| Title | : | A Short Tale of Shame |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1934824763 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781934824764 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 145 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2011 |
Co-winner of the Contemporary Bulgarian Writers Contest, A Short Tale of Shame marks the arrival of a new talent in Bulgarian literature with a novel about the need to come to terms with the shame and guilt we all harbor.
A Short Tale of Shame Reviews
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Boril Krustev brums into a mid-life crisis following his wife’s passing and embarks on a road trip with three hip teenagers. Rendered in long comma-sick sentences to make Marías blush, weaving like an erratic coupé between present and past, the novel is a breathless rush, however, one’s involvement in the characters or their lives is minimal, and much of the novel hinges on us being interested in these beautiful pups, so loses momentum as the non-linear zaniness speeds on and on towards its ho-hum climax.
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[4.5] A few weeks ago I found* a blog post on 'book kinks'. Not necessarily anything to do with erotica, although for some it will be. (I think 'fetishes' would fit the concept better, but that's by the by.) These are features of a book - and it would work equally well for films - character types, scenarios, perhaps ways of using language - that make you crave to read it almost regardless of general opinion or other potential drawbacks of the text. I'd been
trying to describe this a while before seeing the post, and had long noticed that some GR friends, and bloggers, have specific types of book they return to over and over, and are likely to rate higher than average; so much so that, when seeing a new book that fitted their pattern, I'd label it in my head "a [their name] book". I have similar 'book fetishes', but didn't know if it was obvious to others.
A Short Tale of Shame [kept wishing that 'of' was an 'about' to mirror A Short Film / Album About Love, but anyway] includes: Eastern Europe, a semi-retired middle-aged rock star portrayed sympathetically, a road trip happening after randomly taking off (and not just any old roadtrip, but hitchiking in a scenario that's neither crime nor horror),and it's short. Obviously I was interested. As often happens with books I'm drawn to for favourite tropes, it also contained other stuff I liked that wasn't flagged up by the blurb. Notably girls/ women who barely think about others' ideas of How To Be Girls, and just get on with being themselves in whatever ways they please (and also a guy of whom the same is true re his own gender). There are unconventional relationships. And it's a 'slice of life' that structurally feels closer to reality than to made-up plot.
There's also a popular trope here which I don't go for: the mysterious political intrigues of teenage and twentysomething groups of friends. Stressful stuff I mostly managed to avoid IRL. But these kids are both likeable and music geeks (albeit there aren't enough specific conversations about music in the text), and the scenes of social machination were all in the characters' memory and flashback rather than the present - this is a story about escape. Unpleasantness was dispelled by the book's laid-back rhythm, and the way it oozes summer holiday: reading it, I would stretch, out relax, and feel the glow of the sun on my skin, despite being indoors in February. It would have been even better read in the right weather; this is my idea of a perfect beach read.
It's also a type of novel I usually encounter as British contemporary fiction, in which a pop-fiction non-genre scenario is written about in a somewhat literary way. There are quite a lot of these that I've really enjoyed, that get well reviewed in the papers and may be longlisted for awards, but which typically end up with average Goodreads ratings under 3.5 because they fall between two markets and satisfy neither, seemingly forgotten after 18 months or so, except by the few who really liked them.** A GR friend described Open Letter books as a mixture of the experimental and the relatively conventional (which, given that Goodreads has been shaping my frame of reference for four years now, helped me make more more sense of the small cluster of their books I'd read than
this headline did); A Short Tale of Shame - quite obviously after all that - is one of the 'relatively conventional'.
Yes, there are longish run-on sentences, and fairly long paragraphs, but this is no Krasznahorkai or Bernhard. Found it all straightforward to read. Most of the time I barely noticed the long sentences, especially as I started this whilst also part way through a brilliant novella by the unfairly neglected
Oksana Zabuzhko, who uses far more complex ones.
The setting was another major attraction. I started A Short Tale of Shame knowing less about Bulgaria than about any other European country: it's stayed mysteriously out of the news for so long, even its transition from Communism was quiet, and haven't heard much about its recent dealings with refugees; I had almost no associations bar a budget beach holiday destination in the 80s and 90s, a little archaeology, a Womble, and the way that, as a kid, I used to get it mixed up with Hungary. This is one of those novels that tells the reader a lot about a country, (although, perhaps understandably given its lightness, it doesn't mention the Second World War) and it would be an excellent choice for people going on holiday there if they enjoy the lighter end of literary fiction. Especially if you don't mind seeing your type skewered along with foreign couples with huge backpacks with tanned skin and hair bleached by the sun ... their stories turned out to be identical, young curious Europeans [in search of] Balkan exoticism.
Entirely absent from the likes of the Wikipedia Bulgaria article, or pieces written for prospective tourists, is the the presentness of tribe names associated with Classical chroniclers, and the multiplicity and significance of local ethnic groups, similar to what I've read about the former Yugoslav or
Central Asian regions.
Krustev almost never heard his full name these days. When he was young, he had liked stating it in a defiant tone, it uncompromisingly drove home his Slavic descent, and in the ’80s that could stir up trouble for you in the capital, but Krustev had learned to wield it like a sword, a cold weapon which drew blood. Afterwards, of course, things had settled down, at the moment being a Slav in Thrace was no worse than being an Illyrian or Paeonian, and it was definitely much better than being a Dacian. Since the accepted wisdom back then was that Slavs could either work the fields or sing mournful songs, Krustev left the fields to his grandfather and started playing, his music grew ever less mournful and they even became stars of sorts...
Like many other Slavs, Krustev, with a nostalgia instilled by foreign books, sometimes dreamed of Macedonian times, when the Slavs were merely one of the dozens of people who had inhabited the empire and were in no case so special that they should be subjected to attempts at assimilation, but still, things were clearly changing. Twenty years ago, Thracian kids wouldn’t have taken a ride from a Slav. Twenty years ago, there weren’t many Slavs with their own cars and even fewer of them would have dared to drive straight through the Rhodopes. (This was first published in 2011.) In Britain, I can only imagine the staunchest of Scots or Welsh nationalists, or devout Northerners, saying anything like this - and about English people or southerners - in a way that anyone might accept: Maya had taken it as a double betrayal, a Slav of all things, what did these Slavic women have that made them so much better than her mother, and even Maya herself
Rants a French holidaymaker, your language doesn’t have a damn thing in common with Lydian, nor with Phrygian, for fuck’s sake, I can’t understand you people, why the hell do you need all these different languages?...what’s so different about you, he kept protesting, I can’t see any difference at all, you’ve divided yourselves up into a pile of countries and on top of everything, every county has this or that minority, Slavs in Thrace, Thracians in Illyria, I don’t know what they have in Phrygia, Patagonians, maybe, and everybody speaks a different fucking language
Almost everything else I've read about the Balkan region - especially former Yugoslavia and Romania, emphasises how difficult life is for women, and how traditional the gender roles still are. None of that here. Perhaps because these people are from comfortably off families and "good schools"? There are a ton of British books that show more hangups about gender conventions than this does, books I found entirely unrepresentative of my post-school friends. Here everybody's just people and equal - in a way I admit I didn't expect in a book from this region - and the sole disappointment was Maya's opinion that a certain level of detail in talking about music was the preserve of men, a view unfortunately also commonly encountered among women here.
There are also metaphysical and lyrical moments; one of my favourites was the following, which the author presumably also liked, as it was echoed later:
In the house, the windows are sleeping, the furniture is sleeping, the refrigerator is sleeping, a plug dangling from its shoulder. The doors are sleeping: beautiful, solid, heavy doors. Krustev is sleeping, hung on the wall, his wife is sleeping on one side of him, his daughter on the other, they are sleeping with open eyes, smiling amid the garden outside. The empty bottles jammed into the black bag in the hallway are sleeping. The air conditioner. The lawnmower. The dirty dishes piled in the dishwasher. The slippers, collapsed from exhaustion, are sleeping in indecent poses. Sssssleep… The only ones standing guard are the tiny lights of the alarm system and a few inexperienced spiders, who have stretched their webs in various corners of various rooms, stalking their puny prey, without an inkling of one another’s existence. As if to make up for this, the whole garden is awake: the birch trees are whispering, the willow is murmuring incomprehensibly, in the furrows the multifarious plants with Latin names are trying out their new flowers and buzzing excitedly in exotic languages.
Given the average rating, A Short Tale of Shame evidently isn't everyone's idea of fun, although it was mine.
* Thanks to Blair's blog for the link
here
** Some of my favourites of these are
here.
[A pet hate of mine that had no place in the review proper: using "narc" to mean [copper's] "nark". Even more confusing and nonsensical than usual when used among a crowd of drug addicts.] -
Written in a captivating run-on-sentence-and-narrative style that leaves you feeling like you're in a pinball machine with the four narrators as the bumpers. It's a really effective storytelling approach and Igov's writing is wonderful--the story itself just wasn't my cup of tea.
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Така и не разбрах за какво става дума.
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A really good book. The narration is particularly strong between the four characters, and the style and imagery is beautiful and carefully constructed. I really enjoyed reading it.
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This was quite a disappointment. Maybe because I was expecting too much, since I love short novels, Bulgarian literature and Open Letter Books is one of my favorites publishers. Nevertheless, this one didn't do it for me... Angel Igov is clumsy in his approach, and the book's 145 pages - easily read, by the way, for the style pleases me, though I think it's more suitable to a first person POV and not to this omniscient perspective - are too many (yes, in only 145 pages). He writes without saying anything special and, at the same time, saying everything... There are 4 supposedly broken characters united by interwoven relationships, but they all sound too fake, there's too much "young behavior", sex, school drama and the flashbacks and all the recollections seem pretensious, unnecessary and somewhat a clichè... and, come one, that evil Elena is just plain ridiculous. Besides, there's a lot of Thracians, Dacians, Slavs, etc., mingled in the story, and even I, fond as I am of History and etnography, find them too much "in-your-face" for a non-Bulgarian reader (maybe for a Bulgarian, too). This is by far the book from Open Letter I like the least (they published some of my favorite books), but, well, tastes differ. :) It's still better than 95% of the published books out there, and, as I've stated, quite readable (read it during 2 nights), but it's not a book I'd recommend with so many other extremely good Bulgarian books available.
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DISCLAIMER: I am the publisher of the book and thus spent approximately two years reading and editing and working on it. So take my review with a grain of salt, or the understanding that I am deeply invested in this text and know it quite well. Also, I would really appreciate it if you would purchase this book, since it would benefit Open Letter directly.
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This novella, set in the Aegean, taught me something. It taught me that I really know nothing about Balkan history and geography. I felt ignorant!
Now......the novella itself, in terms of plot, character development, and use of language, was marvelous. A recent widower, wanders aimlessly in his car, eventually picking up three hitchhikers, and they become a foursome. Now the reader is woven into the varying stream of consciousness inner worlds of each traveler and a six degrees of separation story. All this in 144 pages. What a read! Who is this 5th character, Elena? Daughter, friend, lover, sadist? Read this engrossing novella to sort this all out! -
Estranged from his daughter Elena and having just buried his wife, aging former rock guitarist, Boril Krustev, gets in his car and drives. With no destination in mind, he soon picks up three hitchhikers and decides to tag along on their trip. As it turns out, the group has had extended dealings with his daughter, most of which, were not particularly pleasant. Told through the introspections of the four characters, not much in the way of events take place in the present. Pleasantly, the book avoids the obvious, cards-on-the-table, sharing of these past events but at the same time, does not really offer an alternative, only the slight suggestion that father and daughter may have left the door open for some sort of reconnection but again, their original detachment is not explored enough to make this something to particularly care about. The whole book feels more like dipping your toe in the water than really going for a swim (not that Boril can swim anyway) and as pleasant as that can be, is not what you go to the beach for.
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A novella. Former rocker, Boris Krustev (now a widower) takes off on an impromptu trip and picks up 3 young hitchhikers, who turn out to be connected to him via his daughter.
He joins them on their holiday and his and their back stories are gradually filled in.
I can see that the author can write well but didn't really do it for me. One of those books with which never really engaged . -
Contemporary Bulgarian fiction - I liked this one quite a bit. It had a good plot and interesting characters. I am just starting to explore Bulgarian fiction, so it is hard to compare it to anything else.
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There's an amazing novella buried in here, but unfortunately there's about 70 pages of wheel-spinning to get through first. The ending is worth it though.
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Coincidence and fortuitous meetings propel the plot of A Short Tale of Shame. Boril Krustev is a middle-aged, former rock star. His estranged wife has just died and his relationship with his daughter is not great. In a cliché attempt to outrun his grief, he jumps into his car and drives. There is no plan. Within the first few pages he picks up a group of hitchhikes, a college-aged boy and two girls. Maya, Sirma and Spartacus are likeable young people (just as Boril is likeable) who are unusually close. They discover over small talk that the threesome are friends with his daughter, Elena. Shortly after this revelation it’s decided that Boril will travel with them to Thasos, an island off the coast of Greece. The story of their barely intertwined lives unfolds from there.
Angel Igov assumes the detached perspective of the third person, and through him the reader has the opportunity to dip into the minds and memories of each of the four characters. Much of what is revealed involves Elena – apparently a cruel and manipulative person. She bothered me. In that she remains a fragmented character who we interact with only through the memories of others. Her motivations remain elusive; her actions go unexplained. She is Iago-like in the casual way she goes about destroying the lives of others.
It’s hard to reconcile her being Boril’s daughter.
You would think that the story of an older man traveling with three young people would immediately turn creepy, and the title: A Short Tale of Shame seems to suggest it. But Boril is decidedly un-creepy. He’s actually really nice. He doesn’t overstep or ogle the girls. He’s careful not to use his money to assume a position of power. In truth, he is just as he appears: a slightly lost and lonely man mourning the death of his wife and his lack of a meaningful relationship with his daughter.
Maya, Sirma and Spartacus have no ulterior motivations either. They do not intend to take advantage of Boril or his wealth. The car is convenient, but mostly they seem to genuinely like and feel sorry for him. The only snake in this garden appears to be Elena. And she is far enough away as to not pose a significant threat.
This lack of conflict comes as a surprise because there is an undercurrent of tension throughout the story – one that can’t be solely attributed to Elena. Something doesn’t seem right. I kept expecting some kind of dark, sexual revelation to occur, when what is eventually revealed ends up being rather innocuous. This lack of a twist is strange, but it in no way takes away from the story.
A Short Tale of Shame takes a more complicated path than one leading to a single moment or revelation. Igov puts you in a bubble with Boril, Maya, Sirma and Spartacus. Inevitably that bubble bursts and the ending, when it arrives, is abrupt. The reader is left disoriented. As if he or she has been startled from a daydream. This, in a way, is what this book is: an interlude in the lives of these characters. Lovely, but isolated. The significance of which will no doubt diminish over time, even as the memory lingers.
A Short Tale of Shame was a Co-Winner of the 2012 Contemporary Bulgarian Writers Contest.
For my complete review, please go to
BookSexy Review -
„Кратка повест за срама“, че прочетох две портални фентъзита. Първите в лексикона ми, при това отметнати (с поспаливата съботно неликвидна инерция на прахосаното време) за опровергаване на самонадеяно заявена граница: поносимата отвъдност е в магическия реализъм. В прежде споменатите книжки „убиената“ реалност, както би казал Захари Стоянов, влачи безкръвните си апатични чудовища зад някоя току изникнала врата-портал. Майки и бащи формулировчици на детски идентичности по бинарен модел черпят и пият социална енергия от притежанието на грижливо оформени свои нарцистични подобия. Прелюбопитно. До отварянето на скрина обаче, където се потулват всички дотогавашни роднинства с психодрамите им (реалните за тъканта на текста мама и татко „вампирски“ захранват ролите си в семейната констелация, докато не са заменени с порталните им – кажи-речи доброволно избрани – приказни подобия). Размяната отново е осъществена пак по двоична схема (не дотам въпросително). „Своенравните деца“ са това.
Та за Ангел Игов. Порталът тук пропуска свързващи съвпадения през времената и промушва под прага на разбирането нещо от онова, което никога смутително не можеш да кажеш на онези, които са ти най-важни. Границата е между засукания хюбрис на мустака и срама, че не пониква нищо над устата на бащата. Събравшите се…
Дотук съм написала, каквото съм написала вероятно през април. Откакто го има Т. С. Елиът не мога да кажа „април“ без „е най-жестокият месец“. Това ми е сигурно най-условният заучен поетичен рефлекс. Искам да си довърша априлската (в тази страна това значи и нещо друго) мисъл, „смесва/ спомен и желание“, едва ли ще мога, защото вече е ноември. Девети срещу десети.
„Има хора, чиято забрава е като бездънен джоб“. Сигурно съм от тях, Павич. Не мога да изровя семките и бонбонките, с които да подрънква краят на „ревюто“ ми.
Ако с Ангел Игов не бяхме ектоморф – той – и ендоморф – аз – вероятно щях да го поканя на по чашка мейкърс марк. Ваня, не Таня. ;-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duyEm... -
When Boril Krustev spontaneously hops into his car one day and embarks upon a journey with no clear destination in mind, his only goal is to outrun the overwhelming sense of guilt and shame that has slowly come to define his life. A rock star in his youth, a middle-aged businessman at present, Krustev is suffering from the sting of failed marriage, the grief over a recently deceased spouse, and the pain of becoming increasingly estranged from his daughter Elena over the years. The last thing he expects to encounter on his road trip to nowhere specific is three hitchhiking strangers that he’s loosely connected to.
Maya is the first of the tight-knit trio to connect the dots. “You’re Elena’s Dad.” It’s this matter of fact statement that opens the floodgates for the stream of conscious narrative that’s to follow. Paragraphs be damned, commas aplenty, by way of translator Angela Rodel Bulgarian author Angel Igov’s prose cleverly mimics not only the way in which memories are called forth in a seemingly random nature, but also how they forever cast us as the injured party or innocent victim of someone else’s supposed wrong doing. As Spartacus, the male member of the threesome explains at one point, the shame from being involved with Elena means something uniquely different to each of them. She’s an “ex-lover, ex-friend, ex-threat” that the group thought they’d left in the past, but now circumstances have changed, and they’re being forced to reexamine their relationships with her, and with each other, as a result of randomly encountering her “strange, sad” father.
READ MORE:
http://www.typographicalera.com/short... -
This is the story of a widower who takes a road trip to deal with his grief, and picks up three hitchhikers. On their journey they discover how they are shamefully connected, though I felt there were only a few moments that really were shameful.
I wasn't sure I liked this book when I first started reading it. I am the type of person that needs paragraphs. I need a place to pause so I can think about what I am reading, or just take a break from the book, and I often found myself trapped until the end of each chapter. I crave structure and I found the author's style of writing, without the traditional visual breaks a little tiresome. There are instances where the book goes on for 10 pages or more without starting a new paragraph and I found myself wondering whether or not I was reading a rough draft of the book?
Style aside, now that its been a few days since I finished the book, I find myself thinking about the characters, and wondering what they are up to, and if they are still feeling shameful. And I must admit, I did enjoy reading this book, and I think it was nice to challenge myself to a new style of writing.
I received this ARC through a Good Reads First Reads giveaway. -
Не че е много лоша, но не е и хубава. Добре написана, лесно се чете, плъзга се, явно борави с езика с лекота, но ужасно многословна. Дълги предълги изречения, в които запетайките спокойно можеха да са точки. Но това не е най-големият проблем, въпреки че е досадно - проблемът, според мен, е че текстът твърде много се старае, насилено ми звучи на много места; и философските съждения и абстрактно дълбокомъдрени фрази са по три на ред. Това страшно натежава и дразни, но освен това оставя текста да се плъзга по повърхността на есеистичните разсъждения, без да навлезе в дълбокото на романа.
А в изграждането на персонажи е още по-зле - те на практика не съществуват, само някакви имена, които няма особености, характер, предимства и недостатъци, или дори действия, а само безкрайни мисли, които изразяват по един и същи начин. Гледната точка постоянно се колебае, но не изглежда това да има някаква фунцкия в романа, освен да инжектира авторовото мнение тук и там. Разочароващо е, защото романът не е разказ и се нуждае от персонажи - развити, доминиращи и задаващи действието персонажи. Прекалено дълго есе с елменти на разсеян разказ =/= роман. -
The book was an interesting set up which I think threw me off. It was written in more essay form so long sentences and no big breaks between chapters. I was also a bit confused about locations they mentioned due to the book taking place in Europe (Mediterranean somewhere). The book is a translation of the original so there may have been some differences there.
The concept of the book is interesting. It revolves around this man who picked up 3 hitchhiker friends. Their lives all intertwine due to 1 person. The chapters change from character to character as each of the 4 people kind of tell their story and their relationship with the common person. I liked the interconnection and the relationship then that buds between the characters. -
Can't say I've read much Bulgarian literature so have little or nothing with which to compare this book. But I only finished it because it is short and therefore easy to take on the subway. One character, middle-aged successful man whose wife has recently died - sets off in his nice car with enough money to drive anywhere - picks up three youths who are "friends" of his daughter's. Not much happens and the conversation is not that interesting - nice kids, somewhat aimless, get a nice holiday paid for by an older man. A little bit of sexual tension, a little bit of interesting scenery and a few good meals. Maybe I'm missing something?
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This a great book. I thought the multiple points of narration made the work--part road trip, part vacation and part love and youth lost. The one thing that I thought was an interesting but at time confusing was the use of place names (and adjectives) like Thracian and Dacian and Philippopolis and Sevtopolis. These names and places are probably familiar to a Bulgarian reader but can isolate an unfamiliar reader. Why not call Plovdiv, Plovdiv? Why move to Philippopolis? Parts of this book come across as very Bulgarian--much more than another modern Bulgarian novel: 18% Gray.
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This was a Goodreads win, so I tried really hard to read it, but it was much too difficult to 1) follow the story and 2) ignore the run-on sentences. Sometimes a whole paragraph was a sentence. I do a lot of editing and the enjoyment of reading it just couldn't. So, I take some of the blame, but I just couldn't finish it.
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Though this book was slightly more formal than I’d ordinarily be excited about, I nonetheless found it compelling from this formalist perspective. And, while its central conceit—having its protagonist illuminated by everyone in her life but the protagonist herself—may not have held up in a longer volume, this one was the perfect length to carry it and keep it readable, compelling, and memorable.
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Loved this book and the way it was narrated.
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2010. Един чичко взима трима младежи на стоп през Родопите, а оттам заедно стигат до Родос през Тасос. Уловката е, че имат общ познат – дъщеря му. Случката се разказва (но не паралелно, а последователно, много добре изпипано) заедно с предисторията на отношенията им – приятелство, романтика, ревност, интимност, манипулативност, искреност, семейство, бунтарство, политика, кариера, рокмузика – от гледната точка на всеки един докато се получат едни съвсем плътни съвременни образи. С които читател като мене, на възраст по-близък до шофьора баща, но от кръвната група (социална прослойка и мироглед) на младежите, би могъл да се идентифицира. Не задължително свързана със сюжета е хрумката да се измислят нови етноси на Балканите и леко да изкриви историята. Той е славянин, те са тракийци, но Сирма има лидийска жилка; национални държа��ици, всяка със своя език и претенции са се появили след разпадането на Македонската империя; след падането на комунизма у траките са се отворили и границите. И всички говорят различни езици за потрес на английските скинари, дошли на евтина плажна ваканция.
"Шега!" Казва Игов.
