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The Sweetness of Demons
Poetic responses in English to Baudelaire's poems - and to both the sensuality and the modernity of his language and ideas.
Nakedness
Set in the 1960s, Nakedness is the tale of a young man who has just completed his military service and gone straight to Randava to surprise Marika, the beautiful woman with whom he's been corresponding. The two have never met in person however, and when the young man arrives at her door, he quickly becomes entangled in a bizarre mystery: Marika claims that she has never written to him; in fact, she appears to be involved with someone else. And none of her flatmates will admit to sending the letters. Humiliated, he prepares to return to Riga, but is convinced by one of Marika's flatmates to stay a little longer - a decision that throws him even deeper into the web of conflicting relationships he has unwittingly entered. Each clue he uncovers only makes things more confusing, and eventually the young man's own secrets and mendacity are also revealed. Skujins is an original stylist capable of deploying acute psychological observation as well as clever and often witty imagery, and Uldis Balodis has managed to retain this in his excellent English translation.
Stillness of the Sea
Concerned with a war-crimes trial in the Hague, and the continuing conflict between the past and the present, this novel is an outstanding achievement in human and literary terms.
Vargamae - Volume 1 of the Truth and Jus
Andres, an Estonian peasant, purchases a smallholding in a marshy part of the country, which the novel is named after. He takes his young wife, and an incident with their cow sets the tone for a life of struggle in which the family grows and gradually lifts itself out of extreme poverty. They don't only have to strive against the elements, but also against their neighbor Pearu, a wily and ruthless man. This Tolstoyan epic amongst the peasantry and the restless city (in volumes 2 - 4) tells the story of how Tsarist Estonia developed into the First Republic through the experiences of a family, and in particular the partly autobiographical character of Indrek, who leaves the land to get an education at the end of this volume. This monumental work by Estonia's greatest writer is a European classic which has for too long been neglected in the English-speaking world.
Eighteen
Whilst visiting their holiday home in the country, a family discovers a digital camera in their grandfather's overcoat. Its presence in his pocket is mysterious - almost as strange as the images on the camera: pictures he couldn't possibly have taken, from impossible angles, all of which contain blurry suggestions of a humanoid shape. Nearly a century before, amidst the chaos of the Russian Revolution, a Latvian soldier deserts his post and travels by foot, recording his many strange experiences in a small journal that he keeps hidden in his boot. His encounters lead him to develop theories on space, time, freedom, and what it means to be human. He wonders, what if time is layered, like a stack of pancakes? What if a tree, with roots and branches that grow expansively in every direction, enjoys an ideal, perfectly balanced sort of freedom? The backdrop of this novel is a pivotal moment in Latvian history, however its scope is much broader. Bankovskis's story explores the ways civilization's many products alienate us from the natural world and from ourselves, but yet simultaneously drive us back into nature's embrace.
Doubting Thomas
A story of sex, drugs and blasphemy in late seventeenth-century Edinburgh experienced through four viewpoints over fifteen years: Dr Robert Carruth, his wife Isobel, and university students Mungo Craig and Thomas Aikenhead. After participating in the particularly gruesome autopsy of a pregnant prisoner, Robert is unable to consummate his marriage to Isobel. He buries himself in work, and his overzealousness contributes to the demise of a down-at-heel apothecary named James Aikenhead. Fifteen years pass and the apothecary's son, Thomas, appears at the Carruths' door seeking recompense for his father's death. At his side is Mungo Craig, a cunning poet with dubious loyalties. The two insinuate their way into Robert and Isobel's life, freshly exposing old fault lines in the Carruths' marriage and subjecting them to dangerous new pressure.
Fault Line
Poet Gerry Loose's fifth collection maps the fault line' dividing man from his environment, centering in this instance on the Faslane submarine base on the eastern shore of Gare Loch in Argyll and Bute, home of the UK's nuclear arsenal. The incongruity of the area's natural beauty coupled with weapons that could reduce it to dust at the push of a button has inspired a book-length poem that probes the delusions of the political and military classes. Loose explores the landscape surrounding Faslane, his hymns to its beauty only throwing into sharper focus its fragility.
Moon Country
Years ago, Tommy Hunter committed a terrible crime. Now he's trying to bring his family back together by the unlikely means of kidnapping them. But the criminal companions of his past, and the police, are closely watching.
House However
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Throw a stone in Edinburgh or Glasgow today and you'll hit a poet. The Scottish spoken word scene has exploded, reaching a level of popularity last seen in the late 1970s, another era, coincidentally, when the issue of Scottish self-determination was in the air. A generation of poets has emerged who have grown up in an age of change, political and technological, with the internet providing them not only with new ways of sharing writing - through their websites, podcasts, Twitter - but also in some cases with a subject too. It's a scene where you are just as liable to encounter ancient gods as you are video game characters. This book is a survey, a yearbook, a celebration, and a promise of things to come.
