der mann ohne eigenschaften

One thing I got recommended on the big video sharing site was a shortened version of Donna Tartt's The secret history.



I listen to it all and it’s very shortened, for example the whole part when Henry spends weeks or so searching for poisonous mushrooms is taken out. Another thing that’s missing is how many pills Richard takes. It’s a notable thing with Tartt. It’s like the only brand names that’s mentioned in her novels are opiates and psychopharmacies. Otherwise her books take place in a mostly timeless environment. Besides an obvious thing like cars the only thing that dates them to the modern world are pills. Does anyone know what’s up with that? Someone must have asked her.

Anyway my first personal anecdote is that the only time a stranger has commented on the book I read in public was The secret history. It’s twenty years ago a woman I had never met before approached me and said the novel I was reading was great. The story however doesn’t end there. Years later we met again on my old job at the bookstore. More coincidence, it turned out that we both, back in 1999, were published in the same paper. A paper for young writers (that was founded in conjunction with Stockholm being European capital of culture). So that’s those coincidences. Now it was a long time ago, I don't remember her name, would probably not recognize her. But well, if you want attention, try reading Donna Tartt's first novel in public. Edit: what I was going to write but for a while thought was too silly - before thinking: “who cares if it’s silly” - is the following. To take it one step further, you could perhaps choose a book depending on who you want to be contacted by. If we for example say you have a fetism for Hungarian people, read the Hungarian national poet Sándor Petőfi in public.

Then I can mention that one teacher I had wrote an erotic novel that’s quite influenced by Donna Tartt, to the point reviews might call it The secret history-fan fic, with reference to The story of O. (The secret history, The story of O, both are stories.)  I don't know if her novels are translated to English. On goodreads that novel has no reviews in English, just in Swedish plus reviews in Polish. So she must be bigger in Poland than in the Anglospher. (About her other works, my readers with one exception don't read Swedish, but I can I did like her novel Veterinären, a novel there she didn't tried to be Donna Tartt.)

In junior high school I had a really good teacher in Swedish and social science. He actually was, and is, married to my first teacher, grade 1-3. A few years after junior high, then I was 20, I met him while walking home and I told him that he was great. Then I didn’t see him or his wife in a long time. This spring, weeks ago, then taking a walk, I heard someone say my name, it was an older couple, my old teachers. I didn’t recognize them. Despite an whole work life of pupils they remembered me, and he remembered what I had said to him on our previous meeting. Teachers are amazing.

Having him as teacher in those years means I got a lot of my views of literature and how society works from him. One piece of literature that come up in schooln was The Emigrants (Utvandrarna) by Vilhelm Moberg (1898-1973), following 19-century emigrants from Sweden to the US. It’s a novel serie I really want to write more about, another time perhaps. Right now, one reason the people in Mobergs work of fiction emigrate was because of the enormous inequality in Sweden. Today it’s the other way around, the US being more known for economic inequality than Sweden. However, economic inequality has here increased every year since the early 1980’s. Without knowing anything about what’s going on in the US, is it possible that things can start changing so much that it’s not long until the US is again the more equal society?

More Swedish literature we learned about back then was crime stories by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. One of those stories is called The Abominable Man (Den vedervärdige mannen från Säffle). The abominable man is the murder victim starting the story and a bad police, who got away with being a bad cop thanks to esprit de corps. One of the things making him a abominable was that he suggest that riding police officers with drawn sabers should attack proteste. Yeah, that makes us come back to the US today. Was riding with drawn sabers the 60s versions of using military vehicle to disband protesters?

Then I can make a point of that we consume extreme amounts of American entertainment, including popular culture about violence. Still the situation in America (that I again know very little about) makes me think about Swedish literature.

 So according to the internet there are far right americans who think AFA “supersoldiers” would start a second american civil war today. Snopes Is antifa planning a civil war. In the Canadian tv show Regenesis Dr David Sandström says the following: "There are genetics programs out there under way right now that make the Manhattan Project look like a bunch of babies playing with Lego blocks."  He must have talked about Canadian, AFA Supersoldiers.

I have several entries that’s like 90% finished and I may or may not post sooner or later. But that’s for later. This is my current reading (English titles for natural reasons):

L by Erlend Loe. A man - named Erlend Loe - decides to organize an expedition to Polynesia to prove his theory that South American Indians went ice skating to Polynesia. Norwegian Erlend Loe write that kind of bizarre, humorous stories. Sure the “experts” with their “evidence” thinks the Polynesians came from Asia by boats. But Erlend was quite sure the Polynesians came from Southeast America on skates. Why should the experts facts be worth more than Erlend Loe's facts?

The man without qualities by Robert Musil. That’s a book for genius and that’s why I might not finish it, two thick vol. of genius writing is a little much. And it was reference to one of Musil’s description of Austria Hungary. He wrote it was a country for genius and it’s likely the reason it fell. I have read the book before, and I liked the book but maybe not as much as I pretended to like it.

Humm. In 1913 when The man without qualities takes place genius and experts were worshipped. In 1997 when L was written it was a joke that ordinary losers could come up with his/her own crazy, scientific theory, and dismiss the experts. Now twenty years later self proclaimed experts get their place in the limelight by coming up with their own theories. Vaccine cause autism and enemas cure autism (enemas also cure cancer). Climate change is a myth. Modern plant breeding is always dangerous. Sodium carbonate cures cancer (and possible autism ). And the eath is flat ... Of course I myself think I’m a genius and an expert for writing this and I deserve fame for writing this.

I also have Douglas Coupland's Polaroid from the dead by my bed. But that book doesn't fit my "theory".

I can post a new post about a book like I did with the bike book. Joseph Wechsberg Blue trout and black truffles and with the telling subtitle The  Peregrinations of an Epicure.

1. Joseph Wechsberg wrote that his favorite dish was cottage cheese dumplings. I googled for a receipt on cottage cheese dumplings. And here we have a good way of using the internet. Namely find recept on dishes you read about in books. I find a receipt on Hungarian cottage cheese dumplings. Then the thought that if I had a food blog it should be about cooking all receipt from Joseph Wechsberg book. Then I remembered many dishes mentioned had foie gras and truffle in them.

2. I wonder what an epicure really is? Consuming lots of wine, tobacco, food ... are a diseases nowadays. Plus they all gives you cancer. I mentioned I had read Remarque biographies. One biography mentioned that alcohol and women was two of Remarques “passions”. Another biography, written like thirty year later, said that Remarque was an alcoholic and had a compulsory sex life. You see what I am saying. The difference in wording, the question if it is healthy to be a epucure.

3. My favorite part of the book however was when Joseph visit a truffle producing area in France and one guy there says it’s great that Americans were starting to get interested in good food. See, Joseph was born in today's Czech republic, that then was a part of Austria-Hungary. Then he was educated in Vienna and Paris and only come to the US in 1940 as an asylum seeker. He was Jewish. A man with a very European background, who speaks better French and German than English, gets called American. It says something.

My next book post will be about a Gandhi biography.