God søndag og velkommen til nye smakebiter!
Jeg håper du har en fin søndag! I dag rydder jeg ut julen, det har vært så travelt at jeg ikke har rukket det før, så i dag må jeg! Men jeg er veldig glad i å pynte til jul, og synes det er lenge å vente til neste gang, så det gjør ikke så mye at pynten blir ett par dager ekstra. Hvor lenge beholder du din julepynt?
Det har gått mye i lesing av barne- og ungdomsbøker i det siste. Jeg skal delta på Nordisk barnebok konferanse i begynnelsen av februar, så jeg prøver å få lest bøkene de skal ta opp der. Eller hvertfall de nyeste bøkene til forfatterne som skal være med. Jeg gleder meg til å være med på konferansen, så jeg koser meg med bøkene. I tillegg fortsetter jeg med å lese ny manga. Nå som jeg er ungdomsbibliotekar hører manga til mitt område. Jeg var på kurs om manga på onsdag og lærte en haug jeg ikke visste fra før. Så nå er jeg inspirert til å lese videre. I tillegg leser jeg klassikere, fordi jeg koser meg med det. Og selvfølgelig mye annet. Hva leser du i januar?
Du skal få en smakebit fra Mørkets hjerte av Joseph Conrad, som er den klassikeren jeg leser i januar:
Innløpet til Themsen strakte seg foran oss som inngangen til en uendelig seilas. Ute i havgapet var hav og himmel sveiset sammen i et hele, og i dette lysende rommet var det som de barkede seilene på lekterne som drev innover med tidevannet, sto stille, buntet sammen i røde buketter skarpt tegnet mot himmelen, med de blanke spristakene glitrende i solen. En lett dis hang over elven og fikk de slake breddene til å synke gradvis på ferden ut mot havet. Himmelen var mørk over Gravesend, og lenger inne virket den enda mer kompakt der den hang, sorgtung og dyster, og ruget ubevegelig over den største og mektigste byen i verden.
Edwin St. John St. Andrew, eighteen years old, hauling the weight of his double-sainted name across the Atlantic by steamship, eyes narrowed against the wind on the upper deck: he holds the railing with gloved hands, impatient for a glimpse of the unknown, trying to discern something-anything!-beyond sea and sky, but all he sees are shades of endless grey. He’s on his way to a different world. He’s more or less at the halfway point between England and Canada. I have been sent into exile, he tells himself, and he knows he’s beeing melodramatic, but nonetheless there’s a ring of truth to it.
Q. What if everyone actually had only one soul mate, a random person somewhere in the world?
Vi må lytte, sier bestemor.
Boken som foreligger nå, står i gjeld til en gammel forbrytelse jeg kom på sporet av sommeren 2016. Det var under arbeidet med et oppdrag for Holocaust-senteret om Villa Grandes historie. I en bunke med gulnede avisklipp lå en lørdagsreportasje om «Quislings Gimle» i VG fra 4.april 1970. «Samlested for kunst og løsøre tatt fra fanger og flyktninger under krigen.», står det i ingressen. En ikke navngitt antikvitetshandler (NN) var kilden.
Iladalen, Oslo, 1980-tallet
There are not many people – and as it is desirable that at story-teller and a story-reader should establish a mutural understanding as soon as possible, I beg it to be noticed that I confine this obervation neither to young people nor to little people, but extend it to all conditions of people: little and big, young and old, yet growing up, already grown down again – there are not, I say, many people who would care to sleep in a church. I don’t mean at sermon-time in warm weather (when the ting has actualy been done, once or twice) but in the night, and alone. A great multitude of persons will be violently astonished, I know, by this position in the broad bold Day. But it applies to Night. It must be argued by night, and Iwill undertake to maintain insuccsessfully on any gusty winter’s night apointed for the purpose, would anyone upponent chosen from the rest, who would meat me singly in an old church yard, before an old church-door; and will previosly empower me to lock him in, if needful to his satisfaction, until morning.
It was only June, but summer already lay heavy on the ground, threatening to press us softly and heavily towards the parquet floors. We could not stand to go down to the water where the salt air was heavier still, and a long drive to the city felt like an offencive impossibility.
Besides, he was only making a gesture, perhaps a rather foolish one – at worst he was about to play a prank, nothing more. He had never gone in for practical jokes as a boy, but on those odd occations that he had played one, and been sucsessful, he had felt a spasm of purest joy wich had borne him up through many wearisome days.
Acording to Cleckley (han har skrevet en bok om psykopater), psychopaths are antisocials who excel at seeming social – seeming to feel, desire, hope, and love like everyone else. They exist virtually indistinguishable among society. In fact, the psychopath excels in many ways that others do not. Cleckley’s psychopath is uncommonly charming and witty. He is unflappable and eloquent, keeping his cool under pressure. Under this «mask of sanity» however, is a liar, a manipulator, a person who disregards his obligations with little to no sense of responsibility. He is exciting because he is impulsive, whimsical, and prone to making the same mistake multiple times. His narcissism keeps him from forming any real emotional bonds, and he tends to be promiscuous. His own emotional world is mostly a poor imitation of natural emotions. Cleckley acknowledged that this unique suite of personality traits could suite the psychopath equally well to a career in business to one in crime.