The Seagull by Anton Chekhov

The Seagull, 1896, received disastrous reviews initually, but when it was produced again, in 1898, it was a success. The depressed characters are easy to identify with. Most people in the novel are unhappy because they love people that don't really see them. A seagull shot by a man - as suggested by the character Trigorin, himself an author - is a metaphor for a person destroyed by unrequited love.

The play challenges the actors as well as the audience and readers because of the smooth writing of scenes and the character's mood, instead of a conventional play. The readers have to interpret the characters, from clues presented to them, as the most important themes are hidden from the stage. As in real life, the characters prefer not to talk about what's really on their mind. Chekhov's tecnique of the stream-of-consciousness is claimed to be original for his time. His wanted to ask the readers questions, and not to answer them. He wanted to present the readers with certain clues, challenge them, but not present them with a solution. The sub-textual content makes the play a rare piece of the 1800's.

”… I have no rest from myself, and i feel that I'm devouring my own life, that in order to make the honey which I give away to someone out there, I rob my best flowers of their pollen, I tear apart the flowers themselves and trample their roots. Am I not a madman?” - Trigorin.

Expeditionen: Min kärlekshistoria by Bea Uusma

Three men. One hydrogen balloon. A planned journey across the North Pole. Something goes very wrong. Thirty years later they are found dead. It turns out they crashed on the ice in the middle of nowhere, only three days into their adventure. The year was 1897 and Salomon August Andrée, Knut Fraenkel and Nils Strindberg had to drag their two hundred kilos heavy sledges across the ice, trying to avoid the holes of open water, only to discover that the ice drifted in the opposite direction. After a while they managed to get ashore an ampty island they name White Island, where they spend their last days despite their supplies of food, clothes and weapons.

The author, Bea Uusma, is determined to find the cause of death. She is such an inspiring person. While others think something is interesting, and leave it at that, she, at the age of twelve, writes a melody for the Swedish Eurovision with lyrics about Trichinella Spiralis infection, Trichinosis - the commonly considered cause of death of the expedition participants, in the late 70's. When others watch a documentary and discusses it later, she studies to become a doctor, and graduates with the attitude to finally being able to investigate the scientific and biological elements profoundly – hopefully with the truth within reach. When others read a book about a mystery and suspect there is something to discover but ignore it, she actually manages to find financiers and gathers her own expedition, and sets out for the North Pole.

The common denominator is passion. The book is both a non-fictitious detective story, a biographical narrative about the author's obsession and a heart breaking love story. Among photographs, autopsy protocols and the search for new evidence are personal letters representing another story. A story about the youngest participant leaving his soon to be wife on the mainland, his love for her remaining in the letters found among everything else thirty years later.

Uusma lives and breathes the Andrée expedition, wanting to be a part of it, but is over a hundred years too late. She visits museums, searches archives, reads the participants diaries and journals, visits their homes, and even a medium. She walks in their footsteps and repeatedly tries to reach White Island. With new evidence in consideration, she systematically dismisses causes of death. Eventually, the mystery unfolds before her, with the reader at her side, hopefully getting a glimpse of her feeling of obsession and ultimate passion, something people incapabale of feeling glowing enthusiasm can never understand. This is a book written by and for obsessed people, living their lives to the outmost.

Bea Uusma earned the August Prize in 2013 for the book.

Impressive. Inspirational. Magnificent.

The Ruins of Us by Keija Parssinen

Growing up in an expatriate family in Saudi Arabia afflicts the main character Rosalie in many ways. She isn't able to find her place when returning to America, and for many years she dreams about the land of the dunes. When, many years later, she meets Abdullah, a Saudi sheik, and moves back to the Kingdom to start a family, she can finally breathe. Furthermore, being the wife of one of the richest men in the world has its advantages and there is nothing missing in her life. However, many years later, Abdullah marries a second wife, and Rosalie wonders how well she really knows her husband and where her real home is.

The book contains many interesting topics, and religion and culture make up a great deal of the story, hidden in causes and reflections, especially regarding the son, Faisal, and his identity struggle that escalates until it involves the whole family. The daughter, Mariam, is a fascinating and inspiring character that deserves much more space.

An important theme is the view of right and wrong, something that is influenced and decided by surrounding elements. Another recurring topic is prejudices, and their lack of meaning, between nations. Somehow, the book would be richer if not fulfilling some of them, though. The writing is colorful but inconsistent and repetitive. The story could have been so much more. Parssinen gets carried away and the outcome is weaker than the beginning. 

Parssinen, born in Saudi Arabia and growing up in an expatriate family, shares many similarities with the main character, Rosalie, but never moved back to Saudi Arabia as an adult. She, as well as Rosalie, longed for the Kingdom and writing about it was her way of copying with it.

Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins

Jenkins discusses the current convergence culture that media is a part of. How the media consumers havs become producers, and consume on their own terms. How fans of popular culture and literature write their own fan fiction and the copywright laws are challenged. How people become editors of online magazines before the age of 14. How people use photoshop to voice their opinions before a government election. These grassroots collide with the corporate media, which has to adjust to the consumers to not loose them.

The book awakes questions about the increasing interactivity between media producers and consumers, how the grassroots begin to challenge professionals, how commercial culture affects the reliability, how the easy accessible information affects people's integrity, and last but not least, the dire situation of professional journalism. It's a frightening culture for educated journalists since everyone can be published, and as frightening for the industry, since no one wants to pay for journalism today. Journalism has to acclimatize to better make use of today's climate and find a way to make news in it, as well as convince people that they want to pay for it.

Egenmäktigt förfarande av Lena Andersson

The phrase ”Egenmäktigt förfarande” refers to the Swedish crime when someone is taking the law into his own hands and blocking or otherwise preventing something so the owner is restrained from using it. Philosophically, the term might be used in other situations, according to the author. The philosophical poet Ester meets the artist Hugo and falls desperately in love. Or, perhaps the right word is obsessed. The relationship, or what it is, is far from equal and Ester does everything and anything while Hugo is constantly acknowledged. Andersson's colorful descriptions of the mental detours, the love enchanted interpretations and the self deceiving way of the mind in a certain situation, are masterful. She captures the wonderings and negotiations with oneself, the battle between dignity and submission, the change from independence to dependence, and the balance of hope and despair. The vulnerable position of a person in love, and the powerful position of the person less in love. 

Many women can certainly identify with Ester's emotions at some level. Her mixed feelings and divided attitude about a useless relationship with a self serving man. Most women have been in love and, even if it was not unanswered love, at least they felt uncertainty about the other person's feelings. 

It's intellectual and philosophical with many references to great classic literature like Chekhov and Dostoevsky. But, first of all, it's psychological. Alternations between clarity and despair and self deception and hope. The novel earned the August prize in 2013, and is a rare piece of literature that really shows that the heart sees what it wants to see, and the mind has to adjust to that. The choices of the blind heart matches one's inner longings.

Interred with Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell

Theatre director Kate Stanley receives a mysterious gift from her mentor, who later is found murdered. Kate follows the clues and is soon on the verge of discovering something extraordinary.

Being an interesting story in general, the book still runs the risk of loosing the reader's attention. There's a lack of generous descriptions and first hand perspective. Kate's feelings isn't always clear. She often seems unaware, or even ignorant, of the danger she is in - which only serves as a diminishing factor of the thrilling element. When the reader gets to enter her mind, it's during the constant Shakespeare reasoning that mark the novel. The characters are overshadowed by academic speculations, and the book gives the impression of a report of arguing and reasoning about a missing play and Shakespeare's true identity, rather than a thrilling, fictional story with characters. The fact that it resembles a thesis about the aristocracy of the 1500's is fascinating at first, but becomes somewhat tiresome, and might entertain already well-read researches and professors rather than a common reader interested in history and literature.

The element that destroys the novel is also what saves it, in a way - Carrell's genuine interest in Shakespeare and the extensive research, serving as the base of the novel, naturally mixed with her own theories and fiction. The material could have made a great story, if not being too dominant and excluding. Even though it's taken too far, it's interesting to enter a world swarming with well-read academics able to quote every line of Shakespeare.

A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

The story, published in 1930, takes place in Faulkner's fictional town Jefferson, Mississippi, and begins with the main character Emily Grierson's funeral, and flashbacks of her life - narrated by neighbors that never got to know her. 

Emily is a member of the Southern aristocracy. After the Civil War, the family continues to live as before, ignoring the hardship and the fact that the house is falling apart. Emily has a certain way of behaving and turns down proposals because of the suitors' low status. At least, that's what the neighbors' think. 

When Emily's father dies, she refuses to realize it. Then, to the neighbors disbelief, she meets Homer Barron, a simple man from the north - the opposite of her highborn status. A while later, Barron disappears. 

There's a dense darkness of despair consuming the story. Faulkner's prose is rich, but he doesn't serve everything without demanding something from the reader. Instead, he leaves interesting gaps for the reader to fill in. Hence, the endless possibilities of interpretations and associations, two of which might be basic themes as loneliness and the reluctance to change.