Over the weekend...
A day in the life of a smiling woman - Margaret Drabble *Margaret Drabble is the younger sister of the highly acclaimed English novelist Antonia (A) S. Byatt whose entire ouevre I've collected. I'm interested to read Drabble who has always I think to an extent lived in the shadow of her more famous sister despite the various accolades she has received, clearly indicating that she is likely a fine writer too. Blurb: Drabble’s novels have illuminated the past fifty years, especially the changing lives of women, like no others. Yet her short fiction has its own unique brilliance. Her penetrating evocations of character and place, her wide-ranging curiosity, her sense of irony—all are on display here, in stories that explore marriage, female friendships, the English tourist abroad, love affairs with houses, peace demonstrations, gin and tonics, cultural TV programs; in stories that are perceptive, sharp, and funny. An introduction by the Spanish academic José Fernández places the stories in the context of her life and her novels. This collection is a wonderful recapitulation of a masterly career.
Selected Stories of Merce Rodoreda *Rodoreda is considered the finest female writer to have come out of the Catalan region of Spain and this a good sampling of her short stories. Blurb: Collected here are thirty of Mercè Rodoreda’s most moving and inventive stories, presented in chronological order of their publication from three of Rodoreda’s most beloved short-story collections: Twenty-Two Stories, It Seemed Like Silk and Other Stories and My Christina and Other Stories. These short fictions capture Rodoreda’s full range of expression, from quiet literary realism to fragmentary impressionism to dark symbolism. Few writers have captured so clearly, or explored so deeply, the lives of women who are stuck somewhere between senseless modernity and suffocating tradition—Rodoreda’s women are notable for their almost pathological lack of volition, but also for their acute sensitivity, a nearly painful awareness of beauty.
Hav - Jan Morris *NYRB edn. I must confess I have never heard of this work which appears to be regarded a classic for a story that has all the ingredients of good SF by Ursula K LeGuin, who provides the introduction. Blurb: Hav is like no place on earth. Rumored to be the site of Troy, captured during the crusades and recaptured by Saladin, visited by Tolstoy, Hitler, Grace Kelly, and Princess Diana, this Mediterranean city-state is home to several architectural marvels and an annual rooftop race that is a feat of athleticism and insanity. As Jan Morris guides us through the corridors and quarters of Hav, we hear the mingling of Italian, Russian, and Arabic in its markets, delight in its famous snow raspberries, and meet the denizens of its casinos and cafés. When Morris published Last Letters from Hav in 1985, it was short-listed for the Booker Prize. Here it is joined by Hav of the Myrmidons, a sequel that brings the story up-to-date. Twenty-first-century Hav is nearly unrecognizable. Sanitized and monetized, it is ruled by a group of fanatics who have rewritten its history to reflect their own blinkered view of the past. Morris’s only novel is dazzlingly sui-generis, part erudite travel memoir, part speculative fiction, part cautionary political tale. It transports the reader to an extraordinary place that never was, but could well be.
this one. I am advised that this translation (David Luke's) is better than another translation of the work (which I think is called The Bachelor). It's not something that I would probably try to read in one day, since it is so slow and dreamy. I read it late in the evening over several days, and am sure I shall want to do so again.
