I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE SWELL SEASON-Strict Joy (2009).

I bought this disc for Sarah after it came out.  I didn’t think that I would enjoy it that much because while I loved the movie Once, I wasn’t sure if I needed more from Glen and Marketa.  But then I found a whole slew of free concerts from NPR and I became hooked on the band.

The disc opens with “Low Rising” (what I think of as the “Van Morrison” song).  It gets better with each listen.  It’s a slow ballad which is followed by “Feeling the Pull,” a more up-tempo song that really highlights Marketa’s beautiful harmonies.  “In These Arms” is a gorgeous song.  The verses are downbeat and somber “if you stay…with that asshole…it will only lead to harm” but again the harmonies are gorgeous.  “The Rain” is a more rocking tune (within reason, of course).  It has an interesting middle section that quiets down, but it’s a solid folk rocking song.

“Fantasy Man” is Marketa’s first lead vocal song on the disc.  I like her voice but sometimes I find her lead songs to be a bit too wispy, too quiet.  I like this song, but it feels long (and at 5 minutes, it is).  “Paper Cup” is one of Glen’s quiet ballads.  It’s a pretty song.  “High Horses” is one that I didn’t know from the live sets, I guess it’s not too popular with the band, but I think it’s strong.  It runs a little long but that’s because it has a cool middle section that keeps building and building with more instruments and voices.  “The Verb” is another song that I didn’t know.  It has a cool intensity to it and while it doesn’t stand out as a hit, it’s certainly an enjoyable song.

“I Have Loved You Wrong” is another pretty Marketa song, but again it’s very slow and very long.  I don’t think I could buy her solo album because although her voice is lovely and her melodies are nice, they’re just so ephemeral I can’t really get into them.  “Love That Conquers” is an interesting song.  It sounds nothing like The Swell Season (must be the banjo).  It’s a nice addition to the album and should maybe have been placed a little earlier to break up the sound style a bit more.  “Back Broke” ends the disc very strongly.  Although I think the song works better live (with audience participation), the melody and tone of the song are somberly beautiful.

There are moments of this disc when it turns out to be what I feared the whole disc would be–bland folkiness. But overall this is an enjoyable album for a rainy day.  And Hansard really has an amazing voice.  However, I really like them better live.

[READ: December 26, 2011] Third Reich

I was pretty excited when I heard about this book, although I must admit I was a little concerned by the title.  Bolaño has a kind of weird Nazi fascination.  There is Nazi Literature in America and then a whole section of 2666 is given over to Nazi Germany.  He doesn’t like Nazis or anything but he writes about them a lot and it can be a little exhausting.  So it was with some relief that I learned that Third Reich is the name of a game that the main character plays.  It is a kind of historical reimagining kind of game (I guess like Risk but more specific and with more at stake).  It is set during the time of the Third Reich and the players represent various countries (or perhaps even powers).

I am giving up on explaining the game from here on because a) there’s a lot about the game in the book and b) I’m not sure if it wasn’t explained very thoroughly or if I just missed out on exactly what was happening.  During the book he talks about Hexes 65 through 68 and so on.  So I assume the map of the world is a hex grid.  But he never gives any context (or even a picture!–and this makes sense as it’s written as the diary of a well-regarded player who is not trying to teach us the game).  So while I understand the general tenets and play of the game (there’s a die (or dice) and tokens that reside on the board), the specifics are completely nebulous.  But that’s okay.  Because the game specifics don’t impact the book, but the game overall is at the heart of the book.  I think it’s neat that Bolaño invented a game (and several others games are named, but no details are given).  He is clearly very gifted at inventing people, games, things.

But as I said, the game is only a part of the book and in fact, the game details don’t enter into the book until about half way through.

A great thing about Bolaño is that all of his books are so very different.  I’ve mentioned this before and here’s another example of this.  This book is a diary.  And the main character, Udo, is German (not his first German character but his first time with a main character). Udo and his girlfriend Ingeborg are vacationing in Spain.  They stay at the same hotel that Udo and his parents stayed at when he was a kid (ten years ago).  The hotel is owned by the same people and he is pretty excited to see that Frau Else is still more or less the director of operations.  [At this point I will admit that I am confused about the number of Germans in Spain–but I assume this is realistic.  I know that Europeans travel easily between countries, and of course, every stereotype leads me to believe that Germans travel all the time].

While the vacation is mostly for vacation purposes, Udo is also planning on writing a paper for an upcoming conference or for a magazine or both describing a new strategy for winning at Third Reich.  Udo is the acknowledged champion of the game and anything he has to say will be eagerly read.  So Udo sets up his game in the hotel room and then tries to enjoy himself with Ingeborg.

The diary style allows for some wonderful setups like Udo saying that it is inevitable on vacation that they would run into another German couple with whom they will hang out for the duration of their stay.  And so it comes to pass.  They wind up attached to Hannah and Charly.  Hannah is as quiet as Charly is demonstrative.  He takes his windsurfboard everywhere and often when he’s not drinking to excess, he is out windsurfing.  But it’s the drinking to excess that seems to be his defining characteristic.  He and Hannah keep Udo and Inge up all night going to bars.  On a night when Udo is fed up with the late nights, Charly takes the girls out with him all night.  The vacation takes its toll on Udo and Inge.  She is less impressed by his game than he knew and she seems far less engaged with him after a few days in the Spanish sun.

We are also introduced to three locals.  The Wolf and the Lamb are two mysterious characters.  We never learn a ton about them although they have an air of the unsavory about them from the get go.  They quickly become friends with Charly (which means all four of them) and the two of them (who are always together) show them some local hangouts.  The other character is El Quemado. El Quemado (which means “The Burned One”) has a large burn scar covering much of his body.  He is in charge of the paddle boat rentals on the beach and, while he is obviously very strong he seems to have nothing else going for him…including a place to stay.  But once Ingebord starts hanging around more with Charly and Hannah, Udo finds strange comfort in this “deformed” man.

And then about midway through the story, everything gets upended.  Charly goes missing while he is windsurfing in the dark.  Hannah changes, Ingeborg changes, even Udo changes.  Udo even starts talking to El Quemado about the game.  And El Quemado seems sympathetic.  Before you know it, the two of them are engaged in a battle.  A battle that seems to prevent Udo from leaving to hotel.  A battle that seems to have more at stake than a game should, even though no stakes are ever spoken aloud.

By the time the book ends, we are aware of Frau Else’s husband, we learn what happened to Charly (one of the rare things that is resolved in a Bolaño book) and we get quite absorbed in the game itself.

This was a fast-paced book.  It’s long by Bolaño standards–at least in terms of his novellas–but it’s much shorter than Savage and 2666.

I really enjoyed the book quite a lot even if I didn’t always understand the details of what was happening.  Many people would say this is a terrible flaw, but I find it to be a really strong point of Bolaño ‘s writing.  He is exceptionally detailed which can exclude a reader if the reader is unfamiliar with the topic, and yet the level of detail really only serves to make the story more complete.  As with other people’s lives, you may not understand everything that they talk about but it helps to fill in the big picture.  And I admit my own shortcomings that I may simply not know what he’s talking about enough to be able to follow all the details.  So yes, I couldn’t picture exactly what was happening in the game, but I also didn’t try to map out exactly what they game looked like; maybe if I had I would have gleaned more. but I didn’t feel the need to.

But as I said, the game is somewhat secondary because really the story is about Udo.  And since all we see is Udo’s diary, we see him slowly start to grow unhinged as the story begins to get away from him.

Bolaño was still obsessed (it would seem) with rape.  The word comes up with rather alarming frequency, (is this a Bolaño thing?  A European thing?  A Chilean/Mexican/Spanish thing?) although the act is never actually committed.  Whatever its provenance it is clearly a sign of Udo’s losing his grip on reality.  He is terrified by what he sees and by what he does; everything seems to be falling apart around him, including his grasp of his beloved game.

It’s hard to make a proclamation about Bolaño in terms of his arc as a writer since this is a much older story (it was found in his collected writings after he died, but was written in 1989, so when he talks about September 11 as being a day of memorial it is not in hindsight. it’s actually the National day of Catalonia.

Nevertheless, this was a great book, and a good addition to Bolaño’s canon.  For a book that could have been half-assed or worse (why was it never submitted anywhere?  It appears that it was hand written and then partially typed–he was planning to revise it) this book was very impressive.  And the translation by Natasha Wimmer was outstanding, once again.

This article from NPR suggests that the game Third Reich is based on (which is almost certainly based on the real 1974 game Rise and Decline of the Third Reich).

For ease of searching, I include: Bolano.