The Fox Was Ever the Hunter

Hello Gentle Reader

In Nobel Laureate Herta Müller’s lexicon of linguistics, there is one prevalent rule: “Every word knows something of a vicious circle.” This prevalent rule is both symbol and philosophy for the Nobel Laureate; as it mirrors both her life, and experiences, during the Communist reign, which shaped the developing and early adult years of her life. Language in Communist Romania was a powerful weapon and tool, used in instrumenting control over the populace, but also influencing the citizens into a complacent manner, in which they accepted the meager existence which was rationally dished out for them. Herta Müller is unique individual when seen as a testament of the individual, contrasted against the backdrop of history. It is well documented, that Müller’s father fought with the Waffen-SS during World War II; Müller’s mother was sent to a forced labour camp (Soviet gulag) when she was seventeen, this experience along with the story and testament of Herta Müller’s friend the late Oskar Pastior, would be the inspiration for her most recent novel “The Hunger Angel,” (or in German: “Atemschaukel,”). Herta Müller herself was born in 1953, the same year Joseph Stalin died. She grew up in a small ethnic German village named Nitzkydorf in the Banat region of Romania. This agronomic community was isolated, and cut off from the city; but it was not cut off from the state or its ideology. Müller often found herself, isolated and alone in the village; where in the summer she would tend to the cows in the pasture. Out there Herta Müller talked to flowers, and clouds. Müller herself had commented, in these lonely days and afternoons, she would pair the plants up, in a form of marriage, and eat every weed to somehow become closer to it; she would also give the plants new names. For example she changed the name of milkweed, to “Thornrib,” or “Needleneck.” Again though, explained Müller, this was yet another attempt to get closer to them, and to try and understand how to live, as they naturally and obviously knew how to do. Yet for Herta Müller, becoming a writer was the furthest idea from her mind. The careers in which Müller had considered where more ordinary and fit with the expansive and isolated world, in which she found herself; such as a seamstress like her aunt, or perhaps even a hairdresser. But a writer? Nothing could have been further from her mind, living in linguistic isolation; and there was, no books in the home. Yet upon entering school in the city of Timișoara, Herta Müller devoured every book or text that entered her hands, and soon she was hooked. The problem with words, and writing is once it has slipped inside, and nestled under the skin, branched out into the lungs, and stabbed the heart, and infected the brain, there is no hope to escape it, and no way to release it but to write. Thankfully though Herta Müller did get bitten by the bug, and did write; and continues to write.

However, being a writer in a communist state; or any authoritarian state; a writer can never be truly on the side of the dictatorship. Writers – like all precarious creatures, with creative ambitions and endeavors; are often faced with a decision, when it comes to their role in a society; specifically speaking totalitarian regimes, be it: fascist or communist, military dictatorship, et cetera; do they become a tool of state? A propaganda producing machine, where they herald the triumph of ideological standards, and its miraculous ability to contain, control, and also organize a chaotic and anarchic natural world, along with the human variable; at such simple costs: freedom and individuality. Or does the writer become a tool for the human desire for freedom? Proclaim that freedoms are an inherent born animal rights, made all that more apparent by our sentient and cognitive functions. Yet for any individual, citizen, or comrade who dissents against the prevailing ideology of the society of the time, the repercussions and retaliation from those who have the authority and power over the social structure, will seek to exercise it, and snuff out such dissidence, before it infects others with the virus of “counter-revolutionary,” ideas. Herta Müller in her childhood understood the existential fear of the looming idea of The State; when she herded and watched over the cows to ensure they did not break into state owned fields, where they would surely end up producing a considerable amount of damage. Yet, for Müller the responsibility placed upon her childhood self was perhaps a greater root of fear, and existential uncertainty, rather then the threat of the State, in which she would come into direct conflict with later in life. Herta Müller has also pointed out the village in which she grew up, was the first dictatorship she would come to know and learn; where neighbours, school teachers, the local policeman, and the priest, would all know the business and transactions of the surrounding households. The village itself, operated on a sense of its own unwritten requirement to conform to the village’s practices, culture, or risk being ostracized and gossiped about.

Years later, when Müller escaped her village and moved to the city, she would soon see the States Shadow was everywhere and engulfed everything, as it corrupted and corroded every life, building, and plant, in which it cast its self over. Despite the oppressive atmosphere of Timișoara, Müller would begin to understand the importance of the written word, as well as the power of language, as a form of resistance. After graduating from university, Herta Müller would go on to be employed in a tractor factory, as a translator for the manuals. It was then, that Müller found herself in direct contact with the State, and was on the wrong side. When the Romanian secret police (Securitate), had demanded the writer to become an informant, she declined, and soon her world was continually shaken up, by disruptive interrogations, as well as interloping and intrusive entry in her apartment. Herta Müller, had stated the secret police, didn’t want to bother themselves with killing ‘you,’ but rather save the bullet and the trouble, and push you to the brink of madness, with the intent, ‘you,’ would do the deed at your own volition. One of Müller’s testimonies from this time period, was the vandalism of her fox fur rug. Herta Müller noted, the secret police made its powers known with regards to entering her apartment, by simple gas lighting psychological terror techniques; they would leave cigarette butts in the toilet, take pictures off the wall, or turn chairs upside down. Yet the most threatening gesture would be the vandalism of the fox fur. As Herta Müller stated, the fox fur was cut up piece by piece, first the tail, then the legs, and finally the head. This situation would later become the basis of her novel: “The Fox Was Ever the Hunter.”

“The Fox Was Ever the Hunter,” is an early novel, first published in 1992, but showcases the stark and frank poetic style of Müller; the highly developed metaphorical syntax structure and the duality of language. On a basic level the novel traces a group of friend’s live in Communist Romania, during the last few months of the communist regime, and the waning powers of the Ceaușescu’s, before their Christmas Day execution. The novel recounts the tragedies, the betrayals, the madness, and desperation of all the four characters, and their continual attempts at survival. Adina, the school teacher, is at the forefront of the novel, and the closest thing there is to a ‘main character.’ Adina’s questionable actions are noted early on in the novel, when her students are commissioned to assist in the harvest of tomatoes; she encourages her impoverished students to eat them, and soon she is brought before the director of the school, who quickly reprimands this behavior. Paul is a doctor and a dissident musician, who finds himself in ideological and social conformity issues, when his band performs an ‘offensive,’ song. His band mate Albi in his interrogation, would mirror the authors own experience, where he is ordered to collaborate with the secret police; and refuses. Clara works in a wire factory, and her resilience, and her attempts at survival will put her at odds with her friends, because of her naivety.

Much like the writer, Adina has a fox fur; and soon it is slowly mutilated. Adina informs us of the origin of the fox fur, her desire for one since she was a child, and how she came to acquire it, with her mother, and how long it has been with her. The fox becomes less and less a physical object which is slowly mutilated, but a symbol of the fragility of an individual’s mental state under such a regime. As each new piece is cut off, and quickly placed back into place, to be discovered by happenstance, Adina's reality begins to become more paranoid, and more fragile, as it begins to collapse in on itself. It soon becomes clear; the secret police were capable of infiltrating the group by the invitation of one. An invitation made clearly and early on, by the way a hand is grasped, reminiscent of Captain Pjele, who squeezes the fingers of the narrator of “The Land of Green Plums,” and slobbers a wet kiss upon it.

“The Fox Was Ever the Hunter,” takes time and patience to get engulfed in. It diverts and discusses a multitude of vignette’s and scenes, depicting and documenting the life of communist Romania. Such as “the Cat,” who lives in the wire factory, which gives birth to her litter, and then devours it. The eyes, of the cat however, show case the guilt of the workers; those who suffer the desire for copulation and warmth. How the children of factory works, who go search for their mothers, and its gates, will then be cursed and doomed to end up there themselves. How the children’s turkey necked fingers are populated with clusters of warts; or how even they understand the abstract idea of surveillance by stating that everywhere – from wall to tree; a drawer lurks inside, and inside of that drawer is an ear, that listens, which is why their mothers put the telephone into the refrigerator. The scene is set with the poplars and their leaves like knives, or fishermen fishing in corpse ridden rivers; or how out in the Danube, those who attempt to flee illegally are shot, and how the sound of a gunshot is different then how a branch breaks. After Herta Müller is finished setting the scene, and offering anecdotes of life under the oppressive grey stagnation of communism, beneath the dictators forelock and his black eyes looking out on to the country; the novel begins to form, as the realities and lives of Adina, Paul, and Clara, begin to threaten absolute dissolution and collapse, do the preceding scenes and vignette's begin to show their potency in how they affect the characters, and make their poetic achievement even more personal. 

Herta Müller’s life is more often than not reflected in her writing. Writing about her experience during her life under Communist Romania, the persecution as a political dissident, an ethnic minority, and being the perpetual outsider; have influenced her themes and her novels. “The Fox Was Ever the Hunter,” is of no exception. This being said do not be quick to deem the writing as strictly autobiographical. Rather, writing in this case is more of a personal exorcism; a taming what one has lived.  Even with that statement though, Herta Müller goes beyond this as well, and make her novels, short stories, and poems, both personal and politically aware. Rather than focusing on the grandiose events of history, including the graphics, along with the quantitative and qualitative analysis of the events; Müller gets under the skin, and canals straight to the root of the events, down to the most personal and myopic aspects of society, and show how the mundane, and the everyday are shaped, conformed, and corrupted by the state and by the reigning ideology. She states and she testifies: history is more than just events, more than just names, more than just an uprising;  history be it dark or utopian; existed on a minuscule everyday level, and she describes it with brutal and frank honesty. Her language is almost coded, subtle and discrete, as if still evading the scrutinity of the state and its secret police. Yet it does open up and blossom; and when it does Herta Müller becomes an admirable writer, of the highest order. 

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary 

The IMPAC Literary Dublin Award Winner

Hello Gentle Reader

The IMPAC Literary Dublin Award, is the most lucrative literary prize, an author can receive for a single novel, with a paycheque of $100, 000. The prize also has to its name, internationally renowned writers on its alumni, two of which went on to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature; Herta Müller in nineteen-ninety six, and Orhan Pamuk in two-thousand and three.

This year’s winner is the Indian born, American writer Akhil Sharma for his novel “Family Life.” The judges for this year’s award praised Sharma’s novel for a combination of both the light and the dark. “Family Life,” itself took Sharma thirteen years to write, and traces a family’s odyssey from New Delhi to New York, where the older brother suffers an accident which leaves him brain damaged, and in need of twenty-four hour care. Akhil Sharma had stated that writing the novel was like: “a nightmare- like chewing stones, chewing gravel.” But thirteen years of labor had paid off for the writer, and former investment banker. It has since gone on to win the Folio Prize and now the IMPAC Literary Dublin Award.

Congratulations to Akhil Sharma for winning this year’s award!

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary

Premio Camões Prize for 2016

Hello Gentle Reader

The Camões Prize is the most prestigious Portuguese language literary prize. It has been awarded to writers from Mozambique, Brazil, Angola, Portugal, as well as Cape Verde. Writer who have received the award, have been Mia Couto from Mozambique, and Pepetela from Angola, as well as Jose Saramago, who would later go on to become a Nobel Laureate in Literature.

This years Camões Prize has gone to the Brazilian Writer Raduan Nassar. What makes Raduan Nassar, unique in winning this award, is how small his bibliography is. Nassar, has only three books to his name; two short novels, and a collection of short stories. In nineteen-eighty four, Raduan Nassar ceased to write, as he no long found literature of interest, and turned his attention to agriculture – specifically speaking, chicken farming. However in two-thousand and eleven donated the farm land to the Federal University of São Carlos, under the clause, that the land would be developed into another campus. After wards Nassar is reported to have small local charities, and retired to a small farm.

For those interested in reading Raduan Nassar’s work in English, his two novels have been translated earlier in this year, in January (2016). They are: “Ancient Tillage,” and “A Cup Full of Rage.”

“The Guardian,” newspaper in the UK reviewed “A Cup Full of Rage,” and commented on its short length, but stated despite the length, the novel packs a rewarding punch, to those willing to peck it, out between the cracks of the ‘Meganovels,’ surrounding it.

Congratulations are in order to Raduan Nassar for winning this year’s Camões Prize.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary

Moving Parts

Hello Gentle Reader

The act of creation is both simplistic and yet haphazard. You can sew your characters or dolls, their clothes, which will become their marking uniforms, and their physical identification of their character and their traits. The tuxedo: for the groom who is about to sign away his stag independence for one of matrimony. A virginal white dress with a lace veil: for a blushing bride, for the happiest day of her life. A starched white apron, clear and clean of all stains, necessary for a maid, her tools being either feather duster or broom; while a similar apron would be constructed for the cook, but the stains from the spoons and mixing bowls, a permeant mark of the trade, and the kitchen.  White bow ties, imperfectly placed, go well with black coat tails, and white gloves that hold silver platters; such is the burden of the butler. Pearls and diamonds are for ladies; rubies are for gentlemen. Gold is preferable; but silver will work quite nicely. Push comes to shove, plate the ring with gold; just don’t stay for long. The tailor or doll maker, however always remains clothed in shadow, and faceless. The tailor or doll maker, is a creator, and therefore cannot be a character. This individual is exiled, and therefore lives and exists out of the larger narrative. The tailor or doll maker, is tasked with the creation of characters, to populate preconceived worlds, which can only maintain their brief independent duration as a world, when they are perceived. After words like soap bubbles, escaping the bottle or the kitchen sink, they drift away and pop, in a blink of an eye. A steady catalogue of the required characters, for every narrative, is always at the ready for a tailor or doll maker. Be the required costume for trapeze performers; an earring and a trench coat for a hobo; a provocative red dress to match, red lips and dyed red hair; the finest silk shirts for a business man. All this fabric, costumes, and clothes, must readily available to be distributed, to ensure the characters roles are defined, by their costume and uniform. If it is a tuxedo for a groom, he will be nervous and questioning his decision; if it is the bridal dress, she will beam with whitest light, on her special day, and so the plot must continue towards the joyous occasion; only hints of a later demise of the nuptials is insinuated in the last chapter; where broken dishes strewn around the floor, and a wedding photo’s frame is cracked on a smiling couple; and a suitcase sits ready at the door for departure. To oversee these proceedings; be it a wedding; or a circus tragedy where the nimble fingers of one trapeze performer misses the hand of the other, and so she plummets to mortality (as the removal of safety nets ups the ante); a narrator is called upon via contract. Who calls the narrator? Why, the author of course. The same and only authority figure, who not only watched the escaped soap bubble flee in the air from the bottle or kitchen sink; but actively encouraged its maiden flight; the same old author, who is quiet well acquainted with the tailor or doll maker; having a pint of beer with him now and then; and sending a bottle of scotch his way at least once a year. The relationship between author and narrator however, is less friendly or cordial, when compared to the one shared between author and tailor or doll maker. The relationship between author and narrator is one based on contractual agreements, and legalese laced documents, where the terms and conditions, and nature of their relationship are outlined.

As such documents state: the author is the sole beneficiary of the world, in which he has observed and fostered, in its adopted from, from its conception to flight in the air. Now an author cannot infuse his own voice onto this newly conceived world. To do so would transform the author into an authoritarian figure, and order would cease to move in an orderly direction, as the newly populated citizens and characters of this world, would continue to rebel and up rise against the authority and direction, which is influencing them. Therefore a narrator is hired and contracted with. The narrator is responsible for sewing the sequence of events and sequins of every characters past, present and future to their costume (as to do so, the tailor or doll maker, would charge extra). The narrator is also instructed and expected to perform many other maintenance duties for this world.  The narrator is to set the foundations for apartments; pave streets, and paint the grass green; as well as install windows. Yet these are just general repairs, and prop setup. The narrator’s main objectives and instructions are to always observe the already outlined narrative, which has been written for the world, and its subsequent story. The narrator is to introduce the characters, provide a quick understanding of their difficult or shared pasts; comment on their present situation, and guide them to their eventual destination; be it death or marriage; though one cannot discern a difference, at such a point. When all is said and done – the props dismantled; the paint cans disposed of, the sequins and sequence of events have been sewed in a crude fashion (but sturdy none the less); then the narrator may collect payment for fulling the contractual obligations, and the author may turn their attention away, to another project, and the narrator will move onto another narrative; while the tailor or doll maker’s sewing machine, has begun to already pierce and stitch a new costume. And so the cycle of creation, continues.

“Narrators have a fondness for details; they pluck them skillfully and with relish out of the background. The necktie tells them almost everything, while the eyeglasses merely reflect the external world, little than a fragment of a setting that narrators know like the back of their hand. Different profiles and faces are chosen far facets then for black sweaters; foreheads can be smoother, gazes milder, and this principal, let it be noted has been upheld.”

Creation, order, anarchy, and destruction, appear to be the themes of Magdalena Tulli’s metafictional and postmodernist narratives. Starting with her debut novel “Dreams and Stones,”; which was hotly contested and debated over, via its form, and its classification as a novel; when it lacked any noticeable characters, or plotline or storyline to speak of. “Dreams and Stones,” would later be termed a “not non-fiction,” novel; but reads more like a mediation or even a prose poem. The anti-novel of “Dreams and Stones,” would later become the introductory voice of Tulli’s work, which continually shifts around concepts of creation. Be it the building of a city; a mediation on the worlds found on the tree of life, often in the forms of apples; or the worlds which are pulled out of pockets and tumble out of our sleeves. In her oeuvre Magdalena Tulli, writes about the construction of these worlds, of these settings, as they are erected on stages, quickly; soon her attention would move slightly away from the simple construction of the worlds and the settings, and soon began to populate them with characters, designed and dressed in cardboard catalogue requirements, fitting their roles in the story; until began realizing her characters more and more, and gave them their own names, and their characteristics, within the world. Despite her work evolving, from construction, to population, and full-fledged concepts of a story, while maintain her postmodernist narrative, Magdalena Tulli’s strongest suite is her language, with her ability to create, and construct immaculate short novels, with the greatest prose, which is dense and falls heavy into ones lap. This is more often than not, why it takes a great deal of time, concentration, and patience to read as well as enjoy a Magdalena Tulli novel, to gather its full benefits.

A quick example of her prose mastery from “Moving Parts,”:

“In darkness of the subsoil the suns of the past summer afternoons are extinguished; transitory romances crumble into dust.”

The setting of “Moving Parts,” moves from hotel, to an old and rusted elevator shaft, into the cellars and dark catacombs of the hotel; to the rooftops of the city, and then a garden, to an apartment.  The only narrative of the novel, which is given, is that a helpless and hapless narrator is charged with narrating a story, about betrayal. However his characters and story grow quickly out of control and beyond his authority. In dark and comedic fashion, they rebel against the constraints, and begin to narrate rival stories. Much like the setting though, time within this story, often changes. From the Second World War, and the German occupation of Poland, the cold war, and then the Balkans war; and through it all, the hapless narrator simply tries to reach a resolution for his charges, and yet despite every resolution offered, there are new dimensions and new possibilities, which spawn from this attempt at closure. When a set of characters, are forced to flee their apartment, by the Nazi’s, the narrator makes himself at home; but becomes a character in another narrative, one in which his degrading humiliation allows the curtains to be closed. In his grotesque humiliation (perhaps at the whims of the displeased author, who has fallen asleep after another round of binge drinking), the narrator suffers being flipped over, loses his glasses, damages his noses, and his pants fall down, and his butt is swiftly kicked, and from the audience, in who witness this humiliation a paper ball is thrown at him. Perhaps for the author this is simply the reward of expectation damages, because finally, a resolution happens, simply because the pages end, and the sure enough, the narrator suffers and is humiliated greatly, for the pleasure of others.

Personally, I find Magdalena Tulli at the pinnacle of her powers, when she offers her own meditations on simple objects and how they may reflect or emulate the writing process. Such as her meditation on suitcases within the novel “Moving Parts,”:

“The nature of suitcases is such that they are both there and not there at the same time; the gleam floor already shines through their substance and it will remain in its place once the cases have gone off in the trunks of taxi cabs.”

With the addition now of “Moving Parts,” I now have all of Magdalena Tulli’s novels currently translated into English; a peculiar and wonderful achievement, which I am happy to possess.  Though currently, English readers of Magdalena Tulli, are most likely waiting for her two untranslated books “Szum,” or “Noise,” in English, and “Włoskie Szpilki" or “Italian Pumps,” in English. Both books, along with “Flaw,” have been called autobiographical for Tulli, as they deal with Holocaust (Tulli’s mother was a holocaust survivor), and the aftermath of the great atrocity of the twentieth century. Though it is to my understanding that the wonderful publisher Archipelago Books, will be publishing “Noise,” at an undisclosed date as of right now. Here’s hoping new information will become available in time.  

“Moving Parts,” like all of Magdalena Tulli’s novels, which so far have been translated into English, carries its own caution. It’s a dense, yet short novel, which rattles and clinks with verbs and nouns on a train called sentence, on the tracks of a narrative, on the schedule of a paragraph, conducted by the narrator, and logistically followed by the author. It is a novel, which is riddled with gorgeous metaphors, and explosive writing, translated expertly by Bill Johnson. Despite all of this praise, the novel itself requires a reader’s patience,  as well as concertation, to fully understand and appreciate the novel, and the writing contained in its covers, and on its pages.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary

From Me Flows What You Call Time -- The Future Library Project

Hello Gentle Reader

David Mitchell, the English writer, known for his novels “Cloud Atlas,” “Number9Dream,” and “The Bone Clocks,” is the second and latest author to deposit a manuscript into the Future Library art project, which has been conceived by the Scottish artist Katie Paterson.

David Mitchell is the second writer to deposit a manuscript into the project, with his manuscript titled “From Me Flows What You Call Time,” which follows the first writer to deposit a manuscript into the project Margaret Atwood, and her manuscript titled “Scribbler Moon.”

David Mitchell described the experience of writing the manuscript, as rather liberating, stating:

“because I won’t be around to take the consequences of this being good, or bad ... But I’m sandwiched between Margaret Atwood, and no doubt some shit-hot other writer [yet to be revealed]. So it better be good. What a historic fool of epochal proportions I’d look, if they opened it in 2114 and it wasn’t any good.”

Yet the Future Library project has been praised for its glimmer, and its hope, in which it offers the idea, that humanity will be around in 100 years, to enjoy and read the seal away manuscripts. Everywhere one looks today, the end is sounded, and the time to act is being referred to as now; by not acting humanity and the earth are doomed to orbit the sun, as a simple dead husk, deprived of life. On the contrary though, the Future Library shows a more positive thought towards the possibility of a future, which is not deprived of humanity.

Here’s hoping this time capsule of writers, and their manuscripts are good, and the future generations who will be able to read them, will also enjoy them, and have an idea of the past. Though in the words of Margaret Atwood, the project is also a bit narcissistic when the question is proposed to writers: “Will you be read in 100 years?” Her answer now: “Yes.”

Bravo and congratulations to David Mitchell, to being chosen to add a manuscript to this art project, who along with Margaret Atwood as it stands, will be read in 100 years.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary