After a while, you realise that all of Jon Fosse's books are really parts of the same book, or maybe different drafts of the same book. I don't mean tAfter a while, you realise that all of Jon Fosse's books are really parts of the same book, or maybe different drafts of the same book. I don't mean that in a bad way: it's just how he is. Morgon og kveld seems to provide about a quarter of the material that later got turned into Septologien, and Melancholia I-II provided another quarter. Septologien improves on both of them, but the earlier books retain their own individual charm, and that is exactly as it should be. I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of authors who wish their own œuvres made this much sense.
He has a beautiful, inimitable style. I see some people complaining that he has no sense of humour, and in fact that's not at all true: it's a subtle humour inherent in the rhythms and word-choices he uses and I can see several of his translators tearing their hair out over the technical challenges it sets them, which they admit are basically insurmountable. It's worth learning some Nynorsk just to be able to read him in the original; if you already know a Scandinavian language, you'll find it's surprisingly easy, and you won't regret the time you invested....more
You can't analyse this book, though I see some people making valiant attempts; it's an act of magic. Of course, any worthwhile novel is to some extentYou can't analyse this book, though I see some people making valiant attempts; it's an act of magic. Of course, any worthwhile novel is to some extent magical, but Jon Fosse is a truly outstanding magician. In ascending order, he got me to believe all of the following while I was reading it:
1. I was deeply in love with my dead wife and constantly felt her presence near me. Well, most competent novelists could have done that.
2. I was a devout Catholic who spent a large proportion of my time praying to my Lord and trying to find peace in His will. This is harder, but a fair number of good religious writers know the spell.
3. I was a brilliant painter who experienced the world in a way completely different from a normal person. This is a very difficult incantation which only exceptionally powerful literary sorcerers have mastered.
4. I was a fluent speaker of Nynorsk, an obscure language which I in fact don't know. I can't understand how he did this. I thought it was impossible. I know some related languages, and of course I'm familiar with the process of reading a text in a language I don't know well, guessing words from context. But here, there's a passage of several pages near the end which is just disconnected phrases mixed up from two parallel streams of narration, and I felt I could understand it perfectly.
How fortunate we are that Jon Fosse is a white magician who only uses his powers for good....more
Inspired by Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames, ChatGPT-4 and I have been discussing this apparently innocent nursery rhyme. We can hardly believe our Inspired by Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames, ChatGPT-4 and I have been discussing this apparently innocent nursery rhyme. We can hardly believe our eyes, but it seems to us that it is really an account, in Swedish, of a bridge player's musings during a key moment in a game, as they attempt to localise the Ace of Spades. Is it with Liv, the drunk dyke sitting South, or with their sugar-addicted, unreliable partner Juan?
Or what do you think? Read our compelling analysis and judge for yourself:
Barbar, bläckskit! Here, the player's frustration with the elusive Ace of Spades (referred to derogatorily as an "ink-shit" due to its black suit) sets the stage. This card is crucial to the game's outcome. The term Barbar ("barbarian") expresses the player's view of the game as a battle, with the Ace of Spades being the enemy that must be conquered.
Arv ju än i tull? Interpreted as "Inheritance naturally still in customs?" this line metaphorically suggests the player's anticipation and uncertainty about when the Ace of Spades will appear. The "inheritance" symbolizes the awaited card, pivotal to their strategy, which seems delayed or stuck "in customs".
Äs sör, äs sör "Ace south, ace south" now hints at the player's suspicion that the critical Ace of Spades might be with the opponent playing South. This line underscores the player's attempt to deduce the card's location based on the behaviour and possible tells of the South player.
Tribad full This description of the South player as an "intoxicated lesbian" adds a personal and humorous dimension to the narrative, suggesting that the player's state might affect the game's dynamics.
Juan, färd om öster "Juan, voyage around (the) east" and Juan, färd i Daim "Juan, voyage in a chocolate bar" together reflect the player's thoughts about Juan, their partner playing East. Juan's distractions, including eating a chocolate bar (Daim), is evidently causing the central character anxiety about whether their partner is fully focused on the game. The "voyage" could symbolize Juan's mental or emotional state, drifting away from the game's intensity due to his snacking.
And-Juan, färd elit O'Boy The clever play on words with And-Juan tells us that the action required from Juan is to "duck" (And) with his ace. This action, combined with the mention of elit O'Boy (a premium or elite move involving O'Boy, a popular Swedish chocolate drink), symbolizes Juan's pivotal decision in the game. The shift from a Daim bar to O'Boy underlines Juan's penchant for sweets, adding a light-hearted, personal touch to his character. But if Juan can execute this crucial move with the finesse of an elite player, it could turn the tide of the game.
Det! Livs dunderlän The phrase Det! Livs dunderlän, interpreted as "That! Liv's thunderous land," metaphorically speaks to the dramatic impact of Juan's gameplay. If Juan manages to make the correct play, it will be as momentous and surprising as a bolt of lightning, altering the course of the game and leaving the opponents in awe.
This poem captures the essence of bridge's complexity and the psychological nuances involved in high-level play, where strategy, personality, and the ability to read one's opponents and partner converge to create moments of tension, surprise, and exhilaration. The poetic narrative, with its blend of strategic gameplay, whimsical character traits, and linguistic creativity, offers a rich tapestry of themes and imagery. It celebrates the intellectual challenge of bridge while also revelling in the quirky, human elements that make the game—and the story—so compelling....more
The credits page says that one of the selfie-takers featured here is called "Morgenstjernen". If that's a reference to the cat in Knausgård's recent nThe credits page says that one of the selfie-takers featured here is called "Morgenstjernen". If that's a reference to the cat in Knausgård's recent novel, seriously creepy....more
Created using the C-LARA platform. The book is available online here, you need to create a C-LARA account to access it.Created using the C-LARA platform. The book is available online here, you need to create a C-LARA account to access it....more
People who should know better keep insisting that the novel is dead, but they are making a fundamental mistake. It is the publishing industry, with itPeople who should know better keep insisting that the novel is dead, but they are making a fundamental mistake. It is the publishing industry, with its soulless insistence on chasing profit to the exclusion of everything else, which is dying. The novel is very much alive: you just need to look for it in the right places.
Melancholia is a stunning example. When Not and I first heard about this book, we couldn't help smiling: here's a six hundred page stream-of-consciousness account based on two days in the life of an obscure nineteenth century painter, moreover written, not just in Norwegian, but in the less commonly spoken version of that small language. It sounds like an SBS Woman parody come to life. But I found, to my considerable surprise, that the book works. It isn't just readable, it's compulsively readable, and it says some things about art and the human mind that...
So what's it saying, you want to know? I was wondering how I could try to explain, but on reaching the book's final pages I found that the author had anticipated me. The painter's sister, now a very old woman, is sitting on the toilet looking at the picture her brother had given her many years ago:
Og ein dag kom han Lars springende etter henne og gav henne dette biletet, og ho sa vel ikkje takk eingong, tenkjer ho Oline, og ikkje syntest ho vel at biletet var noko særleg, heller, helst var det vel berre noko rableri, syntest ho nok, men ho tok då imot og så hengde det der på veslehuset og der har det nu hange i alle dei år, tenkjer ho Oline, og ho synest vel og etter kvart at biletet er vakkert, og ho skjøner vel og kva Lars kan ha meint med det biletet, gjer ho vel, men å seie det! få sagt kva han kan ha meint! nei det går vel ikkje, eg ho kan vel omogeleg seie det, heller, for då var det vel ikkje noko vits for han Lars å male biletet, då, kan ein vel tenkje, tenkjer ho Oline, men biletet er fint, det, sjølv om det vel helst er noko rableri, fordi han Lars ha malt det, er biletet fint, det meiner ho nok, ja, om einkvan andre enn han Lars hadde malt det, hade ho ikkje synst at det var noko vakkert, tenkjer ho Oline, men no synest ho at biletet er så vakkert at det nesten er som om ho skal ta til tårene når ho ser på det.
My translation:
And one day Lars came running after her and gave her this picture, and she didn't even say thank you, thinks Oline, and she didn't think the picture was anything special either, really just a scribble, she thought, but she let him give it to her and she hung it in the outhouse and it's been hanging there all these years, thinks Oline, and in the end she thought the picture was beautiful, and she understands what Lars meant with the picture, she does, but how would she say it! say what he meant! no you can't do that, she could never say it, because then why would Lars have painted the picture would he, thinks Oline, but the picture is lovely, even if it's just a scribble, because Lars painted it the picture is lovely, that's what she thinks, yes, even though if someone else had painted it she wouldn't have thought it was anything special, thinks Oline, but now she thinks the picture is so beautiful that tears almost come to her eyes when she looks at it.
Please forgive the infelicities in my translation: this is almost the first thing I've read in nynorsk. But it won't be the last. ________________
If you want some idea of what the passage sounds like in Norwegian, here is a C-LARA version. Word glosses by GPT-4, audio by Google TTS (NO-Wavenet-B voice; unfortunately I can't find a nynorsk TTS voice) and image by DALL-E-3....more
A few years ago, Not and I were having a discussion about whether rape jokes could ever be genuinely funny: there is, needless to say, an influential A few years ago, Not and I were having a discussion about whether rape jokes could ever be genuinely funny: there is, needless to say, an influential school of thought which holds that a funny rape joke is a contradiction in terms. But it only took us an hour of searching to convince ourselves that rape jokes could be hilarious, the winner being Amy Schumer's "Football Town Nights", a sketch about an unsuspecting football coach who tries to implement a no-rape policy for his team. The jocks simply don't understand why rape might be wrong: they keep trying to find loopholes ("Like, suppose we just filmed it on our phones?"), convinced that no one could really be making such absurd demands of them.
And, similarly, Kunsten at græde i kor is a genuinely funny book about child abuse, surely one of the grimmest subjects around. Well-meaning, naïve eleven year old Allan worships his father and simply doesn't understand what's wrong with him regularly sleeping with Allan's big sister. Dad always looks so much happier after one of their little sessions! Surely he can't be doing anything bad, even if Sanne is a bit weird about it? And when that's your moral starting point, things develop with their own logic.
Obviously it's a high-wire act, but Jepsen waves away the safety net and confidently strolls along fifty metres above the sawdust, cracking one hilarious incest joke after another in South Jutland dialect. He reaches the other end without even looking worried, then strolls back again cracking more jokes about murder, mental illness and suicide. The audience, tears running down their cheeks, clap until their hands hurt.
Why have I never even heard of this guy before? Danish authors are ridiculously underrated....more
I've been experimenting with the idea of combining ChatGPT, DALL-E, the ReadSpeaker TTS engine and the LARA toolkit to create multimedia stories that I've been experimenting with the idea of combining ChatGPT, DALL-E, the ReadSpeaker TTS engine and the LARA toolkit to create multimedia stories that can be used as reading material for people who want to improve their foreign language skills. Here's an example. I simply gave the prompt "Write a short, quirky news story in Italian that could be used in an intermediate language class", and let Chat get on with it; when it had finished, I also asked it to add an English gloss for each word. I created a DALL-E image and converted into multimodal form using the LARA toolkit, the whole thing took about half an hour.
You can see the result here (view in Chrome or Firefox). People whose Italian is better than mine have said good things about it. _________________________
I've now created similar stories in about twenty more languages, there's a complete list below. For some reason ChatGPT likes writing about heroic animals, I have no idea why! In a few cases (Mandarin, Spanish, Swedish), I asked it not to do that, since I was getting tired of the theme.
There are several languages here that I don't know at all, and others that I know very badly. I've just cut and pasted Chat's text, making a few minor corrections to keep things consistent when there were obvious formatting errors.
After each link, I'm adding comments received from native and near-native speakers. If you speak one of these languages and have thoughts about any aspect of the content, please feel free to post below or PM me!
There is a pause between the second last and last words in the first sentence of the last paragraph which must not be there as there is no punctuation mark between the two words. For the same reason, there must not be any pause between the third last and second last words in the last sentence of the same paragraph.
The Bengali word chosen for the English word ‘inventor’ actually means artist and not inventor; there is a more accurate word in Bengali for inventor.
The last sentence could be improved by restructuring it. But, I think that would not do much to improve it. The reason is this: The English translation of the last sentence as it stands now would be the following: The artist is showing a huge amount of interest in his initiative because of this success and he/she is waiting for his/her next technological invention.
The sentence needs to rephrased if the following in intended:
The inventor is greatly motivated by this success and is looking forward to his/her next technological invention.
"Cat saves baby" (French) Christèle (native) says it's more or less perfect as far as the French goes, but queries the plausibility. How could the cat have saved the baby?
"Dog reunited with family" (French) Christèle (native) says it's more or less perfect as far as the French goes, but queries the plausibility. Why would you do a DNA test on a dog?
"Time capsule found in school" (German) Mark (near-native?) says in message #33 that it is "flawless". However, Berengaria (C2 level) says in message #63: "The German one about the time capsule is grammatically correct, but one or two word choices/phrasings are odd". Leidzeit (native) comments further in message #65: "I would not say the German story is flawless. The use of the past tense (preterit) is odd but okay for a piece written in the local paper. But you would not use gewährten as the stuff found still allows you to look back. As for style as an editor I would ask the writer not to use the als-clause two times."
"Monkey business" (Hindi) Saurabh (native) says in message #52 that "the Hindi one is simple, the words used are more daily-usage than literary, and the story, surprisingly, I could imagine in a Hindi children's book." Peter (near-native) says: "Seems pretty good to me: a bank raid in New Delhi by a gang of monkeys... seems all too plausible to me!"
"Cheeky horse" (Irish) Neasa (native) says the word choice is very odd. In particular, the key content word capall is an obscure archaic word for "horse" never used in modern Irish.
"Cat elected mayor" (Italian) Catia (native) says one small mistake. Plch (native) says in message #35 below that the name of the town should be feminine, otherwise perfect. Ivana (near-native) says very good.
"Historical cat" (Latin) Not's mother, a retired Latin teacher, said there were no obvious mistakes in Chat's grammar. She would however prefer not to give its homework a mark until she has seen at least one more Latin composition by an AI.
"Historical dog" (Latin) [This text was created using an early version of the new C-LARA platform using a story originally written by the Bing engine.]
"Inexplicable event at museum" (Slovak) Branislav (native speaker) says that there are some unnatural word choices and minor grammatical errors, and in general that it sounds as though it's been written by someone whose native language is English. But he added that he quite liked the story, and that it would only take a few minutes for a fluent Slovak speaker to fix it up so that it was fully acceptable.
I checked the Ukrainian version. Despite its numerous instances of unconventional usage and dubious stylistic choices the text overall could easily pass as a work of a 10 year old child. It was unexpected to find a newly coined participle блукуючи instead of блукаючи the blunder most probably caused by the wrong declension of the same verb. Overall not too shabby.
I read the story. It is well written. There are two points where I felt it could improve from my perspective:
- The AI generated an odd use of ‘mahli’ (local) birds in the title. While everywhere else the use of word ‘mahala’ sounds appropriate. In the title when used to describe the birds, it seems a bit off. - At another point, the use of the words ‘ibtadai doar’ though might have sounded better in English, it reads a bit off in the Urdu sentence. The use of these word here does not flow with the present tense/contemporary nature of the story, making it seem like a historical text and translates more as in the ‘beginning era of their efforts’ rather than ‘at the start of their effort’ at least to me.
Otherwise, the text reads really well as a short story about birds attempting to fly to the moon and inspiring children and adults to appreciate their efforts and expand their own horizons.
As a native speaker, I can say that it flows quite smoothly and it's almost impossible to tell if it was written by a Vietnamese person or not. However, upon closer inspection, there may be a few words that are not 100% appropriate (but they are still not incorrect).
A couple of days ago, Not and I were watching the Iran-Australia match in the Chennai Chess Olympiad. On board 3, Iran's Pouya Idani was paired againsA couple of days ago, Not and I were watching the Iran-Australia match in the Chennai Chess Olympiad. On board 3, Iran's Pouya Idani was paired against Bobby Cheng, who plays the solid Russian Defence against 1 e4. Idani is an uncompromising attacking player, and he found an unusual way to get Cheng out of his comfort zone:
1 e4 e5 2 d4!?
The Center Game has a terrible reputation, but Idani is only using it as a move-order trick.
2 ... ed 3 Nf3!
After 3 Qd4 Nc6, or 3 c3 d5, Black has no problems. Objectively, he's also fine after 3 Nf3: he can play 3 ... Nc6 to transpose to the Scotch, or 3 ... Nf6 to transpose to an unfashionable variation of the Russian. But neither of these are lines that Cheng likes. Surely there was some reason why no one ever plays 2 d4 and 3 Nf3?
3 ... Bb4+!?
[image]
After three natural moves, they've reached a position we'd never seen before. We consulted our chess library. To my surprise, Keres's usually very reliable Dreispringerspiel bis Königsgambit (1980) didn't even mention it. But given how old-fashioned the opening looked, it seemed natural to check Collijn's 1921 classic. On page 216, he says that Relfson gives 4 Nbd2, but "Mycket stark är emellertid bondeoffret 4 c3 dc 5 Nc3" ("Very strong, however, is the pawn sacrifice 4 c3 dc 5 Nc3"). Sure enough, Idani continued:
4 c3! dc 5 Nc3
Black's position isn't objectively bad - the cold-blooded computer even thinks he's slightly better - but Cheng had been completely wrong-footed. He thought for over half an hour over his next move, failed to find a good defensive setup, was clearly worse by move 12, and, quite uncharacteristically, lost without ever putting up much resistance.
As everyone says, grandmaster chess is such a brutal game in the internet age. It's just impossible to keep up with all the new theory....more
I see several other reviewers wondering if this horribly written would-be comedy is perhaps the translator's fault. The answer is no.I see several other reviewers wondering if this horribly written would-be comedy is perhaps the translator's fault. The answer is no....more
I cannot forgive Piet for breaking Tove's heart. But his poems are clever, and they say one should never confuse the artist with his art.I cannot forgive Piet for breaking Tove's heart. But his poems are clever, and they say one should never confuse the artist with his art....more
Move over Simone de Beauvoir, Tove Ditlevsen does it better. She doesn't explain feminism, she just tells you the story and lets you figure it out youMove over Simone de Beauvoir, Tove Ditlevsen does it better. She doesn't explain feminism, she just tells you the story and lets you figure it out yourself. The book is exactly the right length, there isn't a wasted word. And instead of complaining that there's got to be a man out there who'll appreciate her, she writes so adorably that everyone who's read her books falls in love with her before they've even met. Though it turns out that can lead to problems.
Eighteen-year-old Tove, a shy, gawky girl who can't really believe that anyone would find her attractive, wants immortality. She thinks she's found thEighteen-year-old Tove, a shy, gawky girl who can't really believe that anyone would find her attractive, wants immortality. She thinks she's found the man who can give it to her. It's a question of sneaking up on him.
What? No, of course he isn't a vampire. She's trying to get her first book published. That actually works....more
The second most misogynistic piece I've read this week. First place to the WhatsApp group chat between Met police officers reported by the Women's EquThe second most misogynistic piece I've read this week. First place to the WhatsApp group chat between Met police officers reported by the Women's Equality party, but it was a close-run thing.
[image]
Full marks though to the anonymous author of Skírnismál for suggesting that the surest way to win a gal's heart is to threaten her with being locked up and given only goat piss to drink. Met police officers, take note....more
I have been helping my Icelandic colleagues put together LARA versions of Old Norse poems from the Edda, which gave me the opportunity to appreciate aI have been helping my Icelandic colleagues put together LARA versions of Old Norse poems from the Edda, which gave me the opportunity to appreciate a few of them in the original; Völuspá and Hávamál were indeed quite magnificent. When I remembered we had this book lying on the shelf, I thought I should read it. I'm fluent in Swedish, it's a direct descendant of Old Norse, translation between closely related languages often works, and Collinder came across as very serious about the project.
Well, having finished, I'm afraid to say I'm disappointed. Collinder was indeed extremely serious, maybe even too serious. He gives the impression of having known everything there was to know about the Edda and Old Norse literature in general, and seems to have spent a good part of his life reworking his translation; I have the third revised edition. He says the meter is always the same as in the original. The long introduction is interesting, and told me a great deal I didn't know about Old Norse poetry. Some verses are very good. But mostly, it's flat. I compare with the lines I'd read in the original, and the music is gone. Well, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. These are some of the greatest poems in world literature, why should they work in translation? Reading through the book was not at all a waste of time though. It has given me an overview of the Edda and made me want to go back and read more of it in Old Norse. Maybe that's all Collinder was trying to achieve.
One noteworthy exception: the translation of the final poem, Egil Skalla-Grímssons Sonatorrek, Egil Skalla-Grímsson's elegy for his dead son, is extraordinary, beautiful and heartbreaking. The pages I have found about Collinder's life are uninformative and don't mention any children, but it's hard not to feel there is some personal connection here. ____________________
I reread it, and second time round I appreciated it much more. Collinder's uncompromising language takes some getting used to, and also you have to know the whole story already for it to make sense.
I am now very interested to try reading more of the poems in the original Old Norse. Also the versions of the Völsungasaga by Tolkien and William Morris, both of which I've only just discovered....more
I loved this passage from Tove Ditlevsen's Barndom. Ten-year-old Tove has been allowed to visit the public library for the first time and is being advI loved this passage from Tove Ditlevsen's Barndom. Ten-year-old Tove has been allowed to visit the public library for the first time and is being advised by Miss Mollerup, the librarian [my translation]:
I am taken to a table and placed in front of a children's book whose title and author I have mercifully forgotten. I read: "Father, Diana has had a puppy! With these words, a slim young girl of fifteen years burst into the room, which as well as the district governor also contained--" etc etc. It's more than I can do to read it. It fills me with an unutterable feeling of sadness and ennui. It is impossible for me to understand how language, that delicate and sensitive instrument, can be abused so horribly, or how such revolting sentences have found their way into a book which has been placed in a library where an intelligent and kind woman like Miss Mollerup asks unsuspecting children to read it. However I cannot, at the moment in question, express these thoughts, so I content myself with saying that the book is boring and that I would rather have something by Zacharias Nielsen or Vilhelm Bergøe. But Miss Mollerup says children's books are more fun after a while, you just need to have the patience to carry on until the story gets going. Only after I repeatedly insist that I want something from the adult shelves does she relent, her eyes filled with a curious expression, and offers to fetch me a book, if only I will tell her what I would like, since I am not allowed to visit that part of the library myself. A Victor Hugo, I say. It's Ugó, she says with a smile, and pats my head. I'm not embarrassed that she's corrected my pronunciation, but when I come home with Les miserables and my father says with approval, Victor Hugo, he's great! I answer pompously and pedantically, Father is pronouncing it incorrectly. It is actually "Ugó". I couldn't give a fuck how it's pronounced, he says calmly, you should pronounce all those names the way they're written. Anything else is showing off.
Although this looks like such a simple, straightforward, honest account of the author's childhood, albeit told in unusually beautiful language, I thinAlthough this looks like such a simple, straightforward, honest account of the author's childhood, albeit told in unusually beautiful language, I think Tove Ditlevsen is laughing at us. She realised at a very young age that she wanted to be a poet. Girls can't be poets, her father told her brusquely, but she couldn't let go of her dream: putting words together was the only thing that mattered to her, she was unable to experience life except by turning it into writing. It didn't matter if what she wrote down was true, in the narrow sense people generally use, poets have a different way of thinking about truth. She tells us about things that may or may not have happened (no one else can remember them, she explains), and every now and then she interrupts the flow of the narrative. This is the kind of thing I was writing at the time, she says, and she shows us one of the poems she put in the book no one else was allowed to see.
I think these poems are the heart of the story. Danish isn't a language I know well, but it's close to Swedish, which I speak fluently, so I can read them as though they're written in Swedish dialect. From the way she presents them, I thought she was telling us they weren't very good, but in fact I rather liked them. Eventually her brother finds the book and reads her most secret thoughts. He laughs hysterically, mostly because he's so shocked to find his kid sister has all this stuff inside her that he'd never even suspected might exist. She screams at him to give it back, and after that she never lets the book out of her sight. But a few months later he says he has a friend with connections in publishing who'd like to see her writing. She reluctantly shows him the book. These are terrific, says the friend, and he arranges an interview with the editor of a literary magazine.
Tove turns up at the editor's office, so agitated she can't say a word. She just hands the book over to him. He reads through it, mumbling the lines to himself. These are very erotic, he says, surprised. Not all of them, says Tove, horribly embarrassed. But damn, the erotic ones are the best ones, he says. How old are you? Fourteen, says Tove. Well, says the editor, I'm just in charge of the children's page, I can't use this. Come back in a couple of years. Tove is crushed and doesn't show her writing to anyone again for a long time.
I have never seen such a clear account of how someone becomes a poet....more
At first I didn't think the second volume would be as good as the first, but I had underestimated the author's skill; it was only a li[From Hildegard]
At first I didn't think the second volume would be as good as the first, but I had underestimated the author's skill; it was only a little past the halfway point that I understood what she had in mind. In fact, Hildegard II is an even greater achievement. It is extraordinary how Marstrand-Jørgensen has taken the stray threads we have left of Hildegard's life and woven them together into a dense poetic tapestry that feels utterly compelling. The more details I checked, the more convinced I became.
Such a beautiful, moving, inspiring book. And such a pity that there is no English translation - I wrote to her and asked if anything is planned, but apparently not. Danish is far from being my best language, but I will see if I can translate a page or two myself so that anglophones can discover what they're missing. ...more
It's difficult to know how to review this excellent first novel by the late and much lamented Jakob Ejersbo. Instead, my Danish friend Pernille HvalsøIt's difficult to know how to review this excellent first novel by the late and much lamented Jakob Ejersbo. Instead, my Danish friend Pernille Hvalsøe and I would like to present:
If the first paragraph of A la recherche du temps perdu had been written by Ejersbo
I lang tid nu er jeg faldet tidligt i søvn. Lyset forsvinder og øjnene lukker sig hurtigt i. Jeg når ikke engang at tænke, pis og lort, nu falder jeg i søvn. En halv time senere vågner jeg igen. Jeg tænker, at nu er det på tide at gå i seng. Jeg vil lægge den bog jeg tror jeg har i hånden og slukke lyset. Mens jeg sov har det jeg læste fucked mig op. Jeg tror jeg er alt hvad der stod i bogen. En kirke. En kvartet. Madonnas bryster. Følelsen varer i et par sekunder. Den påvirker ikke min hjerne. Men mine øjne kan ikke se at lyset ikke længere er tændt. Så sløres tankerne som minder om et tidligere liv efter en reinkarnation. Bogen fortager sig. Jeg kan tænke på den eller ej som jeg vil. Så kan jeg se igen. Mørket er uventet. Det er dejligt og afslappende for øjnene. Endnu mere for sindet. Jeg forstår ikke, hvor det kommer fra. Helt mørkt. Hvad er klokken? Jeg hører togenes tuden. Nogle tæt på, andre fjernt. De er som fuglesang i en forpulet skov. Jeg kender afstandene i det øde landskab. Nogle derude skal til den næste station. Togsporene er lagt i hans hukommelse. Nye oplevelser. Samtalen tidligere. Tre hundrede gram tjald leveret under en ukendt lampe. De følger ham i nattens stilhed. Det bliver godt at komme hjem.
(view spoiler)[If you're curious to know how it was done: I wrote a first version in Swedish, I ran it through Google Translate to turn it into bad Danish, Pernille edited it into good Danish, and then we decided we needed to add more rude words because it didn't sound Ejersbo enough. Really a lot of fun, we recommend this game! (hide spoiler)] ...more
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