Recently finished books?

[kpjayan]

?? / ?? David Diop - At Night All Blood is Black : Winner of this year's Man Booker International. Senegalese soldiers fighting for the French Army, during WW1. Cruel, gruesome details of murder and mutilation and the changes the behaviour and attitude of the individual, the soldiers and over the revenge killing and the collection of trophies from the war, mixing with myths and folklore. Impressive story telling and the narrative shift through the pages. Bit off-putting at the beginning, impressive nonetheless.

?? Poornachandra Tejaswi - Carvalho : Prominent writer in Kannada in the 2nd half of 20th century. Most acknowledged book of him, mixes the local story telling techniques and the progressive scientific views within the social fabric ( agrarian , forest dwelling life) in a small village in the Western Ghats of the south western India. He as a writer, choose to walk a different path from the 'New Wave' Kannada Literature movement lead by the likes of U R Ananthamoorthy.

?? Tanikawa Shuntaro - Coca Cola Lessons : Mix of poetry, Prose pems / verses , notes and random jottings. While the book is classified under poetry, it had more poetic prose than the typical,metered,structured poetry. Some of the writings were really good, but most part it wasn't noteworthy. I haven't been really moved by prose poetry much, with the exception of Dulce Maria Loynas.

?? Pedro Lemebel - My Tender Matador : A fictional work on the assassination attempt on Augusto Pinochet on the 7th Sep 1986. Mostly told through the voice of a trans-person , whose house is being used by the revolutionaries of Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front. The treatment and writing on the 'Queen of the Corner' was beautiful , sensual ( in a way) and sensitive. Her ( the book uses feminie gender ) infatuation, love and longing towards the young revolutionary is the impressive part of the book. The other, the voices of Pinochet's wife and Pinochet himself - during and immediately after the attempts, wasn't all that great. Pedro Lemebel, himself is a gay artist, activist and writer ( this is his only novel) and that probably reflects in his writing.

 

[tiganeasca]

^^
Ken Sarowiwa's 'Sozaboy' uses only pidgin ( Rotten-English , he says) in the entire novel. It was difficult to read for a while, but then one get used to it. Or may be it is easier to me as here in India the use of local words in English conversation is common ( Hinglish, as they say).

Interesting. In my experience, pidgin is different everywhere in the world. Plus, some are simply easier to understand than others. There are some I have encountered in person and some in literature; some were comprehensible to me, some not. Plus, some authors are better at reproducing it than others. It detracted a little in this case, but honestly I don't think that even if I understood 100% of it, that it would have made any difference to my appreciation for the novel in this case.

 

[Ben Jackson]

^^
Ken Sarowiwa's 'Sozaboy' uses only pidgin ( Rotten-English , he says) in the entire novel. It was difficult to read for a while, but then one get used to it. Or may be it is easier to me as here in India the use of local words in English conversation is common ( Hinglish, as they say).

Agree with you Kpjayan, remembered reading this book few years ago, it was very tough indeed.

 

[kpjayan]

Interesting. In my experience, pidgin is different everywhere in the world.

That brings out another interesting point. How does one translate the pidgin / Creole literature ? A year ago, I read a book written in Creole-French by the Haitian writer Pierre Clitandre ( Cathedral of the August Heat ), in translation. The translator, reportedly used the West Indian Creole-English , which I thought could be the nearest or the best possible option.

 

[Ben Jackson]

Dag Hammarskjold by Roger Lipsey

Published in 2012, this nearly 800 page biography, about one of the greatest statesmen, to borrow the words of former US President JFK, of 20th Century, documents the life and times of Swedish diplomat, economist and 2nd U N Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold from his early life (the youngest son of lawyer and one time Prime Minister of Sweden and former Swedish Academy member Hjalmar and Agnes Hammarskjold) to his university days at Uppsala and Oxford, his election as a member of Swedish Academy (occupying the seat of his father) and as U N Secretary General, a position he held for seven and half years, to his final and (he died on his way to Ndola for peace deal in an air crash) and the controversy generated after his death and his posthumous Nobel Peace Prize win (the last to be so honoured posthumously). The biography also documents his relationship with writers and fellow Academy members (particulary his letters to his fellow Academy members Par Lagerkvist, Hjalmar Gullberg, Karl Ragner Gierow and Eyvnid Johnson; in the process, pushed for Pasternak, Martin Buber, St John Perse and John Steinbeck for the Nobel Prizes) his passion for literature (among his favourite writers are Meister Eckhart, Thomas Browne, Japanese Haiku Poets, Buddhists, Bible and Hindu texts, French Poets Aragon, Michaux, Superville and writers with 19th Century flavour: Flaubert, Mann, Hesse, Dreiser and Joseph Conrad), music (Bach and Beethoven his favourites) visual arts and theatre, his human character, his challenges and successes and the individuals he worked with during his tenure as U N Secretary General and the ideas and inspirations behind the entries in his journal Markings. A must read, this is (after months of reading) a brilliant biography of a true, iconic statesman, a man worthy of emulation.

 

[Ben Jackson]

Night by Elie Weisel

Initially, I had planned to read Gerald Murnane's The Plains but since I couldn't find it, I opted for another work relating to life in the Holocaust. After reading Kertesz's Fateless around February, I found Weisel's and finished it yesterday.

Winner of Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 (the same year Wole Soyinka won his), this magnificent memoir, the first in the trilogy comprising of Dawn and The Accident, is inspired by Weisel's harrowing experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. Born in town of Sighet, Transylvania, Romania, Weisel documents his memories of his loss of innocence, separation of his mother and sisters (a life changing and traumatically painful moment), his despair and growing disgust of his 15 year old self, for both mankind and for God, his eventual loss of his own humanity in his resolve to do whatever he had to in order to stay alive, the horrors and brutalities he was forced to witness and endure as an observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man.

A powerful testimony of what happened in the camps and of his memorable message that evil of this sort must never repeat itself; written in a language simple and unsentimental, this is a powerful, life-changing masterwork, a work that deserved its acclaim upon its publication in 1962.

 

[Leseratte]

Night by Elie Weisel

Initially, I had planned to read Gerald Murnane's The Plains but since I couldn't find it, I opted for another work relating to life in the Holocaust. After reading Kertesz's Fateless around February, I found Weisel's and finished it yesterday.

Winner of Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 (the same year Wole Soyinka won his), this magnificent memoir, the first in the trilogy comprising of Dawn and The Accident, is inspired by Weisel's harrowing experiences in Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps. Born in town of Sighet, Transylvania, Romania, Weisel documents his memories of his loss of innocence, separation of his mother and sisters (a life changing and traumatically painful moment), his despair and growing disgust of his 15 year old self, for both mankind and for God, his eventual loss of his own humanity in his resolve to do whatever he had to in order to stay alive, the horrors and brutalities he was forced to witness and endure as an observant Jew confronting the absolute evil of man.

A powerful testimony of what happened in the camps and of his memorable message that evil of this sort must never repeat itself; written in a language simple and unsentimental, this is a powerful, life-changing masterwork, a work that deserved its acclaim upon its publication in 1962.

Just a doubt, Ben. Is the surname Weisel or Wiesel?

 

[Ben Jackson]

Just a doubt, Ben. Is the surname Weisel or Wiesel?

I'm sorry for the typographic error, it's Wiesel not Weisel.

 

[tiganeasca]

??/?? Andrei Makine, Music of a Life
Exquisite writing. Limpid, crystalline…lyrical descriptions that call Proust to mind. A well-crafted story: a pianist on the eve of his début in Stalinist Russia when his parents are “exposed” and arrested. He flees Moscow for the remote countryside where he eventually assumes the identity of a dead soldier (this is World War II). Most of what follows is the story of his life under this assumed identity, focusing on broken lives, the meaning of self, and the costs of our choices. The story is compelling and all-enveloping, the prose—as I suggested—is lyrical and captivating. Makine is, undeniably, gifted as a stylist. But as beautiful as the writing is, as powerful as the story is, somehow the writing and the story combined to produce a book that is inexplicably less than the sum of its parts. I enjoyed it; I will undoubtedly read more of his work. But somehow, and I’m honestly not quite sure how to explain it, ultimately I found the book left me wanting.

?? Bahaa Taher, As Doha Said
I’ve read and enjoyed this contemporary Egyptian author before. This time, sad to say, not so much. Set in the early years of Nasser’s rule—with all of its false starts, corruption, and …… the book uses the vehicle of a “romance” to tell a deeper story about commitment, betrayal, ambition, temptation, hope and disillusionment. It might all work for you but this one just never managed to convince me, despite glimpses of a powerful message underneath.

??/?? Ben Okri, Stars of the New Curfew +
This collection of stories reminds me of nothing so much as the classic by D.O. Fagunwa, also of Nigeria, Forest of a Thousand Daemons. I don’t think that these stories have the imagination or power of Fagunwa’s novel—which I parenthetically urge you to read; it’s brilliant—but they do share an emphasis on phantasmagoria drawn from local mythologies. The stories largely deal with the newly independent Nigeria as it falls prey to greed and violence and its ties to its history and traditional values begin to disintegrate. A promising work and I look forward to my next work by him.

??/?? Abdelrahman Munif, Endings
A number of years ago I read Cities of Salt, a lengthy and impressive novel that tells of the encounter between Americans and Arabs in the 1930s. An oasis community starts to disintegrate as the search for oil began in earnest. In some ways, like Okri’s work, it tells of the clash and costs when cultures and, indeed, times collide. Endings, on the other hand, is two stories in one: in the first, a rural village is grappling with a drought that threatens its existence. When the protagonist urges a journey into the desert to search for food, calamities result. The second half of the book is a collection of stories, ostensibly told in commemoration of the life of one of the dead. The stories each rely on animal metaphors which, my reading suggests, reflects a pre-Islamic tradition for expressing a particular vision…as Munif explores the price of Westernization on a highly traditional society.

 

[bacon]

?? Gerhard Zwerenz, Remembrance Day: Thirteen Attempts in Prose to Adopt an Attitude of Respect
These stories often feel like fragments, as if they were unfinished or rather undeveloped beyond the author’s initial play through the story. In many respects I like it, it leaves me to imagine my own revision, what could have been. These stories average at about 13 pages each. Highlights include the incredible "The Mole", where a soldier sniper digs foxholes to survive the war. Other stories deal with informing on friends, escaping arrest, prisoners of war, wartime ethics. Bleak but fascinating.

?? Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life
I guess this one should come with trigger warnings. It’s an excruciatingly detailed book about trauma. The main character has undergone unimaginable trauma that is only hinted at throughout the book until near the end. But the way the author leads up to the reveal, a microscopic unfolding of plot begins to act like some sort of tyranny of sympathy and kindness. This is done in such a tedious way that it undermines the reveal’s effects. And this is partly because the book is too long, at over 800 pages. This is one of those books where the author should have cut several hundred pages and it still would have dragged. Hopefully her other works are more to my liking.

?? Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist
Light and airy, this paean to poetry is a fun read. Musical prose with tons of free association, it doesn’t take itself seriously but does take poetry seriously. The author meets Poe, wishes he was a canoe, and has salad farts, all within a span of three pages. Now that’s talent! The narrator poet fills the book full of poets too, as you’d expect, which gives someone like me who knows nothing of poetry yet another entryway. Sometimes he goes a bit overboard (“Truth smells like Chinese food and sweat” - Huh?) but these flights are kept to a minimum.

?? James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room
In 1950s Paris, our protagonist falls in love with a man and must reconcile his feelings with the woman to which he has been engaged.

?? Erich Maria Remarque, The Road Back
A sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front, this novel focuses on German troops returning from the Western Front of World War I. Some things have changed, others have remained the same. They are met with revolution. They have flashbacks and nightmares. Everything is clouded by their experiences at the Front. One friend commits suicide, another commits murder. Society is just as punitive as if they had not been in The War. Ernst, the narrator, finally has an epiphany, that he must seek to be useful during the short time he has left on earth.

?? Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
The setting is Gilead, Kansas in 1956. A preacher writes a diary (also noted as “letters”) to his son, telling of his father and his grandfather, all preachers, all eccentric in their way. There are no dates or numbers, only double blank lines indicating new entries. There’s a deeper conversation going on here with regard to the philosophy of religion that is beyond me. The book may have appealed to me more if I had had any sort of schooling in the bible.

?? Donald Barthelme, Sixty Stories
Absurdity at its strangest and most liberating. Stimulating in its experimental nature. Whether you enjoy each story probably depends on how successful you think its story’s experiment is. The problem with many of these stories is that Barthelme’s experimentation falls flat more often than not. I lost my enthusiasm pretty early on, which is bad in a story collection with 60 stories! He tries just about everything from straight narrative, to cut-up, to throwing randomly generated lines inside paragraphs or throwing paragraphs in 18th century dialect suddenly into a modern story, just for kicks. Or is it more than just kicks? Well, it likely is, so read each story a million times and maybe you’ll crack its code. (I did not read each story a million times.) The story highlights for me were: Me and Miss Mandible; Paraguay; The Phantom of the Opera’s Friend; Eugenie Grandet; The Indian Uprising; Views of My Father Weeping; Game; Report; The Balloon.

?? Harry Crews, A Feast of Snakes
Brutal and cynical depiction of a small Georgia town. The men are dumb aggressive brutes. The women are playthings or the focus of domestic and sexual violence. This book seems like it’s vying to be the poster boy for trigger warnings. But I still appreciated it, maybe because of its no holds barred approach. It’s like a fast-moving train that won’t stop, no matter what happens. But also makes me wonder whether the author was packing the book with shocking material just to be salacious. I read this in a frenzied 24-hour period, which I recommend to others. You don’t want this story rattling (pun intended) around in your head for too long.

 

[tiganeasca]

?? Gerhard Zwerenz, Remembrance Day: Thirteen Attempts in Prose to Adopt an Attitude of Respect
These stories often feel like fragments, as if they were unfinished or rather undeveloped beyond the author’s initial play through the story. In many respects I like it, it leaves me to imagine my own revision, what could have been. These stories average at about 13 pages each. Highlights include the incredible "The Mole", where a soldier sniper digs foxholes to survive the war. Other stories deal with informing on friends, escaping arrest, prisoners of war, wartime ethics. Bleak but fascinating.

?? Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life
I guess this one should come with trigger warnings. It’s an excruciatingly detailed book about trauma. The main character has undergone unimaginable trauma that is only hinted at throughout the book until near the end. But the way the author leads up to the reveal, a microscopic unfolding of plot begins to act like some sort of tyranny of sympathy and kindness. This is done in such a tedious way that it undermines the reveal’s effects. And this is partly because the book is too long, at over 800 pages. This is one of those books where the author should have cut several hundred pages and it still would have dragged. Hopefully her other works are more to my liking.

?? Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist
Light and airy, this paean to poetry is a fun read. Musical prose with tons of free association, it doesn’t take itself seriously but does take poetry seriously. The author meets Poe, wishes he was a canoe, and has salad farts, all within a span of three pages. Now that’s talent! The narrator poet fills the book full of poets too, as you’d expect, which gives someone like me who knows nothing of poetry yet another entryway. Sometimes he goes a bit overboard (“Truth smells like Chinese food and sweat” - Huh?) but these flights are kept to a minimum.

?? James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room
In 1950s Paris, our protagonist falls in love with a man and must reconcile his feelings with the woman to which he has been engaged.

?? Erich Maria Remarque, The Road Back
A sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front, this novel focuses on German troops returning from the Western Front of World War I. Some things have changed, others have remained the same. They are met with revolution. They have flashbacks and nightmares. Everything is clouded by their experiences at the Front. One friend commits suicide, another commits murder. Society is just as punitive as if they had not been in The War. Ernst, the narrator, finally has an epiphany, that he must seek to be useful during the short time he has left on earth.

?? Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
The setting is Gilead, Kansas in 1956. A preacher writes a diary (also noted as “letters”) to his son, telling of his father and his grandfather, all preachers, all eccentric in their way. There are no dates or numbers, only double blank lines indicating new entries. There’s a deeper conversation going on here with regard to the philosophy of religion that is beyond me. The book may have appealed to me more if I had had any sort of schooling in the bible.

?? Donald Barthelme, Sixty Stories
Absurdity at its strangest and most liberating. Stimulating in its experimental nature. Whether you enjoy each story probably depends on how successful you think its story’s experiment is. The problem with many of these stories is that Barthelme’s experimentation falls flat more often than not. I lost my enthusiasm pretty early on, which is bad in a story collection with 60 stories! He tries just about everything from straight narrative, to cut-up, to throwing randomly generated lines inside paragraphs or throwing paragraphs in 18th century dialect suddenly into a modern story, just for kicks. Or is it more than just kicks? Well, it likely is, so read each story a million times and maybe you’ll crack its code. (I did not read each story a million times.) The story highlights for me were: Me and Miss Mandible; Paraguay; The Phantom of the Opera’s Friend; Eugenie Grandet; The Indian Uprising; Views of My Father Weeping; Game; Report; The Balloon.

?? Harry Crews, A Feast of Snakes
Brutal and cynical depiction of a small Georgia town. The men are dumb aggressive brutes. The women are playthings or the focus of domestic and sexual violence. This book seems like it’s vying to be the poster boy for trigger warnings. But I still appreciated it, maybe because of its no holds barred approach. It’s like a fast-moving train that won’t stop, no matter what happens. But also makes me wonder whether the author was packing the book with shocking material just to be salacious. I read this in a frenzied 24-hour period, which I recommend to others. You don’t want this story rattling (pun intended) around in your head for too long.

Your comments reflect, in large part, my thoughts about the only book of hers I have read--or am likely to read--The People in the Trees. I suspect that she has some real talent but hasn't yet achieved what she could because her publisher can't or won't find her an editor willing (or able) to do his job. It's a pity.

 

[Ben Jackson]

?? Gerhard Zwerenz, Remembrance Day: Thirteen Attempts in Prose to Adopt an Attitude of Respect
These stories often feel like fragments, as if they were unfinished or rather undeveloped beyond the author’s initial play through the story. In many respects I like it, it leaves me to imagine my own revision, what could have been. These stories average at about 13 pages each. Highlights include the incredible "The Mole", where a soldier sniper digs foxholes to survive the war. Other stories deal with informing on friends, escaping arrest, prisoners of war, wartime ethics. Bleak but fascinating.

?? Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life
I guess this one should come with trigger warnings. It’s an excruciatingly detailed book about trauma. The main character has undergone unimaginable trauma that is only hinted at throughout the book until near the end. But the way the author leads up to the reveal, a microscopic unfolding of plot begins to act like some sort of tyranny of sympathy and kindness. This is done in such a tedious way that it undermines the reveal’s effects. And this is partly because the book is too long, at over 800 pages. This is one of those books where the author should have cut several hundred pages and it still would have dragged. Hopefully her other works are more to my liking.

?? Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist
Light and airy, this paean to poetry is a fun read. Musical prose with tons of free association, it doesn’t take itself seriously but does take poetry seriously. The author meets Poe, wishes he was a canoe, and has salad farts, all within a span of three pages. Now that’s talent! The narrator poet fills the book full of poets too, as you’d expect, which gives someone like me who knows nothing of poetry yet another entryway. Sometimes he goes a bit overboard (“Truth smells like Chinese food and sweat” - Huh?) but these flights are kept to a minimum.

?? James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room
In 1950s Paris, our protagonist falls in love with a man and must reconcile his feelings with the woman to which he has been engaged.

?? Erich Maria Remarque, The Road Back
A sequel to All Quiet on the Western Front, this novel focuses on German troops returning from the Western Front of World War I. Some things have changed, others have remained the same. They are met with revolution. They have flashbacks and nightmares. Everything is clouded by their experiences at the Front. One friend commits suicide, another commits murder. Society is just as punitive as if they had not been in The War. Ernst, the narrator, finally has an epiphany, that he must seek to be useful during the short time he has left on earth.

?? Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
The setting is Gilead, Kansas in 1956. A preacher writes a diary (also noted as “letters”) to his son, telling of his father and his grandfather, all preachers, all eccentric in their way. There are no dates or numbers, only double blank lines indicating new entries. There’s a deeper conversation going on here with regard to the philosophy of religion that is beyond me. The book may have appealed to me more if I had had any sort of schooling in the bible.

?? Donald Barthelme, Sixty Stories
Absurdity at its strangest and most liberating. Stimulating in its experimental nature. Whether you enjoy each story probably depends on how successful you think its story’s experiment is. The problem with many of these stories is that Barthelme’s experimentation falls flat more often than not. I lost my enthusiasm pretty early on, which is bad in a story collection with 60 stories! He tries just about everything from straight narrative, to cut-up, to throwing randomly generated lines inside paragraphs or throwing paragraphs in 18th century dialect suddenly into a modern story, just for kicks. Or is it more than just kicks? Well, it likely is, so read each story a million times and maybe you’ll crack its code. (I did not read each story a million times.) The story highlights for me were: Me and Miss Mandible; Paraguay; The Phantom of the Opera’s Friend; Eugenie Grandet; The Indian Uprising; Views of My Father Weeping; Game; Report; The Balloon.

?? Harry Crews, A Feast of Snakes
Brutal and cynical depiction of a small Georgia town. The men are dumb aggressive brutes. The women are playthings or the focus of domestic and sexual violence. This book seems like it’s vying to be the poster boy for trigger warnings. But I still appreciated it, maybe because of its no holds barred approach. It’s like a fast-moving train that won’t stop, no matter what happens. But also makes me wonder whether the author was packing the book with shocking material just to be salacious. I read this in a frenzied 24-hour period, which I recommend to others. You don’t want this story rattling (pun intended) around in your head for too long.

I remember reading Giovanni's Room, a classic of American fiction six years before, and Gilead, a thoughtful milestone from this century. These two novels have become some of my favourite novels. Thanks for these brilliant reviews.

 

[Bartleby]

re: A Little Life. It's a book with a plot that appeals to me, but your criticisms are precisely what keeps me from wanting to have a go at it... I hope they soon make a limited series out of it LOL

 

[beelzebubble]

I enjoyed A Little Life. But I don't mind indulging in melodrama. And as for it being boring, It kept me on the edge of my seat. I found it difficult to put down.

 

[bacon]

I am fairly religious (in my own way) but I found Gilead hard to get through. So I don't think the issue is bible knowledge.

For me, the book felt too conflict-avoidant. Everything brought up was already resolved and in the narrator's past, if I remember correctly. There's a lot of pain in the novel but it's been sort of disconnected from the events mentioned in the book. I think the resulting narrative is quite limpid and pretty, but I found it hard to emotionally connect to it.

Yes! You put in much more coherent words the same experience I had reading the book. If she has other books you've liked please let me know, it's hard to tell sometimes whether my first read just happened to be a dud from an otherwise amazing body of work.

 

[bacon]

Your comments reflect, in large part, my thoughts about the only book of hers I have read--or am likely to read--The People in the Trees. I suspect that she has some real talent but hasn't yet achieved what she could because her publisher can't or won't find her an editor willing (or able) to do his job. It's a pity.

I have an anthropology background so I was hoping someone would say, "No, you have to read The People in the Trees!" But oh well, maybe not. Or at least not yet.

 

[bacon]

I remember reading Giovanni's Room, a classic of American fiction six years before, and Gilead, a thoughtful milestone from this century. These two novels have become some of my favourite novels. Thanks for these brilliant reviews.

I'm glad you enjoyed them Ben. And if you have recs for any of their other works I'd be happy to read more by these authors.

 

[bacon]

re: A Little Life. It's a book with a plot that appeals to me, but your criticisms are precisely what keeps me from wanting to have a go at it... I hope they soon make a limited series out of it LOL

That would be quite a series! I think Lars von Trier would want to direct.

 

[bacon]

I enjoyed A Little Life. But I don't mind indulging in melodrama. And as for it being boring, It kept me on the edge of my seat. I found it difficult to put down.

I'm glad you liked it. It just wore on me a bit. My view may have been a bit clouded by the friend who initially lent me the book. She wouldn't finish it because it was so dread-inducing for her. So I was a bit anxious before beginning the book.

 

[Ben Jackson]

I'm glad you enjoyed them Ben. And if you have recs for any of their other works I'd be happy to read more by these authors.

Well, for James Baldwin, I'm planning, after my exams around mid/ late June, to read Another Country. I read, based on reviews, that it's his best work. And possibly around August, either Fire Next Time or Go Tell it on the Mountain, heard they are very good. As for Marillyn Robinson, I don't know any of her novels apart from this one. Heard she published volume of essays on religion, don't know about it yet.