Sisela Lindbloms roman De skamlösa handlar om något högaktuellt: ytlighet och konsumtionshysteri, vilket skapat debatt redan innan boken kommit ut. Men det handlar även om människors vilsenhet under ytan.
Lindbloms tredje roman sedan debuten 1995 är en medryckande berättelse om tre unga människor med pengar, självförtroende och karriär. Vad de saknar är självinsikt och empati.
Nathalie och Tito, vänner men konkurrenter, arbetar på en damtidning. Tidningens målgrupp är kvinnor som de själva, unga och stilmedvetna. De vet hur viktigt det är att se rätt ut i alla situationer, från en sommarkväll i storstan till att matcha svärmors matsalsdukning. Det viktigaste är vad man har och gör, inte vem man är.
De skamlösa berättas omväxlande ur de två kvinnornas och Titos pojkvän Eriks perspektiv. Genom att händelserna ibland skildras flera gånger får man en tydlig bild av karaktärerna och hur de ständigt missförstår varandra utan att veta om det. De hävdar sig gärna på andras bekostnad i jakten på lyx och sex, samtidigt som de längtar – förgäves? – efter kärlek och närhet.
Ingen av dem har någon som helst insikt i hur de uppfattas av andra. Tito motsvarar inte pojkvännen Eriks alla förväntningar: någon som förstår honom till hundra procent och lever helt för hans skull i fullständig samklang med hans själ, han är känslosam men egocentrisk och tänker bara utifrån sitt perspektiv. Tito tror att alla dyrkar henne och fattar inte att han känner så. För henne hägrar bara barndomsdrömmen om att vara en sagoprinsessa i brudlänning, gärna i kombination med en skjuts i karriären.
Nathalie är, även om hon först inte vill inse det, kär i Tito samtidigt som hon är mycket kritisk till henne. Nathalie är så ensam att hon porrsurfar. Hon utgjuter sitt hjärta för en nätprostituerad som uttråkat väntar på att bli tillsagd att strippa medan pengarna snabbt flödar från kontokortet. Nathalie finner inte kärleken på det sättet.
Lindblom är författare, dramatiker och regissör och hon vet hur man berättar en historia, romanbygget är skickligt utfört. Språket är medryckande och fångar in karaktärerna. Erik uttrycker sig med citat och allusioner som hans litteraturintresserade mamma lärt honom att uppskatta, hans språk är utsmyckat och ordrikt. Tito uttrycker sig mer som de mode- och livsstilsreportage hon skriver. Personernas alla tankar och handlingar är inte sympatiska, men man engageras i deras liv och budskapet går fram, allt medan berättelsens tempo drivs upp mer och mer. Erik och Tito är fast i sina roller och får kanske vad de förtjänar i varandra, Nathalie är den som kommer närmast en viss utveckling.
Romanen satiriserar samtidens egocentriska fixering vid yta. ”Yta är bra!” säger Tito, vilket symboliseras av hennes glittriga tidning. I debatten som bröt ut i kvällspress och bloggar efter en intervju med Sisela Lindblom i DN (31/3) kallas detta ”kulturelitens folkförakt” (Expressen 4/4). Men Lindblom hävdar inte att folk är dåliga för att de ägnar sig åt en viss ”prylkonsumtion”. Inredningstrender, mode och pengar är inte farligt. Det farliga är när människor som i De skamlösa blir allt för ytliga och därför kalla.
Dessutom bör inte en roman reduceras till att ses enbart som en diskussion, ett debattinlägg om konsumtion och lyxjakt. Det handlar även om människorna i detta och historien som författaren vill berätta.
Man behöver inte låta sig uppröras allt för mycket över allt rabalder kring denna bok. Det känns lite som en storm i ett vattenglas. Författare har väl alltid ägnat sig åt samhällskritik, varför skulle det vara fel eller konstigt?
Expressen-rubriken var ”kulturelitens folkförakt” och den fick snart ett flertal kommentarer från människor som både höll med och inte. En av kommentarerna höll med om att vi svenskar blir ”mer och mer ytligare” (sic) men att det inte är så mycket bättre att gå omkring svartklädd och läsa Boye; ”När någonting är svårt och konstigt i Sverige, ja då är det kultur.”
”Kultur” definieras ibland som ”det som är svårt, obegripligt, konstigt och därför fint”. Varifrån kommer detta? Att alla som läser poesi är svartklädda, djupa och ”svåra”? De som tror det har kanske inte läst mycket poesi. Och Sisela Lindblom sägs vara en företrädare för kultureliten. Ändå är hennes bok inte på minsta sätt svårtillgänglig.
Och om Karin Boye används som exempel på det ”svåra och konstiga” – då drar man lätt slutsatsen att den som uttalat sig inte vet vad han/hon pratar om över huvud taget, och man har dessutom kommit långt från det aktuella ämnet här: vårt samhälle är allt för inriktat på pengar, yta/utseende och konsumtion. Varför är det så upprörande att påpeka detta?
Erik i De skamlösa påstår att ”journalistiken påverkar människors liv så som böckerna förut gjorde”, att skönlitteraturen är betydelselös. Nu har Lindbloms roman använts som exempel i argumenteringar utan att tyckarna ens har läst den. Förhoppningsvis betyder det ändå inte att Erik har rätt.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Monday, April 2, 2007
Vårens väntan
Vårkänslor. Vad betyder det? Det kan innebära olika saker beroende på vem man frågar – men också när man frågar. Från mig, just nu, får man inget sprudlande kvittersvar.
Visst tycker jag om våren. Jag tycker om att se hur ljuset långsamt tar över mer och mer av världen, att man kan äta glass ute, jag tycker om blommor och värme.
Men faktum är att jag ibland känner att jag verkligen ogillar den här tiden på året. Särskilt på kvällarna. Det är något så irriterande bitterljuvt över den ljusa himlen. Våren är en tid av beslut, avslut, avsked, uppbrott. Ibland verkar den här årstidens enda syfte vara att retas, plåga, påminna om allt som gör ont. Det får en inte att visa sig från sin bästa sida precis. Ändå har jag inte alls några problem med allergier och sådant, för vilket jag är mycket tacksam.
Men detta kände jag redan som liten; som tolvåring, femtonåring... och när jag var arton, tjugo, tjugotre...
En gång upplevde jag faktiskt en lycklig vår, då jag trodde att jag för första gången var kär i någon som tycktes känna samma sak för mig. Det var kul så länge det varade. Tills jag upptäckte det där ”tycktes”. Men det är länge sedan nu.
Just nu längtar jag tillbaka till vårarna för tre och två år sedan. De var fina.
För tre år sedan fick jag för första gången höra en sång som var mycket vacker. Den var så fin att jag greps av en febril iver att skriva, vilket jag gjorde så pennan glödde. Senare talade jag med kompositören om möjligheten av att tonsätta mina texter. Jag råkade vara förälskad i kompositören, och det var en mycket vacker, skimrande vår.
Förra våren var en avskedsvår. Sorgfylld.
Visst tycker jag om våren. Ljuset, värmen, blommorna, som nu sakta börjar komma tillbaka. Men det är som om den bleka vårhimlen bär med sig ett anklagande budskap: Nu är det vacker vår – så varför är du inte så glad som du borde vara?
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Why Do I Make Such a Fuzz About the Hair?
I am thinking about things I'm writing in my novel, and the reasons for writing the way that I do.
I've got this story about Stella and Marianne. Stella loves Marianne and talks a lot about her beauty. I'm using phrases and words from my poetry to let Stella talk, think, dream. In doing so I create fiction, and I transcend my own feelings, but I also let my self surrender and give in to my feelings. I muse upon the mixture of fiction and fact.
But sometimes I feel uncertain. Maybe this is nonsense. There is too much of the poetry... a long love letter disguised as a novel, and totally uninteresting.
Marianne has long hair and Stella wants to see it hang loose, freely, but Marianne always has it in a plait (so I speak British English, do I? or does she has a braid, perhaps? I have a feeling that I often don't know the difference between the words in this respect and therefor my writing becomes a little inconsistent...) or in a very neat coiffure. Only once she let it fall down in Stella's presence, and that is breathtaking for her.
I make a big deal of Marianne's hair. But I'm thinking, maybe that draws to the attention that her hair is something I fantasize about - in contrast to other details of her looks. Marianne has long hair. The woman she resembles has shorter hair. Marianne's long hair becomes a detail that proves her to be a creation of my imagination and not modelled after an actual person.
Of course she is both. But she is not meant to be this person (and Stella isn't me), only she resembles someone... I wonder if this resemblance is a bad thing, if it could make this "someone" to - I don't know, feel, see... understand... But anyway, most circumstances in this novel is obviously "untrue". And the few "facts" that I use - well, they aren't really pure facts. Or maybe they are, but the point is, that there is so little I know. There is, for a fact, a woman with dark hair and green eyes who sings very beautifully. But most other facts are unknown to me, or not fitting in this novel. The rest of the "fact" is actually me and my perception, my feelings and my way of seeing things. And so it turns to fiction. (Maybe like they say to Clarissa in "The Hours": "It's meant to be you, isnt't it? In Richard's novel!" and she says no, because she knows that fact has become fiction and the fiction is a fact that maybe is about her in a way, but somewhere along the way it also became something else -) I take this woman and I add X and Y and Z, and out comes Marianne, a piece of fiction.
So then... it really doesn't matter if she has long hair as a contrast or not. It wouldn't matter (it almost wouldn't matter) if I called her by any other name. Marianne, or... someone I know. Because it could never, even if I wanted, be a portrait; I know too little. I don't have the facts. (Which is interesting also in regard to my poetry. Even if it's about this woman, it's still also about me and my perception. Because of my lack of facts, it becomes Her + X = fiction. Even if it's poetry and it is meant to be about her! If I write a sentence like: "When you see the light in the water...", then I think about what I know: she spends some of her time on a sailing boat. That is a fact. But! I know nothing about that boat. I have never seen it and I have most certainly never been there with her; I know nothing of what she sees. I still write as if I did know something. And that's much more presumptuous than writing a novel about someone who resembles her a little!)
But back to the hair. Yes, maybe it doesn't matter. But then I conclude that the thing about the hair isn't only a proof of Marianne's state of fiction. It is really about her, Marianne. In the world I have created, she exists in her own right and everything she is and does has a meaning for her. And the only fact I need is to know that Marianne likes her hair and feels that it's a sign of intimacy to let someone see it hanging freely.
Ah, but then - if I'm meant to really tell the truth - there is a glimpse of something else, too. Something which is also a mixture of fact and fiction. A person who hasn't dark or very long hair but she does have this plait, always, always. Why not ever change the hair style, this I do not know. It has probably nothing at all to do with Marianne's reasons - I have never and will never ask. Why - that's not important, but yes; there is something of her in Marianne, too, and not only the plait.
So - there are two. But there are also X and Y and Z which I add to the character of Marianne. And the fact that there are two women who leaves glimpses of them selves in my imagination, that adds to the facts, but also very much to the sum of the fiction.
The imagination, the creation! It is such a funny way of living.
And what about the "love letter"? Who is it for? It is for Marianne, only. It is between Marianne and Stella, their feelings for eachother. My feelings (in addition to my love for my characters) can maybe be found by those who know where to look, but even then only in glimpses, in fragments of thoughts, words and phrases.
I've got this story about Stella and Marianne. Stella loves Marianne and talks a lot about her beauty. I'm using phrases and words from my poetry to let Stella talk, think, dream. In doing so I create fiction, and I transcend my own feelings, but I also let my self surrender and give in to my feelings. I muse upon the mixture of fiction and fact.
But sometimes I feel uncertain. Maybe this is nonsense. There is too much of the poetry... a long love letter disguised as a novel, and totally uninteresting.
Marianne has long hair and Stella wants to see it hang loose, freely, but Marianne always has it in a plait (so I speak British English, do I? or does she has a braid, perhaps? I have a feeling that I often don't know the difference between the words in this respect and therefor my writing becomes a little inconsistent...) or in a very neat coiffure. Only once she let it fall down in Stella's presence, and that is breathtaking for her.
I make a big deal of Marianne's hair. But I'm thinking, maybe that draws to the attention that her hair is something I fantasize about - in contrast to other details of her looks. Marianne has long hair. The woman she resembles has shorter hair. Marianne's long hair becomes a detail that proves her to be a creation of my imagination and not modelled after an actual person.
Of course she is both. But she is not meant to be this person (and Stella isn't me), only she resembles someone... I wonder if this resemblance is a bad thing, if it could make this "someone" to - I don't know, feel, see... understand... But anyway, most circumstances in this novel is obviously "untrue". And the few "facts" that I use - well, they aren't really pure facts. Or maybe they are, but the point is, that there is so little I know. There is, for a fact, a woman with dark hair and green eyes who sings very beautifully. But most other facts are unknown to me, or not fitting in this novel. The rest of the "fact" is actually me and my perception, my feelings and my way of seeing things. And so it turns to fiction. (Maybe like they say to Clarissa in "The Hours": "It's meant to be you, isnt't it? In Richard's novel!" and she says no, because she knows that fact has become fiction and the fiction is a fact that maybe is about her in a way, but somewhere along the way it also became something else -) I take this woman and I add X and Y and Z, and out comes Marianne, a piece of fiction.
So then... it really doesn't matter if she has long hair as a contrast or not. It wouldn't matter (it almost wouldn't matter) if I called her by any other name. Marianne, or... someone I know. Because it could never, even if I wanted, be a portrait; I know too little. I don't have the facts. (Which is interesting also in regard to my poetry. Even if it's about this woman, it's still also about me and my perception. Because of my lack of facts, it becomes Her + X = fiction. Even if it's poetry and it is meant to be about her! If I write a sentence like: "When you see the light in the water...", then I think about what I know: she spends some of her time on a sailing boat. That is a fact. But! I know nothing about that boat. I have never seen it and I have most certainly never been there with her; I know nothing of what she sees. I still write as if I did know something. And that's much more presumptuous than writing a novel about someone who resembles her a little!)
But back to the hair. Yes, maybe it doesn't matter. But then I conclude that the thing about the hair isn't only a proof of Marianne's state of fiction. It is really about her, Marianne. In the world I have created, she exists in her own right and everything she is and does has a meaning for her. And the only fact I need is to know that Marianne likes her hair and feels that it's a sign of intimacy to let someone see it hanging freely.
Ah, but then - if I'm meant to really tell the truth - there is a glimpse of something else, too. Something which is also a mixture of fact and fiction. A person who hasn't dark or very long hair but she does have this plait, always, always. Why not ever change the hair style, this I do not know. It has probably nothing at all to do with Marianne's reasons - I have never and will never ask. Why - that's not important, but yes; there is something of her in Marianne, too, and not only the plait.
So - there are two. But there are also X and Y and Z which I add to the character of Marianne. And the fact that there are two women who leaves glimpses of them selves in my imagination, that adds to the facts, but also very much to the sum of the fiction.
The imagination, the creation! It is such a funny way of living.
And what about the "love letter"? Who is it for? It is for Marianne, only. It is between Marianne and Stella, their feelings for eachother. My feelings (in addition to my love for my characters) can maybe be found by those who know where to look, but even then only in glimpses, in fragments of thoughts, words and phrases.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
This is my blog (about words)
This is my blog. I think that I need one; a place for thoughts and words that can't find another room. This is not meant to be like a "Dear Diary" on paper, and not like the "Qruiser" and "Sockerdricka" versions. I do not intend to write about the heart aches and agonies... but reflections about other things. There are other things to life... although I do tend to forget about that...
And why do I write this in English? some people might ask. Hm... truthfully, I don't know why, I just thought... I never speak English, I hardly ever write, but I do read in English. The English lessons in school are long gone and so are the pen pals I used to have all over the world as a kid. But still there was always something about writing in English that I liked. Now I have a place to do it. (And of course I know that I'm going to write things that are silly, stupid, strange, odd, weird or simply wrong just because I for some reason don't want to write in my own language...) And maybe I think that I will in one way or another think differently...
Yes, at least I think that it must be good to try other words some times. Another way of saying things. Even if I won't write any poems in English (as I did in school) and certainly not a novel, I have a feeling that it can be useful.
There are no exact or precise or distinct way of saying things. Of that one can be sure. It's evident when one is trying a foreign language - what do I mean, do I mean exact, precise, distinct or maybe there's another better word somewhere... Writing poems is just like writing in a foreign language sometimes. Or even just plain talk, one doesn't need to complicate it by talking about poetry. Words are often elusive. Not in every conversation, but often enough in any normal situation - talking to someone can leave behind a feeling of uncertainity; "what has really been said, what did he/she really mean and did he/she understand what I meant?" And there is the desire to say someting more, something else, to explain something... but all we have are the languages and this - one cannot speak of this without being a philosopher, which I'm not. I just know that sometimes it feels so frustrating to know that it is in a way impossible to speak or to write...
And yet that statement is simply just not true. Oh, I'm writing! We all are, all the time we are talking to eachother and those people who talk about language... it is ofcourse very... what's the word, stupid... (And the things I've read about these matters makes me sometimes irritated because it seems stupid, and sometimes I tend to agree, or at least I want to believe that I agree, because of course I don't understand half of it. I don't, because there are limits - I try sometimes to investigate the limits of my understanding.)
And when we forget about all this, there are the love of words.
A part of writing is maybe the necessity to communicate. But it is also the love of words. The sound of it. Like one of the words I used above: "elusive". I thought: "I like that word", more for the sound of it than it's meaning.
And with whom shall I talk about words? (Now I tried to sound like a character in a book...) Ah, but there is no one. Not really, and that's strange... because all around me are yong writing people, and one could very well thing that we'd have many conversations about poetry and writing and words and language and all sorts of things. But the funny thing is that we rarely talk about what we do. If we do, we tend to talk more about the problems of knowing what to write about, coming up with ideas, and the deadlines and the number of pages. And then it stops. (If I talk too much about books or writing etc, I sometimes feel like I'm talking over people's heads, which is a weird feeling because I'm used to have it the other way around, to feel that I am the least intellectual person in the room, the one who has the least to say.) I want - I don't really know what I want but I don't want to talk about computer games and old school teachers... and it can make me feel like a grouch. Even more so as I know that I don't want to go back to the university. Or maybe I do, because I like to study, but then... there is this limit or border... I don't really belong in that world. I mean, the next level, the next step after a few years at the university. One could step out in the Reality (whatever that means) and do something else, or one could take the first step on the road to one day becoming a professor or something. But no, that is not what I want. Yes, it would be a life of books... but I don't want to write books about books and tell other people how to read and understand books... It is the books themselves, the poetry, that I want.
It is as simple as that. I want the poetry.
And why do I write this in English? some people might ask. Hm... truthfully, I don't know why, I just thought... I never speak English, I hardly ever write, but I do read in English. The English lessons in school are long gone and so are the pen pals I used to have all over the world as a kid. But still there was always something about writing in English that I liked. Now I have a place to do it. (And of course I know that I'm going to write things that are silly, stupid, strange, odd, weird or simply wrong just because I for some reason don't want to write in my own language...) And maybe I think that I will in one way or another think differently...
Yes, at least I think that it must be good to try other words some times. Another way of saying things. Even if I won't write any poems in English (as I did in school) and certainly not a novel, I have a feeling that it can be useful.
There are no exact or precise or distinct way of saying things. Of that one can be sure. It's evident when one is trying a foreign language - what do I mean, do I mean exact, precise, distinct or maybe there's another better word somewhere... Writing poems is just like writing in a foreign language sometimes. Or even just plain talk, one doesn't need to complicate it by talking about poetry. Words are often elusive. Not in every conversation, but often enough in any normal situation - talking to someone can leave behind a feeling of uncertainity; "what has really been said, what did he/she really mean and did he/she understand what I meant?" And there is the desire to say someting more, something else, to explain something... but all we have are the languages and this - one cannot speak of this without being a philosopher, which I'm not. I just know that sometimes it feels so frustrating to know that it is in a way impossible to speak or to write...
And yet that statement is simply just not true. Oh, I'm writing! We all are, all the time we are talking to eachother and those people who talk about language... it is ofcourse very... what's the word, stupid... (And the things I've read about these matters makes me sometimes irritated because it seems stupid, and sometimes I tend to agree, or at least I want to believe that I agree, because of course I don't understand half of it. I don't, because there are limits - I try sometimes to investigate the limits of my understanding.)
And when we forget about all this, there are the love of words.
A part of writing is maybe the necessity to communicate. But it is also the love of words. The sound of it. Like one of the words I used above: "elusive". I thought: "I like that word", more for the sound of it than it's meaning.
And with whom shall I talk about words? (Now I tried to sound like a character in a book...) Ah, but there is no one. Not really, and that's strange... because all around me are yong writing people, and one could very well thing that we'd have many conversations about poetry and writing and words and language and all sorts of things. But the funny thing is that we rarely talk about what we do. If we do, we tend to talk more about the problems of knowing what to write about, coming up with ideas, and the deadlines and the number of pages. And then it stops. (If I talk too much about books or writing etc, I sometimes feel like I'm talking over people's heads, which is a weird feeling because I'm used to have it the other way around, to feel that I am the least intellectual person in the room, the one who has the least to say.) I want - I don't really know what I want but I don't want to talk about computer games and old school teachers... and it can make me feel like a grouch. Even more so as I know that I don't want to go back to the university. Or maybe I do, because I like to study, but then... there is this limit or border... I don't really belong in that world. I mean, the next level, the next step after a few years at the university. One could step out in the Reality (whatever that means) and do something else, or one could take the first step on the road to one day becoming a professor or something. But no, that is not what I want. Yes, it would be a life of books... but I don't want to write books about books and tell other people how to read and understand books... It is the books themselves, the poetry, that I want.
It is as simple as that. I want the poetry.
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