beach, a lone survivor in a world full of strangers. The imagery ties back to the poster, of course, but I especially love the mix of emotions that it suggests, some of them conflicting: he's both abandoned and been abandoned by everyone else; he has gained an understanding of the world (even if it's a vague feeling that he can't fully articulate) that no one else seems to share; he's sad for everyone and everything.

Chapter Twenty: In which we see that Obie really is sick and tired of Archie.

• And who could blame him, really? Everyone knows that Archie is the true leader of the Vigils, and so he gets all of the glory for every stunt that they pull off... but who's the one who has to deal with the real pressure, who has to be sure that all of the stunts run smoothly? Obie, that's who. Archie doesn't respect him, doesn't appreciate him.
• The prank described in this chapter—every time a certain teacher uses the word 'environment', the students all jump up and dance around like crazy for a minute—is brilliant and hilarious. (Though, like many of the others, it creates an undercurrent of fear and apprehension, too.) But it's also a great example of Archie, once again, playing puppetmaster with EVERYONE: he has no loyalty to anyone but himself, and once he's bored with the teacher's discomfort, he turns the tables and makes the students the victims.

Chapter Twenty-one: Jerry's insurrection is a spark that threatens to become a conflagration.

• Students are talking; Jerry's outward show of defiance has made him somewhat of a symbol/inspiration to his peers—even though he certainly never meant for it to, and even though he'd rather for it to have never happened. Which actually makes me think of another unwitting/unwilling person-turned-symbol: Katniss in The Hunger Games. One of the major differences being, of course, that Katniss has A) a support network, and B) a clear-cut enemy to rebel against. Jerry isn't rebelling against an obvious authoritarian regime—though obviously the school administration and the Vigils are both authorities that bring pressure to bear—he's rebelling (again, though, not completely consciously) against his perception of WHAT LIFE IS. Ag. Poor Jerry. I do feel for him.
• This chapter is a great example of the portrayal of the objectification/dehumanization of women that plays out in The Chocolate War: in the first vignette, we have Kevin Chartier's take on his mother—...trying to ignore his mother who stood near the phone making sounds at him. Kevin had learned long ago to translate whatever she was saying into gibberish. She could talk her head off now and the words reached his ears without meaning.—and then we have Richy Rondell, who stands around outside the drugstore 'feast[ing] himself' on the girls who walk by by committing 'rape by eyeball'.
• Meanwhile, in an effort to discomfit Archie, Obie—who, even though he pretty much brings about our innocent hero's downfall, is one of the more likable characters in the book—tells him that Jerry has A) defied the Vigils by continuing to refuse to sell chocolates, and B) reminds Archie that he promised Brother Leon that the Vigils would support the sale.

Chapter Twenty-two: Sales numbers are down; Brother Leon is taking it hard.

• Sales haven't just slowed, they've virtually come to a halt. And Brother Leon—who sees Jerry Renault as just as much of a symbol as the students do, but a symbol that needs to be crushed—forces Brian Cochran to read every single name and number on the list aloud. It's a creepy scene, and suggests that Leon has gone round the bend.

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Goober refuses to play ball.

• The Goober is tired of Trinity. The Vigils are a part of it, but only a part. He feels like there's something 'rotten' and 'evil' there, and he doesn't want to give any more of himself to Trinity than he already has: so he's quitting football, and he's not going out for track in the spring.
• He never says it, but it seems likely that the 'rotten' feeling he's picking up on has to do with the fact that he seems to be the only one who feels any amount of sympathy for Brother Eugene, or guilt for his part in his nervous breakdown.
• Jerry, meanwhile, is in love with Ellen Barrett, a girl at their bus stop. I could be wrong, but she might be the only named female character in the entire book.

Chapter Twenty-four: Brother Leon and Archie throw down.

• There are a lot of references to obscene phone calls in this book—in this chapter specifically, Brother Leon's heavy breathing is likened to one—and that, along with the hippie, is one of the few things that date the book. (Because that's not really still a thing, is it? Obscene phone calls? Now that we have caller ID and *69 and all that?)
• Archie and Leon are both starting to lose their grasp on authority: Leon out-and-out orders Archie to use the Vigils to deal with the failing chocolate sale, which A) means that he's admitting that the situation is out of his control and B) that Archie and the Vigils have legitimate power, but C) not so much power that he can't order them around. I feel that there are approximately one billion possible term papers in this book.

Chapter Twenty-five: Jerry is summoned to appear before the Vigils.

• It doesn't go particularly well: Archie asks Jerry to start selling chocolates. He doesn't manipulate him into offering, he doesn't even order him. He asks. It's a scene that makes it even more evident that Archie is losing his grasp on power: he knows it, Obie knows it, and Carter—remember him? the supposed President of the Vigils?—knows it.

Chapter Twenty-six: Jerry calls Ellen Barrett.

• It doesn't go well.
• Also, she uses the word 'crap', which 'destroys all illusion' about her. Which is yet another great example of the Women As Non-Human thread in the book.
• Despite crashing and burning on the phone, Jerry's proud of himself for taking the plunge. And he has a moment—a moment—of pride about standing firm about the chocolates.

Chapter Twenty-seven: The Vigils REALLY begin to implode.

• Archie missteps by bringing in Frankie Rollo in for an assignment. Rollo, a junior already known for being trouble, mocks the proceedings (and the Vigils, and Archie) until Carter steps in and punches him.
• Which changes everything, because to keep the power dynamic intact, Archie has to let it ride, and in doing so, endorses physical violence as an option.
• But even after all of Archie's strategizing, Carter makes his move, and puts Archie on 'probation' until the Jerry Renault situation is handled and the Vigils are once more feared and respected on the Trinity campus.
• Archie is DISPLEASED.

Chapter Twenty-eight: Things start to get bad for Jerry.

• Someone assaults him on the football field, he gets prank phone calls at home at all hours, his locker is vandalized—the poster gets especially trashed—and one of his school assignments is stolen.
• In the midst of all this, he suddenly understands the poster: ...the solitary man on the beach standing upright and alone and unafraid, poised at the moment of making himself heard and known in the world, the universe.

Links!

Kelly: The Chocolate War: A Cover Retrospective, Foreign Editions and The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Liz: The Chocolate War: Read A Long Part 4 and Review: The Chocolate War

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       In The Australian they have an adapted version of Helen Garner's keynote speech last month at the inaugural Stella Prize, the new Australian literary prize that only considers works by women -- though in speaking about The losing game of writing books to win Garner's focus isn't on the women-only aspect as instead she talks more generally:

about the bizarre effects of prizes on people's idea of their own worth, and about the undeniable fact that every girl who writes needs a bucket of cash to be thrown over her at least once in her life, so she can soldier on, and even feel for a while that it's been worth the torture.

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       I missed this last week, but they've announced the longlist for the (South African) Sunday Times Fiction Prize -- where, unusually for a literary prize, once again: "A large number of books on the longlist this year are crime novels".
       Among the authors of note with books on the 31-title-strong longlist are: Michiel Heyns, Nadine Gordimer, Imraan Coovadia (with the wonderfully titled The Institute for Taxi Poetry -- which I'd love to see), and Andre Brink.

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       They're holding this year's 'Festival international du livre et du film' Étonnants Voyageurs this weekend -- and that's a pretty fine and packed list of participants they have there.

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       The 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature will only be announced in October, but previously the Swedish Academy -- who select the winner -- had revealed that 195 eligible names were submitted for consideration, of which 48 were first-timers (see my previous mention). Now, as they've tweeted:

5 candidates have been selected for 2013 #NobelPrize in #Literature according to Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy.

       The permanent secretary, Peter Englund, goes into a bit more detail at his weblog, Att vara ständig -- and apparently the five names have only been submitted; it's not entirely final until the last session before the summer at the end of the month.

       A couple of observations here:

        - No, they don't reveal the names. Not until fifty (and a half) years from now. In fact, they try very hard to keep them secret.

        - As I've repeatedly stressed: you have to be in it to win it -- or to make the shortlist. Which is easier said than done. There's a lot of Nobel/Swedish Academy bashing that misses this point.
       Consider, for example, Forged-author Jonathon Keats' recent Wired piece, Don't Hate Google for Reader - Award It the Nobel Prize for Books [sic]. He begins:

When the Nobel Prizes launched in 1901, possible choices for the award in literature, bestowed upon a living writer to honor their entire life's work, included such historical titans as Leo Tolstoy, Edith Wharton, and Henry James.

       The thing is, as a search for the 1901 nominees shows, Tolstoy, Wharton, and James were not among the names submitted to the Swedish Academy for consideration -- while eventual laureate Sully Prudhomme was nominated by three individuals (including a University of Uppsala professor), as well as a whole gang of French academicians -- i.e. he had a lot of support.
       This is relevant, because easy as it is for outsiders to say authors X,Y, and Z are obviously the most deserving, someone still has to nominate them for them to (possibly) make the final cut. So, for example, the information that this year the Swedish Academy tried to reach out to more African academics in the nominating procedure might suggest that there's a higher-than-usual chance of African names appearing in the pool the finalists were selected from. On the other hand, less well-known writers from less widely translated languages -- especially authors not in official favor (in a lot of these countries official writers' bodies do the nominating) -- are disadvantaged.

        - The only author whose nomination has widely (and controversially) been acknowledged is Paul Goma, his name submitted by the Writers' Union of Moldavia; see, for example, the Mediafax report -- and e.g. the Times of Israel report, Author accused of anti-Semitism nominated for Nobel. (His nomination can't just be dismissed out of hand as (noxious) political posturing, either: he doesn't stand much of a chance of winning -- after Herta Müller, it's unlikely another Romanian dissident would get the prize so soon -- but he's not just some two-bit hack (and he had very good dissident cred back in the day); among his books available in English is My Childhood at the Gate of Unrest (published by Readers International); (try to) get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.)

       In any case, now that the list is down to a manageable five, things get more interesting. The Swedish Academy members, who will be reading up on the finalists, will try to be careful, but it's probably pretty hard for all of them to cover their reading-tracks convincingly: it seems pretty clear, for example, that Mo Yan's name cropped up more last summer than they would have liked (which is why he found himself a betting favorite right from the start of last year's Nobel betting-season).
       The fact that a finalist or two or all five are identified only gets us so much closer to the actual winner -- who they only decide on in late September/early October, after all, but it's nice to be able to narrow the list down .....
       I wonder whether Swedish bookshops (or the various European Amazons -- surely some of the finalists' books will have to be ordered from abroad, as it's unlikely they have all been translated into Swedish) are tracking bigger orders to the Academy or the members ..... And a closer translation-watch is probably also called for: the Academy is apparently willing to commission translations of untranslated works, so if a translator from some obscure language suddenly has a big hush-hush project going .....

       At this point, the fact that they're down to five names doesn't get us (immediately) any closer to figuring out who the likely winner is (or, indeed, who is left in the running). Will Chinua Achebe's passing and the nominations from more African academics nudge them towards some continental names -- perennials like Nuruddin Farah or Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (or, dare I hope, someone like Ayi Kwei Armah) ? Did someone remember to nominate The Colonel-author Mahmoud Dowlatabadi, whose work-available-in-translation may have finally hit the critical level where he can't readily be overlooked any longer ? Will they toss it at Philip Roth, now that the old man has promised not to write any more books ?

       Here's hoping Swedes everywhere (and anyone in places where these academicians vacation) are keeping a close eye on the reading material the Swedish Academicians are lugging around ..... Sightings and gossip are always welcome here, too, if you have any to offer ..... Read the rest of this post

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       In the Asahi Shimbun Mariko Nakamura reports that When it comes to publishing Haruki Murakami in English, nothing is lost in translation, revealing that Philip Gabriel:

is now translating Murakami's latest best-seller, Shikisai o Motanai Tazaki Tsukuru to, Kare no Junrei no Toshi [色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年] (Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage).

       And:

He plans to complete the translation by the year-end, with publication expected in 2014.

       Also:

"It is a very realistic book, like Norwegian Wood," Gabriel said in an e-mail interview. "To me, it seems more serious, even somber, compared to some of his other novels, but one ultimately that is hopeful."

       Don't worry, Murakami's other translator, Jay Rubin hasn't been forgotten, and he:

is currently translating Murakami's Ozawa Seiji-san to, Ongaku ni Tsuite Hanashi o Suru [小澤征爾さんと, 音楽について話をする] (Talking with Seiji Ozawa about music), which was published in 2011.

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My re-read of The Chocolate War continues!

Previous installments are here and here.

Chapter Twelve: In which Jerry has his last perfect moment in a long, long time.

• Jerry's at football practice, and his frustration about—and this is my interpretation, as he hasn't actually articulated the feeling—being rudderless and acted UPON rather than being the ACTOR in his own life, as well as being dismissed as insignificant and a nonentity by all of the forces who use him continues: What infuriated Jerry was that Carter toppled him gently, lowering him to the ground almost tenderly as if to prove his superiority. I don't have to murder you, kid, it's easy enough this way, Carter seemed to be saying. Long-windedness cut short: FORESHADOWING.
• Then the next pay is successful, and Jerry has a moment of "absolute bliss"... but then he goes inside to change, he finds a letter from the Vigils taped to his locker.

Chapter Thirteen: The first day of the chocolate sale.

• The Room Nineteen prank isn't sitting well with The Goober. At first, he felt like a folk hero and he enjoyed the butt-patting popularity, but there are rumors that Brother Leon is carrying on an investigation and that Brother Eugene has had a nervous breakdown. Also, there's this: The room would never be the same again, of course. The furniture creaked weirdly, as if it would collapse again without warning. The various teachers who used the room were uneasy—you could tell they were apprehensive. Once in a while, some guy would drop a book just to see the teacher flinch or leap in panic. So. Things that are broken—like, completely, utterly destroyed—and then mended... are never quite the same again. UNSETTLING THOUGHT, INDEED. By which I mean: FORESHADOWING.
• And then Brother Leon does role call, and asks each boy if he will participate in the chocolate sale, and every boy in the room says yes... except Jerry. And, as you might expect, even though this sale is supposedly entirely voluntary, refusing does not go over well: "You may pick up your chocolates in the gym, gentlemen," Brother Leon said, his eyes bright—wet bright. "Those of you who are true sons of Trinity, that is. I pity anyone who is not." That terrible smile remained on his face. "Class dismissed," Leon called although the bell had not sounded.

Chapter Fourteen: Time passes. Boys sell chocolates. 

• I love the structure of this chapter: Cormier shows the passage of time with brief vignettes of random students selling chocolates interspersed with scenes of the daily battle of wills between Brother Leon and Jerry in homeroom. His ability to create three-dimensional, believable characters with just a few paragraphs is lovely, as is his trust in his audience to be able to keep up with the rapid pace of the scene changes. 
• Using The Goober as our window to those homeroom scenes is another great choice on Cormier's part: he's already been shown to be more sensitive to and aware of tension and conflict than many of the other students, so his view of the situation is especially perceptive.
• Meanwhile, the kid who was appointed Candy Treasurer is pretty sure that Brother Leon is cooking the books...

Chapter Fifteen: In which we find out what Archie is holding over Janza's head.

• And, in a word, is is nothing: he's just PRETENDING to have a photo of Janza masturbating in a school bathroom. I don't even. (If it'd been a different character, this situation never would have worked, but as Janza is, as Willow Rosenberg would say, ID BOY, it makes complete sense to me that he would wander into a bathroom and think, "Hmmm, broken lock, no real privacy, well, now's as good a time as any.")
• The Archie/Janza scenes are always interesting; Janza acts like he thinks he's Archie's equal, but clearly knows that he isn't—he craves acceptance, but would never ever admit it; Archie very definitely looks down on Janza, but respects the fact that his unpredictability and inherent brutality makes him dangerous.
• I just noticed, too, that Archie and Jerry are the only two characters who are regularly referred to by their first names. Oh, wait, Obie, too.

Chapter Sixteen: In which a random student has a devastating flash of insight.

• Brother Leon holds a bad grade over David Caroni's head to find out what the deal is with Jerry Renault: Were teachers like everyone else, then? Were teachers as corrupt as the villains you read about in books or saw in movies and television? He'd always worshipped his teachers, had though of becoming a teacher himself if he could overcome his shyness.
• Which, of course, makes me think of River Phoenix's monologue in Stand By Me about stealing the milk money. Like I said, devastating.
• Anyway, now Brother Leon knows that Jerry's Vigil assignment ends tomorrow, and that he will say 'yes', start selling chocolates, and all will be right with the world.

Chapter Seventeen: In which Jerry does the unthinkable.

• He says no.

Links!

Kelly: Guest Post: Why The Chocolate War Matters by Angie Manfredi

Liz: The Chocolate War Read A Long Part Three

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       In the Times of India Parinatha Sampath reports that Now, authors prefer to be in control of their stories, as in India too authors are taking the self-publishing route.
       Here, too, authors already complain:

Publishers do avoid taking a risk with anything that is considered 'non-commercial'

       As I noted yesterday, one of the just-announced Commonwealth Prize regional winners also self-published; I find it hard not to see the increasing success many self-published writers are finding a sign that publishers are falling down on the job.

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       At the Words without Borders Dispatches weblog Alison Anderson wonders Where Are the Women in Translation ? noting that for translated works women authors are under-represented even more than the abysmal VIDA count has for reviews (and bylines, etc.) in general:

Twenty-six percent, however, is just an average I have chosen from my informal and hardly exhaustive or scientific survey into the percentage of women authors published in translation in a given year. (If anyone would like a more precise breakdown of the numbers, please contact me.)

       As I've noted many times previously, female authors are grossly under-represented among authors reviewed at the complete review -- historically (and pretty consistently) barely over 15 per cent of all reviewed titles are by female authors. (Yes, the most recently added review is of a book by a woman; yes, two of the past three added reviews are by women -- but look at say the last thirty or so titles and you're right back at that historic average .....)
       As Ruth Franklin noted on the subject in A Literary Glass Ceiling ? at The New Republic two years ago, one of the reasons for less reviews of books authored by women is simply because there are less of them to review -- maybe not across the board, but among the books considered by them (and me). So, for example, she found independents clearly under-publish women:

Graywolf, with 25 percent female authors, was our highest-scoring independent. The cutting-edge Brooklyn publisher Melville House came in at 20 percent. The doggedly leftist house Verso was second-to-last at 11 percent. Our lowest scorer ? It pains me to say it, because Dalkey Archive Press publishes some great books that are ignored by the mainstream houses. But it would be nice if more than 10 percent of them were by women.

       (I note that Dalkey Archive is one of the publishers who have put out the most books under review at the complete review -- well over 100 (and, yes, there's probably something sexist about my reviewing so many of their books ...).)
       Interestingly, this seems a particular issue with works in translation -- leading back to Anderson's question. Indeed, as I mentioned when I first mentioned Franklin's piece, some independents do even worse than the ones she looked at -- including, shockingly, translation-specialist Archipelago: a quick count suggests that out of 88 titles in their catalog only seven are authored by women (and four of those are by the same author, Magdalena Tulli). Another newer translation-focused publisher is Open Letter, and while at 12 out of 50 it scores considerably better, that (women still come in as authors of less than a quarter of all titles) still doesn't really impress.

       This seems to be a really deep-rooted problem/issue, and publishers really might want to look into this: I note, for example, that of the sixteen just announced 2013 English PEN grants for translation (see also below) two are anthologies, thirteen of the to-be-translated books are by men, and one is by a woman (Julia Franck). Seriously folks ? (Note that female translators, on the other hand, are very nicely represented.)

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       English PEN has announced its 2013 awards for promotion (of five translated titles) and for translation (sixteen titles).
       Some promising-looking stuff here -- and, of course, I'm thrilled to see another book by The Colonel-author Mahmoud Dowlatabadi forthcoming in translation.

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However! It'll be a bit different this year:

MotherReader has decided to take a well-deserved break from hosting duties, so Ms. Yingling and Abby the Librarian have waded into the fray and TAKEN CHARGE.

Regardless! Start organizing your TBR pile, because June 7th will be here BEFORE YOU KNOW IT.

I'd better remind Joshua that he'll need to find something to do that weekend that DOESN'T involve standing in front of me and chanting, "PAY ATTENTION TO ME, PAY ATTENTION TO ME, PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEEEEEEE!"

Huh. In retrospect, I realize that I should have hidden The 5th Wave from him until that weekend: then he could have participated, too! (He's LOVING it, by the way. Judging purely by his reaction to it—he's been going to bed EARLY every night so he can start reading SOONER—I'm really looking forward to my turn with it.)

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While there are loads and loads of Hollywood-themed YA books—most recently, I especially enjoyed Rachel Shukert's Starstruck—I'm going to point you back to Cecil Castellucci's first book, Boy Proof.

Which, many years and many books later, is still my favorite Castellucci.

It's about Victoria—call her Egg—the daughter of a has-been actress and a Oscar-winning special effects artist: 

She is extremely bright, and likes people to be aware of that fact. She likes routine and she likes to be in control. She likes to be seen as a loner. Although she's a photographer for the school newspaper and is a member of the sci-fi club, she avoids much interaction with her fellow students. She isn't (that) rude—she will talk to them if asked a direct question, but she doesn't generally initiate conversation. She's comfortable with the way things are.   

I fell for this book immediately. Ron Koertge called it "compulsively readable", and I agree. I read half of it last night, then tossed and turned for ages before I finally gave up on sleep and got up to finish it.

Love.

Other favorite Hollywood books?

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Spoilers about Belles are a necessity!

OKAY. SO.

After long-lost cousins Isabelle Scott (from the Wrong Side of the Tracks, basically the North Carolina version of Chino) and Mirabelle Monroe (from Emerald Cove, basically the North Carolina version of the O.C.) found out that they were ACTUALLY SISTERS, life for both of them changed YET AGAIN.

Only actually not that much. Yes, they have to do a bunch of press stuff so as to save their father's political career, but mostly it's just more of the same: dealing with mean girls at school and trying to save Izzy's beloved community center and misunderstandings and boy troubles and so on.

And never fear, O.C. fans, this installment continues to channel the show: WINTER WHITE IS (in part) ABOUT COTILLION.

The only thing missing is Tate Donovan getting punched in the face.

Be ready for some clunky exposition—Cotillion! How could Mira have forgotten about her favorite tradition in Emerald Cove? Making her formal debut into society was something she had dreamed about since she was in pre-K. She'd spent the last three years preparing for the sophomore girl tradition—taking etiquette classes, going to Saturday morning dance lessons, and doing approved Junior League charity work—and somehow she had let all this drama with her dad make her completely forget the most important event of the year!—but wait, there's more!—Cotillion pledging. Rush. Debutante initiation. Whatever you wanted to call it, Mira had forgotten about this secret tradition, too.—and then the narrator goes on to explain it all in detail, but I'm sure you get the point, so I'll spare you. 

And I was disappointed that Calonita [SPOILER] apparently fed the same exact criteria into the Random Villain Generator, because JEEZ LOUISE, AN UP-AND-COMING POLITICAL FAMILY JUST CAN'T GET RELIABLE HELP THESE DAYS. [/SPOILER]

Perfect? No. Literary pyrotechnics? Double no.

But I love how Izzy and Mira have become a team—much like Seth Cohen and Ryan Atwood, of course—and if you go in for this sort of thing (as I do), as long as you're prepared to overlook some rough spots, it's fun stuff. I'll be reading book three soon-ish.

____________________________

Author page.

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Amazon.

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Book source: ILLed through my library.

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       In Al-Ahram Weekly Youssef Rakha considers The four avatars of Hassan Blasim.
       See also my review of Blasim's The Madman of Freedom Square.

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       The most recent addition to the complete review is a review-overview of Carlos Gamerro's The Islands -- a novel with some appeal, but one that ultimately just wore me down.

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