"vågorna dansade omkring i ett brandgult sken och såg ut som eldsflammor. mimina satt på en klippa vid havet och pratade med kvällssolen."
så inleds "m"vågorna dansade omkring i ett brandgult sken och såg ut som eldsflammor. mimina satt på en klippa vid havet och pratade med kvällssolen."
så inleds "mimina" som har en enkel handling med djupa teman: mimina och hennes vän vissångaren adrian ger sig iväg genom skog och stenlandskap med "det goda tinget", en blå färg som sprider glädje och ljusa tankar. men tillvaron hotas av noke på sin häst � han vill till varje pris få tag i färgburken och omvandla tinget till ont. mimina och adrians mål är måla nokes hus blått för att omvända hans mörka sinne till ljust igen, som det en gång var.
språket är enkelt, men det finns små små detaljer som får boken att skimra, som att solen gnistrar i miminas ögon "som hade färg av jordens alla träd". boken innehåller så mycket naturromantik; träden, stormen, solen, den oerhörda sommarvärmen, vattnet, regnet, vildmarken. ljuvligt! färgen blå återkommer genom hela boken: blå är den goda färgen, adrians stuga är blå och mimina har en blå blus.
"mimina" är en sällsam liten juvel till bok med sina knappa 113 sidor. jag läste och älskade den som barn och tycker lika mycket om den som vuxen....more
“I am one in a row of specimens. It's when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I'm meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beauti“I am one in a row of specimens. It's when I try to flutter out of line that he hates me. I'm meant to be dead, pinned, always the same, always beautiful. He knows that part of my beauty is being alive. but it's the dead me he wants. He wants me living-but-dead.�
This is a book I will carry with me for a long time, I think. I was oddly moved by it, for good and for worse. It feels like my heart was torn out and then sloppily put back into my chest. I picked ”The collector� up because the narrative interested me: an unreliable main character, butterfly collector Frederick, kidnaps an art student, Miranda, whom he barely knows by name. He only knows her by her looks and has created the rest of [his image of] her in his daydreams. In the cellar of the house he has bought for newly-won money he thoroughly creates a room for her, with clothes her sizes and books about art. He wants, he needs, to have her.
What really did it for me was the change in perspective. For the first half of the novel Frederick tells the story, for the second half it’s Miranda. I’m always cautious about the combination female narrative + male writer, especially when it comes to a book that’s fifty years old, because she could so easily be painted with all the wrong colors. But oh this. Miranda is not one of Frederick’s butterflies, she’s a living, breathing person, not this ”feisty young women� who is too often a caricature of herself nor a broken soul who is too afraid to do anything. Miranda is by no means perfect, she’s young and very idealistic, but clever and fierce. To me, she’s relatable. In contrast to Miranda, Frederick is indifferent to everything: art, war, sex, etc. The only thing he seems to respond to is a fleeting type of beauty, and all he wants to do with that beauty is to possess it. Not love it, not understand it, just possess it and to always have it preserved and unaltered.
Some passages really hit close to heart. For instance when Miranda at one point described how Frederick (whom she with a really poignant parallell to �The Tempest� calls Caliban) loves the image of her, but not her as a person. That’s something that I think most of us can apply to our lives, in one way of another, of course not this drastic, but having a inner expecation/view of someone who naturally can not live up to this, because it’s not real.
(view spoiler)[However, if there’s something I’d change I would definitely remove her long-long-long thoughts about her starcrossed love for this older artist fellow GP, it brought little to nothing to the rest of this story, while I do understand how a young girl can absorb herself in thoughts/emotions like that, maybe especially under traumatic circumstances. (hide spoiler)]
The way Fowles has structured this novel is so well-crafted and clever. We see almost every situation from both Frederick and Miranda’s perspective, how they focus on different things and leave out others, and how vastly different they percieve the situations. Getting into Frederick’s mind was scary, and even more so was finding myself almost understanding him at a few points while also despising his actions (similar to Humbert in Nabokov’s �Lolita�). If the narrative had only been from his point of view, it would still have been a fascinating read, but I don’t think it would have been as powerful, almost physical, as letting both perspectives on, both perpetrator och victim. Miranda does everything she can to escape, her fight is so vivid, yet she sometimes yields to the fact that she might never get out.
I suppose that there are many things you could say about the subtext, with underlying themes like class, money and art but for me the strong emotions and the powerful metaphorical languages is what really made me fall into and be devoured by this novel.
It might be that I only put it down a couple of hours ago, but at this point I feel like I cannot give it less than 5 stars. However, I find it highly, highly disturbing that a good amount of criminals has claimed that this book was an inspiration, or justification (!) to do crimes. That's just too surreal....more
"she looked briefly into his face and saw there the look she had spent the last two years eluding; the look she found treacherous but with no word for"she looked briefly into his face and saw there the look she had spent the last two years eluding; the look she found treacherous but with no word for the treachery. she had the sudden thought that these last two years of her life had been pointless, that she had learned nothing that was of any use to her, if she still could not escape that look in her father's eyes." (p.63)
some books just move you so deeply, and you can't really put it in words because it's so much more emotion than logical reason. likewise, some books are almost required to be read with patience. this book is not very long, but almost demanded to not be devoured. where i live it's dark six months a year, more or less, and i read this book between november and january, the darkest months, sometimes accompanied with glistering snow. i'm certain it enhanced my experience. reading a book like this in summer, would just not be the same.
deerskin is based on one of the saddest and most gruesome folklores i know, and in contrast - or maybe in complement - to this, is carefully written in a exquisite, dreamlike and enchanting way. it is overall written like a fairytale with all its classic elements and character depictions but the pain, oh the pain, is so realistic and raging and yet handled delicately. the incestuous theme is a difficult one to handle, but i think robin mckinley does it well and with respect and seriosity. as many others have noted, these specific scenes are not written in detail � which i think is proof for the authors' talent. there is no need to go into graphic details to form deep emotions and tell a story of trauma.
this novel is fierce and filled with anguish, loving and complex, magical and human, all at the same time. it will be on my mind, and in my heart, for a long time....more
carried this book around everywhere I went. some parts were so good I wanted to underline them with a glitter pen and hang them on every wall, window carried this book around everywhere I went. some parts were so good I wanted to underline them with a glitter pen and hang them on every wall, window and lamp post in my city. other parts were so drawn-out I nearly skipped past them. but - considering The Goldfinch covers about fifteen years of Theo's life - that pretty much summarizes what life is: you want to underline some parts and skip past others. a solid 4/5, gorgeous writing and a fascinating story....more
the secret history var helt vansinnigt vacker, precis som the goldfinch som jag läste först. absorberande, otäck, förtrollande och svar ska jag börja?
the secret history var helt vansinnigt vacker, precis som the goldfinch som jag läste först. absorberande, otäck, förtrollande och smart med engagerande karaktärer. och språket, gud så magiskt. uppslukades av det, vill bo i det. ärligt talat så är det enda jag kan tänka mig kan förbättras är slutet, som kom för hastigt och är för kortfattat i jämförelse med resten av boken, det hade kunnat broderats ut flera sidor till.
har sett många recensioner som anser att boken är för lång och långsam, men jag håller inte alls med. älskade de långa scenerna med dialogerna, de rikt beskrivna karaktärerna och vackra meningarna. allt behövs, liksom.
donna tartt för nobelpris någon? först margaret atwood, sedan donna tartt, så gör vi....more
lyssnade på ljudboken med stephen fry. en på riktigt otrolig upplevelse! det var längesedan jag fick en sådan "book hangover", vill redan läsa om helalyssnade på ljudboken med stephen fry. en på riktigt otrolig upplevelse! det var längesedan jag fick en sådan "book hangover", vill redan läsa om hela serien från början. förra gången jag läste den här boken i sin helhet var när den kom ut på svenska 2007, och det är både så spännande och fint att läsa den igen som vuxen. den är lika fantastisk då som nu, och det ger så mycket att få syn på ytterligare dimensioner av texten jag inte såg som tolvåring; stora teman, nyanser, viktiga detaljer och sådant mellan raderna. det säger sig självt, men Harry Potter är en verkligt odödlig bokserie....more
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