Currently Reading Norwegian Wood

Well so I'm hard at work on this paper on Orcas but I managed to pick up a copy of Murakami's Norwegian Wood which I've had on reserve at the library for about a month now. Apparently its so good there were originally fourteen people in front of me in the line. I have to say for being a small town Lund has an amazing library.

I'm heading to Germany by buss again tonight. That means I have eight hours to just sit and read as much as I like. Hopefully I can finish Murakami by the time I get to Berlin and be halfway through the books for the next course. Next stop sunshine and german beer plus a girl I love more everyday.

Haruki Murakami, Bill Bryson, and Champagne

I finished a travel memoir about Australia today by Bill Bryson and I have to say it was hilarious. I would heartily recommend it to anyone who would enjoy such a work of non-fiction and I must say I think I have a better understanding of the land down under now.

Then I went to the library today to drop off a book and decided to look at the shelf with new books. I picked up a book about Champagne and then in the older fiction section I found a copy of Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart. So I am looking forward to sawing my way through them.

The exam went fine and now all I have to do is a paper on how polluted Orcas are (its horrible actually) and get a seven minute presentation whipped up and ready for Monday.

Question of the Day

If three American Mercenaries shoot an old Iraqi man in a city somewhere in Iraq and no one is around to see it, does the old man even exist?

Film Club and Exam time

Tonight is the first official meeting of the LUMES film club. The idea behind the club is that the movies watched will in some ways be relevant to what we are studying and also as a way of learning about the world as a whole i.e. not just watching hollywoodizations.

Its also time for an exam tomorrow and then a paper and presentation are due on Monday which make it an exceptionally fun little weekend. Its not all bad though, travel plans are waiting in the wings plus the sun is shinning.

Oh yeah.... tonight's movie.... The Constant Gardener

based of course on the Le Carre novel of the same name.

Absolut Idiot: Or how Americans portray themselves.

Last week there was a mention in the Swedish news that an ad by Absolut Vodka had offended some Americans. Then in Sweden it wasn't reported about again. Now I've scoured the internet for a bit and found that the add was quite a hot topic. I have to say I find it amusing. The only thing the add is trying to say is that in an absolut world (i.e. a perfect world) from a Mexican perspective, a good portion of what is currently the USA would still be Mexican. Then people get offended and pour their expensive vodka down the drain and threaten boycotts.

That says a lot about some people. If you pour out a bottle of vodka over a piece of ancient history instead of having a laugh then there is something wrong with you. Most Americans are not very familiar with that bit of history. Many know Texas broke away from Mexico, but most fail to understand that it was because slavery and owning weapons were illegal, two things that southerners were quite fond of at the time. After the war the US forced Mexico to 'sell' territory at half the price offered before the war so that it would no look like they were taking it. There was nothing honorable or heroic about that war from the American side. Pure Greed. Absolute Idiot: a person who becomes offended over advertisements.

Ezra Pound and Paul Auster

Well I tore my way through Rushdie and managed to finish it off at around three in the morning on Sunday. I have to say that I think this was his best novel since the Satanic Verses. Tomorrow I am going on a field trip to a toxic waste site in Teckomatorp, Skane. That sounds like loads of fun.

On Sunday I also went to the library and thankfully they are open on that day which is somewhat odd for Sweden, but I am not complaining. I picked up the Cantos of Ezra Pound and Leviathan by Paul Auster. Of course I don't believe its possible to go wrong with Auster but I'll keep it updated and I'll also let everyone know my thoughts about Mr. Pound.

sex-obssesed Republicans and the war in Iraq.

We all know that Bill Clinton dropped his droors in the oval office and let a certain Lewinsky blow Dixie on his magic troll flute. This brought about a shitstorm and led to succession of scandals. But what was it really all about? A blowjob and a lie? Pretty sorry stuff actually. The French especially must find this absolutely ridiculous stuff, of course right now they can't get enough of Mrs. Bruni but there was a time of legends that included Mitterand and Felix Faure (Famous for dying in the middle of a blowjob). Seriously this is too good to be fiction.

So what does all this have to do with everything currently going on now. The Republicans were absolutely sex-obsessed with the Clinton Affair and did all that they could to have him kicked out of the White House for a blow job and a denial. Seems awfully funny that they would be so silent about these massive amounts of weapons of mass destruction that are all over Iraq. I guess it just depends on who is doing the lying, or perhaps WMD's just aren't sexy enough.

Salman Rushdie and the "Ground Beneath Her Feet"

Its been a while since I felt ready to plunge myself into one of Rushdie's bizarre worlds of tragedy and magical realism. Of course everytime I've done so, the end result has been an amazing story that is hard to put down despite all the other things I probably should be doing. Fear not dear reader, for this time I am actually ahead in my readings for LUMES which is the first time in history. Not the last though I guarantee.

In "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" Rushdie takes into a love triangle that consists of two rock and roll stars and a photographer. In his usual excellent and extremely sharp prose style he takes us through their somewhat humble beginnings in Bombay (Pre-Mumbai). If the reader is interested I would recommend starting on Rushdie's masterpiece "The Satanic Verses" which he will never be able to beat no matter what magic tangle of words he is able to produce in the remainder of his life.

Spring Time at Berlin Zoo

Islands in the Stream

Another Hemingway novel that someone found in a used bookstore in London. This is always the best way to find books. When you least expect it something pops up out of nowhere. I'm a third of the way into the book so far and I have to say that unfortunately I do not consider it to be in the same class as "The sun also rises" or "For whom the bell tolls" but its still ok so far.

Before this book I read "The passion of New Eve" by Angela Carter. If you haven't heard of her, she was a writer who was mainly active in the sixties and seventies and wrote a good deal of post-feminist literature. I'm not going to give away the plot by any means except to say that it was surrealist and magical realist at the same time. It also made me really uncomfortable. Worth a read.