Book Fair Report
Oct. 22nd, 2005 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThe first day at the Frankfurt Book Fair went well. There is always a surge of excitement rising in me when I go there, and I just love the fact that you find that many books together in any other place and any other occasion of the world.
(Mind you, some of the books make me rub my eyes. “Walking with Frodo – a devotional journey” and “Walking with Bilbo – a devotional journay”? And then there is the novel which shall be unnamed with a review praising the heroine as “the Shoa’s Sherazade”, an expression which surely can’t be surpassed in bad taste.)
Marked for later browsing so far: Jung Chang’s new Mao biography (Jung Chang wrote Wild Swans which impressed me deeply when I read it some years ago), a French novel which a publishing friend of mine recommended which starts in the night of Princess Diana’s death and sounds like a French version of Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum, and Mosley’s newest Easy Rawlins novel.
I also had a quick look at the newest example of that peculiar German subgenre we have, Väterliteratur, i.e. books in which someone, usually a member of my parents’ generation, deals with his or her father the Nazi. If the father was just Citizen X and never got more prominence than being the local Gauleiter or something like that, the book in question usually goes like this: son or daughter grows up with conservative father but does not suspect, son or daughter gets ordered around, son or daughter finds out the truth, and ends with an act of liberation, i.e. the son or daughter confronting the father with his lifelong lies and/or saying goodbye for good. If, on the other hand, the father was a certified war criminal, it becomes more complicated, because the “what exactly did my father do?” question usually isn’t one, and the emotional issue becomes more one of “knowing that my father did this, what do I feel for this man?”. The most shattering book in this regard is Peter Schneider’s Vati which is based on interviews with Rolf Mengele (son of you-know-who). The most recent entry in the subgenre which I spotted at the Book Fair came from Richard von Schirach, son of Baldur. (Baldur von Schirach: was sentenced to 20 years at Nuremberg, most notorious for forming and organizing the Hitler Youth.) Which, considering that he was 3 years old when the war ended, had its emphasis on the post-war years and what it was like to grow up with one’s father in Spandau, writing letters and fancying himself another Napoleon on St. Helena. The passages I read were well-written and startling at times, such was when the author writes about having read the diary of Anne Frank as a teenager and being deeply moved promptly reporting this in his next letter to Spandau without, however, ever connecting the Jewish girl who died in the Holocaust with what his father was in prison for (Schirach Senior didn’t comment on the Anne Frank praise at all; instead, he recommended more Knut Hamsum in his next letter); it didn’t fall into place for him until later.
Frankfurt is also where you meet lots of familiar faces from the publishing industry. I came across the Italian publisher I met in France when I was there earlier this year, Gianni Agressi, and had occasion to martyr the French language again as he doesn’t speak English. In the evening, I met![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hmpf at a café and dived into fannish talk which was fun. I was all ready to finish the day on an exhausted but happy note… when the taxi driver couldn’t find my hotel. We eventually used my cell phone to call it and to get a description of the way. Then my room for some reason was locked and wouldn’t accept my key. Then it turned out to be unmade because the housemaids thought the locked state indicated “do not disturb”. At this point, it was rather late and I was rather ready to cry, being a big girl. But the receptionist who opened the door for me when my key wouldn’t gave me a look and offered some tea while my room got made. Tea: one of the great, great benefits of civilisation. I totally understand now by the British plied the Chinese with opium for it and went to dastardly war. It really HELPS to soothe one’s nerves.
Thursday brought a meeting with the delightfulmonanotlisa, and a visit to the pavillion of this year’s guest of honour. Which was Korea. (In effect, that meant South Korea, as far as publishers were concerned, but the exhibitions were about the entire country.) Outstanding feature of the Korea pavillion: the old mobile letters which as I learned on that occasion predate Gutenberg`s, the old prints and scrolls, and the stone sculptures. There were also huge posters of the leading Korean poets and writers, with the text describing their works sounding like poetry itself. And there were modern present day print machines which throughout the Book Fair printed the daily mini newspapers that media students wrote and edited, in the spirit of German-Korean cooperation. All in all, I left with the determination to read at least the Story of Mr. Han (legendy post war Korean novel, it appears) and some of the poetry available at the Fischer Verlag.
In the nearby film and tv exhibition, I saw the German poster for Serenity. Good lord, as Giles would say. Everyone is going to believe “Serenity” is the name of the girl (River) depicted on that poster, and that it’s a movie about a kind of female Terminator.
As various anniversaries approach, among them one for my favourite German poet, Heinrich Heine, and for Mozart, there were a lot of biographies, editions of letters, and the like, and I know some of the things I’ll want for christmas (previously, the letters editions were hideously expensive). (For Heine, not for Mozart.) But I draw the line at a Heine cook book.
One typical Book Fair feature are the evening receptions I went to on Thursday and Friday. They always remind me that I have the vague suspicion the entire German print media, with the exception of yours truly, smokes. Seriously, after being at the Fair the entire day, being in rooms that get increasingly pumped with nicotine makes for lots of headaches. On the bright side, you do meet interesting people occasionally, such as this time Christian Grzimek, who is the grandson and sort of son of the famous B. Grzimek (he who made the Serengeti into the gigantic wildlife preservation area it became – if you, dear reader, have been following my ramblings for a while, you might recall the name from last year’s Africa journey). This complicated family relationship is the result of Grzimek the legend having married the widow of his beloved son after the later had died young and tragically in the Serengeti (there are several monuments for father and son there). As Hollywood has its hands on the story and is making a film right now, Christian Grzimek couldn’t be blamed for feeling uneasy, but when it was brought up he shrugged and showed pragmatism. The Tansanians need the money from tourism which will be more if there is cinematic exposure. On a less Hollywoodian note, he was convinced our own species will start to die out after another century, when the oil resources are used up. At this point everyone sighed and declared that given current politicians, we’ll find a way to wipe us out before that.
Saturday saw me fleeing to Hall 8, where most of the English speaking publishers are represented, because the weekend is when the Book Fair is open to the general public and hence hopelessly overcrowded in the German areas. Books that especially caught my eye were on the good side of the scale a novel that tackled Shakespeare’s Tempest from a new perspective, much like Tad William’s Caliban’s Hour did. Unlike Caliban’s Hour, however, Ariel (guess who’s perspective) didn’t chicken out with a dea ex machina at the eleventh hour and didn’t use a tortured narration pdevice. It’s an elegantly written tale that works as a meta on writing, history and racism as well, and (female) Ariel here is basically unbriddled imagination, both captivating and deeply disturbing, and completely amoral. Ariel’s relationships with Sycorax, Caliban and finally Prospero are all what imagination can do and fails to do, and various human reactions to it. And besides all that, it’s a lovely fantasy novel. Now if I had only written down the name of the author… will check tomorrow.
On the bad side of the scale? I did my annual check on BTVS & AtS media tie-ins. Yup, every bit as horrible as I remembered. (The one I browsed through, appalled, was by Jeff Marriott and apparently was set in early season 4, given that Connor was in it and Angel wondering about him and Cordelia was mentioned, but for some reason Wesley and Gunn were season 2 style buddies, and everyone was relentlessly friendly and cheerful with each other.) Give me fanfiction any time.
And on that note: the beta’d version of my Jasmine portrait is up, here and here.
Tomorrow: the Frankfurt Book Fair concludes. Andselenak checks the weather news as often as possible, because of several lj friends located in Florida.
(Mind you, some of the books make me rub my eyes. “Walking with Frodo – a devotional journey” and “Walking with Bilbo – a devotional journay”? And then there is the novel which shall be unnamed with a review praising the heroine as “the Shoa’s Sherazade”, an expression which surely can’t be surpassed in bad taste.)
Marked for later browsing so far: Jung Chang’s new Mao biography (Jung Chang wrote Wild Swans which impressed me deeply when I read it some years ago), a French novel which a publishing friend of mine recommended which starts in the night of Princess Diana’s death and sounds like a French version of Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum, and Mosley’s newest Easy Rawlins novel.
I also had a quick look at the newest example of that peculiar German subgenre we have, Väterliteratur, i.e. books in which someone, usually a member of my parents’ generation, deals with his or her father the Nazi. If the father was just Citizen X and never got more prominence than being the local Gauleiter or something like that, the book in question usually goes like this: son or daughter grows up with conservative father but does not suspect, son or daughter gets ordered around, son or daughter finds out the truth, and ends with an act of liberation, i.e. the son or daughter confronting the father with his lifelong lies and/or saying goodbye for good. If, on the other hand, the father was a certified war criminal, it becomes more complicated, because the “what exactly did my father do?” question usually isn’t one, and the emotional issue becomes more one of “knowing that my father did this, what do I feel for this man?”. The most shattering book in this regard is Peter Schneider’s Vati which is based on interviews with Rolf Mengele (son of you-know-who). The most recent entry in the subgenre which I spotted at the Book Fair came from Richard von Schirach, son of Baldur. (Baldur von Schirach: was sentenced to 20 years at Nuremberg, most notorious for forming and organizing the Hitler Youth.) Which, considering that he was 3 years old when the war ended, had its emphasis on the post-war years and what it was like to grow up with one’s father in Spandau, writing letters and fancying himself another Napoleon on St. Helena. The passages I read were well-written and startling at times, such was when the author writes about having read the diary of Anne Frank as a teenager and being deeply moved promptly reporting this in his next letter to Spandau without, however, ever connecting the Jewish girl who died in the Holocaust with what his father was in prison for (Schirach Senior didn’t comment on the Anne Frank praise at all; instead, he recommended more Knut Hamsum in his next letter); it didn’t fall into place for him until later.
Frankfurt is also where you meet lots of familiar faces from the publishing industry. I came across the Italian publisher I met in France when I was there earlier this year, Gianni Agressi, and had occasion to martyr the French language again as he doesn’t speak English. In the evening, I met
hmpf at a café and dived into fannish talk which was fun. I was all ready to finish the day on an exhausted but happy note… when the taxi driver couldn’t find my hotel. We eventually used my cell phone to call it and to get a description of the way. Then my room for some reason was locked and wouldn’t accept my key. Then it turned out to be unmade because the housemaids thought the locked state indicated “do not disturb”. At this point, it was rather late and I was rather ready to cry, being a big girl. But the receptionist who opened the door for me when my key wouldn’t gave me a look and offered some tea while my room got made. Tea: one of the great, great benefits of civilisation. I totally understand now by the British plied the Chinese with opium for it and went to dastardly war. It really HELPS to soothe one’s nerves. Thursday brought a meeting with the delightful
monanotlisa, and a visit to the pavillion of this year’s guest of honour. Which was Korea. (In effect, that meant South Korea, as far as publishers were concerned, but the exhibitions were about the entire country.) Outstanding feature of the Korea pavillion: the old mobile letters which as I learned on that occasion predate Gutenberg`s, the old prints and scrolls, and the stone sculptures. There were also huge posters of the leading Korean poets and writers, with the text describing their works sounding like poetry itself. And there were modern present day print machines which throughout the Book Fair printed the daily mini newspapers that media students wrote and edited, in the spirit of German-Korean cooperation. All in all, I left with the determination to read at least the Story of Mr. Han (legendy post war Korean novel, it appears) and some of the poetry available at the Fischer Verlag. In the nearby film and tv exhibition, I saw the German poster for Serenity. Good lord, as Giles would say. Everyone is going to believe “Serenity” is the name of the girl (River) depicted on that poster, and that it’s a movie about a kind of female Terminator.
As various anniversaries approach, among them one for my favourite German poet, Heinrich Heine, and for Mozart, there were a lot of biographies, editions of letters, and the like, and I know some of the things I’ll want for christmas (previously, the letters editions were hideously expensive). (For Heine, not for Mozart.) But I draw the line at a Heine cook book.
One typical Book Fair feature are the evening receptions I went to on Thursday and Friday. They always remind me that I have the vague suspicion the entire German print media, with the exception of yours truly, smokes. Seriously, after being at the Fair the entire day, being in rooms that get increasingly pumped with nicotine makes for lots of headaches. On the bright side, you do meet interesting people occasionally, such as this time Christian Grzimek, who is the grandson and sort of son of the famous B. Grzimek (he who made the Serengeti into the gigantic wildlife preservation area it became – if you, dear reader, have been following my ramblings for a while, you might recall the name from last year’s Africa journey). This complicated family relationship is the result of Grzimek the legend having married the widow of his beloved son after the later had died young and tragically in the Serengeti (there are several monuments for father and son there). As Hollywood has its hands on the story and is making a film right now, Christian Grzimek couldn’t be blamed for feeling uneasy, but when it was brought up he shrugged and showed pragmatism. The Tansanians need the money from tourism which will be more if there is cinematic exposure. On a less Hollywoodian note, he was convinced our own species will start to die out after another century, when the oil resources are used up. At this point everyone sighed and declared that given current politicians, we’ll find a way to wipe us out before that.
Saturday saw me fleeing to Hall 8, where most of the English speaking publishers are represented, because the weekend is when the Book Fair is open to the general public and hence hopelessly overcrowded in the German areas. Books that especially caught my eye were on the good side of the scale a novel that tackled Shakespeare’s Tempest from a new perspective, much like Tad William’s Caliban’s Hour did. Unlike Caliban’s Hour, however, Ariel (guess who’s perspective) didn’t chicken out with a dea ex machina at the eleventh hour and didn’t use a tortured narration pdevice. It’s an elegantly written tale that works as a meta on writing, history and racism as well, and (female) Ariel here is basically unbriddled imagination, both captivating and deeply disturbing, and completely amoral. Ariel’s relationships with Sycorax, Caliban and finally Prospero are all what imagination can do and fails to do, and various human reactions to it. And besides all that, it’s a lovely fantasy novel. Now if I had only written down the name of the author… will check tomorrow.
On the bad side of the scale? I did my annual check on BTVS & AtS media tie-ins. Yup, every bit as horrible as I remembered. (The one I browsed through, appalled, was by Jeff Marriott and apparently was set in early season 4, given that Connor was in it and Angel wondering about him and Cordelia was mentioned, but for some reason Wesley and Gunn were season 2 style buddies, and everyone was relentlessly friendly and cheerful with each other.) Give me fanfiction any time.
And on that note: the beta’d version of my Jasmine portrait is up, here and here.
Tomorrow: the Frankfurt Book Fair concludes. And
selenak checks the weather news as often as possible, because of several lj friends located in Florida.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 08:52 pm (UTC)Title? Haven't read it and it sounds very interesting!
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 09:00 pm (UTC)Had you read
no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 07:04 am (UTC)No, I hadn't. Will check it out as soon as I have longer online time again, thanks for the tip!
no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 04:24 pm (UTC)1. Sigh No More (http://strangefits.com/sfop/archive/iss10/snmact1.html)
2. New to Thee (http://strangefits.com/sfop/archive/iss10/nttpro.html)
3. I Never (http://strangefits.com/sfop/archive/iss11/never-pro.html) (very, VERY funny)
4. The Chair (http://strangefits.com/sfop/archive/iss11/chair-pro.html) (very dark)
5. The Horror, The Horror (http://strangefits.com/sfop/archive/iss12/thth-pro.html) (based on the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and who do you think plays Frankie?)
6. Bloodheart (http://strangefits.com/sfop/archive/iss12/blood-pro.html) (a dark Cardassian/Bajoran story)
7. Working Lunch (http://strangefits.com/sfop/archive/iss13/working_lunch.html) (an intermezzo)
8. Langue d'Amour (http://strangefits.com/sfop/archive/iss13/langue-pro.html).
no subject
Date: 2005-10-22 10:06 pm (UTC)*realises implications re plot of novel* Ewwwwww! Ewwwwww! Ewwwww! Ewwwww! I think I once saw something like that horrifying even the hardest-boiled regulars on GAFF.
I saw the German poster for Serenity. Good lord, as Giles would say.
To quote from my post on Serenity, "I was also a little depressed by the European publicity images for the film which concentrate on River with huge weapons in a tiny shift, and remind me of the tackiest end of the sub-genre of the Way Hot Female Action Hero who's so empowered that she fights in her lingerie (see also the trailer for Aeon Flux that came before the film)."
This complicated family relationship is the result of Grzimek the legend having married the widow of his beloved son after the later had died young and tragically in the Serengeti
Is that legal anywhere?
no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 07:03 am (UTC)Marketing for Serenity: yes, exactly.
Legality of marrying your widowed daughter-in-law: why shouldn't it be legal? I mean, these days. In the middle ages, it would have required a papal dispensation, to be sure (but given the Judah/Tamar precedent, there would have been grounds for one), but religious implications aside, which aren't a point in civil law, there are no grounds why the state could forbid it. A woman whose husband died is free to marry again unless there's a too close blood relationship, and biologically, she's not related to her father-in-law at all.
(Psychologically, it's another matter, of course.)
Is it illegal in Britain?
no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 09:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 01:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-24 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-23 09:25 pm (UTC)I knew you'd see the light one day *g*. I've always liked the theory that tea powered the Industrial Revolution in Britain because it meant that people boiled their water, therefore there were fewer water borne diseases, therefore the population grew so there were enough people to work in factories. I'm sure that's easily refutable, but I rather like it anyway.
The Frankfurt Book Fair sounds as wonderful as ever.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-24 06:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-24 03:29 pm (UTC)