Oh Christ, this was devastating. Perfectly captures the endless boring summer days of childhood, and a sort of regret(?) melancholy(?) that catches upOh Christ, this was devastating. Perfectly captures the endless boring summer days of childhood, and a sort of regret(?) melancholy(?) that catches up with you in adulthood....more
The first story, I found it hard to keep track of the characters. Although it's riffing on The Sun Also Rises and I have the same trouble with that noThe first story, I found it hard to keep track of the characters. Although it's riffing on The Sun Also Rises and I have the same trouble with that novel.
The second story, based on Hemingway's ww2 experience and his tendency to bullshit, is very funny in an Inglorious Basterds sort of way up until the final reveal, at which point it becomes quite melancholy.
The final story, Hemingway in old age in Cuba, remembering the past, wasn't much but it was a nice way to close out the book....more
A short, quick read. A weird mix in that it's both familiar (lot of general medieval themes) and unfamiliar (Scandinavian stuff mostly recorded outsidA short, quick read. A weird mix in that it's both familiar (lot of general medieval themes) and unfamiliar (Scandinavian stuff mostly recorded outside of the classic 'viking' period everyone knows). In particular, I liked the two stories about Heming the skier....more
Spent the whole book mentally shouting at the kid to (view spoiler)[put a damn pair of gloves. (hide spoiler)] How many times did my parents tell me something like that, as a kid? Damn.
Also big shout out to Plain Pleasures for recommending this one. Great newsletter full of good books....more
Picked up a John Fosse novel that was recommended to me but it was all one long sentence like that Mathias Enard novel I tried ages ago and couldn’t rPicked up a John Fosse novel that was recommended to me but it was all one long sentence like that Mathias Enard novel I tried ages ago and couldn’t read, my oafish brain needs periods, or full stops as the English call them, punctuation being the invention of monks who were trying to help Irish dullards learn Latin, so I just couldn’t read the book at all and stopped a few pages in I admit that kind of thing better imitates train-of-thought consciousness but my dumb oafish brain needs to be told when to stop and rest for a second before going on again or else I hyperventilate trying to read the whole thing in one go, so in the end I picked up this Dag Solstad book instead, the one about a high school teacher in Norway who finds himself in a crisis while teaching Henrik Ibsen. It’s also got those long Germanic paragraphs but at least he knows in theory what a sentence is. Also the bit about Hans Castorp was pretty funny even if I have no intention of ever reading Thomas Mann, as was the following bit where he imagines auditioning for all of his favourite 1920s novelists and considers that Mann would’ve been the only one to cast him in a role in a novel. Good midlife crisis book and the first section captured that feeling of being stuck somewhere, in this case a classroom, and watching a clock and having looping, repetitive thoughts in your head, kind of like Thomas Bernhard? Is that who I'm thinking of? but ultimately more readable....more
1. It always struck me as strange how stereotypes about Polish people in North America are pretty benign, just hard to pronounce names and maybe a lov1. It always struck me as strange how stereotypes about Polish people in North America are pretty benign, just hard to pronounce names and maybe a lovable oaf tag, whereas in Europe Poles get it pretty rough. Goes to show the inherent irrationality of ethnic stereotypes, I guess.
2. I've been complaining for a while now that despite economic hardship all around, we haven't yet produced a Jean Rhys/Patrick Hamilton boarding house novel for the airbnb/apartment polycule (ugh) generation. A House in Norway isn't it, but it still has a lot to offer in that direction: the forced, unwanted intimacy between tenant and landlord, and a close examination of it that somehow leads to something more universal, about how rich countries exploit poor ones and how despite our good intentions and our voting patterns, we're all coopted to look the other way.
3. I think Chairman Mao had the right idea about landlords....more
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