Flaggermusmannen

This is the (I repeat THE) best book about Australia written by a foreigner. I first got to know the central character Harry Hole through 'Panserhjerte' and 'Frelseren'. These are wonderfully dark detective thrillers.

Although reading in the original Norwegian I am perpetually pole-axed by the depth of Nesbø's understanding of Australiana. He has obviously spent time in Sydney, Brisbane and Nimbin, and rubbed a wet towel all over these places and then wrung that towel out into Flaggermusmannen. For instance, when Harry meets the boxer Toowoomba just after he knocked out a hustler in a provincial boxing bout.

-absolutely magnificent, cobber - how are you yourself.

Ocker stride and even the syntax is Australian! There is even more poetry in the character of Andrew Kensington - Sydney cop, aboriginal, junkie, story-teller. My favourite passage is when Kensington tells the legend of Walla and Bubbur to Harry and the doey eyed, pale Birgitta at the Albury. Birgitta asks,

-and the moral is?

Kensington replies

-That love is a greater mystery than death, and be careful of snakes.

Another other good thing is that Nesbø doesn't compromise on the big picture to accomodate the details. This is fine (but Jo, p. 92 we drink 'flat whites' not 'white flats'; p. 117, it's the Bourbon and Beefsteak; p, 57, should be either Sydsvenskan or Skånska Dagbladet as there is no such paper as Sydsvenska Dagbladet; Robertson probably wouldn't have been keeping a Tasmanian devil in suburban Australia, though we can let this go under poetic licence)

If there is any downside to Flaggermusmannen, it is that those of us that have read further into Nesbø's opus know that Hole becomes more one-dimensional in later books. His relationships become more dysfunctional, the dialogue that is attributed to him becomes even more terse and the settings ever more bleak. In the cold dark Oslo winter it is heartening that Hole first emerged out of Sydney airport from a marmalade sky.

Night after Bertil's funeral 14/11/09

It's the night after Bertil's funeral,
we eat fish,
the bones make one of us choke,
but it's flounder and good fish.

Last night we drove through the snow,
and saw a fox on the road.
I almost couldn't brake in time,

the difference between life and death is just a fishbone away

Conversation with my daughter

I took my daughter to the sea where I grew up
It was dusk and shades of grey rolled in to us
She screamed

I explained to her that Deus ins nobis est
and because of that she shouldn't be scared
She still screamed


Hob.XVI:37,1

Doppler

I have been mildly surprised by the statistic that there are 283 other bloggers that list 'Doppler' by Erlend Loe in their favourite book list. This is not surprising in itself. Doppler is a fantastic book and deserves more appreciation.

For those of you that don't know, Doppler follows the life of an overly competent chap in Oslo who gets fed up with modern life. He has a breakdown of sorts and goes out and lives in the woods. He's sick of life and the interminable childrens television that his young son watches. He also has a large male member. In the woods he kills an elk and the calf follows him around. He strikes up a friendship with a neighbour who is absorbed in a model reconstruction of the last minute of his Nazi father's life. He also builds a totem to his own dead father.

That's a very paltry synopsis, but as a skeleton it shows that this book is, amongst other things, concerned with modern masculinity and paternity. The surprising thing is most of the bloggers who list this as one of their favourite books seem to be female and in their mid 20s. I'm glad that this book has a wide readership and that the young women of today appreciate the tanins that are woven together in this indomitable masterpiece.

There's a lot more Danes drinking around town. I was out with my daughters at around 10:30 and ran into two families on Stor torget who were drinking and sightseeing.

That's fine by me. But it is somewhat ironic. There used to be a much used Danish aphorism, something along the lines of, 'Do your country a favour and escort a Swede to the ferry [back home to Sweden].' The ball is now in the other court.

Beckett's Wagner putdown

The unnecessary and arbitrary nature of this putdown rouses me rambling but irate from a years blogging sabbatical. Why does Beckett think that his two cents count after invoking Rick W? It's not a put down; it just shows a lack of fantasy:


I cannot explain very well to myself what they have that distinguishes them from the rest, something arborescent or of the sky, not Wagner, not clouds on wheels; written above an abscess and not out of a cavity, a statement and not a description of heat in the spirit to compensate for pus in the spirit. -----Beckett, trying to explain some of his better scribbling, 1932

Caroline and Henrik

Went to a great wedding on Saturday. Caroline and Henrik got hitched in Bosjökloster, just a few kilometers away form the summer cottage. Henrik is a tennis player from Ystad and is as charming as they come. Caroline is more charming than they usually come.

Martin produced a quote about her at the reception from som old fool who once said that Caroline (like Monica Zetterlund) like a fig of lingon in a cocktail glass.

I went up earlier to cut the grass at the summer place and am just glad we made it to the wedding on time.

For more videos of Caroline see her: Caroline in Widex Passion commercial