To Be Read...

The Tunnel, by Ernesto Sabato

"It should be sufficient to say that I am Juan Pablo Castel, the painter who killed Maria Iribarne. I imagine that the trial is still in everyone's mind and that no further information about myself is necessary."

So begins The Tunnel by Argentinian writer Ernesto Sabato. We might expect what follows to be the explanation of injustice, or at least a mitigation, but within a few lines we begin to get to know Castel: 

It is not always in accounts of crimes that we find the most reprehensible acts of humankind: to a degree, criminals are the most decent and least offensive people among us.

Later he will tell us:

"Experience has taught me that what seems clear and evident to me is never so to my fellow human beings."

At one of his shows Castel sees a woman staring at detail in a painting that none else feels to be important, "their eyes pass over it as if it were something trivial, mere embellishment."

An obsession is born, and the painter patrols the streets of Buenos Aires, hoping their paths will cross.

Eventually they do.

"You're blushing because you recognise me. And you think this is a coincidence, but it isn't. There are no coincidences. I have been thinking about you for months. Today I saw you on the street and followed you. I have something important to ask you, something about the small window, do you understand?"

She looked frightened

"The small window?" she stammered. "What small window?"

Published in 1948, The Tunnel draws from the European existentialist tradition of Dostoevsky, Kafka, Sartre and most of all Albert Camus, whose work it most closely resembles, and who was an early supporter.

Towards the end of the novel Castel is at a fraught dinner with Maria and others:

To ease the tension (Maria) commented that she was reading a novel by Sartre. In evident bad humor, Hunter fumed.

"Novels in this day and age! They can write all they want.. but what fool would read one!"

• The Tunnel, by Ernesto Sabato (trans. Margaret Sayers Peden), with an introduction by Colm Tóibín. Tóibín discusses The Tunnel in the Guardian.

April, the Ban, and In Praise of Challenges

I have to say I was a little bit sceptical about Reading Challenges. Something didn't feel quite right.

Then again, I set myself challenges in other things, and I do like to have structure to reading, so why not?

It has turned out to be a very good decision indeed. Shortly I will try and deliver on my commitment to the Eastern Europe Challenge (this won't be too hard as I regularly read novels by Eastern Europeans) and the Argentina Challenge (I am going ot go there eventually).

I have been concentrating on Dorte's 2011 'Seven Continents' Global Challenge, three books from each of seven continents, with a couple of extra rules of my own just to spice it up. I am going on author's nationality rather than setting and I am only allowing writers I am reading for the first time. (The nationality criteria wasn't well thought through - I had also decided that science fiction might be the springboard for the seventh continent section so I am nominally committed to read three books written by extra-terrestrials....).

The Global Challenge was worth doing if only for the enjoyment of hunting down possible titles; I must have spent hours combing reviews, following Amazon "Customers who bought..." and checking Wikipedia entries for country of birth etc.

And I have read some splendid books. Thanks Dorte!

The best book I read in April was In the Country of Men, Hisham Matar's insightful and moving story of a boy growing up in post revolutionary Libya. Review to follow, five stars and already a strong contender for my favourite read of 2011.

I was also much impressed by Red April, by Santiago Roncagliolo - not everyone's cup of tea, apparently, but strongly recommended, and a book purchased, rather perversely, by a negative mention on Petrona, Splinter by Sebastian Fitzek (four star review to follow, Maxine!).

I also read Stratton's War, by Laura Wilson (and would probably read more by her if I wasn't so strongly drawn to John Lawton), and Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet, which is a guilty pleasure partly driven by my PR in Fiction project...

I suppose I could include Asa Larsson's Savage Altar in a challenge, but including Sweden would be like including England... 

   

Ficciones: Irresistible Argentinian reading challenge

 
As someone who quite regularly checks flights to Buenos Aires, I didn't really need much encouragement to add Ficciones to my (now complete!) list of 2011 Reading Challenges but when I saw this wonderful banner I was instantly up for the five books Ex-Pat pitch.