tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27050375446274243762024-02-18T18:35:43.346-08:00The ReaderTo open a book is to embark on a journey to an unknown place. The silence enclosing you... The darkness enhancing your imagination... The story capturing you... Isn't it something truly special to be able to leave time and space and become part of another world. A world of imagination.Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.comBlogger160125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-2035182994545168762016-06-01T11:42:00.002-07:002016-06-01T11:42:45.385-07:00Seger by Viktor Jäderlund<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The book is a comic book that tells the story of the long-termed struggle for deaf people’s right to their own language and to express themselves. The author Viktor Jäderlund is a young deaf comic artist who wanted to portray the deaf people's road to victory, thereby the title Victory.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The narrator is a deaf man called Peter, born in 1948. Unfortunately, the narrative is somewhat unimaginative and it’s difficult to get to know him. The text could have been more developed. Never the less, the purpose of the book, to highlight the history of deaf people, is called for. Important historical events that changed history and improved the situation for deaf people are portrayed. The author tells the story about the struggle between Abbe L’epée, who preached sign-language, and Samuel Heinicke, who was in favour of oralism, which means to teach deaf people to speak. Deaf people wanted to use sign-language, and only in 1981, the Swedish prime minister Torbjörn Fälldin stated that deaf people should have sign-language as their first language, and Swedish as their second. Sweden was the first country in the world to make this decision. The author also mentions events such as Sweden’s first school for deaf people, in 1809, the first youth organisation for deaf people, in 1966, the first text telephone and the first use of sign-language in the Eurovision Song Contest. It’s an interesting book with an important story to tell.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-38397456624016458092016-05-31T00:53:00.002-07:002016-05-31T00:53:58.595-07:00Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">It is a very beautiful, tragic story about love and sacrifice. The Little Mermaid wants to have a human life and an eternal soul. I think it is an interesting fairytale, but there are many aspects that could be discussed. The story is similar to others from the same time when it comes to gender issues and religon. I might be over analyzing parts of the story, and it’s nothing spectacular, but it is interesting to trying to understand the context.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">On her fifteenth birthday, the Little Mermaid is allowed to see the human world above the waves, and instantly falls in love with a prince. Is it true love, or physical attraction? Well, let's decide it's true love for now, even though she doesn't know him, as is often the case in the old fairytales.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">She is the ultimate martyr. She would give up anything, sacrifice her three hundred years of life, to experience a single day with him as a human being and then go to heaven – very religous and virtuous. She wants an eternal soul, and asks why the mermaids don’t have one, which is a good question that is never really</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"> answered.</span><br />
<br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Now comes the misogyny theme. The only way for her to have an eternal soul is to win a man’s love. Someone has to fall for her. Back then, a woman had to be acknowledged and chosen by a man, and, as usual, it is the physical attractiveness that will, perhaps, earn her an eternal soul. The only way to earn it is through marriage. This indicates that a woman’s purpose was to please men, and be virtious. From the moment when the Little Mermaid discovers the prince, her whole existence is about pleasing him. She is thus initially brave and strong, but eventually becomes fragile, vulnerable and dependent. That isn’t enough. If the prince falls for someone else she will die.</span></span></span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">Now begins the transformation process that is still happening today, but today it is a system earning some people much money. She has to change her appearance to be able to please him, and she literally cuts her fin in half. She sacrifices everything. She can never return to her family and she endures much pain. Every step feels like stepping on broken glass. She even gives up her beautiful voice that makes her special - thus, she looses her power. She becomes her appearance.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">After being discovered, naked, by the prince, and later having danced for him, perhaps a seductive dance, </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">the bastard still doesn’t want her, but allows her to sleep on a cushion on the floor outside his room. She is, after all, reminded of the fact that she is not noble, and therefor, she doesn’t even deserve a bed. What does she see in this man? Her love is, of course, based on physical attraction. He is horrible, but everyone is treated after appearance, and he is obviously stunning.</span><br />
<br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">H. C. Andersen rewrote the ending, which is obvious. The message is obvious. Certainly it can be useful to encourage children to be kind, but kindness can mean so much. The Little Mermaid’s good work as a kind of angel is strange. Why do mermaids need to earn an immortal soul in such a way? Are they not as good as human beings, who are supposed to have faith and live according to the religious rules, but never do? Furthermore, isn’t the reward of an eternal soul making the good deeds selfish? The original ending was darker, but more fitting. Of course, it is consoling that the Little Mermaid is able to have an eternal soul finally, but if the story had not been so misogynistic, she would have earned it already. She sacrificed her life for the person she loved, after all.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">Despite these arguments, the fairytale really captivated and affected me.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-18069920099081999682016-05-31T00:37:00.002-07:002016-05-31T00:37:51.774-07:00Nightingale by Hans Christian Andersen<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span id="freeTextreview1557448981" style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">It is a fairytale about appreciating what you have, and what is real, instead of being duped by materialism. The emperor of China hears about a nightingale in his garden, and when it later sings for him, it is trapped. Eventually, it manages to escape from its prison, and is hence exiled by the emperor.<br /><br />Then, an artificial nightingale is singing in the palace, but there is a big difference between what is alive and real, and what is not. Later, the emperor needs the nightingale. Something makes him realize the worth of a living being. </span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The fairytale is beautiful and have an important message.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-17125491018658466742016-05-09T09:30:00.000-07:002016-05-09T09:31:35.337-07:00You by Caroline Kepnes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span id="freeTextreview1558257546" style="color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Caroline Kepnes book is about someone chasing someone who is chasing someone else.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">The narrative perspective is interesting. Instead of following the person who is a victim of a crime, the reader gets to follow the one who commits them. Joe seems to be an ordinary young man who works in a bookstore, who likes Hannah and Her Sisters and are tired of Stephen King. He is rather intelligent. But he has no limits when it comes to getting what he wants, and what he wants is "you". The book is written in a second person perspective and "you" refers to a woman named Beck, who happens to walk into the bookstore and fascinate Joe. The book deals with thoughts, feelings and actions, which all have to do with "you". This perspective is less usual than first- or third person perspective and it takes a while to get used to, but you are drawn into the book and become Joe and Beck at the same time.<br /><br />The language is vulgar occasionally, and initially it is unclear whether the relationship is about love or just physical attraction. Joe tries to respect and listen to what Beck says, but he always expects to get a physical reward, and sex seems to be the only thing on his mind. Perhaps the author tries to adapt the language of a young man's thoughts, but Joe is like a hormone fueled fifteen year old.<br /><br />Joe has unreasonable expectations when it comes to Beck. He does not like botox and bronze powder. "You will accept your age and you will be beautiful, unlike Ronnie". It is the common notion that women should not try so much, but still be beautiful. Furthermore, there is a obsolete generalization of women throughout the book, which feels out-dated. It's not just Joe that is a sexist and generalizes women. There seems to be a general contempt for women. Beck is equally negative to women, and eager to distance herself from them. Perhaps it is such a woman that a man like Joe wants. The expression to be like a chick appears several times. Shopping like a chick, whining like a chick and gossiping like a chick. The misogynistic tone makes the boundless, hyper sexual Beck rise above the crowd of impossible women and appear desirable. Most women in the book actually seem to despise other women. A woman customer exclaims that she is not one of ”those girls” who buy Bukowski to be ”a girl who buys Bukowski”. What does it mean? Is it so unbelievable that a woman would want to read Bukowski that she has to justify reading it? Of course, Joe likes this comment. I don’t know what the purpose is, but it’s not very appealing.<br /><br />It’s interesting that women are portrayed as irrational, while Joe makes no attempt to see his own irrational behavior. There are some contradictions. He attacks a woman, not to mention murdering people, but "would never hit a woman." What he does not like in others, often mirrors his own behavior. He thinks badly of a man who responds to Beck’s obvious emotional crisis by exploiting the situation, when he, in fact, does the same. He has no self-esteem and self-awareness, and no understanding of reality. It is rather normal to justify one’s behavior, but Joe complains constantly, despite the fact that he puts himself in the situation. Irresponsibility and lack of insight are warning signs. His selective empathy, and other psychopathic characteristics, are dangerous. Eventually, there is no limit for what he is capable of.<br /><br />Facebook and twitter are a large part of Beck’s and her friends’ lives. Joe thinks Beck writes better on Twitter than in her short stories. The book portrays the constant updates as evidence of narcissism. I think it reflects today’s society, and might be good for some people, and an addiction of acknowledgement for others. The author makes it a big theme in the book, and shows the importance people give it. Joe believes that we dive into our mobile phones when we feel insecure and that too much time with it makes us less capable of reading facial expressions. Joe is a character who exaggerates whenever it fits him, but it's still an interesting approach.<br /><br />The author has humour. Joe thinks that books with psychopaths, for example Stephen King's novels, are for sick readers that don’t dare to act on their thoughts. That would mean that Joe would think readers of this book to be sick, because this is such a book. At the same time, he would never realize that he is a psychopat, or something similar, and therefore wouldn’t regard this book as such a book with sick characters, but perhaps a book with a mistunderstood character. Joe sees himself as healthy, and whatever happens, he never doubt that. He thinks it obvious that it is the world that is wrong. He has a contempt for other people and turns everything to his advantage. It’s interesting to see how a really sick man reasons. Perhaps it's a survival instinct, a strategy to avoid facing himself. There is self-loathing in there, somewhere. The author digs deep into his mind and portrays different levels of thoughts.<br /><br />The book is appealing, there is no doubt about it. I think that what makes the book interesting is that the reader gets close to the nightmare she has learned to fear, but is safe at the same time. In real life, it is impossible to decide who is dangerous, in advance. Usually, Joe behaves like a normal man, but his thoughts are in a dark place. It is not until he puts his thoughts into action that the public around him regard him as a psychopath, but the reader gets an exclusive insight into his psyche, and the author skillfully depicts his impression of the surroundings while he handles the surroundings impression of him.<br /><br />The author uses the element of surprise in an intelligent way. Terrifying actions are uttered quite modestly in the middle of a sentence, like when Joe protests when hearing about a burglary, because he knows how it was done. It is obvious to him that he has broken into the house. He doesn’t event think about it before commenting on it.<br /><br />The book differs from most books with its perspective of a murderer and the second person narrative, but it is not unique in any way. What makes it interesting is the themes such as the deep insight and levels of the train of thoughts of a sick man and the critical view of social media.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;"> </span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-42133108688015678812016-05-08T09:07:00.000-07:002016-05-08T09:07:12.400-07:00Det går av by Carl Jonas Love Almqvist<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLIpAx2MS1CLG4qJyRuFUThgXDmHqi4HmOamO0F6XhfXeuIbvN32EgWJ2a5-HPtWCH0yMSz-eZnVd9M7MYtXSkG2YSrFBcvVS9ds03vmNhvysw0izQ6iXQaBcz78CICmcIGZUR8TyXwmQ/s1600/9789174995114_200.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLIpAx2MS1CLG4qJyRuFUThgXDmHqi4HmOamO0F6XhfXeuIbvN32EgWJ2a5-HPtWCH0yMSz-eZnVd9M7MYtXSkG2YSrFBcvVS9ds03vmNhvysw0izQ6iXQaBcz78CICmcIGZUR8TyXwmQ/s320/9789174995114_200.jpeg" width="212" /></a><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">The book, published in 1839, was written by Carl Jonas Love Almqvist. </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">Sergeant Albert goes on a boattrip from Stockholm to Lidköping, in Sweden, and meets the wonderful Sara Videbäck, a glazier’s daughter. They fall in love, but soon he discoverst that she has taken over the family business and refuses to stop working just because she has fallen in love. She talks highly of people not moving in together and demands that they will not get married. Independence is very important to her because her father mistreated her mother in their marriage. The main theme of the book is marriage as an imprisonment.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">This book caused a great scandal in 1839. The author lost his job as president of Nya Elementarskolan and had to live in exile because the book views marriage as a life long institution, preventing the people married to leave each other. The character Sara’s claim that if you love someone, marriage is not needed reflects the author’s own opinion. The book has influenced Sweden and perhaps contributed to the modern view of relationships as equal and marriages as a little overrated.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-26943154081573344332016-04-08T05:34:00.002-07:002016-04-08T05:34:36.392-07:00Att föda ett barn by Kristina Sandberg<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The novel is the first in the series about the housewife Maj, which earned Kristina Sandberg the August Prize in 2014. The book takes place in the Swedish town Örnsköldsvik in the late 30s. Maj is trying to get over an old love when she meets Tomas, and what can’t happen for a woman happens. She becomes pregnant. The only way out is to marry him. Then follows a year of an unhappy marriage, of having to spend time with her husband’s family, and with a new born child who is not wanted by anyone.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">Kristina Sandberg uses a unique prose. The sentences flow together with a liberal use of commas and there are no quotation marks indicting when someone is speaking, and who. It takes time getting used to, and makes it difficult to read. But, on the other hand, it helps the reader to get into Maj's head - which is very confused sometimes - and understand her everyday life and her view of her duties such as the domestic work, which Maj sometimes uses as escapism from her thoughts and feelings. But she seldom complains about her situation, because women didn’t complain. They would only perform their duties. Maj feel constantly inept. As a reader you might want to confirm her, give her a little confidence, anything to make her rebel against her situation. Her identity is in the succesful cookies or the advanced dinner. The author has explained that people who get annoyed at Maj might forget that she is a product of her time. It's an important comment. A woman’s value was to be a good wife, mother and housekeeper. Her own dreams were often not even considered. The housekeeping became important because it was the knowledge the women had. Their sense of worth. Their lives were about serving others. The men came home from work, were served, talked with friends or read a book. They learned about the world, and how to affect it. Women's lives were often spent by meticulously polishing the facade. But ignoring those duties were not kindly looked on. The book is about the everyday life but at the same time, it is a big drama. Kristina Sandberg is talanted at depicting long term anxiety and unhappiness that lead to a depressing existence.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">Tomas's family is wealthy and Maj must constantly relate to different sisters-in-law and the cold hearted mother-in-law. Is she good enough? What do other people think? Maj is afraid that others might think that she is incompetent, lazy or promiscuous for having a baby before getting married. The novel is reminiscent of Kerstin Thorvall’s authorship that takes place more than ten years earlier. The fear of believing that you are nothing and that others might discover that you only pretend to be something. The absence of her own family on her own wedding. Maj misses them tremendously.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">Tomas doesn't see how much she struggles with her situation and her pregnancy, but he tries to relieve her as best as he can. He wants to make her happy, but he does not know how. For she is not saying how she wants it. She tries to accept her life, but the loveless marriage is a disaster. She thinks about her family, her ex-boyfriend, her friends and her job as a waitress. It would be fine if she was enjoying her new life, being a housewife, but she misses everything.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The book raises many thoughts about the women in the 30’s. What was it like giving birth to a child? Did they feel appreciated? How selfless can a woman be? How is a woman to constantly serve others instead of following their own dreams? The novel is fictional, but Kristina Sandberg has captured the spirit of the time and portrays the social structure from a housewife's perspective. It is a forgotten and important part of our history.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-34320262151773293872016-04-04T11:31:00.002-07:002016-04-04T11:32:51.860-07:00Gardet by Staffan Malmberg<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Staffan Malmberg's latest book is about a vigilante group. The main character Johannes is on paternity leave and tired. He is on the edge of something, but doesn’t know what. He is tired of people who do not respect others. Something breaks in him when the sound of a motorcycle raises his daughter in a stroller, and suddenly he knows what must be done.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Many people are certainly irritated by other people's behavior, but few have gone a step further. Staffan Malmberg explores what happens when people take the law into their own hands. The characters are tired of selfishness, indifference, the rampant individualism and dogmatism gains. One of them comments on the relationship between assertiveness and decisiveness, something that is not always an advantage. Who is behaving perfectly towars other people? Who is to decide what is allowed? The novel is a terrifying example of what happens when people create their own conditions and expect everyone to follow them, live according to them. The group is growing uncontrollably. They are becoming organized and turned into a vigilante group. Johannes describes the situation that escalates into a catastrophy. "We were the reaction. It was when we became the action it went to hell.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">The book is sparse and the language is at times beautiful, almost poetic. Few words can contain very much. The desire to change. What happens when you lose control. Democracy and anarchy forces. Both in society and in the small group. For it is impossible to control people, as Johannes soon learns, despite being the founder of the group. It’s an interesting situation, and very unpleasent how fast destructiveness apper in the group that at first had good intentions.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-19636172682249028282016-03-02T06:34:00.001-08:002016-03-02T06:34:47.110-08:00Forensics: What bugs, burns, prints, DNA and more tell us about crime by Val McDermid<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">After countless cases, many of them investigated by the character Tony Hill, Val McDermid decided to write a book about the true forensic science. She takes us behind the barriers at a crime scene, explains forensic science and how autopsies are done. The book deals with entomology, forensic medicine, toxicology, fingerprints, blood traces, dna-profiling, forensic sculpture, face reconstruction, digital criminal science and forensic psychology, and the author uses an interesting approach. Interviews with experts in the field and murder investigations from all ages are used to show the development of forensic science in the last 200 years, and it is fascinating. Among many, there is a story about a physician that murdered approximately 210 patients, two bodies found in 30 packages and a spy found dead in a trunk. Experts on everything from flies and larvae to poisons try to map the circumstances to understand what has happened, so the police have greater chances of finding the person responsible.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The book is repulsive, occasionally, but very fascinating. It shows us an entire world that the public, generally, isn’t allowed to enter. A meticulous work where details might mean the different between life and death.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">An interesting fact is the author’s critical approach to forensic science. She describes an immense belief in evidence, both by the judicial system and the public. Experts testimonies in court depend much on their experience, reconstructions and interpretations. Furthermore, in court the attourneys and prosecutors often discusses juridical matters instead of seeking the truth, and might use the testimony as they choose. Since dna-profiling, or genetic fingerprints, was first used in investigations in the 80’s, 314 people being sentenced have been freed, only in the US. Dna has had an immense impact, just as physical fingerprints had in the beginning of the 1900’s. But not even dna-profiling is totally reliable. Contamination happens, and even the refined dna-profiling technique, LCN, where a microscopic quantity of dna is copied, has its flaws. Forensic consists of science and the human factor.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">One of the most important themes in the book is the author’s discussion about the fact that the progress of science constantly forces us to a standpoint where ethic and morality is concerned. In forensics, the mapping of genetic material and research of genes that increase the risk of becoming a criminal, restrict the individual integrity and it is almost impossible to garantee that information is not misused. This kind of questions are important to contemplate. Today, we have to consider the risks of technology such as the current surveillance and the development of artificial intelligence.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">Those who have seen the tv-series CSI, Crime scene investigation, might be a little disappointed when reading the book. CSI might have increased expectations when it comes to forensic science, but on the other hand, it might have awaken an interest and curiosity among the public. Those who understand the difference between fiction and reality and want to know more about forenic science will have many questions answered. Unfortunately, there could have been more information about different procedures and how they work. But the author covers many parts of forensic science and this is a way to discover the forensics.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">In a time when detective fiction and murder mysteries fill the shelves in the book stores it is interesting to plunge into the real work, where there are as many mysteries. Forensic science is astonishing and the reality often exceeds poem.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-12072921189637752822016-02-19T11:05:00.000-08:002016-02-19T11:05:17.412-08:00The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">The novel, published in 1880, is Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s last book. This is a rich novel, containing everything about human life. It deals with emotions, inner struggles and religious believes. It captures the human soul. The book centers around three brothers, Ivan, Dmitri and Alexei or Alyosha Fyodorovich Karamazov, and their relationship with their strange and difficult father, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov. Ivan is intellectual and atheist, Dmitri is a sensualist and Alyosha is a novice in a monastery. Dostoyevsky was a master of creating believable, living characters. However, there were few female characters, and I would have liked them more nuanced. Katerina Ivanovna had a little depth, but Grushenka seemed one-dimensional. I would have liked to see the world from their perspective.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">The book really gets going when Fyodor, the selfish and ruthless father, is murdered and Dmitri is arrested. The following trial is interesting and includes psychological themes such as morality and motive, discussed from different points of view by the attorney and prosecutor.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">The dialogue is often deep, philisophical and interesting. But the book is heavy and sometimes so detailed that the pace becomes painstakingly slow. It is considered a masterpiece, and it really is, but I somehow got weary of the meticulous details and thereby cared less about the characters than I initually did. However, it is a great book and especially the last hundred pages are amazing.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-86384245114095735382016-02-17T03:59:00.002-08:002016-02-17T03:59:28.274-08:00Bad feminist by Roxane Gay<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span id="freeTextreview1454008655" style="color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Roxane Gay calls herself a bad feminist. She does not want to be put on a pedestal. All role models will sooner or later be pushed down. She considers herself as already pushed down. It is sad that not everyone can feel included in feminism. It seems that you can only be a feminist according to certain principles.<br /><br />In her collection of essays Roxane Gay describes the narrow feminist role. She strikes a blow for feminists that don’t fit the profile as ”militant” and even use make-up and shave their armpits - as if that would be the typhical feminist. What about these feminists? Is it something wrong about beeing what is considered ”unfeminine”? It is a difficult balance. She should be careful not to become what she herself condemns, and exclude certain feminists. Feminism should be including, not be yet another rule for women that are tired of being told how to look and how to behave. (However, there might be one exception. It would be problematic to call oneself a feminist if accepting and approving the terms of the patriarchy that restricts and objectifies women - the very same patriarchy that feminists seek to destroy). Some women do happen to behave according to the traditional feminine role, and others do not. They have fought hard to be accepted. Most women probably are a mixture of different roles.<br /><br />Roxane Gay discusses politicians' position of power, and how they think they have the right to make decisions about womens’ bodies, when discussing reproductive rights. She writes about black peoples’ conditions and discusses popular culture from a feminist perspective. She mentions music and sexist lyrics, comedians mysogynist attitude, young adults books and movies and television series like The Hunger Games and Girls. This is very important. Female stereotypes are common in popular culture, but she also points out that it is unfair to give a single movie or tv-series the responsibility to change the industry. The movie Bridesmaids got to take a lot of responsibility, and to call it revolutionary is putting unreasonable pressure on production. Perhaps calling it ”a touch of innovation” is enough. I wonder what Roxane Gay thinks about the series Marvel's Jessica Jones? (Comics are not known to be equal, but this is a protagonist who does not agree with the genre stereotypes.) The main character is a female anti-heroine, fighting against misogyny. Marvel's Jessica Jones is basically about abuse, both mental and physical. Assault and rape. If one is to depict rape, social structures and the consequences can not be ignored. To not be simply a way to exploit the female body as macabre, graphic, bizarre entertainment, the topic should be problemized and analyzed. It must be depicted realistically. While shows like the ”Outlander” and the 2Game of thrones” depict rape without acknowledging it, Jessica Jones call it for what it is, and the consequences of such a horrible experience are clear.<br /><br />In her youth, Roxane Gay distanced herself from feminism because the word was considered an insult. She was called an angry, sex-hating, man-hating lady with a victim mentality. There are undoubtedly many who recognize themselves. Feminism is a sensitive word. Who is it that has distorted the meaning? Those who have the most to lose if it is successful. Too bad, she didn’t continued and deepend the discussion. That is precisely the problem with the book. She identifies different areas, but the analyses are not deep enough and many of the conclusions she draws are not new. Much of the content is already discussed. Furthermore, there are some contradictions in her arguments, but by calling helself a bad feminist, she might have justified a slightly fuzzy text and any holes in her argument. She does not pretend to be someone she is not, she just gives her view of society. But the book offers an important point. Roxane Gay may like the color pink and music with sexistic texts, but she's not a bad feminist. "Bad" according to her definition, is actually human. If there was something as bad feminists, the word feminist would loose it’s meaning, because we are all human. I am happy that Roxane Gay has nuanced feminism. One of the book's greatest advantages is the author’s passion and inspiration.<br /><br />The most important theme is the contradictions that exist within feminism. All feminists have their own view of the concept. When privileged people like Emma Watson and Zara Larsson call themselves feminists, they are often critizized. When people express themselves even though they lack some gender studies or heavy experiences, discussions follows about who have the right to call themselves feminists. Of course, the need for more than one kind of woman is important. Not only the white, privileged woman should be able to fight for feminism. If there is anything this book indicates it is the current lack of acceptance and the need for the very concept of feminism to be more including.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-28775966798097710192016-02-12T08:45:00.000-08:002016-02-12T08:49:34.707-08:00Prins Charles känsla by Liv Strömquist<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxtPw3_Xe0YcgJf1P2v2oOlvnzEIHoCewWHoxhinDiwrc3Gq6UMUmT2MiWx1LOBxmE4IS5wPbhN_ExtOaYIfRJm4MiaHnt-Xyk8mYwslC0imDM4Nk2IkYFeiZmMInVNgm0lO8goL4hDmM/s1600/prins-charles-kansla.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxtPw3_Xe0YcgJf1P2v2oOlvnzEIHoCewWHoxhinDiwrc3Gq6UMUmT2MiWx1LOBxmE4IS5wPbhN_ExtOaYIfRJm4MiaHnt-Xyk8mYwslC0imDM4Nk2IkYFeiZmMInVNgm0lO8goL4hDmM/s400/prins-charles-kansla.jpg" width="291" /></a><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Something about Liv Strömquist’s books is really interesting. Perhaps it's the analyses, the history or the facts. For evert theory, Strömquist uses sources, such as researchers, psycho analysts and real events to back her arguments up.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">This is about love as a social structure. Why do women often need to be acknowledged by men? Why do men often distance themselves from intimacy and feelings? In a culture that encourages gender differences and small children learn early on to behave in a certain way, it's not difficult to understand. Girls identify with their mothers, and develop caring and affirmative characteristics. Boys often don’t identify with their fathers, because they are absent. They have no role model and therefore assimilate the sexistic culture. Hence, the culture is maintained. Of course, everything improves through the years. Nowadays, men have parental leave in Sweden and are expected to spend more time with their children, not to mention the fight for gender equality with means such as the concept "hen", an indefinite pronoun that serves to take focus away from expectations concerning gender, but old traditions still form people.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">This book analyses the twosome, heterosexual couple, how the society is built upon this structure, and the consequences for gender equality. Strömquist also mentions famous couples that have lived their lives according to this norm, and how it affected them, from historical people like Gustaf Fröding and his self-pity and prostitutes, and Victoria Benedictsson and George Brandes, to people of today, such as Charlie Sheen and Hugh Grant, and recent couples like Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Strömquist is also describing how men opress women to be able to win them over, also a strategy in the book The Game, and whether love and relationships are gender equal. Women sacrifice everything, care about and blow up men's ego, while men do nothing of the sort. Women's identity is constituted by their bodies and what they can offer men. Their destiny is to take care of and comfort other people, and not themselves. The consequence is that men are able to seek their happiness in work or hobbies, encouraged by their wives, and women don't get the encouragement and support from their husbands to do the same. Unbelievably, despite all this, many men still seem to fear marriage, and some of them even have a condescending attitude to women. At the same time, they maintain relationstips with these women. When looking at it more carefully, it’s not very inexplicable. There are researchers that claim that men need women to maintain their independence. Without them, they have no one to be independent of. A study shows that after a divorce, women are feeling happy and feel their self-confidence growing, while men are feeling unhappy and depressed. Even though twosome marriages often mean a kind of ownership which might be unhealthy, it seems that men benefit from it, while women are restricted and not enough supported. So, perhaps, men should learn to appraciate relationships and marriage more. Women often stay in these relationships because they have learned that the only way of self-worth is to be acknowledged and approved by men. When getting hurt, women need comfort, and they also need for their men to comprehend them and therefore they try even harder to explain how they feel to be able to fix the relationship. The psychological mechanisms are very complicated, and of course can't be applied to every one. Most people probably don't think about it, and don't think it's necessary, because people have a choice, right? Of course, most men are nice and most women don't accept a dysfunctional relationship. But what if we are so used to this phenomena that we don't see it? When you start to analyze, you discover this structure that explains a lot about patterns of behavior. There are always many studies and many professional people having opinions, about any subject, and they are not always right about everything, but this book offers interesting analyses that explain some structures of society.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-63070677351831764072016-01-28T10:45:00.000-08:002016-02-12T08:49:22.317-08:00War's unwomanly face by Svetlana Alexievich<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Svetlana Alexievich has interviewed countless people during many years, to describe the soul of the Soviet Union, in her series "Voices from the Big Utopia". She received the Nobel price in literature in 2015. In this book, two hundred women speaks of the time during the war. How they fought the enemy, how they rescued wounded soldiers, and how they themselves fired sniper’s rifle, bombed and killed. They had learned to hate, but even during the darkest of times, their hearts loved, and they saved not only their own, but German soldiers as well. Svetlana Alexievich collects these stories and makes art.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">This book really affected me. It feels like I have been there, at the front, among the soldiers. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Together, they make a choir of voices, and I wonder whether it’s easier to understand the reality of that time from one single person’s testimony, or through the fabric of many memories. The book is full of strong voices that have been silent for forty years. It was time the emotional shards, the human destinies, were told.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">This is not a hero book. This book is not focusing on the winning of the war, but on the reality during and after the war. The women's stories are colorful. They remembered feelings and details, and they never stopped appreciating beauty and art. Some refused to change from their dresses, others slept with their earrings, while yet others slept while sitting up to be able to wear hats as long as possible. Because, in daytime, everything that was considered female was forbidden.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Surprisingly many young women volunteered to fight at the front. At a very young age, they convinced their parents to be allowed to participate, or escaped from their homes to join the army and be sent to the front. The loyalty to their country was immense, and more important than their families. It was not only the young girls dreams. Some of the parents even wanted their young daughters to join the army. It's difficult to understand their enormous devotion. Their team spirit and companionship. It's a big difference between communism and today's individualism, and it's interesting to learn about a totally different perspective of live.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">One might think that women’s part of the war indicates some gender equality, but even though women were allowed to join the army, the men treated them far from equal, and used all kinds of excuses to justify their behavior. Their view of these women became very clear after the war, when many of them didn't want to marry a woman soldier, and even despised them. Half a million women sacrificed everything, and when returning from the war, they were forgotten. And while the male soldiers were received as heroes, the female soldiers were viewed as unfeminine and unattractive. I want to remember everyone. It’s difficult to explain, but I feel like I owe them that. They have been alone with their feelings for a very long time, abandoned by the society after the war. The least I can do is to listen to them, and remember them. She who made herself a white dress of a German parachute and married her love before a battle. She who let her daughter carry a bomb. She who drowned her own baby to not be found by the German soldiers. She who kissed her husband for the very last time. She who gave the enemy bread. She who was captured and tortured. She who still can’t handle the color red. She who came home and realized her child didn’t recognize her. She who returned home and found her own grave. And many more.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 14px;">They all deserve to be remembered. This book makes them as invincible and immortal as they once were.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-36299411850505667042016-01-13T12:32:00.000-08:002016-01-13T12:32:31.997-08:00The Lover by Marguerite Duras<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The book takes place in the French Indochina. A young, French girl in the colonial class falls in love with a rich, Chinese man and it is the beginning of a romance, despite her mother’s fear of her destroying her chances to be married.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The story technique differ from many other novels with biographical elements. It is not written in chronological order, but takes leaps in time. The novel is consisting of many short sentences, mixed with longer ones.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">It’s a dense book. The prose is spare and often objective, something that is appreciated by some, and not by others. It is difficult to really know the characters when not getting into their heads. The book is beautifully written, but leaves much for the reader to comprehend and read between the lines. Indochina was a part of the French Colonial Empire, and the girl and the man can be interpreted as symbols of power and the occupied. It’s an interesting book that takes time to digest.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-92006005179862522982016-01-04T06:05:00.000-08:002016-01-04T06:05:55.011-08:00Night Film by Marisha Pessl<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">When Ashley, the daughter of a famous movie director, Stanislas Cordova, is found dead, the journalist Scott McGrath begins to investigate the family. Last time he worked on a case about the family ended in a personal tragedy. This time, something even more important might be on the line.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">It took a while to get into the book. Scott McGrath was a clean slate and not very interesting, except his obsession with Cordova. I didn’t think Ashley Cordova was especially fascinating either, despite the author’s attempt. For a long time seemed like a confused emo teenager. The only character that I found interesting right away was Nora.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">Just as in Cordova’s movies, there are unexplained elements and soon, Scott’s entire life is almost turning into one of these movies. Is it a dream? Is he going mad? It’s difficult to know where reality ends and illusion begins. Perhaps that is what makes this book special. Magical cracks is cutting through the world and make him question the reality and himself. Cordova’s movies seem to have a story technique that is a mixture of Alfred Hitchcock and Ingmar Bergman, but more frightening and controversial. Such movies are being interpreted and often considered cult. There are more similarities, as well. Just as Cordova, Bergman filmed many movies on his estate on Fårö in Sweden.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The author uses a special grip. She fills the novel with fake photographies and articles to frame the story and put the reader into the world of the book. It’s an interesting concept, and works most of the time, but the those supposed to be photographs of Ashley look staged. She looks more like an angry model than a mysterious, fascinating pianist.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">Something happens two thirds into the book. Suddenly, the pace is increasing, and the book becomes intense when the story begins to unfold. It’s a unusual book in many ways, not least when it comes to the gothic feeling that rests over the family Cordova, that soon envelops the main character.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-4283709664013120692016-01-03T12:13:00.000-08:002016-01-03T12:13:48.868-08:00Jag lever, pappa: Utöya, 22 juli 2011 - Dagen som förändrade oss<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The book describes the terrorist attack, 2011, in Oslo from two perspectives. Siri, a 20-year old girl, was at </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">a Labour party summer camp on the island Utöya when the massacre occurred that killed 69 people. She called her father, Erik, a former journalist, when running for her life. Erik tries to understand what is happening.</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">First, the government quarter were bombed, killing several people. Two hours later, people on Utöya began to hear gun shots, ran and tried to hide. When a man, dressed like a police officer, arrived, people were relaxing, never imagining that the man was in fact the terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik. He shot everyone he could find, except small children. Siri found a way down the cliff to the shore, and hid with several others in a small cave that barely covered them. At the same time, her father tried to understand what was going on, and when he realized that someone was killing people, he drove out to the nearest point on mainland, feeling afraid and powerless.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">How do you handle life after terror? How do you manage everything? Do you change? If you do, then how? The book gives insight to the massacre and how the people that survived were marked deep for ever, struggled to carry on, mourned the dead and remembered the attack, but refused to let themselves be defined by it. After the terror, Siri was very tense and reacted on every sound around her. She thought it uncomfortable to be around police officers. At the same time, she was strong and very determined to not let the fear win. In this way, the book is offering a deeper insight, a reflexion of what such a experience do to people, and how they are feeling weeks later when everyone else is carrying on.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">The book might have been shorter. It is about hundred pages of memorials and other gatherings, and they are all very similar. They are important, of course, but it feels like the book drags on. It is not written in the best of ways, the language is a little uneven and sometimes repetitive. First, we get to read about Siri’s experiences, and then we get to reread the same situation from Erik’s point of view. During the terror, it’s effective because it’s interesting to get to know as much as possible of the time. But after the attack, occasionally, it slows down the pace.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px;">However, it's an important portrayal of the worst attack in Norway in modern time. In all, 77 people were killed in the two attacks. Both Siri and Erik realized the importance of reporting, and through this book, they contribute to the event not ever being forgotten.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-58536225120169175872015-12-26T05:08:00.000-08:002015-12-26T05:08:17.866-08:00Omgiven av idioter: Hur man förstår dem som inte går att förstå by Thomas Erikson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Lato, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Have you wondered why you sometimes need to be alone for a while with your thoughts? Or why you always have to be the center of attention? Why certain people are so careless and sloppy? Or why you are surrounded by idiots? Thomas Erikson is explaining all this. He uses a known method to sort differences in communication and categorize people into four different groups, or personality types. Red people are impatient and focused on results, yellow people are positive and need to be the center of attention, green people, which are the most common, are calm and good listeners, and blue people are well organized and pay attention to detail. Everyone is needed and the best group is consisting of all colors. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Lato, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">People critical to this would certainly claim that it’s difficult to categorize people, but, of course, this method includes numerous variations, and most people have more than one color. Another critical comment might be that dividing people into groups is something that should be prevented, but Thomas Erikson doesn't value one quality more than another, he just states that we are all different. This is just a way to understand each other. We get to know the cause of conflicts and how best to treat them. Of course, this is not a totally waterproof method. People are unpredictable and complicated. The reality is always more complex.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Lato, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The book, a new edition, is entertaining and useful, both at work and in private life. Everyone benefits from this because everyone we all use communication.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-24476861708266645812015-12-21T02:16:00.000-08:002015-12-21T02:16:46.453-08:00The Doomsday Conspiracy by Sidney Sheldon<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Lato, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Commander Robert Bellamy is hired by the NSA to locate people that have witnessed a weather balloon, with some secret equipment, crash in the Swiss alps. They don't tell him why, and he soon realizes there is something big going on. It’s an interesting story and has much potential. Unfortunately, the big mystery culminates in a chase. Bellamy’s mission is to find the witnesses, but I would be more interested in the big discovery in the mountains if I were him. Bellamy’s search for the witnesses feels repetitive. They all resemble each other. Not one of them seem to care very much about the big discovery. Why have they not already contacted the newspapers? </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Lato, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The book resembles the structure of a movie script, with not much inner dialogue, and it seems that Sheldon has not given a thought about how best to reveal the big mystery. Events are often presented like scenes in a movie, and it works for most of the time, but it would have been much more interesting if Sheldon valued the emotional aspect more. This is common in the genre, but I still miss the psychology, why people do as they do, and why Bellamy doesn’t question certain events. As a movie, it would have been approximately 90 minutes long, and Bellamy wouldn’t have seem that ignorant. In a book, you wonder when he will discover the truth. Bellamy is supposed to be one of the most successful naval officers. Yet, he rarely think about the cause of his mission and the whole picture.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Lato, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The part where Bellamy becomes the target is interesting. He is extremely professional, and that is why he sometimes becomes disappointing. When creating falce traces, why rent a hotel room in your real name? A good agent wouldn’t do that. When trying to find a way out, why tell people where you are going? Sometimes, he is very intelligent, and sometimes not. Of course, showing the reader all perspectives right away might diminish my patience. If Sheldon had left me in the dark for a while longer, Bellamy would have seem more intelligent. Furthermore, it would have been interesting to discover everything at the same time as him.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Lato, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Never the less, government cover-ups and conspiracies are always interesting, and the message of the book is very relevant and a topic of current interest. Even though the book has flaws, it's entertaining.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-11357930995012714302015-12-18T13:26:00.000-08:002015-12-18T13:26:57.381-08:001984 by George Orwell<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">George Orwell’s prophecy concerning the development of society is both frightening and thought provoking. In his dystopian novel, Orwell, or Eric Arthur Blair as his real name was, predicted how the world in 1984 would be like. The book was published in 1949, in the aftermath of world war two, and has a lot of influence from the communists and nazi rule at the time.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">There are themes like big brother, relativism, surveillance, collectivism, freedom, reality, manipulation, indoctrination and the biggest threat of all, love. The communist idea that the individual is replaceable, a casualty, while the system is important, is a big theme. At the same time, the system rests on the people, and therefor it is important to control them. There is no freedom of speech or even thought. The thought police arrests everyone that protest against the truth. The massive surveillance controls the people. Even though Orwell doesn’t take it as far as Karin Boye’s Kallocain, with the truth serum with the same name, he lets the thought police be able to read face expressions and tones of voice. The least deviant gets arrested and probably killed.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">According to Orwell, there are four ways to bring down a totalitarian state, and in most cases it is a flaw in the system itself, or the powerful people behind it, to make it possible to overthrow. This is where this book becomes not only frightening, but disturbing. Orwell shows us that it is possible to control an entire population, and diminish the risk of being destroyed. He has thought of everything, using the mistakes of earlier dictatorships, forming a flawless oligarchy. The main character, Winston Smith, a member of the Outer party, works for the Ministry of Truth, where history is rewritten all the time, which causes a great confusion and loss of orientation, preventing people from learning, getting inspired of other people, and making comparison with other believes impossible. If all information is constantly changed, and there is no way of confirming one's memory, what is the truth, then? If you are the only source, can you be sure the information is correct? Can you trust your own mind, your memory?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Another factor for a strong oligarchy is the power of language. How words make thoughts possible. In Oceania, the political party is restricting the language through a new way of speech, without words like freedom and democracy. A restricted language means unthinking, unintelligent individuals.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The scariest part of the book is the control from within. There can be no love besides the love for Big Brother, hence the sexualpuritarism. The system is above the individual, and relationships between people are unnecessary, even a liability. The children being the worst spies reminds me of the witch hunt in the 18th century. Children don't understand the seriousness of their deeds. For them, it's just a game, and they are rewarded for it. They never learn to love their parents as their parents love them. Therefor, they don’t mind reporting them to the authorities. This totalitarian ideology depends on children scaring people and helping the system, never trusting the population. The children are brought up to be hooligans, and are justified by the ideology. The part of justifying a certain behaviour that is not humane is not totally uncommon today, when governments justify wars. The simple idea that there are two sides and the other one is always wrong is a way of uniting people. When returning from a war, soldiers are treated like heroes, despite the damage they have caused. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Oceania constantly changes enemy. Just as in the fictional world, the winner writes history, which is a kind of censure function, and yesterday's hero might end up tomorrow's enemy. In that way, it is relevant today. It emphasizes general structures and values to an extent where they become visible and easy to question.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The proles, the ordinary, poor people that don’t belong to the political party, are not so different from us. They are easy to manipulate and not in need of indoctrination. They live simple lives with hard work, family life, sports, beer, gambling and fighting with neighbours. In what way do they differ from us? Are we not easy to control because we are busy working and consuming products that are advertised, seldom evolving into more spiritual, philosophical individuals that might discover and question flaws in the society? According to Orwell, the people that knows what really happens are the ones who are least able to see the world as it really is. The people who have information are unable to face it. The more insight, the more delusion. The powerful people in the book that know the situation, and that Oceania will never win or loose the war, are the ones who believe it the most. I wonder whether that is true for the real world, as well.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The totalitarian machine does not just oppress people. It makes them oppress themselves. Through the terms dubblethink and thoughtcrime, people repress their memories and force certain opinions.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Orwell wasn't right in his prediction about a totalitarian society taking place in 1984, not in the western world, but he was right in some cases. The dystopian novel is very disturbing to read, because in a way, the book is more relevant today than ever. We are being watched, our telephone calls are being monitored, and we leave fingerprints everywhere on the internet. Is it possible to be free? What is freedom?</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-20050020377800568152015-12-17T04:08:00.000-08:002015-12-17T04:09:56.414-08:00Night by Elie Wiesel<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Elie Wiesel was fifteen years old when he and his family, living in Romania, were placed in a ghetto and then deported to Auschwitz, and later Buchenwald. He lost his entire family in the concentration camp and it's painful to read, knowing that would happen. He became A-7713, and eventually he did loose his identity. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">He portrays the dehumanization process very well. How the SS officers treated the people, reduced them and made them forget their value. When confronted by the evil of men, the prisoners loosed their identity. Wiesel watched people stop caring about their families, leaving them. He thought it horrible. It seems that many people went through a major transformation, not only physically, but psychiologically, as well. They handled such strong feelings, and eventually, they run out of them, or they become immune. Perhaps it was a defence mechanism. Wiesel describes a situation where everyone was struggling to survive, every man for himself. No one could afford to care much about anyone else. It takes you one step closer to get a glimpse of how life was during that time. Sons stopped caring about their fathers. People fighting, even killing, for a piece of bread. Eventually, when Wiesel's father was getting weaker, he realized that he had become one of them, an unbearable thought. It's terrible to read about. I understand his thoughts, but I think he really tried. He managed to not be separated from his father, but remained with him for eight months. They worked under unbearable, excruciating circumstances, and he tried to help and support his father, but admits he failed. It is one of the most heart-breaking parts of the book. After seeing his father changing, starving and suffering from dysentery, he realized that he couldn't help him, and even if he could, he didn't have the energy to do it, which made him ashamed. Wiesel is very honest to admit this about himself.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">The prisoners weren't treated as human beings. They had no dignity, nothing left. It's very well portrayed how exhaustion and hunger might change a person, take away his will to help people and even his will to live. Living in such a world, Wiesel lost his will to survive, his faith and his innocence. Even on liberation day, people didn't think about revenge. They just wanted bread.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">After the war, Elie Wiesel has worked as a professional journalist and international correspondent, devoted himself to political activism, tried to join underground movements, and started the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. For ten years after the war, he refused to talk about his time in the concentration camps. After a conversation with an author, he changed his mind, and wrote the 900-pages memoir And the world remained silent, which was later shortened and named Night. A film director approached Wiesel and suggested to make a movie based on the book, but he refused, claiming that a movie would destroy his story, which needed the silence between the words. In 1986, he received the Nobel Peace Price, and his acceptance speech is in this book. Despite all his achievements, Wiesel has asked himself if he has done enough. That makes me sad and ashamed. The least I can do is to read this book, trying to understand people's experiences during the holocaust, and promise to never forget.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "lato" , "helvetica neue" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Before being taken to Auschwitz, many people weren't able to believe in the final solution. There were some rumors, but they didn't think that such a thing could happen in modern time. The idea of an entire people, wiped out, was absurd and impossible to understand. Wiesel faced the truth when coming to Auschwitz and seeing the crematorium. It's still very difficult to comprehend that millions of people were wiped out. This book is so important, not only because it's about the holocaust, but also because of the humble, personal way it is written that somehows emphasizing the horror and the structures of evil.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-78162348978942604732015-12-16T09:19:00.001-08:002015-12-17T04:09:32.762-08:00Göran Kropp 8000+ by David Lagercrantz<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuFCggrM1xNeYVhd6nWjEps0eh6deobb1fMGgGh1tRGZBwq9JNcLPrFYVz_ut5BQfSiIr0s3sx6dyCpVOZRlUSh7OG8zPpvn5tCHsPiwRHRFlF8tHw0w2As5KnOlH8DnkhyFktIGfVO-w/s1600/goran-kropp-8000-_150.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuFCggrM1xNeYVhd6nWjEps0eh6deobb1fMGgGh1tRGZBwq9JNcLPrFYVz_ut5BQfSiIr0s3sx6dyCpVOZRlUSh7OG8zPpvn5tCHsPiwRHRFlF8tHw0w2As5KnOlH8DnkhyFktIGfVO-w/s400/goran-kropp-8000-_150.jpg" width="248" /></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">In this book, Göran Kropp tells the story of his climbing carrier and his crazy adventure in 1996. He decided to climb Mount Everest, and to do everything by himself. He rode a bike from Sweden to Nepal, and climbed Mount Everest alone, without a guide, without any use of sherpas, people carrying the climbers' baggage, without oxygen and he mostly ate his own food that he had brought with him. The photographer that was supposed to catch Kropp's achievement on camera was flown in secret with a small plane, a Pilatus Porter, at a height of 9000 meters – which is forbidden. Furthermore, it had to be a big secret because they had to restrict the airspace. Too bad, a storm was coming in and they had to fly earlier than planned, and the photographer didn't get Kropp at the top. Kropp was there during the dragic season of 1996. On may 10th, many people died. Kropp knew these people, and met them at base camp, but he wasn't part of their expeditions. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">David Lagercrantz, who has written about Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Alan Turing, and is the author of the latest Stieg Larsson Millennium-book, knows how to write. It really feels like you are there, in the snow and in the darkness, with Göran Kropp. You are really cold. What is surprising is the interesting relationships forming at base camp, and the necessity to trust and depend on each other. The people coming there to climb are so unlike each other, but become the same, with the same thoughts and the same needs and struggle to survive. There are so many destinies intertwining, which makes the book rich in a fascinating way. It is really beautiful that people meet and have this bond. Kropp tells us about wonderful meetings with wonderful people, but and also people that are arrogant and selfish. Up there, people are really put to the test. They seem to be reduced to the basic foundation of themselves, in a way. The true personality is revealed.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">Some facts about Mount Everest</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">* In 1924, George Mallory was the first westerner that climbed Mount Everest. No one knows what happened, and whether Mallory and his collegue Andrew Irwine reached the top. They disappeared and were find 1999. They were the first to die there.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">* In 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first climbers known to have succesfully reached the top. Three days later, the same day that Elisabeth II was crowned Queen, their achievement reached the news and they became heroes. Kropp claims that the news were comparable with Neil Armstrong later walking on the moon.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">* Reinhold Messner reached the top 1980, alone and without oxygen tubes.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">* Water boils beneath 100 degrees celcius, around 60.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">* A person looses 8 liters of water a day.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">* Above 8000 meter, the ground is called the "death zone". Already at base camp, near the height of 6000 meters, the body stop producing muscle cells. Exercise is not only burning fat, but also muscles are affected.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">* It is said that the mind of a person with great physique is slowing down up there and the ability of understanding is half of a six year old, due to exhaustion and the low levels of oxygen.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">* The mountain can only be climbed a short time, between the jetstreams and the monsoon season.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">* Around 155 people have died climbing Mount Everest.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">This is a story about the love of climbing, but it is also a report about the climbing industry. Göran Kropp critiqizes the rich people that pay huge amounts to be a part of a team, but lack knowledge, respect and experience, only surviving because they depend totally on their guides, jeopardising the entire expedition, because of their inability. Kropp doesn't like the fact that mountains have become like trophies for the rich. According to him, it contaminates the air. A climber should first and foremost care about the climbing, the love for the mountain. But the commercial aspect is growing. Now, the mountain is like a high way, trafficked by unexperienced people, which might have stopped the flow of climbers, may 10th, 1996, and caused the delay - one of the reasons that led to the major tragedy.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">Climbing is expensive and has become an adventure for the rich people. The more comfortable adventure, the more expensive adventure, sadly. Money should not be the ruling aspect, deciding who will be a part of a team. Kropp discusses the rich and famous people using oxygen tubes at all times and paying many sherpas to carry their baggage. Of course, it's not possible to demand that people should carry heavy packing and drop the oxygen tubes, and still be able to carry out the deed. Then, not many people would be able to have the experience of reaching the top. There should be no prestige. However, it's obvious that it is the sherpas that are the real heroes. But many people that pay their way up to the top and don't need to prepare themselves that much or plan anything, seem to lack the careful, responsible, humble and respectful approach that characterizes the guides. Many of them give the impression of not being that interested in climbing, which makes you wonder what their climbing is all about. Perhaps some of them are genuinly trying to learn, while others just want a trophy. Kropp is critical of people like the arrogant and disrespectful journalist Sandy Pittman, who, according to him, seem to have had a big part in the tragedy of the expedition she belonged to, in 1996. An assistent to the guide had to drag her up and down – she didn't even climb by herself, just because she was famous and great advertising - and therefor didn't have the strengh later to save people's lives. Pittman survived because she was rescued, but her comment later to the tragedy that occured was that it was indeed horrible, but at least her book would sell well. After getting back to base camp, she hired a helicopter and asked only two people to ride with her, when she could have hired another one for the same amount of money, and helped those that had saved her life. Perhaps Scott Fischer's death might have been avoided if he hadn't burned himself out, trying to help such clients, and she didn't mention and never thanked the people that saved her life, when later talking to the press.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">The guides shouldn't take totally unexperienced people on. Obviously, everyone has the right to climb, but it would be safer if the clients had some practice before deciding to climb Mount Everest. It is dangerous even for the most experienced guide. No one can buy a life garanty, and unexperienced people increases the risk. But the climbing industry is growing, and money is power. May 10th, 1996, the guides Scott Fischer and Rob Hall decided to ignore the rule to not climb the mountain after 02.00 pm - Hall waited there until 04.00 pm, because he didn't want to let his client, Doug Hansen, down. Kropp remembers the famous call between Rob Hall and his wife, Jan Arnold. Hall was alone, somewhere in the cold, exhausted and almost didn't have the energy to talk to her. The last time they spoke to each other they talked about what they would name their baby.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "merriweather" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 13px;">Despite the growing commerse, there are still people that want the whole challenge, and do everything themselves. They are often the most experienced, and most likely to survive. It's something beautiful and magnificent about challenging oneself to that extent. It's almost as if a person's mind is reduced to only the strongest feelings - happiness, hope, disappointment, fear, determination and grief. It's easy to understand the climbers' view of what it really is to live. Perhaps some people live their lives to the fullest when they are close to death. Göran Kropp died in 2002, climbing in the area of Frenchmans Coulee, close to Washington. He was and still is a great inspiration, while reminding us of the danger of climbing. With this book, he is able to tell his story.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-34477932246062709762015-12-02T11:49:00.000-08:002015-12-02T11:49:00.747-08:00The Chairs by Eugène Ionesco<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwTiB10xz9V4hWgVzcYzZE5ix2oSY731Fam8A53jwvTMII2iiBtI6_tc-bl_9G9xqap0i3yor3GjOvmYtmr2XmUCnyNH-NTNjadTZ03GCeEDoKPooFO8gzrEv51lRIHbrLjfIyZjzmiw/s1600/259238.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWwTiB10xz9V4hWgVzcYzZE5ix2oSY731Fam8A53jwvTMII2iiBtI6_tc-bl_9G9xqap0i3yor3GjOvmYtmr2XmUCnyNH-NTNjadTZ03GCeEDoKPooFO8gzrEv51lRIHbrLjfIyZjzmiw/s400/259238.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">The play, written by Eugène Ionesco, consists of an Old Man and an Old Woman, moving around many chairs. It's one of the plays that became the foundation for a theatrical movement called Théâtre de l'Absurde.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">There are only two people in the play, except the orator that make an entrance later. The other characters are invisible. Perhaps the Old Man och Old Women are the only ones left in the world. Perhaps an apocalypse has destroyed the earth, leaving nothing behind. They say that there is no Paris anymore, and talk about an old memory repeatedly. The chairs might symbolise their long lost friends. Another explanation is that the imaginary guests are real people, but with an absent mind. They are there, but at the same time not. However, despite being invisible, they seem more alive than the strange orator, who seems more like a robot than a human being. Are they in the future?</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">There are many themes in the play. The need to be remembered is easy to identify with. No one wants to be forgotten forever. When finding the meaning of life, or whatever discovery the Old Man has made, will garantee it. Perhaps the chairs symbolise the importance to not forget people. Or perhaps the couple might have dementia? Or being prisoners, bored and wanting to entertain themselves? It doesn't really matter. The play is about memories, and the ability to remember a past that was better than the present. It is about regret. The Old Woman often tells her husband what he could have become if he only were more ambitious. Now, when he has the answer to everything, and will reveal the secret to the world, he will finally be someone. He will be remembered.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">The reason that the orator doesn't succeed to reveal the Old Man's discovery is perhaps because of the Old Man. He doesn't dare to reveal his discovery himself. Instead he escapes. If not believing in oneself, no one else does. He seems to have escaped many things in his life. He denies having a son and he admits having abandoned his dying mother. Is the empty room a form of escapism? The lack of responsibility is a great theme. By the way, perhaps the orator really tells the audience the meaning of life. They are just unable to understand it, because it's impossible to understand.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">What's good about this play is that it makes you think. There are many interpretations possible, and the story surely means different things to different people.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-73662678050082583682015-11-26T08:48:00.003-08:002015-11-26T08:48:47.036-08:00Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Being one of the most famous plays through all time, Romeo and Juliet still captivates readers and audiences around the world. This is a fine example of the fact that time doesn't really have to change us. We can still understand and identify with great stories from a long time ago. Romeo and Juliet is a play that centers around forbiddem love between two young, rebellious people. But the play is much more than that.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">There are some parts that would need some explaining. The reason for the long lasting war between the families is never explained. Perhaps it's not important, but it would be interesting to know what caused this hate. Another detail is the age of the star-crossed lovers. They are so young. Is it possible to know and understand love at that age? Especially when just having met the person? Romeo seems to have been as romantically absorbed just some days earlier, and he got over Rosaline fast. Could it, in fact, be more about sexual attraction than real love? Or is that to destroy on of the most romantuc plays of all time? Just some thoughts.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Never the less, it is a strong play with so much emotion and a wonderfully written. It alternates between different forms, some of it rhyme. Those parts are really beautiful. Although, I think some of the beauty gets lost in the translation of such a work. This is a new Swedish translation, and some words just seem misplaced. Even though the prose evolves and changes through time, it still has to fit into a 16th century enivronment.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Everything happens so fast, which is rather common for plays. Deciding to kill, die or love takes a fraction of a second. Why not think everything through for a while? It would have been nice with more of the inner dialogues to follow the characters thoughts leading to their decision. I have not seen the play on stage, perhaps it's different.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">This play is about so much more than unconditional love. It is about a difficult world with tough love. It is about parents that choose their daughter's future, and it is about refusing to live one's life on others' terms. Most of all, it is, although tragically and at a very high price, about choosing independence. This play comes alive and really moves and affecte its readers. Perhaps because it is easy to understand the young couple's difficulty that drives them out of this world. It tells us much about women as properties and merchandise, and the consequences when ignoring their opinions and needs. In one way, it is still relevant. Many parents still have their children's future decided even before they really know them. Perhaps it is to take over the family business, going to college or marry someone from the same country or religion. Romeo and Juliet defy their destinies, and take power over them.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">A commentary chapter contains a discussion by the translator about underlying themes and structures of the book, including the balance between the families, this rivalty about power. The peace of Verona rests upon this symmetry - almost like a stalement - where none of the families can win. A marriage between Juliet, a Capulet, and Paris, a relative of the emperor, would brake the power balance between the Capulets and the Montagues. Romeo's and Juliet's love, born from hate between their families, is what finally restore peace in Verona. That is what is tragic and beautiful. Two young people are sacrificed on the altar of peace.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-63538870137578968192015-11-24T10:32:00.000-08:002015-11-24T10:32:58.088-08:00Dark Places by Gillian Flynn<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsrPVQQJQC1O4B2ZQnarFqJ6fiRLGaDXmLsHF_O6tKh0Z63wd9o6N9KjCvMaMvRlTqi4M-HN-6pjNVfYFf-5Hk40vcxxtKsL0ptxcMI3usDTvSbWVddsZ-h_AfnP1GiFFG6enq3cDbkQU/s1600/dark-places.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsrPVQQJQC1O4B2ZQnarFqJ6fiRLGaDXmLsHF_O6tKh0Z63wd9o6N9KjCvMaMvRlTqi4M-HN-6pjNVfYFf-5Hk40vcxxtKsL0ptxcMI3usDTvSbWVddsZ-h_AfnP1GiFFG6enq3cDbkQU/s400/dark-places.jpg" width="221" /></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14px;">This is Gillian Flynn's second novel. Just as Gone Girl, this contains everything that a thriller should have. Libby Day's family was murdered twenty-five years ago. Her whole life changed over a night, and she was the only one that survived her brother's massaker. Ben is still in prison, but a mysterious union turns up and makes her question his guilt.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14px;">The union, with the not so imaginative name the Kill Club, contacts her and it couldn't have been at a better moment. The members are totally obsessed with the murder case and Libby needs money. She is not having a envious life. She is constantly poor, angry, alone and she is even a cleptomaniac, something that she has developed because of her poor childhood. She is living on a fund from the time after the murders occurred. She decides to sell some of her family's belongings and letters to the Kill Club, to be able to pay rent, and she also begins to dig into the murder mystery and very dark places in her mind.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Gillian Flynn has a fantastic ability to reach the core of people, through their thoughts and behavior, associated with class. It could be small details such as Libby's observations that rich ladies always correct you when you get their name wrong, or don't even look at the one serving them coffee. Gillian Flynn's greatest achievement is the ability to portray nuanced characters, which makes them so alive. She portrays their layers extremely well. She digs into the mechanisms of psychology. The book contains many unlikable and manipulative people that are both fascinating and repellent.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14px;">The book illuminates flaws in the society. One theme is the peak of moral preach about satanic hard rock music, and the prejudices that followed. Another is the legal system. Flynn have the police officers and psychologists make Libby point out her brother as a murderer, not accepting any other answer, even though Libby didn't se anything, just to proove their theory. That is not a completely unrealistic event, just look at the scandal where Thomas Quick, in Sweden, was treated by such people and confessed thirty-nine murders and was sentenced for eight murders, despite later being proved innocent.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14px;">What diminishes some of the big picture is the ending. It's not a total surprise, even though Gillian Flynn has several traces confusing us. She twists the plot once more, but somehow it doesn't feel totally succesful. There are too many forced coincidences. Except that, this is an excellent, well-written book that really takes you to dark, twisted places.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-32893383009024728182015-11-12T06:57:00.000-08:002015-11-12T06:57:15.382-08:00My brief history by Stephen Hawking<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Stephen Hawking, one of the most famous physicists and researchers in cosmology in the world, tells the story of his life in this book. Did you know that he is self learned when it comes to maths? Or that he wasn't happy when his little sister was born? This book includes information that shows the man behind the success.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">What made him interested in science and so successful? As a young boy, he was fascinated by systems and wanted to control them. He used to take apart items to see how they worked, but couldn't set them back. Theory has always been his field, not the practical part. But solving the greatest mystery of all, the system of the universe, was a way of controlling it, he thought. That became his subject.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">His family was not rich with a lot of possibilities. They had to think about money. He spended several summer holidays in a wagon previously owned by roamers. His father built bunks with stretchers from the second world war. His father came from a poor family and was very economical, refusing to turn on the central heat, and instead putting on several layers of clothes. He also seems to have been a very determined person. He was a doctor and his research was focused on tropical illness and meant a lot of traveling. During his time in India he refused to eat Indian food and hired a former chef in the brittich army that cooked english food.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Stephen Hawking is a fascinating person. He is self learned when it comes to mathematics. He is a math professor, but has no formal education in mathematics after his time at St. Albans where he read some maths as a seventeen year old. How could anyone be able to learn such complicated math by himself? He later tutored students at Cambridge and made sure to be one week ahead of the syllabus. </span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">He got scholarship and began at Oxford after St. Albans, as a seventeen year old, and the others in his class had done military service and was much older. The mentality at Oxford is interesting - either you were so talented and intelligent that you didn't have to study, or you should accept your incompetence and get bad grades. If you worked hard to achieve good grades, you were a so called grey man. During his three years at Oxford, Stephen Hawking took a test before staring there, and the final exams before getting his degree. He started as a research student at Cambridge 1962.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">When 21 years old, he got the diagnosis ALS and learned that he had two year left to live. Having met Jane Wilde around the same time, he started to work hard for the first time in his life, to get a job and be able to marry her.</span><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">The first half of the book is very interesting. Then, something happens in the book. Stephen Hawking leaves the story of his life and delve into the world of time like curves, singularities and black holes, which doesn't fit in a biography, but perhaps another book. Then he wrote A briefer history of time, and at first, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">the publisher made him simplify some of the content so a regular reader would understand it, before it was published. That book is understandable and interesting. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">What's not understandable is this book, this transition from biography to facts about time travel. But probably, physics is </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">a part of him and he is a part of physics.</span><br />
<br style="color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14px;">Except that, the book is written straight forward, without much digressions. Stephen Hawking uses a matter of fact-tone. He is not much for shape and dramaturgy, but tells the story straight out, and that makes the book somewhat uneven. It contains much about his achievements and conferences around the world, which is fine, but it would have been interesting to learn more about him, his family and his struggle with life. He got two more years, but is still alive today, and continues to captivate a whole world.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2705037544627424376.post-51308163398850241212015-11-11T11:50:00.000-08:002015-11-11T11:50:31.730-08:00Oscar Levertins vänner by Martina Montelius<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Boel Märgåker has founded the Oscar Levertins friends association, where said author is discussed. The members are going on a literature cruise and Boel decides to loosen up. She is tired of controlling her emotions, comfort other people, and her husband Greger. The cruise becomes a surrealistic adventure. But an older woman interested in culture, who is expected to smile and be nice all the time, can't have intimate encounters and take drogs, can she?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Marina Montelius, dramatist and director, made her novel debut 2013 with Främlingsleguanen. This book is also short, but dense, written in a way that characterizes the author. The tone is comical and entertaining, but shifts abruptly to a deep darkness with secrets such as sexual assault and violence. The blackness is even more emphasized as the novel alters between light and dark.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #181818; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14px;">Boel needs literature to live, or perhaps to survive. She finds comfort in it. The novel portrays people struggling with themselves, and how literature helps them with that. But, first and foremost, Martina Montelius honor the mature woman. People has constantly commented on Boel's body and person, as recent as this cruise, when a man being intimate with her stated that she can't be pregnant. Boel is tired of being treated badly and being betrayed, something she has experienced since she was a child, and she decides that she has had enough. The novel is plunging into the depths of the mechanisms of psychology. A mature woman that refuses to accept the expectations of society is relieving. The mature woman is seldom portrayed in neither fiction or reality. How often do we wonder about what they feel? This book makes you wonder about that.</span></div>
Lindahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791132152126537356noreply@blogger.com0