I have not disappeared. Quite the contrary, I am present in the book world so much that you haven’t seen me here for three days. The three days felt like eons to me, though. I flashed through the universes, times and lives. I’m on my fourth book right now since the last time we talked.

Partially, that’s why I’m posting now. I’m embarking on a literary Livingstone journey. I’m starting to read a saga that’s set in Africa. It starts with Livingstone, and just as Africa was initially unknown to him, The Old Drift seems to be unknown to readers now. It hasn’t been discovered yet. The Old Drift is a book from the future. By the time it appears for the world, the northern hemisphere will be heading towards the middle of spring.

I can hardly find any traces of this book online. There are only two ratings on Goodreads and no reviews at all. There are no reviews or ratings on Amazon either, but there’s a cover. Let’s marvel at it for some time.

Isn’t it stunning?

That was the cover that attracted me first, and then it was the description. The book is immense not only by its size but by its ambition. It intends to tell a story about three generations of three different families starting from the year 1903.

I understand now why pioneers kept journals. It gives you the feeling of company. Hence, here is my post. I’m reaching out to your from the shores of the Zambezi river, showing you the fragments of where I am, and now I’m going back.

My review of the book will appear in spring, when the winter has passed, the warmth returns and you can order your copy.

Otherwise, see you soon in other posts.

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You always know when you are reading a good book. It doesn’t feel like a book. You see no traces of backstage manipulations, no tricks, no author. The story is alive on its own.

The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles feels so real I had to double-check it’s not a memoir. Even when I already knew the characters were fictional (although they were partially based on real people) I was still googling for them. I wanted to see what they looked like even though I knew they never existed. That’s the closest I could find.

According to the interview with the author, these two singers, Carmen Miranda and Chavela Vargas, were the inspiration for some of the characters’ traits and stories.

In some sources The Air You Breathe is called a saga. It does indeed cover a lifelong story but it doesn’t feel unbearably huge. Reading it is like listening to a person who is speaking about her love for a person and for music.

The music is so palpable it gives the book a new dimension. I now know samba without having ever listened to it before.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76R6O1va9iM?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

At first, I was thinking the book would make a great movie. There are so many amazing visuals, really good songs. But the more the story developed the more I understood a movie might turn this story into another postproduction amputee. There are too many depths and precious moments for a movie to handle. I just hope that if the story is ever picked up for an adaptation it will be preserved as it is.

Such books are not born overnight. I don’t even mean all the research that went into The Air Your Breathe to show the readers Brazil in the 30s and Hollywood in the 40s. I mean the maturity of the book. It feels like classic even though it was published just three days ago. Such quality requires not only skill and talent but time to brew. I contacted Frances de Pontes Peebles, the author, for more information and found out that my perception was right. Frances said it took her 9 years to write the book.

I feel lucky to have found this book and to be living at times when I could get it with one click. I also feel a bit envious of those who haven’t read it yet. They have yet to meet the characters, whom I already miss, and to enjoy a really good book.

Genre: saga
Stars from Goodreads: 4.21
Stars from me: 4

The Walnut Mansion is for those who like sagas, histories of families where characters’ stories flow into one another, the characters themselves wither and disappear but the book goes on. You will keep the memories of those characters as if you had met them personally. Miljenko Jergović creates them with the same craft as Leo Tolstoy did. The people in their books are alive and breathing.

The actions take place on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia. I’ve been living on this territory for many years, but I managed to understand it better only now, after reading The Walnut Mansion. To be more precise, I managed to understand that I will never understand it completely. Yugoslavia was only one of the forms this land once took. It also used to be the Ottoman Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire. The book will take you through all those epochs, leading you along lives and story lines.

It is a highly satisfying read because of how beautifully it is written, but it’s not an easy one. It is a story of many wars, of a country reshaping itself, of very passionate people, and so it cannot be gentle.

Jergović managed to deliver the horrible without savoring it game-of-thrones way. There will be violence but it will be faded, almost emotionless. Which is, in fact, even scarier. Unfortunately, either following the modern fashion or just a personal style of his, Jergović couldn’t leave the book without several graphic descriptions of sex organs and bodily functions. That’s the only reason why prude me is giving the book one star less than perfect. I believe if a character can be developed without his sex organ scrutinized under a microscope, he should.

The Walnut Mansion was translated into very few languages. Anglophone readers are lucky. The translator Stephen M. Dickey seems to be a great fan of Jergović, so the translation is very good.

Books from other cultures are different from those you are used to. It’s an unforgettable experience to see how an author uses usual tools but creates something absolutely new. For many readers The Walnut Mansion will become this experience.

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