Spring by David Szalay

Abstract

traditions and styles. (Editorial note: Il pleuvait des oiseaux will be available in English translation from Coach House Books as And the Birds Rained Down in October 2012.) Graziano Krätli Yale University David Szalay. Spring. Minneapolis, Minnesota. Graywolf. 2012. isbn 9781555976026 Already an established young talent in the United Kingdom for writing London and the South-East and The Innocent, David Szalay makes his U.S. debut with Spring, an understated yet complex exploration of the mechanics of contemporary romantic relationships in London. Set in 2006, the novel centers on James, a former dot-com millionaire now living day-to-day on horseracing, and Katherine, a manager at a luxury hotel hoping to one day open up her own hotel. In a faint echo recalling Mike Newell’s Four Weddings and a Funeral, James and Katherine meet at a wedding and, soon after, sleep with each Osip Mandlestam Stolen Air Christian Wiman, tr. Ecco The twentieth-century Russian poet Osip Mandelstam is given new life in this masterful English translation of a representative selection of his work. Ilya Kaminsky provides an enlightening and lyrical introduction to the poems. Mandelstam died in 1938 at the age of forty-seven in the Gulag. John Kinsella Jam Tree Gully W. W. Norton Inspired by Thoreau and the rugged rural landscape of Western Australia, John Kinsella considers the relationship of man to the environment in this revealing collection of poems. His descriptions navigate the complex juxtaposition of nature, the current inhabitants, and the past and present aboriginal population. july– august 2012 63 Nota Bene 64 World Literature Today reviews other. The two fall into the semblance of a relationship: they meet up for an occasional pint or curry, then go back to one or the other’s flat to spend the night. It’s a relationship , as the back cover says, “where ‘no’ means ‘maybe’ and a ‘yes’ can never be taken for granted.” Much of the novel maneuvers in James and Katherine’s ambivalence toward each other. To further complicate matters, Katherine still has emotional ties to her estranged husband, Fraser, an American photographer who makes his living as a paparazzo. While the story and setting aren’t exploring new territory— though this particular version is set at the end of the money-for-nothing era—it’s the use of environment, both internal and external, and our experiences with it that makes Spring an interesting read. The novel has two sets of readers: Londoners and those intimately familiar with the Big Smoke, and the rest of the world. Szalay is a Londoner writing for Londoners, and he treats place as an insider does. The novel is filled with characters having moments at a tube stop. While an outsider might connect the unfamiliarity of a character ’s emotion to the unfamiliarity of his surroundings, Szalay treats it as something commonplace. For Szalay, the places and experiences are universal and well known, so his efforts are concentrated on the gray area of romantic relationships—the maybes. In lesser hands, the novel would be romantic fiction aimed at thirty-something men; in Szalay’s, the novel is complex and exhaustive in its examination of the space between men and women. In 2010 the Telegraph named Szalay as one of the twenty best British novelists under forty. Spring, in its poetic prose and understanding of complicated emotions, serves to further Szalay’s already promising career. Armando Celayo Norwich, United Kingdom Vladimir Tasić. Farewell Gift. Bogdan Rakić & John Jeffries, trs. Belgrade , Serbia. Geopoetika. 2011. isbn 9788661450709 With Farewell Gift, Vladimir Tasić has written a concerto. Like a musical composition, his short novel is composed of three movements, in which the main theme—brotherhood—is interwoven with the subnarratives in a manner that recalls the interconnectedness of soloist and orchestra: Allegro, Largo Cantabile, and Allegro Non Molto. The first chapter opens on a high note: the narrator receives a package that contains an urn with the ashes of his brother, who disappeared twelve years ago and severed his connections with the entire family . The brother was a scattered and loving genius—he never obtained a degree despite enrolling in dozens of different programs and universities —who made the...