I'm tinkering with the blog...

... while working on a Touchstone post. I'd better hurry up with that, because I have since reading it come a fair way through Antonia Quirke's Madame Depardieu and the Beautiful Strangers, and borrowed the latest Jasper Fforde at the library. I wanted to take photos too, because hey, there's an INSCRIPTION and EVERYTHING in the book. Oh I'm so pleased, still!

Anyway, this post serves mostly as an FYI to say that if you're searching for the labels they're at the bottom. I'm not happy with the labels thing at all, it's too long. And I can't be bothered to learn how to do proper web publishing stuff, which is stupid because then I could make the blog more "me". Actually, I think just taking more photos would help a lot... but then I'd have to find the camera on a regular basis.

Sigh.

I knew it

Dating services. AdSense - seems so good, in theory. Ah well, it can stay for now.

Mammon, servant of

I opened an AdSense account, mostly because I'm so curious and I want to see how it works. Not because I think I'll actually make money from it. *guffaw* Let me know if Google pick up on me mentioning sex in my posts and therefore must be wanting to sell sex toys or Russian wives. I'm still sceptical and don't trust this technology at all.

Amy Tan: Saving Fish from Drowning

I couldn't resist picking this paperback up at the library (together with Evanovich that last time), since I figured what with the new job requiring commuting I'd have all this reading time. However, despite this undoubtedly being true, I haven't read much. I've got a colleague who takes the bus with me most days so we talk, or I forget the book, or I'm so tired... excuses aplenty. Also, this book is a bit of a slow read, like wading through treacle. It hasn't grabbed me, I'm nearing the end, and I've started skimming to be rid of it.

I think part of the trouble is that the storyline differs a little from the Typical Tan (says the woman who's read all of two novels). Bibi Chen is murdered shortly before she was about to lead a group of her friends on a Buddhist art trip through China and into Burma. The friends go anyway, and Bibi's ghost follows and narrates the story for us. They end up being amicably kidnapped and disappear.

It seems like she was driven to write it so as to take a stance against the Burmese junta (emotionally understandable and absolutely commendable!). However, somehow the heart isn't there. By heart I don't mean the outrage against the atrocities - that's there - but the sincerity that comes of writing what you know. There is a farcical tone which I'm supposed to enjoy according to one of the cover blurbs, but I don't. It just confuses me.

Strage har så rätt så rätt

Läser DN på nätet, och fastnar för Fredrik Strages krönika. Heja Strage, du skriver bra krönikor tycker jag, men den här var ovanligt bra.

Och den ena repliken är egentligen inte mer korkad än den andra - i synnerhet inte när Duvalls ord citeras av en idiot som just eldat upp middagen. Ändå hamnade "I love the smell of napalm in the morning" på en hedervärd tolfteplats när American Film Institute listade de främsta filmreplikerna någonsin. "Nobody puts Baby in the corner" blev bara nummer 98.

Orättvist är vad det är. Och slutklämmen är också så rätt - faktiskt är Dirty Dancing en väldigt jämställd film. Sådana görs inte så ofta, tyvärr.

Hej, jag heter Bani, och jag gillar också Dirty Dancing.

PS: Nu fick jag markera texten i citatet och ändra till svart färg, för annars blir citaten i VIT text av någon outgrundlig anledning. Om någon klok människa vet hur man fixar det så hör av er.

Did I really WIN?

Oh my goodness, I can't describe how pleased this makes me! Scroll to the comments... Time for a happy dance I think! Luckily all my new co-workers are at lunch, so no-one is here to watch me jiggle...

Updates will follow.

Janet Evanovich: To The Nines

Okay, so I'd read it, but I reread it because why the hell not, and I hadn't blogged about it, so brief synopsis: the one where Stephanie has to find an Indian guest worker who has disapppeared, and ends up being stalked by carnation killer dude and goes to Las Vegas.

Another library failure

I borrowed Janet Evanovich's To The Nines yesterday - and I've read it. *stupid* Anyway, I got a job today so I can maybe afford to buy myself something fun to read instead. Hrmf.

Ken Bruen: The Guards

My sister lent me this. She’s bought it on recommendation. Apparently, according to the cover blurb, it’s “stunning”. Sigh. Allow me to rant for a moment on the current over-use of this word. STUNNING. I ask you. It’s bad enough that every. single. E-bay-seller seems to think that STUNNING is the definitive descriptive adjective, and that it must be included in all item titles. “Stunning wrap dress”, “Really stunning necklace”, “Stunning vintage skirt, gorgeous, L@@K”. Now I have to put up with it on book covers too. “Nominated for the Edgar Awards, the stunning first Jack Taylor novel.” Stunning. Did I fall over? Did I see stars? No I did not. Talk about a word being watered-down and losing its meaning and impact.

That said, it’s not terrible this. Jack Taylor is a former policeman and continous drunkard, who does a sort of P.I. thing, getting clients by word of mouth. A woman hires him to find out whether her daughter really committed suicide, and Jack discovers a form of conspiracy among the higher-ups, resulting in the genuine or forced suicides of young girls. I think. The precise nature of this conspiracy sort of eludes me now a month or so after finishing it, and frankly, the plot is not what I remember most about the novel. No, Bruen’s mellow yet pained story-telling, and his clipped but poetic language are much more memorable, not to mention a subtle tribute to both the new Ireland, with new ideas, new cultures and immigrants and less Church, and to the old Ireland, the old Galway, most notably its pubs. I’d recommend it, but with a warning – Bruen has this stylistic quirk, best descriped by my lack-of-sleep-addled brain by simply quoting examples:

She ignored this, sat on the bed. The room was cluttered with furry animals,

Pink bears

Pink frogs

Pink tigers

Leastways, I think that’s the colour. I wasn’t about to verify.

Malachy was like Sean Connery, minus

The tan

The golf.

You couldn’t call him a friend. Priests have other loyalties.

See what I mean? After a book of this my eye starts twitching, I swear. Fine, it’s certainly unique and memorable, but really.

Amy Tan: The Kitchen God’s Wife

A long time ago I read The Joy Luck Club and really liked it, but for some reason I never got around to reading more Amy Tan. However, the other day as I sat in the library working on job applications I just happened to be next to section T, and spotted the colourful covers out of the corner of my eye. So I plucked one and borrowed it (and made a mental note to some day read Quicksand by Tanisaki, but I got a deppresso-vibe off it so wasn’t in the mood that day).

The Kitchen God’s Wife is about Pearl’s mother Winnie, who has never told her daughter all the secrets about her former life, her Chinese life, when she was married to an abusive sadistic man. In classic Tan morality the secrets taint the relationship between mother and daughter and prevent them from understanding one another, so Pearl in turn has never told her mother about her MS diagnosis. However, other family members know and want mother and daughter to clear the air, so pressure is put on Winnie to come clean.

The greatest part of the book is therefore narrated by Winnie, who tells us about a life in a China that is now gone, about being the daughter of a rich man’s second wife, about being sent off to live with relatives, about being married off and discovering hell, about losing children and about war. I think Tan does a fabulous job of crossing that gap between Eastern and Western thinking – possibly it is her fellow Chinese-Americans who benefit the most from this, but her insights into a way of thinking and living that is very alien to us are educational to anyone. She is also a skilled storyteller and writer, plain and simple, and her books are easy and pleasant to read, despite the harrowing themes.

That said, I think her stories are too similar to stand up to binge reading, which is when you read everything an author has written that the library (or book shop, if you’re flush and have no shortage of shelf space) has available. (Note that I base this on having read two books only. So take it with a generous fistful of salt, I suppose.) I often binge read authors, but I don’t really recommend it. All the novels blur together, and you start getting annoyed with the author for “always writing the same thing”, which is ridiculous, because that is what a good writer does, writes about what he or she knows. Although Fay Weldon? She deserves the annoyance. Sorry. I’ve stayed annoyed with her for more that 15 years now.

Apparently the brain can only harbour a finite amount of information

I borrowed Clean Break by Val McDermid from the library, forgetting I'd already read it. And not realising until a chapter in. I read it before I started the blog (to remember what I've read), but I don't think it's an excuse.

However, today I impressed a Scottish fella on the bus by knowing where Fife is, thanks to Inspector Rebus. Don't let anyone tell you there is nothing to be learnt from crime fiction.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl

This is the book my husband bought me for Christmas. Yes, I did actually finish it a long time ago, but have been waiting for some time to collect my thoughts properly. I have now admitted that this time will never come, so I might as well write what I can and ignore that pretentious nagging feeling at the back of my head, telling me that I shouldn’t bother unless I can produce world-class stuff. With that kind of thinking nothing gets done (like law thesises, incidentally – the lack of one with me as an author is weighing heavily on my mind lately; something needs to be done).

Special Topics of Calamity Physics is a real brick of a book, even as a paperback, with pages of laudatory quotes in the beginning. Our heroine, Blue, narrates in the first person from her college desk. She tells the story of what really happened to her during her dramatic senior year at high school in a small town. Blue has led an itinerary life together with her charismatic, highly intelligent and opinionated college professor father, after her mother’s death when she was a child. Since she’s changed schools several times every year she’s been rather isolated and has a close relationship to her father, who has trained and moulded her to be a prolific reader. Now she will spend her whole senior year in one school, to attain the goal of ending 1^st and being chosen as valedictorian. Here she is drawn into a group of “cool kids” under the patronage of teacher Hannah Schneider, who is as charismatic and enigmatic as Blue’s own father in a way.

As the year progresses Blue becomes a part of the group, even though the other youngsters are resentful of her at first. She tries things she’s never tried before, drinking, make-up, she cuts and dyes her hair. After a man dies in an accident at a party at Hannah’s house, the relationship between her and the youngsters sours, and things start changing, ending in Hannah’s death (it’s okay to tell you, since Blue tells you in the beginning, don’t worry). So why did Hannah Schneider die, and how? This is what Blue sets out to tell you. I therefore first expected some sort of detective story. Half-way through the novel I’d come to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t crime fic at all but some sort of high school tale that Americans are so fond of, so when my husband asked me what I though of it when I was more than two-thirds through I held a long speech about how it seemed to be like Heathers, and I’m not sure I got it, since Heathers had been done dammit and what’s Christian Slater doing these days anyway. Then the book changed. I am not embarrassed to admit that I was really taken aback at the twist it took. I did not see it coming at all. However, I would like to point out that I couldn’t very well have predicted it, since some of the information needed isn’t given until towards the end (I may be wrong though. Remember, I read this with one hand while trying to nurse an interested baby most of the time.). So it turns out almost like a thriller at the end. A political thriller at that.

I’m not quite sure what to think of it all. It’s well written, to be sure. I have a slight quibble with the way Blue “footnotes” everything: she’ll describe someone and reference a book, to further clarify what she means I suppose, which is one way to emphasise how well-read she is, but still breaks up my reading flow a little. It’s clever though, and certainly different. Last book I read with such an extensive and unusual use of footnotes was Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. But did I like it? Did I enjoy it? Do I think about it now and then? I’m still not sure, and now it’s almost three months since I finished it. I didn’t think I was so rigid in my thinking, that I wanted books that fit into a certain mold, yet I was a bit annoyed with the sudden genre change towards the end. Would I recommend it? Yes, I think I would. I didn’t enjoy it as much I did Donna Tartt’s first novel (note to self – read the second one some day, even if it got worse reviews), and I compare the two because… well, there are similarities after all. But it did interest me, and if nothing else other people have to read it so I can discuss it with somebody.

Men, nu sabbade du ju min googlewhack

I all välmening liksom. Fast nog pirrar det lite dödsskönt i kistan när man får en hänvisning från någon annan stans så där.

Fetton är vi allihopa, jag med och du med

Va?

Såg en annons idag i den lokala gratistidningen (Uppsalatidningen) - nåt konditori annonserar att på tisdag är den första fettisdagen.

SAMHÄLLSOMSTÖRTARE.

Må vara att man kan ha flera fettis-dagar, iofs.

Men det finns bara en FET-TISDAG.

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.