The True Deceiver
Tove Jansson
New York Review of Books
ISBN 978-1-59017-329-9
8 December 2009
$18.95 in Canada

Deception—the lies we tell ourselves and the lies we tell others—is the subject of this, Tove Jansson’s most unnerving and unpredictable novel. Here Jansson takes a darker look at the subjects that animate the best of her work, from her sensitive tale of island life, The Summer Book, to her famous Moomin stories: solitude and community, art and life, love and hate.

Snow has been falling on the village all winter long. It covers windows and piles up in front of doors. The sun rises late and sets early, and even during the day there is little to do but trade tales. This year everybody’s talking about Katri Kling and Anna Aemelin. Katri is a yellow-eyed outcast who lives with her simpleminded brother and a dog she refuses to name. She has no use for the white lies that smooth social intercourse, and she can see straight to the core of any problem. Anna, an elderly children’s book illustrator, appears to be Katri’s opposite: a respected member of the village, if an aloof one. Anna lives in a large empty house, venturing out in the spring to paint exquisitely detailed forest scenes. But Anna has something Katri wants, and to get it Katri will take control of Anna’s life and livelihood. By the time spring arrives, the two women are caught in a conflict of ideals that threatens to strip them of their most cherished illusions.

See also: Tove Jansson Moomin reissues, published right here in Montreal by Drawn & Quarterly.

“A paean to the penis offers much unintentional hilarity, says Leo Benedictus” (reviewing Manhood: the Rise and Fall of the Penis by Mels van Driel in the Observer):

Why is there almost nothing on the penis’s most frequent function, as a conduit of urine?

And as for rigour, well I am no urologist, but I do doubt whether researchers really found that the “average diameter of the fully erect penis was approximately 121mm”. That is nearly five inches or about the same size, in cross section, as a compact disc. A simple mistake, I’m sure, substituting diameter for circumference…

Gavin de Beer in the TLS in 1967, on climate change, reviewing Histoire du climat depuis l’an mil by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie:

If the present rate of production of carbon dioxide goes on accelerating, not only will the energy reserves be used up a million times faster than they were built up, but the “greenhouse effect” might result in melting the existing ice-caps. The level of the sea would then rise more than 100 feet, and London, New York, and Leningrad would be drowned. The race best adapted to withstand heat is the Negro.

On the other hand, it is possible that events might take a different course. One of the causes put forward for the Ice Age, first suggested by Captain Scott, is the thawing of the Arctic Ocean, from whose open water winds could absorb moisture and precipitate it on glaciers in Greenland, which would soon swell and refrigerate the northern temperate zone. If this is so, and the Arctic Ocean is heated again, mankind may have to look forward to a return of the Ice Age; indeed, temperature-curves already begin to suggest that the present time is only an inter-glacial period. The race best adapted to withstand cold is the Mongolian.

Jay Parini, author of the acclaimed 1990 novel about the literary lion Tolstoy in winter, The Last Station (now onscreen), on wife Sofia’s diaries, in the Guardian:

A psychodrama emerged, with Sofia battling Tolstoy’s disciples for access to his soul. Her diaries become increasingly frenzied in the 1880s and 90s, and the last decade of Tolstoy’s life (1900-1910) makes for harrowing reading, as in this entry for 19 November 1903:

I went to [my husband's] room this evening as he was getting ready for bed, and realised I never hear a single word of comfort or kindness from him nowadays.

What I predicted indeed has come true: my passionate husband has died, and since he was never a friend to me, how could he be one to me now? This life is not for me. There is nowhere for me to put my energy and passion for life; no contact with people, no art, no work – nothing but total loneliness all day.

…He seems often very icy with her, as in this incident noted on 5 February 1895. She and her husband, whom she calls by the intimate name of Lyovochka, have gone out to shoot snipe:

Lyovochka was standing behind one tree . . . and I asked him why he didn’t write anymore. And he stooped down, looked around in a rather comical way and said, “Nobody can hear us but the trees I think, my dear.” (He called every^­ one “my dear” as he got older.) “So I shall tell you. You see, before I write something new I need to be inflamed by love – and that’s all over now!”

“What a shame!” I said, adding as a joke “You can fall in love with me if you like, then you could write something!”

“No, it’s too late!” he said.

Ursula K. Le Guin in the Guardian, on The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson, Swedish author of the popular Moomintroll fantasies:

It is prose of the very highest order; it is pure prose. Through its quiet clarity we see unreachable depths, threatening darkness, promised treasures. The sentences are beautiful in structure, movement and cadence. They have inevitable rightness. And this is a translation! Thomas Teal deserves to have his name on the title page with Jansson’s: he has worked the true translator’s miracle.

I wish I could quote whole pages…the most beautiful and satisfying novel I have read this year.

Stella Tillyard in the TLS, December 11, on The Secret History of Georgian London by Dan Cruickshank:

All around Soho Square, and throughout Marylebone by the mid-eighteenth century, actresses, prostitutes and courtesans lived in small apartments, side by side with aristocratic and professional leaseholders. Vice, as Dan Cruickshank points out in The Secret History of Georgian London, was an all-pervasive part of London life in the eighteenth century, and the profits of vice fuelled the building boom that [Rachel] Stewart describes.

Cruickshank’s book is stuffed with well-told histories with vignettes of famous prostitutes, their keepers and their clients; Kitty Fisher, who famously put a bank note on a slice of bread and butter and consumed it because it was insultingly small; Lavinia Fenton who played Polly Peachum in John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera and went on to become mistress then wife to the Duke of Bolton; Madame Cornelys, who in the 1760s mixed vice and entertainment with profitable results in her masquerades at Carlisle House in Soho Square; libertines like John Wilkes, the Earl of Sandwich, and Sir Francis Dashwood, who created a sexual theme park and club served by prostitutes at his country house at West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. All these tales testify to the power and celebrity of a small number of courtesans, and to the atmosphere of tolerance and enjoyment among their wealthy clients in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. Cruickshank also writes well on the network of charitable institutions that handled the results of vice, the Foundling Hospital, the Lock Hospital for treating venereal disease and the Magdalen House for penitent prostitutes, founded in 1741, 1747 and 1758 respectively.

After sort of a light round-up last week, we’re back at full-strength this week.

J.J. Abrams of Lost, Star Trek, and Alias fame, wants to acquire the rights for Colum McCann’s Let The Great World Spin. John Singer Sargent’s The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit is given a biography. John Ashberry has a volume of new poems out:

We indeed
looked out for others as though they mattered, and they,
catching the spirit, came home with us, spent the night
in an alcove from which their breathing could be heard clearly.
But it’s not over yet. Terrible incidents happen
daily. That’s how we get around obstacles.

Franklin Foer reviews George Packer’s collection of essays. Then Packer sits down with the New York Times for a podcast:

P.D. James

The L.A. Times has a Q&A with Ludmilla Petrushevskaya. The same paper belatedly gets to the Stieg Larsson estate story. Printers Row at the Chicago Tribune has their weekend round-up. The Washington Post picks their favorite books of the year.
Poet Rhea Tregebov tries her hand at a novel. Beer. The Globe and Mail Takes on Julie Powell and Cleaving. Frank Kermode has a book about E.M. Forster. Orhan Pamuk’s The Museum Of Innocence. I think it’s time for everybody to check out J.G. Farrell (his letters are out):

John Banville, in his introduction to this engrossing and haunting book, describes Farrell’s loss as “little short of a disaster for English fiction”; he is surely right. Farrell was only 44: in the reviewers’ favourite cliché, he was “at the height of his powers”. His reputation, growing year by year, rests on four novels: Troubles (1970), about a decaying hotel in Ireland during the struggle between the IRA and the Black and Tans; The Siege of Krishnapur (1973), which describes a small British garrison at the time of the Indian Mutiny; The Singapore Grip (1978), set in the wartime Far East; and another novel about Victorian India, The Hill Station (1981), uncompleted at the time of his death.

Owen Sheers retells the Mabinogion. The Times of London has an award for paperbacks. What constitutes “women’s writing?”

When a woman in 2009 sits down to write, she perhaps feels rather sexless. She is inclined neither to express nor deny: she’d rather be left alone to get on with it. She might even nurture a certain hostility towards the concept of “women’s writing”. Why should she be politicised when she doesn’t feel politicised? It may even, with her, be a point of honour to keep those politics as far from her prose as it is possible to get them. What compromises women – babies, domesticity, mediocrity – compromises writing even more. She is on the right side of that compromise – just. Her own life is one of freedom and entitlement, though her mother’s was probably not. Yet she herself is not a man. She is a woman: it is history that has brought about this difference between herself and her mother. She can look around her and see that while women’s lives have altered in some respects, in others they have remained much the same. She can look at her own body: if a woman’s body signifies anything, it is that repetition is more powerful than change. But change is more wondrous, more enjoyable. It is pleasanter to write the book of change than the book of repetition. In the book of change one is free to consider absolutely anything, except that which is eternal and unvarying. “Women’s writing” might be another name for the book of repetition.:

Ursula K. Le Guin says that Tove Jansson’s The True Deceiver finally has the translation it deserves. What to make of Umberto Eco’s The Infinity of Lists? Biographer Jenny Uglow finds it easier “being somebody else.” The Telegraph has a quiz to test your literary knowledge of 20009. The Gulag Archipelago isn’t quite so hefty:

Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s widow has abridged his watershed book, “The Gulag Archipelago”, for students in Russia in the latest move to rehabilitate the Soviet-era dissident, newspapers said Friday.

Natalya Solzhenitsyn said she cut her husband’s monumental three volume work by 80 percent to be palatable to students and hoped it would be taught as early as next year.

“We had to cut it by about five times…. But I hope that I managed to keep the distinctness of every line and not lose the heat, anger, passion and humour of the original,” she told the Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

“The book has become so thin, it seems to me it will not only be possible for school children to get through but also fascinating to them.”

Also, Wendell Berry recently visited Diane Rehm. Listen to it here.

These crazy shoes are real, and for sale!  

And further more, Chain Shoes by Swedish design students Tove Jansson and Per Emanuelsson, won the first prize in the “Shoemania” design competition in Stockholm. 

I think I saw a price tag of $2500.

Never.  In- This -Life.  Ever. Would. I.  Spend. That. On. Shoes. !

This is truly ‘high’ fashion.  I have a lil bit of a shoe fetish, but this is a bit too ‘high’  for me!  They look like some kind of torture chamber device. ..

Maybe back in the day, (I was that fly!) but a ole gurl like me couldn’t even think of standin’ in these shoes for a minute,  no matter how cute I might look! 

Man, these have got to do bad things to the tootsies… I wonder if anyone can dance in them?  

Now that would be somethin’ I’d pay to see…

::for men?::

El calendario de adviento de la fotografía lo hemos encontrado en la web de un estudiante Erasmus. Las imágenes pertenecen a unos entrañables personajes de cuento: Los Mumins;  los más conocidos de la literatura infantil finlandesa.  En España los está editando Siruela.

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Un calendario de adviento es un símbolo de la estación de Adviento, celebrada en diciembre, cerca de las Navidades.

Puede elaborarse en casa como los de las fotos, pero también se venden en los supermercados. Este calendario de chocolate marca la cuenta atrás hasta el día de navidad. Cada día se abre la casilla del día correspondiente del mes y detrás hay una chocolatina. Del día uno de diciembre  hasta el 24 hay una chocolatina para cada día.

La chocolatina suele tener un dibujo estampado;   podemos jugar a adivinar qué figura nos saldrá, el que la adivina se la come. En Europa es una costumbre muy enraizada, en España no tanto, aunque en los últimos años se está implantando.

Otro modelo de calendario de adviento

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Éste es muy elaborado,  paso a paso aquí.

]]> http://suoandmi.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/nice-festival-2009/ Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:18:37 +0000 yaymie http://suoandmi.wordpress.com/2009/11/29/nice-festival-2009/

The Nordic Intercultural Creative Events Festival in Liverpool, UK this week went down a storm!

So popular in fact, I myself couldn’t even get in to see the Moomin film on Saturday as It was sold out.

I was very disappointed but also pleased that Tove Jansson’s Moomins are still very popular in modern culture today.

However I did manage to get in to watch Helsinki Forever and Hanasaari A last week, and to much surprise of the cinema staff, that too was sold out!

The shorter film, Hanasaari A, 15 minutes long with no dialogue was magical.
I was personally a little sceptical when reading the information about that ‘experimental film about the demolition of a power plant’ didn’t think it sounded too exciting to be perfectly honest, but I really did enjoy it.

The animation of the demolition machines into almost dinosaur monsters eating the building was a particular favourite bit.

The colours of the sun and lighting etc worked beautifully and it was a glorious little feature, I would recommend watching it.

The main feature film Helsinki Forever was nothing like I expected, I’m not 100% on what it was I was expecting, but what I got most definitely wasn’t it.

It was a film that encaptured the spirit of the Finnish capital city from across the years.

The film was made up of vast amounts of archive film footage from around the last 100 years, with the majority of footage being in black and white.

It was a real joy to watch if you know Helsinki at all, as you will of course recognise lots of places, – like the man sat next to me in the cinema pointed out to his wife every single place he has ever seen, and what he did there ‘That was the hotel I stayed at dear’

but in addition to pointing out places you recognise you can also see these places as what they used to look like decades before, For example the small square on the corner of the Stockmann Department store, where Aleksanterinkatu meets Mannerheimine with the large statue of the Three Smiths.

Both are beautifully made films and highly enjoyable for anyone who likes Helsinki or Finland and its culture and past.

Yaymie
xxx

Here is the corner of my kitchen with pin-board and wine crate bookshelf. Sometimes it feels as though my whole world has shrunk to just this room and the ever changing view from the window…today mostly obscured by misty condensation. This time last year it was getting ready to snow but hopefully this year it’ll wait awhile…at least till I sort out why the car is rattling and find some hay for the ponies!

Today I have been catching up with Lyndsay McBean and wondering yet again if we’ve all been heading in the right direction. College now seems SO long ago.Lyndsay has been working on her online portfolio at Carbonmade so lets hope lots of job offers come flooding in :@); I particularly like her nightclub promotion posters…

The Zillah Bell Gallery e-mailed me yesterday because they had been sent a piece of my work by Les Prince. A nice surprise and beyond the call of duty ( he really is a remarkable man). So anyway, I think its going to be in their Christmas exhibition which opens with a private view tomorrow night. I also finally got around to contacting a few other galleries ; so I’m kind of hoping that in the new year things may start to look a bit brighter.

Well, the stove is almost out and the last dregs of coffee have turned to syrup in the pan so I’d better head up the apples and pears to bed. I finished reading “About a Boy” by Nick Hornby this morning ,which means I’m heading back to the magical world of Tove Jansson and “The True Deceiver” . Then what? Any ideas?

Maailmankirjallisuudessa ja eri kulttuurien mytologioissa on valtava määrä ihmeellisiä otuksia: arvoituksia esittävä sfinksi Sofokleen näytelmässä Kuningas Oidipus, irvistelevä Cheshiren kissa Lewis Carrollin romaanissa Liisa ihmemaassa, Helvetin porttia vartioiva Kerberos antiikin tarustossa ja trullipeikot Henrik Ibsenin näytelmässä Peer Gynt – vain muutaman mainitakseni. Nämä ja yli sata muuta fantastista olentoa löytyvät Jorge Luis Borgesin teoksesta Kuvitteellisten olentojen kirja (1967, suom. Sari Selander 2009, Teos), joka on eräänlainen tarumaailman otusten hakuteos.

Vaikka Borgesin kirja onkin hauska ja ajatuksia herättävä, jää se lukukokemuksena yllättävän kevyeksi: olentojen esittelyt ovat lyhyitä, ja vaikka viittaukset maailmankirjallisuuteen ovat hyvin valittuja, jää niitä kaipaamaan lisää. Kirjaa lukiessa tuleekin taas kerran miettineeksi sitä, kuinka aika on nakertanut tällaisten teosten merkitystä: ei pärjää Wikipedialle. – Toisaalta Borges on kerännyt joukon hyvin poikkeuksellisia ja harvinaisia olentoja, joita ei kannata etsiä nörttisukupolven kyhäilemästä nettisanakirjasta.

Kokoelmassa on paljon erikoisuuksia, mutta ehkä eniten minua viehättää omassa yksinkertaisuudessaan nerokas kuvittelun luomus, merihevonen:

Merihevosen ero muihin fantastisiin eläimiin nähden on siinä, että se ei ole syntynyt heterogeenisiä elementtejä yhdistelemällä. Kyse on yksinkertaisesti villihevosesta, joka asustaa meren syvyyksissä ja vierailee maan päällä vain kuuttomina öinä, silloin kun merituuli tuo sen sieraimiin laiduntavien tammojen hajun.

Borgesin kuvaama merihevonen herättää ihmetystä, sillä oma käsitykseni merihevosista perustuu kreikkalaisen mytologian kuvastoon. Kuvataiteessa ja patsaissahan usein kuvataan Poseidonin ohjastama hevosvaljakko, jossa hevosilla on hevosen eturuumis, mutta takajalkojen tilalla jonkinlainen kalan tai delfiinin pyrstö. – Borges ei kuitenkaan viittaa Poseidoniin, vaan hänen merihevosensa on itäisempää alkuperää, Tuhannen ja yhden yön tarinoiden mailta: itse Sinbad on nähnyt, kuinka merestä noussut ori hyppää tamman selkään … (en tuollaista kohtausta muista, mutta siitä onkin aikaa, kun olen Sinbadin matkoista lukenut).

Täsmentääkseen merihevostaan Borges siteeraa 1200-luvulla eläneen kosmografi al-Qazwinin tutkimusta Luomisen ihmeet:

Merihevonen muistuttaa tavallista hevosta, mutta sen harja ja häntä ovat pitemmät, sen väri kiiltävämpi ja sen kaviot halkinaiset aivan kuin villihärällä. Kooltaan se on tavallista hevosta pienempi, mutta hieman aasia suurempi.

Ei siis todellakaan mikään kreikkalaistyylinen hippocampus. Ongelman voisi ratkaista selittämällä, että rannalle noustessaan merihevonen ottaa maaeläimen hahmon ja pyrstö muuttuu takajaloiksi. Tällaisesta metamorfoosista Borges ei kuitenkaan mainitse mitään, joten voihan olla, että itäisissä mytologioissa merihevoset laukkaavat myös veden alla nelijalkaisina. – Samalla kun ihmettelen merihevosen hevosmaisuutta, tajuan, että löytyyhän kotimaisesta kirjallisuudesta aivan täydellinen vastine Borgesin kuvaamalle merihevoselle, nimittäin Tove Janssonin romaanista Muumipappa ja meri. Aina ei todellakaan tarvitse lähteä merta edemmäs kalaan:

Ne nelistivät hiekalla edestakaisin pää pystyssä ja harja liehuen, hännät hulmusivat takana kuin pitkät, kiiltävät laineet. Ne olivat kuvaamattoman kauniita ja kepeitä ja tiesivät sen itse, ne keimailivat julkean luontevasti – toisilleenko, itselleen, saarelle vai merelle, se oli yhdentekevää. Toisinaan ne heittäytyivät päistikkaa veteen, joka pärskyi korkealle ja loi sateenkaaria kuutamoon, sitten ne laukkasivat takaisin omien sateenkaariensa alle, pyörittivät silmiään ja taivuttivat päänsä alas korostaakseen kaulan ja selän kaarta. Näytti siltä kuin ne olisivat tanssineet peilin edessä.

Muumipappa ja meri on kertomus siitä, kun muumiperhe lähtee yksinäiselle majakkasaarelle. Saari sijaitsee kaukana Muumilaaksosta ja on aivan toisenlainen ympäristö kesäiseen ja vehreään kotiseutuun verrattuna: karu, kivikkoinen, tuulinen ja hyvin yksinäinen. – Merihevosille saaren rantahietikko on tietenkin otollinen paikka telmimiseen, kaukana asutuksesta ja liian uteliailta katseilta. Muumipeikolle merihevoset kuitenkin näyttäytyvät, ja samalla paljastuu niiden narsistinen luonne: vaikka ne kaipaavat rauhaa, nauttivat ne silti ihailun kohteena olemisesta.

Tove Janssonin kuvittelemat hevoset poikkeavat itämaisista lajitovereistaan siinä, että ne tanssivat rannalla nimenomaan kuutamossa, kun taas Borgesin luonnehdinnan perusteella kaukoidässä orit nousevat vedestä vain kuuttomina öinä. Yhteistä hevosille on kuitenkin villi alkuvoimaisuus: vaikka Janssonin romaanin merihevoset eivät saavukaan rannalle tammojen tuoksun kiihottamina, on niidenkin hevostelu luonteeltaan keimailevaa ja eroottistakin.

Muumipeikon kohtaamista merihevosten kanssa tuskin kuitenkaan voi tulkita havahtumiseksi omaan seksuaalisuuteen, vaikka hän merihevosiin tutustuttuaan kokee määrittelemätöntä halua ja kaipuuta. (Lue: Bruno Bettelheim –tyylisillä seksuaalisuustulkinnoilla ei tarvitse kaikkea lastenkirjallisuutta pilata!) – Muumipeikko käy myrskylyhtyineen rannalla odottamassa merihevosia jokaisena yönä, jopa silloinkin kun kuutamoa ei ole, ja muutaman kerran odotus palkitaan. Tähän prosessiin Jansson on yhdistänyt hienosti Mörön, joka puolestaan saapuu rannalle joka yö Muumipeikon myrskylyhdyn houkuttelemana. Muumikirjojen filosofisia näkökulmia tarkastelevassa teoksessaan Muumit ja olemisen arvoitus (Atena, 2009) Jukka Laajarinne kirjoittaa:

Muumipeikko kohtaa mörkönsä, kun hän ihastuu häpeilemättömästi keimaileviin merihevosiin. Nuo samettiset, kukalliset, ilkikuriset ja ennen kaikkea kauniit olennot herättävät hänessä romanttisen, tuskaisan kaipuun. Juuri merihevoseen rakastuminen saa Muumipeikon kulkemaan öisin rannalla, kaivaten, Mörköä houkutteleva lyhty kädessään. Juuri merihevoseen rakastuminen, kauneuden kaipuu nostaa hänen Mörkönsä pintaan, juuri yhteys toiseen havahduttaa tietoisuuteen siitä, että on tästä erossa:

- Sinä olet kaunein olento, jonka olen nähnyt, sanoi Muumipeikko, ja juuri silloin Mörkö alkoi ulvoa.

Mörkö alkaa ulvoa, koska se kaipaa lamppuaan: Muumipeikko on sammuttanut lyhtynsä, jotta hän ei pilaisi merihevosten kuutamoa ja karkottaisi niitä rannalta. Samalla Muumipeikko on itse muuttunut Möröksi – olennoksi, joka istuu pimeässä ja ihailee merihevosten kukikkaita kylkiä, liehuvia harjoja ja kuunpaisteen heijastuksia kavioiden nostattamissa rantaveden pärskeissä.

Merihevosten ihastelua ei jatku loputtomiin, ja Muumipeikko ymmärtää, että merihevoset ovat narsismissaan pinnallisia ja vain pilailevat peikon kustannuksella. Möröstä tuleekin merihevosia tärkeämpi, sillä Muumipeikko on ottanut velvollisuudekseen lievittää sen yksinäisyyttä viemällä öisin myrskylyhdyn rannalle, jotta Mörön ei tarvitse olla pimeässä. – Viimein paloöljy loppuu, eikä Muumipeikko voi enää sytyttää lyhtyä. Hän joutuu menemään rannalle ilman lyhtyä. Mutta silti Mörkö aloittaa ilolaulun nähdessään peikon, ja Muumipeikko tajuaa, että Mörkö ei välitäkään lyhdystä, vaan ilahtuu nähdessään hänet.

- Merihevoset vaikuttavat Mörköön verrattuna latteilta ja epäaidoilta otuksilta, ainakin näin marraskuun harmaudessa synkistelevän suomalaisen näkökulmasta. Ja onhan Mörössä potkua, kyllä se kestää kansainvälisen vertailun pelottavien otusten sarjassa. Mörkö sopisi hyvin Borgesin Kuvitteellisten olentojen kirjaan, koska Mörkö ei pelkästään kulje Muumilaakson metsissä ja pihoilla kasvillisuutta palelluttamassa, vaan se löytyy myös jokaisen omasta päästä. Lapsuuden pelottavimmaksi kirjallisuuden ja elokuvien olennoksi monet nimeävätkin Mörön. Möröllä ei juurikaan ole tarkasti kuvattuja yksittäisiä ominaispiirteitä, joten jokainen kasvattaa sitä mielessään jonkinlaisena omien pelkojensa peilikuvana. Ja se vasta pelottavaa onkin.

Lohdullista kuitenkin on, että oman Mörkönsä voi kohdata ja sen kanssa voi tulla toimeen. Niin tekee Muumipeikko, miksen siis minäkin? – Merihevoset pitäkööt hauskaa keskenään, ei niiden perään kannata haikailla …

勝井北斗／パーソンズで学んだ後、セントマーチンズ卒業。八木奈央／同志社大学卒業。セントマーチンズ卒業。
2001年設立。’03 S/S東京コレクション参加。05年モエ・エ・シャンドンデザイナー新人賞受賞。07年渋谷パルコに直営店オープン。21_21 design sight THIS PLAY! 展で作品を発表。08年’09S/Sサンパウロコレクションでオープニングを飾る。大阪成蹊大学芸術学部客員教授。09年 ミラノサローネTOKYO FIBER ‘09展で作品を発表。
Katsui graduated from Central Saint Martins College after studying at Parsons The New School for Design. Yagi graduated from Doshisha University and Central Saint Martins College.
The brand, mintdesigns was launched in 2001. They have been in Tokyo Collection since ‘03 S/S. The awards they won include the Moet et Chandon New Designer’s Award in 2005. In 2007, mintdesigns garage store opened in Shibuya PARCO. They presented their collection in the 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT THIS PLAY! show. In 2008, they presented the opening show at São Paulo Fashion Week for ‘09 S/S. Both designers currently hold positions as guest professors at the Faculty of Art and Design at Osaka Seikei University. In 2009 they presented their collection at the Milano Salone TOKYO FIBER ‘09.Mint Designs turned out a dainty crop of dresses featuring details such as shimmery stripes, textured fabric and quirky graphics. One frock featured a darling print of tiny Charlie Chaplins, while another showcased circular cutouts along the sides.

Driving in the dark; the black road is edged in orange and russet as the larch needles fall like snow.Its wild and windy and a catalogue of small disasters has made it a bit bleak up here on Witchmountain ( the heating has stopped working, the washing has blown away and Jake accidentally knocked over a bottle of water in my room so that it has actually been raining on me ,INDOORS, smudging my drawing and almost killing my poor old computer!!)I can’t stop eating toast either, I’m going to end up big as a house.

Apart from all that, my new Gocco stuff came the other day ,so tomorrow I’m going to have another go with a new design and some fabric inks…as well as continuing to play with the old heat transfer dyes. This bird is a little doodle I’m going to try out tomorrow as well…that’s if I can brave the freezing house and don’t get tempted to stay snuggled up with Tove Jannson. I’m watching for the postman too because my Moo cards should be arriving soon….

( Reading “Who Will Comfort Toffle?” Tove Jansson. Listening to: the wind)

Oj! Jag blev plötsligt sjukt intresserad av Tove Jansson. Jag har varit mycket orättvis mot denna dam känner jag, kanske p.g.a. hysterin kring mumin. Jag har läst saker av henne förr (förutom muminböckerna), jag har t.o.m. hållit föredrag om henne och ändå lyckats förbise henne. Hur i allsin dar har jag lyckats?  Hon skriver ju alldeles klockrent!

Något annat jag dissat utan giltig orsak är korta berättelser och dikter. Jag har varit fånigt konservativ och hållit mig till böcker. Tack vare Tove Janssons geniala berättelser och dikter förstår jag nu hur idiotisk jag varit. Om man inte har tid att läsa böcker är ju korta berättelser perfekta, de få orden säger desto mera.

Ojoj, Tove Jansson var ju även bildkonstnär. Jag känner att jag har mycket kvar att hämta från denna människa. Jag hittade en intressant sida om Tove Jansson och hennes verk. Det är inte en vanlig faktasida. Om du också är intresserad av denna mångsidiga konstnär gå in här vettja!

(En cykelbild, bara för att jag har så många.)

Today I have: – made bread, cleaned the leaves out of the drains, designed and ordered cards and stickers from Moo, done a mass of washing and eaten almost a whole packet of Oreos. I decided to use this image for my cards as it’s one of my favorite pieces and I miss it since the Golden Lion bought it for their guest room.I know you’ve seen it before but its so dark today I couldn’t take any pictures.

I found a lot of hoof prints near the car when I ventured into the ” lost world” behind the house to investigate the drains. There must have been some sort of stampede this morning while I was snoozing;I’d been reading “The Summer Book” by Tove Jansson and was therefore miles away in a different nettle patch altogether.

Lindsey and I made cards and drank whiskey coffee all night, oh and great news… Sara came home from college with a new printer and an ipod which she had won! She got second prize in a mural competition for BT , hurray!! I’ve never won a thing in my life ( except a tray of meat at pony club when I’d just turned vegetarian!!).

Well Done Sara, have a great weekend everyone.x

Ich liebe die Mumin-Charaktere sehr. Als Kind saß ich vor dem Plattenspieler und habe mir die Geschichten angehört. Dementsprechend freue ich mich auch heute noch immer drüber, wenn es Postkarten aus Finnland mit den Mumin-Charakteren gibt.
Ihr fragt euch jetzt sicher, was nun die Postkarten mit einem Blog über  Bücher zu tun haben mag. Nun die Mumins und ihre Phantasiewelt wurden von der finnland-schwedischen Schriftstellerin Tove Jansson (1914-2001) erschaffen. Was sind denn nun Mumins? Mumins sind kleine, ca. 50 cm große nilpferdartige Trolle dieim Mumintal  irgendwo in Finnland beheimatet sind. Tove Jansson hat zwischen 1945 und 1970 neun Mumin-Bücher geschrieben, wobei die ersten fünf als Kinderbücher gelten können. In Deutschland sind die Bücher im Arena-Verlag erhältlich.

Und nun zeig ich euch mal meine Schätzchen, die mir liebe Postcrosser aus Finnland geschickt haben:

Stephen King gets The New York Times’ royal treatment:

As for the prose, it’s not all smooth sailing. Given King’s extraordinary career-long dominance, we might expect him at this point to be stylistically complete, turning perfect sentences, as breezily at home in his idiom as P. G. Wodehouse. But he isn’t, quite. “Then it came down on her again, like unpleasant presents raining from a poison piñata: the realization that Howie was dead.” (It’s the accidental rhyme of “unpleasant” and “presents” that makes that one such a stinker.) I felt the clutch of sorrow, too, when I read this: “What you’re planning is terribly dangerous — I doubt if you need me to tell you that — but there may be no other way to save an innocent man’s life.”

But then, King has always produced at pulp speed. “Nov. 22, 2007 – March 14, 2009” proclaims the final page of “Under the Dome”: that’s 1,100 pages in 480 days. We shouldn’t be too squeamish about the odd half-baked simile or lapse into B-movie dialogue, is my point. Writing flat-out keeps him close to his story, close to his source.

Barbara Kingsolver

John Irving’s new autobiographical-type novel is out:

Given Irving’s skill, it’s especially frustrating to see him working so hard to spell out the import of the fiction. Even if some of the explanations are meant to be inflected with irony (we shouldn’t necessarily believe everything this narrator tells us), they still aren’t convincingly integrated with the events and characters. The coy hints of connections between the author and the narrator have been forced onto a plot that can’t accommodate them, and the fact that Danny is a famous novelist too often seems a mere contrivance, giving Irving a convenient opportunity to include rambling background information and to air his own ideas about writing. In his bid to make something “serious,” Irving has risked distracting readers from what otherwise could be a moving, cohesive story.

Adrian Mole is almost 40 and has cancer.

Juliet Nicolson listens to the great silence:

What happened in November 1918 when the “incessant thunder” of four years and four months of war came to an end? Juliet Nicolson’s book is about “the pause that ­followed the cataclysm”. Her absorbing account of “the interval between the falling silent of the guns and the roaring of the 1920s” is dominated by the continuing presence of the dead in the minds of the living; 750,000 British soldiers, sailors and airmen had died, and the memories of their “half-smoked lives”, in the description of one young woman mourning the loss of her male friends, hung over everything.

For the men who had survived the fighting, different problems presented themselves. How could they communicate to those back home any sense of what it had been like to experience what one called ‘‘hell with the lid off’’? Some who had stayed in Britain wished to learn more of what their loved ones had endured. Tourism to the deserted trenches began almost as soon as the roar of the guns ceased. There were frequent casualties among visitors in the first few months of 1919 as unexploded bombs claimed peacetime victims.

Tove Jansson

Paul Auster’s Invisible gets a review in The Telegraph:

The enigma of Invisible is whether its reveries on identity and self-imagining constitute a serious philosophical inquiry, or are merely decorative details. As an entertainment, Invisible is a brilliant success; but as one turns the final page and the dazzle of Auster’s beautiful prose begins to fade, there is a sense that the journey has been an exploration of a very stylish blind alley.

Sue Townsend

Philip Pullman, author of the fantastic ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy (Lyra? Daemons? Need I say more?) gave a talk for The Open University 40th anniversary lectures on a) the nature of reading, and b) the relationship between the story and its illustration. And guess what? I attended. I’ve interviewed this fantastic writer a few times and always found him to be passionate, fiery, resolute and charming all at the same time and this was exactly how he was when I saw him talk.

The borderlands of reading

Opening his talk, he told the packed audience: “When we read, we enter a borderland – the space that opens up between the private mind of the reader and the book. Parts of the borderland belong to the book, parts are made up by the reader – of their memories of other books, of real people, what they associate with particular words, the reader’s temperament and so on. In other words, no reader will read the same way.” I found this fascinating – and spot on.

He likened it to what is known as ‘liminal states’, the ambiguous conscious state of being on the threshold between two different existential planes. He also referred to John Keats’ notion of negative capability, ‘when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason’ (from a letter written to his brothers George and Thomas on the 21 December, 1817).

Pullman then went on to show the audience a series of paintings, for example Gwen John’s ‘Precious Moment With Book’ which demonstrates how the world around you dissolves when reading, the only clear space left between your eyes and the book you’re holding. He also highlighted how the painting shows the unique mixture of relaxation and attentiveness that comes from reading. Another painting he looked at was Casper David Friedrich’s ‘The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog’, comparing the way the man depicted in the painting surveys the landscape before him to the way a reader surveys their borderland.

Illustrations in children’s literature

He then went on to focus on illustrations found in children’s literature, expressing his sadness at how it has become unfashionable to illustrate children’s novels because “pictures in book are like a windowsill.” He used examples from Fritz Wegner’s work, admiring the “romantic atmosphere” he created. Pullman also illustrated the charm of more amateurish drawings, such as those by Arthur Ransome and Tove Jansson (Moomins), and recalled how the “scratchy, swift and confident” drawings of Richard Kennedy swept him into foreign lands such as the working class Parisian scenes in Paul Berna’s A Hundred million francs. Away from urban settings, Pullman highlighted how ‘BB’ Denys Watkins-Pitchford depicts the countryside in Brendon Chase who Pullman with an “honesty and passion”. He also praised Rupert the Bear illustrator Alfred Bestall, especially the end pages of each Rupert manual which depict a landscape, which Pullman described as “full of fancy, lightness, delicacy and charm.”

On the other scale, Pullman went on to focus on illustrators where there is no interest in landscape and more a focus on people. For example, the Thomas Henry illustrations in Richard Crompton’s William books, that “scruffy muddy-kneed schoolboy” as Pullman described him where the focus was very much on the people and not on the “generic middle class England.” Same goes for Walter Trier’s illustrations in Emil and the Detectives – “wonderfully fluid and expressive lines but no background.”

In Pullman’s own books, the Folio Society editions of Northern Lights gave Pullman great pleasure. With illustrations by Peter Bailey, the main character in his trilogy, Lyra, is depicted beautifully (pictured). Pullman also gave an insight into his own illustrations. Before Northern Lights, the first in ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy came out, he illustrated the decorative devices at the top of each chapter and had to illustrate them using heavy black and whites to the size of a postage stamp.

Philip Pullman’s website

Hann läsa cirka 50 sidor i boken som ligger överst. Mycket underhållande, med härliga åttiotalsreferenser och en helt fantastisk passage om första gången de använder frisyrgelé.

‘experts’ say that ppl with asperger’s are often less interested in fiction than in factual books or other sources of information… yeah, well that may be true in many cases… and yes, as an adult, i found i had no more interest in reading fiction, it bored me, but i m held spellbound by non-fiction, factual or academic books… but once upon a time, this aspie child loved to live in a world of strange tales…

i loved the moomins series – the mysterious dark children’s fiction by finnish author tove janssen… but hans christian anderson haunted me in a way that nothing else did – no, not the silly frilly disney versions but the sad, ironic, macabre, mournful original as written by the author himself… it is also said that hans christian anderson had asperger’s too… well, we’ll never know for sure, but i still read those stories with a chill running down my spine and a deep sense of pain inside my soul…

along the same vein, there are the poems of grief, love and betrayal in bunnyblu’s blog… reworking the characters from different stories, putting them together, and pulling in musical and artistic themes… bluebeard, scheherazade, and scheherazade’s love for bluebeard… a sunken cathedral… a toxic blue frog inside a beautiful gazelle… a poisonous skank… all inside a deep deep deep ocean of silent longing, anguish and unspoken textures, sounds, smells, hues and colours…

perhaps fiction like these are reflections of real life, real pain, real love, real joy … windows to the souls?

Gute und schlechte Nachrichten erreichen mich vom EDFC e.V., genauer gesagt vom für eben diesen tätigen Herausgeber Frank W. Haubold:

In Kürze erscheint der Jahresband “Das Experiment”. Das ist die gute Nachricht. Die schlechte Nachricht ist, dass es der letzte Jahresband sein wird, weil der EDFC – wohl mangels zahlender Mitglieder – auf E-Books umstellt. Und eine Anthologie in E-Book-Form … nicht nur ich finde das eher unbefriedigend.

Ich hoffe mal stark, dass Frank bei einem der wenigen, aber engagierten Kleinverlage unterkommt, um so eine neue Reihe zu gründen. Die EDFC-Jahresanthologie war mir nämlich, aufgrund ihrer Qualität und der einzigartigen Mischung, immer die liebste. Da geht uns wirklich etwas verloren.

Wie dem auch sei, in diesem letzten Band ist meine Geschichte “Kompassnadeln”, Verzeihung, “Kompaßnadeln” enthalten – nämlich in alter Rechtschreibung, passend zum Inhalt. Dort finden wir uns im Jahr 1944 vor der norwegischen Küste, bei einem geheimen Versuch, Nordseeöl für das Deutsche Reich zu fördern. Was allerdings dann an die Oberfläche kommt, ist etwas ganz anderes …

Die Geschichte ist eine Hommage, die zu gleichen Teilen an Edgar A. Poe und Tove Jansson geht. Tove Jansson? Richtig, die Erfinderin der Mumins. Und der Morra …

Ju äldre man blir desto mer gillar man att tänka tillbaka på hur det var förut. Barndomen hade till exempel sina höjdpunkter. Om det är något som var bättre förr så är det onekligen sagorna. Dom kunde vara råa och skrämmande, det fanns elaka häxor och troll och många sagor som t.ex. bröderna grimms alster lyssnade man på med skräckblandad förtjusning. Sagorna kunde även vara lite sorgliga och mörka, som t.ex. “vem ska trösta knyttet” av Tove Jansson. Där fanns det minsann ingen prinsessa och ingen prins heller för den delen som kunde leva lyckliga i alla sina dar i ett sagoslott. Däremot ett skrutt och det där knyttet som reser iväg i filifjonkans båt och även dom lever lyckliga i alla sina dar för att dom kan trösta varandra och inte behöver vara rädda mer.

“Nu skymta svarta berg vid horisonten 
tre vilda berg där skrymt och mårror bo, 
men nitton homsor fikade med dronten 
och lade ut ett nät i frid och ro. 
Och knyttet sa: förlåt en resenär 
som undrar om ett skrutt har varit här? 
Det har hon visst, sa dronten glatt, ett skrutt med trassligt hår 
blev alldeles ifrån sig och sprang hemifrån igår, 
men vart hon sprang och var hon finns och var hon sist blev sedd 
det vete mårran, men jag tror att hon var gräsligt rädd, 
och vem som tröstar henne är mera än jag vet 
för jag är på semester och nu vill jag lägga nät.

När skymningen så småningom sig sänkte 
kom ludna småkryp fram på alla håll, 
de hade bleka nattögon som blänkte 
och viskade: där går ett ensamt troll, 
ett ensamt stackars knytt som går och tror 
att han är mycket stark och mycket stor… 
Långt inne mellan bergen hördes mårrans hemska rop 
och knyttet gick och gömde sig i första bästa grop, 
men om en kvart flög knyttet opp och stampade och sa: 
nu är jag mera arg än rädd, och det är ganska bra, 
jag måste trösta skruttet, jag får inte vara svag 
för hon är nog, om möjligt, ännu räddare än jag!”

 

 
en ensam flaska låg och drev och drev,
den flöt iland på udden framåt natten
och inne i den låg ett litet brev.
Det var en sorgsen text, och den var kort
och namnet hade havet tvättat bort.
Men knyttet satt och tydde ut det lilla som fanns kvar
och över hela stranden lyste julimånen klar.
”…jag är så rädd för mårrans tjut och jag har ingen vän,
jag känner mig så övergiven nu i skymningen…
försök att lite trösta mig om du är stark och snäll,
jag är ett mycket litet skrutt och det är nästan kväll…”.

Jag gjorde under den gångna sommaren en minnesvärd utflykt till Zarah Leander-muséet, inrymt i Häradshammars bygdegård på Vikbolandet i Östergötland. Muséet är beläget inte långt från Häradshammars kyrka, där Zarah själv och hennes tredje man, Arne Hülphers, är begravda. I närheten ligger även godset Lönö, där fru Zarah bodde från sin återkomst till Sverige 1943 fram till sin död 1981. På länken nedan sjunger Zarah Leander duett med Birgit Nilsson i TV 1977:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x76mic_zarah-leander-and-birgit-nilsson-si_music

Vi som tillhör en litet äldre generation är väl bekanta med den färgstarka divan Zarah Leander, som utan tvivel är en av Sveriges främsta sångartister genom alla tider och i sin genre fullt i klass med operastjärnan Birgit Nilsson. Vi minns Zarahs framträdanden i exempelvis “Hylands hörna” och Lasse Holmqvists “Här är ditt liv” i den svenska statstelevisionen och ryser med välbehag vid minnet av den av henne framförda “Vill ni se en stjärna”. Vi minns även anklagelserna mot henne om att ha varit nazist; hon levde och verkade trots allt i Nazityskland åren 1936-43 och umgicks i de högsta nationalsocialistiska kretsarna. Hon träffade Hitler själv, och propagandaminister Joseph Goebbels tillhörde hennes devota beundrare.

Underbara Zarah!

När Lasse Holmqvist en gång i TV frågade Zarah om hon varit nazist svarade hon med en rungande “nej”. Och det finns ingenting som tyder på att Zarah Leander någonsin var ideologiskt medveten nationalsocialist. Hur kan hon då ha levt, sjungit och spelat in film i Hitlers Tyskland under sju års tid? Svaret på den frågan kan delas in i två delar: dels ville hon göra karriär, bli berömd och tjäna mycket pengar; dels var hon en fullfjädrad politisk idiot. Zarah Leander hade anbud från såväl USA som England att göra sin lycka i dessa länder. Att hon ändå valde Tyskland bottnar i att det låg närmare Sverige såväl geografiskt som kulturellt och att tyska var det språk hon behärskade bäst. Politiska överväganden spelade ingen som helst roll i hennes beslut att flytta till Tyskland. Något som det naturligtvis finns all anledning att beklaga. Här följer en sånginsats i filmen “Die grosse Liebe” 1942:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp6l59mZojM

Zarah Leander är en av mina absoluta artistfavoriter. Hennes välmodulerade och kraftfullt uttrycksfulla contraaltröst var sensationell, vilket fick revykungen Ernst Rolf att anställa henne på stående fot efter att ha hört henne provsjunga hösten 1929. Rolf skall, enligt författaren Bosse Schön i boken Zarah Leander. Säkerhetspolisens hemliga akt (Bosse Schöns förlag 2008) ha sagt till den 22-åriga sångerskan från Värmland: “Ni var fanimej en överraskning, ni får rycka in på fredag när vi har premiär i Borås. 15 kronor om dan!” Den 27 oktober 1929 debuterade unga Zarah, 172 centimeter lång och med 41,5 i skonummer, hos Rolf i Borås anrika träteater.

Sara Stina Hedberg föddes i Karlstad den 15 mars 1907. Hon var rödhårig och blev tidigt närsynt. Fadern, Anders Hedberg, var en stabil karl om 140 kilogram och framgångsrik fastighetsmäklare under det att modern, Mathilda, var sprungen ur en släkt bestående av huvudsakligen godsherrar och ämbetsmän. Det skall tilläggas att fader Anders desslikes var musikalisk och en hejare på flöjt. Familjen var klart välbärgad och bodde i tio rum med egen tvättstuga. Det förväntades av unga Sara, som hade fyra bröder, att hon skulle gifta sig till ett högborgerligt hem  och skapa trivsamma levnadsförhållanden för make och barn. Den praktiska utbildningen härför inleddes omedelbart efter den åttaåriga flickskolan.

Men unga Sara Hedberg ville annorlunda: hon närde flickdrömmar om att bli aktris, en på intet sätt respektabel syssla vid denna tid. 1926, vid 19 års ålder, träffade Sara skådespelaren Nils Leander som gått på Statens scenskola och var premiärelev på nationalscenen Kungliga dramatiska teatern. Sara och Nils ingick äktenskap samt flyttade in hos Saras svärföräldrar – svärfar Pontus Leander var präst – i prästgården Risinge nära östgötska Finspång. 1927 föddes dottern Boel och 1929 sonen Göran. På lediga stunder lyssnade Sara Leander i smyg på radio – vilket ansågs vara höjden av synd i det rekorderliga prästhemmet – och fastnade särskilt för kupletten “Vill ni se en stjärna, se på mig”, exekverad av idolen Margit Rosengren till ackompanjemang av Ernsts Rolfs revyorkester. Sången handlade för övrigt om filmstjärnan Greta Garbo. Här undrar Zarah – på tyska – om kärlek kan vara synd:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zDL4j9haQ0&feature=related

Äktenskapet med Nils Leander knakade i fogarna och upplöstes snart, varpå Sara Leander flyttade till moder Mathilda i Stockholm med barnen. I tvårummaren på Torsgatan bodde även Saras två yngre bröder. Fader Anders hade avlidit året innan. I Stockholm debuterade Zarah Leander, som hon numera skrev sitt artistnamn, i revyn “Det glada Stockholm” och gjorde stor lycka. Sommaren 1930 blev Zarah av den legendariske Gösta Ekman erbjuden att spela titelrollen Hanna Glavari i operetten “Glada änkan” av Franz Lehar med Ekman i den manliga huvudrollen som greve Danilo. Leander lyckades genom aggressiv förhandlingsteknik dubbla den lön hon erbjudits av Ekman och fick den då hisnande summan av 6000 kronor i månaden.

Gösta Ekman spelade mot Zarah Leander 1930.

Några månader efter den lyckosamma debuten i “Glada änkan” ingick den frånskilda Leander äktenskap med journalisten Vidar Forsell, son till operachefen John Forsell. De närmaste sex åren etablerade sig Zarah Leander som stor stjärna i Sverige, och 1936 – samma år som de olympiska spelen i Berlin inföll – fick hon sitt internationella genombrott i operetten “Axel vor des Himmels Tor” som hade världspremiär i Wien i närvaro av bland andra Österrikes kansler Kurt Schussnigg.

Zarah Leander gjorde succé pyramidale i Wien; publiken hade aldrig hört tillstymmelse till något liknande, en primadonna som varken var sopran eller alt utan snarare tenor (lyssna till exempelvis Ernst Rolf eller Jan Malmsjö så förstår ni vad jag menar).  När Die Leander tre månader efter Wien-premiären spelade in sin första tyskspråkiga film, “Premier”, hade hon redan begått 138 operettföreställningar inför sammanlagt 210 000 personer. Den kedjerökande och fräkniga operettstjärnan från Sverige engagerades omsider av det tyska filmbolaget Ufa, men först sedan myndigheterna fått bekräftat att hon var så kallat renrasig. Zarah stod på tröskeln till det stora internationella genombrottet.

Zarah Leander accepterade således att göra karriär i det nationalsocialistiska Tyskland, där Adolf Hitler och nazistpartiet NSDAP hade tagit över regeringsmakten efter valsegern 1933. Men hon var mån om att hålla den politiska makten på armlängds avstånd och vägrade gå med i såväl Reichsfilmkammer som NSDAP. De tyska myndigheterna tvingades acceptera detta, eftersom de ville behålla sin stora stjärna. Det är ingen hemlighet att Zarah Leander tjänade för sin tid astronomiska penningsummor i Tyskland; hon blev därmed Tredje rikets högst betalda aktris. Sammanlagt gjorde hon 14 filmer för Ufa, filmer som givetvis spelade en betydande roll i den nazityska propagandan. Se nedan en länk till en sång med klart propagandistiska övertoner:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8D126NPTrU&feature=related

Zarah Leander träffade rikskansler Adolf Hitler veterligt endast en gång. Det skedde på våren 1939 efter sista inspelningsdagen av den antibrittiska propagandafilmen “Das Lied der Wüste”. Leander berättade om mötet i sina första memoarer Vill ni se en diva? (Wien 1958). Enligt den svenska sångerskans berättelse undrade hon, helt fräckt, om Hitler aldrig försökt göra något åt sin hopplösa frisyr. Hitler svarade att han försökt med allehanda pomador och andra medel, men att en ostyrig test envisades med att hänga ned i pannan. Renlevnadsmannen Hitler visade sig också ganska irriterad över att Leander ville ta ett bloss efter maten (hon rökte det svenska cigarrettmärket Stamboul, som hennes bröder försåg henne med).

Mer kontakt hade Zarah Leander då med den diaboliske Joseph Goebbels, som förgäves försökte få den svenska stjärnan i säng. Vid ett tillfälle skall Goebbels ha pikat Die Leander för hennes judiska förnamn, men den svenska stjärnan blev inte svarslös. Hon skall ha genmält: “Hur är det med ert eget förnamn; Joseph, det är väl klart judiskt?” I filmen till den här länken har Zarahs rollgestalt kärleksbekymmer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m20La_Sg4Dc

Medan hon gjorde karriär i Tyskland inköpte Zarah Leander egendomen Lönö på Vikbolandet i Östergötland (egendomen innehas i dag inom parentes av riksdagens talman Per Westerberg). Zarah insåg efterhand mycket väl att Tyskland skulle förlora kriget och att det då gällde att ha en tillflyktsort. Den 15 april 1943 lämnade hon således Tyskland och flyttade till Lönö, där hon småningom etablerade sig som herrgårdsfru tillsammans med sin tredje man, pianisten Arne Hülphers. Tidigt spreds rykten av illvilliga tungor om att Zarah Leander skulle ha varit nazitysk spion, och hos säkerhetspolisen finns en hel drös med rapporter som går ut på detta. Bosse Schön visar dock i sin bok att inget av dessa rykten var sant.

Detta hindrade inte att Zarah Leander drabbades av en veritabel hatkampanj när hon återvände till Sverige. Den välkände artisten och teaterchefen Lasse Dahlqvist i Göteborg försäkrade att han inte skulle anställa Leander ens “om de kastade henne efter mig”, medan revydirektören och kuplettsångaren Karl Gerhard kallade henne för “politisk idiot”. Sistnämnda omdöme menade Zarah själv var rättvisande. “Jag vet inte vad politik är och intresserar mig inte för det”, förklarade hon 1944. I stället, sade hon, hade hon valt sig själv och sin familj.

Zarah Leander med sin mångårige beundrare Karl Gerhard.

Om den bisexuelle Karl Gerhard kan det nämnas att han, enligt uppgift till mig av Leanders allt-i-allo Brigitte Pettersson, alltid var en hängiven beundrare av Zarah och hemskt gärna ville gifta sig med henne som han också – trots att han ideologiskt stod långt till vänster – försvarade mot angreppen hon utsattes för de första åren i Sverige efter hemkomsten. Leander nobbade dock Gerhard till förmån för sin Hülphers, som hon gifte sig med i Göteborg 1956.

Efter en tids “karantän” tog dock Zarah Leanders karriär upp sig igen, och på 1950-talet återvände hon till såväl Tyskland som Österrike och gjorde stor succé med skivinspelningar, revyer och konserter. Också i Sverige togs hon efter lång tvekan till nåder och kämpade på som artist in i det sista trots hinder som en tilltagande synsvaghet – i slutet av sin levnad var hon blind – och cancer. När hon dog på Danderyds sjukhus 1981 var hon 74 år gammal. Då hade hon 353 skivinspelningar bakom sig.

Sist en kort hyllning i bild och ton till denna stora artist med Tove Janssons och Erna Taoros “Höstvisa”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrYnM5Dwldc

There’s an enormous yellow moon hanging outside my place tonight. The crickets are shrilling in the bushes, and the lone streetlamp in my dark little street is flickering insanely, about to give up the ghost. An inside source tells me the Farmers’ Almanac says our full moon this week is called the Full Corn Moon. (Did you know the full moons all have names?)

So anyway, in the wake of August, when I was working like mad on editing The Sacred Woods, I’m now allowing myself to “be on vacation” for a few days. There are other writing tasks immediately ahead, but I’ve been waiting all summer for the chance to immerse myself in other people’s words for awhile. It’s an indescribably good feeling to get out of the driver’s seat, down off the conductor’s podium, out of the control booth, off the ladder, out from behind the Dungeon Master’s screen — choose whichever analogy you like — and just read for a few days. I really should allow myself to do this more often, because I feel like a dry sponge that’s been squeezed hard, thrust into a bucket of water, and then unsqueezed. Or like, you know how when the ground gets bone dry sometimes in midsummer, and when you pour some water on it, the water just vanishes instantly? That’s what I feel like. It’s so nice to be reading. (Go ahead and laugh! I know pretty much anyone who’s reading this makes time for reading as a matter of course, like eating and brushing teeth. I never claimed to be normal! [And for the record, I do read all the time -- just not nearly enough fiction.])

My mom used to have her office in the very center of our house, in what was once the dining room, until the house expanded, and the dining room migrated one room to the south. Mom had two desks and a file cabinet all pushed up together and covered with mountains of books, magazines, papers, and office supplies. The drawers were brimming over, and there was more of the same stuff in cardboard boxes on the floor under the desks. Mom did almost all her actual writing at the kitchen table, but her desk was where her typewriter — and in later years, her word processor — was, so that’s where she’d go to type final drafts, find envelopes, and look up addresses.

But the point I’m getting to is: one of my favorite things about Mom’s office was a very large, framed poster she had on the wall over and beside her desk, dominating the room. I suppose she got it through her work as a librarian and creative program director for the schools — perhaps at some conference. It was a picture of a princess, framed in the window of a high tower. A handsome knight/prince was standing on a ladder leaned up against the tower’s side, and you could tell from the surrounding scene that he’d journeyed through a dark forest and gotten past a dragon to rescue the princess. But she was turned away from him with her nose in a book, and there were books stacked all around her. The poster’s caption proclaimed: “‘I’d rather read,’ she said.”

Isn’t that excellent? I kept that poster, of course, though it’s brittle with the passage of years and locked away in my storeroom in that house. I hope someday to have it out again and on the wall.

So anyway, a few days ago, a good friend asked me if I’d ever read any of the host of stories by other writers that are based on the Cthulhu mythos of H.P. Lovecraft — for example, my friend said, Neil Gaiman’s “A Study in Emerald.” I hadn’t read that one; and hearing that it was in one of his collections, I thought, “I wonder if. . . .” So I went over to my bookcase, pulled down Gaiman’s Fragile Things, and lo and behold, “A Study in Emerald” is the first story in it!

To this point, I’d kind of wondered what all the fuss over Neil Gaiman was about. I liked Coraline okay — he was obviously a good writer, but I thought the book was a little uneven, that he’d gotten a bit careless toward the middle. (Several people have told me that the movie is better than the book — I haven’t seen it yet.) I don’t mean to run Coraline down. It is quite clever and nicely done overall, and I always mention it when I’m asked to compare Dragonfly to something. (I actually have very fond memories of reading Coraline. Some friends of mine in Japan had to be out of town for several days because of a death in the family. I was on a summer vacation at the time, and I house-sat for about a week — feeding their cats, watering their plants . . . and reading Coraline. It was an interesting time.)

But I did wonder why we hear Gaiman’s name everywhere, why he can do pretty much anything he wants to do, and why he keeps winning all those awards. Well, now I know! After that story, I decided I had to read the whole collection. I can’t speak for his novels: I haven’t read the ones he’s most famous for. He probably is a genius at longer forms, too, or he wouldn’t be the king of the genre today. But as a short story writer in the field of dark fantasy, I think he may very well be the greatest living practitioner. For the past decade, his stories have consistently won Locus, Stoker, and World Fantasy Awards. The tales he crafts are simply elegant in their craftsmanship and brilliant in their content. They’re unfailingly clear and approachable. You don’t have to “wade through” anything. He has the ideas, the language skills to make things happen, and the reading experience that allows him to pay homage to almost anybody while still producing strikingly original stories.

This is a little early for the season, but anyone would do well to get Fragile Things ready for reading in October. I’m sure I’ll talk about this again as the long-shadow season draws nearer, but my all-time favorite Hallowe’en short story is Richard Laymon’s “Boo!” I think I now have a second-favorite. (Laymon’s is still the best — I don’t know how a story could be any more perfect than that one.) In the second position is Neil Gaiman’s “October in the Chair” (which, incidentally, he dedicates to Ray Bradbury).

And I’m not saying that’s the best story in the collection. Every one of the stories I’ve read so far has been astonishing, and they’re not all the same. This is a collection of tales that have been award-winners in the years they were published, so you’re reading the best of the best. I emphatically recommend it.

But I’ve made one more reading discovery which, for me personally, is even greater. I’ve also found another book which goes onto my small, small shelf of the absolute best. I haven’t loved a book this much since Millhauser’s Enchanted Night. And the book is:

The Summer Book, by Tove Jansson. I’ll quote the back flyleaf: “The writer and artist Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is best known as the creator of the Moomin stories, which have been published in thirty-five languages. The Summer Book was one of ten novels that she wrote for adults. It is regarded as a modern classic throughout Scandinavia.”

It’s been translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal, with a foreword by Esther Freud. Another good friend gave me this book as a Christmas present several years ago, and I’d been saving it. (Aren’t books just the most wonderful presents you can give or get? We used to put up a sign in our bookstore window every December: “It isn’t Christmas without a book.” Okay, don’t think too hard about the theology of that ad. But you know I’m right.)

Now let me quote from the front flyleaf: “An elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter while away a summer together on a tiny island in the gulf of Finland. Gradually, the two learn to adjust to each other’s fears, whims, and yearnings for independence, and a fierce yet understated love emerges — one that encompasses not only the summer inhabitants but the island itself, with its mossy rocks, windswept firs, and unpredictable seas.

“Full of brusque humour and wisdom, The Summer Book is a profoundly life-affirming story. Tove Jansson captured much of her own experience and spirit in the book, which was her favourite of the novels she wrote for adults.”

It was first copyrighted in 1972 and orginally published in Swedish as Sommerboken.

(Interesting aside: the best movie I saw this summer was also a Swedish film. That’s a whole other topic. If anyone wants to know the title, let’s take it up in the comments section. This has really been the Summer of Sweden!)

Anyway, The Summer Book, on just about every page, has me laughing out loud, crying (yes, literally), and shaking my head in wonder and awe. It’s about all the things I love most: the magic of childhood and the imagination, the beauty of nature, and the love between people. I deliberately held off starting this book until after I was done with The Sacred Woods, because it’s also about those very same things and features a grandparent and grandchild. If I’d tried to read this as I was writing, I think it would have influenced me in the wrong ways. (They’re very different stories.) I won’t start telling you about my favorite scenes — because the whole book is my favorite scene. This is one I’ll want to revisit again and again and again.

So. . . . Yes, I’m reading Gaiman and Jansson simultaneously. Believe it or not, this works wonderfully for me. The two books are completely different from each other, and I love the variety. I’ll read a Gaiman story, then go back to Jansson to see what Grandmother and Sophia will do next. Back and forth, back and forth: it’s a vacation, it’s an education, it’s an unforgettable summer experience.

Yes, SUMMER, I say! Fall does not begin until the 23rd of this month, so we have a full three weeks of summer left. For me in my Japanese university schedule, it’s right now midsummer: my holiday is August and September. So let’s not go thinking of fall yet: we’ll do that with a passion in October.

Finally, here’s an insight into line-editing which seems edifying and amusing. This is from The Sacred Woods. Here’s the unedited passage:

“[Character A]’s gaze was dark with worry. He seemed to sniff the air as he trotted toward me. With a tense expression, he waited for me to speak.”

Edited version:

“His gaze dark with worry, [Character A] trotted toward me.”

I eliminated a “was.” Forms of “to be” should always be highly suspect — not that we can’t use them, but they tend to get overused. In the context of this scene, sniffing the air didn’t contribute anything, and seeming to sniff the air is just dumb: you can tell if a person is sniffing the air or not. Since his gaze is already “dark with worry,” we don’t need that “tense expression.” And waiting for [me] to speak is unnecessary, because it becomes obvious when [Character B] is the first person to speak. We’re left with one lean, vivid sentence featuring an action verb.

That’s how I spent my August. And now I’m reading. Happy Full Corn Moon! (As for comments, this might be a good time to let us know what you’re reading in this last golden month of summer. I know Marquee Movies is off to rescue Bilbo and see him safely home. . . .)