Things Seen

By Annie Ernaux
Translated by Jonathan Kaplansky
Bison Books

From the baby carriage to the grave, life unfolds more and more between the shopping center and the television set. – Annie Ernaux

Born in 1940, and a published author since 1974, Annie Ernaux is known for writing in depth about her own life: her parents, her marriage, her abortion, and later, her breast cancer. In Things Seen, Ernaux turns her gaze outward, both to Paris and the world.

Written as a journal, the book feels as though it traveled in a coat pocket, pulled out to pass the time in train stations and grocery stores, riding on the Metro and eavesdropping in cafes. The writer states the journal is a result of the “simple habit of putting life into words.”

Events are recorded through the initial reaction felt by the writer. Refreshingly absent is the expected self-examination and excuses made for the content of the reaction. We hear the writer’s thoughts as she thinks them, without editing. There is no need to place additional weight on any one topic, as one would in conversation; the narrative flows over war, racism, and homelessness as swiftly as it does hair appointments, grocery shopping, and visits to the dentist. This does not render the writer shallow or uninterested; it reminds the reader of all the passing commentary we also make to ourselves in our day-to-day lives. The commentary doesn’t need to make sense to anyone else. In fact, upon reflection it might not make sense at all.

The idea I found most resonant in the book is that while one may feel they are the only true individual in a crowd, to each other person, one is just part of the nameless crowd. The writer’s viewpoint is that of a passive audience, watching other people's lives unfold in front of her with little more emotion than one would actors on a stage. A memorable example is that of the many different beggars encountered on the Metro; the writer finds it easier to give change to someone playing music than to someone who might actually be starving. It is easier to give the same coin for pleasantry than to accept the concept that someone might literally die without that help.

The writer is distanced from actual events, and this makes the book speed along, as we do not stop to analyze the thoughts themselves; we simply follow the words at the pace of life, just as the writer recorded them.

Review by Melissa Ruiz

Dark Heart of the Night

By Leonora Miano
University of Nebraska Press

The gross reality of genocide brings one’s spirit to feel a deep sadness for groups and individuals who don't understand different cultures. Delineating a brutal world of power and defeat, the author of Dark Heart of the Night doesn't hold back and the shocking truth of this topic engenders an incredulous curiosity in the reader: how can a village not support their people, even those who are related to some in the village? How can the world be so out of kilter that more energy is spent killing while refusing to understand others? The power of violence resonates throughout and accompanies the overriding story.

The author depicts the harshness and pain of this specific village to help us understand the ongoing brutality of a small tribe of people. In reading Dark Heart of the Night, a person may see parallels to oppressed groups through history. The sheer stubbornness and defiant attitudes of particular individuals in the village overpower the mass of followers in the village.

Nightmarish in its intensity, the novel opens with the brutal acts of a rebel force taking place within the country. As readers, we observe protagonist Ayané, who returns to her Central African village from France to assist her dying mother; she is continually an outcast—not understood nor understanding this culture to which she returns uneasily. As a more "worldly" individual, she confronts the local leader of the village after witnessing killing in her mother's village from afar.

Throughout Dark Heart of the Night, the author depicts an ongoing conflict within the self, among others, and in the overall world. Her stark imagery brings to light gruesome and harsh experiences. Deftly utilizing only minimal words, Leonora Miano shapes the storyline with the sheer power of her writing. She elaborates on the human aspects of communication and being misunderstood in a cross-cultural situation. All character interactions bring ideas of human survival to the forefront.

Miano is originally from Cameroon, and she lives in France. Both Tamsin Black and Terese Svodboda translate Miano’s work into English for their readers. Overall, Miano presents a hearty and challenging novel to surely move the reader to action to demand fairness for those people who find themselves under the proverbial oppression of misplaced power.

Review by Carolyn Espe

Hotel Iris

By Yoko Ogawa
Picador

Having been forced to drop out of school to work at her family's seaside hotel in Japan, a young woman named Mari suffers through days marked by routine. She cleans rooms, minds the desk, and attends to the needs of the guests. The novel Hotel Iris explores what happens when a girl breaks free of a life of controlled repetition, only to fall victim to an even more brutal cycle of submission and domination. Taking shape slowly, like the way breath comes on a hot summer day, Mari reaches so far into the depths of her own fantasy that she eventually chokes on it.

The story begins when a translator and a prostitute have a fight in Mari's hotel. The seventeen-year-old is drawn into the sureness of the man's "beautiful voice giving an order, with no hint of indecision," as he barks insults and orders at the woman. "Even the word 'whore' was somehow appealing." This is the beginning of the end for both the translator and for Mari, as they enter into a secret affair.

Violence is found in every aspect of Mari's life, even the common procedure of styling hair is painful and brutal. Mari's mother is so controlling that she insists on doing the girl's hair, the force of the tugging dependent upon the older woman's mood. Eventually, Mari leaves one dungeon for another, thus transferring violence from the hotel to the translator's island, an isolated home off the coast that can only be reached by boat.

Publicly careful and timid, Mari's time on the island is full of pain, pleasure, and submission. As the translator's violence increases, so too does Mari's desire. The translator is decifering not only Russian pamphlets but also this young girl's body, expanding her worldview. The suspense in Hotel Iris is as suffocating as the heat, and metaphors are both abundant and rich.

The physical action of the characters says more than psychoanalysis could, and Ogawa does not overanalyze her characters' behavior. Many writers fall victim to saying too much, but Ogawa's chief strength is that she doesn't feel compelled to explain her characters' motivations. Instead, the iceberg is acknowledged without being examined.

The restraint shown in the early sections of Hotel Iris is sadly lost in its final few pages. Too much is explained at once, and the result is a rushed, incomplete closing to such a poetic and nuanced novel. The tension that held the story together ultimately dissipates with little pay off. Ogawa's patient weaving of an enthralling tale is what keeps the reader suspended, waiting to see if everything will drop and knowing that, if it does, the fall will be far and dangerous.

Review by Lisa Bower