Memories of memories, old and new

It's definitely autumn now. In fact, onto the distinctly wintry side of autumn even. There are still the occasional sunny days, but the sun has taken on that light-only-no-real-heat sort of persona :/. This is usually the time of the year where I begin to find life a bit difficult. The rapidly shortening hours of daylight has most to do with it I think. Vitamin D tablets can only do so much to be honest.

So it was nice to have more visitors! The parents-in-law stayed over for a week and a half and we had a pretty fun time together! It feels a bit surreal that it was just over a year ago that we found this place, and now both sets of parents and several siblings etc. have come and spent some time with us here :). Extra space has definite upsides.

We made the most of the sunnier days to go walking in the vicinity and also made a couple of forays into Oslo! We took the opportunity to have a look around some places we hadn't in the past, despite meaning to, and some we had! The new Munch museum and the National museum were, I think, the highlights!

When the new Much museum appeared on the Oslo waterfront some years ago, the way the eventual prize winning "lambda" design translated from renders on marketing material to the real thing left more or less everyone rather miffed :|. I definitely was on the miffed side of the general public opinion spectrum. But seeing how we had a compelling reason to explore the art within (namely my mother-in-law), it seemed a good time to ignore the outward appearance and venture in.

It's actually a pretty awesome experience! It's possible to gain a progressively elevated view of the city as one climbs up the twelve floors, providing a unique perspective. The buildings and roads very familiar from ground level take on a rather different, and grander, character. And then of course there are the many many galleries :).

I'm not exactly an art person. I mean, I like spending the occasional day or a few hours in galleries every now and then, but I'm not sure I have strong opinions beyond things I like more or less. Munch seemed to leave a particularly strong impression. Was it because I was accompanied by people who understood more of what was going on? 

Who knows, either way, I was struck by the particular way in which the artist's thoughts seemed to come through in the paintings. Particularly the way in which a completely still scene could convey so much movement, physical and otherwise! It was a fun evening.

Then there was the annual Oslo culture evening which we had been to this time last year. We decided to limit the walking, and focus on the Parliament - National theatre - town hall area. There were open air bands, brief forays into student photography exhibitions, a look around the Nobel Peace centre and finally a chunk of the evening at the National museum. The last being the only thing we repeated from last year :).

Otherwise, I feel like it's been a quiet month. Went cycling once, but this last week it's started getting properly cold in the mornings. Not quite freezing yet, but definitely frost territory, and it's still only September! Just about :).

This month's book club book was of my choosing, and instead of focusing on fantasy or sci-fi, I went with authors I have some personal connection to. Ended up reading Hema Sukumar's Minor Disturbances at Grand Life Apartments again :). I feel like, having known the story (and remembered most of the significant plot points) let me enjoy the atmospherics of the writing even more :).

It was, as with the first time, a very nostalgic read for me to be honest! A sense of familiarity in different ways. But equally, an odd sense of looking in from the outside, which form me came across particularly in the characters of Jason and Laxmi. And I suppose Karthik to a limited extent. 

It's an interesting half-in half-out existence, that of growing up in a country in the midst of significant social and technological change, and then spending the rest of one's life figuring out how to fit into another culture, set of social norms and expectations. Also, weather. Weather's actually kind of a pretty big part of life, which isn't often obvious till one moves somewhere with very different weather :).

I also started reading one of my other suggestions that didn't get picked, Srinath's If It's Monday It Must Be Madurai. So, confession time, this book came out over a decade ago! And I actually was in touch with Srinath at the time, albeit sporadically. I distinctly remember creating the Goodreads page for the book :D. (Yes, they were simpler times, any logged in user could create or even in many cases update the details of a book. Now you have to go through a whole moderation process. Which is a good thing, I think :).)

But then I never read it. Until now. Is it the passage of time, and the greater distance? Not sure, but I'm really really enjoying reading this. Occasionally I find myself even reading it in Srinath's voice in my head, imagining his facial expressions at particularly hilarious or ironic moments :). I'm a bit over halfway through, and looking forward to the rest of it.

Looking out to the thin slice of the Oslofjord that we can see, I feel an odd sense of layered reality. This particular view, with it's treed hills folding into blue-grey water, punctuated by pointed evergreens in the foreground and with the hills in the distance fading to blue, is actually really new, but already feels so familiar. Beneath it though (or beyond, it's hard to find words to capture the feeling), I see the waving trees in the middle distance outside the living room windows of the flat in Asansol. Somewhere in-between there are the ever-changing expanses of water seen from the various decks of the various ships.

Maybe I'm working on assimilating all the different normals of the last fortyish years, and these books are bringing back oh so many memories. Or maybe I'm just feeling the end of summer blues :).

A summer of fjord and flowers

And just like that, summer's over :). I mean, September's upon us, and the Norwegians are very particular about their seasons lasting three months each. Which never actually matches up with reality, but so what :D. Anyway, I'm not actually in Norway at to moment, back in the UK! Just this last week though, and about to head back home.

But let's rewind a bit to the beginning of the month. So, important things first, I did manage to keep all the plants alive!! To be honest, the rain every second or third day helped no end :). But generally looking for new flowers and enjoying watching new leaves was a fun part of each day.

The weather was actually very helpful, because in between the rain and thunderstorms there were beautiful days of sunshine, which I tried to make the most of. The cycling once a week to Oslo continued, and I even managed a couple of additional trips around.

Although company seemed hard to come by, and the one time I did manage to find a friend to go cycling with, their bike decided to misbehave and it ended up being a bit of a stop-pump-go sort of thing for half the ride. The other half was fun though! :)

The one time the weather did not cooperate was the day of the office summer party :/. Lots of rain and wind, and we were headed off to a restaurant on one of the islands at the top of the Oslofjord :D. Well, it was entertaining, to put it mildly. And all that for cold shrimp :P. (For the uninitiated, this is a highly sought after thing for Norwegians, cold boiled shrimp, the more recently caught the better, on bread with a bit of butter, mayonnaise and lime. The height of Norwegian summer. Supposedly :P.)

In between all that, I've been happily reading my way through The Invisible Library! Finished The Untold Story (book 8) just before heading over to the UK. With mostly happy feelings. As with these sort of series though, the story towards the end got more and more hectic almost. Too may threads to tie up, too much jeopardy. Which leaves one almost with a sort of a breathless feeling at the end.

All in all though, I was very happy with the series. Light, but entertaining. You could see that the author really enjoys books, and writing. And I really enjoyed seeing this coming through in the writing, in the library in jokes and Irene's side tracks under particular duress :).

As far as the characters go, I think Irene was the clearly outstanding one, but that's not really surprising because for the vast majority of the time hers is the perspective you get. I have to say, Cogman's take on dragons was a particularly different one from what I've read in the past, and I did rather enjoy!

Since then I decided to take up the book club book for this month, Killers of the Flower Moon. Another non-fiction offering, this time covering a particularly sordid part of American history involving oil and Osage. Well, we'll see what others have made of it next week when we meet for book club!

So then we come to the point of the year where I'm usually happy to have had the nice summer, even though it's waning. It'll probably be a bit of a shock heading back to Norway after a week here, seeing how the sunlight really starts disappearing fast around this time and a week makes a big difference. But hopefully autumn will be nice, hopefully not too wet at at least somewhat colourful :).

With an outburst of colour, summer rolls along sedately

Right, so July's over! And for a change I don't feel like I've had all of Norway to myself. Is that a good or a bad thing? Not sure. A couple of weeks off (somehow the week off at the end of June kinda feels like part of the Norwegian July summer holidays) has definitely made a difference from the usual! Regardless, it's been a nice summer.

One thing I'm really happy about is that we've kept up with the cycling to work! The weather's been changeable, as it often is in Norway, but most weeks there's been a day or two where it's been nice, and we made the most of it! Although that's been the bulk of the cycling so far, so I've ended up with several photos of more or less the same places along the route in varying conditions :). Nothing new there, I guess I just find certain views more interesting. (Also, it's just easier to click photos while cycling at certain points on the route than others :).)

The other thing was the trip to the UK! And meeting another brand new member of the family! 8 days old, I mean, it feels surreal to see up close what little humans are like :D. Luckily, this seemed to be a pretty happy little human :).

Since then I've been back home and since my better half is away for a while, getting used to the idea of flying solo for the first time in a long time... I'm definitely reading a lot!

I guess it's fair to say the last book club book wasn't exactly a hoot. With the Lapps in the High Mountain is definitely groundbreaking. It is the account of Emilie Demant's time spent among the Sami in northern Sweden a little over a century ago. Having only experienced the very fringes of Sami culture in my time here, I definitely found it informative. Although the discussion at the book club particularly the insights from one of our number who grew up in northern Norway with Sami neighbours were probably more enlightening.

But for a very short book, it was quite an effort to get through. I have to say that the translator I think did a remarkable job in keeping a sense of the time when the book was originally written and still try to convey the meaning within our present context.

Since then though, I've been rather immersed in yet another accidental find. As I seem to be doing regularly these days, I was browsing the library shelves and The Invisible Library caught my eye. This time I had enough time to just pick it up and read a bit of it at the library, so I did! And the writing really caught my fancy :). 

So I took it home and got through it really quickly! Turns out it's an eight book fantasy series, and all the volumes are available at the local library! Fast forward a few weeks and now I'm deep into The Mortal Word (book 5) :D. Yay for libraries! (Invisible or otherwise!!:) )

Each book is technically standalone, so it should be possible to start anywhere or pick and choose which books to read, but I feel it's best to read them in order and together. While the main relevant plots points from previous books are fed through, the world building is progressive and feels a lot more fun when reading the books one after the other.

One downside of reading the books so quickly is that I've become a bit fuzzy on which detail happens where. Each book happens in a very distinctive environment though, so they all have their own charming points. Hopefully the rest of the series will progress in much the same vein and I'll be done with the whole lot before long :).

On the one hand, the same sentiment applies to the next few weeks that I'm expecting to be home alone. On the other hand, it's never a good idea to wish life away :). So I guess I'm hoping to enjoy August, ideally with enough days each week to go cycling and maybe a bit more besides. I guess we shall see...

PS. Must keep all the plants alive!!

Of train journeys, revisiting places and fortunately timed sunshine

Well, June did not disappoint. :) In a year of busy month, this was also a busy month, however, one with some welcome breaks thrown in! It started off very brightly, more or less following on from a sunny and warm May, and then cooled down somewhat dramatically, thanks mainly to some rather welcome rain, but perked up again towards the end :).

The biggest news of this month of course, was the parents' visit! After 7/6 years! Which, particularly the time dilation caused by Covid, feels like absolutely forever! But they're here. They seem to have fallen in love with the place all over again (Norway that is), and seem to be enjoying staying at the new flat. But the time has really flown and it's almost time for them to head back again...

The highlight of the highlight though, was the short by relaxed train trip to Bergen and Flåm we went on earlier this week! Long train trips already kinda make trips more chilled I think. At least in Norway. I mean, things could get delayed, but at least you have a reasonable chance of alternative transportation and some level of assistance.

We'd picked day trains intentionally because the trip across the country to Bergen is genuinely one of the most picturesque ones. The trip out also followed parts of previous cycling trips we'd done, and it was fun finding some old stretches of tracks or roads we'd cycled. On the way back we even decided to take the detour down to Flåm!

The weather stayed kind to us the whole trip! Even the days in Bergen! We spent the time mostly just leisurely exploring the city including the bird's eye view from Fløyen. Flåm and the train rides along the Flåm valley were picturesque on a whole different level. I'll probably get to the many many photos at some point :).

The last couple of weeks seems to have pushed the rest of the month more or less out from my mind a bit. But there was a hurried trip to Stockholm for work. And there's been some cycling, mostly to and from work when the weather has allowed.

I did finally finish reading Murderbot. System Collapse being another full length novel rather than a novella gave me a bit more time with the characters I suppose. But the whole compromised SecUnit thing kinda put me off a little bit I think. Other than that the story was fun, the action fast paced and I'd definitely read more about these characters if Martha Wells decides to write more about them :).

I have to admit in the end I decided to give up on Ken Liu's short stories part way. I guess partly I'm not really spending that much time reading just this minute, but also, I really wasn't in the mood for the somewhat darkly introspective if beautifully written stories... maybe I'll pick it up again another time.

And just like that half the year has gone. Raced by completely. Wonder what the final half will bring :).

Of gardening, sunshine and welcome rain

May's often been an exciting month for me since I moved to Norway :). The explosion of life that is the compressed spring (ha, pun not intended) never ceases to amaze me, having grown up to an altogether different rhythm. It's also never quite the same from year to year.

This time around, for example, the late snow had already come and gone during the unseasonably warm April, and we experienced an early summer. It was fairly warm, particularly on the festive weekends, and when it started feeling like it was being a bit too warm and dry, some thunderstorms arrived. All very civilized.

So, those festive weekends then! First off there was the Holmenkollstafetten weekend! And I'm very pleased to say that our participation was a resounding success! Not because we were competitive or anything, but because everyone seemed to enjoy themselves :). Which, frankly is more important. So much so that we're already signed up for next year!! \:D/

Then of course, there was the proper festive weekend with the Norwegian National Day! We ended up joining our very local parade for the first time :). The weather was gorgeous, people seemed in great spirits and this continued at the barbeque hosted by some friends.

Given the weather, the cycling continued. I have to say though, it did take me a few days to recover from running two of the roughest stages of the relay :/. But since then, the weekly cycle to work has begun, and the occasional trips here and there. 

It's nice to be able to watch the spring giving way to summer. The leaves no longer quite the fresh, crisp green of spring, but spreading more thickly. The spring flowers past their prime in the sunnier parts, but still in bloom in the shadows. Summer flowers beginning their march across the hillsides.

The reading's been continuing as well! The remainder of This Much is True did more or less live up to my experience up to the point of my last post. I suppose one of the things that was different towards the end was the more serious nature of the topics of discussion. I suppose at eighty, it's rather inevitable that a memoire would be full of friends, family and acquaintances who have passed away. 

There was also her impassioned plea for sanity in the middle east. I had to remind myself that this book was written during the Covid pandemic, long before 7th October 2023. But clearly, for those who knew, a catastrophic flashpoint was nearer than it seemed. And yes, the book club discussion did indeed live up to my expectations, with deep nuanced reflections from all around.

Once I was done with that though, I moved on to Assassin's Apprentice. As I'd mentioned, I'd heard of Robin Hobb, but never read anything by her before this. In many ways, it was quite a fun and engaging read! The magic was subtle, the characters generally enjoyable to follow. But by the end of it I was left wondering, am I interested enough to find the rest of the fifteen (yes, fifteen) books that form the story of this world? I'm not sure. Maybe, but I'm not rushing into it :).

The awesome thing though? By the time I'd finished A's A, Murderbot was back!! I got books four to six from the library and proceeded to devour them :D. The fourth novella, Exit Strategy was a blast! I was so glad to just be back in the company of SecUnit. But equally, having had some distance from the previous books, I could somehow appreciate this one more.

I think one of the things I really appreciate about this series is how, despite so much of this being all out action, it's the emotional challenges and triumphs of this introverted construct that really makes you fall in love with it!

And then of course Network Effect completely takes off :). In a good way. This is the first full length Murderbot novel. And the space is noticeable. Things are given a bit more time. You get to spend more time with some more characters, and that makes for an even more compelling story.

It was only when I was most of the way through Fugitive Telemetry that I realized that the ordering of the books is wrong. So, if anyone's going to read these books, and frankly, everyone who likes fantasy and/or sci-fi should, do it in this order: read all the novellas first, and only then move on to the full length novels. Meaning, read Fugitive Telemetry before, not after, Network Effect. That's actually the chronological order of events, and would have made my reading of Telemetry a lot more enjoyable I think!

Anyway, things being what they are, I was left waiting for the last book for a few weeks, so after haunting the library for a bit, I decided to try The Hidden Girl and Other Stories by Ken Liu. Him that translated the first and third books of the completely bonkers Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy. Well, I'm glad I picked the short story collection rather than the first novel of an epic series...

I guess short stories do have that character, a lot of emotion packed into a tiny space, exploding into the reader's mind with time to blossom into so many wonderings. Longer stories have more story to keep the wondering at bay, I find :). Which is not to say the writing isn't great. It's probably just not what I'm after at the moment.

Luckily, yesterday I got System Collapse from the library. I find myself slightly conflicted. On the one hand it will be awesome to get to the end of the story. But on the other hand, I think I'll genuinely miss Murderbot. It's not The Malazan Book of the Fallen, or Culture. For one thing it's a tiny fraction of the page count. Missing the grand span of scope. But for all that, there's something about these characters, this one character in particular, that just feels unforgettable!

I really need to find another series to get into after :). Maybe I'll ask people at lunch!