After my Karen Joy Fowler reading binge, I once again hit a reader's block. This is most annoying as I'm in the possession of a gift card to the Akateeminen Bookstore.

After multiple tries to find something interesting just by browsing at the bookshop, I checked through the blogs and review sites I used to visit so often. I wanted to find out what the blogosphere proclaimed as the Next Big Thing, which books were on the Best of 2008 and Holiday Reads -lists.

Either it's been a bad year or I'm just too picky. The Booker winner I couldn't care less about (like all the winners since Life of Pi), Guardian's Books for Christmas had none of the qualities I want from a holiday read (I have to read quite enough pessimistic stories about motherhood and racial issues at the university, I do not need them during the vacations!) and I am pretty much allergic to dystopic SF that is apparently the main category of books reviewed in blogs. Finnish literature I have pretty much given up.

I miss Harry. I miss Lucy in the snow with Mr Tumnus. I miss snow in general. I miss the combination of adventure and comfort that a good fantasy novel can offer. I miss the witty language of Jonathan Strange and the feeling of discovery in The Left Hand of Darkness. I miss The Book Thief. I even miss Lyra, although after two tries I've still only read the first two books of the trilogy. So it should say something about how desperate I am that I tried Northern Lights on Friday...

The only reasonably good option I managed to find comes highly recommended by the Mumpsimus -blog, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. It does not have snow, but if the excerpts are anything to judge by, it does have true beauty of language. The comparisons to Book Thief make me hopeful, as it was certainly one of my best reads of this year*. And it's a YA novel that has reached an adult audience, like most of the books I listed above.

The main drawback -you guessed it- is that it's not available at Akateeminen. With some luck, the sequel will be, so if I read volume one first, then I can buy volume two with the gift certificate.

*Seriously, if you haven't read it, make it your no 1 Christmas wish. Only a very good writer can pull off a story narrated by Death that shows such humanity and sympathy.

There are some presumptions that one makes almost unavoidably about writers and actors. After having seen Scarlett Johansson in Match Point, I expected her to play the ambitious sister is The Other Boleyn Girl, and I would hardly be the only person surprised if Rowling turned to psychological thrillers.

So perhaps you can imagine my surprise when Karen Joy Fowler, the writer of Jane Austen Book Club, turned out to have a background in SF & fantasy. The bestseller combination of book clubs and Jane Austen made me presume the author behind it had at best a resumé of Richard & Judy or Oprah titles, although more likely was that it was her first novel. So seeing her name revered on SF sites I could not leave it uninvestigated. It lead me to reading reviews of her books, and ultimately buying Sister Noon.

Sister Noon is a historical novel with some characteristics of speculative fiction, populated by many actual historical figures and is, indeed, centered around one such, called Mary Ellen Pleasant. The actual main character though is a middle-aged spinster called Lizzie, but Mrs. Pleasant still remains the mysterious driving force behind the story. Not only is the book full of beautiful language but also, remarkably, features one of the most unlikely (and yet very sympathetic) heroines I've encountered.

Luckily for me, Karen Joy Fowler's new novel had just come out when I finished Sister Noon, and that seemed equally distant in terms of genre from it as Sister Noon had seemed to be from Jane Austen Book Club.

Called Wit's End in US, Case of the Imaginary Detective in UK, the new book deals with the genre of detective novels. The main character Rima has lost her entire family and comes to stay with her godmother, a famous mystery writer Allison B. Early, creator of Maxwell Lane (whom I kept picturing as similar to 10th Doctor in appearance).
In parts the novel reminded me very strongly of Lumikko ja yhdeksän muuta, as both books have a slightly apathetic female main character who is a teacher and is dealing with loss while trying to solve the mysteries around a very famous writer. Both also portray a tightly-knit community that seems somewhat distant from reality. Admittedly Lumikko is much more plot-driven -the main characteristic of Imaginary Detective is that it's meandering -something that is has (to a degree) in common with Sister Noon. To me that's not necessarily a fault, and here it is not. For The Case of the Imaginary Detective is among other things about the nature of the reader-author relationship, about the fictional you vs. the real you, about stories and who owns them: to expect it to follow the conventions of a mystery novel would force it into a mould that it does not fit into. It all depends on what you expect. My expectations were probably influenced by me having just read Sister Noon, which is indeed the recommended order of reading these two books, in my opinion. Recommended they are, of that there is no doubt.

I have now started Fowler's first novel, Sarah Canary, and it is again something quite different. I am looking forward to another interesting reading experience.

The weather is grey and wet, but still, it’s Friday. The atmosphere at the office is sleepy and silently hopeful (Friday!). A day like a damp library book.

I’m about 40 pages short of finishing the first book of Hobb’s Liveship Traders series, and have been for a few weeks now. To me it’s a fact that establishes the trilogy as too inconsequential to be worth the effort.
I did manage to finish The Gamblers by Dostoevsky, although it took a while. My biggest problem with Russian literature (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and so on –not Nabokov) is still the style -all the interjections and sentences that seem to fade into nothing. My dad is of the opinion that it’s the (Finnish) translators’ doing.
I should have Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day waiting for me in the mailbox, unless the package is too big, that is, and I have to pick it up from the post office (I certainly hope not, in this weather). I saw the movie last Saturday (pretty good, pretty cute, Amy Adams over-acts) and am looking forward to reading the novel.
I read from complete-review.com about a Brideshead Revisited movie (must be bad, I must see it) and now I’m thinking whether I should read more Waugh. Or At Swim, Two Boys, finally.

I hope Susanna Clarke would write a sequel to JS&MN soon. Or Robin McKinley to Sunshine. I miss Regency England and vampires. All there seems to be these days is Stephenie Meyer. I couldn’t finish Twilight, for pretty much the same reasons that are stated here. Except that the writer doesn’t seem to know Meyer’s a Mormon.

(p.s. After I wrote this, we went for lunch and found the best confectionery in Helsinki. It's in the WTC building, opposite the pasta restaurant.)

Guess who's bored?

Christopher Moore: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal
Synopsis: The title really says it all.
Genre: Humoristic fantasy/historical fiction
Recommended for: Fans of Terry Pratchett who have run out of reading material. Anyone interested in Jesus Christ and historical settings.
Not recommended for: Christians without a sense of humour, people unfamiliar with the concept of fantasy.
Where to read: The story is gripping but not so demanding as to require one’s full concentration, so a very suitable book to be read on the beach (as long as the other sun worshippers don’t get too annoyed with sudden gasps of laughter).

Dodie Smith: I Capture the Castle (Finnish title: Linnanneidon lokikirja)
Synopsis: the diary of 17-year-old Cassandra living with her family in a crumbling castle in 1930s.
Genre: YA/ General fiction
Recommended for: Anyone who cries at the end of a movie. Maybe fans of Jane Eyre. Romantics, Anglophiles. Really, anyone who has been a girl, or been in love, can relate to this story.
Not recommended for: Cynical people with a short attention span. If you think “nothing happens” in Jane Austen’s books, then you might not have patience for this one either (although the writing style is very different).
Where to read: Ideally, at the summer cottage wearing an old cotton dress. If this is your kind of book, you’ll want to read it in one sitting, so reserve enough time.
Film adaption: pretty good, recommendable for fans of the book

Louis de Berniéres: Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (Kapteeni Corellin mandoliini)
Synopsis: Love story between a local girl and an Italian captain on the island of Cephalonia during the WWII Italian and German occupation. Another plotline follows an Italian soldier.
Genre: Historical fiction/General fiction/LGBT interest
Recommended for: Eager readers, anyone interested in more than a black-and-white view of history, romantics, readers of magical realism.
Not recommended for: people who hate sentimental fiction.
Where to read: On a vacation in the Mediterranean. This a thick book with a relatively wide cast of characters and writing that can be better enjoyed with concentration. Read in the evening at the hotel, or on the plane (with the risk of appearing teary-eyed in public).
Film adaption: very, very bad!

Monika Fagerholm: Ihanat naiset rannalla (Swedish: Underbara kvinnor vid vatten, English: Wonderful Women by the Sea/by the Water)
Synopsis: Middle-class life in 1960s. Childhood’s end. The story follows the life of two families, and especially their summers at a seaside resort.
Genre: General fiction
Recommended for: anyone interested in the women’s movement and life in the 1960s. Readers who can appreciate subtle undertones and like to interpret what they read. Also, if you are an English speaker and want to read a good Finnish novel, read Monika Fagerholm (I can highly recommend her other novels too, but am not sure whether they have been translated).
Not recommended for: inexperienced readers
Where to read: Ideally, alone on the pier.
Film adaption: don’t remember that much about it so can’t really say.

Caroline Graham: the Midsomer Murders books, eg. The Killings at Badger’s Drift (Kämmekkä kukkii kuolemaa) and A Ghost in the Machine
Synopsis: British detective stories set in small village(s)
Genre: Mystery/detective stories/crime fiction
Recommended for: Fans of traditional British detective stories such as Agatha Christie
Not recommended for: readers used to fast-paced, action-packed crime fiction. Although Midsomer Murders has more lust and blood that Hercule Poirot novels, they still rely heavily on the small village-setting and the little grey cells of Inspector Barnaby.
Where to read: pretty much everywhere.
Tv-series: recommendable

Gregory Maguire: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Note! Huom! Has been recently translated! Finnish title: Noita)
Synopsis: Dorothy didn’t tell the whole story.
Genre: Fantasy/parallel novel/general fiction(/interpretation as political allegory possible)
Recommended for: Fans of alternative fiction, fans of Jeff Vandermeer, Wizard of Oz-enthusiasts, Harry Potter fans, history students
Not recommended for: I can’t really think of anything! Maybe if you haven’t read any kind of books with unexplained/supernatural elements, you might be put off with some scenes in this book. But really, most of the population is familiar with Harry Potter –and especially if you liked the last three Potter books (or at least 5 & 6), this is the obvious place to continue.
Musical adaption: Haven’t seen, I’m in Finland. Living in a country the size of a toenail sucks.

Why You Should Read This

Fans of X's other work will disagree vociferously with the more critical elements of our review. They will like this book with tremendous energy. It satisfies readers who crave their dramatic tragedies delivered in tactile rather than philosophical arenas and become very emotionally attached to the romantic elements of the characters. Aside from readers who enjoy other notable fantasy authors who deal in this arena, we think these books could cross over very easily from some of the less cheesy novels from the straight romance genre and perhaps the less gruesome horror novels dealing in vampires. Similarly, we feel that enthusiasts of cop dramas (Law and Order, CSI, etc.) could also find great satisfaction in XXX. If the sex is more heated and the language a bit coarser than XX we still feel this book is eminently suitable for adolescents and teenagers.

Coming from a reviewer with whom I agree about Susanna Clarke, Jeff Vandermeer, J. K. Rowling and Douglas Adams, this sounds almost disconcertingly promising.

I'm having one of those days when concentration just is beyond me, and at lunch I became so totally exasperated with the book I was reading that I'm seriously thinking about selling it to the nearest second-hand bookshop as soon as I get off work.

I have the Hitchhiker-series by Douglas Adams waiting for me at home, almost finished, but the last (fifth) book is definitely going in a direction that I don't like.

At least I have the latest Nyt to read. TGIF.

Hullujen päivien yhteydessä päädyin ostamaan Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläisen Lumikko ja yhdeksän muuta, tietenkin normaalihintaisena. Mutta sainpahan kirjalla kätevästi täytettyä
-osan turhasta luennosta
-pitkäksi venähtäneen kahvitauon
-muutaman junamatkan
-perjantain myöhäisillan.

Lainasin Jääskeläisen novellikokoelman kirjastosta joskus, mutta sain luettua vain pari tarinaa. Lumikkoakin olen kaupassa katsellut. Suhtauduin kuitenkin epäluuloisesti ensimmäisestä sivusta saamaani vaikutelmaan yhdistelmästä mieskirjailija+naispäähenkilö+lapsettomuus=myötähäpeä. Onneksi viallisten munasarjojen rooli jää melko pieneksi.
Jääskeläisen hieman paperinmakuinen, epärealistinen tyyli johon myös suhtauduin epäilevästi ei kuitenkaan katoa ensimmäisen sivun jälkeen minnekään, mutta yllättävän hyvin siihen tottuu. Tavallaan se jopa sopii tarinan sävyyn, vähän niin kuin vanhoissa dekkareissa on Maisteri Leppäsiä ja tohtorinna. Lumikon tyyli on osana luomassa sen fantasiasävytteistä maailmaa, suomalaista pikkukaupunkia joka ei aivan voisi olla olemassa muualla kuin rinnakkaistodellisuudessa.

Juuri romaanin maailma onkin sen suurin vahvuus. Laura Lumikon kirjoittamia Otuksela-kirjoja tekee väistämättä mieli päästä lukemaan ja Jäniksenselälle vierailemaan. Harmillista onkin, että kirjan maailmalla voisi tehdä paljon enemmänkin. Loppujen lopuksi romaanista suurin osa kuluu henkilöiden pelatessa Peliä, joka sivunmennen sanoen muistuttaa hiukan liikaa deus ex machinaa. Huomaan usein lukiessa ärtyväni jos henkilöt saavat asioita selville liian helposti.
Dialogikaan ei saa vääntelehtimään tuskastuneena, vaikka joitain heikkoja kohtia joukossa onkin. Ero verrattuna esimerkiksi toiseen esikoisromaaniin, Rajaan, jonka jätin kesken, on huomattava.

Tarina muistuttaa hieman Diane Setterfieldin romaania The Thirteenth Tale, ainakin alkulähtökohdiltaan: mystinen naiskirjailija, yllättävän kutsun saava nuori naispäähenkilö (jota Jääskeläinen kutsuu tytöksi, huolimatta siitä että tämä on valmis maisteri ja äidinkielenopettaja) ja salaisuuksia sisältävä menneisyys. Tunnelmassakin on jotain samaa: sekä Jääskeläisen että Setterfeldin romaanit onnistuvat jotenkin vaikuttamaan erittäin mukavilta, takkatulen ääressä luettavilta tarinoilta, vaikka molemmissa on aika häiritseviäkin kohtauksia.
Juoni on kuitenkin koukuttava, eikä loppukaan aiheuta pettymystä. Heikkouksistaan huolimatta Lumikko ja yhdeksän muuta oli kyllä sen noin kahdeksan euron arvoinen.

Rufus, let it be noted, is god. His gig in Helsinki on Tuesday was awesome; songs from all of the albums, plus one new. Random talk of Sibelius and the election (Obama-fan) in between.
The Art Teacher and 11:11 were obvious highlights for me, but I was also really amazed by Want, one of the very few songs of his that I don't get that much out of -now it sounded beautiful.
Plus, this time I actually managed to open my mouth in his presence. Still just barely, but, nevertheless: yay!

I've recently read Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, both recommendable. I've tried to come up with a theory to explain why you can go months without finding a single book good enough to be read through, and then find many, all at once, but all I have so far is this: like when looking for misplaced keys, just stop looking and it's there.

I finished reading Fall On Your Knees by Canadian writer Ann-Marie MacDonald late last night, one of those random picks from the shelf that one ends up gorging when there are a thousand other things to do. It's a historical novel encompassing the first half of the 20th century, but the world wars stay mainly in the background: the action is at home.

The story centers on the Piper family: James, originally Scottish Protestant who marries Materia, a Lebanese Catholic (the father-in-law does not approve); their oldest daughter Kathleen, future opera diva; Mercedes, the god girl; Frances, the bad girl; and Lily, the adored youngest child. I'm not usually too keen on family sagas, but Fall On Your Knees actually doesn't cover that many generations, leaving space for the characters to become familiar. No one is strictly speaking the main character though. The point of view shifts and everyone has a story to tell...Some are just more willing to tell it than others.

So yes, there are secrets and misapprehensions and small (and not-so-small) tragedies. Themes are mostly bleak and the atmosphere is somewhat ominous for most part of the novel. I learned only after I was some hundred pages in that Fall On Your Knees is Oprah's Book Club. In a way it's obvious: these characters sure would have things to tell on her couch.

Yet the book is unforgivably gripping, partly due to its fast pace, partly to its writing. The language is soft and silky and manages to keep the story away from the soap opera -level that it might sink to in the hands of a lesser writer.

Plot-wise the strongest parts are the beginning and the end, in the middle there are some weaker moments. The final sections especially show MacDonald's command of first person narrative which makes me hope there had been more of it. Apparently there is another novel, The Way the Crow Flies, but as it's main character is apparently an 8-year-old, I suspect it, too, is mostly told in third person.

Let it be stated for the record that Juno is not worthy of an Oscar or the rave reviews it has received. It is, at best, a three-star comedy with an overly quirky main character of no other substance than her punchlines, a romance nearly inexplicable and a heartwarming ending merely annoying in all its warmth.
On the plus side: good music (including my favourite Belle&Sebastian song).

In addition to the occasional movie, I've been reading a melodramatic Canadian novel which has more teenage pregnancies than any ex-stripper could come up with in a single screenplay, listening to Carla Bruni's (now wife to the French President) No Promises, an album of British and American poetry composed to music which is actually quite good.

( This is probably just a result of writing both in English and Finnish )

I finished Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness some days ago and found it rather good. The structure of the book is brilliant in that information about the world and situation is presented bit by bit. Some things reminded me of Vandermeer's Ambergris, because of the feeling of exploring an alien world.

However, during two thirds of The Left Hand of Darkness I was conscious of reading a novel of ideas rather than a novel of characters. Don't get me wrong, they are interesting ideas, and, even more importantly, presented well and in good writing. But yet I still liked most of all the chapters from Lord Estraven's viewpoint, as they were more concerned with characters as individuals, and also had a more unique voice (that of a somewhat bitter exile). Genly Ai is for a main character rather colourless (for some reason I imagined him as a Chinese Tintin), getting more interesting only towards the end.

Currently most of my reading time is taken by school-related novels and textbooks. However, The Secret History of Moscow by Ekaterina Sedina that I bought for myself as a Christmas present has just arrived (Amazon took considerably longer than usual) and am eager to read that. No book recommended by Neil Gaiman has let me down so far...

Christopher Priest: The Prestige
Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy (Tristram Shandy)
Jane Austen: Kasvattitytön tarina (Mansfield Park)
Sense & Sensibility
Emma
Pride & Prejudice
Diane Setterfield: The Thirteenth Tale
Céline Curiol: Viimeinen kuulutus (Voix sans issue)
Jean Rhys: Huomenta, keskiyö (Good Morning, Midnight)
Voyage in the Dark
Juha Itkonen: Anna minun rakastaa enemmän
Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited
Michael Chabon: Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
J. K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Michael Moorcock: Behold the Man
Jeanette Winterson: Lighthousekeeping
Margaret Atwood: Poikkeustila (Moral Disorder)
Henry James: The Turn of the Screw

If you compare this list to that of last year, you can see that I read exactly the same number of books: 19 (or 20 actually since I read Sense & Sensibility twice).
My pace slowed down around October*, although I do have since started a few books (and am almost finished with two of them).

Other facts:
-Of the 19 books, 6 I read in Finnish. Of these, one was originally written in French and one in Finnish. The remaining 4 were translations from English and not read in the original English because of lack of time (I still read faster in Finnish) and availability (in the case of Moral Disorder).
-7 books were borrowed from the library, 8 I had bought, and the rest were loaned to me.

The best books were Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Lighthousekeeping, Anna minun rakastaa enemmän and all the Jane Austens (although P&P is still my least favourite). Jean Rhys was also a new (pleasant) discovery, and I do have one more book by her waiting to be read.
Deathly Hallows was a disappointment, and I didn't really like The Turn of the Screw, but otherwise all books are really recommendable.

*But I have an excuse. A good one.

#Re-read Sense & Sensibility for my proseminar and still loved it.

#Have started a few other books and finished one: Moral Disorder by Margaret Atwood. Slightly uneven but mostly good stories.

#Saw Stardust, which is definitely recommendable; Becoming Jane, which is kind of recommendable; and Evening, which unfortunately is not.

#Have been listening to The Arcade Fire again -somehow their music is very suitable for wintertime.

#Tried to think of birthday wishes, but it seems I have everything I need.

Some time ago, I finally finished reading Pride & Prejudice (to make a long story short: I just cannot be as fond of it as of Sense & Sensibility or Emma, but I would recommend it) and after that watched the 2005 film version, starring Keira Knightley and Matthew MacFadyen (who would have been a new face to me, had I not, through a strange coincidence, watched the tv-series Murder Rooms that he appears in that same week).

As a fan of the BBC miniseries of P&P but not of Miss Knightley, I was, well, prejudiced. Yet I would claim that I wouldn't have liked the movie even if I had not seen the miniseries.
( cut for length )

Soon after P&P, I watched another movie directed by Joe Wright and starring Keira Knightley -Atonement, based on the novel by Ian McEwan. After that I was ready to forgive Wright and even Knightley, to some degree.

( Again cut for length )

I just counted that I've read about 15 books this year so far. That's already almost as much as I read in 2006.

Right now I'm in the middle of at least four books, for example halfway through Lady Chatterley's Lover which I'm sort of liking, although Mr Lawrence's knowledge of the human female makes me feel pity for his wife. Lady Chatterley's ability to feel things in her womb instead of in her heart is also quite baffling.
I also started Leena Krohn's Tainaron on my vacation in Vienna, and am slowly making my way through it during my daily ride on the train.

I was going to read Monika Fagerholm's Amerikkalainen tyttö before the sequel comes out, but as it has apparently been postponed until January 2008 I don't think I will just yet. Now I instead feel tempted to pick up Robin McKinley's Sunshine (for the, um, 4th read) as the publication date of her forthcoming novel hasn't been changed.

My Mp3 player has been dead for weeks and I have been too lazy to do anything about it. Not being able to listen to music on the bus has not been as awful as I expected, but I still miss it sometimes, most often when I'm in the mood for a song that I do not have easily available in other format.

So, randomly, some songs I have missed [click for download]:

Death Cab for Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan
Death Cab's I Will Follow You Into the Dark is the most over-used song in the history of fanmix, but if I ever did a mix for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, this would be on it.

Devotchka - How It Ends
Like everyone else, heard the song when it was used on the Everything is Illuminated trailer and loved it. Too bad the film sucks.

Zero 7 - Somersault
Full lyrics here.

Radiohead - Myxomatosis
After reading this comparative study about Haruki Murakami and Radiohead, I felt that Myxomatosis was the song most likely inspired by The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Lately the band has been on my mind because I've listened a lot to Rubik (which I have already mentioned is very much like Radiohead). Also, I'm in the middle of Murakami's latest, After Dark.

Somehow I have already used way too much time and still haven't got to the point of this post, the Order of the Phoenix movie that I saw last week.
( Cut for spoilers )

I also finished Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock today, and as it's highly unlikely that I'll do a full review, let me just say that it's worth a read.

I finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay yesterday, and one day I will hopefully write more about it since it rocked, but now I'm trying to re-read HBP before Deathly Hallows comes out, and also running out of breath, figuratively speaking.

But before returning to my book & soon empty box of chocolates I would also like to announce my love for my new Doctor Who moodtheme. It's Nine! And Rose! And the pic for "indescribable" is the two of them dancing!

I'm thinking it might be a bit too much to have four tags for this piece of geeky randomness.

I spent most of last Sunday reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (after some attempts at A Scanner Darkly and Pride & Prejudice) on the porch, switching seats occasionally to keep my head in shade. A mysterious sound like a bird flapping its wings kept me company; the source of that sound turned out to be a hedgehog under the boards, moving about.

After recommending Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell to a friend, I had been envious of her, reading the book for the first time. It's that feeling of discovery and being immersed in a big book that I missed, and wanted to find something like JS & MN.

Now, Kavalier & Clay does feature two male colleagues, a war and loved ones in need of rescuing, but most important of all is that it's a big book to get lost in on a lazy summer day. I had considered reading it last summer, but was then more in the mood for the melancholy of Blind Assassin (which, now that I think about it, is also partly about pulp fiction, although it bears no relation to Chabon's novel otherwise). But now it was exactly what I wanted, not quite as light as Austen but neither as dark as Philip K. Dick.

During the week I've had less time and energy to read, but I'm still 400 pages in and ready to say that this rocks as much as Jonathan Strange did. Character love and very fine writing.
(I just realized that the, should I say, approach of the narration is reminiscent of JS&MN too: a first person voice looking back, to the lives of two great men who made history -although that sounds a bit pompous when one's talking about comic book writers.)

My mp3 player went nuts (once again) last Friday, so I've listened to music a lot less than usual, mainly to the album Bad Conscience Patrol by Rubik that I bought last week. I heard about the band ages ago, but had my doubts until I fell in love with the song City & the Streets without knowing it was theirs. Despite the album's Radiohead-esque (as it has been described in reviews) atmosphere, it has worked rather well as a soundtrack for these warm summer days (for me Radiohead is like a bleak spring day, or late autumn -except for the song There There, which is summer. And green). Sunday was City & the Streets; Monday Jesus/Hypnotist, weird and humorous; A Hard Try, my favourite at the moment, Tuesday, bright and somewhat bittersweet. Today has been mostly Radio Helsinki, although after one particular scene in Kavalier & Clay I've had the urge to have Rufus' Between My Legs on repeat.

Evelyn Waugh: Brideshead Revisited
Part One is reminiscent of E. M. Forster's Maurice, but Waugh's main theme is, in the end, Catholicism. Still, beautiful prose and decadence.
Suggestions for soundtrack: Rufus' Leaving for Paris no 2 and Tiergarten, also practically everything by Ed Harcourt.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Fun, too long, plot-wise completely nonsensical and at times sort of anticlimactic. I enjoyed it, but not as much as the previous two.
( Here be spoilers )

Zodiac
Didn't make me feel too queasy and has both Jake Gyllenhaal and Robert Downey Jr. Also, I watched CSI and Law & Order for years and have read a part of Patricia Cornwell's Jack the Ripper book. Serial killer stories are interesting, as long as the actual killing part isn't described or shown in too much detail.

Spiderman 3
Just one word: fanmix. For a superhero action movie, this film has been an inspiration for an awful lot of teenage girls.
And it has Kirsten Dunst.

And now I'm off to watch Miss Marple. Have a great weekend.

Täällä mainitun ranskalaisen Céline Curiolin romaanin Viimeinen kuulutus jälkeen olen ehtinyt lukea myös Jean Rhysin Good Morning, Midnight ja Voyage in the Dark, niistä ehkä lisää vielä joskus, nyt hetkeksi Ranskasta Suomeen.

Olen ylipäänsä lukenut suomalaista kirjallisuutta erittäin vähän, ja nekin harvat kirjailijat joista pidän (Kjell Westö, Monika Fagerholm) kirjoittavat ruotsiksi. Olin muutama viikko takaperin kuitenkin kuuntelemassa paria suomalaista esikoiskirjailijaa ja tuntui taas siltä että pitäisikö kuitenkin yrittää edes vähän lukea jotain suomalaista nykyproosaa. Juha Itkosta olin harkinnut jo aiemmin, ja hän sattui myös olemaan Imagen positiivisen Viimeisen kuulutuksen arvostelun kirjoittaja, joten Anna minun rakastaa enemmän lähti lopulta mukaani pokkarihyllystä.

Käytinkin viime sunnuntain sitten melko lahjakkaasti loikoillen sängyllä Itkosen kirjan kanssa. Hieman otti päähän että olin viivytellyt näinkin pitkään, Anna minun rakastaa enemmän olikin nimittäin parempi kuin olisin ikinä osannut kuvitella. Se on hyvin kirjoitettu, kauniisti kirjoitettu, paikoitellen erittäin osuvasti kirjoitettu. Kaksi eri kertojanääntä, eri sukupolvia edustavat Antti ja Leena, eivät ehkä aina erotu toisistaan niin selvästi kuin voisi toivoa, mutta juonen kannalta tämä tekniikka toimii. Ja juoni toimii myös, jos unohdetaan suomalaisen Tori Amos-tyyppisen laulajan maailmanvalloituksen epätodennäköisyys -ja itse asiassa tästäkin huolimatta Summer Maple istutetaan pop-historiaan uskottavasti, viitauksilla ja aidontuntuisilla lehtileikkeillä.

Minusta tuntuu kuitenkin että vaikka teoksen kirjalliset ansiot olisivat vähäisemmät, en silti voisi olla pitämättä siitä, samalla tavalla kuin pidän Katja Kallion Kuutamolla-romaanista. Antaisin anteeksi sen virheet koska, no, siinä puhutaan musiikista, sen henkilöissä on jotain todentuntuista ja tuttua, tarinassa jotain minkä takia haluan lukea Anna minun rakastaa enemmän joskus uudestaan.

Sitten vielä sivuhuomio: jos Summer Maple olisi totta, hän olisi luultavasti yksi lempiartisteistani. Kirjaa lukiessani kuvittelin hänen musiikkinsa muistuttavan Tori Amosin Little Earthquakes-albumia (tosin myös Girl Disappearing ADP:ltä, jota olen tietenkin kuunnellut viime päivinä ahkerasti, toi Summer Maplen mieleeni), enemmän Stina Nordenstamia kuin Aimee Mannia, ehkä jotain sellaista kuin Regina Spektorin Summer in the City ja Kristin Hershin The Letter. Suomalaisista lähinnä Astrid Swan, ei misään nimessä Hanna Marsh.