A tour of foreign literature

Recommended reads

THE 1920s

As 2022 begins, our Books editorial team recommends their favourite books set in or written during the 1920s. While we wait to see what the 2020s bring, why not travel back in time to a decade remembered for its decadence and revolution.

Tender is the Night By F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tender is the Night, Fitzgerald’s last completed novel, is set in the bustling vibrancy of the French Riviera in the late 1920s. It tells the story of the tragic romance of young actress Rosemary and the classy American couple Dick and Nicole Diver, set in a distinctly hedonisitic and decadent society - which defnes so much of 1920s literature. Fitzgerald’s writing is evocative and romantic all whilst dealing with pertinent themes such as disillusionment and the reality of struggles with mental health issues. As another one of his masterpieces, if you’re a fan of The Great Gatsby then you might like this.

- Elena Buccisano, Books Editor

Mrs Dalloway By Virgina Woolf

CW: PTSD It’s pretty diffcult to look back on a text you studied for A Level without deep, deep resentment, but I still love Mrs Dalloway. The book’s distinctive style and tone makes it a great world to escape into, and while undoubtedly ‘literary’, its characters and their relationships still feel realistic and relatable. The novel follows Clarissa Dalloway as she prepares for a party, while interspersing this with fashbacks to Clarissa’s younger years in the countryside, and the life of Septimus Smith, a WW1 veteran suffering from PTSD.

- Katie Kirkpatrick, Deputy Editor

Good Morning, Midnight By Jean Rhys

Relatively forgotten today, Good Morning, Midnight was considered the peak of Jean Rhys’s early career at the time of its release. Narrated by a friendless, transient woman named Sasha who wanders aimlessly around interwar Paris, this innovative and haunting novel was inspired by Rhys’s own experiences as a poor Dominican immigrant in Europe. Characterized by a fragmented, disrupted style and frequent movements between time and space, this modernist classic is memorable for its bold critique of national, gender and class oppression.

A Tour of foreign literature

The Books contributors take us around the world through the books they love from each country.

The world of foreign fction is diverse and rich but often underrepresented, which is exactly what we are hoping to change! Enjoy a ‘tour’ through some great recommendations of world literature and maybe you’ll fnd your next read!

Norway Hedda Gabler, by Henrik Ibsen: recom-

mended by Rowena Sears

Henrik Ibsen’s 1891 tragedy feels more relevant with every reading. The eponymous protagonist, an aristocrat in a loveless marriage to a mundane academic, could not be further from the angelic heroine we have come to expect of women in nineteenth-century literature. Frustrated with her lack of autonomy over her own life, Hedda seeks to dominate and destroy those around her, depriving them of their fragile happiness. However, Ibsen makes it diffcult for us as readers to completely dislike her; Hedda is a victim of a society which refuses to allow women any control over their own lives, and her unwanted pregnancy, her fear of scandal, and her experiences of sexual coercion are issues which, unfortunately, we can understand and relate to over a century after the play’s frst performance.

Italy

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante: recommended by Antara Singh

My Brilliant Friend is the frst of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels; it traces the story of two best friends, Elena and Lila, growing up during the 1950s, in a poor yet lively neighbourhood in the outskirts of Naples, Italy. On the surface, it’s a coming-of-age novel, but what made it such an incredible read was how Ferrante managed to weave in a litany of other themes. It’s a story about male violence, the results of the patriarchy on women’s creativity, social class, adolescent love, left-wing politics, power, and shoes. Ferrante uses Italy’s turbulent historical and political background in the frst half of the twentieth century to explore the girls’ livelihoods and uses them in turn to deepen our understanding of the social fabric of Italy itself. My Brilliant Friend is not only the story of these two girls and their transition to womanhood, but the story of a neighbourhood, a city, and a nation.

Czech Republic

The Trial by Franz Kafka: recommended by Elena Buccisano

The Trial, for me, was a charity shop impulse buy after recognising the name of its author, Franz Kafka. As the writer of the famous Metamorphosis, I had heard tales of Kafka as an elusive and mystifying writer – and The Trial certainly solidifed that impression. Fundamentally, this novel relates the perplexing experiences of a man arrested on a charge which is never specifed to the reader, but within this narrative Kafka is clearly trying to elucidate some of the fundamental dilemmas of human life. The novel is psychologically intense, often frustrating, but fantastic. Ultimately, you realise that what the protagonist is charged with is not really important – what is more frustrating is the mechanics of justice and the absurdity of life itself. It is almost unlike any book I have read before. France

Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan: recommended by Eliza Browning

I’ve been on a French literature binge recently, so impulse buying Francoise Sagan’s Bonjour Tristesse for ffty percent off in Heathrow in December turned out to be an unexpectedly perfect decision. First published in 1954, when the author was only 18, the novel caused an instant sensation in the French media for its portrayal of sensual, amoral bourgeois intellectuals. The novella-length book is short enough that you can devour it in an entire afternoon, and is the ideal stylish beach or plane read, full of suspenseful descriptions of languid summer days and the shimmering French Riviera. Perfect for fans of F. Scott Fitzgerald or Elena Ferrante.

Russia

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov: recommended by Anna Stephen

When our tyre burst on the M11 a few years back, I found myself stuck in a garage accompanied only by my family and a packet of McVitie’s Gold Bars. However, as luck would have it, I happened to be carrying a copy of Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita in my luggage. This is a story that interweaves a plot about the devil appearing as a magician in 1930s atheist Moscow, wreaking havoc upon the city, with an account of Pontius Pilate’s offciation of the trial of Jesus. The casual, happy-go-lucky attitude of the characters, the ludicrousness of events, and the totally fippant manner of narration (interpreted and conveyed wonderfully by translators Burgin and O’Connor) come together to create a healthy dose of escapism and satire that could make up for a puncture any day. I can’t remember enjoying many novels as much as I enjoyed this one.

Algeria

The Plague by Albert Camus: recommended by Matthew Holland

Going into reading The Plague by Albert Camus I was acutely aware of two things about the book: frst, that this book was laced with an extended metaphor of the tyranny of the Nazi Regime as being akin to a plague-like existence, and second, that Camus is renowned principally as a philosopher as opposed to a novelist. Despite the obvious parallels that can be made between the Plague and the Nazi Regime, this book also seems scarily prophetic in our plague-stricken world, with the imposition of harsh measures to control the Plague and the separation caused by quarantining being realities which we have ourselves experienced. Ultimately, its greatest messages lie in its teaching of the selfess public servant, acting to save lives and grant humanity and dignity to a depersonalised world. The Plague should certainly be considered recommended reading for all of us who have experienced the world of this novel become reality.

India

Ecstatic Poems by Mirabai (Versions by Robert Bly and Jane Hirshfeld): recommended by Shayon Mukherjee

There are few poets with works so venerated that the poets themselves enjoy a deifcation of sorts. However, one Rajasthani princess from the 16th century, the ‘poet-saint’ Mirabai, has managed to achieve this feat. In artfully rendered English, Bly and Hirshfeld choose poems from Mira’s works that, when read in the presented order, tell a secret story of a divine love lost and rediscovered. Casting aside the obligations of her caste and family, she surrenders herself physically, spiritually and sexually to The Dark One, an enigmatic fguration of Lord Krishna as a divine lover. Mira has attained a legendary status among Indians the world over. Her biographers tell us few facts about her life and tend to prefer recounting a patchwork of folkloric tales about her associates, marriage and politics, all of which draw heavily from her passionate, enigmatic poetry – poetry of love, despair, surrender and ultimately, divine reconciliation.

Japan

The Makioka Sisters by Jun’ichirō Tanizaki: recommended by Serena Kerrigan

Tanizaki’s novel, The Makioka Sisters, was serialized between 1943 and 1948, charting the confict between a traditional Edo period Japan, and a modern world emerging with the advent of the Second World War. The novel resembles Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in its concern with the vicissitudes, foibles, and joys of a group of four sisters from an aristocratic family in Osaka. Each sister is constrained by the societal injunction to succeed in the marriage market and to sustain the family name, but they are equally free spirits in their own ways. The novel’s Japanese title, Sasameyuki, meaning lightly falling snow, is given visual representation in the poetic descriptions of the falling cherry blossoms which the four sisters routinely visit in early spring. It is passages like this in the novel which capture the beauty of the Japanese landscape, and the passing of a way of life.

Colombia

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez: recommended by Thomas Bristow

One Hundred Years of Solitude is perhaps the most famous work of the magical realism genre, and possibly of Latin American literature. The narrative is set in the fctional town of Macondo, and our characters are its inhabitants and the many successive generations of the Buendía family. The story is grand and mythic, involving the larger themes of time and fate. But what I loved most about it was the complete uniqueness of Marquez’s imagination. Owing to its style, this is a quite unconventional book. Bizarre and intriguing characters and witness to bizarre and intriguing events. The increasingly confusing Buendía family are timeless in their eccentricity, and the narrative tumbles until it reaches a poignant end. This is a story of one family’s presence in a rapidly changing world. With the greatest opening line of any book, One Hundred Years of Solitude is fascinating, and quite simply brilliant.

Brazil

The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector: recommended by Ned Summers

There is no other author that makes as convincing a case for the novel as a unique medium for storytelling as Clarice Lispector. In The Passion According to G.H. (A paixão segundo G.H.) G.H., the narrator, attempts to give a report of a short experience she had the previous day. The account is also an attempt to understand the shift that this experience has forced upon her and the world that she suddenly fnds herself living in. It is a tortured read. Lispector writes in the introduction “I would be happy if it were only read by people whose souls are already formed. Those who know that the approach, of whatever it may be, happens gradually and painstakingly.” If you can give yourself over to the book, you will discover that Lispector, even in translation, distills into perfect text the disturbing moment in which someone’s world changes irrevocably. A masterpiece of Brazilian, and world, literature.

So you’ve heard of the Oscars, what about the Oliviers?

Anya Biletsky explores the reasons why theatre awards shows get so much less coverage than awards for music and film.

Awards season is almost upon us, and the annual whispers of who is going to scoop the most coveted Academy and Grammy Awards are beginning to simmer on social media and in the press. Will Kristen Stewart win Best Actress for her poignant performance as Princess Diana in Pablo Larraín’s Spencer, or will the award go to Lady Gaga for her portrayal of the ruthless Patrizia Gucci in Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci? Is Olivia Rodrigo, who soared to fame in 2021, going to win the Grammy for Best New Artist, as so many think she will? Everyone has their own predictions for the Oscars and Grammys. However, a subject far less-commonly discussed is the outcome of theatre awards shows. The Olivier Awards and the Tony Awards, which aim to give recognition to excellence in West End and Broadway productions respectively, are on the whole not as well-known by the

public as the Oscars and the Grammys. They receive far less buzz, despite also being reputable, long-established awards shows. Music and movies doubtlessly have a far greater reach and are experienced by many more people than theatre is, and due to accessibility limitations being at play in theatre, theatre awards shows too struggle to reach a wider audience. Music and flm streaming services “Theatre awards shows have been able like Spotify and Netfix, aside from to encourage being generally less pricey than theatre and guide the swift revival of this tickets, offer a myriad of flms and songs of almost every genre on-demand, bringing up-and-coming actors bvulnerable and musicians alongside well-renowned stars to the industry.” forefront of a vast consumer base. Needless to say, having to physically travel to the theatre rather than simply enjoy it from the comfort of one’s home, as is possible with music and flm, does not particularly facilitate everyday theatre-going either. Since the public is not exposed as consistently to theatre, and thereby to stage actors, directors, playwrights and so forth, the interest in the awards given to these creatives is not likely to be as fervent as for those given to our favourite musicians and the actors dominating our screens. And yet, theatre awards shows like the Tonys and the Oliviers are undeniably important in helping to drive and sustain a marginalised industry. Without names of the same ampleur as Marvel or Disney producing theatrical productions, theatre is often not given the same acknowledgement as that received by recent big-budget movies. Indeed, theatre has been bearing an especially diffcult burden lately with the blow that the Covid-19 pandemic has dealt to all those involved in the creative industry; many crew members and actors have lost the source of their daily income due to shows being cancelled for months at a time. Emerging from the instability created by the pandemic, theatre awards shows have been able to encourage and guide the swift revival of this vulnerable industry by continuing to emphasise the achievement of theatre professionals and bringing shows to the attention of the wider public. The promotion that theatre awards ceremonies provide is vital not just for productions as a whole, but for the individuals involved in them. Like the Oscars and the Grammys, the Tonys and the Oliviers boost the careers of budding young talents; in 2017, Jamael Westman received an Olivier nomination for Best Actor for his role as Alexander Hamilton in the West End’s production of Hamilton, his frst lead role in a theatrical production. John McCrea also became widely known for his Olivier Award-nominated breakthrough performance as Jamie in the musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie in 2018. Indeed, the Olivier and Tony Awards honour not only brilliant acting performances on stage and standard categories like ‘Best Play’ and ‘Best Musical’, but also exceptional work accomplished by production members such as costume designers, which is crucial in showing appreciation for and putting into the limelight the work done by experts behind the scenes of theatre whose names are less visible to audiences. It must be noted however that a signifcant limitation to the Olivier Awards is that not all UK theatres, but only West End theatres which are members of Society of London Theatre (the original founders of the awards show in 1976) are eligible for Olivier consideration. Likewise, the Tonys solely recognise New York shows on Broadway. What is so great about the Oscars is that aside from showcasing American, Englishlanguage flms, they also give accolades to international flms and foreign language flms, meaning that the awards are

“Like the able to attract global interest and therefore a much larger Oscars and the Grammys, the Tonys and the audience. The same goes for the Grammys; the music celebrated by this awards show is diverse in genre and worldwide in its Oliviers boost consumption. London and New York theatre, in the careers of budding young talents.” contrast, is stationary (bar, of course, the odd tour). Since theatre productions eligible to be considered as potential contenders for Olivier and Tony Awards are limited geographically, these awards shows have more diffculty attaining the same level of national interest, let alone international. Ultimately, although the Oliviers and the Tonys might not be the talk of the century, their role in promoting stage shows, actors and creatives is essential for theatre to fourish and continue to attract audiences in our post-pandemic era. Image Credit: Christie Goodwin

On the Oxford Stage

Review: The People vs the Oxford Revue The Oxford Revue, The Old Fire Station

In the sold-out Old Fire Station, I knew the performance would be one to remember when it began with a keyboard on stage – you can’t go wrong with a song, can you? The charismatic host, Jack McMinn, kicked things off with a laugh-out-loud ode to Pret a Manger, channeling Tim Minchin in his brilliant proof that ‘manger’ can rhyme a multitude of surprising words, including ‘longer’. After the Oxford Revue’s pandemic-related hiatus from live performances, it was certainly back with a bang.

That bang continued in the first sketch, with a meta-theatrical musing on the subtleties of Chekhov’s gun… I eagerly anticipated its return. I was not disappointed when towards the end of Act 1 a Telly-Tubbies dystopia culminated in the assassination of Tinky Winky. Never has ‘time for tubby bye bye’ been so disturbing, and the idea of the baby in the sun as the evil overlord was perfect.

Alfred Dry’s sexy salesperson was a hilarious returning feature of the show, marketing everything from Steve Jobs’ jobs to Bill Gates’ gates. The People vs The Oxford Revue was a masterclass in laugh-a-minute sketches that also managed to include jabs at capitalism and the government without seeming forced. There was even a cheese and wine joke in Act 2 – very topical! The most eminent and most noble Annalise Dodson led a sketch about the bumbling House of Lords. Other subjects that didn’t escape ridicule in the first half included the noises made by tennis players and the ludicrous names of posh cocktails.

The second half was perhaps the stronger, with Jack McMinn declaring that it would get a bit more risqué before launching into a song condemning sex on the beach. Highlights from this half included Jake Dann’s mob boss holding hustings for a new mafia welfare officer, as well as a take on the last supper, featuring Deborah Acheampong’s charismatic Jesus, with a panto-villain Judas. However, the stand-out sketch featured Alison Hall and Alec Watson as a struggling married couple, only to find that they were living in The Sims. Hilarious to both those familiar with the computer game or not, they showed exactly why live comedy is needed, as not much is better than being in a room with so many people trying to contain their hysterics at the same thing.

Overall, the evening achieved a tone of hilarity mixed in with just enough social commentary. The final song was one that made me already nostalgic to have reached the end of the show; I definitely wasn’t ready to say goodbye to all of the wonderful characters who had graced the stage that evening. It is an amazing skill to have such a carousel of worlds and people played by the same few actors, and yet the show never felt disjointed; it was almost as if the tennis players, the telly-tubbies and the young conservatives were all interconnected.

The students were all outstanding, and the effort that was put into the showcase was certainly rewarded by the laughs they were given in return by the audience – I can’t wait to watch what they do next!!