Oh for the love of lilacs!

This month seems to have gone by quite fast in a way. Yet, looking back, April feels like a very long way away! Funny how time moves, fast yet slow, or the other way around... Sometimes it even hides! Like the trip to Bergen I'd almost forgotten actually happened in May!

It was a long weekend, and circumstances conspired to find me on the cross country train passing the higher reaches of central Norway still shrouded in snow. It was a little surreal seeing that much snow given how early it all disappeared from around us. But then again, this is the part of Norway where people go to ski in the summer, so :).

Bergen itself was a mix of sunshine and not, but counter to reputation, it didn't actually rain on us at any point :D. Much of the weekend was spent taking relaxed walks around the centre and sometimes a bit farther afield. Eventually though it was time to take another train back. 

Unlike the train over, and despite the lengthening days, a fair bit of the return trip was spent in the dark. With me pondering how much difference a few hours can make, turning spectacular valleys and hillsides into blurs in shades of grey and black.

May being what it is in Norway, it was pretty much weekend after weekend of happenings. After Bergen, it was time for this year's Holmenkollstafetten! More or less as expected a couple of people had to drop out somewhat late in the game, but we still had the most runners since we started participating with Kezzler, and not that it matters too much, also the best time! :D

It's always fun watching Oslo transform into a bustling, almost unrecognizable version of itself for this event every year :). It had a bit of extra help this year with the Norwegian equivalent of the FA Cup being held the same evening! There was a bit of rain in the air, but all in all, a fun day (and we didn't actually get wet, which is always a plus :D).

Then the weekend after was the Norwegian National Day! We did what we usually do these days, watching the local school band and parade. Then did what we don't usually have to do, hide from the rain at various friends. This didn't stop us from enjoying the obligatory 17th of May barbeque though :).

So yeah, there's been a fair bit going on. But through it all the regular running is ongoing, and now that the temperatures have taken an upward turn, cycling has started again! This time I'm trying to take it easy and ramp up slowly. Recovery seems to take longer and longer as the years go by, so overdoing it does have rather more significant consequences :/.

And that's more or less it actually. Weirdly enough, haven't really managed to get much reading done. Not necessarily because I've been oh so busy or whatever. It's just that I've had a really hard time getting myself to pick up the book club book.

Babel is not a bad read or anything. A little full of itself maybe. Some of the author's underlying messaging bleeding through a bit too overtly some times. But somehow after getting through about a quarter or so I just can't be bothered. All in all I think I'm just not in the mood for it to be honest :/. And a half read Asimov doesn't seem like the most exciting alternative either.

Mainly I'm waiting for Platform Decay to land. I've managed to get the library to order a copy, but I guess it'll take as long as it takes. Hopefully not too long. In the mean time, hopefully I'll keep myself occupied with more hours outdoors, smelling the lilacs that have come out just about everywhere around here :).

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!

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 :).