Happy Wednesday everyone! Wednesdays mean WWW Wednesday updates. WWW Wednesday is a bookish meme hosted originally by SAM@TAKING ON A WORLD OF WORDS. The mechanics for WWW Wednesday are quite simple, you just have to answer three questions:

  1. What are you currently reading?
  2. What have you finished reading?
  3. What will you read next?
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What are you currently reading?

Woah. We are halfway through the last week of June. In a couple of days, we will be welcoming the seventh month of the year, my birth month. Nevertheless, my foray into the works of European literature is still in full swing. It seems that I will be extending this journey to my birth month because I still have several books in line. I am having quite an amazing time traveling across the continent. For the third time in the past two months, I found myself in Norway with Vigdis Hjorth’s Is Mother Dead. This is the most number of works by Norwegian writers I read in a year; I also read Knut Hamsun’s Hunger and Karl Ove Knausgård’s The Wolves of Eternity earlier this year. As I just started reading Is Mother Dead, I can’t offer much insight. However, should I not be able to finish it by Friday, I will be sharing my impressions of the book in this week’s First Impression Friday update.

What have you finished reading?

I have heard several wonderful things about Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgård. He is a name that I keep encountering but whose oeuvre, unfortunately, I have yet to explore. When I learned that the English translation of his latest work is to be released in 2023, I was looking forward to it. Fortunately, I was able to find a copy of the book. I planned to read it last year but because was already cramming toward the end of the year, I had to put on hold reading the book. In exchange, I added The Wolves of Eternity to my 2024 Top 24 Reading List; I have previously purchased a collection of his essays but I guess that will have to wait.

The Wolves of Eternity opened in 1986. Nineteen-year-old Syvert Løyning was recently discharged from his Norway national service duties. Following his discharge, he returned home in the countryside to his mother and twelve-year-old brother Joar. His father, who he shares a name with, passed away when Syvert was just eleven. With nothing to occupy his time, Syvert stumbled upon his father’s old things. Among these things are books and letters written in Russian. The letters were from someone named Asya; Syvert had no recollection of ever knowing someone named Asya. Syvert’s curiosity was further piqued when his mother confessed to him that shortly before his death, his father asked for a divorce. Syvert then tried to enlist help translating the letters. The letters revealed details about his father’s life he was not privy to. The letters also revealed that he had a half-sister named Alevtina. The novel’s second part takes the readers to contemporary Moscow where Alevtina works as a biology professor. She also recently became a doctor. Her life was disrupted when she received a letter from Syvert. Death was a constant in the novel; Syvert would run a funeral home business. It is an engaging novel of ideas.

My journey across European literature next took me to Hungary, a part of the continent that I am slowly becoming familiar with due to writers such as Magda Szabo and Péter Nádas. Another Hungarian writer who has piqued my interest is László Krasznahorkai. Along with Nádas, I first encountered Krasznahorkai during the lead-up to the announcement of the recipients of the 2018/2019 Nobel Prize in Literature. They were both tipped as shoo-in awardees. Unfortunately, neither was announced as awardees but it was enough to make me interested in their works. I read Sátántangó in 2021 and three years later, I am reading my second novel by Krasznahorkai.

Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming, like The Wolves of Eternity, is part of my 2024 Top 24 List. Originally published in 2016 as Báró Wenckheim hazatér, the novel is set in the Hungarian countryside. The denizens’ moral compasses were waning. The mayor clings to power thanks to the indulgence of the Police Chief. Meanwhile, a motorcycle gang, the Local Force, serves as a watchdog for any unwelcome intrusion from the outside world. Then enter the titular Baron Béla Wenckheim. He was born and raised in the town but has spent most of his life overseas. After accruing a large gambling debt in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he decided to go back to his hometown and settle down there for good. He was also hoping to reunite with his childhood sweetheart Marika. The townspeople, however, had other ideas. Believing that he was bringing home with him a fortune, the town’s notorious netizens set out to scam him. Everyone was in for a surprise. Baron Wenckheim does remind me of Sátántangó as both were set in the countryside with townspeople looking forward to the arrival of a character who will be their salvation. Baron Wenckheim was another interesting work from the Hungarian writer who is slowly growing up on me.

What will you read next?