Constantly Reading: T.S. Eliot

What images return
O my daughter.

[.]

Bowsprit cracked with ice and paint cracked with heat.
I made this, I have forgotten
And remember.

[.]

Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my own.

[.]

Living to live in a world of time beyond me, let me
Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken,
The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.


From Marina

.
.
.

Sveda by Cecilia Persson

Recently read an interesting interview with Cecilia Persson in the latest issue of the great Swedish periodical called Slut (as in the Swedish word for end, nothing else), about her novel Sveda - on growing up with a mentally ill mother and, to some extent, about Sylvia Plath. The book contains a little bit of everything: clippings, poetry, prose, letters. It didn't really leave me with much, but made for a fairly good read, especially as the subject does interest me a lot.

Get it here.

Currently Reading: Sontag

Susan Sontag by Annie Leibovitz.

Reading Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors, as I've been meaning to do since I read the first sentences a few years back:

Illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds a dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.

I'm looking forward to finishing it.

Summer Restlessness

Maggie Mui from Read or Die the TV

I am currently sitting in my window, waiting for Anders Nilsen's eleventh issue of Big Questions that's going to be out this coming autumn. In the meantime I'm commenting away at Bokhora, trying to finish my third Jenny Diski in a row, wondering why I've been such a bad fiction reader so far this year - 17% is quite bad, although 50% comics is kinda good.

Female authors 60%, Male authors 40%
Fiction 17%, Non-Fiction 25%, Comics 50%, Poetry 8%
In Swedish 42%, In English 58%
Swedish authors 20%, Others 80%

After a good cleaning my bedroom no longer looks like Yomiko Readman's:



Which I suppose is a good thing.

Stranger on a Train by Jenny Diski

I am on a Diski roll.

Skating to Antarctica by Jenny Diski

The last thing I heard before boarding the first flight towards Antarctica in February, was H. telling me to read this. I already knew about it, but had been hesitant to read it; before this trip Antarctica was a dream that I didn't want to spoil with other people's recollections of it. And when I suddenly found myself going there, I didn't want to be disturbed by other experiences of it, wanted to find my own words to describe it. Naturally, I found the book in the M.S. National Geographic Endeavour library, opened it every now and then, decided not to read it, came back to make sure it was still there and not in the hands of any of my fellow American passengers... This went on during the whole trip.

If there is something I am good at, it's knowing the right time to read a certain novel. Sometimes I start reading a book that opens so fantastically that I have to leave it be for a while (which is why I still haven't been able to read Susan Sontag's Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphor, Lotta Lotass' Min röst skall nu komma från en annan plats i rummet, or Harry Martinson's Aniara). Now almost four months have passed since I returned, and the other day I just couldn't resist this Skating any longer, as I felt a sudden pang of loss walking about a bookstore, missing the ice so much.

"I am not entirely content with the degree of whiteness in my life."

Jenny Diski is almost too on point. The way she describes her trip and the other (mostly American) passengers:

"Photography is a modern, miniature form of colonization."

And also her recollection of a quite disturbing childhood and the teenage years spent moving between mental institutions and foster care; her mother leaving her when she was 16 never to return, never even calling, writing.

There is so much about this memoir that I can relate to, there's no wonder it took me such a long time and all this lingering about to read it.

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.

Arboga

Always bad news from the Ouija board


Wiki

The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 by Thomas Ott

Finally the new Thomas Ott (remember the last). I was going to save it for the perfect reading moment, but literally halfway out of bed this morning I figured I could at least have a little look at the first page - and before I knew it half an hour had past and 100 or so pages had ben scanned. Couldn't help it. I blame the genius. Oh, and it seems like it's his first full-length graphic novel, too.

Over at Fantagraphics there's a downloadable chapter for registered users, they also put up this on their Flickr.

By the way, fans of Ott might want to have a look at the wonderful cover for Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle:



That whole Penguin series with favourite artists' jackets I would like to have just to hold. Anders Nilsen, Daniel Clowes, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, it's too much!

Not Finishing #2 - Summer Plans

I know I've been writing about not finishing before, out of those I've actually only finished number 2 and 3 on the list. This here is more like some projects I'll try to take on this summer:

Diaries:
Lars Norén - En Dramatikers dagbok
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
The Diary of Virginia Woolf (1915-1919)

Coming of Age:
Angelica Garnett - Deceived with Kindness
Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Jenny Erpenbeck - Wörterbuch
Nina Bouraoui - La Vie Heureuse
Mare Kandre - Aliide, Aliide
Maria Gripe - Skuggan över Stenbänken
Katarina Frostenson - Berättelser från Dom

Poetry:
Ted Hughes - Birthday Letters

Short Stories:
Franz Kafka - En Svältkonstnär (the short stories published during K's lifetime)

Non-Fiction:
Susan Sontag - Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors
Nancy Huston - Journal de la Création
Katarina Wennstam - En Riktig Våldtäktsman
Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own

Fiction:
Djuna Barnes - Nightwood
Ying Chen - Immobile
Lotta Lotass - Min Röst Skall Nu Komma från En Annan Plats i Rummet
Jeanette Winterson - Gut Symmetries
Marisha Pessl - Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Russell Hoban - Turtle Diary (re-read)


Yeah well. Let's see.

The Horror #1

My grandmother was persistent when I was a kid:

1. She always did my eggs runny although I hated it (I still shiver at the mere thought)
2. She kept on reading Struwwelpeter (Pelle Snusk) to me although it scared the s**t out of me (and still kind of does)

Struwwelpeter by Heinrich Hoffman (1809-1894) was written as a children's book and I bet the parents of the mid-1840's thought it was really practical and nice to teach their kids some good ol' morals. What good it was to me I'm much less sure of, I was scared to death by Slovenly Peter and even more by the tailor in The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb:



"The door flew open, in he ran,
The great, long, red-legged scissorman.
Oh! children, see! the tailor's come
And caught our little Suck-a-Thumb.

Snip! Snap! Snip! the scissors go;
And Conrad cries out - Oh! Oh! Oh!
Snip! Snap! Snip! They go so fast;
That both his thumbs are off at last."

It did not make me quit sucking my thumbs, neither to stop biting my nails.

Read it all here.

Read a new take on the stories here.

No Tears for Queers by Johan Hilton

Swedish journalist Johan Hilton's report on gay men and hate crimes really got to me. Well-written and on point, oftentimes haunting, quite a page turner.

Read an excerpt (in Swedish).