Sitt ansiktes avtryck, eller stenens begär by Agneta Enckell

det fanns något jag vägrade, som jag har glömt.

var jag ska gå, den höga tonens brytningspunkt mot tystnad, glas, blickens avtryck.

vi drömmer kanske inte, har just vaknat.

kanske inte tänkta, avslöjade.                          den maktlösheten

(1998)

Versboken by Britt G. Hallqvist (1969)

Disaster Supplies: May

Vad finns det kvar åt oss som nu behöver

vartenda ord som svarar mot ett gränslöst

i omätbara avstånd utlagt Hades.

Harry Martinson, Aniara (1956)

Bakom garden by Åsa Sandell

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

Need to think about this for a while.

Disaster Supplies: December

/... / En del ögon är alltid släckta
Där sover dåsiga drömska djur
som för alltid gått ur vintern
Drömdjur, skrämseldjur
Kallblodiga med förhårdnade naglar
I evighet utstötta ur rasen /.../


Katarina Frostenson, Huset är kvinnligt / Rena Land (1980)

Kent - Texter om Sveriges största rockband - Edited by Håkan Steen

A collection of interviews, album/concert reviews and other articles from 1991-2006, all on the subject of Swedish band Kent. 


There was a time when I used to say I was all about hip hop - and Kent. Some thirteen years later, I'm sad to admit I've grown out of keeping up with the rap game. Kent, however, strangely remain as close as before. 


Perhaps it has to do with the fact that one has to fight so hard to love this country during these snowless winters. Especially in November, which happens to be a typical release month for new Kent albums. 


Or maybe it's just that even I have a lonesome middle-aged white male inside of me, a man who sits in a dark room with a bottle, longing for some understanding (and 80's pop)?


It's a good collection.

Hundra procent fett by Liv Strömquist

Liv Strömquist is a genius. 


In fact, I'd say she's the funniest Swedish comic book artist of all time. Or, let me rephrase that, even: Strömquist's the funniest comic book artist of all time period. 


And Hundra procent fett is just the beginning. 

Zelda by Lina Neidestam

I looooove Zelda. 


And am really looking forward to Lina Neidestam's next project, feminist sex comic Maran. 

Allt är allrajt by Emma Rendel

I was amazed by Emma Rendel's Motherkiller work in Swedish comics mag Hjälp, wanted to take every page and frame it. Most stories in Allt är allrajt are also genius, the only thing I have a slight problem with is the font used inside and the cover design that seems a little cheap and out of place (for such great content).

Fulheten by Nanna Johansson

Oh, Nanna Johansson.

Till mina vänner och ovänner by Loka Kanarp

As Café Edenborg was closing, they had all books on sale (except the Vertigo ones). And between Nanna Johansson's Fulheten that I've been wanting to get for a long while, a Tafdrup that seemed nice, the newly translated version of Kafka's The Trial and some novel about masculinity (!), Loka Kanarp's comic book album from 2006 caught my eye. Why haven't I read it before?

I've been reading her great blog for at least a year, her contribution to the Samtidigt anthology and the comics in Hjälp.

Some of the stories in Till mina vänner och ovänner (To My Friends and Enemies) remind me a lot moodwise of my favourite Adrian Tomine - however told from a feminist standpoint, which of course, is a plus. Broken hearts and friendships, working at Mc Donald's, turning hetero and the stuffed animals at The Swedish Museum of Natural History (that I recently visited, seeing the same things) - it all makes for a great read.

In September Loka's new album Pärlor och patroner (Pearls and Bullets) will be out, a collection of single page comics on the subject of historical women. I'm looking forward to that one a lot.

Oh, and I forgot to mention: Loka is a wonder of style. Look here.

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.

Ann Jäderlund

Being a sucker for Swedish poet Katarina Frostenson, I'm wondering why I never got to reading any of her contemporaries. Perhaps because I never really felt the need to. At the moment, I'm going through some of Ann Jäderlund's work. I started off with the first three collections: Vimpelstaden, Som en gång varit äng, Snart går jag i sommaren ut and one of the later, I en cylinder i vattnet av vattengråt.

During my first read I had a hard time connecting to the work. It seemed to lack the friction, the consonants, the ugliness and the choruses I usually like my poetry to contain. It felt like the words were just pouring through the pages and that I failed to get a hold of them. Liking my poetry sort of harsh and German-like, Jäderlund's sentences seemed too French to me; too general, too romantic, too sensual, flowy and sleek. Ingratiating, perhaps.

Except for Snart går jag i sommaren ut, which is a horrific, haunting sort of tale, nothing else really did it for me.

But then I came around for a second read. Some time had passed and suddenly something had happened. A change of heart.

Jag har en stad i fickan, jag
har den här natten
som ska komma, hennes
spensliga hjärta

(from Sång för en man i solen, Vimpelstaden)

I suppose that quickly forming an opinion of poetry is always ungrateful. Plus, it has so much to do with mood. Reading the latest novel by Nina Bouraoui at the same time helped, though ('s what I said, Jäderlund + French = True).

Ah well. I am not done yet.

Du är en annan spegel det går inte bort

(from En stråle blod, originally meant to be contained in Som en gång varit äng)

Något bara kvinnor kan. Normer, biologi och graviditet by Ulrika Lorentzi (Swedish only)

Swedish journalist Ulrika Lorentzi has written a great book about pregnancy and, to some extent, parenthood. Great intervews with queer feminist Tiina Rosenberg and feminist Ebba Witt Brattström. Read it. Get it here.

Lorentzi's blog (in Swedish).

Det är bara lite AIDS by Sara Granér

You can't handle the truth.

Dotterbolaget Antologin

Dotterbolaget - the anthology: all the hilarious girls and a few more!

Except for my usual laugh out loud favourites Liv Strömquist, Sara Granér and Lina Neidestam, others worth mentioning are:

Berit Viklund
Erika Eklund
Nanna Johansson
Sara Hansson (invitation is needed)

Time to visit your local comics dealer.

Krokodilstaden by Knut Larsson

Something like five years in the making, Knut Larsson's latest is finally out. Wordless and wonderful as ever.

Go get it.

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.

Svart som Silver by Bruno K. Öijer

I am amazed over the fact that a whole pice of work can seem so distant, right up to the very end, where it just suddenly grabs a tight hold.

ingen kan råna dej på din sorg

Bruno K. Öijer was my first favourite Swedish poet when I was younger. I saw him at Orionteatern a few years back, think it was in 2002, a year after Dimman av allt, the work that ended the magnificent trilogy after Medan giftet verkar (1990) and Det förlorade ordet (1995). In Dimman av allt, Öijer wrote about a dead mother; his mother, all mothers:



vad du än fick med dej
hoppas jag att du kan ta fram det ibland
och utan att bli ledsen
utan att längta tillbaka hit

This latest work seems to lack the dirt I always felt came with Öijer's poetry. It's cleaner, he seems older, more together; as if he was a voice in an awful world he has finally started coming to terms with. Not always a bad thing, but not that interesting either. Except for the ending.

Or is it that I am older?

A re-read or two might clear things up. After all, it's Öijer.