A Good Read

Yesterday there was an article in Dagens Nyheter (well, a column really) about the phrase "a good read". Naturally I can't find the piece online, so I had to go root out the paper manually so to speak *sigh* - always a hassle. Anyway, it's Bokkrönikan by Jonas Thente, for those of you who care. Thente writes that it's hard for Swedish critics, since we still haven't found a Swedish equivalent/translation for/of that essentially feel-good-ish phrase. You can't call a novel about incest and genocide "a good read", he comments (and also touches upon the other two mandatory critic expressions: a must-read and page-turner, both untranslatable so far. Those can be used for books on difficult topics). His final conclusion is that he's glad we lack the expression, because in the end, of all the books labeled "good reads" that he has read, he remembers none of them. You finish the good reads, put the book away, and go off for a good walk, he writes. The end.

I cringed a bit there. I think I use the phrase "a good read" a little too often. Just a tad. Of course, there are (dare I say it?) psychological reasons to why I am so partial to "good reads". Fluffy they may be, but they are restful to the brain. At the same time, I would call Jane Austen a good read too, and she is anything but forgettable, isn't she?

But I do hate it when words become meaningless cotton-wool type padding. I have to think about what I write more. Considering how little I can think at all before I write a blog post that will prove itself to be quite a challenge, ha ha ha.

Neil Gaiman: Stardust

My sister lent me this in FECKING NOVEMBER if I'm not mistaken. And I read it then. Took me a day or so, no more. This blogging business is one embarrasment after another.

Anyway. So I'm not a huge Gaiman fan, although I can appreciate that he's talented and all, but his "graphic novels", or comic books as I call them, go right over my head. Hang on, I think I'm repeating myself. I think I wrote the same thing when writing about Coraline. checks* Yup. How boring of me.

So, moving on: the premise in Stardust is that there is a town called Wall in England that borders on to Faerie, and every nine years on May Day there is a market on the field on that border, to which humans and fairies go. On one such night a little half-Fairy boy is fathered and later sent to his human father to live. As an adult he falls in love and sets off on a quest into Faerie to bring back a fallen star for his beloved. Adventures, magic, violence. All there. It's pretty good actually, very imaginative and original. I like. I had some quibbles with something but by now I've forgotten. Arse.

I'm slowly working my way through the book I got for Christmas from my husband. It's taking quite long since a) I've been working a lot on my translation and b) my son has decided that sleeping a waste of time. Just noticed that book has an entire website devoted to it, must check that out and see if it improves my opinion of it.

Also and most excitingly there have been some new adaptions of literary classics on the telly! We had the new version of Jane Eyre, one of my most favourite books ever, so romantic! A bit disappointed in the series though, overly modernized and changed, and I didn't think mr Rochester was that great at all. Also, IMO they missed the whole beautiful heart-wrenching morality of Jane's flight from Thornfield Hall. Then we had the Austen films, Persuasion and Northanger Abbey. Now, I love Austen tremendously, and I'm also very fond of what I think of as the "first" Persuasion film (in other words, first one I saw), maybe mostly because nobody is beautiful in it. Brave and realisitic decision! *applauds* Not to mention that the novel myself is my second favourite Austen novel (first place goes to Pride and Prejudice, obviously, then comes Persuasion, then Sense and Sensibility, then Emma, then the rest). So had high hopes, but found Rupert what's-his name's acting a tad wooden. Also, the makers succumbed to the temptation of inserting new dialogue to cover the parts where men speak amongst themselves. No no no no no. You're breaking the spell, dudes. Other than that, not bad. Northanger Abbey is of course a weak(er) book, so I was curious as to how they'd film it. It was fairly well done, to have Catherine dreaming all the "novel-inspired" bits, but not great. She wasn't that great. And her sister told her that "Mama said to come in straight away", where I feel "directly" would have been more Austenish.

Okay, baby situation. Feck it all anyway.

Nytt år, nya tag antar jag

Gott nytt på er.

För tillfället är jag hos svärföräldrarna och läser mest Hemmets Journal, elller rättare sagt löser korsord och dylikt.

Oh. My. Goodness.

New Year's resolution must be to blog about something every day, regardless. I am so embarrassed.

Baby is whining again though, so not now. Taraa.

Google whack

Jag sitter här och jobbar på boköversättandet (som jag inte vill blogga om egentligen, men det här är för monumentalt att avstå), och letar efter en rolig översättning på begreppet halverektion. Nej, det är inte en sån bok - jag sa rolig översättning, inte schekshig. Haver jag inte hört uttrycket "stoffe" funderar jag, men google ger mig i första hand bara tusen människor som kallar sig så. Men finns stoffe borde även halvstoffe finnas och vara lättare att hitta, resonerar jag, och googlar. NADA.

Alltså, det här inlägget blir en grym google whack. Är inte det vad varje bloggare drömmer om?

2 x Irish fantasy

My sister and her family came over from Ireland for my father's interment, and being a nice and generous person she came bearing gifts. I got agar-agar flakes and ground almonds among other things, and my kids got books. Now, I won't be writing about That's Not My Dinosaur, except to say that it is a riveting read indeed and the recipient of this tome loves it dearly, but about Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer and The Alchemyst by Michael Scott. These are both Irish writers, but we must feel kinder towards mr Colfer because apparently he used to be a teacher at my niece's and nephew's school. Please take a look at his web site there and note the expression " In 2001 the first Artemis Fowl book was published and he was able to resign from teaching"... do I detect a note of triumphant joy? Those darn kids.

Anyway, I'd been wanting (albeit in a passive way, which means I went to no great efforts to get the book myself, more let the thought of it idly pass my mind now and then) to read Artemis Fowl for aaaaages because I knew the writer was Irish, and this kindled my Erin-go-bragh (sic! har har) spirit. So I was very pleased to get this at least, the intended recipient hasn't got into the spirit of things at all yet what with being all caught up in Ellis Peters and what-have-you. So I read it. And I think my daughter will enjoy this, because it's clearly aimed at her age group. There's action, and dwarf farts, and a heroine (YAY to that actually!). But a literary masterpiece it certainly is not. It reads a bit as though Colfer really wanted it to be a film script. I don't dispute that it might make a fine film, but novels should be more than strings of dialogue peppered with one-liners. Nonetheless, I'll look for and read the sequels to see if the storytelling improves (after all, there is a huge difference between Harry Potter 1 and 7 for example - not that HP is to be seen as the ultimate good model or anything). And after all, I'm not the target audience, so so what, eh? I do appreciate Colfer's imagination though. To have the Faeries as a technologically advanced underground species is definitely new, and I did love that the police squad is LEPrecon.

Oh, the story is, for those not in the know, that Artemis Fowl is a twelve-year-old criminal genius hell-bent on restoring the family fortune, and he means to do this by kidnapping a fairy and asking a huge ransom.

The Alchemyst now. Again, my daughter will enjoy this, since she is to young for bookish sophistication. For an adult it's quite a dreary read, re-using mythological characters and stapling events. For someone who watches too much Stargate the approach is less than fresh, unfortunately. The first page or so is great though.... oh God, now the baby is being much too difficult for coherent thought. Idea is, in brief, that the alchemist Nicholas Flamel is still alive with his wife, guarding the Book of Abraham, a powerful spell book. Twins Josh and Sophie are unwittingly drawn into affairs when Flamel's enemy dr John Dee steals the book and kidnaps Perenelle Flamel. Turns out the twins may be the ones referred to in an ancient prophecy, so now they are hunted too by the ancient beings that want to rid the world of humans. And this is my biggest gripe - the prophecy says something about "the two that are one" and twins of different sexes surely have never been one. This also reads like a wanna-be film script, or rather the script to one of those never-ending Aussie youth TV-series.

Oh it's taken me an age to write even this disjointed post (thanks a lot Minimus). Depressing is what it is.

The Missing by Sarah Langan

This is a horror novel. I've had my obligatory horror phase of course, the Stephen King and Dean R Koontz stage of literary growth one often goes through in one's youth. Now I'm too old. I didn't finish this one, because I could see where it was going, and it wasn't to a good place. I'm just too old and too much of a mother, things like this give me angst. But on the other hand that is endorsement and a good review, because that is the whole point, surely.

So the story is that something infects people in a small town in Maine, turning them into some sort of beast-like, carnivorous, cannibalistic creatures. Nasty. Langan is good at introducing us to the main characters and making them believable. I recommend this if you're into this sort of thing, but beware of major carnage, dudes. I flipped to the last few pages so I know. Not at all pretty.

Anyway, if you read this and you want it, it's up for grabs. If I ever get my Bookcrossing arse in gear that's where this'll end up...

Flippancy recanted

My husband's books are not all meaningless crap.

Jonathan Franzen: The Corrections

Oh Lord, it took me forever to finish this. This has got to be the thickest book I've read since the final Harry Potter - of course, they couldn't be more different. Like, LOLZ. The Corrections has substance, character depth and emotion to a much greater degree than Harry Potter can ever really display. My husband got me this for my birthday (11/10, so you can imagine... I finished it about ten days ago maybe. This is slooooow reading for me. Then again I am no longer permitted to read while nursing, so there is less time.)

Jonathan Franzen apparently (I'd never heard of him before to be honest, woe is the uncultural bog in which I dwell) writes for The New Yorker, and it shows. I once stumbled upon a copy of The New Yorker at a time when I was clearly much too young to appreciate it, but I retain a memory of an awfully wordy magazine that I wished I was clever enough to understand. Then there was a phase when I still didn't read it, and disguised my lack of intellectualism by thinking "oh it's probably just pretentious tripe anyway". Now I'm at a phase where I'd definitely give it a shot if I saw it lying around, but I'm not going to look for it. But anyway, my point is that it's rather wordy, which isn't necessarily a bad thing at all, but I suspect I might be a "less is more" type of person. Not least because I'm too quick and sloppy a reader - if there's an awful lot of description my eyes tend to wander and I miss things. Anyway, so this shows in Franzen's writing - it's wordy. But it's very good, and if you go to that website I've linked to there and read his biography you'll see that he's all kinds of smart, therefore: good wordiness.

Unfortunately the back blurb of The Corrections led me to picture a slightly different novel. According to the blurb, it's mostly about - hang on, let me nick this bit from that website up there:

After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. The oldest, Gary, a once-stable portfolio manager and family man, is trying to convince his wife and himself, despite clear signs to the contrary, that he is not clinically depressed. The middle child, Chip, has lost his seemingly secure academic job and is failing spectacularly at his new line of work. And Denise, the youngest, has escaped a disastrous marriage only to pour her youth and beauty down the drain of an affair with a married man -- or so her mother fears. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.

I think it's a bit simple, which on the other hand does testify to the complexity and richness of the book. I got the impression of the story leading up to that Christmas, with everybody despite all odds gathering at casa Lambert at Yule. But it's not really like that, Christmas isn't really the climax at all. It ends up being sort of an anti-climax in the place of a climax, and then winds down gently to a surprisingly happy end, albeit with a slightly bitter flavour since we're privy to Alfred's dementia-induced fears, rages and confused thoughts. Everybody else may be all right, but Alfred is in hell. Incidentally, that's one of the things I like best, Franzen's description of Alfred, a man who has failed at showing his children that he loves them, who is unable to show love, and who is now descending into bewilderment.

Highly readable, at times very funny. Recommended.

Jesper Juul: Ditt kompetenta barn

Ja, det är helt klart en läsvärd bok. Och det finns så mycket skrivet om den på nätet så jag tänker inte (läs: orkar inte) lägga ett utförligt strå till stacken. Usch vad lat jag är. Istället skriver jag att jag hoppas att den nya pocketutgåvan som kom för något år sedan blev ordentligt korrekturläst, för den här första upplagan var rätt slarvigt översatt från danskan och layouten var inte heller någon höjdare alla gånger.

Men oaktat detta tycker jag att det vore utmärkt om fler nyblivna föräldrar läste hans böcker för att få perspektiv på hur vi tanklöst behandlar barn, och även oss själva.

Nära föräldrar - om anknytning, samsovning och konsten att bära barn av Jorun Modén

Det var ett bra tag sedan jag läste den här. Jag lånade den på impuls på biblioteket.

Modén säger att hon velat skriva den bok hon själv saknade när hon väntade barn, en bok som handlar om hur man knyter an till sitt barn och lyssnar till dess behov, istället för att fixera på hur barnet ska sova och äta och få rutiner. Detta kan jag sympatisera med helt och fullt. Många böcker om föräldraskapet, för att inte tala om alla de broschyrer man får på BVC, sätter tonen genom att tala om barnens sömn t.ex. som "problem" som ska lösas. "Misslyckas" man, underförstått, är man för slapp. Även om det inte skrivs så uttryckligen kan förhållandet mellan förälder och barn utmålas som en maktkamp med vinnare och förlorare. Modén har inspirerats av makarna Sears tankar och böcker om attachment parenting, men velat skriva en bok för svenska förhållanden (som t.ex. kunde handla mer om faderns roll, i jämställdhetens namn). Hon står också bakom en hemsida, med blogg och forum, för likasinnade.

Jag har som sagt all sympati för idén, och håller helt med om att det behövs en motvikt mot allt i mitt tycke närmast reaktionärt tjat om 5-minutersmetoden för sömn (barnmisshandel när den utövas i sin mest renodlade form), smakisar och va-ammar-du-fortfarande? Tyvärr är Modéns bok helt enkelt inte tillräckligt bra. Hon blandar ihop begrepp (t.ex. anger hon som fördel med bärsjal att det är bra med kroppskontakt, men utan att klargöra att kroppskontakt i sig är bra och faktiskt kan uppnås utan just bärsjal) och hon har dålig källunderbyggnad (det känns inte seriöst att hänvisa till Dr Sears bok och internetsidor enbart). Boken känns tunn och substansfattig. Modén skriver att hon ville ha en bok som tog upp som självklarheter det som annars anses alternativt och konstigt, men resultatet blir tyvärr att boken inte frälser andra än de redan frälsta. En skeptiker blir inte övertygad utan mer vetenskap bakom åsikterna. Och vetenskapen FINNS ju där, varför finns den inte i källorna?

Jag väntar på en svensk bok om föräldraskap som på ett oromatiserat sätt beskriver hur barnets sömn fungerar utan att betrakta den som problematisk, som inte är negativt inställd till nattamning, som varken påstår att föräldraskap är bara vackert och underbart eller apjobbigt och utslitande, som inte felaktigt påstår att amning orsakar karies, som vet vad tygblöjor är, som inte påstår att man måste ge barnet vattniga portioner puré på sex- (eller fyra-!...) månadersdagen för att det alls ska äta, som inte talar om att byta ut "amningsmål" när den tidigare påstod att den var för fri amning, som inte föreslår att man ska pressa smakportioner kött genom en jävla vitlökspress (hejdå vitlökspressen)... Antar jag får vänta lite till.

2 x Peter Robinson

One of these I read in Swedish, En märklig affär/Strange Affair. My sister gave it to me as she was moving, and she in turn had been given it by a classmate. There was a limit to the amount of books she could bring to Ireland, so this one stayed with me. The other I borrowed from the library recently, The Hanging Valley. The latter is one of his first ones, the former one of his later. Our hero in the series in a policeman named Alan Banks, and if I hadn't known that the two books had the same author I'd have thought it was a coincidence, so greatly is Banks transformed. In The Hanging Valley he is very... almost serene, happily married and very much a good, stable character. In Strange Affair he's divorced since any number of years, depressed after losing his home in a fire, and not afraid of operating slightly outside the rule book. Funny that, it almost tempts me to read the whole series to see the transformation (which also means an improvement in Robinson's writing, since the characters do seem to get more complex as he goes along), but I really didn't find Banks compelling enough, nor Robinson's stories gripping enough, to do so. I think. Plus it really means that Robinson submitted to cliché and created another middleaged alcoholic detective, doesn't it, like he couldn't pull off a happy one - too bland and difficult.

First book has Banks relatively new to Yorkshire, investigating a murder near a village where another dead body was found five years ago. There's a wife beater, a beautiful woman broken by religion, twisted lord and gentry, decent farmers - the lot. But a few surprising raw moments. Second one has a jaded and bitter Banks suddenly investigating the disappearance of his brother (who turns up dead. I'm not spoiling anything for you, honestly.).

Good travel reads, but nothing collectable.

2 x Jesper Juul

Egentligen ville jag låna Ditt kompetenta barn på bibblan, men den är typ alltid utlånad för det vill alla andra 30+föräldrar också göra (vilket man kanske ska vara glad för). Alltså tog jag istället Här är jag? Vem är du? och Livet i familjen.

Juul är den kanske främste relationsauktoriteten i Skandinavien just nu. Framför allt har hans åsikter om barn"uppfostran" fått stort genomslag. I korthet går det ut på att man ska vara autentisk, dvs. känna efter vad man själv VILL istället för att spela en roll (föräldraroll, hustruroll eller vad det nu är), samt sträva efter likvärdighet i relationerna, dvs. att alla ska respekteras även om det är de vuxna som måste bestämma över barnen i slutändan t.ex.

Nu vaknar barnet, så jag fattar mig kortare: i stort tycker jag att Juul har många sunda tankar, och jag vill fortsätta att fundera och införliva en hel del i mitt föräldraskap. Så.

Lägger till en artikellänk: http://www.svd.se/nyheter/idagsidan/artikel_119964.svd

Påven Johanna av Donna Woolfolk Cross

Denna fick jag via ett bokbyte via ett forum. Såna är roliga, man vet aldrig vad man får! Jag hade nog svårast med det jag skulle skicka, hon ville inte ha deckare eller feelgood - och feelgood har jag ju inte mycket, men deckare var ju precis vad jag tänkt avbörda mig... Lyckades hitta en roman av Maeve Binchy istället. Tror jag det var. Hoppas hon blev nöjd till slut!

Påven Johanna är en sådan bok som jag gärna läst på högstadiet kanske och slukat varje ord av. Och trott på - för inte vill väl en författare ljuga SÅ mycket? Även nu tänkte jag att det ju kunde vara en intressant historia att läsa, även om det inte är Stor Litteratur. Lite spännande sådär. Tyvärr blev jag rätt besviken. Möjligen ligger en del av problemet i översättningen, men boken är tråkigt skriven, karaktärerna är platta och ensidiga, handlingen alldeles för oproblematiserad.

För den som inte vet det är romanen baserad på den seglivade myten om den kvinnliga påven Johanna, som lär ha levt på 800-talet och dött när hon mitt i Rom födde ett dödfött barn. Hon finns visserligen inte i några officiella påvelängder, men kyrkan lär ha rensat bort henne. Woolfolk Cross utgår från dessa knapphändiga omdiskuterade fakta och bygger en historia om en mycket intelligent flicka som låtsas vara man för att få studera i fred, och utan att vara karriärlysten hamnar på kristenhetens tron. Det hade kunnat bli en spännande berättelse om en spännande epok i historien, just efter romarrikets fall när laglöshet och osäkerhet rådde, men tyvärr klarar inte Woolfolk Cross detta. Hon vill så gärna skapa en hjälte av Johanna, och det gör henne ointressant. Hon är för perfekt. Hon är intelligent, fördomsfri, snabbtänkt, godhjärtad, helt utan laster. Blä. Och den man Johanna blir kär i är likadan. Va? Därmed gör hon också misstaget att göra alla onda kristna, utan att riktigt få med att de goda är kristna också - de är i första hand goda, och deras religion är helt apropå, medan de onda är onda just på grund av sin religion. Visst är det så ibland, men inte med alla. Hade hon förmått att göra karaktärerna mer mångbottnade hade boken kunnat blir mycket roligare. T.o.m. Jean M Auels rätt platta stenåldersmänniskor (som trots allt alltid har en speciell plats i mitt hjärta, och inte på grund av sexscenerna) har mer djp.

Kort sagt ingen höjdare, men visst går den att läsa. Skumläsa, i mitt fall.

Pablo Coelho: Elva minuter

Hade helt glömt bort (förträngt?) att jag läst denna. Gjorde det i somras när vi var i Båstad (minsann), eftersom det var en av de mycket mycket få skönlitterära böcker mina kompisar hunnit bestycka sitt hus med. Jag kom ihåg detta först förra veckan när SvD hade en specialartikel om fenomenet Coelho.

I ärlighetens namn skummade jag väl mest boken, så mina åsikter ska nog tas med en nypa salt. Skummandet berodde på dels tidsbrist, dels att boken var lite trist. För att verkligen bilda mig en Coelho-uppfattning borde jag väl ta och läsa Alkemisten som alla snackar om. "Alla". Ni förstår.

Elva minuter handlar om en vacker o så vacker brasilianska som åker till Schweiz för att bli modell. Naturligtvis går det illa, och hon blir istället prostituerad för att försörja sig. För att det hela inte ska bli deppigt blir hon närmast en "lycklig hora", och arbetar från en bar som drivs av en rätt så rättskaffens jugoslav. I alla fall, under hela boken grubblar hon över att det genomsnittliga samlaget bara tar elva minuter, och varför jakten på dessa elva minuter upptar så mycket av människans tid och energi. Just ja, och så har hon någon befriande s/m-session med en klient också.

Minns inte så noga, men det var riktigt riktigt trist. Tur att den var kort.

It has been pinched.

The Sedaris novel. But it was sanctioned pinching, he said OK. He also said his colleague had tattled on me after reading my blog. Must find sneakier way of planning my crimes.

Dilemma

A few years ago I bought mr Bani the novel Me Talk Pretty Some Day by David Sedaris. I'd like to say I was in early on the hype, but sadly 'tis not so - it was an impulse buy from the top ten shelf at LundeQ for his birthday. He's a damn hard man to shop for, and this book looked like it might be fun.

He never read it. No disrespect intended (I'm sure), he just didn't feel like it at the time, and then when he did feel like it he couldn't find it. So he's looked for it for a good while, and a few weeks ago he saw an interview with Sedaris on the telly and got really antsy to read it, so he caved and bought himself a new copy. Which is now beside his bed with the other 12 books he's parallell-reading. So the dilemma is - should I pinch it and read it first? I always do this to him, read books first. I think he hates it. But I'm sorely tempted. I'm definitely in the mood for a book like that now. It's that or Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa'Thiong'o, which doesn't look bad but is, I fear, possibly about sad things and I don't know if I can handle sadness at this moment in time as Americans say on TV...

Intervju med Åsa Waldau i nyheterna

Apropå att hon är aktuell med sin version av Knutbyhändelserna i bokform (ser ni, inte helt OT):

"Det är alltid lättare att bedöma människor om man möter dem öga för öga"

Freudiansk felsägning?

A guest appearance from my eldest daughter...

... who missed home language again, and as punishment was ordered to write half a page in English about the last book she read, which was St Peter's Fair by Ellis Peters. (Yes, she's her mother's daughter alright. I lured her in knowing her weakness for exciting and illicit crime television.) So, without further ado, the uncorrected version:

Saint Peters Fair
The book was kind off boring in the beginning but became better in the middle of the book. I didn't like how it started so casually, about the herb garden, how it was on the fair but it was relly exiting when the murder started, and I loved when there were lots of murders. I think it was three murders all in all. And Cadfael is a good detectiv and I like his way of solving the murder, becase they didn't have computers or that kind of stuff. My favorite part was when the manor started burning and the part before that. All in all the book was great! **** four stars out of five!

Magnus Uggla på SVT Godmorgon

"När man bloggar måste man ju skriva en sex-sju inlägg dagligen"

What? I must have missed the memo.

Ugglas blogg finns på hans hemsida.