Friday 30 November 2018

Echoes of eternity

Winter in Kolkata. It's a rather odd, albeit fully expected, time travel back half a year into the Norwegian summer :). With one very important difference: ceiling fans :D. It's probably actually a bit warmer here in the middle of the day than the warmest days last summer back in Asker, but doesn't feel nearly as hot with the good old fan blades making happy localised breezes.


To be fair I'm also quickly getting used to the temperature, the first day feeling the warmest, the transition from -5 to +25 a bit of a shock that's worn off since. I wonder what it'll feel like the other way though... I seem to have in general gotten quite used to living in relatively stable weather for longer periods of time. Not that Norway is anyone's idea of stable weather :). What I mean is that gone are the days of regularly experiencing 20 or more degrees Centigrade differences in temperature in a day as I travelled around the world every few weeks. Can't say I miss it :D.


On other fronts, the UK visa arrived, and we made prompt use of it to go travelling :). I forget how Oslo isn't really a big city. I mean, London, now that is a big city. I was almost overwhelmed by the number of people on the streets! I must really be getting used to life in Norway :). So it's a good thing then that all signs point to us staying put for the foreseeable future.


Seems like the nice long holiday is going to be over before too long. There still another month before that though, so figured we'd make the most of the free time. I've gotten quite used to being able to just plan holidays :). No asking for holidays, checking if there's enough days left and all that. On the other hand, a day job is kinda handy :).


I suppose a downside of a full time job would be the amount of time one has to read books :D. I managed to race through the Sin City series pretty quickly, all seven books! I think in the end the first one, The Hard Goodbye, remained my favourite. Then there was Stephen Fry's Mythos. The reason I got on to that was because someone at book club thought it would be a nice follow up to Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology that we'd read earlier in the year. I have to say the experience was interesting, but very different.


I've watched Fry host QI quite a bit over the years and I couldn't help but read most of the book with his voice playing in my head :). I've never read anything else by him before, so I can't say if it's a usual thing in all his books, but I had a distinct feeling that reading the book was pretty much like having a conversation with him. A rather one-sided one, but still :).


I am definitely a fan of myths, Indian, Green, Viking, Middle Earth, Westeros, you name it :). But if I were to compare Gaiman's Norse tales with Fry's Greek ones, the latter has the author much more front and centre in the narrative. There are also a lot more asides and thoughts and questions that interject between the stories themselves. I'm still not quite certain how I feel about that. 


On the one hand, it's quite nice to have a bit of a think about things. But in general I like to do that at my own pace rather than be prompted (too) often. I think maybe that's the thing that put me off just a little bit. Each story teller has his or her own style and it's wrong to say any one is better than another. I suppose I can only say that I'd rather be left to stop and think about things as and when I'd like to :). Regardless, I think I'll definitely try and find a copy of Heroes some time soon.


In the mean time, there's Deadhouse Gates. The more I read the Malazan books the more hooked I get! Having started reading a day or so before travelling here, I'm already more that half way through the 800 plus pages! And as I read, a new mythology is slowly taking shape. One of vast expanses of time and sharp, sometimes gracious, sometimes bitter tastes of mortality. Luckily, I did bring along the next book in the series, just in case :D.


It's been a nice quite couple of days here so far :). Good food, lots of sleep, reading and chatting. Adda as the Bengalis would call it. It's good to be back. But in a case of strangely reversed logic, happy and comfortable as I feel being here, home feels like in the cold white winter of Norway :). Reminds me of something from Garden State. Such is life I suppose, echoes of memories that whisper through thoughts and feelings, and in doing so make new memories. Thus it continues...

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