I picked this up way back because I was told its conclusion might be relevant to my master's thesis. Only as an example at the tail end of a point, but that is what I do: I procrastinate by reading books that are only vaguely possibly a bit relevant if I am really lucky. I need to stop that.

At any rate. I had read Stanisław Lem before, but only Cyberiad (somehow I managed to completely bypass his more famous Solaris. My expectations were therefore that I would find something quirky, mad, entirely different and genuinely interesting. And so I wasn't surprised; but I wasn't disappointed, either.

His Master's Voice is not like any science fiction I have ever read. Including Cyberiad -- in fact the two are nothing alike. It is a much more coherent story, it is more complicated, it requires more attention. But at the same time it is wonderfully intriguing, perhaps especially to someone with some grasp of the theory of language and communication.

Lem takes a taken-for-granted premise of so much science fiction, that communication with an alien race is possible, and questions it in a theory-heavy context of most major sciences. It is not an action novel. It is not plot-driven, not fast-paced. I may be mistaken in thinking it will appeal mostly to those of an academic turn, but I doubt it. Lem leaves most classics of the genre (even books like Contact, which were written after this one) looking ...

Sometimes it is rather annoying to read a detective story which your friends haven't read. I mean of course when you think you have been terribly clever and worked it all out before the detective has. Because you cannot tell anyone what you think the solution is in case it is the right one. This is doubly true if you have had another theory earlier, which you have now had to abandon or revise. Any attempt at sharing your genius with the world at large must be so vague as to be completely useless as a corroboration when you close the book and say "hah! I was right!".

This is my main objection to A.A. Milne's (no, not Winnie the Pooh) The Red House Mystery. It is excellent. I find it a little shocking that nobody took the time to introduce me to it earlier (perhaps there is a reason why my edition of it is labelled "A rediscovered classic". Someone clearly forgot about it).

It does the formal detective story ("whodunnit") very well. Better, perhaps than any other formal detective story I have come across. Which may be why I got there before the detective did: contrary to popular belief, most formal detective stories don't really give you all that you need to know before the dénouement; they merely provide the illusion that they do. Usually, the coherence of the plot is a retroactive affair in which the reader looks back over what he (or ...

It is one of those things: nobody ever tells me about the good films. Nobody ever says,

Really, Camilla. You would love this film. It is excellent. I loved it, and I know you would, too. I am not resting till you see it. Because it is that great.

That may be because I am picky and have turned down too many suggestions because of one thing or another. Or it may be because people simply assume that I don't like good films. Or it may be because I simply don't listen when people say "that's a good film". Either way, nobody told me to see In Bruges. Well, Tor may have. Actually, I know he did. But the title didn't sound engaging. It sounded like it was either going to be a boring film or an action film, and I don't often feel like seeing either. And so I didn't see it. And Tor really should have insisted.

About a year later, I have now seen it. And can I just say, it is bloody brilliant. Actually, bloody and brilliant. Brilliant, not in the sense that it glows or reflects light, but in the transferred sense of glowing with goodness and spirit and genius and humour. The film itself is frequently rather dark. Again in both senses.

It is really surprisingly dark (in the figurative sense of dealing with things in themselves not cheerful or bright) for such a funny film. I suspect ...

Comic books are where my geek credentials fall flat. Well, not entirely flat, of course: I know what they are, can name some major companies (well, Marvel and DC, anyway) and characters, and I do own a few. But the ones I own and the ones I read only ever reach me when they are already published in coherent bindings as books and after the stamp of approval has been put on them in some way or other. I.e. Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Sandman or the like. I am beginning to feel confident when it comes to Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman, but it has taken me many years; and I still feel confused and a little out of my depth when confronted with Avengers and Justice Leagues in various shapes and guises.

I had heard of the Eternals, but I had no real grasp of the concept or really any idea of what it was all about. All I knew was that the Eternals were … well, eternal. With superpowers. And fancy costumes. Basically gods. I have since learnt (from my recent reading of Gaiman's Eternals, in fact) that there are gods in the Marvel universe, and the impression I took away was that the gods are puny compared to the Eternals. And the Eternals are fairly puny compared to the Celestials.

It may be that someone with a better grasp of Marvel and Kirby would appreciate this book more than I did. As soon as I understood ...

Det hender jeg blir litt deprimert når jeg leser nyhetene.

I dag leste jeg en artikkel om en mann som siden han giftet seg med en makedonsk kvinne i 2007 regelmessig hadde banket henne slik at hun, og jeg siterer

besvimte og kastet opp blod, og en hjørnetann i overkjeven sprakk,

og videre

Da politiet kom til stedet, forklarte mannen at han ofte kranglet med kona fordi hun ikke ville innrette seg etter hva han sa.

Han forklarte at hun ikke var den kona han var blitt lovet og sa at han ønsket hjelp fra politiet med å få sendt henne hjem til Makedonia.

Bare det viser vel at det er snakk om en alvorlig forstyrret voldsmann uten begrep om hva som er akseptabel oppførsel. Da jeg leste videre kom det også frem at

Mannen hadde nemlig terrorisert kona med grov vold og drapstrusler siden høsten 2008.

...

Han skal blant annet ha slått henne flere ganger med knyttet neve i hodet og i mage- og ryggregionen. Flere ganger ble hun slått så hart [sic] at hun besvimte.

Han skal også ha truet med å partere henne og legge henne i fryseboksen.

Andre ganger skal han ha sagt at hun skulle bli sendt hjem til Makedonia hvor han kjente folk som kunne ta livet av henne.

Hva er forsvaret? Jeg siterer videre

Mannen sa i Heggen og Frøland tingrett at en kone alltid skal adlyde sin mann og sine svigerforeldre og at selv om han skriker til henne, skal hun ikke ...

I dag kom jeg over den kanskje smarteste artikkelen jeg har sett på nrk.no på flere år: Ti bøker istedet for å se OL. Idéen er briljant, og jeg akter derfor å stjele den -- for selv om idéen er god er jeg ikke helt sikker på utførelsen (jeg er skeptisk til bøker jeg ikke har hørt om, særlig når de har lysende barn eller hunder på coveret). Den tanken at man kan ignorere OL fullstendig og istedet bruke tiden på god litteratur fortjener imidlertid all støtte. Og selv om jeg ikke har tid til å følge opp selv (siden jeg aldri har brydd meg om OL hadde jeg ikke egentlig fått med meg at det var i år, og jeg hadde i alle fall ikke satt av noe tid til å se det -- og siden jeg ikke har tv er det ikke som om jeg kommer til å mangle noe å gjøre fordi de sender sport istedet for det jeg vanligvis ser på). Her er imidlertid min liste med ti bøker man kan komme seg gjennom nå mens det er vinter og overbetalte idrettsfolk svetter i Canada. Ikke kommer man til å få dårlig samvittighet fordi man ikke trener, heller.

1. The Gone-Away World av Nick Harkaway.

2. The Last Samurai av Helen DeWitt.

3. The Lord of the Rings av J.R.R. Tolkien.

4. The Name of the Rose av Umberto Eco.

5. The Master and Margarita av Mikhail Bulgakov.

6. The Elegance of the Hedgehog av ...

Jeg må tilstå at jeg ikke visste hvem Aphra Behn var før en av mine medstudenter på masterstudiet plutselig en dag introduserte henne i en bisetning som et stjerne-eksempel på at 1600-tallet var en seksuelt sett mye mer frigjort periode enn den senere Victoriatiden. Jeg ble litt overrasket over at noen jeg aldri hadde hørt om skulle være et av de fremste eksemplene på noe.

I retrospekt viser det seg at jeg hadde hørt om henne før. Virginia Woolf skrev i A Room of One's Own at

All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, which is, most scandalously but rather appropriately, in Westminster Abbey, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds. It is she—shady and amorous as she was.—who makes it not quite fantastic for me to say to you to–night: Earn five hundred a year by your wits.

Og hun er en rimelig interessant dame. Selv om det ikke er all verden vi vet om henne. Hun var født Aphra Johnson, og det er ikke helt klart hvordan hun ble Aphra Behn. Noen mener hun giftet seg med en kjøpmann i London (men fra Nederland), andre at hun giftet seg med en tysk sjømann som hun møtte på vei tilbake til England etter en reise til Surinam. Det er også en mulighet for at hun bare lot som om hun hadde vært gift for å gjøre det mulig for henne å operere ...

I wish I had not read this in translation. Silje, who recommended it to me, read it in the French original, and she was quite enthusiastic. I found the language wasn't always spot on in English. And I think I can put that down to the translator. Most of the times when I found it jarred, the phrasing seemed like something that would sound good in French. But because I haven't read it as it should be read, I find it very hard to pronounce judgement on it.

I enjoyed reading it, though. Tremendously. In part, perhaps because it reminded me of Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai (which, seriously people, if you haven't read it yet, get to it) without actually being anything like it. It does not have the leaps and gaps and odd narrative technique which seems to put some people off the latter. The closest it gets to adventurousness in that respect is in its having two narrators.

The narrators are interesting, and to me I think the most interesting part of the book. They are both very intelligent, both hiding this fact from the world around them. One as a concierge for wealthy people, the other the (suicidal, for what she considers entirely rational reasons) daughter of one of these wealthy people. Since both provide first person narration, the game of following their voices rather than simply what they say had me quite entertained. People do not always have total understanding of ...

Tom got me Hannah Montana: Crush-Tastic for Christmas. With friends like these, as they say …. He requested a thorough analysis with special attention to the socioeconomic implications of the thing. He is a bad man. Did I mention it also comes with ``an exclusive crush guide mini-book, plus 8 pages of photos from the show'', and a reductive description of boys according to how they text?

I'll get back to that. But before I attempt to anything like an impartial observation there are other things to say: the book is atrociously bad. Worse than I would have expected, even from a Disney film-to-book purple, sparkly thing. I have never seen Hannah Montana, and my very vague ideas of the concept were more or less confirmed: it seems to be mainly slapstick comedy relying on the stupidity of stock characters and simplistic plots. I am not sure whether "plot" is actually the word: it is more a succession of random events, none of which appear to be selected for anything other than the spur of the moment or a passing idea. I must also point out (apparently) that physical comedy works rather less well on paper than it does on television (and even there it is a bit hit and miss).

Plot

The story, as I said, is very episodic. It is divided into two main parts, barely connected. The only continuing element is the visit from Miley's Aunt Dolly (who, the pictures in the middle reveal, is Dolly ...

Canterbury Tales er enda en av disse klassikerne som jeg alltid har planlagt å lese (kanskje delvis fordi den aldri ble avsluttet), men som det altså tok meg en stund å ta fatt på. Men siden studentene mine skal ha om middelalderen og renessansen følte jeg at jeg burde ha kontroll på Chaucer. Jeg var imidlertid veldig klar for å kjede meg gjennom den, for samme hvor mange klassikere jeg leser og finner ut at jeg liker har jeg alltid den forventningen at den neste jeg plukker opp kommer til å være kjedelig. Desto mer fordi dette er middelalderlitteratur (selv om den tydelig er påvirket av den italienske renessansen), og jeg forventer alltid at middelalderlitteratur skal være kjedelige greier som bare handler om Gud og helgener.

Det er helt feil, selvsagt. Middelalderen, i likhet med de fleste "mørke" perioder var tjokk full av kulturelle strømninger som la grunnlaget for den senere oppblomstringen. Og mens eliten kanskje brukte litt vel mye tid på å skrive salmer og lærde utlegninger om Guds natur, har det en motsats i folkekultur på den ene siden og tidlige renessanseimpulser på den andre.

Det er ikke tvil om at Chaucer, selv om han levde på 1300-tallet (altså en stund før renessansen offisielt gjorde sin inntreden i Storbritannia) var sterkt påvirket av italienere som Bocaccio og Petrarca. Han reiste til Italia, og det har vært spekulert i om han faktisk møtte Petrarca, men selv uten et personlig møte er det ingen tvil om at han har tatt ...