Short Stories Charles Perrault France French 1697 66 Project Gutenburg Many famous fairy-tales, told in the manner of the cynical French court. It's strange that Perrault is so much lesser known than, say, the Grimms - especially when he wrote these 100 years earlier and the Grimms seem to have "borrowed" quite a lot of their most famous stories from him. 7 Yes 12 Novel László Krasznahorkai Hungary Hungarian 1989 314 New Directions A town in Hungary is degenerating due to the apathy of its citizens, and this is not helped by the appearance of a sinister circus. Marvellously dense, sinuous sentences. 9 Yes 12 Novel Vicente Blasco Ibañez Spain Spanish 1895 256 T Fisher Unwin Ltd Straight-forward tale of fishing-folk off the coast of Valencia. 5 Yes 12 Drama Sophocles Greece Greek c5thBC 162 Penguin Classics The pinnacle Greek tragedy (perhaps). Oedipus Rex (or Antigone, depending on your opinion) is the most perfect tragedy ever written; and Oedipus at Colonus one of the strangest and most unfathomable. 10 Yes 12 Short Stories Hermann Ungar Czechoslovakia German 1930 226 Twisted Spoon Press A reasonable collection of stories, the longer being the better ones. Mostly about murder. 3 Yes 12 Non-Fiction Joan Haslip England English 1971 470 Cardinal The Hapsburg, Max, is made Emperor of Mexico by Napoleon III, is rounded beaten in battle by Benito Juarez and then executed. A sad tale of a would-be liberal reformer compelled to uphold conservatism, or an account of a dilettante toff in way above his head - take your pick. 6 Yes 12 Novel Alain Robbe-Grillet France French 2001 176 Grove Press A man (possibly a spy) witnesses an assassination - or maybe kills his own father - or perhaps it was his twin-brother - and somehow a house for underage girls is involved? - Certainly his account is unreliable, but is that of his twin brother any better? 8 Yes 12 Novel Pavel Kohout Czech Republic Czech 1995 391 Picador USA Serial killer story - curiously similar to the Maigret story I read a few months ago, but this time set against the backdrop of the Third Reich as its power crumbles in Czechoslovakia. 5 Yes 11 Novel Amalie Skram Norway Norwegian 1885 289 The Seal Press A woman enters into a series of wretched marriages, for that is a woman's role in life. She observes her husbands screwing around, and wonders why she can't herself. 5 Yes 11 Non-Fiction Axel Madsen USA English 1999 285 John Wiley and Sons Interesting biography of the man who built General Motors, lost it to Wall Street financiers, built Chevrolet, seized back General Motors, lost it all again to Wall Street financiers, and then pretty much all his money too in the 1929 crash. 6 Yes 11 Non-Fiction Margarete Buber-Neumann Germany German 1968 206 The Harvill Press Biography of impassioned Czech journalist Milena Jesenská, whom the writer befriended in Ravensbrück concentration camp. 3 Yes 11 Novel Raymond Radiguet France French 1923 157 Penguin Modern Classics Novel about a teenager having an affair with a young woman whose husband is off fighting in the Great War. Good on the emotions surrounding such a state of affairs; but the ending is so abrupt, I feel Radiguet just got bored. 3 Yes 11 Novel Mikhail Lermontov Russia Russian 1840 185 Penguin Classics Classic broken narrative about eponymous hero: a largely indifferent, nihilistic character, as you'd expect. Since this is a Russian novel, obviously there's also a duel - one of the greatest in literature. 9 Yes 11 Novel Dorothy Richardson England English 1916 157 Virago Modern Classics Part 2 out of 13: our heroine, back from Germany, becomes a teacher in North London and hates the life she is forced to live. Once again, gets better as it goes along - especially in the more experimental passages. 5 Yes 11 Novella Miguel de Unamuno Spain Spanish 1930 267 Gateway Editions Abel Sanchez is a marvellous tale about envy, based on Cain and Abel. The Madness of Doctor Montarco is a story about a writer who becomes frustrated that his readers always want his stories to have definite meaning. Saint Emmanuel the Good, Martyr, is the classic dilemma of the priest who has lost faith (in God, at least). 9 Yes 10 Novel Philip K Dick USA English 1962 249 Penguin Modern Classics Alternative history in which the Nazis/Japanese win the Second World War. Intriguing and interestingly written (the use of pseudo-Japanese English etc.). 5 Yes 10 Novel Honoré de Balzac France French 1831 285 Penguin Classics Far distant from anything else I've read of Balzac, a weird symbolist work of Faustian foundation, with a nice line in unrequited love. 9 Yes 10 Novel Karel Čapek Czechoslovakia Czech 1939 172 George Allen and Unwin Marvellous (though unfinished) tale of a man driven to become an artist, even though he has no talent for it and must borrow instead from the talents of others. 8 Yes 10 Novel P.D. Ouspensky Russia Russian 1915 204 Faber and Faber Strange time-travel story, taking the oppsite to most such tales: that no matter what happens, inevitably things will turn out exactly the same. 6 Yes 10 Novel Alain Robbe-Grillet France French 1953 256 Grove Press A man investigates a murder which never happened - or did it? - Whichever, it increasingly seems likely that in fact he is the murderer himself. 7 Yes 10 Novel Camilo José Cela Spain Spanish 1942 166 Little, Brown A murderer justifies himself. 2 Yes 10 Drama Sophocles Greece Greek c5thBC 212 Penguin Classics The non-Theban plays. All very good, perhaps with the exception of The Women of Trachis. 9 Yes 10 Drama Karel Čapek Czechoslovakia Czech 1920 58 Dover Publications Capek's fascinating early SF play, in which he "invented" the word "robot". There's so much influence you can see in this, from Philip K Dick and Stanislaw Lem, to The Terminator and Night of the Living Dead. 8 Yes 10 Novel Georges Simenon Belgium French 1955 156 Le Livre de Poche In which Maigret entraps a serial killer. 4 Yes 10 Short Stories William Goyen USA English 1983 248 Serpent's Tail A mixed bag of short stories from across Goyen's career. I like his style - so different from that now prevalent - the later works being particularly impressive. 5 Yes 10 Short Stories Various France French 1968 330 Penguin A snapshot of the French scene in 1968, unsurprisingly highly loaded towards the avant-garde. A very interesting selection indeed, though not necessarily always good writing. (The most that could be said for some pieces is that they were short). The best thing in it, I thought, was Ionesco. A lot of the time it was the writers I'd never heard of that I enjoyed the most: Jean Ferry, Pierre Bettencourt, Marc Alyn. 4 Yes 10 Novel Liu E China Chinese 1905 176 Panda Books A strange novel with an aimless plot: a man vaguely travels round China, observing its government. 6 Yes 9 Short Stories Various Various Yiddish Various 511 Fawcett World Library An interesting collection, not least for the number of writers it includes whom I'd never heard of, along of course with the usual writers you'll find in ever Yiddish compendium. 6 Yes 9 Short Stories Lu Hsun China Chinese 1926 255 W.W.Norton I enjoyed these more when Hsun tended towards the autobiographical. 4 Yes 9 Short Stories Anonymous Various Arabic c13th 569 Routledge and Kegan Paul Nights 488 to 814, containing the classic story of Ala al-Din, though my favourite was The Tale of the Sleeper Awakened. 9 Yes 9 Novel Roberto Bolaño Chile Spanish 1999 184 Picador Highly readable but ultimately I didn't find all that interesting account of one woman's nurturing of poetic talent in Mexico City. 2 Yes 9 Non-Fiction John Bierman Canada English 1988 409 John Murray Harshly titled but well-written account of Napoleon III's reign - one of the most interesting of c19th monarchs. 7 Yes 8 Novel Wilson Harris Guyana English 1960 152 Faber and Faber A group of men journey upstream in a South American jungle (though they may all already be dead, I wasn't sure). Very well written but at times incredibly obscure work, which drifts off into complete incomprehensibility (I felt it might be some religious twaddle) towards the end. 4 Yes 8 Novel Jules Verne France French 1873 278 Hachette Phileas Fogg makes his imperturbable way around the world, accompanied by his French hero/valet. He visits many countries and observes their stereotypes. 1 Yes 8 Novel Vladimir Nabokov USA English 1974 197 Penguin Nabokov's last novel (or penultimate one, if you will), in which he recounts a literary career parallel to his own. A sort of coda to his canon. 7 Yes 8 Novel Antonio Tabucchi Italy Italian 1995 136 The Harvill Press A complaisant man involves himself in underground activities as his conscience begins to trouble him and Portugal slips under fascism. 7 Yes 8 Novel Romain Rolland France French 1910 209 Jupiter Books Boy has unhappy childhood, learns the piano, makes a friend, falls in love. First two volumes of his 10-volume roman fleuve. Not entirely enthused to pick up the third quite yet. 4 Yes 8 Novel Henri Lopès Republic of the Congo French 1982 259 Readers International Largely comic tale of a dictator in an unnamed African country. 6 Yes 8 Novel Stendhal France French 1827 192 Premier World Classics Young man vows never to let himself fall in love: - he falls in love. All amidst the satirised backdrop of French society. There's quite a strange bit towards the end, where the secret one character is hiding remains completely unexplained. 7 Yes 8 Novel Annie Ernaux France French 1983 114 Éditions Gallimard Possibly really a memoir. The author's homage to her father: a worker who escaped into cafe ownership, and lived to see his daughter better herself too. A lot about class - and a lot of subtle French language stuff, which no doubt passed me by. 4 Yes 8 Novel Robert Musil Austro-Hungarian Empire German 1906 189 Granada A boy at boarding school struggles with some existential anxieties, mostly centring around homosexuality and imaginary numbers. Meanwhile, his friends torture another boy caught thieving. 8 Yes 8 Novel Beppe Fenoglio Italy Italian 1963 140 Hesperus Press A man tries to save a partisan colleague from the firing squad, largely to discover whether he slept with a girl he fancied. 4 Yes 8 Short Stories Zsigmond Móricz Hungary Hungarian 1942 241 Corvina Press Most of the way through this collection, I was wondering why Móricz was so revered in Hungary: they were mainly simple tales with a socialist bent. But then towards the end there were a few extraordinary stories thrown in. 7 Yes 7 Short Stories Budd Schulberg USA English 1965 125 Mayflower Dell A random slice through American life, highlighting Schulberg's favourite subject: the triumph of mediocrity. My favourite story was the first, about a radio talkshow host whose bigoted homely views see him a fine candidate for president. 3 Yes 7 Novel Mário de Andrade Brazil Portuguese 1928 168 Quartet Books Brazilian modernismo's finest moment: de Andrade's curious post-modernist magic realist farrago (a mixture of pre-Colombian myth and modern Sao Paulo cultural referencing) seems outside literary trends. Very amusing in parts. 8 Yes 7 Novel Pío Baroja Spain / Euskadi Spanish 1911 330 Signet Classic A young Basque man sets out to sea in the footsteps of his mysterious uncle; he discovers more about said uncle as he goes along. 6 Yes 7 Philosophy Friedrich Nietzsche Germany German 1887 136 World's Classics Nietzsche looks into how human morality originated and wonders where it all went wrong: - why is it we're all so miserable these days? His conclusion: we should stop torturing ourselves - and torture other people instead. Divided into three parts, I enjoyed the first two best. 7 Yes 7 Non-Fiction Brian Hamnett England English 1999 309 Cambridge University Press I enjoyed the early parts about pre-Columbian and post-conquest Mexico (it changed my view of things); but the rest of the book was mind-numbingly boring (even the parts on the Mexican Revolution). 3 Yes 7 Novel Georges Simenon Belgium French 1933 130 New York Review of Books I'd seen the film of this, Monsieur Hire, which perhaps deflated the book a little. A fair enough non-psychological psychological thriller. 2 Yes 7 Novel Alejo Carpentier Cuba Spanish 1949 113 Penguin Modern Classics The Haitian revolution and its aftermath, seen through a cast of a few individuals. A salutary tale on what happens when a slave is given absolute power. 8 Yes 7 Novel Jabra Ibrahim Jabra Palestine/Iraq English 1960 232 Three Continents Press Young man escapes Zionist occupation of Palestine only to become entangled in love - and the poetry scene - in Baghdad. 6 Yes 7 Novel Philip K Dick USA English 1968 210 Gollancz Interesting sci-fi, largely based around the increasing lack of distinction between humans and androids. Better on ideas than plot. 4 Yes 7 Memoir Lady Sarashina (or Anonymous) Japan Japanese c11th 79 Penguin Classics Young woman reads the tales of Genji and wastes life in the romantic hope of adventure. 7 Yes 6 Novel José Donoso Chile Spanish 1981 242 Grove Press A writer is writing a book, doesn't get on well with wife / son / country from which he's exiled. Tedious bourgeois stuff from a writer who once satirised them so well. 0 Yes 6 Memoir José Rodrigues Miguéis Portugal Portuguese 1957 79 University Press of New England Hypochondriac clearly has something wrong with him, but doctors can't decide what. 2 Yes 6 Short Stories Boris Pilnyak Russia Russian 1929 297 Panther Books A collection of stories, at one moment highly realist, at another highly experimental. 4 Yes 6 Novel Stanislaw Lem Poland Polish 1961 204 Harcourt Human scientists and strange living ocean try to make contact with one another; they largely fail. Interesting sci-fi. 6 Yes 5 Novel Jerzy Pilch Poland Polish 1995 131 Northwestern University Press Man hides his girlfriend from his wife and family in an outbuilding when she turns up suddenly at his house, recounted in little comic episodes. 7 Yes 5 Novel Sébastien Japrisot France French 1992 167 Éditions Danoël Thriller in which a woman murders a stranger who raped her and is then relentlessly pursued by another stranger investigating the first stranger's disappearance. 4 Yes 5 Novel Eça de Queirós Portugal Portuguese 1874 352 Carcanet Eça de Queirós' marvellous, violently anti-clerical satire. Gluttonous sex-crazed priests deflower religiously brain-washed women hypocritically with tragic consequences. 8 Yes 5 Short Stories Nikolai Gogol Russia Russian 1836 336 World's Classics I read this, and also the Penguin Classics' Diary of a Madman and Other Stories. Pretty much all the best stuff from Gogol's Petersburg period. The plays - The Government Inspector, in particular - disappointed me though. 8 Yes 5 Novel Roberto Pazzi Italy Italian 1985 196 Picador Wonderfully readable account of Tsar Nicholas II's last days; - and of a regiment trekking through Siberia in search for him (or merely as a symbol of Russian history at this period). 6 Yes 5 Novel Dorothy Richardson England English 1915 185 Virago Modern Classics The first part of Richardson's 13-volume Pilgrimage sequence: a pre-Joycean stream-of-consciousness epic. In this, an 18-year old English girl works as a "teacher" at a German school; she seems to lack self-confidence. 5 Yes 5 Novellas Ihara Saikaku Japan Japanese 1686 263 New Directions A collection of Saikaku's works: mostly stories in which once puritan folk descend into debauchery and dissipation. 5 Yes 5 Short Stories Mia Couto Mozambique Portuguese 1986 115 Heinemann African Writers Series A series of stories in which typical African spiritualism and, let's say, magic realism, turn out to be grounded in the only too real. I enjoyed them a lot more than I thought I would. 5 Yes 4 Novel Max Frisch Switzerland German 1979 111 Harcourt Brace An old man, living in an Alpine valley, is cut off for a time from the rest of the world by the weather; he spends his time studying encyclopaedias, then goes for a long walk. 6 Yes 4 Memoir Frigyes Karinthy Hungary Hungarian 1939 288 NYRB Classics Karinthy's account of a tumour developing in his brain, his experience of what it feels like and what it's like having it removed. If you don't like the idea of someone opening up your skull and operating on your brain while you're fully conscious, you might not want to read the last 70 pages. 4 Yes 4 Short Stories Vladimir Odoevsky Russia Russian 1841 212 Bristol Classical Press A strange collection of stories, which reach back into early gothic but also can seem strikingly ahead of their time, particularly The Cosmorama. Full of interest in the subconscious and an odd obsession with spontaneous combustion. 7 Yes 4 Novel August Strindberg Sweden French 1897 172 Penguin Classics Strindberg's marvellously paranoid story about a crazy alechemist in c19th Paris finding sinister significance in the world around him and dabbling in the Swedenborgian occult. What's truly troubling is that it turns out to be basically autobiographical. Trails off however into obsessive repetition and matters religious. One of those novels which it's better to have read than be reading. 5 Yes 4 Novel Juan Carlos Onetti Uruguay Spanish 1964 305 Vintage International A man sets up a legalised brothel in a South American town. The citizenry, after a time, oppose it. Some wonderful writing, particularly the sections told through the mind of Díaz Grey who (as I learn elsewhere) is perhaps less a character in the novel than the novelist himself looking on. 8 Yes 3 Short Stories Marcel Proust France French 1896 221 Peter Owen Modern Classics Proust's first work: short stories and sketches mostly satirising the French upper-classes and the whole world of culture. Better at its more serious, on the subject of love, and as he begins to drift back into his memories. 8 Yes 3 Novel Marie Corelli England English 1895 390 Oxford World's Classics Corelli's odd re-working of the Faust story as decadent Victorian morality tale, troubling in its inconsistency of thought and very fine in its style. 7 Yes 3 Drama Euripides Greece Greek 400?BC 199 Penguin Classics The Medea is a strangely incoherent play, seemingly written by someone unacquainted with the methods of drama. The other three plays - Heracles, Electra and Andromache - are very good, though strange in their way. If you like plays about psychotic revenge taken a bit too far, you'll like these four. 8 Yes 3 Short Stories Jorge Luis Borges Argentina Spanish 1935 131 Penguin Modern Classics Borges' first work. I'd read this before, and perhaps was more impressed this time round. I preferred the pieces thrown into the collection at the end. 7 Yes 3 Non-Fiction Henry McAleavy England English 1967 365 Weidenfeld and Nicolson Well-written account of Chinese history, mostly from the late Manchu period on. 7 Yes 3 Short Stories Clarice Lispector Brazil Portuguese 1960 156 Texas Pan American I really had a high opinion of Lispector before reading this collection. These are mostly the kind of dull stories about nothing which any of our modern writers could have written. A few of them are a bit better. 1 Yes 3 Essays William Ospina Colombia Spanish 1995 105 Brookline Books A truly dreadful collection of essays, whose basic message is that modern state is inauthentic and everything since the Middle Ages has been a mistake. Enjoyable though, in the way that the idiotic views of others are often enjoyable. 0 Yes 3 Novel Robert Walser Switzerland German 1908 136 Serpent's Tail a.k.a. Jakob von Gunten. The eponymous von Gunten attends the eponymous Benjamenta Institute, where he is happy to learn how to live as a cog in the machine. 9 Yes 3 Novel Gert Hofmann Germany German 1985 152 Minerva Hofmann becomes more and more repetitious to my mind, both in the shared ideas of his works and within the individual works themselves. I did quite like the usage of a collective point of view, however (rare outside Greek tragedy). 1 Yes 3 Novella Stendhal France French 1839 195 New Directions Stendhal's odd mixture of fact and story-telling, displaying his love of Italian revolutionary sentiment and his contempt for French society. The Italians know how to love; the French don't. Mostly stories about outlaws from justice. 7 Yes 3 Novella Claude Simon France French 2001 96 The New Press Perhaps a man recollects his childhood whilst lying in hospital (it's hard to say). Don't approach if you don't like page-long paragraphs, punctuated by extended paratheses; if you do, the writing washes over you and you find you're happy to drown in it. 9 Yes 3 Novel Pascal Quignard France French 1986 274 Grove Weidenfeld A man steals his best-friends wife; regrets it. Finely written with much human insight, but perhaps drifts on a bit too long. 5 Yes 3 Non-Fiction Desmond Seward England English 1972 322 Penguin Learned account of the various orders of monastic knights. Gripping on the dramatic history - Outremer, the Baltic expansion - but tedious when merely listing the idiosyncracies and hierarchies of each order. 2 Yes 3 Novel Anatole France France French 1879 113 The Bodley Head France's account of a Haitian political minister's son's descent into the Parisian world of art. Not much to say on the black man's position in c19th French society; a fair amount on the impecunious life of artists in their garrets. 4 Yes 2 Novel Amin Maalouf Lebanon French 1993 274 Abacus Novel about a Lebanese mountain village, set against the background of c19th Egyptian expansion: murder, conflicts, vengeance, diplomacy etc. 4 Yes 2 Novel Fyodor Dostoevsky Russia Russian 1870 156 Bantam Books Wonderful tale of infidelity and deranged revenge, taking in cruelty, misery and at times unfathomably complex emotion as you'd expect from Dostoevsky. 10 Yes 2 Novel Joan Perucho Spain/Catalunya Catalan 1960 179 Minerva A tale of vampirism in Catalunya during the Carlist War. Very referential, at times absurd and towards the end I felt a little tedious. 2 Yes 2 Novel Knut Hamsun Norway Norwegian 1909 253 Picadoe Really two separate novellas, though concerning the same characters, told by the same narrator, and pursuing the same themes: the search for authenticity, unrequited love, jealousy. I preferred the second one. 5 Yes 2 Short Stories Ivan Bunin Russia Russian 1944 224 Penguin Modern Classics A varied selection from Bunin's career. At his more experimental I find him an interesting writer, but tends too much towards long dull descriptions. 6 Yes 2 Novel Anatole France France French 1879 132 The Bodley Head Typical French tale of love and guilt, not as much based on the Oedipus legend as you may have thought. Well written but unsatisfying. 3 Yes 2 Short Stories Bohumil Hrabal Czechoslovakia Czech 1966 193 Abacus Usual enchanting work from Hrabal about nothing much in particular. Even the characters seem most of the time to be distracted from the plot. 7 Yes 1 Novel Max Blecher Romania Romanian 1937 227 Old Street Publishing A man suffers a disease of the spine, undergoes treatment in a French spa. 3 Yes 1 Novel Antonio Lobo Antunes Portugal Portuguese 1979 154 Chatto and Windus A man recounts his experiences as a doctor in the Portuguese war against Angolan independence. Finely written and as bitter towards his homeland as the last of Lobo Antunes' books I read. 7 Yes 1 Novel Anna Kavan England English 1967 128 Picador Marvellous piece of dream-fiction, in which the narrator chases a mysterious women through a world slowly being destroyed by vast ice sheets. 8 Yes 1 Novel Angeles Mastretta Mexico Spanish 1986 268 Penguin Story of a young woman who marries a revolutionary, later a member of the government, whom she slowly realises is a cruel and ruthless politican. 5 Yes 1 Short Stories Juan Benet Spain Spanish 1961 202 Iberia Airways Well-written but baffling collection of short stories, all set in the fictional town of Región - a town (common in Spanish fiction) once populated, now derelict. 5 Yes 1 Reportage Gabriel García Márquez Colombia Spanish 1955 106 Penguin A piece from García Márquez's years as a journalist. Interesting in itself, and interesting for the capital the then Colombian government tried to make out of it. 4 Yes 1 Memoir Gregor von Rezzori Austro-Hungarian Empire German 1989 290 Vintage Von Rezzori recalls his early years in the Austro-Hungarian Empire: a German living in what became Romania and is now the Ukraine. Consists of portraits of the members of his immediate family (incl. nanny and governness), who were all pretty messed up, mostly because the aristocratic world into which they were born was in this period wiped off the face of the earth. 7 Yes 1 Novel Theodor Fontane Germany German 1896 267 Penguin Classics After 150 pages, I was wondering if anything was going to happen in this book (it seemed to keep hinting that something might). After 200 pages, I began to feel that something actually had happened and somehow I'd missed it. I went back and discovered this was what happened: "'Effi'. She heard the soft whisper in her ear, in a voice that trembled. Then he took her hand and untwined her fingers which she was still holding locked together and covered them with passionate kisses. She felt as if she would faint." - A German classic. 2 Yes 1 Short Stories Gyula Krúdy Hungary Hungarian Various 131 Noran Books The early stories were ok, but the collection really took off when it got to the Sindbad stories. Some of the best writing I've come upon this year. 8 Yes 1