Ondvinter av Anders Björkelid (plus Eldbärare och Förbundsbryterskan)

Såvitt jag förstår är Björkelid oöversatt, så vi tar det väl på svenska då va. För omväxlings skull.

Faktum är att en av döttrarna haft författaren som lärare de senaste tre åren (hon tog studenten i år, hipp hipp och allt det där, och om detta var en normal blogg hade jag skrivit något smart om det då). Hon säger att han var väldigt bra, så det är ju kul. ("Har du haft den här Anders Björkelid som lärare förresten?" "Men mamma! Ja, i TRE ÅR. Jag har pratat jättemycket om honom! Varför lyssnar du inte?")

Boken är sådär, den är inte dålig men jag är inte helt såld. Jag ska läsa nästa så får jag se om det tar sig. Problemet är att det inte känns som om så mycket händer, fast huvudpersonernas liv vänds på ända när deras mystiska far dör och de attackeras av professionella strypare och monsterhundar och tvingas fly ut i vinternatten. Jag tror problemet är att allt är så mystiskt och de inte får svar på några frågor, vilket gör att berättelsen stampar. Först på slutet får de veta allt, men då är det fortsättning följer. Det blir lite lajvmanus över det hela, roligare att spela än att läsa kanske?

Uppdatering 2014-06-27: Nu har jag läst de följande två, Eldbärare och Förbundsbryterskan. Rättare sagt, jag har skummat dem, speciellt den senare. Och nu är jag inte snäll längre. Det är i stort sett omöjligt att få flyt i läsningen. Efter en tag upptäckte jag att jag läser den med rösten från killen som leder Barda på SVT i huvudet - något som är en bekräftelse på att boken känns som en lajvmanual. 
För så här går det, hela böckerna igenom: Någonting händer, dvs författaren lägger upp en scen som ska föra handlingen vidare - folk som träffas, dialoger, ev slagsmål - och därefter pratar huvudpersonerna Sunia och Wolf om vad som precis hänt, antingen med varandra eller i en inre monolog. Eller både ock. Det är precis som ett Barda-avsnitt! Och enormt tråkigt.

Språket är genomgående stackatoartat och upphugget, vilket gör läsningen monoton, och eftersom handlingen tydligen inte kan föras framåt utan att man pratar om den är det väldigt mycket dialog, något som också bidrar till en hackig läsupplevelse. Jag klarar inte av att läsa böcker där ingen mening tillåts vara längre än tio ord, jag minns att samma stilistiska grepp drev mig till vansinne den enda gången jag läste Ken Bruen. Det ska väl vara sparsmakat antar jag? Spända meningar = automatiskt spännande text? (Fast nej.)

Redigeringen är slarvig; kursiv stil används för att markera t.ex. en drömsekvens, men ibland kursiveras även det normala skeendet när korrekturläsningen inte fungerat. Och rent generellt hade hälften varit nog, böckerna hade mått bra av en riktigt sträng redaktör. Jag lämnas också med ett intryck av ett torftigt och enahanda språk, vilket jag misstänker kan vara orättvist för när jag söker på nätet ser jag att många uppskattar böckerna just för språkets skull. Själv hakar jag upp mig på att huvudpersonerna hela tiden utbrister och ropar. Nej, detta är ingen författare som målar bilder med sitt språk som Selma Lagerlöf, eller till och med Astrid Lindgren (som i ärlighetens namn kan vara mer än lovligt tjatig ibland) gör. I princip hela Förbundsbryterskan utspelar sig i underjorden, hos vittror och annat knytt, med referenser till sagor och de regler som finns i sagor, det är blod och mörker och det BORDE vara bra, men det är sååå trååååkigt. 

Kommer INTE att läsa den sista. Däremot barnböckerna var skojiga! De lånade jag och högläser för sjuåringen, så de är helt ok.

Fire and Bitterblue by Kristen Cashore

The second and  third part of the Graceling  series had to be read of course. My eldest daughter lolled and lolled at the covers of Fire and Graceling, which show the silhouettes of beautiful lithe girls ready to shoot arrows or something. Pretty lame, and they don’t really do the books justice. Somewhere on the internet someone has written something intelligent about this pervasive image of strong girls with bows or crossbows - as in, without one you're not strong, and you can't be strong in any other way. I don’t think these books are fantastic by any means, but they are, on the whole, well written and imaginative, with a strong ambition to discuss more difficult subjects – like how to forgive people who have been coerced to commit terrible acts of violence under an oppressive regime, with definite nods to the South African truth commissions (Bitterblue), or if a person whose parent was violent and tyrannical has a duty to atone for said parent, or a right to atone (Fire). The covers, however, are just pretty and shallow and kick-ass; elements that exist in the books, but aren't the most important by any means. The stories are darker than you'd imagine, but in my opinion they could have gone a little darker yet, and more philosophical.

Anything else I wanted to say I've long forgotten (this is another overdue draft being finished). 

Maze Runner by James Dashner (ha)

Enjoy my Paint skillz. Can't help but feeling my internet friend wasn't sharing my indignation enough.

Feed and Graceling

These are also from the list of the soon to be filmed. Quite popular books too, took a while for them to work their way down to me from other library aficionados, but then they showed up at the same time. 
Another cracking photo of my bed, I really do spoil my readers.

I quite liked Graceling. I didn't fall head over heels for the characters, but close. It lacked a little fleshing-out somehow. But it's a decent fantasy novel with a decent secondary universe, and towards the end when the plot was coming together it was genuinely exciting too. A good amount of violence, just there because the world is a violent place; a very excellent feminist theme and a great heroine. I put in reservations for the other two books in the not-really-a-series and am looking forward to it. Feed was not as much my cup of tea at all. I like that it's a zombie book without focusing on the zombie gore. Instead it's about how humans are living after the disaster. The medical side of it is well-crafted. Everyone is infected with the dormant virus and will reanimate after death or after being bitten/otherwise exposed to the live version. This is very realistic, a nice touch. I just found the whole thing a little too Aaron Sorkiny, it became a mix of The West Wing and Newsroom and just a bit too snappy. Despite every opportunity to make me care about the characters they faded into the background and became accessories to the one-liners and the technology. I don't think I'll read the others in the series, even though they apparently are better ( even better if you're a fan).

Divergent and sequels

Well, this was fun! Sort of. Not good but you know, entertaining if you don't mind not thinking too much about things. If you think too much you might not even think it was fun. I think I've changed my mind now. It wasn't great at all.

Please gaze ecstatically upon these library books upon my lap in my bed just before me nodding off. Can I take a picture or what, what.

So, teen dystopia. Fabulous genre. These books, well the first one for starters, are being filmed now (as you can see if you've got good eyesight and can make out the print on that little black sticker on the right-hand book). Because teen dystopia is Hot. Sizzling even. I borrowed Divergent because it's on the list I wrote about with books you have to read before they're filmed. It's one of the most popular ones so it took a while for the library to give it to me. Then I read it and thought ok, pretty fun, so I borrowed Insurgent too. But then I got bored so I've read the synopsis for part three, Allegiant, on Wikipedia and I'm alright with that, thanks.



Divergent is often compared, I’ve noticed, to The Hunger Games, reasons presumably being a sixteen-year-old girl as main character, a first person narrative, that it’s based in the US (more specifically in Divergent, in a future, ravaged version of Chicago, populated by only a fraction of the current population) after somthing cataclysmic has happened to destroy society as we know it now, and, most importantly, that a bunch of teens spend a lot of time fighting bloodily against each other in a large part of the book. However, where THG has a very clear message about the horror of violence as entertainment, how violence desensitizes and violates both victims and aggressors, about living under an oppressive government and how even a person of some resources is never free in a dictatorship, Divergent has a message of … well… I dunno. Sex? Because honestly, there’s a lot of ogling going on. Nothing happens beyond petting (it’s all a bit Twilight without the obvious preaching, and I can’t help wondering about that since her acknowledgments at the end of the book start with a big thank you to God. Which makes me, a secular sort of Catholic, squirm more than a bit), but oh boy are we ever obsessed with the taut young adolescent male physique. The strip of skin between his t-shirt and his trousers. His tattoos stretched over his muscles, blah blah blah. Drowning in his eyes. Pressing of lips. Hands on curve of hips and melting sensation in stomach. All the while he is eighteen and she sixteen which, although not Twilight standard, still means that any sex is statutory rape if consummated. But never mind that. I’m Swedish and we have a more laissez-faire attitude to teens having sex after all; it’s mostly the adult woman clearly revelling in the hotness of the teen bod that is a bit disturbing. I had a rant half written out about how weird it is that a presumably middle-aged or so woman is leering over young men like this but then I looked Veronica Roth up and she's born in 1988 which makes her ... math is hard ... not so old as too make the idea of sexing an eighteen-year-old revolting. Not that I judge. Much. However, I betcha it goes down well in the target audience. I wonder though if it doesn’t become more a girl book than a unisex book? Also, nuclear family FTW? Is that a message? I think that ”it’s not really good to kick ass but it sure looks cool” is a sort of message too. And "tattoos are cool and Have Meaning and people who have tattoos aren't necessarily bad people you know". It's all very "I just discovered MTV" in 1991 or so.

I’m being facetious. Albeit with a heavy hand Roth wants to tell us that selflessness and bravery are good values and often amount to the same thing. How true courage is about being able to say you’re afraid and to stand up to peer pressure. Stuff like that. I just don't think it's very well done. She's a sort of competent writer (especially for her age) but not very original and a bit messy. Her writing is very sparse and brief (which fits the general emo moping mood) so you'd be excused for mistaking the style for clarity of thought. Her plot lines and entire secondary universe, however, lacks structure and cohesion, in my opinion. If you think about it, it's just not that believable.

One of my big issues with the books are that Roth is clearly incapable of truly imagining a world with different values than the one she lives in. You therefore have an unspecified future, after society has been turned upside down by wars and other horrors - but basic male-female gender roles of contemporary America remain the same, for example. Which means that her attitude to sex sucks. You might think – and I think she thinks -  that she is sex-positive, since she acknowledges sexual desire. It is however clear that to her abstinence is a virtue. Tris and Four can indulge in some heavy groping and then stop, and the only reason for them stopping seems to be that it isn’t right to do the sex. And there is no forthcoming explanation for why it isn’t right. And I’m not going to swear to it because I didn’t keep count or anything, but I do believe that the shifting is interrupted by Tris, who takes a deep breath and pulls down her t-shirt past her hips again, like. Now, I’m all for her backing out of sex if she loses the hots, and I would have gone whoop-whoop if that is what happened, but it’s not. She (and Four, who is a Good Guy you see and Respectful) backs off by exercising self-control. Which I can also be fine with but I’d appreciate some reasoning behind why this is important. Otherwise, the message is that sure, you get all hot and bothered and shift like mad but don’t go all the way girl, and most importantly, girl. This is not sex-positive. Fundamentally the idea that a promiscuous woman is a slut remains, a morality not at all so definite when it comes to men. Anyway, gender roles and views on sex were not the only examples I had of Roth's lack of imagination, but it'll have to do for now. Mostly because after a while I got a really icky feeling off it, like this book truly could have a negative impact on young people because it's so insidious.

That said, the two youngsters maybe do the deed in Insurgent,  the second book. But it’s a bit Asimov (I haven’t read Asimov really. But my husband told me once that he is meticulous about not writing sex scenes. Instead the two approach each other, and then new paragraph and ”Afterwards …”) so I’m not sure.

Right, this post has been sitting here for a month now I think without being posted, waiting for me to wrap up with something smart. Since that's not gonna happen I'll publish now. Oh, I'm obviously going to see the film - I'm not proud, also I'm a hypocrite. But I'll wait until it hits the television.

Crap

See this? Don't ever read this. Don't buy it for a young female that you know thinking it'll be something, well, at least exciting and grrll power (the automatic spell check just changed grrll to grill, which is FUNNY). 

One of my daughters borrowed this from the school library to read for some assignment or other which requires them to read an English novel. It was lying around so I read it. The author, Alex McAulay, has one idea. The idea is girls, in tank tops, in a jungle. Based on this he scrapes together a story about young girls sent to wilderness camp when they misbehave, and once there a hike goes wrong and they end up lost and it all goes a bit Deliverance (which frankly has been DONE). Every single idea McAulay has which could have given the story some depth - just some, I'm not asking of r a lot -  he pisses away. It could have been about women's right to their sexuality, religious hypocrisy, society's fixation on women's bodies and how they look, what enduring and committing acts of violence does to your personality, the immorality of keeping children in what is virtually a prison camp - anything. But all leads to something interesting just fizz out. Not one character becomes anything but caricature. And a little over half way through the book he just gives up and just starts to write down what happens next with not even an attempt to tell a story. Like he had a maximum word allowance and was trying to keep inside it. What the hell? I've seldom read worse shite. I'm left with the distinct impression of an unhealthy interest in young girls as sexual objects, especially if they wear tank tops and cargo pants (for some reason one has to say cargo pants and not cargo trousers - why is that? discuss!) and self-publishing. Creepy and stupid. 

Well.

So.

In my defence, such as it is, I haven't actually been reading much, only blogs. For a while I listened to the radio on my commute instead of reading (mostly Spanarna and På minuten, but also some Tendens - yes, Swedish radio only), but now I'm having this huge blog-enthusiasm thing going and I've actually read several newly discovered blogs back-to-back. So I'm going to have to update my links I think to stuff I actually am reading. I added heaps of things to my Google reader too in a fit of go-get-'em but I don't actually want to follow more than say half of it, so I'm going to have to delete quite a few things and was most piqued when I discovered that it wasn't just hey, delete, it was Tricky. Google really are quite shite with lay-out, aren't they? A lot of my new blog favourites are clothes and/or sewing blogs, mostly retro, because I discovered Looks Good From The Back first and was so inspired to have more fun with clothes - and let's face it, retro is where the fashion fun is, isn't it. Because there is feck all in the shops, at least here. So now I've worked my way to Gertie's blog for better sewing, and am feeling that urge I sometimes get that maybe I'd like to sew my own clothes? I should take a sewing class. There's no way I can learn on my own, I'm too thick. Also, I felt ashamed and inspired to take more of an interest in my OWN blog, and maybe post stuff? With pictures, to make it more interesting! But it's not going to happen until I get my own computer somehow, one I feel I can use whenever. Until then the blog is not going really work, because the phone blog thing is a bit rubbish. I could of course just take a picture of the book I've just finished and post that but. how. dull. My unfulfilled wish to blog about what I'm only after reading has just led me to owe the library about a week's worth of late fees, because I read Backman's Saker min son behöver veta om världen and thought I'd post about it and didn't and didn't return the book because I wanted to remember to post first and there we are. And ironically, the only thing I really wanted to say was that this book is not very great. It's not even a proper book, just blog entries put together. I hate that. I also wanted to say that when I read En man som heter Ove I wrote that I just knew he was going to be offered a film deal, and then I meant to write that in a comment on his blog to say that even though it's going to be tempting for them to cast Kjell Bergqvist as Ove I think they should think carefully about that because it's a little too obvious. But then didn't he beat me to the revelation and then there were 600 comments. Bleurgh. 

But anyway, last post was a LIE, because I got books for Christmas! They were just late to arrive to The English Bookshop, but my husband gave them to me this week. And they are not just any books, he REMEMBERED that I told him I like Cyril Hare!!! That's worth three exclamation points!!! He got me An English Murder and a collection of short stories - I took a rubbish photo but can't upload it from my work phone because it's a bizarre Samsung I don't understand. I've linked you to them instead, they are so gorgeous and I'm so psyched. He asked me today if I was enjoying the book but in all honesty I'm hesitant to get into them because I want to savour them. I was so in the mood for some vintage crime!

Oh, and I read a rather meh teen dystopic novel called Pure by Julianna Baggott that my eldest brought home - it's not terribly good, but a quick and so-so entertaining read, if you happen to be on a flight or something. The author is much too enamoured with her idea of the survivors of the explosions being fused to whatever object they happened to have been near to remember that story, plot and characterization have to come first. Also, she gets praise for her prose I notice when googling briskly, but myself I felt like it was a bit of a copy of Burgess' Bloodsong to be honest. To be fair though Maxima didn't agree with me at all. That reminds me that Mortal Engines also reminded me of Bloodsong and I kind of felt that people need to be un-inspired, you know?

Anyway. CYRIL HARE!