Not all those who wander are lost

Right! So the "real" August post then :). Life has taken its usual twists and turns and I find myself in a rather happy state of mind :). A notable contributor I'd say has been the cycling! Yes, the summer keeps on giving when it comes to nice enough weather for cycling and enough opportunities to explore. And not just close to home!

For the last couple of weeks we've been in the UK and it has been amazing! Mostly seeing family and spending more than just a short weekend together. Being able to relax and just enjoy hanging out. I've definitely missed this. I feel like it's probably been as far back as February and the trip to India since I last had this feeling of being at peace.

Which is not to say the intervening months have not had their highlights, but there you have it. I just needed to get away and do not too much :).

Bath is a lovely city, I find. From the natural surroundings, with the rolling lush green hills on all sides, to the lovely Avon flowing languidly though, the old stone buildings and general ebb and flow of life. Since my very first visit here back in 2015, there's something about this city that has captivated me :).

As a first, this time we managed to get some cycling in here too! Trips to Bristol, Wells and Lacock in the last two weekends meant I'm now quite a lot more familiar with narrow roads, lovely green cycleways and some stretches of rather busy roads :). The weather has been amazing too! Meaning that it's either been beautifully sunny, or has rained just after we've managed to find appropriate shelter ;).

Another highlight has been the tour of Bath Abbey! With its rich layered history and spectacular architecture and detail both inside and outside, it was well worth the time spent. To be fair Wells Cathedral was also pretty cool, as was Lacock Abbey (the birthplace of photography, no less).

In between the trips and walks and amazing food at home and beyond, I've also spent some time submerged in the phenomenon that is The Lord of the Rings. Genuinely, in the two decades since I first read it, I've read so much other fantasy, and of such variety, that I think I'd rather forgotten the proper epic nature of Tolkien's masterpiece!

I managed to find a proper classic volume from the library with beautiful illustrations, but also the voluminous extras (forewords, appendices, index, the works). And having prepared myself appropriately by reading The Unfinished Tales, The Silmarillion and The Hobbit recently, I am enjoying myself immensely!

The level of depth hinted at is probably lost otherwise! There are so many references to the larger backstory! Such a deep tapestry of myth and legend that forms a constant backdrop. I recall the feeling from my first time reading LoTR that this was a heavy read. There was almost too much detail in each page. Now I see more clearly just how much there really is :).

I'm closing in on the end of The Fellowship of the Ring and have also enjoyed the slow and almost imperceptible evolution of tone from the beginning of the story, which almost picks up where The Hobbit left off with its lightheartedness, to the altogether more somber timbre now, as the Fellowship leaves Lorien, reminiscent of The Unfinished Tales.

Occasionally I also lose myself in the Appendices and am glad that I more or less remember much of what is shared in The Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion. The many discreet (and not so discreet) clues implying that this whole story is structured as an account set down by hobbits is a source of constant delight :).

There's a long way to go with the book still. There's also still a few days to go before we head home, so I'm definitely going to enjoy this holiday for all that it's worth :).

There's also the matter of the round number :). A part of me is quite content that it's just another number. But other parts are not convinced. I'm sure some or other shall be variously let down, relieved, happy, a bit morose... Who knows? But yes, life moves ever onwards and it's best to enjoy what one can of each day. In the mean time, there's (probably) cake :D.

PS. SunGod. Most highly recommended!!

Angus, like the cattle

So! Demon Copperhead, what can one say about it? First of all, for the first time in ages I've decided to deviate from my usual end of month wrap up to roll in my feelings about any books I might have read in the mean time. And mainly that's because of the sort of whirlpool of emotions this book has left me with.

As a suggestion from the book club, I'm more or less used to not knowing what to expect from books these days. Gone are the days of just three or four of us and knowing each others' reading preferences more or less inside out. With membership pushing double digits, surprises are more likely.

The first surprise, when I went looking for the book, was that author Barbara Kingsolver has quite the back catalogue. Yet I'd never even heard of her. I suppose her general choice of material is pretty far out of my usual comfort zone. But what writing! Powerful would be an understatement.

The whole thing with the opioid crisis in the US is obviously something one hears about, in bits and pieces, but this was eye opening! And not just that, but so much that seems to be such a deep undercurrent of life and definitely politics in small town America is presented in a way I'd never really experienced before. With such compassion.

The magic of the book for me, was that the whole things is narrated through such a lovable voice! Demon is incredibly believable, even for someone like me that's never gone through more or less anything that he's put through in the story. It's a hard trick that, making such an imperfect protagonist feel so worthy of sympathy.

I have to say, one of the reasons I felt I had to write this down right away was how much of a struggle the book felt for the last 150 odd pages before the final few chapters. Not just because bad things were happening, but how hard it was to take because of how invested I was in Demon. And the total contrast of that ending!

What can I say? I'm a sucker for happy endings. The proverbial ride off into the sunset. The sense of catharsis, the feeling that there is indeed such a things as redemption... That, and the superheroes :).

Reflections on two wheels

It's been a nice July :). For the first time in a while I can look back and say that I've made good use of whatever bits of nice weather we've had. And even when we haven't had nice weather, we've made the most of it :). I think a general sense of peace and quiet has definitely helped!

For one thing, we've definitely managed to go cycling a fair bit. Whenever the weather's been a bit clear. And on occasion hoping that the weather would be clear and then being caught out :D. But it's all been good fun!

I did manage to cycle in to work to Oslo a couple of more times. One of the times it decided to rain on me on the way back, so I caught a train from a very conveniently located station along the way :). The other time it rained, but then decided to clear up for a gloriously sunny evening of leisurely cycling! So yeah, ups and downs, but generally all good :).

While the southern bits of Europe and larger parts of the world seems stuck with excessively hot and dry weather, this part of the world seems to be stuck with rather more wet and cooler weather. And obviously, I'd much rather have it this way. The flowers in the garden are quite happy about the situation too!

Fruit plucking season is also well underway. In fact, it feels like things have come a bit early this year. Usually the strawberries, raspberries, cherries and other such aren't really ripe till schools are back in session which means it's the kids that manage to get everything next to the streets and paths, but this time there's loads to go around while most people are still away on holiday :).

I guess in more ways than one I've rather enjoyed a slower tempo of life. Work's certainly been busy, not least because so many people being away means whatever surprises come around land up on your desk. But I've still been enjoying having way more headspace. Time to really get into things.

I was going to then write "get things done", but I've realized I'm not very good at that. Or maybe it's more a question of what does it really mean to get something done. When is anything really fully done anyway? Maybe it's important to appreciate taking just a few steps forward, however few.

In a world where so many things feel too big, too crazy, too complicated, too wild, too strange or just plain too much for a single person to be able to deal with, let alone "get it all done", it feels best to try and do the best one can. It's heartening to see that this is not a tone that's altogether alien in the world today. There's probably just not enough of it.

Speaking of, came across an article about Charlie Mackesy recently. The name sounded vaguely familiar. The contents of the article felt even more so. And then I realized, P got given the book earlier this year as a birthday present!

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is an excellent reminder of how much good there is in the world. That kindness matters. That caring for oneself doesn't have to come at the cost of caring for another, or vice-versa. It's the sort of book that feels like a refuge in times of self-doubt, struggling to understand the world around, or just plain feeling down. I mean, it doesn't have to feel like the end of the world before we ask for help right? It's also very funny :). The artwork is something I found myself getting lost in. In the best possible way.

I've also never known cake could mean so many things, while still just being cake :).

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Also read some other books this month :). One of which was the rather thought provoking Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube. The copy I'd ordered did, finally, arrive, and I managed to read it in a day or so to be able to participate in the the rather engaged book club discussion that followed.

There's a sense in which it also deals with the sense of self I guess? People are so different right? And even with our many languages, spoken and otherwise, communication is at best scratching at the surface of who you are and how that translates to me. With innumerable yous and constantly evolving mes...

It was also a lot of fun to see how people reacted to the occasional almost literal translations of (northern-) Norwegian expressions into English. Those that knew enough of Norwegian mostly found it awesome, while others were left somewhat bewildered :).

Then I got to the end of The Hobbit, not too surprised about how many of the details of the story had been badly mangled by the films. The feel of it, obviously, is very different from the other Tolkien I've read recently, but having the broader arc of the story of Middle Earth fresh in my mind made the reading all the more interesting.

I think I'll get into The Lord of the Rings in not too long. Just not looking forward to my 2002 Hollywood tie-in paperback copy, so decided to wait for whoever's got the copy from the library to return it :D.

Speaking of library books, the Monstress books I'd requested from other libraries arrived, and I read them. Is there a lot more I can say about that? Not sure. I think I'll certainly try and read the rest of the volumes whenever they do get published. I'm still very taken with the visual style, so there's that :).

Next up was this month's book club book! Loki was one of my suggestions. A take on Norse myths, and one I was keen to compare and contrast with Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology. To say there was a contrast would be quite the understatement :). 

I think fundamentally the two books set out to be very different things. Gaiman was writing his version of the known and familiar Norse myths of the Edda. In his particular style, but mainly trying to stay close to the known versions. There didn't seem to be (as far as I can remember from reading it five years ago) any particular point of view or social/political commentary he was trying to get across.

Burgess on the other hand seems to be particularly keen on taking the structure of said myths, twisting hard and building his own narrative presented through the highly entertaining if sometimes strained voice of Loki. Not being particularly familiar with all of the myths themselves, it's impossible for me to tell where Burgess completely deviates from any previously known versions of the stories, where he adds new layers to the known or where he merely sheds light on the not so well known.

The last section of the book is particularly transparent, I felt, in projecting the author's views on the state of the world today. Which of course is very much his prerogative, rightly so. The mood definitely changes over the course of the book, from the playful and almost carefree to progressively darker and eventually downright horrific. Which of course is well in keeping with the state we find Loki himself in. What can I say? I'm really looking forward to the discussion on this one :).

Then I decided it would be a good time to re-read something I hadn't read in more than a decade. Turbulence by Samit Basu, a Bengali author who I absolutely loved because of his GameWorld Trilogy. Turns out he's written a sequel, and I ended up being presented a copy of said sequel for Christmas. Seeing how I didn't really remember much of the story from the first book, it seemed sensible to brush up.

Not sure what to think of it. I actually had to look up my post from when I read it the last time :P. Seems like I did really enjoy the generally utterly crazy, headlong plunge into the author's somewhat chaotic imagination :). Don't think I enjoyed it as much this time around. And the ending still felt just as bizarre as it did back then. I've been sort of avoiding thinking about when I should get to the sequel :P.

At which point I decided to delve into the enchanting world of The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, to my great joy :). I now find myself not particularly fussed about picking up another book for the time being. There's a sense of interregnum. Isn't that the word? An in-between. A pause. 

A bunch of the books I know I'd like to read are waiting on the books themselves to be returned or in other cases perhaps for librarians to return from holidays :). The summer holidays are over and the buzz of life will get louder. I'm not sure I'm ready for this calm to be over and life to turn the volume back up to eleven...

When it is and it does, I'll try to hold on to the relative tranquillity of the many shapes and colours of summer clouds reflected on lakes and fjords as I cycled by :).

Summer vibes

I'd never have thought I'd be genuinely happy that it's finally started raining in the summer here in Norway! Usually it just rains anyway, and I spend more time wishing for nice sunny days. It's been a very dry spring and early summer though, so when the rain finally came a week or two ago, it was very welcome. Not least so that the danger of forest fires abated a bit. Crazy how things have evolved just in the last few years.

In some ways the rain came at a bit of a bad time, just as I was finally recovering fully from the after effects of the North Sea cycle trip :P. In the meantime we'd been rather enjoying the sunny days with walks whenever we could. Since then though, I've even been running a couple of times! It doesn't sound like a big deal, but sure feels like it. Let's see how long I can keep at it.

Now that we've slowly started cycling again, it feel a bit strange that the coastal trip was only a month and a half ago! Feels like a lifetime away somehow... I suppose there's been a bit of other travel in the meantime. I finally managed to visit Stockholm in nice weather for a change! Even made time to explore a little bit of the city! 

The impression from my previous visits were only further strengthened, that this is by far the biggest of the Nordic capitals, with a very distinct feel from Oslo or Helsinki. (I really should go back to Copenhagen and actually spend some time walking around one of these days.) I was left wondering if I'd have felt the differences as keenly ten years ago before I'd settled into life in Norway.

There was also the whirlwind weekend trip to the UK to see my then less than month old niece!! Very excited about being an uncle! Less excited about how thoroughly upside down a child turns life for the adults in the immediate vicinity :D.

As for the rest of the time, I've been reading. Quite a lot again actually! I suppose being back to the more direct narrative of The Silmarillion made a difference. But then I delved into a couple of series that rather sucked me in, for very different reasons.

But first some impressions on Tolkien again. It's been a long time since I read The Silmarillion the last time, but it's probably been even longer since I've last read The Lord of the Rings. So I found it a bit odd that remembered so much less of the details. I'd gathered a fair bit of background on some of the stretches of the "history" from Unfinished Tales, but there was so much depth that I'd just completely forgotten. Or maybe never really fully got into on previous readings.

Is it an age thing? Or just that I'm a different person in many ways I suppose. Or maybe it's just that over time I've just become more interested in the world behind the story than I perhaps was a couple of decades ago :). I've actually started reading The Hobbit recently, and am quite enjoying the very different flavour from the previous two books :).

In between, first there were the first three books of the Thursday Murder Club series! The first one was a unanimous choice for the book club, and what a fun read it was! Probably one of the most outright fun and enjoyable reads I've had in ages! I've of course only really seen Richard Osman on Pointless. Which I've generally found pretty pointless most of the time. But what an awesome sense of humour he hides behind that rather restrained factual exterior :).

I think one of the things I really enjoyed was that the humour was threaded within a beautifully layered narrative. The characters seemed likeable, mostly. They definitely felt real. And it was very different from your run of the mill spy-murder-mystery-thriller-emotionally-mature-comedy. Well, maybe there's no such thing. It probably helped that I'm now more familiar with the British sense of humour that I was some years ago :).

Anyway, naturally, I had to read the next two instalments :). They were generally fun, but didn't feel nearly as fun as the first one, sadly. But I suppose that may well be because the first one had the novelty of being the first one :). Tautological, I know, but I hope you know what I mean...

Then at some point in the last month, on one of the now regular trips to the library, I decided to pick up and read the first volume of Monstress. As with these things, I decided not to go all in at once. But I had been rather struck by the distinctive style of the art and the story-telling. Part gothic horror, part steampunk, very feminist, and I mean that in the most positive way, there was a wild beauty to the whole thing.

So once I was done with the Thursday Murder Club and the latest book club book didn't seem forthcoming from Adlibris, (Yes, sadly had to resort to actually buying a book as not a single public/school/university library in the whole country seems to have a copy of Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube.) I decided to get the remaining four volumes of Monstress from the library.

I have to admit, between the fourth and fifth volumes I got a bit lost. Maybe it was the rushed reading during commutes, maybe my attention was not fully there. Either way, it was with something of a shock that I realized that there are in fact more than five volumes :|. How did I miss that?!

So now I'm kinda stuck waiting for not only the next two volumes to arrive from other libraries, but for the (currently) latest volume to be published later this year, and then for one of the libraries to acquire it :|. There's also of course the latest volume of the TMC that's supposed to come out later this year, but I'm less impatient about that. Osman is much easier to read with gaps I feel :).

In the meantime it's onwards with The Hobbit and hoping for the Ice Cube to arrive so I can read it before the book club meeting next Tuesday. Yeah, doesn't seem very likely :P.

In the parallel universe outside of novels, graphic and otherwise, the annual summer hibernation is imminent. The world is getting quieter, people are beginning to disappear. Schools are shut, public transport cut and everywhere the signs of hatches being battened down for the great summer vanishing act.

After ten years, I still find it genuinely bizarre :). I mean, I get it. The schools are off, the kids have to be entertained without access to any childcare and it's the best time to head off all together for a nice family holiday. But why leave? It's some of the best weeks of the year to be in Norway. Of course, not everyone leaves Norway altogether, many people just head off to their cabins and such, so there's that.

Anyhow, so then there was the annual work summer party before people disappear, and this year it was a beach barbecue. I'm not entirely sure why, but I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to cycle the thirty odd kilometres to work in the morning (for the first time since I started working in Oslo), to then cycle another twenty k to the beach after work, and finally the last fifteen back home afterwards, including a 140m climb up from sea level :|.

Turned out quite fun actually! Except maybe the final climb, that wasn't much fun. The cycle into work in the relatively early morning cool breeze was particularly awesome! It was kinda cool to see the sheer numbers of people cycling into Oslo to work. Even though I imagine this is significantly lower traffic than it would be outside of holiday period. I might even do that a few more times before the summer holidays are over and the throngs return :P.

I am quite looking forward to a somewhat quieter month at work. Well, at least I'm hoping for one.