Nope, just because it’s told in drawings, it’s not necessarily for children. This is a weighty contribution to the debate about whether prostitution should be decriminalized. Through the account of his own use of prostitutes (or is sex workers a better word?) Brown reflects on the many aspects of paying for sex, including his own and his surroundings’ reactions to it. It is also an interesting argument against what he calls “possessive monogamy”. I’m not sure I agree with all of Browns points, but Paying For It was certainly enlightning and thought-provoking. And this was the first drawn book I’ve read that had 23 appendices – and notes for them.
I came across the title among the nominations for the Danish award Ping-prisen (go and have a look if you want inspiration for cartoons/graphic novels) and picked it up in (sigh!) Barnes & Noble at Union Square, NYC.
There’s a new novel out in the series about the literary detective Thursday Next, and as a warm-up I re-read First Among Sequels. I first read it when it came out in 2007, and apparently I wasn’t overly thrilled with it.
I must have been a bit fed up with the whole Nextian universe, but after four years I’m not one bit so, and I thoroughly enjoyed this crazy ride. I’m starting reading the TN-6 right away.
I keep recommending Middlesex and telling myself to re-read it, so when I stumbled upon Eugenides’ long-awaited third novel, I was thrilled. Unfortunately, my expectations weren’t answered. I really wanted this to be as absorbing and epic and mind blowing as I remember Middlesex to be, but … this was just a novel. I wasn’t bored when I read it, but I kept expecting it to do something other and more than telling a straight forward story about three young Americans in a love triangle. And it didn’t. It told the story, and that was it. It didn’t succeed in making Profound Points about Literature or Life or Love of Semiotics, and it didn’t even seem to try to do it, not whole-heartedly. Maybe I should just re-read Middlesex, if that’s the novel I want to read.
2011 was a good year, reading-wise, as I picked up the pace a bit despite being swamped in work and *cough* yarn related endeavours. I feel like a reader again. Nice.
My most memorable reading was Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgård’s autobiography-slash-novel, volume three, four and five. 2012 will hopefully have me reading the final installment, and I have high hopes for that as well. An oddly great work of literature about Everything and – mostly – Nothing. I also hadthepleasure of re-reading the Wimsey/Vane-novels by Dorothy L. Sayers, and they took me by surprise being witty, intelligent and very contemporary, although they were written around 80 years ago. Other notable reads were an autobiography about being transgendered, a non-fiction book about language and translation and a Norwegian crime novel. I think that covers a fairly broad spectrum.
There were a few not-so-fantastic reads during the year, but luckily nothing epic, really. So I’ll leave this on a positive note and just say: Happy new year and happy reading!
I think there’s a tendency in academic writing to equal cryptic with good. Well, this is proof that an insightful, interesting, academic book can be written in a clear, understandable language – and even be entertaining. It covers most aspects of the art and craft of translation, and it is more thorough and well-argued than most books on translation I’ve read.
The “trailer” below conveys only a little bit of the scope of the book, but if you find it interesting, you’ll certainly enjoy the book.
Jeg har længe set frem til andet bind af den norske krimitrilogi, der foregår i Minnesota blandt efterkommere af norske emigranter. Første bind var fremragende. En klassisk politikrimi, men alligvel underlig rolig, nærmest meditativ.
Rolig kan man i hvert fald også kalde andet bind. Klassisk krimi? Ikke just. Hvor første bind udspillede sig over nogle uger, som den slags ofte gør, udspiller det kun 180 sider lange andet bind sig over to dage, hvor Lance og hans bror Andy går rundt i en skov på hjortejagt. Og det er måske meningen at det skal være meditativt-og-samtidig-nervepirrende, men jeg kedede mig desværre bravt de første 120 sider.
Jeg kan godt se parallellerne. Lake Superior er så stor, at man ikke lægger mærke til den, ligesom at Andy er så oplagt bims, at Lance aldrig har opdaget det. Og Lance drømmer, at han fryser til is på bunden af havet, ligesom hans forfar Thormod, hvis dagbog eller tankestrøm der krydsklippes med, nær gjorde. Og han endte som morder, og det gør Lance måske også …?
Ja, jeg kan godt se det, men bortset fra de temmelig dramatiske sidste 30 sider, var jeg faktisk skuffet. Men jeg kan også godt se det fine i en krimitrilogi, hvor første bind er en klassisk krimi, og andet bind overhovedet ikke er det, og det er grunden til, at jeg sikkert kommer til at læse tredje bind, når den udkommer som pocketbog. Jeg håber, at formeksperimentet fortsætter, men jeg håber især, at tredje bind overgår dette.
This novel is really, as Sayers says herself in the dedication, a love story with the irritating intrusion of a detective-interest (and not, as it usually is, the other way around). It begins where Gaudy Night ended and explores Peter Wimseys and Harriet Vanes relationship, wrapped up in a broad selection of quotes from Donne, Shakespeare, Marvell and goodness knows who else. It’s a very shrewd and believable portrait of a couple who are both too old, too intelligent and too desillusioned to think that it’s enough to be madly in love with each other. Not that they’re not that.
Like Gaudy Night, this novel is strikingly feminist and critical of a society that isn’t, and the portrait of the couple that lets the stiff upperlip fall is written with great insight and sensitivity. Again, I can’t believe that these novels were written so many years ago. I for one haven’t read them for the last time.
Nu begynder de forskellige bind at flyde sammen for mig, og det bliver ikke mindre forvirrende af, at bind 5 sluttede der, hvor bind 1 startede. Alligevel vil jeg bare have mer’! Det er fantastisk velskrevet, uforståeligt interessant, og jeg må indrømme, at jeg er helt ude på den anden side af min kritiske sans. Kom så, bind 6.
This novel was apparently dubbed “the first feminist mystery novel”, and feminist it definitely is. It may not be much in the way of a crime novel – there is no murder, for instance – but it is an amazingly interesting novel about women’s right to and use of education and about love versus independence. Just like Sayer’s previous novel about Harriet Vane, Have his Carcase, it’s surprisingly modern, and I was thoroughly gripped by the very intellectual love story in the very intellectual setting of an Oxford college between the very intellectual couple, Vane and Peter Wimsey.
It’s amazing that this novel was written almost 80 years ago. It’s intelligent, witty, feminist, has a good crime plot and quite a few poignant meta-commentaries on the genre. It was such a pleasure re-reading it. I must hurry along to Gaudy Night in which Lord Peter and Harriet finally figure out their relationship. Sigh.
Åh, Karl Ove. Han bliver bare ved. Bind fire om hans tid som lærer i en lille by i Nordnorge – naturligvis med et 100-siders flashback (eller rettere flashbackback) til gymnasieårene – var også gribende, velskrevet og smagte af mere. Godt der er to bind tilbage. Jeg går straks i gang med bind 5.
I stumbled on an enthusiastic review of this memoir in … some magazine in New York, maybe Bust or Bitch. And I need to remember to buy books on a whim, because this was such a good, interesting and educational read. Nick Krieger tells about his journey from woman to … transgender, I guess is the term he’d prefer. But really, it’s about a person who pursues happiness, and that’s what makes this memoir both heartwarming and touching. I recommend this book to anyone interested in gender and the boxes we try to fit each other into.
There’s a few pages in the Danish translation of this novel, “Annoncer der dræbte”, which I read over and over again as a teenager, and I remembered the novel as a fast-flowing stream of advertising slogans. – And back then I didn’t even know that Sayers used to work as a copywriter herself. Now I finally read it in English, and not only the slogan-bits but all of the prose is surprisingly elegant. It’s hard to think that this novel was written almost 80 years ago. As far as I recall (and I may be wrong, so I need to re-read the rest of the novels, sooner rather than later) it stands out from the other Whimsey-novels in having more of a social commentary going on, but it was always one of my favourites. Incidentally, Sayers herself didn’t like it much, her being busy writing my other favourite, The Nine Tailors.
As a teenager I harboured, as mentioned, a passion for the crime novels of Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie. Among others, I vividly remember reading (and re-reading) one about a murder hunt, a boat house, and … I didn’t remember the details of the plot, but I distincly remembered the atmosphere surrounding Poirot as he was expecting the murder to happen and then trying to solve it. It dawned on me to Google it, and I actually found and bought Dead Man’s Folly – in the original English, not the Danish of my 80′ies.
And I’m glad I did. The atmosphere was exactly as I remembered it, and the plot equally not worth remembering. It was rather rushed at the end with a bit of a deus ex machina, but nevermind. It’s a Christie classic.
Det allermest interessante ved at læse den her bog var, at jeg ikke læste den, men derimod hørte den som lydbog. Dem har jeg hørt meget få af, i hvert fald til ende, fordi jeg som regel har haft svært ved at koncentrere mig om det, der blev læst op, frem for det, jeg lavede, mens jeg lyttede. Det gik overraskende godt med Undtagelsen, og om det så var, fordi bogen var spændende og havde et godt drive, eller bare fordi jeg lavede noget andet end jeg plejer, kan jeg ikke helt greje.
Men jeg hørte altså bogen hele vejen igennem, og oplevede at være lige så grebet af stemningen i den efter en aftens lytning, som jeg normalt ville være efter en aftens læsning. Den var som sagt spændende, selv om den gentog sig selv en smule i sidste tredjedel. Og så havde jeg håbet, at parallellen mellem at medvirke til mobning og til folkemord var blevet holdt i det subtile i stedet for at blive klappet i stavelser, som det blev til sidst, men det virkede som et helt bevidst valg fra Jungersens side (eller mon der har været en redaktør indover der?). Tja, jeg var underholdt, men ikke vildt imponeret, og eftersom romanen vandt De Gyldne Laurbær i 2005, siger det nok mest noget om mig. For eksempel at det er længe siden jeg sidst har læst en dansk roman. Og der går nok også et stykke tid, før jeg gør det igen, til trods for Jungersens indsats.
This second volume of autobiography from the hand of Stephen Fry is the complete opposite of Karl Ove Knausgård’s autobiographical novels. It’s at times excruciatingly personal, dealing with Fry’s feelings of inadecuacy, insecurity and ambition as a student and young actor. It is certainly “namedroppy”, as one reviewer called it, and interesting if you’re into British comedy of the 80′es. But it’s also a touching and honest self-portrait, written in that Fryish language that leaves you both happy, sad and a bit wiser.
Jeg skulle bare have bestilt alle tre bøger i denne prisbelønnede norsk-amerikanske krimitrilogi med det samme, men jeg var en krysteragtig forsigtigper uden overblik over den norske krimiscene (stort set begrænset til Jo Nesbø og Anne Holt), og bestilte* kun første bind. Og nu sidder jeg her og tænker på Lance Hansen. Ak ja.
Romanen mindede mig en hel del om Kerstin Ekmans Händelser vid vatten, som også er en meget lidt action-agtig krimi – faktisk nærmere en roman-med-et-mord-i. Sundstøl har dog den obligatoriske fraskilte politibetjent, men han har også et sindigt tempo, naturbeskrivelser og en indgående beskrivelse af det norsk-amerikanske miljø i Minnesota, hvor Sundstøl selv i øvrigt er bosat. Jeg håber, han kan holde det langsomme, manende tempo i de næste to bind.
*Skulle nogen være interesserede, bestiller jeg mine bøger på norsk hos adlibris.dk.
I was duly warned about this being brainless chick-lit, and it is. There’s also quite a bit of fashion-related namedropping in it of which I couldn’t care less. And the basic plot about witches in Manhattan’s high society is, to say the least, silly. But that aside, the novel is actually written in a good language, the story flows nicely along and the novel doesn’t try to be anything other than a nice beach read. So far, so good, although it’s not my preferred type of novel.
What I don’t get at all is the way the protagonist Jane Doyle acts. She’s all girly and dainty and bea-uuutiful and European. She lets her mother-in-law boss her around to an incredible extent and her fiance walk all over her, and her only response is to buy new underwear and faint when shocked. But she also saves said fiance’s backside, fights her way out of an attempted rape and escapes into the sequal (not a very elegant transition, I might add – Pierce might as well just have ended the novel with a big sign saying: NOW BUY THE NEXT VOLUME!).
Jane is definitely acting, strongly and independently – but only when hard pressed. Is this the new feminine ideal, I wonder? A woman who can hold her own and defend herself, but who only does so as a last resort?
I always try to avoid reading the blurp because it usually spoils the ending or says something completely wrong. But on this novel it’s on the front cover where you really can’t miss it: ”A master of illusion” it says. That must have been taken from a review of another of Thomas’ books, because it most certainly has nothing to do with Our Tragic Universe. I hoped for a The Magus-like mindfuck, but the only illusion is that of this being an outstanding novel.
I spent all the time reading this novel waiting for it to start. And then it ended. I guess this was an attempt at writing “the storyless story” that it mentions over and over again, but in that case, Thomas does not succeed. There’s lots of stories here, they’re just never explored, and while it’s deliberate, it doesn’t work. Nothing other comes of it than that very irritating feeling of waiting for the plot to take off.
Of course the storyless story is possible. It’s not exactly a new thought. James Joyce pulled it off, and that was 90 years ago. So why explore the notion again now with an air of doing something completely new? And why wrap it up in metaphysical lectures, science fiction, sock knitting, tarot cards, a supernatural beast and a handful of love stories? I really didn’t get it.
Thanks, Emme, for reminding me to read some more of David Lodge. There’s a (sub)plot about a somewhat psychopatic student, but mostly the novel is a touching, tender description of the transition from middle to old age and the feeling of being cut off from the world – partly in a physical sense through becoming deaf. It’s also a very funny novel. Lodge is a keen observer and can be both poignant and hilarious. A small gem of a novel.