Tourist alert: There are a couple of big, BIG national parties coming up soon in Eastern Europe! This is due to the simple fact that both Czechoslovakia and Poland emerged at the end of the First World War -so a hundred years ago, in 1918 – from the Russian and Austria-Hungarian Empires which collapsed at the end of that conflict. Fortunately, the exact schedule is fairly spread-out (to the benefit of the hard-core partyer): Founding of the Czechoslovak State, 28 October, of the (Second) Polish Republic on 11 November.

Head in that direction for some substantial celebrations, especially if you missed the last millennial party-day – no, not 1 January 2000 (although that one, too), but 1 May 2004 when these and eight other countries all became EU member-states. No need to study up on the exact historical occasions this time, though, for the natives likely won’t do much of that themselves, at least in the Czech Republic according to to this piece in that country’s main business newspaper Hospodářské noviny.

There people o have plenty of historical milestones from recent history to remember, mostly of the sad variety. But that’s if one cares to recall them in the first place (and isn’t ignorance equivalent to bliss?). Admittedly, the 1918 (happy) events are relatively prominent in the national memory: in a recent survey, 79% could recall the end of the war and/or the establishment of the republic (not from personal experience, of course). Just twenty years later, in 1938, that republic crumbled to dust, abandoned to Nazi German forces due to the infamous Munich Agreement. But only 54% of this poll’s sample know about that.

Similarly, they’re pretty up on the Warsaw Pact invasion n 1968 that put an end to a brief period of liberalization known as the Prague Spring – 76%. Rather fewer (65%) could tell the poll-takers anything intelligent about how the Communists took power in the first place, namely by means of “Victorious February” (as it was styled in Communist propaganda) a Soviet-supported take-over of the government in 1948.

This poll was conducted by the NMS Market Research organization on behalf of Post Bellum, which describes itself as “a non-governmental nonprofit organization which documents the memories of witnesses of the important historical phenomenon [sic] of the 20th century and tries to pass these stories on to the broader public.” It might well be worth your time to click that previous link to read the fuller (English) description of what they try to do, or even to download their entire 24 page EN-language brochure. Crucially, Post Bellum has managed to partner with Czech Radio, and thereby has gained not only necessary equipment for recording and storing live historical testimony, but also occasional programming-slots within State radio’s various channels to present a series of documentaries, collectively titled “Stories of the 20th Century.” The webpage that brings all these together (about 90 of them) for listening/downloading is here; however, as you might well imagine, everything is in Czech.

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Look what I discovered yesterday:

“The Salon du livre invites [you] to discover South Korean literature.”

“The Salon du livre“: I had never heard of it! Looks like it’s basically a book fair, held every year (since 1981) in Paris. Its website is here (but only in FR, bien sûr), where it says that this year it’s being held at the Porte de Versailles Pavillion 1, and it opened yesterday.

Now, the thing that made this particular bit of news remarkable for me was my realization of the other book-fair that also opened yesterday, namely the Leipzig Book Fair (the link this time is in EN). But that book-fair has been held since 1632 (interrupted only very occasionally by various wars).

What can we conclude from this confluence of events, on both French and German sides? It’s easy, and it’s what I already realized when I went to visit the Leipzig Book Fair six years ago: that one may very well the second-biggest such trade fair in Germany, but in absolute terms it has a way to go towards really being important on a global scale. Because if it were truly important, if it were the international book occasion where everyone just had to be present, the Salon du livre would never dare to schedule itself at the same time. You can rest assured that the people in charge of the latter are very well informed of when the Leipzig Book Fair is scheduled to happen, and made their decision accordingly.

No, the world-dominating book fair is the one held in Frankfurt-am-Main every second week of October. I’ve been to that one a few more times than the one occasion I have tried Leipzig. That’s truly the one everyone who has anything to do with books, wherever in the world, has to attend, particularly those involved in a professional capacity. I mean, it’s simply impossible for mere mortals to arrange for anything even resembling a reasonably priced hotel room in Frankfurt when that is on – I’ve had to use the tactic of staying overnight at some other relatively close-by city (once Munich) and taking the train to and from the Fair on the day in question.

By the way, just when the Frankfurt Fair first started is hard to say, among other reasons because 1) Frankfurt had been a renowned fair town (i.e. in general) for quite some time before they added books to the wares; and 2) Books did exist many centuries before Gutenberg (who did his pioneering printing work in near-by Mainz), they were just hand-made and -copied. But 1454 is a common date cited for Frankfurt’s Book Fair, i.e. very shortly after Gutenberg’s innovation. Nonetheless, by the 1700s it was the Leipzig Fair that was doing better, attracting more visitors and business, due to various major booksellers simply deciding they liked Leipzig better, and Frankfurt slipped rather far behind. But 1945 brought a radical reversal of fortunes – hard to have a really good book fair under a regime that is not so fond of free expression – to produce the situation we still know today, of Frankfurt superiority by far.

I mentioned how, if you are a book professional (or indeed, an author with something to sell), you really have to be in Frankfurt the second week of October. I’m beginning to doubt whether that still holds true for those of us – like me – who are crazy about books but mere amateurs, i.e. with a private interest. For one thing, at Frankfurt you aren’t even allowed admission until they opened their doors on the weekend days (at the end of the Fair) to the great unwashed reading masses. But as well, the last time I was there I didn’t have much of a good time; I really started to wonder about the true extent of the Fair’s commitment to those public cohorts who, after all, merely supply the custom which keeps the whole publishing industry (in whatever form) profitable and ongoing.

So maybe Leipzig is a better choice – or Paris, both going on now and through this weekend? Well, maybe not: they’re smaller, and therefore more “intimate,” but one really goes there to see what is going on with the publishers in which one is interested, and there is no guarantee those publishers are going to be there, unless you are talking about Frankfurt.

Featuring the Undecipherable, the Untransmittable

Another minor reason to attend is that such book fairs like to feature the literature of a particular country and/or language on each occasion. Actually, Frankfurt and Paris do that; Leipzig does not. As we read at the very top of the 20 Minutes piece on the Salon du livre, “Who knows Hwang Sok-yong or even Lee Seung-U?”

Who knows them, indeed? In my mind that is the problem with such country-focuses, particularly when the literature being focused upon comes from such an alien culture as, here, South Korea (or indeed, for me, any Asian language). I’m not saying that any literature written in an Asian language is useless, certainly not. Rather, how relevant can such a fair-focus possibly be to attendees of book fairs in the West? The overwhelming majority of those people are going to read such literature in translation, if they ever read it at all, and really, just HOW distorted from its original artistic content – being made up entirely by the texture of the original language – will such translations necessarily be? Truly, to appreciate Korean (or any other) literature, you need to learn Korean (or any other . . .).

Now, on the other hand I understand the Frankfurt Book Fair happening later this year will feature Netherlands-Flemish literature (having already done the same back in 1993; and they did Korea in 2005). Perhaps that could be a reason to start searching for a hotel room in some neighboring city around that period, so I can give the event one more chance.

It’s the beginning of July! It’s time for the Tour de France! But already there is trouble with the main sponsor of one of the competing teams.

Right, check out that guy’s jersey: the team in question is called Giant-Alpecin after its two main sponsors, Giant bicycles (a Taiwan company) and the German shampoo manufacturer Alpecin. The trouble arises with Alpecin’s current advertising slogan, touting its concoctions as “doping for your hair.”

Oops. “Doping”: that’s an awkward word at the Tour de France. Alpecin executives quickly retreated, promising to suspend the slogan for the three weeks of the Tour. CEO Eduard R. Dörrenberg even promised on the company website “a team without any doping, without the slightest doubt. We are well aware of our responsibility and can clearly distinguish between promotion of the effects of a product and sportive trickery.” You can read it all here (if you read German: “No doping-advertising during the Tour”):

That’s very noble of Herr Dörrenberg, but it’s also naive. He has no ability to make such a promise. What is he going to do, have his Alpecin employees patrol the highways and by-ways around every Tour-stage looking into buildings, trailers, barns, etc. to see if anyone is transfusing blood?

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Verily, it’s an unpleasant sight in general, that of Kim Jong-Un laughing it up with his lackey Army generals.

It’s all the more disagreeable considering what the North Korean dictator and his hacker army have recently accomplished. You’re surely aware of what happened with SONY Picture’s upcoming movie “The Interview,” but have you seen this as well?

But wait: there’s more to drive Kim Jong-Un and his minions into absolute hysterics! The North Korean government has now begun to deny its involvement in the SONY Pictures hack – before, it had been deliberately vague on the subject – but has not stopped there. Here’s the statement released today by some government minister, as reported by the French 20 Minutes newssite:

Since the United States is spreading allegations without foundation and defaming us, we want to propose a joint inquiry. Without going so far as to resort to torture, as the American CIA has done, we have the means to prove that we had nothing to do with the incident.

That allusion to CIA torture was sly, no?, but the American government has simply brought that upon itself – and no, not by releasing that executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Torture Report, but by committing the torture in the first place.  “Contrary to American values” and all that . . .

Apart from this, though – it’s the OJ Defense once again! “What, me, guilty? Perish the thought! In fact, I am so innocent that I am dying to assist you in an investigation to find the true culprit!”

Now add to that some additional reporting from Le Monde of the North Korean government coupling this with threats of “grave consequences” for the US should it continue insinuating Pyongyang’s guilt. Le Monde:

[North Korea] promised Saturday to boost its nuclear capabilities in response to Washington’s hostile policy, arguing that it had become clear that the US has as its goal an invasion of North Korea under the pretext of non-respect of human rights.

That is some Grade-A chutzpah, there.