One random night when everything changes, you won't reply and we'll go back to strangers

I've actually been thinking about posting for a few days, but between one thing and another didn't quite get around to it. The thing on my mind for the last week or so has been Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. It's been the book club book for February, and I'm still not totally sure exactly how I feel about it :|.

To be entirely honest, I don't think the week or so since I finished reading the book has helped at all! If anything, the strong feelings I was left with as I put the book down have dissipated somewhat, and I'm left with a sense of vague contrasts. Sweeping passages of time versus intense moments. Deep exploration of feelings in some relationships versus others left barely half sketched.

One of the things that does stick with me though, is how central gaming is to the characters. They aren't just making games, they live with them. In more ways than one. As someone who's gamed off and on for the last three decades, it was nostalgic to revisit the late '90s and early 2000s as an era of dramatic changes in the world of video games. The evolution of technology allowing people of interact with games and each other in profoundly different ways. A change that promises to continue, of course.

But personally what I found resonating with me much more was how gaming is treated as a properly "grown up" thing. I think it may well just be the company I keep. I'm not surrounded by avid, or even that many casual, gamers. So the world around me is not screaming - yes, gaming's a perfectly normal and sensible part of life. It's not just about unplugging from the daily grind, not just about passing a bit of time. That gaming can actually be about doing something you positively enjoy rather than just something you do to avoid things you don't enjoy much... I'm not sure I know quite how to express what I mean, exactly.

Going back to the story itself (be warned, possible spoilers ahead), I did rather enjoy, even though felt occasionally confused by, the sometimes dramatic shifts of style between chapters. The ones that stand out most obviously are of course The NPC and Pioneers. The first I found particularly poignant, I mean, you know what's happening, and it's gruesome, but it plays out so poetically... The second was pretty obviously in-game, but there were definitely sections when I found myself second guessing a bit. The end of the chapter of course makes things amply obvious.

When it comes to the characters, Sam and Sadie seemed to oscillate wildly between completely relatable and almost absurd. Although as place holders for how we humans can be irrational, loving, cynical, selfish, etc., they did very well. On the other end there was Marx. I mean, of almost all the characters in the book, if there was one who existed almost exclusively to be a contrast to Sam and Sadie, it was Marx. I'm left feeling the poor guy got hard done by, like seriously!

The other somewhat odd thing about the book was that when I got into it, it was almost impossible to put down! But there were certain points when I did feel like I had to stop, and then found it almost as difficult to pick it up again... So much so that I ended up re-reading Murderbot 3 and 4 in those gaps. So yeah, in the end how much did I like it? In some ways a lot, and in others not so much. But I'm glad I read it :).

As for the rest of the month, it was pretty cold for the most part. Sometimes really really cold. And there was some snow, so we went out cross-country skiing a bit. Maybe not as much as we could have, but oh well :). In the mean time though, I've actually managed to start up with the running again! It's quite different running in -11 °C and snow than in +11 °C and dry :D.

There were also the Winter Olympics, where Norway did amazingly well, and I discovered that watching cross-country races is a lot more fun when you know more about what's going on :). Oh, and ice dance is a fascinating new addition to the list of things I find simultaneously awesome and terrifying :P.

Since then though, the temperatures have shot up and the snow is slowly disappearing. One almost wishes that it'll get properly warm so that the footpaths and roads don't turn to ice every morning and slush every evening. I guess we shall see!

Something different

The familiar thing about January this year is the temperature and snow. Particularly given the weather we had at the end of last year. The unusual thing was that we ended up spending two weeks of it in India :). And honestly, while it was only half the month, it rather overwhelms the other impressions from this last month :).

It was the first trip in three years, and it was really nice to visit! And the weather, while cold for local conditions, was rather more like a temperate summer week in Norway :D. So yeah, rather perfect! Having not lived full time in India for the best part of two decades though, there are certain things that take longer for me to adapt to. 

One thing is the noise of course. The crowds of people is another. The thing that is new is the level of particulates in the air. Well, new compared to when I was a kid at least, but something locals just have to put up with, which is not great for their respiratory health :/. Fortunately, for part of the visit we'd planned a getaway to the Dooars region in the northern part of West Bengal, nestled beneath the Eastern Himalayan foothills close to the Bhutan border.

I'd never been to that particular part of the country and it was beautiful! Not as close to the hills as my last trip to North Bengal and therefore not quite as wild. But the fact that the area is essentially a patchwork of nature reserves and tea gardens with settlements and roads in-between does make for a pretty amazing experience.

It may have been the time of year, but I was rather taken aback by the lack of water in the massively wide riverbeds. On a guided foray into the Buxa Tiger Reserve we were told that there are hardly any tigers around, mainly because the lack of large water bodies means their prey have moved on...

In between the relaxed days of visiting various sites, nice food and enjoying time with family, it was also nice to enjoy the cleaner air and the blue skies. (You can't really see the blue in the sky any more from Kolkata, even on a perfectly cloudless day :/.) Large parts of the travel between places was also done by train, which given the services now available, does make for a much more relaxed way of travel than by road :).

There was also plenty of time to relax and catch up with family without feeling run down from travelling constantly from one place to another. And of course, plenty of amazing home cooked meals :).

The week between the UK and India trips feels so long ago now :). I guess it was mostly just unpacking and repacking to be honest. Note to self: don't book long holidays too close to each other :P. And then this last week back has felt simultaneously relaxed and hectic. It's nice to finally be home for a little while without feeling like we're going to be heading off again. But catching up on work has been.. well, hectic.

The travel has also allowed for quite a lot of reading! The book club book for the month was an old favourite of mine, All Systems Red. And having enjoyed the books the first time, I ended up reading the first four novellas again :). I'm not sure there were many great revelations beyond the first read, except the confirmation that I just find the characters really fun to spend time with. One of the few series that I'd probably be happy to read again and again. Not least because they are such quick reads :).

Then I went back to Asimov. Robots and Empire was the only robot novel left, so I started on that first. Once again the feeling of a simple murder mystery was replaced with a wider intrigue. That didn't make it any less enjoyable of course. But I was left reflecting on how different the storytelling is between Robots and Murderbot.

Instead of moving straight onto Foundation, I decided to take the detour through the Galactic Empire novels. It's probably not so surprising, but I had almost no memory of the plots of the three novels. After the last Robot book, it was interesting to again be back in Asimov's writing from the '50s :). 

It was also interesting to see the gradual evolution of the Trantorian empire and the position (and cultural memory) of Earth over the course of the three episodes. Somehow though, I could help but feel that the overall tone of the Empire novels were rather grim...

It was also interesting to read on my Kindle again after a number of years. I'd just decided it was easier than carrying books along for the India trip :). Now that I'm back home though, it's back to book-books :D.

All the light you see is from the past

The last few weeks of this year have turned out to be rather busy and hectic. Happily, it's largely been in fun and interesting ways! Which is a bit of a departure from the more usual end of year craziness at work coupled with my dwindling ability to deal with the lack of daylight and generally being low on energy.

I should definitely plan more breaks in October/November going forward, and do it early enough so that it doesn't end up feeling like so much of a chore that we end up not doing anything at all :|. Speaking of which, the end of November ended up rather packed with travel! 

First, there was a short trip to Zurich for work. Being later in the year compared to last time meant that it was proper winter rather than late autumn. One big difference? Christmas markets! There seemed to be loads of them, one could barely walk five minutes in any direction before finding one :). 

The schedule made things rather packed, yet with enough time to appreciate the city a little. I left feeling like I was a bit less run down compared to the trip last year. It also helped to have a later flight back, gave me a certain space to decompress. Which came in handy, because the very next day we were off to Amsterdam!

I've travelled through Amsterdam many times in the past, not least because of family living in the south of the Netherlands, but had never actualy stayed there before. This was a weekend trip to catch up with some friends and explore the city :).

It ended up being a largely relaxed meander around parts of the city center, with occasional rest stops at a variety of fun eateries :). We tried, amonst other things, freshly made stroopwaffels from a street market, the "best ribs in Amsterdam", a very yummy Dutch-Indonesian place and Thanksgiving dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe :D.

We also enjoyed a lovely evening canal boat trip which doubled up as a tour of the annual light festival. The various installations were fun, mesmerizing, intriguing and confusing, sometimes many of those things at the same time! The audio commentary track was often interesting in its own right, but only occassionally illuminating the actual subjects :).

So all of that was even before we got into December! Which was also a rather weird month when it comes to the weather. Not only did no snow arrive, it was too warm for any snow to have stayed had it arrived! For the first time in my time living in Norway the ground wasn't rock hard a week before Christmas! On the upside, that meant we could continue to go running without worrying about the conditions underfoot :).

Soon enough though, it was time to wrap things up for the year. The work Christmas party served as something of a closing off point for most. Since then, we've been in the UK, with some very sunny but bitterly windy weather to accompany us during the festive period! Maybe there's even been a bit of snow back in Asker!

In between the fun family time, awesome food and the walks to recover from said food, I've also had some time to get through the few hundred remaining pages of The Covenant of Water.

I'd say that my feelings about the book are not very straight forward to articulate. Or at least that I'm not finding it easy to articulate them. On the one hand, the writing is beautifully evocative of both characters and the environment. There is  such careful focus on the characters' feelings, without resorting to the coarse artifice of each character expounding in detail about their feelings.

Yet, that same feature of the writing means I've found it very difficult to feel detached from the lives unfolding on the pages. This I suppose is what authors want, so as far as that goes, excellent. The difficulty I've had with Covenant I think, is that the story seems to progress through the gradual build up towards a series of catastrophes. And these genuinely are catastrophes for various protagonists in various ways. I've found it necessary to stop and absorb these impacts, so to speak. Being unable to quickly move on.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Having generally given it some days, in one case over a week, I've had the opportunity to then appreciate how the story does eventually move on, with compassion. Characters find peace, redemption, closure, often merely finding their various ways towards acceptance.

For me, what stopped a frequently distressing story from becoming depressing was the compassion with which the distress was accepted, or otherwise dealt with. And I found Big Ammachi to be the anchor for that through much of the story. 

There can hardly be space for two such deeply explored characters in the same story, so I can understand why Digby is very much in the background for most of the time. And to be fair, I'm not sure I wanted to see much more of him. In a large caste of flawed characters who often seem to transcend their flaws one way or another, Digby seemed a bit of an outlier, although quite how I can't say.

A reader cannot help but bring their own context, biases and prejudices into the reading of a story of course. Of all the thoughts and feelings evoked by reading the work of another, how does one know which parts are one's own and which are not? Maybe in the end it doesn't matter.

One last thing about the book - the passage of time, like that of water, happens regardless of whether one wants it to or not. And at a rate that is not always anticipated. Yet, the only point where the narrative flow is broken is of course quite inescapable, and rather natural. Thinking back on my musings about the narrative style in my previous post, I'd say there is little need for scepticism. The omniscent voice is benevolent, never deceiving, yet sometimes concealing. Not always for the worse.

I think, rather than diving into the specifics of the highs and lows of the last orbit around the sun, I'll leave it with a thought borrowed from one of the artworks of light in Amsterdam. Everything we see is a version if it from the past. Sometimes recent, sometimes less so. It is similar with stories. But our pasts inform our futures, in simple and not so simple ways.

Here's to facing the future with hope, compassion and acceptance. Happy new year!

Hoping for snow in the dark

Yes, it's not quite the end of the month, but seeing how a particularly hectic week is coming up, I thought why not just spend a bit of time reflecting on the past few weeks now :). I mean, it's a pretty arbitrary self imposed thing, this end of month blogging thing. So it does rather lend itself to arbitrarily ignoring it.

(The thing I'm actually rather more reluctant to let go of is posting at least once a month :P. And yes, that's translated into mostly posting on the last day of the month, but oh well :D.)

So anyway, what's been happening? Weather's being weird for one thing. The temperature, in very un-November like fashion went up almost into double digits °C. Then practically overnight it plunged below zero to the point where the local lakes froze over. Regular service seemed to have resumed, including a little sprinkling of snow. But then the temperatures have shot up again, along with a couple of days of nagging persistent rain :/.

Through all of that though, we've managed to keep up with the weekly running. And yoga! Running and yoga is actually a pretty good combination. Particularly given that one of the main aims of the whole things to to maintain/improve mobility. At a couple of months, I'm starting to think it might be OK to start calling this a habit :).

And all the while the hours of daylight are dwindling. Although, I think I'm still riding the high of the Budapest trip, which has helped no end :). That was not quite a month ago, and the Christmas holidays are not quite a month away either :).

In the mean time, Asimov has definitely been a different pace compared to the stuff I'd been reading recently. Once I got over the old-worldyness of The Caves of Steel, it didn't take long to get through it. I mean, it's a pretty short book. It was a pretty similar story with The Naked Sun. A quick read, yet thought provoking.

Another thing I'd rather forgotten about the Robot novels is that they are essentially detective stories! Which I thought made things rather fun! Particularly because beyond the very vague framework of the stories, I remembered practically nothing :).

Partway through The Robots of Dawn I started thinking, maybe I should have left this for a little bit later on. You see, either because I knew it was written thirty odd years later or because it actually does have a noticeably different feel to it, it felt like a fair bit of a departure from the rather short and simple detective story. Which is not to say it's not a detective story :). Just a somewhat more convoluted one.

I obviously should have considered that before starting TRoD, as it is, there's very little sense in not finishing off the Robots with Robots and Empire and then tackle the Foundation series in publication order. Pretty certain of that.

But first, there's a book club book to read. And The Covenant of Water is rather a tome. Which is why we're reading it over two months instead of the usual one. I'm hoping it wont take me that long, but it's not a book I'm finding easy to read great stretches of in one go. Not because it's anything short of amazing! Just that there's a lot layered in.

I'll risk giving some things away, so proceed with care. Although I've only just gotten a few chapters into part two so far, so there may not be that much to give away. I have to say the Glasgow bit completely threw me! I mean, it was only one chapter, but up until then the tone in which I was reading the book was completely centred on Big Ammachi. Although I'm currently still struggling to see her as big.

I'm also curious as to how omniscient the voice actually is. I mean, it reads like third person omniscient, but things are not always what they seem. (I'm looking at you Steven Erikson!) The occasional matter of fact presentation of facts from the future does make me lean somewhat away from scepticism. 

I'm reminded of a critic of Asimov's I came across, who said something to the effect that Asimov is so direct in his storytelling that there's not too much left to interpretation. Of course, that's not to say there's not a lot one could read in, that's the fun part of reading anything after all, one brings oneself in.. Anyway, Varghese's writing feels a little like that. And just in the same way, while things are put forward rather simply, that is not to say there is not a lot going on that is only revealed a little bit at a time.

Descriptions of death are almost detached. Which does nothing to absorb the shock.

I'm rather looking forward to finding out more. And also to taking my time over it :).

Duna bella!

Where does one even start :). It has definitely been quite the busy month! But I'm probably saying that because we've just come back from an amazing half a week in Budapest :D. What a fun getaway, and much needed!

So, every year towards the end of autumn I think, we must book a holiday of some sort for October or November. Break up the dreary early winter months where the darkness creeps, then rushes on. Because without that break, it feels like a hard old slog to get all the way to Christmas. Anyhow, this year we actually did it!

It was the first time for either of us in Hungary, so we didn't necessarily know what to expect, however, having seen the city in films and tv and such, we did know there was a lot to like, particularly as we do rather like just ambling along enjoying interesting buildings, food and the occasional foray into a museum or two :). Well, Budapest delivered on all fronts!

We had pretty nice weather for the most part. It was noticeably warmer than in Norway, and more importantly, with more hours of morning light! On the flip side, with the massive Danube (locally known as the Duna) flowing through the middle though, there was definitely a lot of wind.

Having acquired a handy city pass that provided unlimited access to public transport as well as free entry to many of the main attractions, we had no trouble getting out of the weather when things did get a bit too fresh :).

One thing that struck me soon was how much variety there seemed to be in the buildings, and oh yes, so much re-building, even in the historic castle district. As we spent more time looking around though, it became clear that at least one of the reasons was the number of times the city (or cities rather) have been demolished and rebuilt, for one reason or another.

Another thing that started dawning on me as we spent some time in some of the museums and galleries was that the history of Buda and Pest don't necessarily reflect the history of Hungary as we know it today. Being in the middle of Europe has certainly taken its toll!

All in all though, it was lovely to be able to meander around for as long as we wanted. Stop when we wanted. Enjoy some great food (the famous Hungarian goulash soup of course, but special mention to the awesome street-stall-sourced chimney cake :D). And in the process get to know a little bit about a part of the world we were not really that familiar with. An excellent holiday was had :). 

As a bonus, all the travelling worked out more perfectly than any trip in recent memory :P.

Now that we've been back for a couple of days though, it's time to get used to the cold. Luckily, the proper freeze has stayed away at least long enough for me to get the tires switched today :). But it had been a somewhat unseasonably warm early half of the month. Not quite record highs, but not far off. I guess we'll have to see how the rest of the winter pans out. Although now that the car's properly shod, I can hardly wait for the snow to arrive :P.

In an unrelated attempt to make the early part of winter more enjoyable, finally started running on a regular basis! It's only been a month, and short distances, but by the latest run I was no longer struggling to just keep a steady pace to the end :). Let's hope we can keep that up.

On the books front there's been actually almost more that I can immediately remember! Abaddon's Gate feels like a very long time ago :). The most clear sense I have of it though was one of slight disappointment :/. Or maybe disappointment isn't quite the right word... mild discomfort maybe?

The scope of the story definitely takes a huge step outwards. Boldly going where no human has ever gone before and all that. One of the things I'd been rather enjoying in the previous books though, was the comfortable interplay between the four core characters. But there seemed to almost be focus pulled away to others. Which did happen in the second book, but not to the extent where Holden and co seemed to almost be side lined.

(Btw, I might be disappointed, but after three books, this feels like a series that is going to keep it's almost soap opera style main characters alive for the long haul. I feel somewhat justified in thinking that because they went through the trouble of writing out origin stories for the TV series tie-in ◔_◔.)

Nevertheless, it was still overall a fun read. But somehow I didn't feel like committing to more Expanse just then. There was also the book club book to read, and this time it was my recommendation! Although I honestly didn't know what to expect. I'd picked the books by the somewhat vague criteria that they needed to be fantasy, reasonably recent, like within the last couple of years, and not part of a series. I also decided to restrict myself to stuff available in the local library :).

The result, once the voting happened, was Blood Over Bright Haven. And I'm not quite sure what to think of it :|. I suppose it doesn't help that, as I said, I didn't know what to expect. I'd never read anything by the author before, and Goodreads blurbs only tell you so much.

To break it down a bit, I think there were aspects of the writing that I really enjoyed. Particularly the ability to articulate emotions. I mean, the beauty of the horrors of blight, I found breath taking! There's also very obviously a clear-eyed approach to violence and exploitation. But at the end of the day the ending's not really an ending, is it? Oddly enough, I found myself thinking of Rang De Basanti as I finished reading the book. Hmm. I wonder how the discussion will go...

Then, not just to sort of get some mental distance from both The Expanse and Tiran, I decided to act on a thought I'd had some months ago. Wondering how Asimov would read now. Happily, I have all the Robots and Foundation series books sitting on the book shelf behind me, so I just picked up The Caves of Steel as we packed lightly for Budapest.

You can kinda tell that this was written three quarters of a century ago :|. In some ways I'm finding it charming, but in other ways it's really odd! I think my abiding feeling of the Foundation universe is rather heavily influenced by Prelude to Foundation, Forward the Foundation and Foundation and Earth. In one way the beginning and the end of the Foundation arc, they are also the last books written. And I have a feeling that the last time I read the series, I read them in publication order.

The sense I was left with was that of a story years in the making. A story-teller closing the grand circle, something of the weight of history telling in the process. However, tCoS reads like a young story! Brimming with nervous energy, or so it feels to me. I'm curious to see how the feeling evolves with the books written across more than five decades.

The other thing I'm noticing, which is more of a remembering than a surprise really, is how political Asimov's plots are! Definitely looking forward to more. The question, as always, is which order to read them all in :).