Perty books!

I'm on a bit of a reading spree at the moment, and what I'm reading is perty books - among other things, I've just had a new batch of books from the Canongate Myths Series. There's a lot to be said about that line, both good and bad of course, but for the msot part, I'm overwhelmed. And the books looks so lovely.

But what's with the nice looking literature? Beautiful books, books that are like soft dark chocolates covered in red and gold wrapping. It is, I find, a joy to open a book that is printed on thick, cream coloured paper, where the margins are substantial, so as to make the lines just so long as is comfortable for the eye. Not the entire page is used up, as is often the case with grey-colour-paper pocket books, where the lines are too tight, the font too bold and the margins too narrow. No, I like well-bound books with beautiful cover-art, books that reach out for me and make me want to pick them up.

But of course, it matters little that the book looks lovely, if the content is bland or uninteresting.


I've recently read not only one, but two books that fill both the form and the content criteria, namely The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson and Girl meets boy by Ali smith. They both deal with issues like queer, norms and expectations, feminist and humanist questions as well as environmental problems and what we are doing to our world and to ourselves. Both JW and AS have a lovely, light and direct prose, they are approachable as writers, accessible as texts, and they both are very, very worth while.

And the books are very, very perty.

Kiddie stuff!

Lately, I’ve been reading some fantasy literature, which I believe is often perceived as being aimed at children and adolescents, and I’ve been thinking about even more examples. It’s like… I have no idea how a children’s book is deemed a children’s book. What are the criteria for the classification? That the books deal with kiddie stuff? That the main characters are children?

I think that last thing is quite important to a lot of grown ups. These books that I’ve read lately, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman and the Abarat by Clive Barker, mainly, have children or adolescents as their main characters. This of course, automatically targets them at audiences of that same age.

I’m not so sure.

One aspect of reading which is important to a lot of people is identification; is it at all possible for me as a reader to identify with at least one of the main characters? Preferably the main character, but some lesser being is quite alright too. Like, if you can’t identify with Harry, Hermione could work just as well.

Or can she?

See, the reasoning behind identification is often (and I’m rambling here, NOT being scientific, you'd better not dream of quoting) based on likeness. I identify with the person who’s the most like me. I.e., with Harry Potter, I ought to identify with the clever neurotic overachiever with large front teeth and bushy hair. Thing is – I don’t really want to do that. I’d much rather identify with someone who I can feel for, someone who doesn’t have all my worst sides. I like Ginny, for example. We’re not terribly similar at all… It’s like… You trekkers out there will be familiar with Wesley Crusher, I’m sure. You know, the rather annoying young man who constantly fucks up? The son of Dr. Crusher? There are whole web pages dedicated to scorning him. Apparently, he was put on the show for young viewers to have someone to identify with. Thing is – do you really want to identify with him? He grows nanites that put the ship at risk – well, to be honest, he repeatedly puts the ship at risk! – and he’s not really much use. He’s annoying (this is an aside: interestingly enough, the actor playing Wesley, Wil Wheaton, has risen to great hights in the blogger community. Oughtn’t the bloggers and the trekkers overlap quite a lot? Really? It’s interesting). Anyway: The younger viewers don’t want to identify with Wesley, they want to identify with Picard! I want to identify with Picard. So, a younger character doesn’t make the book a book for children.

Secondly, are the children really children? *slight spoiler warning* Both in Abarat and in His Dark Materials, the children are more than ordinary kids. *end of spoiler risk* The same in Narnia: The children are ordinary in our world, but in Narnia they are special because of their humanness. They lose their plainness. With His Dark Materials, I’d say that the children aren’t even very credible as children: Lyra’s close to superhumanly bright occasionally, and generally, the children of fantasy either have extraordinary powers (like Garion or are extraordinarily clever, like Lyra, or good, like Lucy. They’re not primarily children. Primarily, they’re super humans.

But: What does seem to be an important feature of all good children’s fiction – not only fantasy, mind you – is that there’s a moral, ethical, scientific and social depth which is mind boggling, and often missing in a lot of fiction aimed at adults. His Dark Materials is filled with quite advanced theology and physics, to say nothing of quantum physics and meta physics. Don’t even get me started on the theology of Narnia. The social realism of Abarat and of Mio, my Son is occasionally plain scary, and possibly not really suited for children. At least not without adult supervision. Seriously. Read the stuff as adults and think about it.

Anyway: Let’s just step away from that narrow classification of books into children’s fiction and adult fiction. There’s such depths there, and we miss out on so much if we dismiss something because we think it’s aimed at another age group.

This is not a way of avoiding to grow up. I love being grown up. This is a way of keeping my mind open, accessible and agile. I’m trying to avoid putting stuff in boxes and labelling it. I’m trying to keep my mind young.

Duck and cover

I spent the weekend in the park. Or, I should probably say “I spent the weekend in the Gardens”. The Botanical Gardens, that is.

Not three minutes walk from my home, are the Botanical Gardens. I go there as often as I can. Usually I bring a book. Sometimes I bring a blanket. Yesterday I brought both, and spent the day enjoying made up adventures while surrounded by daisies and hung-over students. It was nice, slow, relaxing and warm. Summer.

The day before that I didn’t bring a blanket. I decided to sit on one of the benches by the little pond instead. One thing you tend to find near water and people, is ducks. That’s the case with the Lund Botanical Gardens as well, of course. There are what seems to be a couple of different families. There’s one single mother with one duckling – they almost always stay by the pond – and then there’s a couple, a male and a female, who seem to be moving about in the park. I reckon people like to feed them, because they are totally unafraid of humans. Actually, they walk right up to you. If you try to chase them away, you’ll be as close to them as 30 centimetres before they bother to pay you any attention. As I was sitting on my bench, quietly reading, the female walked up to me. And bit at the toe of my shoe! While it was still on my foot!

The nerve of some fowl!

Show and tell

I've been having issues with Science Fiction lately.

Not issues as in "it's nerdy" or "it's not realistic" or anything. I'm a total nerd, so I don't mind the possible nerdiness associated with SF. And as for realistic... As long as the internal logic holds up, I'm happy.

I have other issues.

I've noticed that I pass seemingly inconsistent judgement on SF. On the one hand, I've been saying things like "one thing I really like with SF is how a lot of writers turn the genre into a forum for discussing ethics, philosophy, politics, economics as well as the limits - or breaking of limits - of science". On the other hand, I've heard myself say: "yeah, he's got great ideas, but I don't like the way he turns his books into a way for him to give vent to his own ideas about ethics, philosophy, politics, economics and the limits of science".

See my dilemma?

I'm seemingly contradicting myself, which disturbs me. Because I really believe I have a point in both cases. So how can this be right?

Well. There are different ways for authors to pass knowledge to their readers. One way to do this is to have one of your characters explain things to other characters. This is pretty explicit and usually not terribly subtle. Pretty full on. Another way to do it is to show the reader how something works by letting it happen. This is less in your face and is generally considered a more subtle way of letting the reader know how things work. The difference between the two strategies is sometimes referred to as "show, don't tell". Some of the SF I've consumed lately has mainly had "tell" and less "show", which has disturbed me. I love the idea that writers have a plan, that they want their readers to get more from their text than a well told story. But I still prefer the story to remain well told.

My main obcection however, isn't to "tell". It's toa very special form of "show". namely show off. There is a limit to how much detail the reader actually needs access to. Seriously.

Please, please; show, don't tell us everything!

Chic music and lit

Last night, my friend Sofia, her husband and I ended up at Pusterviksteatern, a small and very intimate venue, where the cool and lovely Veronica Maggio was playing. Maggios music is a rather bouncy, poppish kinda style, with emphasis on lyrics, I'd say. It's quite nice, but her style is so specific, so set apart, that there's a risk for the one-hit-wonder-syndrome. She sounds so different that she probably won't be able to simply sound different in the same way for her next album, because then she'll just be doing the same thing all over again. The audience was mainly made up of skinny young men in their early twenties and their equally skinny girlfriends. All looking intimidatingly stylish. We looked like three architects let out from the bureau; all dressed in black, with funky glasses and the occasional non-traditional piece of jewellery. We felt old.

Veronica Maggio's songs seem to be mostly about broken hearts, failed relationships and breakups, so when she played a cover of Offspring's mid-90's hit Self esteem, it fitted perfectly. Actually, it was a very clever cover, she really made it her song. Not quite as thoroughly as for example the Cardigans did with Iron man, but that was what it made me think of. I loved it. One of her songs, Nöjd?, "Satisfied", is about a woman who has dated a thousand and one man, and just finds flaws with them - she simply isn't satisfied with any of them. One's too short, one's too tall, one has too big a moustasche... Well, you get the picture. I always feel a little sting of guilt when I hear it, as I'm perfectly aware that my own dating pattern can be considered a result of the same pickyness. I don't think I'm quite as picky as Maggio though...

My dear friend Johanna suggested the other day that I'd write a book about all the men I've dated. She suggested the title Susanna's little black book. Ah... I'm not so sure.. Firstly, I don't think anyone but my closest friends would find it interesting at all. And they already know all the details. Secondly, it's already been done: Travel journalist Jennifer Cox takes it upon herself to go around the world in 80 dates and to write a book about it. I don't think I could match that. Maybe I could use a different title: Working the Universities of the World: A guide to dating in Academia. A colleague once suggested that I was a parallel to the olden days sailors with a girl in every port; she thought I had a man on every Campus... Slight exaggeration, of course, but a rather fun one nonetheless. Ah well. I wouldn't expose my dates like that though (Cox had gotten consent from her dates of course, but I'm reluctant to call my old dates to see if they'd let me write about them...). I haven't actually read Cox's book, but I've read an interview with her when it was first published, and it seems that as far as chic lit goes, this is right up there! But yeah, she's done it already. Then, on the other side of the spectrum, there's Belle de Jour. And in between there's every girl on the Net and her aunt, telling the world intimate details of their dates. Nah. Unless I can think of an extremely clever way of doing this (like Cox! Only not already done...) I'll probably ditch the idea, sorry Johanna!

I enjoyed Maggio's concert, altough I thought there were some weak moments: 1) She only has this one album out, so she has a limited range of songs to choose from. That's all very fine, but why talk about it? I'd say that's a typically female way of talking oneself down. Look, every song on the record is good. There are no real lows. So don't talk it down by saying that that's all you've got! 2) The institutionalized encores. This isn't Maggio's fault of course, this is what it is like. I still think that those planned-for encores are rather silly. Just play the songs as planned. If there's reason for en encore, do a real encore. Please. 3) The audience sucked. Booooooring. Right, I wasn't any better, but hey, I'm old. Probably ten years older than the average. Some enthusiasm, please!

I'll probably go out and by the album though.

Vurt

Jeff Noon, 1993

Jeff Noon is something of a cult writer, who moves in what the blurbs call ”urban fantasy”. While I was reading Vurt, I was thinking a lot about why they simply don’t call it “cyber punk”. You travel the same kind of environments as in Neuromancer, the activities in which you take part are close to those of The Diamond Age, but… You don’t plug in. You take a drug by putting a feather in your mouth. A blue feather for a fun trip, a pink one for a hot trip, black for a scary trip, and a yellow… Well, take a yellow and you might die. If you die on a yellow trip, you die in the real world. The others are more like computer games; you can restart and log off. In the yellows however, there are no safety nets, and it’s all about finding out just how far the rabbit hole goes… I claim that it’s pretty damn likely that the W brothers have read this book. If they haven’t, the random coincidental overlaps between Vurt and the Matrix are quite scary.

The plot. Yes. Scribble has lost his beloved sister to the Vurt, the looking-glass world where you go when you do a feather. She remained when they took one containing a touch of yellow. The balance between the world and the Vurt has to be constant, so if you leave something in there, something else will come back out with you. And vice versa. Take something out and something of like value will be drawn into the Vurt. Scribble is desperate to get his sister back from the Vurt and return the Vurt creature he got instead, And he rises to the challenge.

A lot in the set-up is classic quest fantasy. A mission, a group of people, a young man with hidden talents he doesn’t even know of himself, but has to master to carry out the mission. It’s quite interesting to see it in this environment.

This is definitely a very, very good read. I strongly recommend it. But – as the Game Cat would say: Be careful. Be very careful.