Dolce Bellezza: The Other Name Septology I-II by Jon Fosse (the first 100 pages) for Norway In November
A book review blog for literary, and translated, fiction.| dolcebellezza.blogspot.com
How is it that you can make people stay somewhere they want to leave, and make people leave who want to be there? (p. 111)| Dolce Bellezza
Do not be deceived that this cool and shadowed path is what I am enjoying this Summer. It has been above 90 degrees for what feels like most of July, and I am chafed and irritable. As much as I dislike the Halloween displays all around me in Walgreen’s and Jewel, which have completely bypassed the Back to School displays, I am ready for Autumn.| Dolce Bellezza
Oh, Paris Baguette is food for my soul! When I walk in, I see this:| Dolce Bellezza
“ …he had hoped to improve his condition - and for that reason he was in Paris!”| Dolce Bellezza
It just occurred to me that it is July, and with that, comes the Paris in July annual event which I rarely miss. If we cannot go there physically, surely we must visit via literature.I have searched my collection, and found, to no one’s surprise, that I prefer to read the classics. I will choose from these selections:| Dolce Bellezza
How prescient it is that The Persian would arrive on my doorstep the very week that Israel bombed Iran. I watched the news in disbelief and then opened this novel to find it all the more believable.| Dolce Bellezza
I saw a long, fat, black-beaded wallet at the cash register where I was paying for my bar cookies at Whole Foods this afternoon.| Dolce Bellezza
The stories of the passengers on The Passengers on The Hankyu Line, by Hiro Arikawa, are linked together like the cars of a train. They are connected, and propelled, by the people who inhabit them. | Dolce Bellezza
As I left the library the other day, I stopped to peruse the Used Shelf as I always do to look for a treasure hidden among the discards.(Once I found a hardcover, first edition of Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore. Really.)On impulse, I picked up Claimed by J.R. Ward. It was by a best selling author, and she had graduated from Smith College; it couldn’t be that bad, right?| Dolce Bellezza
My mother loves lily of the valley. And when I brought a bunch to her sister, who was feeling ill this week, my aunt said, “Grandma loved these flowers.” Apparently, it runs in the family.What a thought: to run in the family. Imagine that the flowers loved by the women of the family grow in my backyard because I love them, too. Imagine the continuation of likes and similarities.| Dolce Bellezza
My husband, who is a gardener, notices things like this stone that is wrapped with a rope. In Japan, it has a name, sekimori ishi, and it indicates that a path is closed. Or, that visitors should take a different route.I find it particularly meaningful in light of the way I placed such a stone in my blog. For a long time, it has been closed. Even now I am hesitant to move the boundary stone, uncertain if I’m ready to head down this blogging path again.| Dolce Bellezza
Dear Friends, | Dolce Bellezza
So many images flood my mind as I close the cover of this tender book. I see bottles of pale blue soda, called Fressy; a pygmy hippopotamus named Pochiko; a brown Mercedes driven by a suave and elegant uncle; and an asthmatic girl named Mina, whose presence is not only in the cover, but throughout the entire novel.| Dolce Bellezza
I found The Full Moon Coffee Shop to be a pleasant variation on an oft-repeated theme; so many Japanese books with cats as the central characters seem to have seized the market. While I like cats, I am not so fond of astrology, another theme within this book. But, there are other ideas within its pages that gave me pause.| Dolce Bellezza
It’s been a strange year for reading, and blogging, for me. My husband has been quite ill, and after a serious cycling accident in October, he has required much of my attention. Switching from WordPress to Blogger, as my domain at WordPress was full, was not as smooth as I had hoped. Nor did my relative lack of interaction with all of you help.| Dolce Bellezza
It’s hard to tell from the small section included in the picture, but this is a window seat under our dining room window, in which I plan to sit and read All Day. I hope to finish Haruki Murakami’s latest, The City and Its Uncertain Walls, which is proving to be just as enigmatic, and intriguing, as I had hoped. Once again, I find some of the same themes: libraries, dreams, walls, and loneliness, and I am reminded of my love for Japanese literature.When my husband and I were in Kyoto, in ...| Dolce Bellezza
If Ti Amo wasn’t in the fiction section of the library, I would have thought I was reading a letter. Or, more accurately, a personal journal entry. It is exquisite in its poignancy.| Dolce Bellezza
Silly me. I was intrigued to read this book not only for the Norwegian challenge I have put forth, but also because I thought it would be a kind of thriller. Professor Andersen’s Night by Dag Solstad has, at its core, a murder. And I love Scandinavian noir. But, this is noir of an altogether different kind.On Christmas Eve, Professor Anderson sets the table in his dining room. He changes into formal clothes, and serves ribs with crisp crackling from his own oven. We think, perhaps, that he...| Dolce Bellezza
In a way that is similar to the photograph I took of this bird and its reflection in the water, Fosse gives us a reflection of two men; one may be real, and the other a shadow. One may be transformed from the other into the person he has now become. Whatever the case, I have been intoxicated by the story of Asle. And, Asle.The first is a painter, who begins his narration by telling us of the painting he has just finished. It is one wide line of purple, and one wide line of brown, crossing eac...| Dolce Bellezza
A book review blog for literary, and translated, fiction.| dolcebellezza.blogspot.com
A book review blog for literary, and translated, fiction.| dolcebellezza.blogspot.com
A book review blog for literary, and translated, fiction.| dolcebellezza.blogspot.com
A book review blog for literary, and translated, fiction.| dolcebellezza.blogspot.com
A book review blog for literary, and translated, fiction.| dolcebellezza.blogspot.com
A book review blog for literary, and translated, fiction.| dolcebellezza.blogspot.com
A book review blog for literary, and translated, fiction.| dolcebellezza.blogspot.com
A book review blog for literary, and translated, fiction.| dolcebellezza.blogspot.com
