During these last two weeks in December I think I've read as many books as I did throughout the whole year..
I have worked my may through
Kent - A collection of texts (the Swedish Band)
Sartre's - Nausea
Camus' - The Plague
Coupland's - All families are psychotic
A Biography on Johnny Cash
Näslund's "Lär känna psykopaten" (Get to know the psychopath)
Fredrik Strage's - Fans
Quite an amazing little list there to say it myself.
Some quick response to them:
Kent - a great band, and interesting to get under their skin. Not so much through their own words but through interviews and texts published in music press. Getting to know Jocke's adore for David Bovie during his Ziggy-era and so on.
Sartre's
Nausea was not a disappointment but I had expected more explosive stuff, to feel more, to think more, to get more. It is a book on existensialism but can in ways be seen as diagnosing the protagonist's depression (
schizophrenia) but this is just post-production and some reading up I've done after reading the book itself.
The Plague by
Camus leaves me somewhere there as well. But this is a more catching book, better reading, more interesting story. A town is locked down during a plague and the phases of it and of the persons in there has a good reading value. But it doesn't leave me with as many marks and questions and thoughts after it as
The Stranger did.
Coupland's is a great novel, and I had no expectations more than to get a good story told. Perhaps this is why I perceive it as beeing more rewarding to read than the previous two which I had made up an image of what I would get on forehand.
The
Johnny Cash biography is just plain great! A life I got a slight peek into with the movie "Walk the Line" 2006, a man whose music I admire and appreciate. The book fills some gaps that the movie left me with - especially of his early and last years in life. A topic in the book that is also explored to great depths is also his christianity and faith, his fascination for singing gospels - topics that seeing my own lack of faith would not interest me at all but it ain't to bad.
I didn't see the connection until now but the connection between Coupland's and
Näslund's documentary book on psychopaths was pure randomness. A quite easy to read documentary and study on psychopathy, with a focus on criminality. It contained some interesting interviews and some interesting conclusions in the last chapter. The statement that:
"No, Hitler was not a psychopath. He was a necrophilian"
and some other interesting conclusions on why women continue to live with psychopathic men and how pedophilia holds some very close resemblance with psychopathy.
And nope, George Bush is not a psychopath either.
Strage's book wasn't, if honesty shall rule, finished by the end of 2007. It isn't even today. But I have read through two interesting chapters in it. It is a straight forward book based on his interviews with fans throughout the musical spectra. Ranging from Agnetha Fältskog to Morrisey with a side step out to Star Wars.
The passages I read was one on a Hisingen-based Michael Jackson-fan with focus on her trips to Neverland and to support MJ outside the Santa Barbara courtroom. The Morrisey one was wider and held thoughts from Peter Birro (P3) and Weeping Willow's frontman Magnus Carlsson - a band built on his love for Morrisey. Because that is what these men feel for their idol. And they are not prepared to share it with anyone. Morrisey was once to play the warming act for I think it was David Bowie and the elitist fans were terrified that other people, not as educated and enlighted as them, would get to see their idol.
- But luckily he cancelled.
And how can I not love the man myself. Having spend hours listening to tunes and texts like
There's a club if you'd like to go
you could meet somebody who really loves you
so you go, and you stand on your own
and you leave on your own
and you go home, and you cry
