Posted by Sari
It has been quite some time since I last updated book info, but it has been really hectick. You’d be surprised how much stuff there is to do when an office moves, especially as we at the university are not the bestest people with chain of command and clearly defined areas of responsibility. But I flatter myself that the whole thing went relatively painlessly. Now I have still to get some furniture and office supplies, carpenters to fix some dividers and get the few still remaining boxes collected.
This of course means I have not been concentrating on my PhD with all my admittedly feeble faculties, but I have managed to keep up with pleasure reading:
1) Johanna Sinisalo’s Sankarit (The Heroes) relocates the familiar stories of Kalevala into modern world. Väinämöinen and Joukahainen become rock/pop-stars, Lemminkäinen a decathlete, Sampo a computer algorithm and so on. I have to say this was a pleasant surprise. I liked her first, the Finlandia-winner which has now been published in UK and States fine, but I felt it was a was perhaps not as rounded and engaging as it could have been. Sankarit, like its ur-text is also necessarily episodic – especially the Kullervo – part seems a bit detached from the whole – but the book works even so. The modern analogues are very cleverly connected with their mythic counterparts but are at the same time also engaging characters at their own right. There is also enough of intertextuality and changes of style to satisfy any reader response critic’s little heart and shifting the interpretation a bit opens new levels in the novel (No, I was not clever enough to spot that without author’s comments, but if you keept that in mind the novel really unlocks itself). But most of all, Sankarit is written with gorgeous Finnish which has just enough feel of the alliterative trochee measure to remind reader of Kalevala without making the story too heavy to read. It is a clever, beautiful and engaging novel. (And the necessary disclaimer/brag is that Johanna is one of our tribe – fandom that is – so I might be biased. But honestly, it just is a very good book).
2) Gary Sheffield: Somme. This was a concise no-nonsense chronological and fairly balanced review of the battle of the Somme concentrating on the English sector. Only sometimes does it feel that Sheffield might be guilty of attacking a straw-man, my gut feeling is that at least in scholarly world his view of the battle is nearer to the concensus view than Clark’s donkeyism.
3) Julia Quinn: The Duke and I, The Viscount who loved me, An Offer from a Gentleman, Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, To Sir Philip with Love. Yes, I read regency romances, so sue me. These are fluff that one reads through in few hours – I managed two in one night – but I just never get bored with Cinderella-stories, and Quinn writes such nice ones.
4) Dan Brown: DaVinci Code. I should have known better after hearing a scatching review from a friend. But I like murder mysteries, I like cryptology and I like secret societies so of course I had to give this a go. Oh, what a disapointment. It begins well enough with an intriguing message delivered by a corpse, but degenerates the book degenrates too soon into a brainless mush. The anagrams and codes are so simple that anyone who has spent time with crosswords or simple histories of cryptology can figure them out before the alledged experts do and the plot turns out to be so predictable it makes your head ache. Of course it helps if you have been exposed to that glorious nonsense described in “Holy Blood and Holy Grail”, which lies at the heart of the novel. It is not that I object to the idea of an expunged feminine interpretation of Christianity – it is an intriguing idea, but the way Holy Blood and Holy Grail and DaVinci Code explain the whole thing is just silly. Life of Brian has more merit as a possible reinterpretation than this. If codes and secret societies are your thing read the Illuminatus-thrilogy, Foucault’s Pendulum and Chryptonomicon and give this a pass.
5) Justine Hardy: Bollywood Boy. I don’t really know what this book is, it is kind of like travel book, kind of like fiction, kind of like a reportage. It is however the story of the author’s efforts to understand the Indian popular cinema through its latest heartthrob Hritrik Roshan. It is clever, funny and entertaining, especially if you are into indian cinema (ahem…), but oddly unsatisfying in the end.
That, I think is it for now. Now back to football.
Sari
Eating Muffins 
