A Different Expat Experience: Montserrat

The Volcano, Montserrat and me: Twenty Years with an active volcano (Lally Brown)
2015; 278 pages
World tour stop #32

There are no novels by Montserratian authors that I could find, so I included this interesting non-fiction book by a British woman who lived in Montserrat with her husband who was in the British overseas service. The title is a bit misleading: the book does not cover twenty years. It covers mostly the period 1995 to 1998. During that time, a volcano which had been dormant for hundreds of years came to very active life. The book describes life on the island with that reality. How was this not on my radar at that time, or since then?

Blurb: ‘An enchanting slice of Paradise’ is how the travel brochures described Montserrat in 1995. The tiny Caribbean island was advertised as ‘a piece of heaven on earth’. A romantic tourist destination with beautiful tropical scenery and a laid-back lifestyle. A relaxed retreat where visitors were assured of a warm and friendly welcome. Millionaires rubbed shoulders with the locals and pop legends like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Sting, Phil Collins, and Elton John came to record their latest albums.

Then, on the morning of Tuesday 18th July 1995, everything changed. After 350 years of dormancy the volcano in the Soufriѐre Hills above the capital of Plymouth stirred awake. On that first day a sulphurous smell filled the air, ashy steam was vented high into the sky and a roaring sound came from the hills. The authorities were caught completely unprepared and struggled to cope with the unfolding crisis. The island went into shock. This was only the beginning. As volcanic activity steadily increased Montserratians were thrown into panic. Half the population were evacuated from the island and the remainder fled in terror to northern Montserrat trying to escape the angry volcano. Life would never be the same again.

This is a personal diary of the first three years of the eruption (1995 to 1998) and concludes with a detailed summary of the years 1999 to 2015. Twenty years later and the Soufriѐre Hills Volcano is still active. The book is a powerful and graphic description of the realities of living with an unpredictable and extremely dangerous volcano, with the added hazard of several hurricanes.

There is tension, tragedy, stress and fear, but there is also much laughter and love.

Each volcanic eruption seems to have been worse than the previous one: each one is described as “the largest / highest / strongest to date.” The descriptions of the ash deposits and their consequences get a bit repetitive after a while… but that was the reality.

It was good to read some positive things about Prince Andrew, who visited the island twice during this period.   

I had every sympathy for the decision of the author and her husband to leave the island when they did.

Cemetery Life: France

Fresh Water for Flowers (Valérie Perrin, translated from the French by Hildegarde Serle)
2020; 496 pages
World tour stop #31

This showed up when I browsed through my local library’s ebook recommendations. I was in the mood for something European.

Blurb: Violette Toussaint is the caretaker at a cemetery in a small town in Bourgogne. Her daily life is lived to the rhythms of the hilarious and touching confidences of random visitors and her colleagues—three gravediggers, three groundskeepers, and a priest. Violette’s routine is disrupted one day by the arrival of police chief Julien Seul, wishing to deposit his mother’s ashes on the gravesite of a complete stranger. Julien is not the only one to guard a painful secret: his mother’s story of clandestine love breaks through Violette’s carefully constructed defences to reveal the tragic loss of her daughter, and her steely determination to find out who is responsible. The funny, moving, intimately told story of a woman who believes obstinately in happiness, Fresh Water for Flowers brings out the exceptional and the poetic in the ordinary. A delightful, atmospheric, absorbing tale.

Yes, the book is “well-written”, from the point of view of style and literary technique, and of engaging the reader. But I was left with the question: what’s going on here, morally? What is this “love” of which so many people speak? Marriage seems to mean nothing, there is no commitment, affairs okay, it’s simply the “feel-good” that matters. It’s more subtly put than that, of course, but that’s the bottom line. And it seems as if the author supports this, and tries to get the reader to support it too – or, rather, presumes that the reader does so.

I wish the themes had been really explored.

I never knew that “cemetery keeper” is a fulltime job in France. That’s the way it’s described here, anyway.   

A RARELY BROACHED SUBJECT: USA

A Bigamist’s Daughter (Alice McDermott)
1982; 290 pages
World tour stop #30

I picked this book up at a friend’s house; through her I’ve often come across interesting but less-well-known novels. And the title is catchy, right? So I’d count it for the world tour for USA.  

The “daughter” of the title is Elizabeth, editor-in-chief at a vanity press, who despises her job, her clients, and essentially herself for doing what she does. One day a wannabe author comes in with his story about a bigamist. Which interests Elizabeth (though not enough actually to read the manuscript). The author needs an ending for his story, though, and arranges to meet Elizabeth to talk further. Eventually they become sex-partners (I cannot say “lovers” because I didn’t see any indication of love on either side, just rather casual mutual using) and he delves into her background to try to find an ending for his own story…

There are interesting points brought up in this book, and the theme is very rarely addressed, as if it were still somehow taboo. But the unnecessary layers of abstraction and philosophising, as well as the unwarranted changing from first to third person narrator, didn’t bring me into the story. It was hard to care, really, about either Elizabeth or Tupper or her mother, or anyone (except for some of the minor characters, her office colleagues).

Blurb: Elizabeth Connelly sits in a New York office that looks like a real editor’s, but isn’t quite. Employed at a vanity press, Elizabeth watches the real world – of real struggles, passion, pain, and love – spin around her. Until one day, a young writer comes to her with a novel about a man who loves more than one woman at once. And suddenly Elizabeth will be awakened from her young urban professional slumber – by a man’s real touch, by a real story in search of an ending, by the unravelling of the greatest masquerade of all – in Alice McDermott’s luminous novel of memory, revelation, and desire.

I’ll be on the lookout for other books on this theme.   

HOW DO WE DEAL WITH THE (ILLEGAL) IMMIGRANTS? : GERMANY

Go, Went, Gone (Jenny Erpenbeck; translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky)
2017; 9hrs 49 mins audio (286 pages in print)
World tour stop #29

This is the second of the three books I bought last year with credits that were gifted to me (see my Oman review for the first), and I had my usual audio-book difficulty in staying with it. I chose a flight to Germany as the occasion to begin the book; perhaps I wouldn’t have begun it yet if it wasn’t for that.

Blurb: Go, Went, Gone is the masterful new novel by the acclaimed German writer Jenny Erpenbeck, “one of the most significant German-language novelists of her generation” (The Millions). The novel tells the tale of Richard, a retired classics professor who lives in Berlin. His wife has died, and he lives a routine existence until one day he spies some African refugees staging a hunger strike in Alexanderplatz. Curiosity turns to compassion and an inner transformation, as he visits their shelter, interviews them, and becomes embroiled in their harrowing fates. Go, Went, Gone is a scathing indictment of Western policy toward the European refugee crisis, but also a touching portrait of a man who finds he has more in common with the Africans than he realizes. Exquisitely translated by Susan Bernofsky, Go, Went, Gone addresses one of the most pivotal issues of our time, facing it head-on in a voice that is both nostalgic and frightening.

Yes, the problem of immigrants, especially of young, strong, violent, hurting men, is a problem everywhere in Europe, and is provoking an even more right-wing reactionary stance in many countries than in the few short years since this book was published. The thrust of the book – that the way forward is through real knowing, listening, and caring – is probably right; it’s also a bit facile to suggest it as a wide-scale solution.

The homeless immigrants in this book are a little bit too good to be true, I thought. One of them may or may not have stolen from Richard, the hero… that’s about it. Richard himself is a reasonably likeable character; his history on the Eastern side of the Berlin wall before its fall adds an interesting angle to the story, as does the background motif of the person who drowned in the lake which Richard’s house overlooks, and whose body has not been found.

I wonder if the author would make any changes in the book if she were writing it now, in 2024?

Top Ten Tue on Wed

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, aka Jana. It’s simple: each Tuesday is assigned a topic, and you post your top ten list that fits that topic. I’m not a regular, and though I had my post ready, I forgot to post it yesterday! Better late than never, perhaps? This week’s theme is New-to-me authors I discovered in 2023. Here are mine:

Rev Richard Coles, a Church of England clergyman, author of mystery stories (I read A Death in the Parish, it was SUPER), musician, broadcaster… I’ll read more of his.

David Devine (1904–1987) was a South African journalist and defence correspondent, and the author of adventure stories, thrillers, military politics and history books. I read Daughter of the Pangaran, historical fiction set in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the 1820s, about a young woman slave / sex object who stands up to her captor. Engrossing.

Oliver Harris: for an action-packed thriller, try his Ascension, a spy story set in Ascension Island and London.

Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Japanese author of Before the Coffee Gets Cold. I don’t like time travel books – but I liked this!

Peter Kerr is a Scotsman whose book about moving to live on a small homestead in Spain (Snowball Oranges) I enjoyed. It’s in the same genre as Peter Mayle’s A Year in France, etc.

Siba Shakib, Iranian-born, lived in Afghanistan, now in the USA. I bought an Italian translation of Samira and Samir, not realising that the original was in English (I thought it was Arabic). The book is about a girl who was raised as a boy, but very far from the contemporary western gender transition agenda. Beautiful writing.

Ratika Kapur, from India: The Private Life of Mrs Sharma is a terrific, first-person narrative about a dutiful Indian woman bringing up her son alone while her husband is working in Dubai to earn more money. It speeds along at an easy and interesting pace – until it trips you up, and you wonder whether you’ve been reading the last pages aright? The ending has a superb twist.

Áine Uí Fhoghlú, a native Irish-language speaker, wrote Éalú (“Escape”) as one of a series of books aimed at adult Irish-language learners. It’s short, but engaging. I was able to dredge up enough Irish from the depths of my memory to follow the tale, which deals with domestic violence and the vulnerability of immigrants.

The anonymous author of The Reluctant Carer. This man moved home to become full time carer to his elderly parents. It was not easy, though it had its hilarious moments. He tells it like it was. Like it is, for many. An extract from the blurb says it best: “Irresistibly funny, unflinching and deeply moving, this is a love letter to family and friends, to carers and to anyone who has ever packed a small bag intent on staying for just a few days. This is a true story of what it really means to be a carer, and of the ties that bind even tighter when you least expect it.”

Sarah Breen and Emer McLysaght. Yes, that is two people. But they write books together, the Aisling series (“women’s fiction” or “beach reads” or that other horrible phrase suggestive of fowl that I refuse to use). I don’t know how two people write a book, but these women manage it. I’d been hearing about their books for ages, and rather turned up my nose. But eventually I succumbed, and enjoyed Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling! the first in the series, funny and witty. Aisling and the City didn’t amuse me so much.  

So many ways to talk about ice: Svalbard and Jan Mayen

Cold Coast (Robyn Mundi)
2022; 288 pages
World tour stop #28

Svalbard and Jan Mayen collectively form an archipelago on the Arctic Ocean at the extreme north of Norway. Both areas are administered by Norway as special status territories. Svalbard is “a desert in the Arctic”: nothing grows there, as nothing can take root in its permafrost. It is the classic bleak polar landscape of the high Arctic. Very sparsely populated, it has a winter season of four months without any sunshine. Cold Coast is based on the true story of the first woman to work as a trapper on Svalbard.

Blurb: In 1932, Wanny Woldstad, a young widow, travels to Svalbard, daring to enter the Norwegian trappers’ fiercely guarded male domain. She must prove to Anders Sæterdal, her trapping partner who makes no secret of his disdain, that a woman is fit for the task. Over the course of a Svalbard winter, Wanny and Sæterdal will confront polar bears, traverse glaciers, withstand blizzards and the dangers of sea ice, and hike miles to trap Arctic fox, all in the frigid darkness of the four-month polar night. For Wanny, the darkness hides her own deceptions that, if exposed, speak to the untenable sacrifice of a 1930s woman longing to fulfil a dream.Alongside the raw, confronting nature of the trappers’ work, is the story of a young blue Arctic fox, itself a hunter, who must eke out a living and navigate the trappers’ world if it is to survive its first Arctic winter.

I loved the story, yet I found the book a challenging read. The descriptions are wonderful – I never knew there could be so many ways to talk about ice! The author (an Australian who has worked at research stations in the Arctic) deeply appreciates both the place and the animal life there, as well as telling Wanny’s story with sensitivity and care. The portrayal of Anders also was sympathetic, and towards the end I really felt for him in his confusion about Wanny’s apparently illogical responses to him. But oh, the winter was long! I too longed for that boat to come and take them back to the mainland in the early summer!

If you like books about cold places, this one is great. Warning: it deals with the trapping and killing of animals, if that’s not for you, give this a miss.

Top Ten Tuesday

This is my first time participating in Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, aka Jana. It’s simple: each Tuesday is assigned a topic, and you post your top ten list that fits that topic.

This week’s topic is Books I Meant to Read in 2023 but Didn’t Get To. Here’s my list:

The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories, ed. Jhumpa Lahiri
I’ve been intending to read this since I came to live in Italy again in 2022. Didn’t make it in 2022, nor 2023 either. I’ve read perhaps three of the 40 stories, from great Italian authors if the 19th and 20th centuries, and the introduction. I could read one story a week and finish it before the end of 2024?

Absolution, Patrick Flannery
A friend lent me this, strongly recommended. In considers truth, lies, and personal stories in the context of recent South African. It received great reviews and was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. I just haven’t got round to it.

Go, Went, Gone, Jenny Erpenbeck, and Homeland, Fernando Aramburu
These two are audio books. I found myself with some credits that were about to expire so bought three books. I’ve listened to only one. Homeland is really long, so I’m planning to listen to it on some lengthy flights coming up during the year.

I Am Lewy, Eoghan Ó Tuairisc
From a brave new Irish independent publisher, Bullaun Press, dedicated to works in translation. This short book is a translation from the Irish. I began it and found it exquisitely beautiful… then something more shiny came along and I left it aside. To be
taken up again in (early) 2024.

spill simmer falter wither, Sara Baume
A gift at Christmas 2021! Long enough ago for the author to have published another book in the meantime. I’m a little afraid of this one because I think it may be a tough read emotionally. It deals with loneliness, mental health issues, and a man’s relationship with his dog.

The Professor, Charlotte Bronte
This I picked up in a bargain basket some time ago. It will be for when I want the opposite of a fast-paced thriller, and want instead to delight in beautiful language and depth of description and character development.

Frost in May, Antonia White and Choir of Muses, Etienne Gilsen
These two – the first a Virago Modern Classics paperback, the second a slightly battered-looking hardback – would have gone in the skip if I hadn’t rescued them! I just didn’t get around to them yet.

Poetry Unbounded, ed. Pádraig Ó Tuama
I bought this in the wonderful Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop in Galway last year. It’s on my radar for April, national poetry month.

DESERT DESPATCHES: WESTERN SAHARA

Stories of the Sahara (Sanmao; translated from the Chinese by Mike Fu)
1976; 416 pages
World tour stop #27

Western Sahara “is a disputed territory on the northwest coast of Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic; the remaining 80% of the territory is occupied and administered by neighboring Morocco.” At the time this book was written, the country was under Spanish control and was known as Spanish Sahara. It is largely arid desert, has a small population, and very few books available from there.

Some of the essays which make up the book were first published in serial form in the Taiwanese Daily News. The various chapters reflect on various themes or aspects of life in Spanish Sahara.

Blurb: Leafing through the pages of National Geographic as a young girl growing up in Taiwan, Sanmao became enchanted by the infinite and wondrous landscape of the Sahara. Years later, in 1974, she sets out for the Spanish desert territory of El Aaiún in hopes of becoming the first female explorer to cross the hauntingly beautiful expanse. Her boyfriend José would have to wait, or join her. He packs his things, leaves Madrid, and asks Sanmao to marry him. As Sanmao settles in to married life alongside the indigenous people of the Western Sahara, she is confronted by a culture and desert lifestyle that both captivate and confound her. Drawn in by the mystery of such desolate lands but disappointed by the drawl of life as a perpetual outsider, Sanmao begins to wonder if the desert is what she imagined it to be, and if her insatiably curious heart can beat forever in just one place. Stories of the Sahara is a breathtaking exploration of the adventures―and misadventures―of untamable wanderlust. Sanmao illuminates the joys of fearless independence and the pains of yearning for elsewhere, culminating in a stunning mosaic of love and loneliness in a deeply human search for meaning and contentment.

The book received great acclaim at the time it was published. But I was a little less enthusiastic. Some of it really stretched my credibility, in particular the chapter about spending Christmas with her Spanish in-laws (she was left entirely alone to cook Christmas dinner for more than 30 people? Nah, I don’t believe it), and the one describing the near-drowning of her husband in a quagmire while she was almost raped… it ends too neatly, and there are too few apparent after-effects. On the other hand, the chapters describing the growing nationalism and eventual Spanish withdrawal were very interesting.

The blurb might lead you to think that there’s a strong romantic element in the book – there isn’t. True, Sanmao tells of how she and José married in the Sahara, but she focuses mostly on the awful administrative loops they had to jump through. She is very pragmatic about marriage, not at all starry-eyed.

In 2019, Sanmao was acknowledged in the New York Times Overlooked posthumous obituary feature for this book, particularly for its role in “inspiring young Taiwanese and Chinese women yearning for independence from conservative cultural norms.” While I wasn’t that enthusiastic, I’m glad I read the book and certainly learned about a place of whose existence I was barely aware until now.

Picture Prompt Bingo Challenge: I’m choosing the armillary sphere for this book, because of the connections with travel, estimating locations, distance, navigation, etc, and this book connects with life in the desert, long journeys, nights under the stars…

Picture Prompt Book Bingo Challenge 2024

I like this – a challenge that doesn’t necessarily mean reading more books! The Picture Prompt Bingo Challenge is about matching books read to a picture on the bingo card. There are 16 pictures… full details on bookforager’s site, here.

Happily, the book I’ve just finished (One Hundred Names) fits very well to the picture of the partially unrolled scroll and pen, so that’s my first one!

Six out of a Hundred

Cecelia Ahern: One Hundred Names
2012-published book for my version of the In Case You Missed It challenge

That’s not my rating of the novel; it’s the number of people that the journalist at the heart of this story was able to interview in order to fulfill the dying wish of her former editor and mentor…

This was a quick read (though it’s relatively long); it’s a popular-level work of fiction from a popular and successful contemporary Irish novelist. There is a basic credibility to the plot, which kept me going, but of course it’s also quite incredible… There were rather a lot of characters for me to keep up with who was who (of course, if I slowed down the reading and took just a little more time, I might have done better on that score). The protagonist, Kitty, is a journalist for whom I should have little sympathy on the basis of her actions and the mess she finds herself in at the beginning of the story, but she’s presented as likeable and I found myself mostly on her side and wanting her to come out on top. Which, of course, she did. That’s something I want to reflect on: how did the author get me on the side of this woman, rather than against her?

The book pulled me out of a bit of a reading slump, and I’m glad for that.

Edited to add: This book counts for the scroll-and-pen symbol on the Picture Prompt Bingo Challenge, as it’s all about a journalist writing stories.