Three more reviews of very different novellas for you. Rónán Hession’s follow-up to the lovely Leonard and Hungry Paul, the buddy read for #NovNov25 and a German classic from the 1930s which also ticks off German Lit Reading Month.
Panenka by Rónán Hession
Leonard & Hungry Paul was a huge word of mouth hit, recently adapted for telly too (on BBC2) with Julia Roberts no less behind it and doing the voiceover. I’ve only watched the first episode so far, and it’s very sweet…
Anyway to his follow up novel, Panenka, published in 2021. It was a Czech footballer, Antonin Panenka, that got a particular style of penalty kick named after him, where you just lob the ball in the middle as the goalie goes to one side or the other – we’re told this at the beginning of the novel thankfully. Joseph is a retired footballer in his fifties, he’s been living quietly for decades, having left the game after having a Panenka penalty kick saved in an important match. He’s been nicknamed Panenka ever since, not allowed to forget it. He also suffers from crippling migraines that he has christened the ‘Iron Mask’, recently discovering that they’re not going to go away.
Joseph has recently been reunited with his daughter Marie-Thérèse, and grandson Arthur, enjoying their company after she separated from her husband Vincent, who runs the quiet bar where he goes to drink and chew the news of the day with his friend BABA, (so named for supposedly having two degrees). Marie-Thérèse has been promoted to manager of a supermarket, but is struggling to get the mostly male warehouse staff to engage with her – she’s thinking about a relocation to another branch. And then there is Esther, a hairdresser, who after cutting Panenka’s hair (it takes two visits) strikes up a friendship with him, that will begin to morph into something more serious – something that scares Panenka stiff as he knows his Iron Mask is not getting better. You don’t need to know about football to enjoy this family, friends and relationship novella, although you have to appreciate the fanatical support that fans have for their clubs, even in hard times that creeps in here and there throughout the book. It’s that emotion that castigates failure, and undeservedly condemned poor Panenka to the sidelines permanently in that cutthroat world. I found the cover image rather disturbing, although it does capture the pain of Panenka’s ‘Iron Mask’.
For me, although an engaging story, it lacked the charm of Hesion’s debut, but then they are about people of different ages and situations. However, as a portrait of one man’s family and friends and coming to terms with a chronic illness and the possibility of new love, it felt very real and honest.
Source: Own copy Bluemoose pub, 180 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
This novella, longlisted for the Booker this year is the buddy read for #NovNov25. Rebecca’s post linking to everyone’s reviews is here. It begins thus:
Thomas Flett relies upon the ebb tide for a living, but he knows the end is near. One day soon, there’ll hardly be a morsel left for him to scrounge up from the beach that can’t be got by quicker means at half the price. Demand for what he catches is already on the wane, and who’s t say the sea will keep on yielding shrimp worth eating anyway. There’s all sorts in the water now that wasn’t there when he was just a lad. Strange chemicals and pesticides and sewage. Barely a few weeks ago, there was putrid fatty sheen upon the sand from east to west; a month before, he waded in a residue of foam that reeked of curdled milk as he approached the shallows. Fleeting things, but if you’re asking him, they augur trouble – it’s been hard to sleep of late. His creams are full of slag heaps made from rotten shrimp, and he’s there in amongst them with a shovel, trying to clear a path.
Thomas saddles the horse and cart up daily, sometimes twice, to go out on the flat sands to scrape for shrimp as his forebears did. The twenty-year old lives at home with his disabled mother, so he is the sole breadwinner. We’re in NW England, and the fictional Longferry is surely modelled on Morecambe, famed for its sometimes treacherous sands, the bay and the shrimp.
Thomas longs for a different life, some excitement. He plays guitar, writes songs and sings folk music – taking part in the open mic nights at the pub, and he’d love to expand on that, but the chances never really come. Ditto with his love life, he wishes that he had the courage to ask Joan Wyeth out.
However, one day an American filmmaker arrives in town. He’s adapting a novel he’s long been infatuated with, set in Maine, but plans to film it in England to save money. He sweettalks Thomas’ mother and offers Thomas good money to become his guide to the sands of the bay. His mother urges him to accept, and Thomas agrees to take Edgar out one evening. But once on the sands the fog comes down, and they lose direction and each other temporarily when Edgar gets off the cart to look at it through his viewfinder. Meanwhile, the cart gets stuck in a ‘sinkpit’, but Edgar finds Thomas and the horse and together they find safety. The text turns very impressionistic here, foggy indeed! But it inspires a song in Thomas, and he writes ‘Seascraper’.
I won’t say any more as the plot takes a surprising twist which I wouldn’t want to spoil. As others have said, there is an element of Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea about this novel. Thomas, being fatherless, has had to take on the mantle of family provider, and to be an old head on young shoulders. It’s only when he sings that the real Thomas underneath comes out. Once he is talked round into showing Edgar the sands, and it is Edgar that rescues him in the fog, a surrogate fatherly touch is added. This novella is beautifully written, all from Thomas’ PoV, and it has an intensity for the most part that emphasizes the drudgery of Thomas’ working life, and the power of nature too, although being ultimately optimistic. I really enjoyed it, being the first book by Wood that I’ve read, although I have his first two novels on my shelves.
Source: Own copy. Penguin Viking hardback, 163 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link
The Artificial Silk Girl by Irmgard Keun
Translated by Kathie von Ankum
Is Doris, a good-time girl and wannabe film-star, whose journals make up this novel, a 1930s Bridget Jones? While they may share a longing to find the one, Bridget would never put up with the antics of Doris, or stay in a doomed relationship like she does as a serial mistress, longing for Hubert, the one that got away, would she?
First published in 1932 and set during the dying days of the Weimar Republic, after a bit part acting success, Doris steals a fur coat and runs away to Berlin with a hope of getting into the movie industry. after getting sacked from her day job as a very bad secretary. Once there, she has a series of flings with unsuitable men, doesn’t succeed in films other than bit parts, and becomes the kept mistress of a chap, Ernst, who doesn’t really want to bed her because he hopes his wife will return, but loves having Doris around to be his housekeeper and companion.
The first half of the novel was definitely more fun than the time in Berlin. When she met Ernst, it all got so boring. In the beginning she was witty and playing her dates:
And when we came to my doorstep, he kissed my hand. I just said: ‘I still don’t know what time it is – since my watch has been broken for so long.’ And I was thinking, if he just offers to give me the money to have it fixed, I will have been disapointed once again.
But the following night he arrived at the Rix Bar with a small golden one. I acted so surprised: ‘How on earth did you know that I needed a watch? But you’re insulting me, I couldn’t possibly. . .’
So he turned all white and apologized and put the watch away. And I was trembling and thinking: ‘Now you went to far, Doris! So I said, with tears in my voice: ‘Herr Grönland, I can’t bear to hurt you – please put it on for me.’
So he thanked me and I said: ‘You’re welcome.’ And then he thrust himself on me again, but I remained strong.
Naughty Doris, leading him on! While I enjoyed this novella in parts, it wasn’t all fun. I didn’t really warm to Doris much, and the way she put herself about to try to snare a rich boyfriend. My knowledge about the Weimar Republic is miniscule, so I didn’t really pick up on the society rules, if there were any, and the politics of the day. Doris’ journalling style irritated me sometimes too, leaving clauses open and sentences unfinished often. I’m glad I got to read it as I was seeing it everywhere when Penguin reissued it in 2019, and of course it fits German Literature Month XV too.
Source: Own copy. Penguin Modern Classics paperback, 144 pages. BUY at Blackwell’s via my affiliate link.
Oh, I loved Doris! Less Bridget Jones, more a less depressing version of a Jean Rhys character, I thought. (Though I’ve not read much Jean Rhys, so that might be off the mark.)
I was underwhelmed by Leonard & Hungry Paul so won’t try Hession again. He was a judge for the same prize as me a couple of years ago and I got to meet him briefly on Zoom — an entertaining fellow.
Wood’s first two novels are brilliant. I think you’ll like them more, especially The Ecliptic.
I liked my first Keun last year and this sounds a fun one though I note your reservations. It would have been a good one for me to read in Berlin.