I feel like saying it's been an odd summer so far. But actually, I don't think it has, really. This is probably a bit more like what summers should be. Some sun, some rain. A few days so bright and sunny that life seems to be almost too good to be true. And then days of overcast skies and the occasional dump of water :). I remember my first couple of full summers living in this apartment, getting really tired of the grass just growing and growing and growing :D. Takes both sun and rain, doesn't it?
It has been pretty warm though. Hitting nearly 30°C on a few occasions. So much so that most of the cycling over the last month has been done after 6 pm, or before 11 am :). Yes, there has indeed been some amount of cycling! After three years of practically being in hibernation, my bike's finally getting to stretch its legs a bit :D. In fact, I've already done more distance this year than in any of the four previous years since I bought this bike!
A lot of it has just been re-visiting some old favourite routes. Taking it easy, just enjoying the views and the feeling of the kilometres just sliding by. Well, as much as the Norwegian landscape allows... But the climbs have been feeling progressively less mountainous. Which feels great!!
On the book front, I was definitely happy to be done with the thrillers! In what may have been a surprising choice, after finishing off The Thirst (with overall positive feelings I must say, the grimness did abate somewhat.. or maybe I just eventually got used to it), I decided to continue with Nesbø. Just a different genre.
A couple of years ago, when I was at the peak of my enthusiasm to learn Norwegian, I decided to buy a few second hand books from a jumble sale. All in Norwegian. All by Jo Nesbø. I'd been told his language was not only quite modern, but also very much of the Oslo dialect and thus most easy for those of us taught by denizens of this region. Most of the books were his usual Harry Hole thrillers, but there was one slim collection of short stories.
I'd figured short stories were probably the easiest thing to start with, but then had given up when even that had seemed a bit too much for my nascent grip of the language :). Fast forward to now and either the passage of time or the new workplace and its higher proportion of Norwegian use, or both, have made Norwegian a lot more accessible. So I thought why not give it another go!
Karusellmusikk was quite a cool experience! Yes, I didn't understand every single word, but enough to gather not only the content, but also a feeling for the stories. And such variety! I guess that's one thing with short stories. One isn't bound by a long arc. Just brief explorations or explosions. Sometimes mere musings, incomplete, but no less enjoyable for being unfinished, so to speak.
Apparently there's an album to accompany the book. Would I want to get it to listen to? Doubt it to be honest :). Why spoil the experience? Speaking of songs to go with stories, I decided to follow up one collection of short stories with another. And it so happens, that Fragile Things, in fact, has a bunch of stories, or poems, that were written to go with songs, or entire albums in some cases!
As with any Neil Gaiman creation, it's a wild and wonderful ride :). But I've been thinking lately... You see, it's been some time since I read anything particularly long by him. (Although, now that I've looked through my Goodreads history, turns out I've read quite a lot of stuff by him in the last few years {aside from the Malazan obsession, of course} that's longer than short stories :D. So maybe I should rethink this a bit.) American Gods or Neverwhere or Anansi Boys... or The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I've been thinking about reading Good Omens again, but my copy is still in New York...
I guess what I'm getting at is maybe this. Since the last time I read those books, I feel I've read and heard a lot more of the man himself than his creations. Read a fair bit of his non-fiction. And while I am sure I know nothing of what Neil Gaiman the person is actually like in real real life, I feel I have a much more fleshed out image of who he is in his non-fictional (aka real) words. And somehow, this seems to trip me up a bit when I then end up reading his fictional words.
Happily lost in some story, I suddenly realize that I'm automatically assuming the protagonist is Neil himself. That I've been subconsciously projecting much of what I think of the author onto the character. There's even a whole bunch of the stories where I imagine the protagonist looking a bit like Dream of the Endless =))). It's a sort of pocket-sized madness :D. But here's the thing right, isn't the protagonist always at least a little bit in the image of the author? I suppose this is more true of some stories than others.
Regardless, I've been enjoying myself immensely :).
Which I suppose is something that could also be said of the summer at large :). Yes, it's different. Yes, there is much uncertainty in the world. Yes, we can't go see family for who knows how long, and I miss them. But at the same time, it makes one realize that the present is all we really have. And even that is really not something to be taken for granted. Because of course, one day, we wont. But while we do, it is important to appreciate and enjoy it. In whatever way works for each day.
It would be remiss of me to not mention the somewhat seismic news of Liverpool finally, finally, winning the Premier League :). I honestly think there was no part of me that was completely and utterly sure that they would win it till I got woken up in the middle of the night last Thursday by a friend's messages :). I don't call that a lack of faith. It was more an attempt to not project pressure :D. But now that they are Champions of Europe, the World and England, I can honestly say, this has to be the best time to be a Liverpool fan since I started following them in 2005 \:D/. Long may this continue.
