The author gives more agency to Layla than in the medieval and early modern versions. I won't say what happens because it might be considered a spoiler. Let's just say that I liked the new ending.
What I liked less is the section on Majnun's rotting corpse. The arty treatment felt a bit self-indulgent and off. I turned the pages quickly because as someone who lost a parent earlier this year, I am not ready for this.
More art from the book. Its description on Litsy might give the impression that it is an illustrated version of a Persian original. It isn't. It's a modern retelling in verse, which from what I understood from the author's presentation, was inspired foremost by Nizami's version (which I read back in April), and then by Jami's (which I am reading at the moment) and Khosrow's.
Last week, I went to a reading and projection of the tagged book during which the author and a friend played Arabic, Iranian and Turkish music. It was quite moving, and now I am reading the book. You can see how intricate the illustrations are. Damezin is quite the Renaissance man: he can write poetry, draw, play various musical instruments, and improvise music!
Also, it was a free library event 👏
Ambivalent about this novel. I liked the subject matter (Jewish children in WWII & the people trying to protect them from nazis with a supernatural twist) & the author's choice to intersperse the story with straight factual sections on various topics, but I don't think it ever gelled into a coherent, authentic whole, mainly because the fiction side is underwhelming & unsophisticated, with too many details (food!) added for the author's pleasure ⬇
Fellag is an Algerian writer and comic. Here is a video of his most famous skit, with him singing “seksou makaroun loubya“ (couscous, pasta, bean stew), the only 3 dishes his mother (or his character's) ever served because they were too poor for anything else: https://youtu.be/TDM5mcMiTQs?t=259
#FoodandLit #Algeria
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
Also, I quite enjoyed the tagged book when I read it years ago.
I know it's counterintuitive to tag a book about Paris for #FoodandLit #Algeria, but it has a chapter about the Algiers connection, which was for a few years a haven for Black Panthers and other artists and activists from the US and France.
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
A woman researches the life of her great-grandmother Betsy who was lobotomised and spent 15 years in a psychiatric ward for hazy and controversial reasons, which the author argues have more to do with her husband's comfort, and ultimately, misogyny. Family members' memories and interpretations of events vary, and facts have to be teased out from letters, archives, and interviews with elderly people, as the main protagonists are all dead. ⬇
Starting tagged book whose cover matches* my (very old & ugly but very comfy) blanket. It's from Québec-based publisher La Peuplade, whose choices are always quite interesting. The story is set in the #Doubs département in France and my aim this year is to read books from there.
#HyggeHour @AllDebooks
@Chrissyreadit @TheBookHippie
*It's not obvious on the picture, but I swear the colours are quite close IRL 😅
I went to a musical reading/projection of the tagged graphic novel in alexandrine verse, based on various versions of the Majnun and Leila story, but mainly on the Nizami one. I couldn't not go - it ticked all sorts of boxes for me: Persian and Arabic music, poetry, pretty pictures, not to mention the fact that my aim is to read all the versions of M&L I can find. wasn't expecting much however b/c I'd not heard of the author, but I loved it.
A 667-pages roadtrip novel, with chapters alternating between a disillusioned “you“ mainly looking for young women to spend the night with (those sections haven't aged well), and a “I“ looking for what I'll sum up as “Eternal China“: folksongs, old monasteries, folktales... and of course, the Soul Mountain in the title. I am glad I read it -I enjoyed the folk chapters- but I am in no hurry to read any more from this #NobelPrize winner.
The grandkid is gone so it's time to return the tagged book. She loved it - and that's an understatement! She asked each of us to read it an insane number of times per day over the holidays. So, I bought it online and it should reach her in a few weeks (kennys.ie aren't quick, but they're not Amazon and they ship within the EU).
I am not fully sold on the illustrations' German Swiss nostalgia, but I like the level of detail & the story is cute.
Another pic of Carnac standing stones outside of the enclosure for #beautybreak & b/c I've just finished the tagged book, bought at the Maison des mégalithes book/giftshop. It was available in French, English & German. A well-written, clear & concise introduction to the site & its history. Unsurprisingly, its pictures were better than the ones we took😊 I wish I'd read it *before* our visit.
#Brittany
Also we missed Halloween in Carnac by 2 days😤
#beautybreak in Carnac, Brittany. These megaliths were erected around 3000 BCE. We were able to walk around their enclosure last Monday. It was bleak and beautiful and I felt privileged.
@AmyG
@kspenmoll
@TheBookHippie
@Amiable
@OriginalCyn620
@Tamra
@JessClark78
@Sace
@dabbe
@Dilara
@LiseWorks
@uncommonlycozies
@Karisa
@ImperfectCJ
@AnnCrystal
My last Samoan dish: Tina and Amazing's Green Island Salad
It is a salad that combines fruit, vegetable (watercress, cucumber) & starch (green banana). I, however, kept all the ingredients separate so that fussy people could mix and match as they wished in their plates. I used mango and pineapple instead of vi (which I'd never heard of) and guava (which I didn't have). Very nice, as I knew it would be!
#Samoa #FoodandLit @Catsandbooks @Texreader
L'étincelle en moi is a delightful children's book about a little girl's discovery of science. The first part is about her life and the questions she has about the world (eg: “could I walk on the ceiling?“), the second contains scientific answers to her questions. It is available in English under the title The Spark in Me but for some reason, it isn't in Litsy's database.
The grandkid is quite taken with Gingerbread Baby! I read it too many times to count. And yesterday, we made gingerbread boys, babies, and other shapes. We did have to explain several times that they couldn't come alive: this only happens in stories 😁
#10BeforeTheEnd update:
I finished Paris noir and The Adventures of Vela. I was planning on starting Mejnun and Leyla but after Vela, I need a break on the long-form poetry front, so Soul Mountain it is! As it is a doorstop and I have a few days off, it should be perfect.
@ChaoticMissAdventures
Pic is of the Chinese Garden in Chaumont, back in June
#NobelPrize
More food from The Adventures of Vela, which I finished - at last! - the other day 😁
Honestly, it was a bit of a slog in places, but I am happy I read it to the end because it really was a window into another culture.
Bonito in coconut cream, yam (I thinks is is going to be proper yam, and not sweet potato), and papaya sounds delicious!
#Samoa #FoodandLit @Catsandbooks @Texreader
pic Sonja Pieper via Teinesavaii, Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 2.0
I found the cover of a play I read recently in the book on Black artists I've just finished 😁
Anacaona is an important historical figure: she was an indigenous Taino ruler at the time of the Spanish invasion in what is now #Haiti and the #DominicanRepublic. Hence the art ant literature about her.
I came across this author the other day when reading about her uncle, the famous Samoan writer Albert Wendt, & I thought some people might be interested in the tagged book (which I haven't read), described as “the first Zombie apocalypse story set in Samoa“.
#Samoa #FoodandLit @Catsandbooks @Texreader
Link to her website: https://laniwendtyoung.co/
ETA: I don't know the author: I just thought the book checked a few boxes for F&L & Halloween reads
More art from the tagged book, this time by Christian Raharivelo and Assane N'Doye, via the Association Wifredo Lam.
Leafing through the catalogue for the exhibition on Paris's Black artists at the Centre Pompidou that ended earlier this year and that I wasn't able to see 🙁
My first #10BeforeTheEnd update:
I finished Edith Wharton's Ghost Stories 🎉. They were quite enjoyable in small doses: 1 or 2 in the evening over the course of a month.
I picked up The Adventure of Vela again. I'd like to finish it before the end of the month, but it is slow-going & I might not get a lot of reading time next week, so we'll see.
I'd also like to read the whole of Jami's Mejnun & Leila before Nov, 8th ⬇
@ChaoticMissAdventures
Some rather alarming foot sole shapes in this epic poem that I've just picked up again.
#Samoa #FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
Yesterday's library haul: Gingerbread Baby, and June Fourth Elegies by Liu Xiaobo, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. I might have picked up this book because I took the author for a Nobel Prize laureate in Literature 😊. It is a collection of poems written over many years, in prison, in labour camp or at home, on the anniversaries of the Tiananmen Square protests. Some are more to my taste than others.
Literally: In mummy's hair. A delightful picture book about cuddling up to mummy at bedtime. Perfect for the grandkid as the mother in the pictures looks a bit like her mum 💕Also, I love the colour palette.
My #10BeforeTheEnd are:
The Adventure of Vela for #Samoa
The Last Summer of Reason by Tahar Djaout and Black Suits You so Well by Ahlam Mosteghanemi for #Algeria
The Devil in Love by Cazotte and Fontamara by Ignazio Silone for #Italy
Paris noir
Edith Wharton's Ghost Stories
Jami's Mejnun & Leila
The Last Quarter of the Moon by Zijian Chi
Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian
(tagged countries for #FoodAndLit )
@ChaoticMissAdventures
I finished this book this morning. The novel proper is quite short and readable, although I don't think I'll ever really enjoy a work where a writer uses a foreign narrator or character from a culture they don't actually know to further their plots or theories. However, the extra critical material does an excellent job of contextualising this 18th best-seller written by a blue-stocking with proto-feminist sensibilities.
illustration from the book
Still reading tagged book.
For lunch today, I made Samoan baked fish from https://www.pacificislandfoodrevolution.com/recipes/nina--iggys-island-baked-fis... and Faalifu Fa‘i (green plantain in coconut cream sauce) from https://thekokosamoa.com.au/blogs/recipes/faalifu-fa-i-recipe-history-tips-servi...
Very nice!
#Samoa #FoodandLit @Catsandbooks @Texreader
Bamboo and apple-tree with ONE tiny but perfectly-formed red apple 😁 🍎
#beautybreak
@AmyG
@kspenmoll
@TheBookHippie
@Amiable
@OriginalCyn620
@Tamra
@JessClark78
@Sace
@dabbe
@Dilara
@LiseWorks
@uncommonlycozies
@Karisa
@ImperfectCJ
@AnnCrystal
I 1st heard of this book when researching #Peru for #FoodAndLit but it wouldn't do b/c it's all about France. It is an 18th-c. epistolary novel written by a French woman. The narrator is an Inca “virgin of the sun“ snatched by Spanish conquistadores, then taken by French soldiers to France. Her letters to her Inca fiancé describe France & its mores from the point of view of an outsider - a “Noble Savage“ - uncorrupted by European civilisation.
So, I knew some nazi scientists had been recruited by the US at the end of the war but I had no idea there were so many of them. People pointing a finger at Argentina - or Arab countries - should think again. The USSR, the UK and France did it too. So much thieving & backstabbing between allied countries! This book is mainly about those who moved to France: 1000? 6000? plus families. They had good reasons for moving to France:
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to László Krasznahorkai. I've only read the tagged book by him and I have to admit I didn't love it. I might try another work, just in case.
#NobelPrize
I am reading a book about nazi scientists and engineers recruited to work in Allied countries at then end of World War II or shortly after, without being tried for their crimes, or after a symbolic slap on the hand.
Pic of Wernher von Braun & his brother, happy & grinning, knowing they risked nothing, on the day they surrendered to the US army. He supervised an armament factory/lab in the Dora concentration camp where he behaved appallingly.
An unexpected find at the library: a kind of diary written by a mathematician over one year about her garden and the nature around her. She makes observations on insects, plants & natural phenomena, and links them with mathematical concepts. It's charming but too vague and scattershot to be useful for learning & understanding.
I want her life though: she has a lovely garden, lives a short walk from the sea & her neighbours are nice 😄
Started Vela, a long epic poem about the life and adventures of mythic Samoan poet Vela, written by Albert Wendt, #Samoa's best-known writer. It is peppered with Samoan words, and I'll just have to go with the flow, enjoy the poetry, and accept that I won't understand every single word or concept. Getting a general idea from the context and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Samoa will have to do.
#FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
International Translation Day today! Who's reading a book in translation?
I started the tagged book, translated from Bulgarian, last night.
Very grateful to the translators who open windows to other cultures and literatures.
#InternationalTranslationDay #InTranslation
Painting of St Jerome, patron saint of translators, by Domenico Ghirlandaio, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
My attempt at vaho/baho: steamed beef marinated in bitter orange juice (or here, a mixture of lime & regular orange) with plantain, green banana & yuca. Served with the white cabbage & tomato salad with lime dressing that seems to be a must with every Nicaraguan dish!
It's no doubt delicious when done properly but I had to find a workaround when it wouldn't cook & the result was disappointing.
#Nicaragua #FoodandLit
@Catsandbooks @Texreader
I don't know if it's the writing, or Anthea Bell's translation, or just because it was the right book at the right time, but I raced through this autobiography, despite its heavy subject matter. It reconciled me with Zweig too. He chose to give us almost nothing about his private life, and not much more about his work - it's all about the people he met and his analysis of the (now-)historical events he lived through. Humane and thought-provoking.
I'd been meaning to read Nooteboom for ages, and yesterday, I found one of his books in the poetry section of the library: L'oeil du poète (Monniksoog) followed by Adieu (Afscheid,...). The 1st collection really spoke to me.
9
Dans l'autre île pas de dunes mais des rocs,
noirs, des plantes à crocs et dents s'abreuvant à la pierre,
agrippées aux gravières. Un phase ici aussi, haut
dressé contre la violence d'un orage,
#Netherlands
A quote from Zweig's autobiography to remind us that one can be a reader & love the books of a humanist author, and still be a fascist psychopath & a dictator.
(The wife of an imprisoned opponent of Mussolini asked him to try and get him released, which implies pleading with the enemy - Mussolini - who happens to be a fan of his work.)
Another still from Parlement, series 4 with Carmen realising the parallels between today and the run-up to WWII.
Stefan Zweig's autobiography led me to poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal's play Electra, which I borrowed from the library and started reading last night. It was turned into an opera by Strauss. I am listening to it on deezer, but it's not grabbing me so far. Any tips or info to help ease me into it? A passage to look forward to? A recording that's less strident than the one I am listening to? I'm OK with modernist music, so that's not it 😊
I don't want to speak ill of my capital city - and it does feel good to read nice things about a tolerant, non-classist, non-racist, fun Paris in Edwardian times - but Zweig is wearing humongous rose-tinted glasses here 😁
Call me easily led: I am reading Zweig's autobiography b/c it featured heavily in an episode (S4E7) of the TV comedy series about EU institutions Parlement, with the subtext that it is transposable to today's world & political climate. Which is scary because Zweig lived through WWI and committed suicide in 1942.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/may/04/machiavelli-in-brussels-bac...
#readingispolitical
This is a book about the women of the far right in the widest possible terms, from femonationalist, fascist, colonialist, etc. movements to conservative activism and TERFs. There is a lot of extraneous or “undigested“ info. I am hoping the last 100 pages are more directly relevant, but I won't be holding my breath.
Interviews with the author are more interesting than her book 😐
#readingispolitical
Today is the equinox, so the official start of Autumn, & in the short-lived French Revolutionary calendar, the start of the new year. And the day of grapes (each day was given the name of a produce, tool, animal or mineral). It has no bearing on real life, but I like to check which day it is in this calendar.
In RL, in France, we're still waiting for the new prime minister to form a government 😩
#majicmonday @Eggs
@xicanti, @Reggie, @lil1inblue
I'm just starting a book about the oral history of Queen Tasì Hangbé who reigned over Dahomey, in Western Africa, in the early 18th century. She is alleged to have created an army of “amazons“ and a school where women could learn traditional male skills. She also elevated other women to positions of responsibility.
#Benin #Africa
Pic of her 98ft (30m) statue* in Cotonou, Benin by Yemi festus, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Someone on LibraryThing mentioned that Arthur Sze has been chosen as the new US poet laureate. Having never heard of him, I was curious and read the tagged collection on Everand. I loved it! Almost every distich or tercet creates a distinct, evocative image.
#poetry #nature
Pic by Ahmed abd elkader mohamed, CC BY-SA 4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
![[tagged book]](https://image.librarything.com/pics/litsy_webpics/icon_taggedBook@3x.png){kind=icon}
