Teaser courtesy of A. A. Knopf.

1Q84 is coming October 25th. Click here to reserve your copy.

Click here to see all of Haruki Murakmai’s books.

Click here to see other blog posts on Haruki Murakami.

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This book review comes from our friend and occasional bookseller, Billie Green.

In her brilliant new memoir, called Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness, Alexandra Fuller returns to her African roots for a closer look at her parents’ own experience as white settlers on the Dark Continent. In so doing, Fuller wisely anchors much of her narrative on the reminiscences of her memorable, larger than life mother.

As Fuller explains it:

Our Mum—or Nicola Fuller of Central Africa, as she has on occasion preferred to introduce herself—has wanted a writer in the family as long as either of us can remember, not only because she loves books and has therefore always wanted to appear in them ( the way she likes large, expensive hats and like to appear in them) but also because she has always wanted to live a fabulously romantic life for which she needed a reasonably pliable witness as scribe.

From this rather lighthearted opening, one might anticipate an equally light-hearted read —sort of an Auntie Mame of Africa. And though Fuller does portray her flamboyant mother as almost zany at times, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is much more than that. In her non-linear, very fluid style, Fuller skillfully weaves moments of laugh-out-loud humor with incidents of heartbreaking sadness as she offers a vivid account of her parents’ dramatic and often tragic lives as British colonialists in East Africa.

Along with this very personal story, she seamlessly incorporates some fascinating history of a rapidly changing era of turmoil and upheaval, when Africa was beginning to shed the yoke of white colonialism for good. Her evocative glimpses of the African landscape and vistas and of the animals and people of a land she clearly still loves only add to the depth of the work itself.

Born on the Isle of Skye, her mother, Nicola, moves with her parents to Kenya as a child. Meanwhile Fuller’s father, Tim, born in England to a British naval officer, rejects his father’s career path and comes to Kenya as an adult.

Nicola and Tim meet and soon are married and so begins their long love affair with Africa—an affair that proves to be one of continuous adventure and enormous challenge. They spend several happy years in Kenya (where their first child, Vanessa, is born), but after it is declared independent they move to Rhodesia where colonialism still reigns.

After several financial set-backs (including losing his job managing a farm) and the devastating loss of their second child (a son), they return briefly to England (where Alexandra is born). But as Fuller wryly puts it :

However much my parents tried to ensure a colorfully chaotic life for themselves, there was an underlying sense that as long as they stayed in England, they would always have to be the source of their own drama.

So it’s back to Africa and Rhodesia, where this time they buy a farm of their own and where, not incidentally, there is a full scale civil war going on. Her father, Tim, is conscripted into the Rhodesian Army Reserves. Her mother carries an Uzi in the Land Rover when they drive into town.

In the meantime, they face drought, constant danger and uncertainty, and most heartbreaking of all, the loss of two more of their five children—little two-year-old Olivia accidentally drowns and later their new baby boy dies. It is then that Nicola descends finally into depression and madness.

Somehow with amazing courage and resilience she manages to recover. And as the book ends, she and Tim are happily and peacefully ensconced on a farm in Zambia.

In Fuller’s first memoir about her family, written several years ago (Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight), she chronicles her growing up years in war torn Rhodesia through the eyes of the child she was then. Though generously laced with her often irreverent humor, it is a ruthlessly candid, even a disturbing book.

It is also one in which her mother comes off as a rather dark figure. Fuller approaches this latest effort from an adult’s vantage point, and thus expresses much more compassion and understanding for her parents’ situation and actions. She clearly recognizes the sheer determination and perseverance it took for them just to survive.

But while Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness is ostensibly about the lives of both of her parents, it is, at its heart, her mother’s story. In fact, it becomes something of a tribute to her mother—a woman who could be quite outrageous, volatile, and sometimes even frighteningly unstable, but who also ultimately refused to be defeated by tragedy or circumstances and whose courage and resilience enabled her in the end to be reconciled to her past and to forgive herself at last.

Written by Billie Green

Visit www.alexandrafuller.org

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller, The Penguin Press: August, 2011.

If you’ve fallen in love with an translated piece of literature, you’ve probably wondered what it would be like to read the work in the original language. My fellow bookseller, Kelly, wrote a blog piece on the translation of literature in July 2009 after the second Stieg Larsson book (written in Swedish) had been released. She gave examples of how difficult it is translate poetry, and being a fan of Gabriel García Márquez, I appreciated her questions about the translation of his work:

“Gabriel García Márquez’s novels have been praised for, among other things, their beautiful language. But can we really say it’s his language that’s so lovely? Isn’t it more accurate to say that his novel’s translator painstakingly pored over each sentence until it most closely resembled Marquez’s aim and cadence in Spanish?”

Since I have been reading 1Q84, I began to wonder about Haruki Murakami’s translators. In an effort to release the English edition in a timely manner, two of Murakami’s translators took on the work: Jay Rubin and Philip Gabriel. (Alfred Birnbaum has translated A Wild Sheep Chase, Dance Dance Dance, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Underground and others.) As 1Q84 was released in three volumes in Japan, Rubin set to work on the first two. Once the third volume was ready, Gabriel began working on it while Rubin continued working on volume two.

In September 2011 Blake Eskin, editor of New Yorker.com, interviewed Jay Rubin about translating Murakami’s 1Q84 for The New Yorker Out Loud series.

Jay Rubin explains that he first read Murakami not by choice. It all came about when an American publisher needed an opinion of Murakami just to see if they wanted to have a Murakami work translated. Rubin had no idea what to expect and “figured he was just another pop writer.”

But Rubin was greatly surprised and begged the American publisher to print Murakami and let him translate the work. They rejected the recommendation to publish Murakami. However, about a year later, a translation of Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland translated by Alfred Birnbaum came out. Eventually, Rubin is asked to translate and his name now accompanies Haruki Murakami’s on several of his novels.

Griffin, a lover of Japanese literature and blogger for The University Bookstore in Seattle, was invited to a May 2010 lecture given by Jay Rubin. Griffin shares Rubin’s translation challenge in his blog piece:

“Professor Rubin shared one anecdote that involved his current project translating the first two volumes of 1Q84 for Haruki Murakami. He assured us that this isn’t a spoiler, but some of the characters see two moons in the sky. These folks are in the minority, as everyone else sees a single moon. But in Japanese, there is no distinction between plural and singular nouns. So the struggle, for him, has become sorting out how many moons each character sees.”

In the Eskin interview, Rubin comments on how authors are truly at the mercy of the translator and that the process of translation is very subjective. All three translators of Murakami have their own recognizable styles, says Rubin, and adds that Murakami has felt that it is he, Rubin, who sticks the closest to the original.

In an interview with The Paris Review Murakami was asked how he chose his translators:

“I have three—Alfred Birnbaum, Philip Gabriel, Jay Rubin—and the rule is “first come, first get.” We’re friends, so they are very honest. They read my books and one of them thinks, That’s great! I’d like to do that. So he takes it. As a translator myself, I know that to be enthusiastic is the main part of a good translation. If someone is a good translator but doesn’t like a book so much, that’s the end of the story. Translation is very hard work, and it takes time.”

Back to Kelly’s blog piece in which she considers the translation of Gabriel García Márquez and Stieg Larsson: She was fortunate to get a comment from Larsson’s translator, Reg Keeland. Here’s what he had to say:

“Once, through the translator grapevine, I heard that Gabriel García Márquez had told his translator Gregory Rabassa that the English version sounded better than his own original Spanish. Now that’s a compliment! I hope Americans are finally getting over their fear of translations. Compared to the 80s and 90s, we’re experiencing a mini-boom in translated fiction. Publishers are not going to incur extra expense to publish a translation if it’s not excellent, and the quality of translations in general has gone up considerably since their fall in status in the 70s-80s. I still recall the golden age of translated fiction in the 60s, when I could go to the library and find a new author from any number of countries — the way I discovered Jorge Amado from Brazil through his novella “The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell.” Let’s face it, reading good fiction from other countries is a fantastic way to learn about other cultures without leaving your armchair.”

In my unquenchable thirst for all things Murakami, I found out about an entire symposium devoted to translating and reading his work. When us book/language nerds begin to think about the 40+ languages into which Murakami has been translated, we can imagine the discussion. The book to commemorate the symposium is aptly entitled A Wild Haruki Chase: Reading Murakami Around the World

As we appreciate the work of translators, what’s left to do but enjoy the fruits of their labor? It also leads me to peruse all of the beautiful covers around the world. Our former bookseller and Murakami fan Kaycie photographed these books in a Paris bookshop.

Blake Eskin’s interview is a pleasure. Listen to the entire interview here.

1Q84 is coming October 25th. Click here to reserve your copy.

Click here to see all of Haruki Murakmai’s books.

Click here to see other blog posts on Murakami.

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Life’s a carnival; two bits a shot. What better way to soothe the post State Fair hangover than with a double shot of Transgressive fiction and a little literary exploration of bad behavior in your favorite downtown gathering place?

Hal & Mal’s is thrilled to be the host for the upcoming Chuck Palahniuk’s DAMNED book night. Over the past 27 years, we have presented thousands of hours of live music and hosted many of the major cultural happenings in town. This DAMNED event promises to be one for the history book. We understand that Palahniuk is a global, non-conventional literary wordsmith and that having him include Lemuria and Jackson in his tour is a major coup and having him bring his bad ass downtown is an honor.

If you’re curious about the crossroad where pop cultural embraces counterculture through a genre that claims the likes of Dostoyevsky and the publicly banned classic works like James Joyce’s Ulysses, then you might like Palahniuk’s pedigree. If you were intrigued by D. H. Lawrence’s tale of Lady Chatterley’s Lover or Henry Miller’s sexual odyssey Tropic of Cancer and the ensuing landmark obscenity trials, you might like Chuck Palahniuk.

Remember the explicit work of Allen Ginsberg’s 1955 poem Howl, William S. Burroughs’ hallucinatory, satirical 1959 novel Naked Lunch or Charles Bukowski’s tales of womanizing, drinking, and gambling? Throw in a ticket to the midway, a peek at the world’s smallest horse and bag of fried Oreos and I think you get the drift. Now top it off with a half pint of Dickel, a Mr. Turkey Leg and A Clockwork Orange and you’re on your way. So, STEP RIGHT UP to your neighborhood bar and order a long drink of the dark side with a splash of Palahniuk.

Charles Michael Palahniuk was born in the Pacific Northwest of suicide fog and the hauntingly, complex music of Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain and the inspiration for the sad, but iconic 1960’s song White Bird by It’s A Beautiful Day. He is said to have grown up in a mobile home in and around Burbank, Washington with his family. His bio says his parents later separated and divorced, reportedly often leaving him and his siblings to live with their grandparents at their cattle ranch in Eastern Washington State. His paternal grandfather was Ukrainian and immigrated to New York from Canada in 1907.

Back in the ole USA, we understand that Lemuria is celebrating 36 years of being one of the finest independent book stores in America and that John Evans is not only dedicated, but frankly obsessed, about maintaining that status. For that we are thankful and we are delighted to be partnering with John and Lemuria on this outrageous and rumpus occasion.

I saw and experienced The New Orleans Bingo Show last week at a showcase in Baton Rouge and can attest that they are the perfect act to accompany Chuck’s shock-a-rama that will be the centerpiece of the DAMNED book event on October 20th. Praise the Lord and pass the Cat Head. (Read their own blog here.)

Hal & Mal’s has hosted a generation of iconic figures like Albert King, Ike Turner and Barry Hannah, Eudora Welty and Willie Dixon and Willie Morris too. We have rolled out the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, hosted John Grisham’s first book signing and sold out two Snoop Dogg shows. We once hosted a literary luncheon event in conjunction with Lemuria and Jubilee JAM featuring Larry Brown. Larry selected one of his darkest, most graphic tales of the underbelly of lower Appalachian life that hastily cleared the room of the nice society ladies of north Jackson gathered to support “the arts”.

Zita White, proud employee of Lemuria and part-time “door dog” at Hal & Mal’s has taken great pride in her dual role in making the Palahniuk DAMNED event come to pass. Zita has long been a fan and devotee’ of Chuck’s work and has worked with John and the great staff at Lemuria to make this possible. Her passion and exuberance in this collaboration reminds us of the early days of Hal & Mal’s when we worked with the University Press of Mississippi’s Bookfriends, presenting Mose Allison and Barry Hannah on the same stage, or Willie Dixon’s book signing for I Am The Blues event with blues giant Jack Owens providing the music.

And who can forget Willie Morris’ 60th birthday with The Tangents on stage, a roomful of New York City literati trying to figure out how to eat a hot tamale. Or Willie and JoAnne’s wedding party where Michigan poet and novelist Jim Harrison showed up after a Lemuria book signing then wrote a rollicking piece for Esquire Magazine about the evening. Unbeknown to all, young Zita slept soundly through most of this in the office with her favorite stuffed animal, perhaps dreaming of the day she and Chuck would take center stage and turn it up LOUD.

Join us on October 20th if you dare. The evening will feature a visual arts show, organized by Marcy Nessel of Fischer Galleries, hypnotic drinks by Cat Head Vodka, and bites of brilliance by Craig Noone’s Parlor Market krewe.

Live local music of Bloodbird, Harrington, and SPACEWOLF will fill the night air on the courtyard, and The New Orleans Bingo Show will delight the patrons of the damned as the evening becomes the late night.

The art created to promote the whole maladventure is from pen and mind of Justin Schultz. Signed posters will be available from Justin and signed books by Chuck as well.

And somewhere in the maelstrom, the brilliant barker of the transgressive midway, Chuck Palahniuk, will take the stage and do his racy, soothsaying, sophisticated sideshow, sell some books and pontificate on the state of the misfits, the maleficent and the glorious bad behavior of society. Feeling lucky? Ladies and Gentlemen, STEP RIGHT UP!

JX//RX

Get all the details for Chuck Palahniuk’s Damned Book Night here.

See all of our other Chuck Palahniuk blogs here.

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Liz Sullivan, one of our reps from Random House, joins our blogging efforts devoted to Chuck Palahniuk, acknowledging the “wee bit” of excitement that has spread through the store like a fever. -Lisa, Blog Editor

As I mentioned in the first “Operation Chuck” post, I took it upon myself to read all the Chuck Palahniuk novels I hadn’t previously read before Chuck’s major event at Lemuria Bookstore on October 20th….which meant that I would be reading ALL of Chuck’s books.  I read most of Survivor while flying to Denver for the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association trade show in Denver on Saturday morning.

Here are some observations about Survivor:

• It’s probably not the wisest choice to read a book that basically uses a hijacked and crashing plane as its setting.  The protagonist, Tender Branson, is telling his life story to the little black box.  I’m going to choose to believe that the reason I was patted down even after going through the porno scanning machines at airport security was because Survivor was in my book bag.  This assumption, though, would suggest that the TSA agents were surprisingly literate, and I admittedly am snobby about the intellectual capacities of airport security personnel.

• It’s also probably not the wisest choice to read a book about religious cults and fanaticism when sitting next to the woman who was reading over my shoulder on the plane.  She kept tsking every time she saw words like “penis” or “cult” or “porno landfill.”  And this is why I own an iPod.

• I learned how to clean stains out of my microwave!  Thanks, Chuck!

• Survivor is hilarious in places, and generally a fairly shrewd critique of religious fanaticism in the US in all its forms, from fundamentalist sects with suicide pacts to football culture and Super Bowl worship.  It also questions the media-driven mechanics of modern religion.  Think about modern “church” leaders like Joel Osteen who have covers on magazines and billboards promoting their latest books, yet don’t actually talk about spiritual doctrines.

• I LOVED the book allegedly written for ex-cult member and spiritual guide Tender Branson, Inc, called The Book of Very Common Prayer.  Prayers not to go bald, prayers to delay sexual release, prayers for good parking spots.  This is first rate satire.  I actually know people who pray for parking spots.

Blind faith…hello Chuck!