Emilio Pascual, El gabinete mágico
One of the books I was reading during my
two-week stay in Spain was El gabinete mágico by Emilio Pascual, which
is a book about fictional libraries, and one which I still have not finished. Ranging
from the familiar to the completely unknown, this gem of a book kept me good
company, and taught me a lot about Spanish literary history. What made this
book particularly special was that I bought it on my second day in Madrid at Librería
Alberti, a bookshop where my friend Marina Casado was doing a poetry reading together
with some of her fellow poets. El gabinete mágico also accompanied me to
Salamanca, and I was reading one of its chapters as the last bus to Madrid was crossing
the fields of Castilla, and I could see the sun dying splendidly in gold behind
me, and the moon rising in its triumphant silver ahead of me. It was a joyous
moment that I could not have planned if I had tried to.
The poem 'Invocación' by Raquel Lanseros, included in her collected poetry, Sin ley de gravedad
As usual, I also sought out new places for
reading in my home village. While I did go exploring, I was less careful to
bring books along, and so I did less outdoors reading than I had hoped. But the
very last day of my summer vacation, I went on a kind of pilgrimage to a
mountain lake, where I had not been for the better part of fifteen years. To be
able to once more see the intense beauty of the place – a place of which I have
been dreaming again and again – was a joy beyond description. And to mark my
return to this place of so many memories, I had brought with me a collected
edition of the poems by Raquel Lanseros, one of my favourite poets, which I had
bought during my time in Madrid. Raquel Lanseros is a poet whose verses mean a
lot to me, so it was the perfect way to reconnect with this magical landscape.
William Butler Yeats, The Tower
William Butler Yeats, The Tower
My last conference for the year allowed me an
opportunity to visit a new country, Ireland, and a long-standing dream finally
came true. The day after my presentation, I was ambling about in Dublin, and
one of my priorities was to buy a book. A friend of my had recommended a
bookshop, and I was pleased to find some single-volume editions of poetry
collections by William Butler Yeats, another favourite of mine. I ended up
buying a facsimile first edition of The Tower, and read many of its
verses while drinking tea in a pub later that day, and also in the rose garden
of St. Stephen’s Green while waiting for the airport bus.
Reading by lists
As with every year, I aim to read a minimum of
twelve books, divided among the same four categories, namely a) Nobel
laureates, b) Norwegian books, c) academic books, and d) books from a list I
put together during my first year at university. This year, I managed to meet
my own minimum requirement in all categories, but not by much – except with
regards to category b. Some of these books were long overdue, as I have been
meaning to read them for years. The Norwegian translation of Chrétien de Troyes’
Story of the grail, for instance, have been in my collection since my
first year at university, when I bought it in the campus bookshop, together
with a big stack of other books from the same series, Thorleif Dahls
kulturbibliotek. This series, or this ‘cultural library’, aims to make great
literary works available in Norwegian, and I am still making my way through the
haul from 2008. Similarly, Hippolyte Delehaye’s classic methodological
reflection, The Legends of the saints, is one that I should have
finished at an early point during my academic career, as so much of the last
decade has revolved around the study of saints. I read these books with great
anticipation, and was greatly rewarded.
Chrétien de Troyes, Gralsfortellingen (translated by Helge Nordahl)
Hippolyte Delehaye, The Legends of the Saints (translated by Donald Attwater)
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Geografi og kjærlighed
Sigurd Hoel, Syndere i sommersol
Other books in this category, I came to more
blindly. Kenzaburō Ōe’s The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away, was
a title I had noted down years ago, when I set out to make a list of which books
by which Nobel laureates I should prioritize. I have no recollection why I
chose this particular one, and I had no particular expectation of what to find
on those pages. Ōe was not one of those Nobel laureates I knew outside of the
Nobel canon, and his books were not among those I envisioned myself reading
early in this lifetime project. However, since Ōe passed away in March, and
since the university library honoured his passing with a selection of books to
borrow, I decided to take the opportunity to be more relevant and trendy than
usual, and so I read this very disturbing but masterfully crafted novel, which
provided a very interesting insight into Japanese history. Similarly, I did not
know what to expect from Annie Ernaux’s The Years, and I had heard great
things about her description of everyday life. However, while she is among the
more accomplished authors of auto-fiction, I was also reminded why this is a genre
that I struggle to enjoy.
Teach us to outgrown our madness, a collection of four short novels by Kenzaburō Ōe
Annie Ernaux, Årene (Les Années; translated by Henning and Margrethe Solberg)
Cultural confusion consisting of French literature, Norwegian cheese, and American non-alcoholic beer
The elder Edda
Aside from my recurring lists, every year tends to bring about new
mini-projects or new strands of reading. Early in 2023, I embarked on one such
mini-project when I finally gave in and bought the first of four volumes of the
Elder Edda, with facing-page translations into Nynorsk by Knut Ødegård.
While I am quick to buy and slow to read books, I set myself the challenge that
I should finish each volume before buying the next one, and consequently I
spent the next month in the disturbing, fascinating and morbid world of the
gods and heroes of the pre-Christian Norse. I was delighted to finally delve
into this world, as the Elder Edda remains one of the great literary
treasures of the world. I was particularly fascinated by the poems about
heroes, which include branches of the storyworld of Sigurd the dragonslayer,
which are stories that go back – in some way, shape or form – to the great
upheavals of the fifth century. Reading these results of stories travelling
from Gaul, Pannonia and Italy, and then northwards into Scandinavia, in the
course of a few hundred years was a powerful testament to the
interconnectedness of early medieval Europe.
First volume of Knut Ødegård's translation of the Elder Edda
All four volumes united
Utopia and
Robinsonades
The main strand of reading that has woven together some of the books of the
year has been utopian literature, broadly considered. I have long had a strong
interest in utopian fantasies and their significance in the history of ideas,
and I have been reading utopian stories for many years already. In 2023,
however, I had particular impetus to delve deeper into such stories, as a
friend and colleague and I have been planning an MA course on utopian thinking
in the Middle Ages. Our discussions around this topic has spurred me on to thinking
about Utopianism as more than just a fascinating topic, but also as a topic on
which I can do some original research myself. Consequently, I have prioritized
certain utopian stories with the aim of teaching about them. Some have already
made their way on to the syllabus, such as Gabriel de Foigny’s La Terre Australe,
connue from 1676, translated by David Fausett, or the anonymous
seventeenth-century Spanish novel Sinapia. And it was this motivation
that roused me to finally begin labouring my way through Plato’s Republic,
which kept me company in several cafés in Warsaw this November. Other books in
this strand, however, have not been included in the syllabus, although I expect
that they will appear in teaching, if only by way of reference or in-class
anecdotes. One such case is the novel Arqtiq, an 1899 novel by Anna
Adolph, which includes elements of hollow earth fiction, space travel, Arctic
exploration and Christian colonialism in a very strange and strangely
entertaining blend.
A shelfie from my office, containing a selection of Utopia-related literature for next year's teaching
Erasmus Roterodamus, Dårskapens lovtale (translated by Trygve Sparre)
While not typically seen as utopian literature, this polemic belongs to a medieval utopian tradition
Within this strand of utopian literature,
however, another strand materialized, namely the Robinsonade. Strictly
speaking, Robinson Crusoe and the many stories either imitating or drawing
inspiration from it also belong to the utopian genre. After all, Robinson Crusoe
creates his own private kingdom on his own terms, and lays down rules of his
own making. This sub-strand in the past year’s reading was more of an accident,
but a very happy one. In all, however, I only read four Robinsonades, but
subsumed within the broader topic of utopianism, they stood out in such degree
that they created a theme which ran through much of my literary thinking in
2023. The books in question are, in order of reading, The Life and
Adventures of Peter Wilkins (1751) by Robert Paltock, Håkon Håkonsen
(1873), a Norwegian Robinsonade by O. V. Falck-Ytter, Robinson Crusoe
(1719), and The Female American (1767), of uncertain authorship. The
latter was a great surprise, because I only bought it at a book sale, not
knowing anything about the content, but I was pleased to see how well it fitted
my reading that year.
Robert Paltock, The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins
O. V. Falck-Ytter, Håkon Håkonsen
Map of the islands where Håkon Håkonsen was a castaway
The novel was advertised as a Norwegian Robinson
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
Unca Eliza Winkfield (pseudonym), The Female American
Sundry highlights
Aside from these themes and categories, there were many other book-related highlights
of 2023.
Priya Hein, Riambel
Reading the excellent and heart-rending Riambel
by Priya Hein the same afternoon I was gifted a signed copy by the author.
Issue 568 of Mosaik, featuring the story 'Lelas Zorn' (Lela's wrath)
Learning about the existence of the historical
comic Mosaik in Erfurt.
Exhibition hall at the La Biblioteca Nacionál de España
The walls are decorated with pages from the commentary by Beatus of Liébana
Visiting an exhibition on Beatus of Liébana’s
commentary on the Apocalypse at the Spanish National Library in Madrid.
An issue of the regular Tex Willer series, and an issue of the Young Tex Willer series
Both issues celebrate the 75th anniversary of the figure Tex Willer
Picking up a few issues of one of my favourite
comics, Tex Willer, in the original Italian during a trip to Rome.
A selection of Jon Bing's library, which, after his passing, was given to a second-hand bookshop in Oslo
Buying a book for a friend, which came from the
library of Jon Bing, one of Norway’s most important science fiction authors.
A selection of Jon Fosse's books at the reception in the Oslo University Library
Rejoicing in the fact that this year’s Nobel laureate,
Jon Fosse, writes in Nynorsk.
A selection of several academic books and primary sources hunted down in the campus bookshop
Desperately trying to get rid of my surplus
research allowance at the very end of the term.
Similar blogposts (from 2023)
Reading-spots, part 1
Reading-spots, part 2
The non-existent manuscript
Reading-spots, part 3
A different Oslo
Reading-spots, part 4
Celebrating Nynorsk
Reading in the room
Contrasts of reading
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