Monday, May 16, 2005

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.”

Sunday, May 15, 2005

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