And now for something different….

I gave in, finally…

From now on you can follow me on Twitter as well at http://twitter.com/armenianodar. For a long time I didn’t want to join Twitter, because I expected it to be another online addiction. In fact I still do, but we’ll see what happens. Anyway, expect mainly bookish stuff, Armenian and Caucasus topics, and human rights and gender issues.

Now I’m off to play…

Bella Mafia by Lynda La Plante

I picked this book up because I needed something not too complicated to get me out of my reading slump. I am not wild about Bella Mafia, but it did do the trick: I’m reading again. Not as much as I’d like to, but that’s okay for now.

Lynda La Plante is a well-known script-writer, among others for Prime Suspect, the police series with Helen Mirren, which I loved very much at the time. Until I came across the omnibus of which Bella Mafia is a part, I didn’t realize she was also an author of thriller/suspense books.

Bella Mafia consists of two very different, but connected parts. The book opens in the present (that being the late 1980s) when Sicilian mafia boss Don Roberto Luciano offers to testify in court for the prosecution in a big mafia case, a step which will put his own life and that of his family in danger. From there on the story goes back in time some fifty years and tells the story of Luciano and his family members, his wife Graziella and their four sons, and how he builds up his empire. When we arrive back in the present, Luciano and his three sons (number four died – an event that is key to the story), a nephew and two grand-children are brutally murdered. Don’t worry, this is not giving away much, it is mentioned on the back-cover of the book. The second part of the book centers around the story of the five Luciano widows taking on the mafia to get back their rightful inheritance.

My main problem with Bella Mafia is that it is supposed to be a thriller (I think), but the first half is more like a family saga of an Italian mafia family and only the second half is thriller or suspense-like. In the end it doesn’t succeed in either. For a family-saga it is too much plot-driven and there’s not enough character development, and for a thriller-type of book it is too long (at 900+ pages it could have done with at least 200 less in my opinion) and there is too much non-thriller stuff going on. I preferred the first part, the family history, but then, as you may have noticed, I tend to enjoy family sagas spanning multiple generations.

Like any thriller, the story is plot-driven, more than character-driven, but in this case I think that the story could have done with more character development and might have worked better if it were more of a psychological thriller. As it is now, I felt very distant from the characters and especially in the second part that took away the suspense. The fact that the  reader knows from the beginning of the second part what’s going on and that the reader knows more than the five women (sorry I am so vague about the second part of the book, to tell you more would be giving away too much) wasn’t used nearly enough to get into the minds of the characters. They stayed too distant to become really believable to me.

Bella Mafia is a fun summer read, I definitely did enjoy it on a certain level, but it ultimately left me unsatisfied.

New books and rereads

My parents were with me last week for a short visit. Apart from cheese, stroopwafels, some newspapers and magazines, they also brought books. Not too many new books, mostly ones I already own but want to reread.

Here are the new books they brought, mostly in Dutch though this time.

From top to bottom:
* Bas Haring – Het aquarium van Walter Huijsmans: Haring is a Dutch philosopher who has written several books on science and philosophy for a fairly lay audience. I’ve never read anything by him. In this small book Haring muses about why we worry about the future and the environment.
* Orhan Pamuk – Het huis van de stilte (The Silent House): Actually, my mom took this one back with her because she had nothing left to read on the flight back.
* Alan Bennett – The Uncommon Reader: I must be the last person on earth to read this book. I’m looking forward to picking it up on a rainy Sunday afternoon or an evening reading in bed.
* Kees van Beijnum – Zoon van: A novella about a seventeen year old boy whose entire family is arrested because his father turns out to be behind a high-profile kidnapping case.
* Tim Krabbé – Een tafel vol vlinders: a novella that I actually don’t know anything about. This one and the Van Beijnum were gifts from a bookshop for the National Week of Books. Some of Krabbé’s work has been translated into English.
* Jelle Brandt Corstius – Kleine landjes: Berichten uit de Kaukasus: I wasn’t sure I liked Brandt Corstius’ previous book about Russia Rusland voor Gevorderden, but I do want to read his second book which is about the small nations and peoples in the Northern Caucasus: Abkhasia, Chechnya, Kalmukkia and other obscure and unknown places. My parents also brought the dvds of a series Brandt Corstius made about Russia, called Van Moskou tot Magadan. When I was in Holland last February, I caught one and a half episode on tv and I liked it much more than his book. So on another rainy afternoon (after I finish The Uncommon Reader) I will watch this documentary series.
* Wisława Szymborska – Uitzicht met zandkorrel: Poetry by Polish Nobel-Prize winning poet Szymborska. I don’t read poetry, I don’t “get it”, it requires a different, slower, more contemplating way of reading that I feel I am only just starting to learn for prose (something that started with my failure with The Waves). In a comment on this blog, someone mentioned that Szymborska is also readable for people who don’t read or like poetry. My parents happened to have a collection of her poetry, so I asked them to bring it. Let’s see how I fare…
* Geert Mak – In Europa: This huge tome about twentieth century Europe has been translated into English as well. I want to finish Robert Fisk’s Pity the Nation soon (a great book, but I’ve been reading it on and off for the last six months), then I want to tackle Orlando Figes’ Natasha’s Dance and then In Europa as my non-fiction read. Let’s see if I can start with In Europa before the end of this year.

These are the books I want to reread (there are plenty more where these came from, but they’ll have to wait a bit longer). I’ve been feeling like mixing some classics again in my reading mix. It’s been a while.

* Charles Dickens – Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and David Copperfield: all read at least ten years ago.
* Meir Shalev – De Kus van Esau (Esau): also read at least ten years ago. With my rediscovery of Amos Oz, I’m looking forward to (re)reading more Israeli writers. I’m curious what I think of this book now, so many years later.
* Amos Oz – Volmaakte rust (A Perfect Peace): I read several books by Amos Oz in my early twenties, but didn’t care much for them. Some two years ago I read A Tale of Love and Darkness and fell in love with Oz’ writing. I have reread (and much enjoyed this time around) some of his books and Volmaakte rust is up next.
* Anatoli Rybakov – Kinderen van de Arbat (Children of the Arbat): Another book I read many years ago, but didn’t care for much at the time. Will give it a try again and see what happens next.
* Part 3 of Ivan Bunin’s Collected Works in Dutch translation. I got this book as a gift some eight years ago and fell in love with Bunin’s writing. Despite his Nobel Prize, Bunin is one of the lesser known Russian authors (undeservedly so in my opinion – he is one of my favorites, based solely on this one book). This part contains The Life of Arsenyev and short stories Bunin wrote between 1937 and 1952. I really want to buy the other three parts of this series of his collected works, but new they are a whopping 43 euros each.
* Yo’av Karny – De Kaukasus (Highlanders): A book about the people of the region where I live now, the Caucasus. This book covers both the Southern Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) and the Northern Caucasus (the very south of Russia – Chechnya, Ossetia, Dagestan etc). I read this some six years ago when I was living in Armenia for a few months and I remember it as a very readable book. Time for a reread, me thinks.
* The Chosen and its sequel The Promise by Chaim Potok: I am reunited with my very favorite book again, The Chosen! It’s the only book ever that I have reread more than three times. I must have read it some eight times already, but the last time was at least five years ago. For a while I used to reread it once a year over the course of one or two days. I don’t think The Chosen book will stay in my TBR-pile for very long.

Finally, one book that deserves special mention. Last year I read Libby Cone’s War on the Margins, which was self-published at the time. Libby reached out to many bookbloggers and her book was widely praised by those who reviewed it. I enjoyed it very very much as well. Now War on the Margins has been picked up by
a real publisher and it will be published in July. Susannah from Duckworth Publishers was kind enough to send me a proof copy. Which I started reading and I am enjoying this gripping story again. More about War on the Margins in a few weeks.

Tbilisi Posts

This week I finally got around to posting some pictures from my trip to Tbilisi (gasp! I know, that was ages ago!). They’re on my other blog, The Armenian Odar. The posts are here and here.