marshtide: (Default)
Toft ([personal profile] marshtide) wrote2010-11-07 03:19 pm
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Read ALL the books!

Right now I'm reading:

Sent i november by Tove Jansson (released in English as Moominvalley in November)
Ett nytt land utanför mitt fönster by Theodor Kallifatides (not translated as far as I know, but the title means "A new land outside my window".)

Theodor Kallifatides immigrated to Sweden from Greece in the 60s and the book of his that I'm reading now is a lot about that, being an immigrant, being a stranger to everyone. It's about identity. It's also really marvelously written.

I keep feeling like I need to read ridiculous numbers of books. Like I have a couple of decades of catching up to do on reading Swedish lit to even be roughly on the same level of understanding as people I talk with, on top of the general sense of Not Having Read Enough which I've been experiencing for ages. In absolute fairness, I want to work both with books and with words, so I really should read as much as I can - but that Must Read Everything sense just isn't helpful. There's too much. I will probably never feel really well-versed in anything. I just have to keep going and accept that I know more than I think and that no-one knows it all.

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