Multitudinous readers and writers participate in Women in Translation Month every August. They read innumerable books in translation and write their hearts out on blogs and social media.
And here I am–late! I haven’t written them up yet, though on account of snobbery, I pay more attention to WIT than other online reading events, because a woman editor once mentioned it at the TLS. And that must mean it is fashionable.
While browsing at Amazon Crossing (Amazon’s literature in translation imprint), I recently discovered a lyrical, charming Icelandic novel, The Greenhouse, by Audur Ava Olafsdottir, translated by Brian Fitzgibbon1. Originally published in 2007, it won awards in Iceland, France, and Canada.
Audur Ava Olafsdottir
The narrator of this enchanting bildungsroman, Lobbi, has decided to change his life. He leaves home to travel to a famous monastery rose garden in a remote village in an unnamed country. His mother, a gardener, has recently died, and though Lobbi is the sole heir of her greenhouse, he is unsure what he wants to do. Dad has some reservations about the monastery: doesn’t Lobbi want to go to the university instead? Josef, Lobbi’s autistic twin, is Lobbi’s contented stay-at-home doppelganger, while Lobbi restlessly sets out alone to explore his own consciousness.
Family is at the center of Lobbi’s life. He has an illegitimate seven-month-old daughter, conceived in the greenhouse with Anna, whom he refers to as “the mother of my child.” Everywhere he goes, Lobbi shows people his daughter’s picture. But Lobbi is not involved with Anna, a no-nonsense geneticist finishing graduate school who is not interested in a relationship.
On the road trip, he has an attack of appendicitis and an emergency appendectomy. During his recovery, he reads a gardening book and wonders about his job. Here is an elegant, charming example of Olafsdottir’s prose.
In the evening I dig my gardening book out of my backpack and quickly browse through the first chapter on lawns, the main concern of any gardener, then indoor plants, before I pause on the chapter on trimming trees. From there I move on to an interesting chapter about grafting, which has been difficult to find information on.
In fact, I don’t know what awaits me in the garden; there was nothing specific about the job itself in the letter. Although I’d rather devote myself entirely to the roses, I’d also be willing to trim bushes and cut the grass, as long as I get a chance to plant my rose cuttings in the soil. I did find it a bit odd, however, that the monastery I wrote to should ask me about my shoe size.
The garden proves enchanting, and Lobbi pays tribute to his mother by transplanting an eight-petal rose from her garden. In the evenings, he watches movies with a cinephile monk, who finds answers to life’s questions in his enormous video collection.
I assure you this thoughtful, lucid novel is not a romance, though the plot point I’m about to reveal may sound like Bridget Jones. When Anna asks him to take care of their daughter while she finishes her thesis, he believes it is the right thing to do. But it is a lot to ask: he can’t continue to live at the monastery, and must find an apartment and learn to cook.
Forget the plot: it is lucid, gorgeous sentence after lucid, gorgeous sentence: Lobbi is witty and humorous, and gardening and fatherhood balance him. For instance, the baby suddenly starts saying “deo”: she has learned a few Latin words during Mass while Lobbi shows her the paintings in a church. She also constantly makes the Sign of the Cross.
Oddly, Lobbi’s voice reminds me of that of witty, intense Karl Ove Knausgaard in his magnificent magnum opus, My Struggle. This is a simpler novel, but both narrators are engaging young men, struggling to learn who they are.
2 George MacDonald’s Phantastes and Lilith. Though not exactly a duology, these two novels share the same surreal ground. The Dover edition says Phantastes is “a fairy tale for adults, it is the captivating story of a wealthy young man who takes an unplanned journey into a fantastic nether world.”
3 Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet. I wrote about this remarkable tetralogy in 2015: “In Durrell’s gorgeously-written, percipient tetralogy, Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, and Clea, the prose is moody and lush. The narrative is psychologically-oriented and fragmented. Over the course of the quartet, Durrell’s narrator, Darley, reiterates and augments a series of events in the lives of his lover Justine and a group of friends in Alexandria, Egypt. Other characters, particularly Balthazar and Clea (Mountolive is the hero of the prequel), contribute their viewpoints, so that a clearer picture is revealed. Published from 1957 to 1960, these books are elegant but occasionally too flowery. In the ’50s, Durrell’s poeticism flourished. I love every word!”
4 Richard Adams’s Shardik and Maia. Best known for Watership Down, Richard Adams wrote other remarkable fantasy novels. Two are set in the Beklin Empire. I loved Shardik, described by Overlook Publishers as “a fantasy of tragic character, centered on the long-awaited reincarnation of the gigantic bear Shardik and his appearance among the half-barbaric Ortelgan people. Mighty, ferocious, and unpredictable, Shardik changes the life of every person in the story.” I admit I didn’t finish the prequel, Maia, which is 1,000 pages long and set in the same world. Maia, a peasant girl, is sold into slavery and then recruited as a spy. Lots of adventures!
5 When Hillary Clinton ran for president, she said in an interview that she enjoyed Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children series. I did indeed love these books when I read themo, but I didn’t make it through the whole series. Set during the Ice Age, the heroine is Ayla, a Cro-Magnon girl raised by Neanderthals, who must eventually leave and find her own people. Penguin Random House describes the series as “A literary phenomenon, …Employing meticulous research and the consummate artistry of a master storyteller, Auel paints a vivid panorama of the dawn of modern humans. Through Ayla, an orphaned girl who grows into a beautiful and courageous young woman, we are swept up in the harsh and beautiful Ice Age world, home to the Clan of the Cave Bear.”
8 Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Brave New World Revisited are the ultimate dystopian classics. And, yes, Huxley was often prescient. 
9 Ursula K. Le Guin’s Haimish Novels & Stories (Library of America). If you loved her best-known classic, The Left Hand of Darkness, you will want to know more about the League of All Worlds. Here is a link to the Library of America boxed set with a list of the novels and short stories.
10 J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. Why not reread it this weekend and watch the movies? That will take care of Labor Day Weekend!
Fortunately, I have found refuge in a good book. And so let me fervently recommend Gabriella Burnham’s haunting first novel, It Is Wood, It Is Stone. Brazil is so exotic that I feel I have taken a trip as I hear the voice of Linda, the thoughtful narrator, recounting the mixture of confusion and inspiration she feels during a year there.
Where the heck can we donate these books? I swear they’re not toxic.
I love the lively dialogue, which depicts the three girls so believably. As you would expect from the lines “Wouldn’t I? That’s all you know!”, Jane is adamant. She speaks aloud the spell in the woods at the moment when Mr. Rochester, a handsome man who has missed his train, is passing by. Yes, the novel is a playful riff on Jane Eyre: Jane and Mr. Rochester fall in love. Sort of. But Jane has no idea if she will see him again.
So here I am, many years later, musing about the brilliance of E. Nesbit (1858-1924), a poet, novelist, and member of the Fabian Society, who has survived into the 21st century as a writer of children’s classics.
Nesbit grabs your attention: the book literally opens with fireworks. Robert, Anthea, Jane, and Cyril decide to test their fireworks (for the Guy Fawkes celebration) by setting off a few indoors. One of them explodes and the fire destroys the nursery carpet. So their tolerant mother buys an old Persian carpet, which looks like nothing special, but when they unfurl it they find a big egg, which they think is an ornament.
To complement my rediscovery of Nesbit, I have also read The Life and Loves of E. Nesbit, by Eleanor Fitzsimons. This fascinating biography is illuminated by numerous quotes from Nesbit’s work. Nesbit wanted to be a poet, but wrote anything and everything, articles, fairy tales, adult novels, and horror, to support her family: her husband Hubert Bland, their children Paul, Iris, and Fabian, Bland’s mistress, Alice, and Alice’s two children with Bland, Rosamond, and John (known as “Lamb), whom Edith raised as her own.
1 The Last Resort by Pamela Hansford Johnson. Christine, a happily married writer, decides to spend some days alone in a hotel so she can finish a manuscript. But Christine also proves herself a thoughtful, observant friend as she relates the disturbing events of her friend Celia’s love affair with a married man. (Celia’s parents live at the hotel.) This is a fascinating novel, though a bit melodramatic and slightly dated. You will love Christine, who first appeared in An Impossible Marriage.
2 The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope. Trollope’s masterpiece about finance and marriage begins with an introduction to the memorable character Lady Carbury, a 42-year-old widow trying to supplement her income by writing earnest but badly-researched books, her latest being Criminal Queens. She hustles to promote herself, and the letters she sends to editors are hilarious. They work, too.
3 Some Do Not… by Ford Madox Ford. The hero Tietjens greatly respects Mrs. Wannop, who has written a great novel but often turns to him for help when writing journalism. Mad about making connections with the critics and aggressively trying to meet them, she follows in the footsteps of Trollope’s PR-conscious Lady Carbury. Ford writes, “Mrs. Wannop was a woman of business. If she heard of a reviewer within driving distance she called on him with eggs as a present.”
4 Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym. Catherine Oliphant spends her days in an apartment in Bloomsbury writing short stories for women’s magazines. While she types her formulaic stories, she keeps an eye on the new anthropology library across the street. Her boyfriend, Tom, has been away in Africa for two years, and now neglects Catherine for his work . But over the course of the novel, we get the feeling that Catherine is the true anthropologist
5 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. Jo March, an aspiring writer, is Alcott’s most famous character. The second daughter in a family held together by Marmee while Father is a chaplain in the Civil War, Jo writes plays when we first meet her, and continues her career writing for magazines as an adult–though her boyfriend Professor Bhaer spoils the fun of her writing blood-and-thunder stories. (Louisa Alcott loved writing blood-and-thunder.)
6 Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood. This charming, early novel by Atwood is narrated by Joan Foster, a romance writer and poet who has metamorphosed from an unpopular fat girl into a seductive, secretive adult. Joan tells no one about her successful writing career, not even her husband, who is oblivious of the hours she spends writing. This very funny, charming novel deserves more attention.
7 The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing. Anna, the heroine, is cynical about her mawkish best-selling first novel, and as a result is blocked. Now she writes only for herself, in five different notebooks. There are many layers in the notebooks, and this fragmented novel reflects society in the ’40s, ’50s, and’60s. A masterpiece.
8 The Box Garden by Carol Shields. The likable narrator, Charleen Forrest, a poet and part-time assistant editor at a botanical journal, is depressed about the impact of divorce on her family life. Her husband left her and their fifteen-year-old son to live in a commune and raise organic food five years ago. Meanwhile she is dating an orthodontist—whom her friends think very unhip—and corresponding with a man whose philosophical essay on grass (not marijuana) was rejected by the botanical journal.
9 Dangerous Ages by Rose Macaulay. In this moving, deftly-written novel, Macaulay meticulously sketches four generations of women in a family. One of my favorite characters is thirty-three-year-old Nan, a bohemian novelist. She has decided to tell her lover she will marry him as soon as as she finishes her book. But then her 20-year-old niece Gerda gets in the way, falling in love with Nan’s boyfriend. You can imagine the turmoil. This is, however, one of many crises in the family.
True confession: we love e-books. At first we were wary, but in the zips we began to read free books on a palm pilot (a friend in a book group told me about the palm pilot). Everybody back then was saying the e-book would bring down the book. Well, that proved to be hysteria: a financial issue in the industry. Still, when I bought a Nook tablet in 2011, I wondered if it was too “space-age.”