Recent reading

[luzula]

Independent People by Halldór Laxness (originally in Icelandic, read in Swedish)
For my book club at work. For reasons that don't need explaining at this juncture, I read the first bit of this in English and then read the rest in Swedish, and I enjoyed it about ten times more in Swedish. I mean, I love the English language, but it did not at all work for me here. In Swedish, though, it was a joy to read (at least the 2011 translation; there's an older translation from the '50's which is supposed to be not so good). I had kind of a weird response to this book: I enjoyed it very much on the immediate level--like, I savored the language and descriptions, especially all the nature stuff, but also a lot of character interactions. But I didn't form a strong connection to the characters. The main character at one point opines that most women like to be raped, so perhaps you can see why I did not form a strong connection to him. Also, at one point he is relieved to find that something lying dead is not one of his sheep, but only a corpse. I liked the political aspects of the book, which are mostly low-key ironic commentary about debt and how it only benefits the rich (especially ironic given the Icelandic financial crash) but it breaks into an open "yay strike! yay, let's beat up the police!" at the end. Ha, I did not expect that.

Kunskapens frukt [The Fruit of Knowledge] by Liv Strömqvist (only in Swedish)
This is a graphic novel about the history of the female genitals, menstruation, and orgasm. And related subjects. I am sorry for all you people who do not know Swedish and thus cannot read this awesome book!

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Is the Laxness the sort of classic one reads in high school or college? I'm sorry that someone who understands the beauty of the natural world so well can be such a pig re women -- well the characters he writes, it's not him, blah blah reading about rape is anti-fun.

Perhaps you could translate the graphic novel for Yuletide? Not graphically re letter it, just provide a page-by-page gloss?

Speaking of translation, I found this article re French dubs of American movies & TV shows fascinating and perturbing:

https://medium.com/matter/what-it-takes-to-be-the-french-jennifer-lawrence-9177abe68534

[riverlight]

Oh MAN. I was reading your description of the Laxness book and was thinking, gosh, I should ask her whether she thinks it's readable by a non-native speaker, and then I got to your description of the Strömqvist comic, and I don't care if it's too advanced for me! I want to reaaaaad it. I'm going to go look for it right now! Yay!

[luzula]

Laxness is a classic, certainly, since he's a Nobel Prize winner in literature, but I never read him in school. He's written another famous book with a female protagonist, and I kind of want to read that one now to see how he writes a female-centric story. I dunno, I wouldn't draw the conclusion from his character being sexist that Laxness is--the book does show us the consequences to the women in the main character's life of the way he behaves.

Huh, yeah, interesting article. Movies never get dubbed in Sweden except for kids' movies, like Disney. People usually say that's a contributing factor to Swedish people being good at English.

[luzula]

I dunno if I would recommend Laxness to a non-native speaker--I'd say the language is pretty difficult, with a lot of old-fashioned words. The Strömqvist comic would totally work, though! There's a bit of modern slang, maybe, but since it's picture and written word both, I bet it's pretty easy to understand. Ask me for translation help if you run into trouble. : ) I hope you find it! Her earlier comics are good, too, if you find one of them.

[riverlight]

Yeah, I worried about that; my Swedish is decent but certainly not good enough to really read "adult" books yet. I'll have to get my family to send me the Strömqvist. (Actually, it'd probably be good to learn some slang!)