Book a Day – Soumission

Book a Day I read because of my reading club – August 2018

Michel Houellebecq is a controversial and award-winning French novelist. Translated to English title of this book is Submission. It was our book club pick for December 2016. It was not exactly a happy holiday book. Back then our country was in the middle of EU migrant crisis. This book was published only one year earlier – 2015. I like to coddle myself with books and this is not something I would ever picked out on my own.  Here are my thoughts on the book and reading experience from my Monthly reading review – December 2016

This thought provoking book was merciless in taking out the theme everyone was trying to handle very carefully. While some hated the author and his work others were inspired to heavy nationalist movements all across EU countries. The book club discussion was heated and we talked a lot about what we have seen and heard in news and in real life.

This book was hard to read for me since the original is published in French and I was none to pleased with translations I could find. It was frustrating to read bad translations in a book where wording matters and where each word holds a heavy dose of satire mixed with real life possibilities. We agreed that fear and ignorance are the worst possible reactions and those can be remedied with a little effort. The world felt especially heavy place at that time and it reflected in our book club meeting as well.

 

Monthly reading review – December 2016

This December I have read:

Soumission by Michel Houellebecq ★★

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens ★★★★

1. How many books you’ve read last month? Are you happy with the amount you read?

The picture above shows the December I would have liked to have seen. Alas there was no snow and the number of books I’ve read in December barely held together at two! I’m not pleased with the number but I doubt I could have made it much higher by sacrificing the time I had to invest in other things.

2. What was the best of all the books you’ve read in December? Any scenes or characters that made a lasting impression?

I was very delighted with A Christmas Carol. It is a great books for December reading and it lifted my spirits quite a bit. Our Book Club meeting was magical as well.

3. Were there any not so good books for you last month? What made it hard or not enjoyable to read?

Soumission by Michel Houellebecq was kinda hard for me to read for several reasons. For starters I’ve actually started reading one edition and had to finish the last half of the book reading a completely different edition. The differences were stunning! And not in a good way. This gave me perspective and more appreciation for translators and their work. Second thing that made this book hard to read was the historical and literary details on French authors and political aspects the author obviously has much knowledge of. Since I’m not very interested in politics – something books like these are meant to keep me up with – nor am I French these things were not very familiar to me and I had to keep stopping my reading to Google this or that…

4. How did the books you were reading last month fit in your reading plans if you had any?

I scored with the book club book and the rest I kinda flopped out on…

5. Any updates on the series you are reading or are you starting any new series?

Complete bust in series department. Only promising thing is that I started reading some of the books I’m lugging since summer and they happen to be part of book series.

6. Would you like to recommend any books or authors you’ve been reading this last month?

While I struggle with some books like Soumission this December I realized I need to get out of my comfort zone every once in a while. This is my recommendation from December. It makes us remember and appreciate the things we love. It made me look forward to some books