a concise chinese-english dictionary for lovers

Another book from last year’s Orange Prize shortlist, this time by Xiaolu Guo. I read this one in a flash, due in part to the deliberately simplistic language used by the narrator, newly arrived in London from China. It has been a long time since a book has irritated me this much. The broken language did not ring true to my ear, suffice to say this conceit did not work for me.

Thankfully the heroine’s language does improve, and with it the book and its love story, if rather marginally. There are occasional glimpses of beauty and sadness expressed with great honesty and candour. But to the end I remained unconvinced, a pity.

Uncommonly for me I have started two new books, both of which have already completely sucked me in from the first few pages. I promise, no more book grumpiness when I come to review those!

death by…

While food prices keep going up and Gordon’s reminding us not to waste, this very funny series of photos by Daniela Edburg shows what happens when the food we love and crave takes over our lives. You choose – death by bananas, oreas, cotton candy or nutella? Don’t forget to check out the interview with the artist below the album.

digging to america

This book seems to have been following me around for the past couple of years, sneaking up on me in airports and various 3-for-2 offers that I see in bookshops. About a month ago I started requesting books from the library that have either won or been on the shortlist for competitions in the past, such as the Booker and the Orange prizes. Anne Tyler’s book made the 2007 Orange shortlist.

The plot itself is intriguing enough. Two American couples, one homey Baltimore and the other Iranian in flavour, become friends when they each adopt a little girl from Korea. Their family lives become intertwined through the girls, their parents and grandparents. So far, so cosy. But..

The language in the book is very casual, so much so that it took me a while to get used to in the beginning, and I found the use of certain words such as ‘lugging’ jarring. Or is that an American vs. British English difference? In general the read was easy, almost like watching a soap on tv. The flip side of that is the almost indifference to its characters that the book inspires, despite the love and loss that the book serves up to try and endear itself to you.

The characters do grow on you slowly but right to the end I had the sneaking suspicion that none of the characters could be or ever have been real, so completely did each of them embody the stereotype they represented. This included the cute little girls, the all-American father and grandfather, the exotic Iranian grandmother and all the neighbours!

Interestingly, I found the most honest (or convincing) thoughts and conversations in the book to be about (national and cultural) identity and self, but surprisingly not that of the adopted girls. Perhaps I just expected something different from this book than the lazy, superficial story it delivered. Not one I would recommend to others.

kongsberg jazz festival

In the end we heard relatively little jazz considering how much there was available, but a personal guided tour around a very pleasant town and delicious pizza in a garden to the sound of music made it a very nice evening anyway.