I seem to be on a roll with these memoirs in the shape of graphic novels as this is my third in less weeks. Or maybe I’ve discovered a trend? Anyway, this one is equally well-written/-drawn, but visually very unlike both Fun Home and Jimmy Corrigan due to the watercolour-technique Small applies. And it’s beautiful and striking and grim.
It seems that I need to read some of Kingsolver’s novels, which I must admit I hadn’t even heard of before someone (thanks, Wanda!) recommended I read this book. Because Kingsolver is an excellent storyteller. This is the unpretentious, un-preaching, real life story about her and her family who for a year only eats food grown locally. That means surviving without pineapples, but also putting up incredible amounts of tomatoes and gorging on all kinds of fresh, fresh vegetables from their own small farm. That part of the book read like porn to a vegetarian like me.
Kingsolver makes an intelligent case for thinking about (or learning) which fruits and vegetables are in season, and then cutting down on those that aren’t, and for eating food locally grown. Her reasons counts the environment, health, taste and the ability to connect with what we eat. However, her definition of locally grown (within a 120 miles / 200 km radius) makes a lot more sense in America than in a small country like Denmark. I think I could do it on an even smaller radius – if I had a farm and was a gardening queen like Kingsolver.
This is a collection of lectures Eco gave on translation. It covers some good points, but parts of it requires that you read Italian and French, which I don’t. However, Eco is both a translator himself and an author renowned for his vast notes to the translators of his works, so it’s of course interesting to read his thoughts on the art.
How did I only discover this now when it’s from 2000??! This is one of the most mindblowing pieces of graphic art I have ever laid my eyes on (not that it comes to that many, but I’m sure you get my point). This graphic novel is a graphic novel in the exact opposite way of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (see below). Like Fun House it is a story about the relationship between fathers and their offspring, but told in a way only possible because it is drawn. It mixes reality, imagination, dreams and flashbacks into a whirl that demands the readers’ complete attention. Contrasting this is the flat, two-dimensional style and the sparse use of words. Very evoking. I’m looking forward to re-reading this.
Some may know Alison Bechdel for her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For or maybe for the Bechdel Test, which one should always apply to movies. But Fun House is an autobiographical narration about Bechdels relationship to her father who (maybe) killed himself, (presumably) was a homosexual (like her) and was obsessed with redecorating their Victorian house. The story is gripping and ruthlessly honest and makes a very good novel indeed. It is also drawn.
I know many people don’t like the term ”graphic novel”. They see it as a unnessecary attempt at distancing the medium from ”comics” with its connotations of children, fast punchlines and lack of substance. However, in this case I think it can be used to signify that this is, in fact, an illustrated novel, not a comic. The drawings support the text and illustate the story, but the story itself is central, not the fact that it is conveyed by means of drawings. And it works really, really well. Highly recommendable.
As so many other novels this one is based on a good idea, but it doesn’t ever seem to figure out what to do with it. The plot becomes more and more absurd and the last 100 pages I spent wondering how Fitzgerald was going to get herself out of it – and then it ended in one of the most easy and irritating ways of all (the protagonist didn’t wake up, but close).
But yes, the idea is good. A man, raised to believe that he’s an unintelligent freak, but who is an expert on pigs, and whose narration is written almost like that of Faulkner’s Benji. Throw in a couple of abusive parents and a young girl who’s trying to figure out how to grow up. Not bad, but it lacked coherence or maybe firmer sense of purpose.
This was a good read indeed! Though the plot is somewhat trivial it is brilliantly played out and the character descriptions are … brilliant as well. Highly recommendable novel. Thanks, Kirsten, for giving it to me (not myself, another Kirsten, that is).
Et fint lille kampskrift for oversættelse som respektabelt, “hårdt” fag samt for vigtigheden af sprog og sprogundervisning. Bogen er noget ujævn, da den er delvist sammensat af foredrag og kronikker, men den er underholdende og klog og bestemt anbefalelsesværdig for alle, der interesserer sig for sprog og oversættelse.
When I bought this graphic novel, the woman behind the counter recommended it fiercely, but I must say I was never really impressed. It’s well done and all that, but just not very spectacular.
Som barn trippede jeg over den syrede “En dag i Hector Hansens liv”, og som teenager læste jeg “Når snerlen blomstrer” adskillige gange. Men jeg havde aldrig forsøgt mig med Bjarne Reuters romaner for voksne. Og nu er jeg næsten ked af, at jeg har. Reuter kan sit håndværk, og han er en dygtig humorist. Men han prøver også at være sarkastisk og samfundskritisk, og der rammer han helt forbi mig.
Historien foregår i en slags Danmark, hvor statsministeren hedder Aksel Krogh Asmussen, der drømmer om at blive generalsekretær for FN. Arveprins Bernhard har slået sin iranske gartner ihjel, iklædt latex og nytårshat, og den madglade og jævnt usympatiske kriminalkommisær Stelman iværksætter en storstilet og dårligt koordineret afledningsmanøvre, som bl.a. involverer rockeren Ansjosen. Det er som udgangspunkt godt tænkt og sprogligt finurligt skrevet, men satiren er så absurd, at den aldrig bliver andet end det. Der er masser af ting at grine over, fx. den her passus: “Larsen mærkede blodet bruse i årerne ved tanken om Holger Danske. Kæmpen i kasematterne. Hvilke arme og hvilke ben. Hvilken urkraft. En ægte danske foreviget i en middagslur.” Og fine formuleringer som “ferskrøget kruspersille” og “min mund er lukket med hammer og segl.” Det er morsomt, men jeg savnede desværre noget bid.
Sidste år hørte jeg tilfældigt om en norsk forfatter, der var i gang med at skrive sin selvbiografi. I seks bind. 42 år gammel. Det lyder jo så prætentiøst, som det kan blive, men så kom de norske anmeldere på banen. Og de kunne slet, slet ikke få armene ned (bortset fra en vrissen Kjærstad). Bøgerne hyldes for alle de litterære kvaliteter, man kan opdrive, Knausgård er norsk litteraturs nye, store håb, og han er selvfølgelig nomineret til Nordisk Råds Litteraturpris.
Og så er der ikke meget mere for mig at sige. For en gang skyld er jeg enig med et enigt anmelderkorps. Bind 1 er medrivende, interessant, rørende, velskrevet, relevant og så videre. Og den er vist lige udkommet på dansk.
Det eneste, jeg er i tvivl om, er: Er jeg den eneste, der kan se, at han ligner Gary Oldman?
Oldman?
Knausgård?
As a teenager I read and re-read (and then some) Dorothy L. Sayers’ novels about Lord Peter Whimsey, first in Danish and then what I could find in the used bookstores in English. But I never read the novel in which Whimsey meets Harriet Vane, whom he marries after several years (and novels) of pursuit. But now I did, not as much to discover the particulars of their first meeting as to find out what this obsession of mine was all about.
And, lo and behold, my 13 years old self seems to have had quite a taste in literature. The story itself is a pretty straightforward and predictable, but the storytelling and the language is surprisingly sparkling and readable, even today, 80 years after it was first published. I’m sorely tempted to re-read the whole bunch…
I stumbled on the Norwegian artist Vanessa Baird and promptly bought her book of drawings and watercolour paintings. It has no other text than headings for the chapters that the book is divided in to, but the images themselves are poignant. They speak about womanhood, motherhood and the death of parents, strongly, cleverly and beautifully.
Denne bog er endnu en i rækken af bøger og ekspeditioner, der prøver at finde ud af, hvad der egentlig skete dengang i 1907, da Jørgen Brønlund, Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen og Peter Høegh Hagen døde i Grønland under Danmark-ekspeditionen. Brønlund efterlod sig et kryptisk dødsbrev, de to andres lig blev aldrig fundet – eller også gjorde de – og hændelsen var i det hele taget omgivet med tilpas meget mystik til, at der kan filosoferes indgående om emnet, hvad der da også er blevet gjort. Denne bog rummer både Brønlunds dagbog i oversættelse og resultater fra nylige ekspeditioner deroppe, og selv om den ikke er særlig overskueligt opbygget, er den spændende læsning.
Sometimes Siri Hustvedt starts shaking, and neither she nor her doctors can figure out why. This is basically what this book is about, plus a lot of neurology, psychoanalysis and most of the things in between. Oh, and “conversion disorder” which is apparently the new word for hysteria.
It’s a book that’s difficult to describe, but I’d recommend it to anyone interested in what illness does to people, the workings of the brain, and our perception of normality. And I love the fact the Hustvedt doesn’t limit herself to writing novels.
Mette Bom er sej. Jeg var engang til et foredrag med hende, og læste efterfølgende med stor fornøjelse hendes bog Udslag, hverdagsfeminisme i det 21. århundrede. Så da jeg hørte, at hun havde skrevet en samtalebog sammen med sin muslimske nabo, så jeg frem til at læse den (selv om jeg, mildt sagt, har mine forbehold over for genren). Og da jeg fandt den på bogudsalget for nogle uger siden, købte jeg den selvfølgelig. Ikke på grund af prisen, men fordi jeg gerne ville læse bogen.
Men prisen, altså. Jeg udbreder mig ofte om de åndssvagt høje bogpriser; noget der især er iøjenfaldende, når man som jeg læser mange svenske og engelsksprogede bøger, som jeg køber i henholdsvis Malmö og London. Men prisen på den her bog var latterlig i den lige modsatte retning: 10 kr. Ja, ti kroner. Doh! Havde den kostet 49 kr eller måske endda 25 kr havde det været et godt tilbud, men 10 kr signalerer så tydeligt som man overhovedet kan, at det her er noget makværk, som kun han bruges til at pakke fisk ind i – og det egner den sig ikke engang rigtig til på grund af formatet. For fanden da, Arnold Busck, vis forfatterne lidt respekt og lad være med at kaste deres bøger efter sagesløse kunder.
Og det værste er selvfølgelig, at den overhovedet ikke er noget makværk. Den er et intelligent, interessant, velskrevet argument for dialog mellem folkeslag, mellem samfundsgrupper – og mellem naboer. Og den er masser af de spørgsmål, der er svære at stille, og deres lige så svære svar. En klog lille bog, der er meget mere værd end en tier.
Original title: Der Mensch ist ein großer Fasan auf der Welt. English title: The Passport.
Herta Müller was awarded last year’s Nobel Prize in literature and writes in a staccato prose-almost-poem-style. I wish I liked it, but …It never really worked for me. The text reads to me either like a teenager’s attempt at writing great literature, or a grammar exercise. The final 50 pages became more interesting, but most of this text was static and detatched. Luckily (for a tasteless literary imbecile like me) it was short. And no, the German/Danish title really doesn’t make any sense.
I’m a big fan of Fforde’s other writing, especially the meta-literary-comedy-series (yes, that’s a word, I just invented it) about Thursday Next. Fforde as a writer is incredibly clever and funny in a way that reminds me of Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. The drawback of this style is that the plot and the general message of the novels often tend to drown in a cascade of impossible puns and triple entendres.
But here in the first volume of Fford’es new series (apparently he doesn’t do stand-alone novels) the puns are decidedly less predominant, and the universe is positively dystopian. And this new seriousness suits him.
I really enjoyed Shades of Grey. It describes a world some 500 years from now in which poeple are completely governed by a largely incomprehensible and arbitrary rule book, which sounds a lot like modern religion in my heathen ears. It’s 1984-ish and scary, and it actually reads like an insightful political commentary. But Fforde is still Fforde as we know him when he tosses about garbled expressions that are a part of the English language in 500 years. “That’s quite another fish-kettle” is a prime example. Bottom line: Go read it!
This is a very powerful, thought-provoking book, as has been obvious from the massive media attention it has gotten even here in small Denmark. As a vegetarian, I often discuss food with people who are shocked, repelled or simply curious about my not eating animals. How do I get full? Isn’t it unhealthy? Expensive? Bothersome? Terribly boring? But the focus of Eating Animals is not to ask why some people don’t eat meat, but why so many people do. Being a vegetarian, and a vegan even more so, is healthy, it’s good for the environment and it doesn’t cause any animals to suffer and be killed.
More than an argument for vegetarianism (it is that as well) it is a fact-filled (with 60 pages of notes and references) exploration of our relation with the animals that most of us eat maybe several times a day. Of course, in my case Foer is preaching for the convert, but this book has made me even more interested in people’s reasons for eating meat. As a vegetarian, I’m constantly asked why. I now feel much better equipped to turn that question around and ask: Why do you eat animals?
Elegantly written novel about growing up in a town in the state of New York in the 50′es and 60′es. About expectations towards women, failing parents, race and (re)constructing your own story. It could have been by Margaret Atwood, and towards the end it echoed The Edible Woman in particular. Classical women’s litterature, if not ground breaking. Tak for lån, Ellen.