Brott & straff
(Преступление и наказание = Crime & Punishment)
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Translated by Hans Björkegren.
325 + 309 p.

Wahlström & Widstrand, 1979.
(first published 1866 in several installments.)

For Decades ‘08 and Russian Reading Challenge.

Back cover blurb:

Brott och straff har kallats “världens mest berömda roman”. Denär också en av världens mest lästa böcker. Den kom ut 1866 och alltsedan dess har hundratals miljoner läsare följt den fattige studenten och mördaren Raskolnikov på hans febervandringar genom Petersburg. Generationer av psykiatriker, religionspsykologer, kriminologer, sociologer och litteraturforskare har hämtat argument och exempel ur denna gastkramande berättelse om en “övermänniskas” väg mot katastrofen. Brott och straff har aldrig förlorat sin aktualitet och gåtfulla spänning. Ännu i dag känns den märkvärdigt levande och modern.

En nyöversättning till svenska har länge varit efterlängtad. Hans Björkegrens tolkning av romanen är genomgripande och har gjorts i samarbete med sovjetiska experter.

After two sentences I was smitten. I must have known I would be this smitten, or I wouldn’t have longed to read it as much I did - I spent a great deal of time last term eagerly waiting for the time for us to come when we were going to read this book. We are not expected to have finished it yet. We are supposed to have begun it come the next Swedish lesson. But I honestly couldn’t wait once we had started talking about it. I plowed through it in five or so days (it probably would have taken less time if I had not been forced to be nice and social to my family) and I loved every moment of it. Who would have thought I would be so intrigued by a poor ex-student turned killer?

The character of Raskolnikov never ceased to amaze me. Of course, the times he gave all of his money to different people I ground my teeth in frustration - why couldn’t he think of himself?! Though, I guess, that’s one of the reasons I found him so fascinating. I couldn’t help but feel for him, despite him killing a person “just because”. He is such an exquisite and chiseled character. In fact, all of the characters feel remarkably alive and real, much more so than anything else I’ve read in the past few months.

Like I mentioned before, this is one of the novels I am studying in school (or will be studying on Tuesday). I know for a fact that many of my friends and classmats will despise this book, because of the simple reason that I think it is so good. Or maybe it’s related to that one of the other Swedish classes have already read it and there seems to be many who despise it there. Hopefully none of the people I know well hate it, but I can’t bet on that. The most tragic thing is that when I will try and defend it all I will be able to say is “BUT IT’S SO GOOD”. They’ll all write me off as a nut who loves it because I study Russian. Actually, this me studying Russian proved a bit of problem when I was reading it. Sometimes I found myself staring at a name, wondering how that is spelled in the cyrillic alphabet, if it had an у or an о, a ю or a ё. Now, my Russian skills are at a very basic level, but let’s admit it: my dream is to one day be good enough at the language to read at least a bit of literature in it. I don’t know if this is the goal of many people studying languages, but else, what’s the point? One day I might reach this goal. Maybe I’ll fail miserably and in five years’ time I will look back at this and laugh at myself, but hey - you can have dreams, can’t you?

There is a BBC serial based on this novel, with John Simm as Raskolnikov. Anyone who have known me for any time the last two months will know that when I watch this, I will explode. And then I’ll be back for more - the next month and a half’s worth of Swedish classes will be full of discussions regarding this book. Yum.

(a couple of notes: a) the cover of the edition is impossible to find. which is a pity, because I quite like it. It’s really plain, but still!
b) The copy I read was my parents’, only because the one I got from school was too ugly. Apart from aesthetics, I have also gained a few other things. It is quite practical to have parents who’ve studied literature at University.)

Medea
Euripides
70 p.

Natur och Kultur
(published together with Aischylos’ Agamemnon.)

Back cover blurb:

[---]

MEDEA av Euripides (ca 485-406 f.Kr.) är svartsjukans, den kvinnliga lidelsens och könskampens drama. Euripides tog i sina dramer upp psykologiska och sociala frågor och tvekade inte att ifrågasätta gamla värderingar. Hon tillhör dem som lade grund för den moderna litteraturen och har haft en oerhörd betydelse för europeisk dramatik och skönlitteratur.

This is another thing I read for school. If it wasn’t in the school syllabus, I probably wouldn’t have read it, as it is Greek and Greek is my sister’s field, not mine. But I read it, and I enjoyed it. Or, that is to say, I enjoyed the first sixty-five pages. Then Medea was given a chariot with dragons, and I just did not buy that. Where did those dragons come from anyway?! As a moralistic work, this is complete and utter bullshit. Someone kills - directly or indirectly - an insane amount of people, but is still given the moral highground, because her husband cheated on her. Even the fact that she kills her own sons doesn’t seem to faze the gods. This made me incredibly upset. I am not a nice person, I don’t hold too much on morals and all that, but there is something seriously wrong with something like that.

I must also admit not being too fond of Medea. I thought she, as a character, was a bit too hysterical, a bit too mad, without any good cause. A lot of people in my year enjoyed her immensely, and whilst I really liked the story overall, she didn’t convince me. Neither did the ending. However, this might be related to that this is the first Greek play I have ever read. If I had read more, I might be more impressed. The fact that many seem to dislike the ending of the play makes me feel relieved. For once it isn’t me who is deviating from general opinion. I always feel so wrong when I do that.

However, my class is going to do our best to dramatise at least parts of the play, and I am very excited. As you are.

Händelser vid vatten
Kerstin Ekman
467 p.

Bonnier Pocket, 2000
(first published 1993)

Back cover blurb:

I början av sjuttiotalet är Svartvattnet en tynande norrländsk by bland många andra. Då händer något. Ett dubbelmord långt ute i väglöst land.
Det går arton år innan någon börja ana sanningen om det som skett. Och då blir det lika farligt igen därute i myrlandet. Händelsen har blivit en mörk kraft med verkan in i många människors liv. Det är dessa människor Kerstin Ekmans roman handlar om, deras försök att rädda minne och sammanhang fast de bor i den skugga av glömska som ligger över landsbygdens byar och små samhällen.
Men i lika hög grad är det en roman om ett landskap. Människan har farit illa fram med det. När de stora skogsbolagen drar sig tillbaka är det alltid förändrat av hyggen, vägnät och grustäkter. Kvar är de namnlösa platserna i starrens rike, gungande våta tuvor och sorlande vatten under marken. Vattnet viskar och jämrar, isande klart eller sugande svart. I sommarens bleka nattljus tycks händelser och platser sväva och vandra, lika svårgripbara och tvetydiga som människors minnen och handlingar.

If I had been given a free choice, I would not have read this book. The back cover blurb shows what an incredibly pretentious book this is. It has its good sides, of course, but I can’t say I really enjoyed it. Its language was hopelessly complex, seemingly only because it can be complicated. It belongs to a kind of books I dislike: the pretentious, self-content kind. These books give out philosophical questions as often as they describe how an older woman rapes a sixteen-year-old boy. There is a lot of sex in this book, and it is seldom I have read any sex-scene I have been so disgusted with. Ekman’s language may be beautiful, but it is too coarse and chopped to please me. Sometimes it is difficult to discern what it is about, all due to the language.

In fact, it is difficult to know what happens, full stop. Ekman claims the story is about a murder, but the murder is ignored for fifty pages atime, and when it is discussed, it is far from satisfactory. The characters are sometimes lost, sometimes found. Towards the end of the novel, some of the characters I would have thought were main characters are completely forgotten and we don’t get to know what happens to them, or why this happens. One of the characters, a man called Dan, is in the second half of the book constantly referred to as a bastard who did something horrible, but when it comes down to it, we never get to know what it is he has done. And seeing as he is one of the most important characters of the first half of the book, I think Ekman owes us an explanation.

At places, this book is lovely and it is a joy to read, but for the most of the time, it’s a drudge to read. If I hadn’t read it for school, I might even have put it down. If I hadn’t chosen this book (before I realised what kind of a book it was) for an extremely important individual oral presentation, I would have skimmed the pages instead of paying attention. That way, I wouyld have gotten rid of the misery quicker. Now, I didn’t, and now I know too much.