always tired now

i can't really focus long enough to write anything substantial. i got a translated french novel from a friend that i started reading yesterday (original title Ensemble, c'est tout from 2005), by anna gavalda. (there's a movie too, but i haven't seen it.) so far i really like it but i sense a possible anxiety-ridden journey with this book. possibly mine. possibly camille's. there's something very french about it, and while it's seductive it's also neurotic. and i get so affected.

i've been really stressed lately, lots of headaches, stiff muscles and messy dreams, so maybe it's not the best of ideas. i want to get better, not worse. i had to put down paul auster's new york trilogy a few weeks ago cos it was so disturbing i got anxious just thinking about continuing reading it. it's brilliant but i'm way too unstable for it right now. i need to read something safe. maybe i should just re-read some of my less angsty favorites for a while. like hitchhiker's guide or something.

1984

yesterday on the train back home from work the guy next to me was reading 1984 and i just wanted to hug him and tell him he was reading one of my favorite books of all time, but i didn't. i hope he knows anyway.

so far so good

so, it's september now. (what?!) what better time is there to review the year so far. (stay with me here.)

so far this year i've read 23 books. i keep this information not in my brain but in my reading diary i started using in may of last year, because, obviously, who really remembers what they've read. had i not had the diary i'd never remembered what i read a month ago, let alone 6 months, or a year ago. so, yay for reading diaries! it's not a very elaborate thing, i only record title, author, date and a few key words or notes about it, so no pressure.

so in order of appearance, this is it.

1. our band could be your life by michael azerrad. this lovely little book of 500 pages is subtitled "scenes from the american indie underground 1981-1991" and covers a whole line of important bands and indie labels, starting with the d.c. hardcore scene (and sst) and moving west to olympia with k records and sub pop. some of the bands covered is black flag, minutemen, hüsker dü, sonic youth, dinosaur jr, the replacements, fugazi, beat happening and mudhoney. it's a very nerdy and really interesting book, especially if you, like me, have an insatiable need for all things music-related.
   
   
   
2. the virgin suicides by jeffrey eugencides. actually i started reading this last year when i was in glasgow, but put it down cos i found it boring. i really loved the movie so i was greatly disappointed with the book, i actually had to force myself to finish it, even if it's not very long. my tip is, watch the movie instead.
   
   
   
3. the bell jar by sylvia plath. finally i got what the title actually means! at first a bit confusing but in the end things kind of fall into place.
   
   
4. jenny by jonas gardell. i liked it before i even read it since it has my name on it, but really it didn't need that circumstance to lean on, it stands very well on its own. it's a beautifully written story. jonas is one of my favourite swedish authors in that he writes poetic and doesn't duck heavy and tragic content, such as violence, bullying, rape, abuse and the like.
   
   
5. living my life by emma goldman. what a woman! this is emma's abridged autobiography, and it's still on over 550 pages! she's truly a fascinating woman. there's a lot of late 1800-early 1900 history in here, both on russia and on the u.s. i'm no history expert of any kind but there were things in here that i've never ever heard of and that clearly has been written out of history by the people who "won". it's a personal inside account on what went on in the american workers movement during this time and on the revolution in russia and its aftermaths. it's very dense and took some time to read but it was worth it.
   
   
6. black girl/white girl by joyce carol oates. my first novel by her. has lots of contrast; white - black, rich - poor, religion - atheism, prejudice - open-mindedness, shielding - non-shielding. my strongest memory is that it was haunting.
   
   
7. bitch - in praise of difficult women by elizabeth wurtzel. at times it was a bit ranting, but mostly it's smart and interesting. it's typical wurtzel in style and with lots of pop culture. according to herself in her second memoir (more, now, again, 2001) she was high a lot of the time when writing this, but i can't really say that you can tell, except maybe for it being very long.
   
   
8. america the beautiful by moon unit zappa. i liked it! i had similarities to what francesca lia block writes and not only the setting. lots of art and music.
   
   
9. prime by poppy z brite. sequel to liquor and as everything poppy, really good.
   
   
10. soul kitchen by poppy z brite. sequel to prime and also great. poppy is one of my absolute favorite writers.
    
    
11. the gum thief by douglas coupland. oh, man. as much as i love my favorite canadian's style and books, this one was a bit of a disappointment. it's hard to describe it as strange, cos most of his stories are a bit strange, but this was stranger. it was still good, but it wasn't great, which i always expect and almost always receive from coupland.
    
    
12. special topics in calamity physics by marisha pessl. i became very infatuated with this novel. i still am! its form doesn't fit its contents, but because of that i really does; it's really a coming-of-age kind of story but in an academic form and a kind of dense but also poetic and beautiful language. there's a lot of contrasts here. also there's mystery! i don't know if the countless references to music, literature, poetry, theatre and movies (mostly old ones) are real of phony, but it doesn't really matter cos it's credible enough to work perfectly in the story.
    
    
13. the amethyst child by sarah singleton. an ok book for teenagers with everything it should have; friendship, summer holiday, parents who just don't get it, falling in love, identification.. and a cult!
    
    
14. the devil you know by poppy z brite. a collection of short stories. some good, some better.
    
    
15. this book will save your life by a.m. homes. i believe i wrote about this, yeah? i want donuts!
    
    
16. garnethill by denise mina. i rarely read crime, but i would never hesitate to pick up a novel by denise mina. i wrote about this as well, see the link above.
    
    
17. the mistress's daughter by a.m. homes. a very very honest and raw autobiography mostly revolving around her adoption and when as an adult she came in contact with her biological parents. disturbing and interesting.
    
    
18. all families are psychotic by douglas coupland. a bit crazier than usually but very sweet.
    
    
19. exile by denise mina. book no 2 in the garnethill trilogy. maureen o'donnell's crazy life continues with a new suspicious murder. well written and very thrilling.
    
    
20. resolution by denise mina. book no 3 in the garnethill trilogy. great as before.
    
    
21. moral disorder by margaret atwood. my first book by atwood. i still can't really tell what this story is actually about but i liked reading it. it's a bit fragmented and it seems like it's made up of shorter stories that wasn't really meant to go together from the beginning, maybe. there were odd things about it, like the voice of the narrator changed between first person and second person over the chapters for no apparent reason. but all in all i enjoyed it. i plan to read her more known novels (the handmaid's tale and oryx and crake) in a not so far future.
    
    
22. the brooklyn follies by paul auster. a truly awesome novel! very inspiring and extremely well written. i now have a huge crush on paul auster!
    
    
23. låt den rätte komma in by john ajvide lindqvist. an impressive vampire/horror story set in a working-class suburb to stockholm in 1981. i'm so impressed by this that i scarcely know what to say about it. it's well written, totally believable, thrilling and sweet! (available as english translation)

this is normally about what i read in a year so that must mean i get 4 months extra this year. i have a pile of book to read next (more paul auster and john ajvide lindqvist to start with) but if you should have read something really great lately, please tell me! and as for you; now you have lots to pick from. if you don't know what to read next, don't blame it on me.

the france post

ok, so france was nice. and by nice i mean warm, still, relaxing and a whole lot of non-s; non-home, non-stress, non-.. well, you get the picture.

i've uploaded a bunch of the photos i took onto my flickr page if you want graphics.

we didn't really do much. we were mostly just hanging out. we did visit the city of narbonne one day and had a look at their 700 year old cathedral, which was no match for st peter's in rome, but still pretty awesome, and older. for that matter, there isn't much on this planet that IS a match for st peter's - it's fucking huge! that would be the pyramids in egypt or something in their league. i'm so not religious, but there's something really awesome about cathedrals that i can't help but be pulled into totally. i saw st peter's 3 years ago and i still haven't quite grasped its awesomeness - and by awesome i mean the original meaning of the word, not the hot dog.

i read a lot, since i wasn't interrupted by the gizmos of the modern world. i especially loved two of the novels i read, this book will save your life by a.m. homes, and garnethill by denise mina. two very different novels but oh so good. read them!

the former takes you to the world of richard novac, a retired stock market person (what the fuck do i know about that?), who finds himself being cut off of the world in his fancy los angeles house only seeing his housekeeper, his personal trainer and dietist, and he's in pain, excruciating pain. was it there before and he didn't notice or did it just come? he can't tell, he doesn't know, but he feels an enormous urge to connect. so he does, in his own way. the novel is full of odd characters and a lot of warmth, but also harsh reality, though seen through richard's eyes. homes' use of language is captivating in a simple way and her characters, though odd, feels very real. i really loved this one.

the latter is actually a crime novel, oddly enough, cos generally i don't care for crime novels, but garnethill i found extraordinary. for once the protagonist isn't a middle aged alcoholic divorcee ex-cop man, but a young woman with a strike of bad luck. and it is gender aware!

maureen's an incest "surviver" with a fucked-up family; dad gone, mom alcoholic and in denial about the abuse, brother a drug-dealer, one sister pretending they're a happy family and one sister escaped to london. she's also been a patient at a psychiatric hospital a couple of years back. taking place in glasgow, scotland (which, i guess, is part of its appeal to me since i've been there) it starts with maureen, one morning after coming home late drunk and passing out the night before, finding her married therapist boyfriend dead in her livingroom with his throat cut. the police seems interested in pinning it on her and.. damn, i'm really bad at making whodunnit-stories sound interesting. here's what someone else has written;

Viewed in turn by the police as a suspect and as an uncooperative, unstable witness, Maureen is even suspected by her alcoholic mother and self-serving sisters of being involved. Worse than that, the police won't tell her anything about Douglas's death.
Panic-stricken and feeling betrayed by friends and family, Maureen begins to doubt her own version of events. She retraces Douglas's desperate last days and picks up a horrifying trail of rape, deception...and suppressed scandal at a local psychiatric hospital where she had been an inmate. But the patients won't talk and the staff are afraid, and when a second brutalized corpse is discovered, Maureen realises that unless she gets to the killer first, her life is in danger.

ok, so you really have to read these ones. promise!

ok, so i really have to sleep now.

hello rain

i'm back from beautiful france, rested and happier. also with a crappy stomach; seriously, how do they survive eating all that white bread and french cheese? i do love it, baguettes with brie or camembert, but when i got back my stomach was like, fibers! fibers! dark bread! oatmeal! i can't object.

it's amazing how much catch up one has to do after just two weeks. it takes forever too. possible cos i'm slower post-france than pre-france.

anyway. this is not the france-post, i'm too tired, this is the i made it home safe-post. a few notes:

i almost broke my pinkie when i was doing post-vacation laundry yesterday (incidental; i tripped on the stairs and tried to brace myself and hit my finger), however it survived a bit swollen but intact.

there was a postcard from armenia for me when i got back, from my awesome american friend dave, who's totally enabling all my obsessions and always helps me further my collections. he's also awesome enough to send the symbiosis (that's me, my lover and my sister) shoes, since they cost a fortune in this country. we love dave, he is our favorite enabler in the whole world.

while i've been gone, there has been a sort of video competition going on over at pretending to be japanese. it's sad to only be here for the aftermaths.

i saw cat power live yesterday! yay! she was awesome, so totally different from the other two times i've been her. sober (that helps), happy - like she was actually enjoying being on stage. it's a good change.

cat power at folkets park malmö june 7.

i've also read two novels that i'm dying to tell you about!

but now i really need to sleep.

oh! i almost forgot. you can pre-order juliana hatfields new album (due mid-august) now on her website, and there's a limited edition demo cd and some posters too. all the cool kids are doing it.

what matters?

one of my all-time favorite novels is high fidelity by nick hornby. the movie is also awesome. i love the novel for several reasons.

first of all i really like the language, and the tone of it. the flow of it is fantastic. you're really there, you can see the racks of records you want to go through so badly, and the awkwardness gets under your skin.

second of all, i really dig the characters. they are really real, like it says on the back of the penguin edition "oh god, i know people just like that!", we really do. rob becomes your best buddy, or worst, and you fall in love with him, or with dick. barry is.. well, he's jack black, essentially, which is one reason the movie version works so well.

third, it really appeals to the geek in me; top ten lists, obscure musical facts, pop-cultural references, anal filing systems, obsessive behavior, the focus on mixed tapes.

at one place in the book (p.91) rob ponders on something he's been talking to the others about in relation to his underlying women problem, namely what really matters, what you like or what you are like, and says that

"..the truth was that these things matter, and it's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently, or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party."

those of you who's read the book or watched the movie knows what it eventually resolves to, but whatever that is i still think this is an interesting dilemma, cos even though it's superficial and even mis-guiding to judge people on what they like, it does, after all, matter. at least to me. certainly not as much as it does to barry with his questionnaire, but still.

however, there are morons with impeccable taste, just like there are awesome persons without taste (i call them radio listeners). i think it matters what people are like, but generally i do prefer them to have good taste.

that's what i think. what do you think? i put the poll to the right up just to find out, so please click it. thanks.

oh, and for the love of god, if you haven't read the book, make sure you do that first, but fast, you only have a week before my poll closes.

calamity physics

i take it you've all heard the expression that goes something like "if you're gonna read one book this year, let it be this one". (my memory is a bit fuzzy here i admit.)

well. that book should be special topics in calamity physics (2006) by marisha pessl.

i just finished reading it and i can honestly say i've never read anything like it. it may not be the best book i've ever read, but it's certainly one of the most special books i've ever read. it had me at the first couple of pages and i just had to have more, right till the end. the characters and the plot - but also the language, her fantastic use of it - has been in my head 24-7 for the week it took to get through the 515 pages and i have no doubts as to them staying there a bit longer. i'm not quite ready to write a review yet, i'm still in a phase where i just want to throw adjectives at it. like fascinating. interesting. thrilling. heart-breaking. devouring. beautiful.

you get the idea. i'll try to gather my thoughts soon enough. here's some kind of official site i haven't quite figured out yet, and here's what some others thought of it.

brave old world

poll closed. here's making sure the world never forgets;

(as for the two of you who haven't read it yet. READ IT! there.)
1 vote for "it's brilliant!"
1 vote for "well, the plot is dull but the idea is awesome!"
1 vote for "he needs to work on his characters that huxley."
1 vote for "it's ok"

no one thought it sucked. thanks, readers.

adding to that, i actually found another old short review i wrote just after finishing reading this book. i don't think i've written any more, so this is the last. dated february 2006.

i finished reading huxley's brave new world and i must say i'm kind of disappointed. after all, it's supposed to be a classic. (if you haven't read the book, maybe you should stop reading this post now.)

while i think the background is really good; the descriptions of society, all the details, and the whole idea that's, imho, very thought-out; the actual story is un-interesting and the characters flat. it feels as if novel was the wrong form for huxley's ideas. first, the only interesting parts of the actual story is the societal descriptions and some of the long conversations between some of the characters. the rest is a series of un-interesting drama without much empathy and situations that are strained to produce dialogue; interesting for the most part, but weird. as for the characters i find them very rigid and stereotypical. the thinkers, and also most of the people in respected positions, are (obviously) men, and the women characters are, despite the accepted promiscuity in both genders, the "every one belongs to every one else" slogan and the lack of domestic situations, still made out to be more sensitive, stupider and more suppressed than the men, even in the civilized world. also all the interesting conversations were carried out by men. (why is it so common btw, in dystopias, that even though the writers create a new, different society, women are still suppressed? doesn't imagination cover women? even orwell, who i love, describe women in an objectifying way.) i don't care that it was written in the 30s or earlier; i have to ask more of an obviously talented thinker.

i can clearly see why this is an important book, but having said that it feels as if huxley didn't know how to present his really good idea so he made up a story and a few characters to carry it, and failed. unfortunately. i had high expectations on the novel, so maybe that's why i'm disappointed.

lovin poppy

originally written in february 2006 and posted on my old blog:

dear poppy z brite,

ever since i read drawing blood about ten years ago, i've considered you to be one of my favorite contemporary writers. i'm a slow reader, i probably average about 15 books a year, depending on what i'm doing for a living at the time, and i like to jump from writer to writer, which makes getting through an author's bibliography a long journey. i also, somehow, made a thing out of reading the rest of your books in order (published order i guess), which i haven't done (and the lazarus heart is still sitting on the shelf looking sad and abandon), but anyway, i just recently came to liquor.

i've read what you've written online about your "horror readers" being upset about your change of scenery and topics, and although i've always felt as if what i've liked about all your writing and your stories goes beyond the topics, i do indeed love them too, and admit i did have that genre thought in the back of my mind when i first started reading liquor.

but you proved me right. what i like about your writing absolutely goes beyond the topic. i loved liquor. the characters are brilliant, the story is interesting and believable, but mostly, the flow in your language and the way you write is just excellent! i could feel the excitement, i could smell the food and i just instinctively wanted to cook when i read it. just as i instinctively wanted to drink chartreuse (a decision i came to regret) and fuck trevor, years ago.

i'm convinced you could write a manual on how to clean a noisy machine in a factory and make it seem like the most interesting job on the planet.

love,
jenny


update, written today:

dear poppy z,

i'm currently reading prime, and is about half way through. i just felt the need to once again bow my head to your excellent writing. i'm really sorry for even doubting your ability for a second!

love,
jenny

the brave new world

so, you might have heard that ridley scott is interested in doing a movie of huxley's brave new world. ridley, the old man - a sir now apparently, who has produced and directed two of my favorite movies, blade runner and alien, and several other quite good ones - thelma & louise, 1492. i know, that was years ago, but still, couldn't be too bad, could it?

i wrote a piece here on what i think of the novel in question and since it came up again, i'm curious, how do you, my readers, feel about it? so i put up a poll here to the right. please click! thanks.

everybody's not happy now

i found a piece about dystopias, mainly brave new world and 1984, called "everybody is happy now", written in the guardian (unlimited books) recently, by margret atwood. the title comes from brave new world, for those of you who hasn't read it. i think the piece is good, as it compares the novels with what we're seeing in todays world, to see if they "measure up" and to see which one of them says more about today's society. (so read it!)

just like atwood writes, both have points. orwell with the control and surveillance us citizens have to endure from the governments in more countries than not it seems and, post-9-11, thoughcrime; and huxley with the überconsumption and promiscuity we're indulging in as well as the issue of genetic engineering and prescribed drugs.

i've read them both. i read 1984 when i was 17 and i loved it. i am a bit reluctant to re-read it cos i know that i will find things i don't like in it now, and don't want to destroy what the novel has meant to me for more than 10 years in terms of political awakenings. after all, i have since then embraced feminism and i have read a lot of things since then that i've had problems with because i see gender everywhere. this is the case with brave new world.

i wrote a review of brave new world earlier this year. here it is.

the idea behind this novel is such a great one - really one of the best sci-fi ideas i know of - that it really depresses me that huxley made a novel out of it. being a sci-fi fan and having heard so much praise over this novel, it made me disappointed reading it, to say the least. the characters are flat and uninteresting with few exceptions, and the plot is awful! the only thing next to the idea - that is the society he creates and what it stands for - that i like is the conversations that some of the characters have about that society. stereotypically, only the male characters have those conversations. but then huxley is not the first, nor the last sci-fi author to create great new societies and conditions for humans and others but totally look pass gender injustices.

in my opinion, huxley should have taken his great idea and made it something other than a novel, or he should have asked someone else, who could actually write novels, to help him write the characters. i'm sorry to be hard on a classic, but there it is.