Read ALL the books!

[marshtide]

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.

Comments

[jae]

Wow, I know that feeling exactly, about the push to read ridiculous numbers of books. I discovered Germany and learned to speak German when I was a teenager, and discovered the Netherlands and learned to speak Dutch when I was much, much older, and ever since then, I've felt like I've been in a rush to catch up. With me, though, while part of it is indeed the language, mostly it's about the culture. I'm convinced that's why learning a language perfectly as a middle-aged person is harder--it's because you just have to learn SO MUCH MORE in order to be a culturally literate forty-year-old than you have to learn in order to be a culturally literate fifteen-year-old.

-J

[marshtide]

Yeah. In total fairness I've read a pretty silly number of books considering the period of time I've been able to speak Swedish for, but I'm also living with a librarian whose brother and brother's fiancee are both also librarians and whose parents used to run a book shop. ...I don't think I'm going to catch up, somehow.

[jae]

But on the bright side: good recommendations! And possibly cheap books! ;)

-J

[marshtide]

Very true. It's not like finding out what I should be reading to figure out Swedish lit is at all difficult in this situation, but the sheer size of the pile that people are able to provide can be a bit intimidating!

[librariana]

I absolutely love Moominvalley in November, this is one of my most favorite books ever.
The things you mentioned reminded me of the way I started reading Pratchett. He was including so many references in his books that suddenly I had to read 3 times more to understand his puns and religiously checked the newest entries on the L-space from my school computer. It was a long time ago :)

[marshtide]

Yeah, mine too. I really think it's quite brilliant. It does a lot of the same things for me as Tove Jansson's books for adults do, actually.

Aaw. :D I think I had that experience with Dorothy Sayers, actually, whose books assume that one has had a fairly thorough education which has taken place at the beginning of the 20th century.

[starlady]

Seeing as it is November, I was planning to go buy Moominvalley in November from my bookshop and read it this month.

[marshtide]

It does make for great November reading. Definitely one of the most melancholy moomin books.