Leky, Mariana "What You Can See From Here"

Leky, Mariana "What You Can See From Here" (German: Was man von hier aus sehen kann) - 2017

In 2017, this novel was awarded The Favourite Book of the Independents and that is the only reason I was made aware of it. I liked the first one I read from that list and every other one that I read subsequently. Because the one that received the prize last year still isn't available in paperback, I went to one of the older ones, this one.

And I am glad I did. This was such a lovely book, a story of a small village where everyone sticks together, no matter how hard it is sometimes, where everyone looks after everybody else, whether they like them or not. A great description of a functioning small community. The novel has been described as "warm". Yes, it is that but it is so much more. It's a love story as well as a philosophical quest, a coming of age story as well one about old age.

This book is described as "magic realism" and I have tagged it accordingly, though it really is more a touch of superstition in my eyes.

It is hard to describe the book without giving too much away, only this, there is a lot to be said about loss and how to deal with it and this book does it beautifully.

Mariana Leky is certainly an author to be watching out for, I will read more of her novels, so far she has written nine. Where do I begin?

From the back cover:

"In this international bestseller by the award-winning novelist Mariana Leky, What You Can See from Here, a heartwarming story unfolds about a small town, a grandmother whose dreams foretell a coming death, and the young woman forever changed by these losses and her loving, endearingly oddball community

On a beautiful spring day, a small village wakes up to an omen: Selma has dreamed of an okapi. Someone is about to die.

Luisa, Selma’s ten-year-old granddaughter, looks on as the predictable characters of her small world begin acting strangely. Though they claim not to be superstitious, each of her neighbors newly grapples with buried secrets and deferred decisions that have become urgent in the face of death.

Luisa’s mother struggles to decide whether to end her marriage. An old family friend, known only as the optician, tries to find the courage to tell Selma he loves her. Only sad Marlies remains unchanged, still moping around her house and cooking terrible food. But when the prophesied death finally comes, the circumstances fall outside anyone’s expectations. The loss forever changes Luisa and shapes her for years to come, as she encounters life’s great questions alongside her devoted friends, young and old.

A story about the absurdity of life and death, a bittersweet portrait of small towns and the wider world that beckons beyond, this charmer of a novel is also a thoughtful meditation on the way loss and love shape not just a person but a community. Mariana Leky’s What You Can See from Here is a moving tale of grief, first love, reluctant love, late love, and finding one’s place in the world, even if that place is right where you started."

Buddha "The Dhammapada"

Buddha "The Dhammapada. Verses on the Way" (Sanskrit: धम्मपद), Buddhist text - ca. 300 BCE

Preceded by mind
are phenomena,
led by mind,
formed by mind.
If with mind polluted
one speaks or acts,
then pain follows,
as a wheel follows
the draft ox's foot.

Another book from the list "The non-western books that every student should read" that I tackled. I borrowed it from the library and I think I was lucky to have received a new translation with explanations by a Buddhist scholar.

I really enjoyed reading this book, it looks like poetry but it doesn't read like it which I found very refreshing.

If you are familiar with any sort of religious reading, the Bible or the Koran, for example, you will certainly find a lot of familiar meanings, love thy neighbour, honour father and mother, live peaceful, don't kill etc. etc. Buddha has put it in few words that should be comprehensible to everyone.

So, whether you are religious or not, it would help us all if we lived the way Gautama Buddha or Siddhārtha Gautama described more than two millennia ago.

From the back cover:

"Twenty-five hundred years ago, after the Buddha emerged from his long silence to illuminate for his followers the substance of humankind's deepest and most abiding concerns, his utterances were collected as the Dhammapada.

The nature of the self, the value of relationships, the importance of moment-to-moment awareness, the destructiveness of anger, the suffering that attends attachment, the ambiguity of the earth’s beauty, the inevitability of aging, the certainty of death - these dilemmas preoccupy us today as they did centuries ago. No other spiritual texts speak about them more clearly and profoundly than does the Dhammapada.

The 423 verses here, in an elegant new translation by Sanskrit scholar and Buddhist teacher Glenn Wallis, offer us a distillation of core Buddhist teachings that constitute a prescription of core Buddhist teachings that constitute a prescription for enlightened living, even in the twenty-first century.

Also included is Wallis's brilliantly informative Guide to Reading the Text - a chapter-by-chapter explication that greatly enhances our understanding.

Wallis’s translation is an inspired successor to earlier versions. Even readers well acquainted with the Dhammapada will be enriched by this fresh encounter with a classic text."

Hesse, Hermann "Siddhartha"

Hesse, Hermann "Siddhartha: An Indian Poem" (German: Siddhartha) - 1922

This is by far my most favourite Hesse story. Maybe because it is so much more positive than his other books, despite the subject. But I don't think that is it. I think he has given this book a lot of thought and describes the voyage any young person has to make all over the world, not necessarily the same way as our protagonist Siddartha but we all have to find our goal, our meaning of life, our meaning in life.

In ancient India, Siddhartha, the son of a Brahmin, the highest caste, becomes an ascetic. Together with a friend he wants to find the enlightenment. We accompany him on his quest.

The story might be set in ancient times and in a country quite far from Hesse's native Germany but it could have been anywhere and at any time. The author himself actually lived like his character, searched for the meaning of life in Hindu and Buddhist scriptures.

This philosophical novel has a very lyrical writing style. I really enjoyed reading it. (i.e. the German original.)

It would be great if everyone read this book at least once in their life, the earlier the better. And I am sure everyone will enjoy it, no matter whether they belong to a religion, any religion, or not, whether they believe in a higher being or not. Because this is not a book about Buddha, God or religion, it is a novel about our soul.

Two quotes from Siddhartha:

"Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it."

"When someone is seeking ... it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything ... because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal."

Need I say more?

See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2024.

Book Description:

"Siddhartha is perhaps the most important and compelling moral allegory our troubled century has produced. Integrating Eastern and Western spiritual traditions with psychoanalysis and philosophy, this strangely simple tale, written with a deep and moving empathy for humanity, has touched the lives of millions since its original publication in 1922. Set in India, Siddhartha is the story of a young Brahmin's search for ultimate reality after meeting with the Buddha. His quest takes him from a life of decadence to asceticism, from the illusory joys of sensual love with a beautiful courtesan, and of wealth and fame, to the painful struggles with his son and the ultimate wisdom of renunciation."

I also read "Steppenwolf" (Der Steppenwolf) and "Narcissus and Goldmund" (Narziss und Goldmund) by the same author.

Hermann Hesse received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964 "for his inspired writings which, while growing in boldness and penetration, exemplify the classical humanitarian ideals and high qualities of style".

Hermann Hesse received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 1955.

I contribute to this page: Read the Nobels and you can find all my blogs about Nobel Prize winning authors and their books here.