Something Very Human by Hannah Retallick

 

SOMETHING VERY HUMAN

The debut short story collection from award-winning author, Hannah Retallick

THE BLURB

This collection takes the reader on a journey through life, from the innocence of young voices to the reflections of those seeking meaning as they look back at the paths they've taken.

Each story captures the very essence of being human. The characters tackle everyday challenges, face inner struggles, navigate familial relationships and friendships, fall in love and out of love, process grief, and reflect on the beautiful fragility of it all.

MY REVIEW

The stories in Something Very Human are both intimate and universal, shaped by the author’s sharply focussed eye and impeccable ear for dialogue, and anchored by a strong sense of place and vivid characters. Hannah Retallick’s writing is assured, and she is not afraid to experiment with form and language – this is a collection which feels as crisp and sharp as a green apple.

Retallick’s stories are imbued with a wealth of experiences and emotions – exploring friendships, love, loss and longing, and the eternal search for connection. But there is humour and hope at their heart, and this warmth shines through. Our lives may be woven from what appears to be fragile thread, but this is a writer who understands the real resilience of the human heart; she knows that “however many times you’ve been let down and however drenched you become, there are always reasons to sing.” A truly accomplished debut collection.

(Something Very Human is out on 7th November 2024 from Bridge House Publishing. You can order a copy here or from Waterstones and local bookshops.)

Great Review of Each of Us a Petal in Yorkshire Life Magazine!

 

Thanks to Yorkshire Life magazine for this great review of Each of Us a Petal in the August edition!

 

 

 

Review - Mornings With My Cat Mii by Mayumi Inaba (translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori)

THE PUBLISHER SAYS:

It was the end of summer, 1977. I found a cat, a little ball of fluff. A teeny tiny baby kitten.

The perfect gift for cat lovers: a beloved Japanese modern classic about how cats can change our lives.

For the last twenty years, Japanese readers have been falling in love with the late poet and prize-winning author Mayumi Inaba’s story of life with her cat Mii, after she rescued her as a newborn kitten from a riverbank in Tokyo.

We follow their everyday joys through the seasons, as Mayumi develops her career as a writer and finds her feet in life, with her small feline always at her side.

Mornings With My Cat Mii lovingly chronicles Mayumi and Mii’s unshakeable twenty-year bond, meditating on solitude, companionship, the writing life, and how we care for our cats as they grow older.

Translated into English for the first time by world-renowned translator Ginny Tapley Takemori, this beloved Japanese modern classic is a celebration of how a cat can change our lives forever.

Translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

 

 MY REVIEW:

In recent years there have been numerous cat-themed Japanese books published in translation, and I was expecting more of the same. That would not necessarily have been a bad thing – I love cats and I love Japanese fiction. However, this book was not what I was expecting. It is a memoir rather than a novel, and it documents the author’s twenty-year relationship with her cat, Mii.

As such, there is no sugar-coating, it is very matter of fact, and the reader is not spared at any point.

At first I found it interesting and engaging – Inaba goes out of her way to find a property that will  allow her to accommodate the cat she rescues, and she charts her own decline when her marriage fails with great honesty. But I became aware that despite the lengths she goes to for Mii, there is sometimes a lack of warmth depicted in the relationship and I could not detect any deep connection between them. This is highlighted a few times, such as when Inaba tells us that it makes her laugh to see Mii stuck up high, terrified and in need of help, and that she makes her wait longer to be rescued as it entertains her. At times she appears to be neglectful towards Mii as well – the early incident when the cat falls pregnant is one example, and at other points when Mii is suffering.

The latter part of the book is quite hard going to be honest. The descriptions of the medical care given to Mii by both Inaba and the vet are disturbing. Don’t get me wrong, they are a big part of the story, and most people with very elderly cats will have had some experience of similar conditions – I have myself. I am not suggesting the author should have left this out,  but to my taste the descriptions are over-the-top – both over-detailed and over-long.

I thought it was strange that despite the personal lengths Inaba is prepared to go to when attending to Mii’s toilet needs at the end of her life, she is not always mindful of whether the cat has any quality of life and never appears to consider whether Mii should be put out of her misery, even after the cat has stopped eating and drinking. Each case is of course unique, but it is selfish and cruel to prioritise our desire to hold onto our pets over their suffering. In this case, Mii is allowed to deteriorate until she becomes skin and bone, and I feel she could – and should – have had a more dignified ending. That said, since reading the book I have been made aware that vets in Japan, even now, are sometimes reluctant to euthanise, and I didn't take that into consideration at the time.

Ginny Tapley Takemori is a fabulous translator and I really wanted to like this book – and I did find it an interesting meditation on life, death, and the complex demands and responsibilities of pet ownership. I also really appreciated the poetry. However, I cannot say I enjoyed reading the latter part of the book at all.

(Thanks to Vintage Books for the ARC copy)

OUT OCTOBER 2024 FROM VINTAGE BOOKS You can pre-order HERE

Author Event - Marsden Library - Thursday June 27th at 7.30pm

 

 

Join me at Marsden Library on Thursday June 27th at 7.30pm (Doors and Bar open at 7pm)

I will be reading from Each of Us a Petal, and chatting to Diane Barkley from Friends of Marsden Library about my work and writing process.

 

It's a FREE event, and you can register HERE

Hope to see you there!

 

Each of Us a Petal is here!

 

A bittersweet day for me – my book has arrived from Victorina Press and it looks fabulous! This new collection of my Japan-themed short fiction has French flaps and contains a dozen of my own illustrations – plus it boasts another stunning cover from Triona Walsh. 

However, Victorina Press are sadly in the process of closing down, and they are not in a position to physically sell, market or distribute my book – so this one's on me! There's a Paypal link to buy a signed copy at the top of my homepage, so if you have any love in your heart then you know where to send it! (It will also be stocked by Kemp's Books in Malton.)

To tempt you, here's the blurb and the first reviews:

Each of Us a Petal:

Stories of and from Japan

In the cherry blossom’s shade, there’s no such thing as a stranger – Kobayashi Issa

This collection of short fiction from award-winning author Amanda Huggins takes us on a journey through Japan, from the hustle of city bars to the silence of snow country. The people, culture and complex social mores of this beguiling country have inspired Huggins’ writing ever since she first visited Japan almost twenty years ago.

Whether they are Japanese nationals or foreign tourists, temporary residents or those recalling their time in Japan from a distance, the men and women in these stories are often adrift and searching for a connection. Many are estranged from their normal lives, navigating the unfamiliar while trying to make sense of the human condition, or find themselves restrained by the formalities of traditional culture as they struggle to forge new relationships outside those boundaries. Others are forced to question their perceptions when they find themselves drawn into an unsettling world of shapeshifting deities and the ghosts of the past. 

 

"Most of the stories in Amanda Huggins’s Each of Us A Petal take place in distinctly Japanese settings, such as the traditional country house in ‘At the Minka’; Haradani-en, the garden north of the Temple of the Golden Pavilion in 'Sparrow Footprints’; and, in ‘Straight in the Eye’, the Japanese Alps, where bears are known to roam and sometimes menace. Like the Japanese masters, Huggins exerts considerable restraint in telling these stories of shapeshifters, troubled marriages, erotic encounters, and other interactions. They often end with more of a suggestion than a neat and tidy conclusion, while still making an impact, and lingering in the mind. Some borrow from traditional Japanese folklore, or ghost stories, however the mix of Japanese and international characters gives the collection a contemporary tone. Even if one cannot consume this book on an engawa, with a cup of green tea, the stories will transport the reader to Japan.
 
In these brief, understated tales, which are as delicate and beautiful as the gossamer wing of a dragonfly, Huggins pays loving homage to Japan. Ethereal, evocative, and exquisite."

Suzanne Kamata, author of The Beautiful One Has Come and Cinnamon Beach

 

"From the love embodied in a jar of sweet bean jam to the precision of raked gravel the stories chime with our expectations of Japan while delicately breathing life into the scenes and characters. These stories dive far deeper than the surface clichés and show us the respect of the author through the aspects she chooses to illustrate her themes. You’ll emerge with all your senses tingling from the pleasures of relishing minor details, from a simple cup of tea to a fleeting interaction with someone, or somewhere, with the potential to be the love of your life." 

[ READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE ]

Judy Darley, author of The Stairs Are a Snowcapped Mountain and Sky Light Rain

 
"I heartily recommend this fascinating, beautiful and poignant book of short stories by Amanda Huggins, based on her experiences of Japan as a gaijin (foreigner), a relationship explored in the introduction. 

After reading the first story, I thought, that’s perfect. Perfect. Perhaps I should stop reading now, having had the perfect experience - after all, they can’t all be as good as that! 

I was deliciously wrong. I particularly loved the combination of reality and folklore, both of which can be tender or gritty, in some of the stories.

I’ve read some Japanese literature but not enough, I admit, but this volume has persuaded me to read more. The viewpoint and creations of a gaijin who adores Japan and has immersed herself in its culture is a wonderful way to take delicate steps towards appreciating, learning and exploring Japanese life."

Cathy Bryant, author of Contains Strong Language and Scenes of a Sexual Nature, Look at All the Women, Erratics, (all poetry) and How to Win Writing Competitions (nonfiction). 

 

Each of Us a Petal by Amanda Huggins (Victorina Press) is a collection
of short fiction, all inspired by the people, culture and landscape of
Japan. Having reached the end I feel bereft, and ready to start reading
from the first story all over again. I’m struggling to find the words to
express how much I am in love with Huggins’ writing and these stories.
She writes prose with the heart of a storyteller and the soul of a poet.

Picking out a single favourite is like having to choose between
chocolate and coffee, and I can’t do that, but particular stories have
seeped into my dreams and still linger. ‘My Yellow’ made me sob,
‘Whatever this is’ made me sigh and ache for a happy ending, while
‘Stolen’ gave me good shivers as I’m a sucker for a hint of magic
realism. Others such as the immersive ‘An Unfamiliar Landscape’ still
live on in my imagination, having the characters and complexity to
evolve into much longer narratives.

Each story here is as delicate and beautiful as cherry blossom, each one
is truly a petal to be cherished. Huggins’ fascination for Japan, its
heritage and customs, resonates throughout every page. This haunting
collection shimmers with her love.

This is a rare collection that has piqued my interest to read more about
this complex country. I’ve never visited Japan, but now it’s on my
bucket list.

Tracy Fells, author of Hairy on the Inside and The Naming of Moths

A member of Writers in Kyoto, the author has won prizes and honorable mentions in the WiK Writing Competition, and her work has been included in WiK anthologies. 

The present book is a collection of 19 short stories, romantic, spiritual and full of small details of life in Japan. There is a foreword, “Touching Japan”, in which the author tells a little about her connection with Japan and also says by way of introduction to the stories, “lonely characters are estranged from their usual lives, navigating the unfamiliar while trying to make sense of the human condition of their landscapes.” As a person who has written a short story collection myself, I know that a theme does emerge for the entire collection, whether deliberately chosen at the beginning, or organically when the collection is complete. There is also a glossary of Japanese words at the end, and evocative photos of scenes in Japan are included throughout.

Many of the stories are of love – with spirits, with people lost to death or by cruel separations, or simply by walking away. Some of the love is what we might call illicit, but it is always about human beings coming together, driven by their needs and individual agendas.

Most of the stories are set in urban Japan, though some are from other, far-flung places like Berlin, a small town in a stormy Northern UK coastal region, or small villages in Japan like Onokatsu in Shikoku.

It seems to be a device used often by the author, that many stories have endings which require effort or filling in by the reader – in fact, some of them seem unfinished. The subtle way in which she involves the reader is interesting and pulls you along in the book, wondering how the next story will end.

There are surprising images. One I particularly noticed was in the story of a wife and husband who had lost their baby. “At random moments [grief] would rear up unexpectedly with a clatter of hooves. When it did, it was deafening.” This story, “An Unfamiliar Landscape”, is based on noise – the noises inside the head of the narrator and the clamor of urban life in Tokyo, where she and her husband have ended up after a job transfer, and where she searches for silence in various places. It is interesting how an author can choose a sense that pervades a story, other than the sense of sight, which takes precedence in many stories one reads.

Some of the stories have an intimate connection to WiK. “Sparrow Footprints” was written especially for the annual Writers in Kyoto writing competition (2020), where it won second prize and was included in the 5th Anthology. “The Knife Salesman from Kochi” appeared in a shortened form (flash fiction) for the WiK writing competition (2023), and won the Mayoral Prize in that competition. It will appear in the next WiK anthology.

The stories are all rich in detail and move backward and forward in time, following the memories of the narrators. It is possible to follow the lives of many human beings – foreign and Japanese, traditional inn employees and modern single mothers, salarymen in the bath and a drunken woman in a restaurant.

I could not end this review better than with the author’s own words in the final paragraph of the Foreword, “… it is the people, landscape, and culture of Japan which continue to influence and inspire the aesthetic and sensibility of my writing… That said, I claim to understand nothing more than what it feels like to be human, whoever and wherever we are, and I hope that you will forgive me for sometimes writing about a Japan which exists only in my imagination.”

Rebecca Otowa – author of The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper and At Home in Japan

What impresses me most about this collection is Huggins’ ability to enter a very different culture and focus on the similarities that bring us all together. She taps into themes of yearning, loneliness and being on the outside to show these as universal experiences, as well as celebrating love and personal connections. It made me reflect on a family visit to Tokyo in 2010 while on a stopover to Australia. My tall and blonde teenage son was head and shoulders above the crowds at the Shibuya Crossing, the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing yet we still melded into the city’s backdrop of quiet gardens.

The collection also reminded me of the 2003 film Lost in Translation where Scarlett Johannson and Bill Murray play characters drawn together amidst the strange and sometimes unsettling experience of high-rise living in Tokyo.

Huggins has a keen eye and focuses on small things in her stories such as a knife or a key or a sparrow’s footprints which all bring a wider meaning to the reader. It is a delightful collection which I highly recommend. Although the book was released by Victorina Press, the publisher has since closed and your only option to purchase a copy is through the author’s blog. Do pop over and grab a copy before they’re all gone!

When friends who lived in Japan visit next week, I’m looking forward to recommending Each of Us a Petal to them. 

Gail Aldwin, author of The Secret Life of Carolyn Russell

 

First Advance Review For Each of Us a Petal

 

 

 REVIEW BY SUZANNE KAMATA

Most of the stories in Amanda Huggins’s Each of Us A Petal take place in distinctly Japanese settings, such as the traditional country house in ‘At the Minka’; Haradani-en, the garden north of the Temple of the Golden Pavilion in 'Sparrow Footprints’; and, in ‘Straight in the Eye’, the Japanese Alps, where bears are known to roam and sometimes menace. Like the Japanese masters, Huggins exerts considerable restraint in telling these stories of shapeshifters, troubled marriages, erotic encounters, and other interactions. They often end with more of a suggestion than a neat and tidy conclusion, while still making an impact, and lingering in the mind. Some borrow from traditional Japanese folklore, or ghost stories, however the mix of Japanese and international characters gives the collection a contemporary tone. Even if one cannot consume this book on an engawa, with a cup of green tea, the stories will transport the reader to Japan.
 
In these brief, understated tales, which are as delicate and beautiful as the gossamer wing of a dragonfly, Huggins pays loving homage to Japan. Ethereal, evocative, and exquisite. – Suzanne Kamata, author of The Beautiful One Has Come and Cinnamon Beach

 

(OUT MAY 2024)

REVIEW: Ghost Mountain by Rónán Hession

 

ABOUT GHOST MOUNTAIN:

"Shimmering and haunting in equal measure, this profound fable from the author of Leonard and Hungry Paul and Panenka centres on a mysterious mountain which appears at crucial moments in the protagonists' lives.

Ghost Mountain is a simple fable-like novel about a mountain that appears suddenly and the way in which its manifestation ripples through the lives of characters in the surrounding community.

It looks at the uncertain fragile sense of self we hold inside ourselves, and our human compulsion to project it into the uncertain word around us, whether we’re ready or not. It is also about the presence of absence, and how it shadows us in our lives. Mountains are at once unmistakably present yet never truly fathomable."
 

MY REVIEW:

I’m a huge fan of Rónán Hession’s work, and was thrilled to receive an advance copy of Ghost Mountain from Bluemoose Books.

Like all of Hession’s writing, this isn’t a novel to race through, it’s one to savour. Ghost Mountain feels as though it is set in a cinematic dreamscape; it sweeps you up into a magical world and holds you under its spell. There is so much to mull over. It is haunting, elusive, moving, funny, and totally unique; the characters embed themselves in your heart as well as your head.

Hession is brilliant at observing and examining the vagaries of the human condition, and it is the way he encapsulates all the mess and beauty of his characters' lives which compels you to read on. Sharp and poignant, deeply memorable, and beautifully written.

 

(OUT MAY 2024 FROM BLUEMOOSE BOOKS)

Vo(i)ces II - A Review by Cathy Bryant

VO(I)CES II - A REVIEW BY CATHY BRYANT

Vo(i)ces II is an anthology of the winning and commended poems from The Victorina Press Vo(i)ces Poetry Award, and as such is a celebration or get-together of sorts. Like parties, prize anthologies vary enormously, and the reader may or may not want to attend. Fortunately, this is one book to engage with if you possibly can. It’s so beautifully organised, and the people there are so fascinating!

The agreeably broad theme was Life, Death and Beyond. Any poet has experiences that pertain to this, so I expect that there were many entries. The twelve in this volume are all strong and well-written, and interpret the theme in original and different ways. This is an extract from one of the winners, Sarah Leavesley’s ‘Overgrown’:

Night falls, but light refuses
to leave this garden quietly.
Blood moons blossom from knots

in the wood. The trellis bends
beneath the heaviness
of their throbbing petals.

The joint winner, ‘The First of November’ by Virginia Ramos Poseck, is completely different in approach, tone and imagery. The narrator of this poem says of her home that it:

is closed off by the nacre
carapace of a tortoise
I carry it on my shoulders
with its helmet of tapestries and books

The judges praised the musicality of this poem, and I agree with them. I’d happily show you the whole thing! Anyway, these two poems show what an exciting mix there is in the anthology.

The poems are in English and Spanish, which adds another aspect to the book. Comparing the two is fascinating, as one can compare the poetic techniques and effects in both languages. For example, in Mabel Encinas’ poem ‘Perhaps Death Means Coming Back to Your Mother’, we have the line:

Perhaps death is the mother of total consolation

In Spanish, the line is:

Tal vez la muerte es la madre que todo lo consuela

In English the line is beautiful and meaningful, but in Spanish the alliteration of ‘madre’ and ‘muerte’ bring the concepts even closer together.

In Mark Totterdell’s richly evocative poem ‘Sussex’, we have names and nuances that are steeped in English history and culture: flint and barrows, the white horse, the names of pubs.

This must have been a challenge for those who translated this into Spanish. For instance, the line

the long man upped staves and abandoned his hillside

became

el hombre gigante levantaba bastones y abandonaba su ladera

which has different nuances while retaining the sense and power of the English. I particularly liked the translator’s footnote to this poem:

El Star, el George, el Smuggler’s, el Eight bells, el Ox, el Rose Cottage, el Tiger son pubs en Sussex.

Mandy Macdonald’s poem, ‘Three Postcards from Havana’, is as short as the title suggests, but that doesn’t impinge on the strength of the poem at all. Here’s part of the first ‘postcard’:

I know now
the exact spot where a joy
has always lived in the same little room
waiting for you to visit

The other two stanzas deal with absence, and then the return of tranquility. Not easy to pull off in a few lines, but Macdonald manages it with simple beauty. 

I must mention Lee Nash’s ‘The Cygnet’, in which a church singer is asked to perform Saint-Saëns ‘Le Cygne’ at the funeral of a child. This is perhaps the most narrative poem in the book, and one of the most moving. It’s all the more powerful because the singer, narrating the poem, didn’t know the child:

so much grief,
it’s impossible to tell which is Mummy

until I spot her,
the wet slags of her eyes unmistakeable,
her slack weight supported from behind in a vice
by her new man,
a smudge of tattoo fresh on his Adam’s apple –

Here’s the final line, with its pain but a touch of hope, in Spanish:

No Soy Ángel
Pero Tengo Alas

Keith Jarrett’s poem ‘Instructions for My Death’ is a jolt of the unexpected, with powerful imagery and the impression of the narrator (and the poet’s!) strength and imagination. Here’s a delicious extract:

And if anyone asks, tell them
I dreamt of islands on fire
And dirty windows closing
Like bibles in the wind

Another poem I’d like to show in full, because it’s so full!

David Bleiman’s poem ‘Funeral Plan’ is on a similar theme to Jarrett’s, but different in approach. It’s observant and also witty:

There will be a playlist, still to be finalised.
On my current form,
Don’t buy Daddy any more whiskey
Might hit the spot.

In a poem about death, a laugh can be extra rewarding.

‘Uncle Pedro’ by Lester Gómez Medina is filled with Spanish words and concepts, and those whose Spanish is better than mine will find that version the best. In English it still sweeps the reader into Spain:

Two things would break Uncle Pedro:
the scorch of midday rising through his bare feet,

hard as stone from never wearing shoes.
The guarón scouring his throat, flowing into his veins.

This clear portrait is extremely evocative, and I had the rare pleasure of wishing that a poem was longer!

Another Spanish/Hispanic poem is by the indigenous Mexican/Spanish/British poet Marina Sánchez – ‘Choosing Mother’s Last Flowers’. I couldn’t help expecting a poem about dithering over different lovely blooms, but oh no! This is a wonderfully certain poem, using its subject matter to demonstrate the bond between daughter and mother. Sánchez wrote both versions of the poem, and also translated some of the other poems. She is very talented!

Finally (though I haven’t reviewed these in the book order – I’ve hopped about all over the place with playful joy) we come to ‘Death Came Twice’ by Caroline Hickman Vaughan. This is the sort of poem with a bold idea in it, and here it’s used to evoke emotion in the reader. Well, I was a mess. The poem has all the disparate things that one thinks of at a funeral, from the sun biting the windshield to little pink cakes, and what the deceased would think of the funeral. It’s very well done.

I know it’s fashionable to find some negatives too, to show that I’m not a partial and soppy reviewer. There aren’t any, though. The judges’ and translators’ reports are full, and filled with both the knowledge and the love of poetry. The bios of the poets at the end are informative and not constrained to a short sentence or two. The contents page shows in which language the poem was submitted, and to which language it was translated. I found that fascinating.

I think I almost found a fault – I would have liked page numbers on the contents page, so that I could find and reread the poems as quickly as possible. But in every other way I felt honoured to read and review a book of this quality. It’s outstanding, both in content and production. A labour of love and skill.

Here, thankfully, is the sort of prize anthology the poetry lover should make every attempt to read. Like the best parties and celebrations, those involved are intelligent, compassionate, keen observers, and imaginative creators. Come in! Bienvenida!

 (Vo(i)ces II launches February 2023 – available online from www.victorinapress.com or can be ordered from all bookshops) 

CATHY BRYANT

Cathy Bryant has won 32 literary awards and writing competitions, and she co-edited Best of Manchester Poets Volumes 1, 2 and 3. As well as judging prose and poetry comps, she has had four books published: Contains Strong Language and Scenes of a Sexual Nature, Look at All the Women, Erratics, (all poetry) and How to Win Writing Competitions (nonfiction). She lives in Salford with her writer husband.

A Note on Caroline Vaughan's 'Death Came Twice' – David Rigsbee

Homer’s Odyssey tells us of Odysseus’ descent to the underworld in Book XI, where he meets his dead mother Anticlia and learns that she died of grief over the absence of her son. In spite of the misery of her departure, Odysseus learns a great deal about what happened in Ithaca during his two decades away. He also feels again the love of his mother, who unburdens herself, having been refreshed by a cup of blood he furnishes to animate her and give her powers of speech, but the moment is temporary, which means under the regime of unforgiving time. He makes three attempts to take her in his arms, but each time he realises that he only embraces a mist. Still, he reemerges from the land of the dead firm in the belief that he was doing the right thing and that his mother, even dead, loved him.

In the sixth book of The Aeneid, Aeneas records his journey to the underworld, where he meets with his dead father Anchises in the Elysian Fields. During the encounter, Anchises offers his son a vision of his future lineage and commends him on his quest to reestablish the Trojan line in Italy and later to become one of the founders of Rome and all that follows that.  His father, being in eternity, can see the future, which is, for the living, the extension of time into a question mark. Virgil presents Aeneas as a leader in search of approval. Before he finds his father, he encounters the deceased figure of Dido, the queen of Carthage, whose love and marriage he has rejected in order to forge on with his god-inspired mission. Dido had responded to his desertion by climbing onto her funeral pyre and impaling herself with a sword. As the hero’s ships pull out, Aeneas can see the smoke rising from the pyre but is unaware of its source. Thus he learns the consequences of his choice of duty over love and witnesses Dido’s bitter withdrawal among the other shades, glimpsing as she recedes, her glaring former husband. Despite this regret, the deep chagrin, and the histrionics of the scorned lover, Aeneas’ matters of the heart must give way to the clarion call of duty.

This is how the passage has been taught, and its dilemma has come down to us more pronounced than settled case law. And yet, how we understand the encounter and its takeaways has changed in our era. In other words, the elegy has moved to the forefront of meaningful utterance by casting off many of the cushioning conventions and illusions that sustained us in the past. I have suggested elsewhere that I take it to be the most important genre in poetry. Why would I make such a claim? Because the elegy situates itself between presence and absence and asks in what way (if any way) can language find meaning where there is no echo. In other words, it brings up the hardest questions. In our era, the elegy now serves up its paradox stripped of civic and religious baggage. We want to honour our parents, for example, but we no longer believe they can give us blessings or commendations from beyond the grave. The great Stanley Kunitz’ central theme was the loss of his father by suicide when he was four. In his landmark poem, 'Father and Son', we see the latter as he bounds through the woods—his selva oscura—to the marsh, where he summons his dead father from the water in which he drowned, desperate for guidance, love, and acknowledgement, only to find that "Among the turtles and the lilies he turned to me/the white ignorant hollow of his face".

The elegy has now evolved into a starker version in which there is no expectation that the dead will somehow appear to bless us as we go on in our lives, and even if they should (or could), such a thing would be met with instinctive disbelief. Caroline Hickman Vaughan, praised for her captivating photographic work, which includes numerous portraits of her father before his death, writes in the remarkable, haunting elegy 'Death Came Twice' of a dreamlike encounter in which her father, now deceased, appears in his own hearse and addresses her. The poem opens deliberately and matter-of-factly, "I never said goodbye to my father", which establishes the strictly confessional mode that will be enlarged by the dreamscape that follows, that is, "my childhood home". We are in one of those conditions where both time and place have lost their usual dimensions, where "I grasped his hand, transporting him to my house/miles away, yet we only took twelve steps". If time and space go haywire, as they can in dreams, logic itself falls apart. There is only the supremacy of the image, in Vaughan’s poem, a tender one, powered by memory and wish-fulfilment:

It was hot for September. Windows down,
father was in back eating petit fours, pink ones,
clouded in the aroma of sweet, sweet sugar.
I stuck my head in the window.
Are they good, Dad? I asked.
He’d always had a sweet tooth.

The mystery of his condition, as if he is in some kind of bardo—and beyond the mystery of how he came to appear in the first place, becomes vivid in the contrast between violence and gentleness that Vaughan offers:

Sun bit the windshield,
slicing through him like a knife.
I saw the door handle on the other side.
Translucent light breathed him
the way moon slides through clouds.

The father emerges from the car, and his daughter helps him, his head bobbing, into the house. They both know he belongs there, and she puts him to bed, where she feels the warmth of his hand. It’s as if in putting him on his deathbed, he is at his most poignantly human ("I need to rest. I’m tired./Where I’m going there will be no more little pink cakes."), having left the hearse where he was sliced by sunlight. Like Odysseus with his mother, the daughter forces the issue by reaching to embrace him, coming up with only the comforter in her arms. He is now nothing, defying any attempt at being revived (there is nothing to revive).  

Someone once said that the loveliest word in the English language is “stay". This poem reminded me of that, and of the wistful question that John Ashbery made when he wrote, "What is there to do but stay?/ And that we cannot do". Vaughan’s poem gives us a brilliant example of the elegy’s power to reckon with the beloved dead and to wring meaning from the air. My mentor, the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, in referencing W. H. Auden, remarked that "if time worships language, then language is greater than time". It gives us a loophole to escape the threat of oblivion. Mallarmé famously wrote that "everything exists to wind up in a book". You may find that cold comfort, but Caroline Vaughan doesn’t. Neither do I. It was in this way that the gods themselves survived.

This poem, and its graceful translation, makes a vivid and fitting contribution to Vo(i)ces II, itself a gem of a collection of new voices, original and translated. Readers will be dazzled by the reach of this volume. 

—David Rigsbee 

David Rigsbee

 

David Rigsbee is author of over 20 books in poetry, non-fiction, translation and criticism. His work has appeared in numerous periodicals, including The American Poetry Review, The Georgia Review,The Iowa Review, The New Yorker, Poetry, The Southern Review and Vogue. He is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including a Pushcart Prize, two Fellowships in Literature from The National Endowment for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Humanities (for The American Academy in Rome), The Djerassi Foundation, The Jentel Foundation, and The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, as well an Award from the Academy of American Poets. Currently he works as a manuscript consultant and book reviewer. His latest book is a translation of Dante’s Paradiso (2023).  His Watchman in the Knife Factory:  New and Selected Poems is forthcoming in 2024.

 

A graduate of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill as a Morehead Scholar (B.A. in English and Russian—summa cum laude), he attended the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins (M.A.), Hollins University (M.A.L.S. in philosophy), and the University of Virginia (Ph.D. in English). He lives in the Hudson Valley of New York.

Sofia Petrovna by Lydia Chukovskaya - a review

SOFIA PETROVNA 

by Lydia Chukovskaya

Translated by Aline Werth

Preface by Dr Helen Tilly

Persephone Books

 From the blurb:

"One of the few surviving contemporaneous accounts of the Great Purge, Sofia Petrovna is an intense, brave, brief piece of writing composed secretly in a school notebook in lilac ink during the winter of 1939-40."

"...the genius of the book is the subtle way Sofia Petrovna, and the reader, sees the horror of Stalin's Purges unfolding against a background of complete and utter ordinariness."

The endpaper for Persephone Books' new edition of Sofia Petrovna is taken from a cotton print called 'Construction Site', a cotton print dating from between 1920-1930, probably designed by O Bogoslovskaya

My review:

Sofia Petrovna is a bleak yet totally absorbing novel which lays bare the stark truths of life in 1930s Stalinist Russia. It tells the chilling story of Sofia, a doctor’s widow working as a typist in Leningrad, who is a devoted mother to her engineer son, Kolya. When she loses him to the horror of the Stalinist state she spirals into madness. The prose is lean; it is a story told simply and truthfully, and its power rests in its limited scale and relentless mundanity. There is a certain fluidity to the characters, a blurring at the edges, and as a result the reader understands that they could be any man or any woman – the specific becomes universal.

The novel portrays a system where patriots are arrested on a whim, where those who dare to think for themselves or fall victim to misplaced rumours are destroyed, jailed, or lose what little sanity they have and are driven to suicide. There is a systematic withholding of information – any information – and mothers, sisters, husbands and brothers, queue for days, weeks and moths to try to find out what has happened to their sons, fathers, daughters and wives.

Sofia Petrovna reveals a world where self-deception is necessary to survive – where citizens believe the Party would never misinform them and the state doesn’t arrest those who are innocent. It examines the perils of blind trust, the dangers of denial and the power of government lies. Chukovskaya herself said: ‘[Sofia is] a personification of those who seriously believed that what took place was rational and just. “We don’t imprison people for no reason” Lose that faith and you’re lost; nothing’s left but to hang yourself’. Sadly, her novel is as relevant now as it was when it was first written.

(Published 19th October 2023 by Persephone Books -  www.persephonebooks.co.uk)

NATIONAL DISH by Anya Von Bremzen – A Review

 

WHAT THE PUBLISHER SAYS

The acclaimed international food writer and award-winning author of Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking explores the history and future of six of the world's most fascinating and iconic food cultures – France, Italy, Japan, Spain, Mexico, and Turkey.

We all have an idea in our heads about what French food is – or Italian, or Japanese, or Mexican, or . . . But where did those ideas come from? Who decides what makes a national cuisine? Anya von Bremzen, award-winning international food writer, has written definitive cookbooks for Russian, Spanish and Latin American cuisine, and delved into the world's great food traditions as a three-time James-Beard-award-winning food journalist. Now, in National Dish, she embarks on a fascinating journey to the heart of six of the world's most storied food traditions, going high and low, from world-famous chefs to people on the street, in search of how cuisine became connected to place.

Paris is where the whole idea of a country's food as its national heritage was first invented, and so it is where Anya must begin. With an inquisitive eye and unmistakable wit, she ponders the invention of the restaurant, the codification of French food, and the tension between the cosmopolitan and locavore tendencies of the modern eater. From France, she moves quarters to Naples, where she comes face to face with the myth and reality of the pizza in the city where it all began, and takes on the Italian-ness of pasta in the bargain. Next is Tokyo, where Anya and her partner Barry explore the mystique of ramen, rice, and the distance between Japan's future and its past. From there they move to Seville, to search for the essence of Spain's tapas culture and sense of community, and then Oaxaca, where culture wars over the pretty dream and the complex reality of postcolonial cultural integration find expression in the form of maize, mole, and mezcal. In Istanbul, a traditional Ottoman potluck with friends becomes a lens on how a great multi-cultural empire defined its food heritage. Finally, they land back in their beloved home in the melting pot of Jackson Heights, Queens, for a Ukrainian dinner centred around borscht, a meal which has never felt more loaded, or more precious.

A book of astonishing range and connoisseurship, National Dish peels back the layers of myth, commercialisation, and fetishisation around these great world cuisines. In so doing, it brings us to a deep appreciation of how the country makes the food, and the food the country.


MY REVIEW

I was drawn to National Dish because I love food and I love travel memoirs and – with the exception of Mexico – I have spent time in all the countries Anya Von Bremzen writes about here – including Russia.

I was particularly interested in the Tokyo section – I’m an ardent Japanophile and a huge fan of udon and soba noodles – and the joys of konbini stores! – so I found much I could relate to in that chapter.

The whole book was fascinating, and although I already knew a little of the history of some of the dishes discussed and the myths surrounding them, I still found plenty to interest me. The personal travel aspect was equally immersive, and I found much to relate to there as well – reliving time spent in Tokyo and Istanbul in particular.

National Dish is a treat for foodies and those interested in food history, but it’s also much more. The writing is smart and often funny, and effortlessly combines personal experiences with cultural observations. We get to meet so many great characters throughout the book as well.

I have read some negative reviews from those who feel their country has been misrepresented in some way, or who feel there are too many obvious clichés running through the narrative. The latter may be true in places, but I cannot comment on the former as I simply don’t have enough knowledge of the issues raised. It isn’t a perfect book, but it answers a lot of interesting questions – and I enjoyed it.

 

(National Dish will be published in September 2023 by Pushkin Press. Thanks to Pushkin for the ARC.)