The Great Gatsby

F Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

Betyg: 4

It's about dreams, isn't it? The illusion, as in chasing after, building something upon nothing. James Gatz has a dream, becomes it, and never realizes that the very chasing of that dream is what makes it impossible. It's the very symbol of Gatsby's success and the prize he was looking for that brings him down in the end (the car and the girl - what else, that's the American dream, right?) To get what he wants, be what he wants, he has to become someone whom that person, that life doesn't want. The brief summer, the onset of autumn, the unstoppable passage of time. I gather this is one of those books that all American schoolchildren are made to read, and it shows; it's a bit like being handed a decoder ring, recognizing themes and images that later turn up in lots of others, from Nabokov and Salinger to Dylan... Plus, there's Fitzgerald's language. It mystifies me; almost sloppy at times, then suddenly highly (almost too highly) poetic, mixing what is today almost hokey dialogue with sentences that just burn into my head.

"So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight." One of those sentences that turns out to be actual foreshadowing, worked before we knew that, and still works afterwards.

Fisk och kultur

Sjón - Fisk och kultur

Betyg: 4

dagensbok.com

Att läsa Lolita i Teheran

Azar Nafisi - Att läsa Lolita i Teheran

Betyg: 4

Really enjoyed this. The story of a female Iranian professor of literature returning to her home country around the time of Khomeini's revolution and staying for 18 years, trying to do what she wants to do - teach literature, without being censored or oppressed. Which isn't easy in a very hard-line religious dictatorship.

It's part memoir, part literary criticism (her analysis of Lolita is fascinating - I just wish I had read all of the books she discusses) and part analysis of what it means to live in a country where individuality, imagination and personal freedom are frowned upon, to put it mildly - especially as a woman. It's a furious defense of human rights and of the need for fiction, a book where I find myself wanting to quote something every other page. (And considering the current trend of growing moral censorship and hunt for "true stories", not just relevant in Iran.)

I'm not completely bowled over by her writing style, though; her observations are astute, but she veers back and forth in time, dipping in and out of monologue and dialogue in a way that doesn't always do her any favours. It doesn't really bother me, but it's enough to make the book less than a masterpiece. Still, very recommended.

Lolita: boken, filmerna, diskussion på dagensbok.com

V for Vendetta

Moore/Lloyd - V For Vendetta

Betyg: 4

Did a quick read-through of Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V For Vendetta too. As graphic novels go, it's... not QUITE up there with the masterful Watchmen, but I have to say it's better than the movie (which I liked). For starters, it's darker; not so much with the shining hero-worship. In these times of increasing political strife and terrorism, it's certainly no less chilling than it must have been back in the early 80s. Just how much evil can be committed in the name of the greater good?

Dexters dunkla drömmar

Jeff Lindsay - Dexters dunkla drömmar

Betyg: 2

And yet again I find myself in the curious position of preferring the movie - or in this case, the TV series - to the book. The story has so much potential; a complete sociopath who is schooled by his disillusioned cop stepfather to channel his murderous instincts into only killing those who deserve it - making him a serial serial killer killer - and who suddenly comes across a case which seems to mirror his own way of thinking and killing perfectly. On the TV series, this potential is realized beautifully; the whole question of morality, of free will, of someone who is incapable of feeling for others having to pretend to do so... but over the 230 pages of the novel, it's squandered. Since it's all told in the first person by a narrator who, by definition, doesn't understand others, the cast of supporting characters is largely ignored, and the ending comes completely out of the blue with no advance buildup whatsoever. Not to mention that Lindsay is a little too fond of the whole noir thing but can't quite pull it off (at one point, he writes that someone grunts "like a pig choking on a grapefruit", which may be one of the most bizarre similes I've read in some time) and that the translation hardly does whatever good writing there is any favours. Watch the series instead.

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness

Richard Yates - Eleven Kinds of Loneliness

Betyg: 4

Richard Yates' "Eleven Kinds of Loneliness" is ever so slightly excellent. I'm not normally much for short story collections, but this one really got to me. 11 stories of people failing, stumbling over their own (not necessarily big) ambitions, little slices of life for people who feel all too real, all told with such compassion and gentle dark humour that I can't help but love them. I had never read Yates before and had no idea what to expect going in, but I know I came out a fan. Now where's "Revolutionary Road"...

Montecore

Jonas Hassen Khemiri - Montecore: En unik tiger

Betyg: 5

"Pippis pappa är negerkung."

Ett litet försök att sammanfatta en ganska omtumlande roman. Det är nog ingen slump att Khemiri namndroppar Pynchon, och att han(s alter ego) blir upprörd över att fångas i den svenska diskbänksrealismen där böcker måste vara verkliga för att vara sanna. "Montecore" må vara ett bländverk som konsekvent vägrar tala om vad som är verkligt och vad som är fantasi, med två berättare som möjligen är samma eller en tredje, men det är ett enormt nöje att läsa; samtidigt litterärt... om inte experiment så i alla fall ovanlig form, och en riktigt smärtsam skildring av kultur- och generationskrockar. Den ljuger, och den berättar sanningen.

The Road

Cormac McCarthy - The Road

Betyg: 4... nästan 5

dagensbok.com

Haunted

Chuck Palahniuk - Haunted

Betyg: 3

Bunch of people, aspiring writers, answer an ad: spend three months locked away together, no contact at all with the outside world, completely top secret, just write. Of course, Palahniuk seems to think, no "normal" people would agree to such an idea, and as it turns out all of them have something to hide. And as they introduce themselves, one by one, and tell their stories, everything inside the house starts to go wrong...

Haunted is a satire on modern society (of course); the culture of victimization, the glorification of suffering, every bad thing human beings can do to each other and themselves for a place in the spotlight, a confirmation that they exist and that they matter. The need to create a villain to blame for everything we do ourselves. The house is equal parts Frankenstein, Masque of the Red Death and Big Brother, and soon turns into one of the grisliest stories this side of... well, I kept coming back to Bret Easton Ellis and Ryu Murakami. Both of whom, I'd have to say, do a better job, even if Palahniuk does his best to outsplatter anyone out there. It's not that the stories themselves are lacking, but the framework gets boring. Our anti-heroes are a bunch of pathetic idiots, more than willing to mutilte themselves and be able to say "Hey, look, I'm the victim here!" when the TV cameras come. I couldn't care less about them as individuals, and while the gore is interesting, it also gets incredibly repetitive; we GET it, Chuck, they're all symbols of today's mentality, yada yada yada. Just not very convincing symbols. And there's always the danger of the double-edged irony; to make fun of our thirst for scandal, blood, pain and suffering, Palahniuk has to play to those exact desires. It's a bit like (though better than) Hostel in that way; any attempt to make gore fans choke on their precious gore is bound to fail more often than it succeeds.

No, the saving grace is mostly in the short stories they tell each other. Some of which are truly great - visceral, emotional, funny as hell - and are the reason I will investigate Palahniuk further. Haunted is less than the sum of its parts, but some of those parts are pretty damn choice.