Zadie Smith –White Teeth

White teeth is a thick book with a lot of colour. The main themes are the Stranger, History and Migration. Cultures clash in the British melting pot, where immigration, emigration, colonisation and heritage are by no means new. The creation of such a rich, diverse and profound cast is an impressive achievement. The writing is good, smart, young and british.
Reading the book made me feel like a stranger, having no experience with such problems of cultural confusion and alienation. It’s too far away for me to “get” it, and it becomes more a saga, a fairy tale than realism.
It is funny though, and I suppose that I am now better equipped for understanding these issues than before.
Memorable quotes:

“ ‘Where I come from’, said Archie, ‘a bloke likes to get to know a girl before he marries her.’
‘Where you come from it is customary to boil vegetables until they fall apart. This does not mean,’ said Samad tersely, ’that it is a good idea’.”
“Desire didn’t even bother casing the joint, checking whether the neighbours were in – desire just kicked down the door and made himself at home.”
“ ‘Being married to a Jamaican has done wonders for my arthritis.’ ”
“ ‘That girl swallowed an encyclopaedia and a gutter at the same time’ ”
“Archie says Science the same way he says Modern, as if someone lent him the words and made him swear not to break them.”

Sylvia Plath – The Bell Jar

Here comes the gender perspective. If this book had been written by a man at the same time, there would have been nothing extraordinary about it; just a good novel. But the fact that it is written by a woman, from a female perspective, and at this time (1960s) makes it really interesting.
To my great pleasure, the writing and the phrases are immaculate. Many funny and granite statements to ponder and go “yeah, that was a good one”. There are no confusions, the prose is clear and liquid.
The story is of a girl who goes to New York to try to make it. Make it as a writer, but mainly just make it. Make her life. Make life into something that can be desired and held on to. But early on there is a slipping feeling to the main character, the adolescent drowning in a world that never sits still enough to be asked a question. Soon enough, there is too much to reach for and nothing to hold on to.
Memorable Quotes:

“There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends.”
“She stared at her reflection in the glossed shop windows as if to make sure, moment by moment, that she continued to exist. ---
I said, ‘Isn’t it awful about the Rosenbergs?’
The Rosenbergs were to be executed late that night.
’Yes!’ Hilda said, and at last I felt I had touched a human string in that cat’s cradle of her heart. It was only as the two of us waited for the others in the tomb-like morning gloom of the conference room that Hilda amplified that Yes of hers.
‘It’s awful such people should be alive.’”
“With immense relief the salt tears and miserable noises that had been prowling around in me all morning burst out into the room.”
“My favourite tree was the Weeping Scholar Tree. I thought it must come from Japan. They understood things of the spirit in Japan.
They disembowelled themselves when anything went wrong.”

Katarina Wennstam – The girl and the guilt

The most horrible, horrifying book I’ve ever read. Katarina is a crime reporter who has written a formidable book on the enraging way that rape trials and investigations are conducted and the way rape victims are treated. The examples are many and gut-wrenching. Everyone should read this book, because the illusion of living in a civilised country with a justice system that works gets properly disbanded. I hate the men who rape. But I hate also the system that puts the victim on trial, that makes excuses for the perpetrator and all this for the worst crime imaginable. Or even, the most un-imaginable crime, because all through the book I find myself detached, separated from this reality by my own inability to imagine these crimes as a part of my world.
A more subtle tone in the book, a recurring chorus, hums a dark and sinister tune of how there still, in spite of, or aided by, the sexual liberation, exists a distorted and dangerous image of women and the female sexuality that can nurture the growing abuser and sway the judgement of our courts.

John Updike - Seek My Face (one)

John Updike – Seek my face
I started reading Updike because one of my friends says he’s his favourite writer. We’re not friends anymore, but that’s neither here nor there.
I feel I suffered through the book a bit. Not to my taste it is written as a whole, without breaks or chapters, without even any real brakes in the story. Just the old woman, talking to the younger woman, about the men and the Art. Boring, and tedious in itself. The very idea of writing this book seemed slightly ridiculous to me through most of it. Like a hunger strike on a tight rope.
But, in having finished it, I must admit that there was some subtle enjoyment in it. For it IS very well written, very secure in it self, and if it doesn’t sweep you along with it to any new and magical places, it gives you a comfy feeling like an old couch.

Craig Clevenger – The Contortionist’s handbook (fourteen)

I’m not really sure what to write about the C’s H. It is the story of a man, hiding from the law, from the system, and doing it really well. It is a clever, intriguing and with some weird error of refraction; the story comes through at an angle, distorted, or maybe it’s just the way the world looks when you don’t quite belong. For the most part of the book I couldn’t figure out what it was. Was it critique? It raises some pretty harsh images of the mental health care system, of badly administered and poorly staffed facilities, sedation instead of treatment, restraints instead of recovery. Maybe it was a crime novel? The main character fractions the law at regular intervals, in order to stay afloat, stay free. There is also a vortex feeling, a slope to a ledge, a trip, a slip and a tumble will turn into a fall. Is it the law that will get him? Or the crime?
However, at the end of the day, there is such sweet simplicity. Clevenger has written a love story. And when this became clear to me, I began to love the story.
Furthermore, it is a well-written story. It is smart, thorough, diabolic, suspenseful, darn! It’s good.
Wow, I managed to get through that without comparing to Chuck Palahniuk. That wasn’t easy.

Hunter S. Thompson – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (thirteen)

I finally read it. But it’s always delicate reading a book when you’ve seen the movie. In this case however, they are just two very similar shades of Day-Glo red. The book is, contrary to my expectations (man, always this guy with his expectations), was a quite easy read, 200 pages and more beautiful writing and less crazy rambling than I suspected.
The story tells of how the reporter Raoul Duke, a doctor of journalism and a driven narcotics abuser, goes to Vegas for some freelance work. Together with his equally bizarre sidekick, his Samoan lawyer, he plunges headfirst into a pool of illicit substances and anti-social behavior, trying intently to hit bottom in search of the American Dream. The understated humor and insanity push the story beyond autobiography; it’s a cartoonesque distortion of something truly horrible, with an end result that is just fascinating.
The strength of the novel lies in the main character and his complete disregard for rules, common sense and consensus. In his stumbling journey, his harmlessness and keen sense of observation reminds me more of a David Attenborough, going with a machete through his own inner jungle, marveling at every creature and lifting every stone, than of a dangerous drug addict, threatening some stale mate called Our Life Style.
And, as the narrative in the movie suggests, the wordings, the writing, is very beautiful and clever and intense.
The only disappointment I had, making the transition from picture to paper, was that two of my favorite narrative quotes where nowhere to be found. Therefore I leave you with them:
About his partner, the lawyer Raoul says: “One of God’s own prototypes, never meant for mass production; too weird to live and too rare to die.”
And during a confrontation with the same, Duke exclaims: “Don’t fuck with me now! I am Ahab.”

Carina Rydberg – The Highest Caste (twelve)

For the first time in my life I have read a great contemporary book written in Swedish. And by great I mean that Rydberg makes you feel things, makes you feel and taste the words, weigh the sentences in your head. It is written nakedly and honestly, and for the most part with little emotion in the words. Almost no metaphor. Dry, minimalist without being snobbish, it’s artisan, it’s a craft that is pushed forward by the heart but delivered through the brain.
Rydbergs story is furthermore a very personal one, and it begs little forgiveness, shows the life of the author without painting over the ugly parts. Told in almost complete chronological order, something that is more and more rare, it still manages to transcend time. Or, more precisely, time is not really treated as an issue in the story and so the strict chronology does nothing to restrict it. It remains dreaming.
Every act of reading is personal, and of course I liked this novel so much in part because it is so intensely written by a writer. All the classical autobiographical hints are there; all the thinking, the notebooks, the roaming personality. So many others line up with Rydberg on this stage.
My recommendation is that you read it. Especially if you are Swedish, because this is, again the best Swedish writing I have come across from today.

Aarto Paasilinna – Collective Suicide (eleven)

I have been recommended Collective Suicide by several people since the book was issued in the beginning of the nineties, and during the years the expectations have been building up. It was supposed to be such a funny book. Hilarious is probably the most common word I have heard from people describing it. Maybe even outrageous. Maybe this is why I found it to be neither.
I mean, it IS funny. But its “ok ha ha” funny and not rolling around on the floor funny. I smiled a few times while reading it, and laughed – chuckled – once.
The most important and interesting thing about the book I think is the insight it gives into the Finnish minds and Finnish culture. Reminiscent of the Swedish but with more woe and less shame.
The biggest disappointment was the predictability of a book that more often than not has been described as crazy.
It didn’t stir me up. Nor shake me.
*Translation to Swedish by Camilla Forsell

Chuck Palahniuk – Choke and Invisible Monsters (nine & ten)

The greatest contemporary writer I know is Chuck Palahniuk. If you haven’t already, pick up one of his books the next time you pass by a book store.
A dark shadow looms over all that Chuck writes, and its name is Guilt. Every main character in every book looks upon him or herself and sees failure. Let downs. They are viruses and bacteria, running through the vascular system of the world. Taking refuge in the shadowy corners of its gastro-intestinal tunnels, all the while irritating and provoking the host. It’s socio-economic guerrilla warfare, fanning the funeral pyres of resistance. It’s a world of dark futures and even darker minds. But at the same time, and in the most beautiful way, they are heroes and will save us with a black plague. Our next extinction level event will come from within, erupting through the streets, the contents of long forgotten sewers will bring a new world order. Duck – cover and roll. It will be known, by their hand, that we all stink. And the more we try to contain our festering innards, the heavier a pungent odour will ooze through our pores, the more violent the explosion and the deeper the pock-mark.
This would all be very depressing and bleak if it weren’t for the undeniable, unbelievable, beauty, oh my what beauty, of the paced and sifted language. Masterly, Palahniuk also manages, seemingly without effort and certainly without compromise, always to contain the most extravagant stories to involve only a few characters. No man is an island, but an ocean of past and future, always urgently connected.
Yes, I get a bit carried away when I try to write down what I think about these stories. I find it fantastic how the writing negates the pessimism and hopelessness, making each chapter a love poem to language and human beings, while still allowing, or perhaps underlining, the occasionally strong criticism of modern society.
Choke deals with a self-proclaimed sex addict, wandering around in the shadow of his dying mother, the weight of her need the only thing tying him to this life. If she dies he has nothing holding him back, and no reason to go anywhere. It’s funny, explicit and perhaps the one of his books that is most focused on guilt and forgiveness.
Invisible monsters main character is a former super model, her face now mutilated and her entire previous life shattered. The story is told in a machine gun fire of flashbacks from the floor of a burning house in the presence of a bride with a rifle. Sorting through her life up to now, the narrator lets veil after veil drop from her story, and as you may imagine, what one imagines is never nearly as weird as the true story.

Henry Miller – Tropic of Capricorn (eight)

It took me a while to get through it, but I’ve finished “Tropic of Capricorn”. Since I didn’t really like “Tropic of Cancer”, my expectations on the Capricorn were low and I thought I would have to struggle through it. Quite correct. For the most part I was struggling through it. It’s a dense jungle of words, written without interruption or chapters, and I found myself several times praying for it to let up, to relent, to give me a chance to surface and breathe. But what it also is, is great. From the very first page its awesome in the true sense of the word. Only, the greatness is crammed, too tightly packed into the pages of the book. Whichever loose end you tug at it remains tangled with the rest of the words, and the meaning must only have been clear at the moment of dictation. Strangely, this doesn’t matter. It’s so immensely beautiful, clarity might only have killed me.
It is an unpredictable, intoxication mish-mash of visions, reveries and occasional mundane autobiography. A metaphor can suddenly, as if through play or distractedness, become the main path of the story. Henry turns a street corner and steps into a dream. It’s narcoleptic narrative. It is brim-filled with sex. The notorious beggar and professional sex-addict, roams the streets of New York and spreads America out on top of dirty bed sheets. He tells her lies and shows her the truth.

---

Memorable quotes:
“For the first time I was talking to a man who got behind the meaning of words and went to the very essence of things.”
“I say I am thinking of her, but the truth is I am dying a stellar death. I am lying there like a sick star waiting for the light to go out.”
“What holds the world together, as I have learned from bitter experience, is sexual intercourse.”
“This is all a figurative way of speaking about what is unmentionable.”

Irvine Welsh - Filth (seven)

Stuff yourself with Racism Vindaloo ‘til your intestines burn and you can’t feel your gums. Wash it down with a pint of Perversion’s lager and a 12-year old Scotch misogyny. Snort a few grams of white power up your nose and rub the remains into your already numb gums. Let nature have it’s course, then go to the bogs and shite out the fermented and degraded contents, mingled with your own personal flora of bacterial disorders, out of your system and watch the worm-ridden sludge up close. This, is FILTH.
For the last week I’ve had voices in my head. Or rather A voice. A superior, aggressive, Scottish voice, badgering me to utter obscenities at the world I observe around me. I see a good-looking girl and my mind snarls “that’s some quality fanny”. Annoying, slow, middle-aged cashiers are branded “daft cunts”. Anyone else is a “spastic”. FILTH seeps into your consciousness and reading it could be bordering on mental self-abuse. But in all this it still is a compelling, fascinating and high-class novel, that I recommend, but only to those who are strong at heart and stomach.

David Sedaris – Me talk pretty one day (six)

This week’s book was written before last week’s, and the bleakness of Dress your family in corduroy and denim might be explained by the fact that in writing Me talk pretty one day Sedaris had picked the juiciest, tastiest raisins out of his autobiographical bun. The two books span the same period, that is Sedaris’ life from birth to present, but this book was cleverer and funnier than the following. There is still something missing, an edge, but perhaps this is more a question of personal taste.
I laughed at several of the timidly delivered metaphors and found the descriptions of Sedaris’ family to be achieved with more love and light, something that inspires a genuine affection.
In short, that’s all. This time around it is funny, more than ok. It’s actually good.

Quotes:
“If you’re not cute, you might as well be clever”
“When asked ‘What do we need to learn this for?’ any high-school teacher can confidently answer that, regardless of the subject, the knowledge will come in handy once the student hits middle age and starts working crossword puzzles in order to stave off the terrible loneliness.”