Reunion, Fred Ulhman

I just finished a little book, the aforementioned Reunion, by Fred Ulhman.

In my edition, which I found for only one euro (thank you again Book Off), published by The Harvill Press of London, there is an introduction by Jean d'Ormesson. D'Ormesson sits on the highly regarded Académie Francaise in seat 12.For those of you who are unfamiliar with d'Ormesson, I highly recommend "Du coté de chez Jean".

In his introduction calls Reunion "literary perfection", and says, "Delight and distress mingled in me so powerfully that I found myself smiling through tears that came to my eyes".

The story is very simple. A young lonely Jewish boy and a young lonely German noble going to school together and becoming friends. The friendship is deeply felt by both parties and comes to an end because of the circumstances of 1930's Germany and because this friendship cannot live forever.

I highly recommend this book, so much so that I've included it on my list of Mandatory Reading. Mostly because I refuse to believe that any one who read this book would not add their own tears to d'Ormesson's or my own.

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The Anatomist - Federico Andahazi

I recently bought The Anatomis by Federico Andahazi because it was only 1,00 euro and was a best seller in Latin America. I can't find out anything about the book except a handful of reviews on Amazon that are mostly disappointed, and to be quite frank so was I.

The style reeked of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the wrong ways. It had his style and tone with none of his nuances. The birth of Mona Sofia in Corsica, her kidnapping by pirates, her eventual sale into prostitution first to a caring woman who raised little girls with love to sell their bodies and then washing up along the shores of Venice's most notorious school for whores went too quickly. She strikes out on her own at 15 and stakes her claim on the loins of all of Venice, including Mateo Colombo, who resolves to find his America in order to win her love.

A story about the discovery of the clitoris, that involves the church, the Renaissance, and papal feuding should have had me on the edge of my seat or at least breaking an erotic sweat, but it did neither.

But it did serve as a prime example of who a writer, who does have talent, but not their own style - who has an interesting story, but rushes too quickly; can write a book. Not a great book or a terrible one, but a book nonetheless.

A lot of the mistakes I felt were evident in the book are many of the mistakes I commit in my own writing. But I believe that reading to improve your writing is much like tennis - if you play with someone better than you, you get better and if you're good and play with someone worse, well your skill on the page declines.

But every story has a lesson, and so armed with the knowledge that I can recognize my own mistakes, I shall write. Hopefully better.

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Memory

She was digging for some spare change hoping to find more than a 25 cent tip for the delivery man. She'd ordered a bagel from the downstairs deli because she'd left for New York in a rush and until the shops opened she was a prisoner in yesterday's wrinkled clothes stll groggy from the sweet perfume of last night's furious lovemaking behind her knees and trembling on all her pulse points and stinking up the place.



The sound of the bowl of change toppling over jarred her back to her senses. Underneath, a folded up letter about the thickness of a book. She read the first page and stuffed it back into the box where it had been kept, because hidden wasn't the proper term. It had been left, sort of out in the open, but not. The box itself was just sort of there, under the bowl where he kept his loose change. The bowl was always full after she left because she hated the rattling of coins. She went back to picking up the coins, scraping them off the smooth floor with her fingernails like a cat scratching at the litter box.



She was not a sentimental person. She kept few things from her former loves and certainly not something like that. She tried to be understanding, to see it from his point of view. It could be seen as reasonable to keep a letter from an ex-girlfriend that glorified your penile organ. If you were stupid and knew nothing about women.



Having replaced the coins to the bowl, she found enough change to make a dollar and tried to read anything but the letter. She read fourteen pages of Murakami, listened to The Smiths, read the newspaper from two weeks ago, and the back of a carton of free trade orange juice. By the time she got back to the letters, she was convinced that he was still in love with her, and that made her feel pathetic.



She made a cup of tea and when the doorbell sounded, half-smiled at the delivery boy's cheerfulness in the opened door. Then she sat at the counter on the bar stool and watched eggs and cheese and country ham congeal on toast.

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