Art of the Novella Challenge: The Death of Ivan Ilych, by Leo Tolstoy

The Death of Ivan Ilych was one of the first "grown up" short stories I ever read. There was a great used bookstore in my town whose eclectic selection formed the basis of my largely self-directed reading as a teenager; I bought an old paperback of The Death of Ivan Ilych and Other Stories for about a quarter and devoured it. It jumpstarted my lifelong love of Russian literature.

So naturally I had to read the Art of the Novella edition for this challenge, and it's the first time since I was a teenager that I've revisited this classic. The story is simple, about the life, illness and death of Ivan Ilych, a Russian attorney and judge who has been, all is life, everything that everyone has expected of him. He made all the right moves, married the right woman and settled into a successful career. Then, in late midlife, he's struck with a sudden illness, soon protracted into a painful and miserable slow death.

The story starts with his funeral then backtracks to his early life and childhood, following through to his final moments. Towards the end, he starts to question himself and his choices, but, certain as he is that he's always lived the right way, he never gets very far. Still, the suspicion gnaws at him like the pain. The only relief he finds is when his manservant elevates his legs, or when he can find a moment or two of solitude.

Reading this story now, it's just as powerful and moving for me as it was when I was younger. I feel a little more for Ivan Ilych now, being an adult now and feeling some of the stresses the narrator describes. I think when I was younger I saw more of the didactic morality tale, which I can still see, but which takes a back seat for me to the questions we all have to ask ourselves about our choices. I still love this story!

So that brings me to my goal of six novellas for the challenge. I'm officially "Captivated"!

Thanks to Frances of Nonsuchbook (who has my vote for Best Literary Blog in BBAW) and Melville House for hosting this challenge. It's been so much fun, and I know I'll continue to read these wonderful books.

Here are links to the rest of the novellas I read for the challenge:

The Duel, by Heinrich von Kleist
The Illusion of Return, by Samir El-Youssef
The North of God, by Steve Stern
Benito Cereno, by Herman Melville
Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance, by Sholem Aleichem

Art of the Novella Challenge: The Duel, by Heinrich von Kleist

Melville House just introduced a mini-series of books into their Art of Novella series; The Duel is a series of five novellas bearing that title by different authors. I read Heinrich von Kleist's Duel, originally published in 1810.

Von Kleist's Duel tells the story of German nobility caught up in a scandal. Littegarde, a beautiful noblewoman, is accused by Count Rotbart of having been his mistress. Rotbart himself is accused of plotting to kill her husband, his brother. His accusation of her is his alibi. Meanwhile, Littegarde's sweetheart, Sir Friedrich, leaps to her defense and challenges Rotbart to a duel and putting Littegarde's honor in the hands of God. If Friedrich wins, Littegarde will have been judged innocent by God; if he loses, she will be judged guilty and both Friedrich and Littegarde will die.

The Duel is a very entertaining and suspenseful read. The idea of divine justice- that God's will will be revealed in the outcome of an Earthly contest- is a great premise for a tale of courtly intrigues. The story reads a little bit like a late-eighteenth-century soap opera. The novella is one of the shortest in the series at a mere 50 pages; however, The Duel is more than its 50 pages. It's what Melville House is calling a Hybrid book. A QR code at the end gives readers access to 133 pages of content on a range of electronic devices. Bonus material for The Duel includes excerpts of Ivanhoe, selections from The History of Dueling by J.G. Milligen, Johann Ludwig Uhland's poem "The Fatal Tournament," Don Quixote, and more. It's like a mini-course on the subject, and it's yours for the taking with the book!

This is the fifth book I've read for the Art of the Novella Challenge. One more to go and I'm at my goal of 6!

Links to my other Art of the Novella reviews:
The Illusion of Return, by Samir El-Youssef
The North of God, by Steve Stern
Benito Cereno, by Herman Melville
Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance, by Sholem Aleichem

The Challenge is hosted by Frances of Nonsuchbook. Visit- and shop- from Melville House here.

Art of the Novella Challenge: The Illusion of Return, by Samir El-Youssef

"It was the last night the four of us were together."

The line "It was the last night the four of us were together" echoes like a drum beat through this slow-moving, thoughtful story. The last night the four Palestinian friends- the narrator (nameless), Ali, Maher and George- were together started in a café in Israeli-occupied Lebanon. They met to talk about life, philosophy, politics, all the big-picture things young people love to talk about over coffee and cigarettes. They avoided private pains- the death of a sister, of a brother, the failure of a family and looming murder of one of their own- that come as consequences of the very politics they discussed with such fervor.

The Illusion of Return is the story about a man in middle age revisiting memories of his youth in Lebanon from the vantage point of his new life in the United Kingdom and the day he visits with Ali. The narrative alternates between the day of his visit with Ali at Heathrow Airport and the friends' last night together. Secrets are shared that night; some more are shared years later, while others are kept. The narrator seeks validation from Ali, and at the same time fears what meeting him again will mean, and what it will not.

Can you go home again? What does that mean in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict, or in the context of the life of an individual? Does the concept of return belong to one people, or several, or to no one? What does home mean? Does it mean your family? What if your family has been destroyed, or has destroyed itself through secrets and shame?

El-Youssef tackles some difficult questions in his beautifully written, challenging novella that is nonetheless a lovely gem of a book. For all the discussion of politics, it struck me as not particularly a political story but one about how individual lives are lost- and found- as larger-scale events and movements wash over them, a theme with universal relevance. And he's written some wonderful characters, like the narrator who struggles so much and especially Ali, who seems so glib at first but whose own life has been mired in the same struggle as the narrator's. It's just that he's found a way to find peace, and to offer it up to his friend.

This is the fourth novella I've read for the Art of the Novella Challenge, hosted by Frances at NonsuchBook. Visit the Melville House website here, and buy some of their wonderful books from your local independent bookstore today!

Links to my other Art of the Novella reviews:
The North of God, by Steve Stern
Benito Cereno, by Herman Melville
Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance, by Sholem Aleichem

The Art of the Novella: Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance, by Sholem Aleichem

For my third novella, I chose Sholem Aleichem's Stempenyu: A Jewish Romance, because it's been in my TBR pile for a long time and it's about time I got around to reading it!

Stempenyu tells the story of a famed Yiddish violinst who travels from place to place winning fans, fortune and acclaim- and leaving a trail of broken hearts. Then one day he meets Rochalle, a beautiful married woman and a kind of Emma Bovary of the shtetl, and falls in love.

But Rochalle isn't like Emma in one respect- despite her love for Stempenyu, she has no real desire to actually cheat on her husband, or indulge in a fantasy life. True, she's frustrated and lonely, and true, her husband doesn't appear to have much to offer, but she's smart and she's lucky, and things might not turn out so badly for her after all.

I kind of loved this little book. I've tried to read Aleichem before and never really had much luck with him, truth be told. Wandering Stars, his novel about traveling Yiddish actors, is still gathering dust somewhere in my house. But this book was just my speed- charming and loquacious like all of his work, it has a strong plot and wonderful characters, and without giving too much away, I'm glad that he gave his heroine a happy ending. It's a refreshing change from novels where women are punished for their passions. It's also a really fun and loving portrait of a lost world and the colorful figures that inhabited it. I'm so glad I finally got around to reading this great novella!

The Art of the Novella Challenge is hosted by Frances of Nonsuch Book. You can also visit the Melville House site here.

Other novellas I've read for the challenge:
The North of God, by Steve Stern
Benito Cereno, by Herman Melville

This brings me up to the 3-book level. I'm going for 6! Next up is The Illusion of Return, by Samir El-Youssef.

Art of the Novella Challenge: Benito Cereno, by Herman Melville

Benito Cereno is a novella by Herman Melville; originally published in 1855, it tells the story of an American merchant vessel that comes upon a mysterious Spanish ship off the coast of South America. The captain, Benito Cereno, is taciturn and sullen. Followed everywhere by his African servant Babo, he seems indifferent to his difficult situation: most of the crew are dead and those remaining are all behaving oddly. The American captain, Delano, offers help and is rebuffed; he tries to find out what's going on but gets nowhere, until Cereno makes a move that illuminates the situation and forces a resolution.

This book was one of only a few Art of the Novella books available at the bookstore, and to be honest I picked it up because it was short. But it is really incredible; dense and detailed with tragedy of many kinds at its core, it's hard to place but impossible to put down. Melville builds the tension slowly until the story explodes in violence. Although the story is based on true events, Melville seems to scrupulously avoid taking sides, as the debates around the political and philosophical message of the story show. I think I agree with the critic who said that at the end of the day, what it's really about is brutality. I'd recommend it to readers wanting to try out a little Melville without committing to Moby-Dick (I've never been able to finish that book myself); it's great American literature all by itself.

Also read for the Art of the Novella Challenge:
The North of God, by Steve Stern

I guess this means I'm going beyond the 1-book level and shooting for 3!

The Art of the Novella Reading Challenge: The North of God, by Steve Stern

One of my favorite bloggers, Frances of Nonsuch Book, is engaged this month in a challenge that I think is just fabulous: she's reading all 42 of Melville House's Art of the Novella books, and blogging about them! She's attracted Melville's House's attention, not surprisingly, and they're promoting the challenge with a host of giveaways throughout August. To participate, go to Melville's page here.

I'm participating at the "Curious" level- one book- and the book I've chosen is Steve Stern's remarkable The North of God. Part of The Contemporary Art of the Novella series, Melville published it in 2008. It's the story-within-a-story of Velvl, trapped in a cattle car with an unknown woman and her child, on their way to God-knows-where during the Holocaust. To keep them all sane he tells her the story of Herschel, a young shtetl scholar set to marry the daughter of a rich man, then seduced by a succubus. He loses his mind and runs out of his wedding ceremony only to be haunted by his passion for this elusive demon. Part one is wholly Herschel's story; Velvl appears only as a supporting character, one of the boys at Herschel's cheder.

The theme of this brief tale is the power of storytelling to save. First and most obviously, Herschel survives because Velvl is there tell his tale. But storytelling saves Herschel, too; he meets a traveling theater man, and storytelling becomes his way out of his life of wandering when he gets the idea to go to America and put on Yiddish plays: "He thought he might be able to do something interesting with the story," he thinks to himself. Herschel's stories therefore have a power to save him that may be denied to his storyteller, on his way to a concentration camp. For his part, trapped in the train, Velvl believes that his stories will help ensure the survival of his little trio: "So long as he could keep the mother and daughter captivated, he could keep them safe." Later, when Velvl tries to bargain with a Nazi officer using storytelling as a chip, he's rebuffed: "What am I thinking? This is the place where all stories end."

Stern is an exuberant writer and this story is heartbreaking as well as full of bluster, sex, scatology and violence. If you've read his novel The Frozen Rabbi you'll have a little idea of what to expect here- a mixture of legend and realism, flights of fancy combined with raw, moving and unexpected expressions of human nature. It's a little gem! I wish I had more of these books around!