In 2024 I was recommended a book by a family member, who went to an event and heard the author tell the story of his childhood and this novel he wrote called Boy Swallows Universe. Barely a week after this conversation, a friend arrived in my hometown of Aix en Provence, from Australia, pressed this book into my hands and said “You have GOT to read this!”.
Yes, you guessed right, it was Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton and I reviewed it here.
That book was published in 2018. I then saw there was another book about to be published called Lola in the Mirror, which some reviewers described as being even better than the debut novel. On reading about the inspiration for the novel, I decided to get a copy.
Love Stories and a Typewriter
Trent Dalton spent 17 years writing social affairs journalism across Australia. He had his own troubled childhood and upbringing, but he also witnessed and wrote about the situations of so many others, driven by the question; how was it that 120,000 people slept rough every night in one of the brightest, most fortunate countries in the world?
It is this question and the stories shared by the many people he has met over those years, that inspired him to create this latest story Lola in the Mirror.
Frank and Heartfelt
One of the people he was inspired by and wrote about, was Kathleen Kelly, the mother of a friend of his, who passed away on Christmas Day 2020. His book Love Stories is dedicated to her and prefaced with a letter written to her, typed on the sky blue Studio 44 Olivetti typewriter she bequeathed him.
In a letter to Kath, he writes of her memorial service:
Greg spoke of you and your beloved Olivetti Studio 44 typewriter, the sky-blue one that you’d been tapping on since the early 1970’s, writing fiery letters about woman’s rights and human rights and doing life right to politicians and principals and popes. He spoke about the letter you wrote to the Catholic Leader in 1970, railing against Canon Law demanding the covering of women’s heads in church. You were furious and brilliant.
After the service, Greg tells Trent that his Mum cut out all the stories he wrote and made scrapbooks that documented her life and all that was important to her and that she wanted him to have her typewriter. Being the honour that it was, Dalton wanted to do something special with it, to write something filled with love and depth and truth and frankness and heart because that’s how Kath was.
I told Greg I wanted to walk through the streets of Brisbane’s CBD (central business district) for two months asking random strangers to tell me love stories. I told him I then wanted to sit two for weeks straight with the Olivetti on the corner of Adelaide and Albert streets, on the edge of King George Square, and ask random strangers to stop and tell me more love stories, and then I wanted to write about all those love stories on your beautiful Olivetti.
Those two months of listening to people tell their stories of love, loss and belonging were research for this story of Lola, frank, fearless and full of heart.
Lola in the Mirror
Lola in the Mirror is a riveting, page turning novel that gripped me from the opening pages and never let go. It is a whirlwind of risk and adventure, an exploration of friendship, loss, perseverance and the resilience of the human spirit to not give up on a dream. It is a challenging coming-of-age story of an innocent girl who desperately wants to know who she is and rise above her situation.
The novel opens with a black and white illustration entitled ‘Escaping the Tyrannosaurus Waltz‘, the dance of mothers and their monsters, or the dark shadow of domestic violence, something Dalton recalled about his own mother, who often had to choose between homelessness or ‘the monster’, a terrible choice faced by many women in Australia, for whom domestic and family violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness.
The artist is a 16-year-old girl, she and her mother are on the run, they have been for all her life. The girl does not know her own name, because it’s too dangerous, but her mother promises to reveal things to her soon, when she turns 18, because then she will be free to make her own choices.
Houseless not homeless
The girl does not describe herself as homeless, the two live in a van with four flat tyres parked in a scrapyard by the banks of the Brisbane River. There is a community of friends who live in similar circumstances, who look out for each other and this girl has a dream of a future life that will be different to how she lives now. For now that scrapyard home is her sanctuary, where she can dream up the best version of herself.
For a start, I ain’t homeless, I’m just houseless. Those two things are about as different as resting your head on a silk pillowcase and resting your head on a brick.
As this girl navigates her life in search of who she is, she comes across a mirror that she takes home, and after a period when the mirror cracks, something magical happens, half the mirror shows her legs and the other shows a dressed up woman in different world cities, who converses with her.
She wants to see her face, but she always has her back to her. She calls her Lola. Lola’s presence keeps her curious, keeps her coming back and looking in the mirror, gives her reason to keep dreaming. She is like a pulse on her mood, on her self-belief.
“Mirror, mirror, on the grass, what’s my future? What’s my past? … Mirror, mirror, please don’t lie. Tell me who you are. Tell me, who am I?”
The storytelling is incredible, the characters are fully formed, and the depiction of the city, the river, the bridges is visionary. You cannot read this book and not care about what happens to this girl or get hooked into wanting to know how she gets in and out of various situations. It is mystery, adventure, crime, psychological suspense and love story rolled into one. The best kind of holiday read ever.
I took this book on holiday with me to Australia, figuring I would read it there and leave it behind. It is set in Brisbane which is where I flew into, although I was staying much further South. On the day I started reading, my son was due to fly back to France. I sat in the passenger seat of the car as we drove to the airport. This time, we took a different route and suddenly we were driving alongside the CBD and there were all these bridges and a glimpse of Victoria Park and the mighty river.
When I got back to my book later in the day, on page 45, I read descriptions of exactly the same places we had just driven past. It was surreal, to move from the imagined place to these live flashes of what I had just seen. It brought the story to life and for the rest of the novel, those images kept recurring. I have always been a fan of reading works set in the places I travel to, and I’m glad I read this one in situ as well.
The Artwork
Throughout the novel are a number of superb illustrations, which both tell parts of the story and also suggest a future life of the girl artist. Each drawing is followed by an imagined art critic review in a black box, as if it were being displayed at an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the commentary describing what the artist is representing in the illustration.
Of course, I became curious about the actual artwork and skipped to the back of the book to look up the story behind it. It’s a good one.
Trent Dalton, Author
Trent Dalton is a two-time Walkley Award-winning journalist and the international bestselling author of Boy Swallows Universe, All Our Shimmering Skies, and Lola in the Mirror. His books have sold over 1.3 million copies in Australia alone. He lives in Brisbane, Australia, with his wife and two daughters.
Lola in the Mirror is for anyone who ever felt like they were going to collapse under the weight of sorrow. The book is also for all those beautiful souls who help us carry that weight. It’s an art story. It’s a crime story. It’s a mystery novel. And it’s a life story. I hope people will read this, get to the end and realise why I wrote Love Stories and sat on a Brisbane street corner watching people and asking them about love, loss and belonging for three months.
A meandering story-line, spanning 3 years, the introspective excavating of a young British-Ghanaian man’s soul and the situations he will encounter and confront, as he matures and grows into a version of himself that he likes.
I highlighted SO many passages.
Moments of Bliss, Small Worlds
Small worlds describes the way Stephen has learned to see things. It is his way of identifying and capturing certain moments, especially the loving, the poignant, the fleeting, the good.
A coming-of-age story set mostly in Peckham, London, it follows Stephen as he navigates the period in his life when he is separating from friends and his parents, from all that he knows. Simultaneously, he is moving from letting things happen to him and suffering, towards sitting with what is, reflecting, rejecting, embracing, understanding. A journey the evolves over three years.
Introspective and sensitive, music plays a large role in his mood, his management of his emotions, his friendships and the collective memory of Ghana, a country he is connected to but did not grow up in, a place that separates him from his family as much as it is a part of them all.
The novel is set over three years, written in three parts, like a jazz trio of piano, bass and drummer.
Part One – Two Young People in the Summertime (2010)
The summer after Stephen and all his friends have finished school and they are deciding what comes next. Stephen and his long-known friend Del are both applying to study music. This summer they start to look at each in a different way, to feel something, they are light-footed, beach going, feeling like something good is coming.
When Stephen’s path changes course, he deals with isolation and separation, unable to even find solace in his instrument, the trumpet, or music. His emotions run deep and he withdraws from them.
Part Two – A Brief Intimacy (2011)
Stephen is working with his friend Nam, training to become a chef. The owner Femi has split allegiances, a Ghanaian mother and Nigerian father mean they serve Ghanaian food and play Nigerian music, and they all know about the 1983 Nigerian Presidential executive order, the mandate of Ghana Must Go that affected an estimated 2 million people living in the country.
Rhythm returns to his life and he feels it everywhere. The observations of bits of daily life, poetic, vibrant, rhythmic and upbeat.
Back in Peckham, it’s here too, this rhythm happening everywhere, as I take my time to wander home: in the dash of four boys dressed in black, trying to beat the bus round the curve, soft socks in sliders slapping the ground. The song of a passing car, distant bass finding a home in my ears, the low, slow rumble calling attention the way thunder might ask you to check the sky for rain. The haggling taking place at the butcher’s and the grocer’s, the disbelief that it’s now three plantain for a pound, not four. In the sadness as I pass the spot where Auntie Yaa’s shop used to be, where she would make sure everyone was looked after. In the joyful surprise when I run into Uncle T, his mouth full of gold like its own sunshine. The couple I pass in the park, holding each other close, her head turned away from his, a smile on his face even as he pleads with her, babe, I didn’t mean it. In the distance she holds him, to see if he’ll come closer, because sometimes it’s not enough to say it, you have to show it too. In the conviction I share with many that this stretch, from Rye Lane to Commercial Way, is where our small world begins and ends. There’s rhythm happening, everywhere; all of us like instruments, making our own music.
But expectations, old trauma and shame linger and until they can be addressed, they undermine relationships, cause rupture, rigidity and regret. So much still to recognise, dismantle, overcome and heal. And Stephen explores it all.
I’m slowly taking myself apart, so I might build myself up once more. And as part of this undoing, I want to ask him, why?And then there are those aspects of the outside world, not so far away, that seethe with unresolved anger and hatred, that threaten to close in on them. A raising of public consciousness and a shift in perception.
Stephen takes time off after the turn of events and pays a visit to Ghana. His trip heralds a reckoning.
Still, of late I’ve felt the urge for more. I’ve always had a decent grasp on who I am, or where I might find myself, but I’ve never really known where I’ve come from. This trip has started a shift. There are gaps which my father might fill, with his own story. I want him to tell me who he is, or who he was. I want to know who he was when he was twenty. I want to know what he dreams of, where he finds freedom.
Melody, discord, harmony and triumph – a story through music
As we read, there are songs Stephen chooses to accompany him. Often as I read, I stop to listen and look up the artist, reminding me of the enjoyment I had reading Bernice McFadden’sThe Book of Harlan (reviewed here). It can add so much more to the experience, when music with a cultural influence is present, calibrating the reader’s imagination with the mood of the story.
The way the story comes full circle, when by the end, Stephen’s father accepts his son’s invitation to come with him, to share a meal, to listen to ‘Abrentsie’ by Gyedu-Blay Ambrolley, the book morphed into scenes of a wonderful film that I was simultaneously watching and reading. I wished I weren’t on the last pages, because it felt so good to witness the transmutation of emotion into a new way forward, that was something like the old, but different; accepted, something they will be able to nourish and grow from.
Caleb Azumah Nelson is a British-Ghanaian writer and photographer living in south-east London.
His first novel, Open Water, won the Costa First Novel Award, Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards, and was a number-one Times bestseller. It was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, Waterstones Book of the Year, and longlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and Desmond Elliott Prize. He was selected as a National Book Foundation ‘5 under 35’ honoree by Brit Bennett.
Small Worlds, his second novel won the Dylan Thomas Prize (2024) (a prize that celebrates exceptional literary talent aged 39 or under), cementing the 30-year-old British-Ghanaian author as a rising star in literary fiction. The judges had this to say:
“Amid a hugely impressive shortlist that showcased a breadth of genres and exciting new voices, we were unanimous in our praise for this viscerally moving, heartfelt novel. There is a musicality to Caleb Azumah Nelson’s writing, in a book equally designed to be read quietly and listened aloud. Images and ideas recur to beautiful effect, lending the symphonic nature of Small Worlds an anthemic quality, where the reader feels swept away by deeply realised characters as they traverse between Ghana and South London, trying to find some semblance of a home. Emotionally challenging yet exceptionally healing, Small Worlds feels like a balm: honest as it is about the riches and the immense difficulties of living away from your culture.”
I found this beautiful hard copy of Irish author John Boyne’s short novel Water in a second hand bookstore on holiday recently. I had put too many books in my suitcase already so I shouldn’t have been buying more, but this was too tempting, especially as water was one of the great themes of my holiday.
I did leave most of the books I took with me behind, but Water was my in-flight read on my return, and a good choice as it is not too long or complicated.
The only issue I have, is that it is part of a series of four short novels, interconnected stories. Now I want to know what will happen next and I don’t have Earth or Fire on my shelves yet. Air is due to be published in May 2025.
On verra, as we say here in France. We will see.
Irish Island Stories
Water is another Irish Island story, I realise I have read a few of these kind of stories in recent times, where a character either lives on an island or goes off to spend time on an island for some reason.
In 2024, I read Hagstone by Sinead Gleeson about an artist Nell, who lives on a wild and rugged island that is also inhabited by a commune of women trying to live outside society and I also read Sophie White’s literary horror Where I End, again set on an Irish island, with a strange cast of characters with their terrible secrets. I see another one coming in 2025, June O’Sullivan’s historical fiction set in 1867, The Lighthouse Keeper’s Wife set on the extremely isolated island of Skellig Michael off the coast of Kerry.
In a sense all Irish literature is island literature, but there is something particular about setting stories on small islands with their slightly insular communities that magnify the issues the story is trying to project.
Not an island, a continent. A few favourite water pictures from my recent holiday.
Change a Name, Change a Life
When Vanessa Carvin arrives on the island, she changes her name to Willow and shaves her hair. Content to learn that the cottage she rented had no Wi-Fi or television, we understand she is someone that might be recognised and that is the last thing she wants. We do not know why, the past will be slowly revealed over the course of the novel.
When a cat saunters in and makes itself at home, she thinks of her elder daughter Rebecca and husband Brendan, though what happened to separate her from them remains a mystery.
Well, he’s surrounded by chaos now, I tell myself, wondering whether I should smile at the irony but being unable to. Although he’s technically not my ex-husband at all yet. I just think of him that way. One day, I will summon the energy to speak to a solicitor but, right now, I have had enough of the legal system to last me a lifetime, and who knows, maybe he’ll die, or be killed; which would save me both the bother and the expense.
Contemplation and Conversations
Though she has come to the island to get away, she does interact with the locals and news of her arrival travels quickly. She develops a routine and keeps checking to see if her daughter has read her messages. For some reason her elder daughter isn’t speaking to her and early on we learn that the younger daughter Emma has died.
The way the novel holds much back from the reader while we follow Willow around, in a way reflects the characters own blindness and denial around what has occurred to her family. The island becomes a refuge or escape from reality while the new name and change in appearance physical appearance create a mask behind which she has time to contemplate the events that have occurred and her own complicity.
I was never what you might call a natural mother, but I loved my daughters and did everything I could to ensure that they enjoyed a happy and secure childhood. My own had been untroubled and , having come through it without any noticeable scars, I simply emulated my own mother’s behaviour. Businesslike and efficient, without being overly sugary.
Despite this, none of the family are now together and a scandal has rocked the illusion of her foundation. Although she is there to reflect on the situation and her own role in it, she quickly finds her own form of escapism with her neighbour’s son. The conversations she has with various island inhabitants inform us on the state of the Irish psyche and proclivities, it’s own form of blindness and denial.
Her conversation with the island priest on observing a young man seeking confession is revealing:
‘When I was his age, we all had to go,’ I tell him. ‘It would have been unheard of not to. And I brought my own children too, even though I’m not a believer. So I suppose that makes me just as big a hypocrite.’
‘But something must have made you bring them,’ he insists. ‘Perhaps some part of you was hoping to receive the Spirit, even if you didn’t realise it?’
‘I brought them to keep my husband happy,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t know how much you know about Irish women, Ifechi, but that’s what we do. It’s what we’ve been doing for centuries now, and look where it’s got us.’
‘And where is that?’
‘Here. To some godforsaken island in the Atlantic Ocean, where we know no one and no one knows us.’
Complex and Conflicting Truths
John Boyne adeptly walks his character through her isolation and interactions, penetrating the dark, hidden aspects of outwardly normalised lives that are so far from it, they are no longer able to see the signs of damaging dysfunction.
Symbolically, water represents depth, the ebb and flow of life, the things we should know, that sometimes we only come to know in the stillness of being. Water can cure, purify, cleanse and provide insight. Leaving the city behind, crossing the water to an island, Willow will plunge the depths to awaken to her own role in her not seeing.
It is interesting that the author chose to inhabit the character of a woman, that adds to the theme of blindness or unknowing in the novel. That element of not seeing what is happening, and the usual repression of the feminine within the masculine.
Here an author steps into those shoes and we go there with him to see what it feels like from the inside and witness the progress that can be made by making time to sit with situations that require contemplation, resolution and healing.
Highly Recommended.
Have you read any of the novels in John Boyne’sElement series?
Recently I wrote about Sophie Fontanel’sCouver un Astre (reviewed here), a poignant reflection on the large balloon that was installed in Le Jardin des Tuileries during the Paris Olympics and Para-Olympics of summer 2024.
Her book describes the effect this installation on herself and the community around her, how its ascent sixty metres into the sky each evening, did something to uplift those who witnessed it, every night.
Back in September 2024, the idea was floated that the city of Paris wished that the installation could be kept in the public gardens after the Olympic Games, an idea that posed a series of technical, financial and heritage problems.
Everybody loves a balloon
The enthusiasm and wonder the balloon generated was quite unexpected by the city and the designer. Very few tickets were available to approach the balloon up close, something Sophie Fontanel ponders in her book.
Yesterday it was announced that this magnificent design by Mathieu Lehanneur will be reinstalled in the Tuileries Gardens, the public space that separates the pyramid of the Louvre, the place de la Concorde and the Champs-Élysées, for the next three summers until 2028.
So if you didn’t get to see this wonder last summer, from afar or up close, there will be another three summers of opportunity to witness something of what Sophie Fontanel writes about.
An executive order of a different kind
After a joint announcement was made by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo and the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, he posted this message on social media.
“Elle reviendra chaque étè. De la Fête de la musique [21 juin] à la Fête du sport, jusqu’aux Jeux de Los Angeles”
“It will return each summer. From the Music festival to the Sport festival, until the Los Angeles Games.”
In a similar spirit to the Fête de la musique, after the games of 2024, the annual Fête du sport was created. Every year on September 14, sport demonstrations and competitions are held to increase awareness and improve participation in different sports.
It is good to know that those difficulties were somehow overcome, and in a relatively short period of time, in order for the balloon to be ready for the summer of 2025.
The balloon will be accessible to the public from 10am until 7pm every day, and will again rise with the sunset into the Paris sky in the evenings.
Maybe now someone might translate this gem of a book into English, since the wonder of this uplifting balloon is going to be around for a few more summers.
Anyone planning to visit Paris in the next three years?
Back in September 2024, I visited the small Provençal village of Ansouis for their annual vide grenier which included a corner of tables where the local French library sell second hand books in French and English. I like to donate a couple of boxes of books and try not to be too tempted by what I find.
Nigerian Literature and Storytelling
The Girl With the Louding Voice was one of the titles that jumped out at me that I couldn’t resist picking up.
I enjoy Nigerian literature and storytelling, all more so because I visited Lagos for a friend’s wedding many years ago and writing like Abi Daré’s evokes all the senses that bring back memories of being in that place and time.
Not only the location, but the descriptions of people’s lives sounded familiar, those that have been educated outside and come back, the self-made women entrepreneurs who just get on and create businesses as well as raise families and those that you know have never been outside of their country, trying to make their way.
Loss of a Mother Changes Everything
14 year old Adunni’s life changes after the death of her mother, who had been keeping the family afloat. Despite the husband having made promises to his dying wife not to marry off his only daughter, he’s unable to keep up with paying the rent and soon his daughter has been promised as the 3rd wife of a much older man.
Why will Morufu pay our community rent? What was he wanting? Or is he owing Papa money from before in the past? I look my papa, my eyes filling with hope that it is not the thing I am thinking. ‘Papa?’
‘Yes.’ Papa, wait, swallow spit and wipe his front head sweat. ‘The rent money is … is among your owo-ori.’
‘My owo-ori? You mean my bride price?’ My heart is starting to break because I am only fourteen years going on fifteen and I am not marrying any foolish stupid old man because I am wanting to go back to school and learn teacher work and become a adult woman and have moneys to be driving car and living in fine house with cushion sofa and be helping my papa and my two brothers.
Marrying Morofu puts Adunni into an environment where a woman’s value is defined by her ability to bear male babies and one where she is in competition with other wives. Adunni doesn’t wish to bring more children into the world with no chance at an education, or voice.
Education is Key
Adunni has held aspirations of continuing her education ever since it was cut short and it is one element of belief and resilience that carries her through the challenges that confront her when a sudden tragedy causes her to flee her situation.
When she finds herself in the busy city of Lagos, working for the self-made Big Madam, she hopes her luck might change. She manages to steal time in the library where she comes across a dictionary and a book of Nigerian facts, in which are written things like:
Fact: Nigerians are known for their love of parties and events. In 2012 alone, Nigerians spent over $59 million on champagne.
Adunni learns facts about her country, dictionary definitions and new vocabulary and tries to keep herself safe and true to her ideal. Fortunately she also meets one or two characters who look out for her, however Big Madam seems intent on crushing her spirit.
As the novel ends, it feels like a new chapter of her life is beginning and that we may not have heard the last of Adunni.
It’s an excellent read that is very evocative of place, the descriptions of Lagos put you right there, as were the descriptions of the contrasting lives of the haves and the have nots. It highlights that fact that despite the patriarchal society, many households and entrepreneurial businesses are run by women and much of the fragment of society is kept together by their determined contribution and drive.
‘My mama say education will give me a voice. I want more than just a voice, Ms Tia. I want a louding voice,’ I say. ‘I want to enter a room and people will hear me even before I open mout to be speaking. I want to live in this life and help many people so that when I grow old and die, I will still be living through the people I am helping.’
Highly Recommended.
If You Like This Book
Reading The Girl With the Louding Voice reminded me of the equally excellent novels Nervous Conditions (my review here) (the first in a trilogy) by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe) and The Son of the House (reviewed here) by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia (Nigerian/Canadian), which was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2021).
Author, Abi Daré
Abimbola (Abi) Daré grew up in Lagos, Nigeria and has lived in the UK for eighteen years. She studied law at the University of Wolverhampton and has an M.Sc. in International Project Management from Glasgow Caledonian University as well as an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck University of London.
The Girl with the Louding Voice won The Bath Novel Award for unpublished manuscripts in 2018 and was selected as a finalist in 2018 The Literary Consultancy Pen Factor competition. It has been translated into 20 languages.
Her second novel And So I Roar follows Adunni’s and Ms Tia’s journey and was published in 2024. Listen here to Abi Daré talk about the new novel and some of the interesting people who reached out to her after reading her debut, in this 90 second summary of And So I Roar.
In 2023, she established the Louding Voice Educational and Empowerment Foundation in Nigeria, a nonprofit dedicated to providing scholarships to young girls in rural Nigeria. It exists as a testament to the belief that education and empowerment can be a beacon of change for girls trapped in the shadows of domestic labor and gender-based violence in Nigeria.
Abi lives in Essex with her husband and two daughters, who inspired her to write her debut novel.
How to even translate the meaning of this title. Couver means to cover, but that is insufficient to describe what Sophie Fontanel means when she writes ‘Couver un astre’.
While trying to understand the greater meaning, I came across a description that put it like a hen sitting on her eggs, protecting them, brooding, incubating.
A curious way to describe a large balloon don’t you agree? I would have to to read on and find out.
A Ball, A Ballon or An Olympic Cauldron
She was referring to the large twenty-two metre diameter helium-filled balloon that the French designer Mathieu Lehanneur created for the Paris Olympics in July/August 2024. And more specifically, the attachment, adoration and psychological effect this ‘Boule’ had on her and much of the local population, as it sat in the Jardin des Tuileries and every evening rose up skywards and settled there like a full moon, then during the day descended.
It began to gather an almost cult-like following, crowds standing in the street or sitting at their apartment windows, waiting for the moment when the balloon would rise.
With a Huff and a Puff, and an I’m Out of Here
In her slim, contemplative non-fiction work, Sophie Fontanel described her cynicism at the arrival of the Olympic Games into Paris, all the unwanted infrastructure, inconvenience, people and disturbance. So much was she affronted, she left the city the opening ceremony week and went off to a Greek Island with her friends, while another friend, with quite the opposite attitude, quit Bretagne and came to Paris for a month specifically to witness and be a part of the historical moment.
She owns up to exaggerating her anticipated frustrations, but what she isn’t prepared for on her return, is the effect of a giant balloon, seen from the window of her apartment, a balloon that draws crowds as it rises every evening and descends every morning, quietly elevating the ‘joie de vivre’ of those who witness it.
Come Closer, Stand Still, Behold
The book is written during that summer, in sections relating to proximity of observation.
It begins with a series of 8 black and white photos over 4 pages that show the rise and descent of the magnificent creation, followed by:
A Prologue De loin (From afar) De près (Up Close) De plus près (Closer) De tout près (Up Very Close) An Epilogue, by Mathieu Lehanneur
There is her contemplation and wonder of it, occasional conversations, both with friends and strangers, various encounters, concluding with that of the inventor/designer himself, who interacts on her social media post and asks his own contemplative question. A kind of invitation to respond, that manifests into an actual invitation to do what he suggests, to get closer and observe from yet another perspective, the magic of this phenomena.
《Et si vous veniez la voir de près? Histoire d’avoir un autre point de vue…》
What was this hypnotic effect of a lustrous balloon that made us not wish to turn away, that made those walking the rue ravioli lift their gaze. Some filmed it …
“Et puis, ils cessaient de le faire. Ce n’est pas que cela ne rendait pas, c’était que rien ne valait l’admiration simple. De temps en temps, seuls les yeux compte.” 《Eh, c’est à nous, tout ça?》
And then they stopped. Not because it didn’t capture it, it was that nothing beats simple admiration. Sometimes only the eyes can appreciate.
《Hey, this is ours, all this?》
The magic of a gift of a balloon offered to the people. The incomprehension of the gift.
The author posted a few photos and messages on her Instagram account, having observed the balloon from her window. One day a message appears inviting her to come closer. Intrigued she does and so another wonderful aspect of the book, how sharing reflections and observing beauty and wonder can create connection and community.
I bought this as a gift for a couple of my French friends, who had been somewhat ambivalent about the then approaching season of the Olympics, who were pleasantly surprised by their own reaction when it did finally arrive and in many ways brought out the best in people.
It is a testament to the idea that magic can arrive through creativity and community, that the presence of a balloon can lift spirits, as most children know and many adults have forgotten.
I adored this little book and highly recommend it if you took any pleasure in the summer of 2024 Paris and wished to remember the good feeling it brought about in many.
For the moment it is published in French, hopefully it will get picked up and translated into English.
Sophie Fontanel, Author
Sophie Fontanel is an author and essayist living in Paris. She has been an editor at Elle France for more than a decade. She has written 18 books in the French language.
Mathieu Lehanneur, Designer
“This absolutely unique Cauldron represents all the spirit I wanted to give to the Olympic and Paralympic objects. Light, magical and unifying, it will be a beacon in the night and a sun within reach during the day. The fire that burns in it will be made of light and water, like a cool oasis in the heart of summer. I created the Torch, the Relay cauldron and the Olympic Cauldron as three chapters in the same story. The Cauldron is the epilogue and the ultimate symbol of that story. Light, magical and unifying…” ML
I haven’t read much Japanese literature so when I saw Mieko Kawakami’s novel Breasts and Eggs at a booksale I picked it up, recalling it had caused much interest among readers at the time of its translation into English. It caused a significant reaction in Japan when originally published, a bestseller spurned by traditionalists.
It was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of TIME’s Best 10 Books of 2020 and established the author as something of a feminist icon, exploring the inner lives of women through the ages.
A Woman’s Lot
Breasts and Eggs is set in two time periods eight years apart and centres around 30 year old woman Natsuko, a writer living in Tokyo and those two themes, Breasts and Eggs; or Appearance and Mothering.
I’m still in the same apartment with the slanted, peeling walls and the same overbearing afternoon sun, surviving off the same minimum wage job, working full time for not a whole lot more than 100,000 yen a month, and still writing and writing, with no idea whether it’s ever going to get me anywhere. My life was like a dusty shelf in an old book store, where every volume was exactly where it had been for ages, the only discernable change being that my body has aged another ten years.
Silence Speaks Volumes
In the first part of the book her sister Makiko comes to visit with her 12 year old daughter Midoriko, who has stopped speaking to her mother. She writes her responses, we read her perspective through a few journal entries, which has become the place where she has conversations she is missing elsewhere.
Unspoken Job Requirements
Makiko is an ageing hostess whose occupation demands certain expectations of looks and she has become obsessed with breast augmentation surgery to the neglect of all else. It has been the topic of conversation with her sister for the last three months. Natsuko realises she doesn’t want her advice, just a sounding board. Their mother died when the girls were teenagers from breast cancer.
…after all these years, at thirty-nine, she still works at a bar five nights a week, living pretty much the same life as our mum. Another single mother, working herself to death.
While her sister goes for a consultation Natsuko spends time with her niece and ponders women’s bodies, pains, expectations, grievances, self-judgments, societal judgments, obsessions. During the visit, the three women confront their issues, desires and frustrations, building to resolution.
When Time Is Running Out and All is On the Table
In Part Two, eight years have passed and now it is Natsuko who arrives at an age of obsession, only her focus is on eggs, or the desire to have a child and the dilemma of not being in a relationship when the age of becoming eggless is in sight.
A Making Children Medical Procedure
She begins to research alternative ways of conceiving, finding ways to learn more and to meet people she might be able to discuss her desire. In doing so she discovers there is more to the subject than just a woman’s desire, there are moral considerations she hasn’t considered, that might affect her decision.
“Neither the medical community, not the parents who undergo this type of treatment, have adequately considered how the children – and this is about the children – will eventually see themselves,” Aizawa said, in summary. “As for donors, most of them haven’t given much thought to these issues, either. For them, it’s something akin to giving blood. Legal reform has a long, long way to go, but recent attention to the child’s right to know had led more and more hospitals to suspend treatment entirely…”
The Child Who Grows Up Not Knowing Shares As an Adult
Her interest leads her to new connections that increase the depth of her understanding and options available to her. By the time she makes her decision, she will be significantly more informed and understand the situation from multiple perspectives.
I thought about what I had said, but couldn’t explain what I meant. What made me want to know this person? What did I think it meant to have me as a mother? Who, or what, exactly, was I expecting? I knew I wasn’t making any sense, but I was doing all I could to string the words together and convey that meeting this person, whoever they may wind up being, was absolutely crucial to me.
It is an interesting, thought-provoking look at the lives of women trying to find fulfillment while navigating the challenges of single motherhood, health, womanhood, reproductive rights and familial relationships in non-nuclear families.
“I try to write from the child’s perspective – how they see the world,” says Kawakami. “Coming to the realisation that you’re alive is such a shock. One day, we’re thrown into life with no warning. And at some point, every one of us will die. It’s very hard to comprehend.”
Author, Mieko Kawakami
Born in Osaka, Japan Kawakami made her literary debut as a poet in 2006 and in 2007 published her first novella My Ego, My Teeth, And the World. Heaven, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd, was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.
Known for their poetic qualities, their insights into the female body and their preoccupation with ethics and the modern society, her books have been translated into over twenty languages. Her most recent novel that has been translated into English is All the Lovers in the Night.
Kawakami’s literary awards include the Akutagawa Prize, the Tanizaki Prize, and the Murasaki Shikibu Prize. She lives in Tokyo, Japan.
It has been 10 years since The Spinning Heart (my review), and in this small town in rural Ireland, County Tipperary, not a lot seems to have changed, or maybe it has. Previously it was economic collapse, lack of employment, toxic masculinity and how the actions of one man affected a community.
In Donal Ryan’sheart, be at peace we meet many of the cast from the past, another 21 voices some years further on, with a new set of troubles affecting the community.
Some are faring rather well financially, but not everyone is happy about the activities they are involved in and their loved ones who might be affected. Suspicion, mistrust, grief, regret prevail and all manner of connections have been formed and remade.
Births, Deaths and Estrangements
One of the most intriguing characters that I could have happily read a novel on and one of the few characters that does stand out was Lily, described as a witch by training and a whore by inclination, estranged from her son, then made up over her granddaughter Millicent who turns up at her door one day.
Having the gift of insight, she can see her granddaughter will find little solace with the boy she’s seeing. When she asks her granny for a spell to bind him always to her for fear of losing him, she knows there will be trouble ahead.
I explained to her again that the spells weren’t real magic, that the power of them was already inside the people who wanted them, the spells just allowed them the use of it, that the magic was in their faith that the magic would work and she screamed at me then, That’s what I want, Granny, that’s what I want, to have faith that he’ll always love me, that he’ll never leave me. I can’t bear the thought of losing him, of some other bitch touching him. He’s MINE, Granny, he’s mine.
A Chorus of Voices
The way the novel is written with short chapters from multiple character viewpoints, we can only discern what happens next to some of those we meet along the way, as we imagine the implications of all that is revealed. It is a novel that might be better understood after multiple readings, as it takes some work to connect and reconnect the different voices. It’s a kind of fly-on-the-wall polyphonic chorus.
In a way, the novel reading experience is like being in the presence of a community but not really knowing them, observing for a while reveals some connections but not others.
Some men can lie with such ease that they quickly begin to believe themselves, and so in a way their lies become truth and their sin is expunged.
I have a few of Donal Ryan’s novels and I do recall having a little difficulty with his Booker longlisted debut mentioned above, and then absolutely loving All We Shall Know (reviewed here), then not being impressed at all by Strange Flowers. So a bit hit and miss for me, but one I’ll keep reading as he seems to have his finger on the pulse of contemporary community issues.
I enjoyed heart, be at peace and its themes, but it is a novel that is unlikely to stay with me due to the vast cast of character voices that too often became indiscernable for me.
Author, Donal Ryan
Donal Ryan is an award winning author from Nenagh, County Tipperary where this latest novel is set. His work has been published in over twenty languages to critical acclaim.
heart, be at peace won Novel of the Year and the Overall Grand Prize of Book of the Year at the An Irish Book Awards in 2024, described by the Irish Times an “absorbing, emphatic story of a community in trouble”
Maria Dickenson, Chair of the Judging Panel, said:
“Heart, Be at Peace was the unanimous choice of the judges from among the fantastic array of titles shortlisted this year. Donal Ryan’s writing has earned him a place among the greatest names in Irish literature and this lyrical novel speaks to the very heart of modern Irish society. Weaving twenty one voices together, Ryan portrays the passions, frailties and sorrows of one Irish town with compassion and clarity. Heart, Be at Peace is a masterful achievement and we congratulate Donal warmly on winning this award.”
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See is historical fiction set in 15th century China.
The story begins in 1469, the fifth year of the Chenghua Emperor’s Reign, when the main protagonist Tan Yunxian, is eight years old.
From the opening passages we see how she is being indoctrinated for the role ahead of her, as her mother who all refer to as Respectful Lady, an honorary title of rank, questions her on the rules she must know by heart.
“You are a little girl, so you are still in milk days. When you turn fifteen, you will enter hair-pinning days. The way we style your hair will announce to the world that you are ready for marriage.
She smiles at me. “Tell me Daughter, what comes next?”
The story unfolds around two characters of the same age, born under the same sign, in the year of the Metal Snake. Each of the twelve zodiac signs is paired with one of the five elements of Chinese Medicine and in the case of these two girls, it is the Metal snake.
Out of interest, we will enter the Year of the Wood Snake this January 29, 2025.
Of different classes, they are friends as children, one training to become a midwife, like her mother, the other to become a noble, cloistered wife and a doctor like her grandmother.
Respectful Lady asks me to repeat the rules we’ve covered.
“When walking, don’t turn my head,” I recite without protest. “When talking, don’t open my mouth wide. When standing, don’t rustle my skirts. When happy, don’t rejoice with loud laughter. When angry, never raise my voice. I will bury all desire to venture beyond the inner chambers. Those rooms are for women alone.”
The story follows their lives and the precarious events of navigating life under the rule of a mother in law, the intrigues of concubines, the ambitions of those seeking power and the risks of those who stand in their way.
I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the different cases of disharmony and disequilibrium Lady Tan attended to, making her diagnoses according to the principles of traditional Chinese medicine, a subject I find endlessly interesting.
A Woman Doctor in 15th Century China
Lady Tan was inspired by Tan Yunxian, a woman doctor in the Ming Dynasty, who at the age of fifty, was the first to write a book of medical cases about women’s maladies and treatments, an incredible feat given the era in which she lived. Many of the cases in her book have been used by the author, creating fictional lives around the information gleaned from that record.
If you enjoy historical fiction about the lives of women in centuries past, especially those that defy the norms and live remarkable lives, you’ll likely enjoy this. And if like me, you have an interest in traditional medicine philosophies and treatments, then this is a wonderfully insightful and interesting read.
Author, Lisa See
Lisa See is the New York Times bestselling author of Lady Tan’s Circle of Women, The Island of Sea Women (my review here), The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane (my review here), Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Peony in Love, Shanghai Girls, China Dolls, and Dreams of Joy. She is known for her deeply researched, lyrical stories about Chinese characters and cultures.
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women is not only a captivating story of women helping women, but it is also a triumphant re-imagining of a woman who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable and inspirational today.
She is also the author of On Gold Mountain, which tells the story of her Chinese American family’s settlement in Los Angeles.
A friend gave me this book to read recently and I brought it with me on holiday intending to read it on the plane, which didn’t happen. It is indeed an ideal holiday read, Rose Tremain being one of those reliable authors so adept at storytelling, at drawing you in to a character’s perspective, imagining their predicament.
When we first meet Marianne, it is the 1950’s, she is fifteen, the only child of regular middle class parents from a semi-rural district in southern England and in her prime for falling helplessly in love with the boy who is paying her attention, Simon Hurst. They are both coming to the end of their schooling years, he with great expectations, she with few.
When I was fifteen, I told my mother that I was in love with a boy called Simon Hurst and she said to me, ‘Nobody falls in love at your age, Marianne. What they get are “crushes” on people. You’ve just manufactured a little crush on Simon.’
When Simon fails to meet the expectations of him, his life plan changes and this will impact Marianne. Her parents dismiss her feelings and put it down to a schoolgirl crush, she describes it as being in the Love Asylum. Unable to let go of her ideas about a life with Simon, she flounders for a while, will eventually move on, but the pattern of unrequited love is never far away from her experience.
At school studying Romeo and Juliet, she relates to the Juliet character and wishes for a character like Nurse in her life, one who understands what Romeo and Juliet are doing and how they feel, one kinder than her mother who could hold her and soothe her erratic emotions.
I imagined her listening attentively while I confessed to her that my head was so burdened by my obsession with Simon that I was afraid of becoming a total imbecile. And she would stroke my hair and reassure me that this was a perfectly normal state for young people to be in, that we were all inevitably headed for a stay in the Love Asylum, but that in time the spell would be overcome and normal life would resume.
It is an absorbing story of turning points in people’s lives, the different people they meet, how that can change their trajectory, including the presence of those absent and the illusions harboured of lives not lived, not meant to be lived. It is also a thought provoking depiction of the relationships between generations and the expectations of those coming-of-age in the 1960’s England.
Word by Word 