Du är rötterna som sover vid mina fötter och håller jorden på plats by Eli Levén

Need to think about this for a while.

The Old Child by Jenny Erpenbeck

A girl who appears to be hewn from a single block of wood is found in the middle of the street one day, holding a bucket. Nobody knows who she is or where she's going - neither does she. The Police take her to the city's orphanage where she does all she can not to be noticed, to become the lowest ranked child of all.

Seldomly have I had the opportunity to read a novel that describes the hopelessness of being human so well, philosophically. The only stories I can think of at the moment that appeal to me personally, would be Woolf's Orlando and Kafka's Metamorphosis. The Old Child is, with the dry tone and that wonderful precocious style sort of Kafkaesque, however feminist. That is: not bad at all. 

Read the beginning here. 

L'Ingratitude by Ying Chen

The spirit of a young Chinese woman tells the story of her life and death in relation to her strict mother. 

Ying Chen's third novel was the first translated into Swedish, only followed by Immobile.

I have a feeling it could have been translated differently. After all, I am a great fan of the "simple" writing style - and having read a rather good portion of Duras' late work in Swedish I know it can translate quite successfully from the French. In this case it lacks flow and precision.  

However, there is something beautiful going on between the lines, in the non-specific way Ying describes the characters and their surroundings. I'll go for Immobile next. 

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

Not quite as refined as the stories in Unaccustomed Earth, but still a good portion of before-sleep reading.

I, etcetera by Susan Sontag

Colonialists collect.

(From Project for a Trip to China)

8 shorts by Sontag, most of them deconstructive in some way. Personally, I enjoyed Project for a Trip to China, a sort of collection of lists, quotes and tables all on the subject of traveling to China / whether or not the protagonist could have been conceived in China; and Debriefing, a restless portrayal of the relationship of two friends, ending with death.

In the future I will try to get hold of this book (on the page quoted, Sontag talks about Debriefing).

Min röst skall nu komma från en annan plats i rummet by Lotta Lotass

I've been waiting for the right moment to read this novel since probably 2006 when it came out. Even though it's been standing in my book shelf the whole time. Perhaps it's the same thing as with Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors, the first page striking a brilliant chord that makes for a quite attentive read that I might not be up to at the time.

Där bakom gestaltlös, utan skapnad, väntar med famlande, väntar med skakande ännu oformade händer det som snart skall komma.
Står med sluttande och oformlig gestalt och framåtböjd och lyssnar.

And on page 2:

Nu i formlöshet som blundar,
vänder sig om på sin andra sida,
samlar sig till något som är likt en skepnad,
andas ut, reser sig upp och i sin fulla längd och tar ett första steg och börjar gå.

I cannot recall a more poetic and vivid description of the birth of evil. And the way Lotass takes the reader inside 5 serial killers' minds is extraordinary. How she can describe the environments in and around Las Vegas; the dams, the fair grounds, without using any names or English words, even, is quite unique.

I'm very glad that Lotass will become a member of the Swedish Academy on December, 20.

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Eight short stories touching the subject of Bengali families and betweenship. Not caring much about short stories I'm actually quite happily surprised. Especially by the first story, about a woman who feels pressured to invite her seemingly lonely father to live with her and her family; pressured by the customs of their culture. It's realistic and low key, as all of the stories. Most of all, however: it's wonderfully easy to identify with the characters. Particularly as a second generationer.

I definitely need to read more by Lahiri.

Appelez-moi par mon prénom by Nina Bouraoui

When I am forced to, I sometimes read in French. It's a very exclusive sort of phenomenon, that usually has to do with some ouevre by Marguerite Duras that was never translated to Swedish (as I refuse to read her work in English). Or, as in this case, a new novel by Nina Bouraoui.

I cannot even start to describe what her (mid to later) work means to me. So while I'm not doing that I'll just share the fact that I have a really hard time viewing her stories from the outside. Hers is a voice that resonates within me to a degree I am afraid to really analyze any further.

Appelez-moi par mon prénom, which has a lot to do with M.D's Yann Andrea Steiner, is the story of a female writer and her younger reader. They have met briefly at a reading, but it is in the virtual world they begin their story.

P. existait dans une réalité que je ne partageais pas. Je m'enfermais dans un rêve. J'avais des projets mais je n'arrivais pas à travailler. Je gardais les mains vides, avançant sans mots.

The light of the novel is quite fair, almost summer blonde. There is not much resistance, it is mostly just a collection of thoughts and images. It is sweet.

Un peu plus tard:

I stumbled across this interview. And N.B. herself reading an excerpt of the novel over at Le blog à plumes!

And another interview:

Nina Bouraoui
Uploaded by Mediapart

Lubiewo by Michał Witkowski

Lubiewo, my love.

The author and his webpage.

Currently Reading: Mixed

I came across Rebecca Walker's memoir Black White and Jewish in the Women's Studies section at Borders, Kuala Lumpur. And then I couldn't help reading her introduction to the very promising anthology Mixed - an Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience. Now I am wondering how it's possible to write a mere 5-paged forword that can make people cry.

"But not one of us has ever been a cracked plate. We have only held the fractured projections of others, innocently imbibing harmful judgments that were not our own. This mindless absorption of the negative mythologies of others is a source of great misery in our lives. I fear this self-sabotage much more than garden-variety racism, for it has the power to destroy from within that which outwardly, physically cannot be denied. Namely, that multiracial people exist, that we call all categories into question, and that, if we can survive this internal battle, we embody a different tomorrow. But if we remain mesmerized by the idea of ourselves as eternally broken, we all but guarantee the loss of our lives as fully functional, whole human beings."

More info on the anthology here.

Towelhead by Alicia Erian

The world is not safe outside Café Edenborg.

This morning I decided to pass by Sosta, which is sort of Stockholm's best Italian espresso bar. On my way up to order, I bumped into a young Asian Swedish woman on her way out. The moment she left, the barista and some fancy dressed-all-in-plaid (hurt the eye!) bloke with slick hair started going on about Asian women, very bluntly trying to tell different nationalities apart by their looks. Sexist and racist; need I tell you that the word "gook" was used? Instead of telling them like was, which I probably would have if I'd been more awake, I downed my coffee and got the F out of there. Feeling like shit.

One of the worst things about being of mixed race is getting to hear all sides of people's trash talking. Cause we "sort of" pass. But the worst by far, of course, is the fact that a lot of times we get it from our own families. With divorced parents (well, separated), I've had my fair share.

Alicia Erian's Towelhead is a coming-of-age novel set in the 90's about 13 year old Jasira. She's being sent to live alone with her Lebanese dad, Rifat, for the first time in her life, after her mother's jealous outbreak over the fact that her boyfriend takes an abnormal liking in her. Rifat, on his part, is rather strict and sometimes overly violent.

"Once, a little kid got confused and drifted under the lane divider [of a swimming pool, blogger's note], and Daddy had to stop in mid-stroke. I thought he would probably yell at the kid, but he just smiled and waited for him to get out of the way. I saw then that everything would be fine between me and Daddy if only we were strangers."

Jasira has a hard time figuring her parents out, oftentimes caught in-between because of the selfish ways in which they handle their arguments. She deals with typical teenage issues: daughterhood, a sexual awakening, guilt. And a betweenship due to her being Arab American, ashamed by her father's weird ways and always thought to be latina at school. Or getting called towelhead by her neighbours. However, the story turns extreme after she starts babysitting her neighbours' brat of a son, starting when she finds his father's Playboy mags, and ending in a very serious, unspeakable place.

Despite the awful things Jasira goes through, the novel is laugh out loud funny at times, a page-turner dealing with teenage girl issues in a way I have never before encountered. I'm amazed.

Read the first chapter here.

Hear Alicia Erian read an excerpt over at NY Times (you might need to sign up, but NY Times is always worth it).

Towelhead has been made into a movie by the great Alan Ball, with the genious Peter Macdissi as Rifat. I can't wait to see it. Watch the movie trailer here.

Currently Reading: July

Trying to stay awake on the way to K.L.

"This is the best costume for today."

Avant les hommes by Nina Bouraoui (Swe)

Yes, I did read it in French when it just came out. But I'm currently in Phuket International Airport waiting for my Air Asia flight to take me to K.L, and I'm bored.

I did also prefer reading this novel in French. Not that it's badly translated - but there is something about the flow that doesn't really translate too well into Swedish. Although I do remember reading it in French thinking someone will have to tell the translator not to translate the word "shit" into something stupid. Which she certainly did. "Brass" in Swedish is a word only used by peeps older than 40 (definitely not by teenagers now), it reeks of the 70's, in a bad way. Every time I read it I shiver.

Otherwise, this novel is a bit like Mes mauvaises pensées, as if written in one long sentence. Sometimes you have to catch your breath, the same way I had to do when I was a kid, reading The Fantastic Four comic books until I almost saw fire and devils coming out of the pages.

Att älska män är min allra största tystnad, och det största krig som jag måste föra. Jag vill vinna, jag vill vara bland dem som liknar mig.

Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban

The dearest re-read.

Someone told me to just see Harold and Maude without knowing anything about it. I hereby tell you to read this novel without looking it up any further.

Go for Abe Books or Bokbörsen.

Thanks to H.

Weight by Jeanette Winterson

So this was the time to read it, in South Georgia. I have been trying many times before, without finding that perfect moment; not being able to carry all this. Weight. Winterson was one of the first authors asked by Canongate to rewrite an old myth, her focus being Atlas and to some extent Hercules. And writing, choosing your battles:

”If you go on believing in the fiction of your own parents, it is difficult to construct any narrative of your own.”

Now that is what this past year has been all about.

”I try not to burn up my world with rage.
It is so hard.”

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson

I am wondering why most of Winterson's novels come with such horrid covers. Naked women, flowers and fruits galore, it makes for an almost embarrassing read. Who are they for? I mean, she writes about love and gender in the most wonderful way, but who is supposed to yearn reading these thingies by the awful Harlequinesque look of them? Do these tacky naked bodies make more women read her? Men? Americans? The only cover that's really acceptable, even beautiful, is Weight, published by Canongate.

"As I embalm you in my memory, the first thing I shall do is to hook out your brain through your accomodating orifices."

That line does not go with that cover. Moreover, that line made me remember the first time I read about Ancient Egypt in school and how terrified I was of the mummification process. A quite repressed thought, merci beaucoup.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

"Literature since it ate all these dinners must be growing really corpulent."

Once upon a time I borrowed this book from a certain English teacher of mine. I remember it being sort of a grand thing to be let into her little library to take one or two books to read over summer, and English being my only strong subject at the time, I was a tad proud. I did begin reading it, but couldn't for some reason get through the first page. I suppose I suffered from the same illness then as I do now, usually taking for ever just to choose which book/s to read, going through a tedious amount of little actions every time and always ending up reading three or four at a time anyway.

"Haunted! ever since I was a child."

When I was a kid I sometimes dreamed I was let into a supermarket and that I could take all the candy I wanted, but only for sixty seconds or so. I always woke up totally stressed, before that minute had passed. My stepfather said the interpretation would be that I was a greedy person, which made my old therapist really mad some twenty years later. I do have similar dreams these days, but then they're usually about books. Of course.

"We can, if we have the resolution, turn the hussy, Memory, and all her ragtag and bobtail out of the house."

I love Orlando.

.

The whole book can be found online here.

Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson

"Parents want to see themselves passed on in their children. It comforts them to recognize a twitch of the head or a way of talking. If there are no points of recognition, if the child is genuinely alien, they do their best to feed and clothe, but they don't love. Not in the transforming way of love."

The Dog-Woman, this enormous lady who keeps dogs for racing and fighting in 17th century London, finds the baby boy Jordan in the Thames and takes care of him as if he was her own. Not knowing love herself, she worries about not being able to teach him about it; worries he'll keep following his dreams, sailing away for ever.

My literary theme for our trip to India happened to become European novels in historical settings, from Blanche and Marie, to this, to Orlando, and they do have a lot in common, all touching the subjects of time, love and gender. I'm sure loving it in a way I never thoght I would.

Take a good look at Jeanette Winterson's website.

The Book about Blanche and Marie by Per Olov Enquist

P.O. Enquist was the first writer to give me faith in Swedish literature. For real. It may sound really strange, I'm very aware of that, but until I read Downfall - a Love Story (Swe: Nedstörtad ängel) I was only interested in ntozake shange and Nuyorican poetry. Downfall is still one of the most perfect novels I know, the length, style, love, love... The Book about Blanche and Marie is not as perfect, but still really really beautiful. Enquist writes so stylishly, has a true interest in the subject of love; weaves in other stories he's written about, meditates over everything. The love stories of Blanche Wittman and Marie Curie are, the way he's interpreted them, fantastic and magical. Go read it.

Avant les hommes by Nina Bouraoui

It is a story about a young boy and his thoughts during the summer that seems to be the last 'avant les hommes'. He dreams about a boy, he is empty before his mother, he smokes to feel something else.

J'ai envie d'un homme parce que j'ai envie d'une autre vie que la mienne, j'ai envie qu'on me raconte une histoire, j'ai envie de savoir comment cela se passe ailleurs, dans les autres cerveaux, j'ai envie que l'on me change la tête.