About two books

[oakfarm]

I read the novel Rosa candida by Icelandic writer Audur Ava Olafsdottir. And of course I was proud of myself for knowing that “candida” is latin for white, and that I learned that from the fungi Candida albicans. The non drivel thing to write is that  the novel  was described as a feel good book for thinking people. And yeah, it’s a feel good book. Then the main character has a daughter that’s the same age as my youngest niece, 8-10 month old. So I thought about her reading it.

Then I try to read Parable of the sower Octavia Butler. It is difficult to read, perhaps I could force  myself to finish it, I have already read around half of the novel. It’s not a feel good book to read, if anyone thought that: violence, barbarism, rape, so much rape.

Comments

[tarasacon]

Parable of The Sower is a difficult book but a very good one. I think it ends much more positively; I will try to remember to skim the ending again and get back to you.

[tarasacon]

Whatever the original title of Rosa candida, it apparently hasn’t shown up yet in English. Last year I was thinking about reading Butterflies in November (by Ólafsdóttir), but decided not to because reviews were fairly mixed.

[oakfarm]

I didn't understand how different the title was in different language. Sorry. The original titel is Afleggjarin English is The greenhouse. It is her third book published after Butterflies in November. I haven't read anything else by her nor have I read Jón Kalman Stefánsson, but he is another, icelandic writer i have heard good things about

[tarasacon]

It looks like I have two Icelandic authors in my to-read pile currently: Lilja Sigurðardóttir, and Hallgrímur Helgason. Another author I thought was Icelandic is actually from Greenland (Niviaq Korneliussen). Being an ignorant American I tend to lump the two countries as “really cold islands in the North Atlantic” and not differentiate much so I got confused.

But that’s not fair because Greenland had an indigenous population before the Danes colonized it, where Iceland was mainly settled by Norwegians fleeing the mainland, plus there’s a significant difference in their relative sizes.

[tarasacon]

Titles of translations into English are often completely unrelated to the original meaning. I wish they would stick closer to whatever the original intent was, but American publishers seem to care more about marketing and making books generically palatable.