Marseille

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Reading Intentions 2024

Photo Ylanite Koppens @ Pexels.com

I’m not really into reading goals and rarely participate in challenges that might oblige me to stick with a fixed plan.

A mood reader, I like being able to change my mind about what is going to be picked next. So often, the book I’m reading points the way forward to the next one, or a conversation leads me to recall another book I have on the shelf already.

That said, there are certain intentions I have, and I thought I would list them this year, to give a little direction or framework to the year. As always, things can change, they probably will and if so I will welcome that!

1. Read one book a week

While the number doesn’t really matter, it exists so that that at any one time I can see if I’m keeping with my intention or lagging behind. This reading challenge is on Goodreads, which is where I dump my first impressions as I read or makes notes while reading, or not.

Some may think that reading 50-60 books in a year is a lot; it is about the equivalent of reading 50 pages a day, which is around half an hour to an hour each day. The trick is to read a little every day. I mostly read at night, in the TV watching hour(s) and just before sleep.

2. Reading Ireland Month, March 2024

Last year I read 18 Irish books and I could easily do the same this year, the main focus being Reading Ireland Month in March over at Cathy’s 746Books.

In addition to books from this pile I own here, Cathy has just posted Irish Novels to look out for in 2024 and Irish Short Story Collections + Nonfiction to Look Out for in 2024.

There are few books here I am interested in, notably, from author’s I’ve read and enjoyed; Jan Carson’s Quickly, While They Still Have Horses (short stories) plus collections from Mary Costello and Lucy Caldwell; in fiction, Nuala O’Connor’s Seaborne, Siobhan Gleeson’s Hagstone, Caiolinn Hughe’s The Alternatives. There’s likely to be more temptations I’m sure!

3. Read More Latin American Fiction

Thanks to a subscription with Charco Press, I will be receiving nine books throughout 2024, as they are published.

2023 was a stellar year of reading books from this region, I enjoyed them all, in particular A Little Luck by Claudia Piñeiro (Argentina) tr. Frances Riddle, Two Sherpas by Sebastian Martinez Daniell (Argentina) tr. Jennifer Croft and The Delivery by Margarita Garcia Robayo (Colombia) tr. Megan McDowell.

The 2024 Fiction Bundle includes these titles, so many of which I am excited to read:

4. Read More Annie Ernaux, In French

In 2023, I read Annie Ernaux’s Nobel Prize lecture, I Will Write to Avenge My Race (2022), Simple Passion (1991), and Shame (1997).

In 2024, I hope to read her masterpiece The Years (2008) in English and these three titles in French, L’occupation (2002), (The Possession), Une femme (1987), (A Woman’s Story) and “Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit” (1997), (I Remain in Darkness).

I live in France, but tend to read French titles in English, in order to encourage readers to pick them up, however all these titles are available in English anyway and reading in French is a great way to increase vocabulary and exercise the brain!

5. Observe the Awards

Each year, there are certain awards, I like to follow, though they rarely influence what I am going to read. If anything, I’m more likely to find something that might interest me on the longlists, but I do enjoy watching the process of these so very subjective gatherings and all the literary chatter they evoke.

The awards I’ll be looking our for in 2024 are, the New Zealand Book Awards, The Irish Book Awards, The Dublin Literary Prize, The International Booker, The Booker and The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.

I also like to see who makes the Dylan Thomas Prize longlist, an award for young writers, aged 39 and under, as it is can be a predictor of authors to watch out for in the future. The author Okwiri Oduour (Kenya), who wrote Things They Lost, my One Super Outstanding Read of 2023, was longlisted for this prize and another favourite author Sara Baume (Ireland/UK) was shortlisted.

6. Read More Women in Translation

I love to read around the world. In 2023, I read books from 23 countries and a third of them were in translation. I particularly like to support women authors in translation, due to the challenge this group has in being picked up by publishers and seen.

There is a wealth of great literature to discover here and it is heartening to see classics by the likes of Alba de Céspedes (Italy) coming to print in English for the first time, since being published in the 1950’s.

In 2024, I hope to read more of her work, more by Natalia Ginzburg (Italy), plenty via Charco Press and certainly more that I have yet to decide on. Women in Translation month #WITMonth is in August, which isn’t a great reading month for me, as it’s peak season work wise, so I’ll be reading it all year round, but following closely in August for recommendations.

7. Écrire Marseille: 15 grands auteurs célèbrent la cité phocéenne

Jean Claude Izzo Alexandre Dumas Gustave Flaubert Albert Cohen Simone de Beauvoir

Marseille is a wonderful city, only 25 minutes from where I live. I came across this title in a local bookstore, a compilation of extracts from various French works that mention or celebrate the city of Marseille in some way.

Having had a glimpse inside, I won’t be exactly reviewing the titles or extracts, but I will allow each text to inspire me to write something, using them as a kind of springboard to discover whatever it is to be found by studying the text. That is likely to include a few visits to this complex, unique city herself.

The opening quote is from The Trilogy Fabio Mentale, of which I have read the first in the series, Jean-Claude Izzo’s Total Khéops (1995) (Total Chaos):

“Marseille n’est pas une ville pour les touristes. Il n’y a rien à voir. Sa beauté ne se photographie pas. Elle se partage. Ici, il faut prendre parti. Se passionner. Être pour, être contre. Être, violemment. Alors seulement ce qui est à voir se donne à voir.”

“Marseilles isn’t a city for tourists. There’s nothing to see. Its beauty can’t be photographed. It can only be shared. It’s a place where you have to take sides. Be passionate. Be for, be against. Be, violently. Only then what is to be seen, shows itself.” 

The 15 authors included in the anthology are:

Arrivées à Marseille: Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), Albert Cohen (1895-1981), Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986)

Regards sur la ville: Paul Valéry (1871-1945), Marcel Pagnol (1895-1974), Albert Camus (1913-1916), René Frégni (né en 1947), Rebecca Lighieri (née en 1966), Alain Damasio (né en 1969)

Quelques quartiers de la cité phocéenne: Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Albert Londres (1884-1932), Louis Brauquier (1900-1976), Jean-Claude Izzo (1945-2000), Maylis de Kerangal (née en 1967)

8. Read What I Like, When I Like

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Have intentions, not obligations. No need to review or finish a book, just follow what lights me up.

Reading and playing around on this blog is total freedom and enjoyment, never a chore, just a fun place to hang out and create content that are like the conversations I am unable to have, because I would never wish to impose all this on anyone.

But thank you to those willing to read and comment, who follow along anyway, that is like the icing on the cake, a gift that is much valued and appreciated and which often contributes to what I might read next.

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Do you have any reading intentions for 2024? Let me know in the comments below.

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Transit by Anna Seghers tr. Margot Bettauer Dembo

I have wanted to read this novel for a while, ever since reading Jacqui’s review a few years ago. With August focused on #womenintranslation and being asking for a suggestion for our upcoming bookclub, it seemed the perfect moment to read it.

It is an incredible novel, written in a surreal time, while the writer was living in exile in Mexico, Anna Seghers (having left Germany in 1933 to settle in France) was forced (with her husband and two children) to flee from Marseille in 1940, the only port in France at that time that still flew the French flag, the rest under German occupation.

With the help of Varian Fry, (see his autobiography Surrender on Demand) an American journalist who came to Marseille for a year and helped 1500 artists, writers, intellectuals escape Europe; they found safe passage to Mexico, where they stayed until able to return to East Berlin, where she lived until her death in 1983.

While in Mexico she wrote this thought-provoking, accomplished, “existential, political, literary thriller” novel narrated by a 27-year-old German man who has escaped two labour camps (in Germany and France) before arriving in Paris where he promises to do a favour for a friend, coming into possession of a suitcase of documents belonging to a German writer named Weidel, who he learns has taken his own life.

There is an element of the absurd in many of the encounters throughout the entire novel, and one of the first is when the young meets the hotel proprietor, inconvenienced by the death of this man in her establishment, which she’d had to officially register and arrange for burial, she complains that he’d caused her more trouble than the German invasion and that they hadn’t ended there and goes into detail.

“Don’t think that my troubles are over. This man has actually managed to create trouble for me from beyond the grave.”

Our unnamed narrator offers to assist, requiring him to travel to Marseille, where he hopes to stay indefinitely. To avoid checkpoints, he leaves the train a few stops early and descends into the city.

Walking down from the hills, I came to the outer precincts of Marseille. At a bend in the road I saw the sea far below me. A bit later I saw the city itself spread out against the water. It seemed as bare and white as an African city. At last I felt calm. It was the same calm that I experience whenever I like something very much. I almost believed I had reached my goal. In this city, I thought, I could find everything I’d been looking for, that I’d always been looking for. I wonder how many times this feeling will deceive me on entering a strange city!

Descending into Marseille today

Alongside many others genuinely trying to flee, we follow him to hotels, cafes, consulates, shipping offices, travel bureaus and stand in line as he apples for visa and stamps that he has little vested interest in, observing the absurd demands made of people trying to find safe passage to what they hope is a free world. He is given a one month residency and then settles in to watch the world go by, ignoring that he must still establish his intention.

By now I felt part of the community. I had a room of my own, a friend, a lover; but the official at the Office for Aliens on the Rue Louvois had a different view of things. He said, “You must leave tomorrow. We only allow foreigners to stay here in Marseille if they can bring us proof that they intend to leave. You have no visa, in fact not even the prospect of getting one. There is no reason for us to extend your residence permit.”

The man he knows is dead, has a wife widow waiting for him in Marseille, her story becomes part of the young man’s quest, in this transitory city that holds a thin promise of a lifeline to the fulfillment of desperate dreams for so many refugees.

The complexity of requirements means many more are rejected than succeed and all risk being sent to one of the camps that the authorities without hesitation dispatch those whose papers are not in order.

Our narrator is independent, without family and not in possession of a story that invokes sympathy in the reader. A drifter without purpose, he likes the city and wants to stay. His circumstance removes something of the terror and tragedy of what people around him are going through, allowing the reader to see the situation outside of the tragic humanitarian crisis it was.

Instead we witness the absurd situation people have been put in, the endless, near impossible bureaucratic demands refugees encounter, when they are forced to flee homes they don’t want to leave, to go to a safe(r) place equally they don’t necessarily wish to go to, but will do so to survive and in an attempt to keep their families together. And the irony or blindness of those around them who continue with their lives as if nothing has changed.

Sometimes you find real Frenchmen sitting in the Brûleurs des Loups. Instead of talking about visas, they talk about sensible things like the shady deals that go on. I even heard them mention a certain boat that was sailing for Oran. While the Mont Vertoux customers prattle on about all the details of booking a passage on a ship, these people were discussing the particulars of the cargo of copper wire.

I highlighted so many passages that I will go back and reread, it’s a fascinating book that could perhaps only have been written from the safety of exile and from the perspective of the everyday man and woman, without going into detail about the reasons for their haste, for even a safe place can become unsafe, and a manuscript sufficient to sign a death warrant. And even though this book was written 77 years ago, there is much about the bureaucracy that continues to ring true for immigrants in Europe today.

Marseill’s thoroughfare, Le Canibiére

The depiction of Marseille, though in a time of terror is evocative too of that city today, only the places mentioned here are now frequented by people from a different set of countries, those who have fled or left in search of something better in the last 30 years, from parts of Africa, Vietnam, Lebanon and those who just need to disappear for a while, finding anonymity and comradeship in the small alleys and cafes of Marseille, a city of temporary refuge, where everyone has a story that begins elsewhere.

Immigrants of the 21st century – Balade de Noailles

A while ago, I visited a quartier of Marseille, just off Le Canibiére, called Noailles, with a group of university professors looking to know the city’s immigrant population and influence better in anticipation of further developing their classes to incorporate the reality of today.

Bénédicte Sire & One of the Legends of Noailles

The personal tour was guided by local comedien/actor, Bénédicte Sire, who introduced us to a new generation of immigrants who have adopted Marseille as their home. We visited them in their shops tasting the food while listening to personal family stories, narrated either by Bénédicte taking on the persona of a relative, or a combination of her oral storytelling and the shop owner participating.

It was one of the most informative and personal visits I have made to Marseille, it was like a live version of the many novels I have read, translated from countries far away, only here they were living in a city 25 minutes away, facilitated by a warm, cheerful, empathetic woman who has developed authentic relationships with her fellow residents, gently guiding them to open up and share their often traumatic, personal stories with outsiders genuinely interested to know.

Highly Recommended if you ever visit the city of Marseille and wish to see it from within.