Vegyesbolti csendes napok

Vegyesbolti csendes napok
by Erlend Loe
http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/1293507...
The title of this superb little tale should have remained and contained both the words Mixing Part. The title Lazy
Days is unjust, inappropriate, and mediocre for a book this good and honest to the core. From the opening pages
one can easily discern what I mean by this as the English translation for the German name of the town this family
chooses to spend their holiday in is nothing less than tantalizing as it contains a humorously bad translation.
Mixing Part Churches. It definitely set the tone for where the author meant to take me.
Having already raised a family of my own certainly helped me to understand and appreciate the humor and
seriousness of this brilliant work. All relationships are absurd, and the reasons we remain in them are often
questionable. Some call it love, others an arrangement. I have always termed all marriage alliances as deals no
matter how much love is involved. And often, throughout a long life, the deal changes. New negotiations must
incur and new agreements for any hope for the continued “love affair” to thrive. Often in these processes,
relationships become devoid of any passion, and often love exits to far-off reaches, and is nowhere in the vicinity
of where it was supposed to endure the coming tribulations. In other words, sometimes our lives do become
theater, and this is what this novel details.
I cannot imagine this book being enjoyed, or being of much use to anyone not already subjected to a long and
accomplished relationship. If deceit and cowardly behavior signifies what a marriage can be, then this bit of work
by Erlend Loe would be too much for those of us to bear. Plus it is not conventional in its style. It is basically all
dialogue and the reader must discern at all times who is actually doing the talking. There is little help given the
reader except for the supreme craft of Loe always present on the page. The questions and conversation he
employs keep the action steadily moving. Everything on the page is connected, and skillfully executed. I had
absolutely no trouble in following the dialogue. It was as if my wife and I were the ones who actually wrote this
employs keep the action steadily moving. Everything on the page is connected, and skillfully executed. I had
absolutely no trouble in following the dialogue. It was as if my wife and I were the ones who actually wrote this
book. It was if my own kids were present on the page. I like to think our family might too have been, at times,
interesting, and this book was actually one I should have written myself. But alas, I did not. It was Erlend Loe who
performed this miracle. It appears Loe has additionally much more to offer his reading public, as he has never
repeated anything in the three books translated into English that I have read thus far. He obviously borrows from
his life and his varied interests in it. It seems every question regarding his life he attempts to face honestly on the
page. And we are rewarded consistently by his efforts. The sharp and biting dialogue prepares us for the route his
wandering plot portrays. The results are magnificent in their clever and exquisite development.
Having been confused from time to time over which direction my own life should take, and wondering if I ever
could be the person I often imagined myself to be, it is refreshing to read of the same consternation the narrator
Telemann has for his own life. By reviewing his own sexual fantasies happening outside his marriage bed it helps
the reader to understand why Telemann’s wife Nina might actually stray herself from the so-called sanctity of
marriage. After his wife’s Nina’s gift of a popular cookbook to him, Telemann obsesses daily over the author
Nigella Lawson and her buxom body. Telemann extends his obsession to hating the art collector Charles Saatchi
who she was presently married to. The concept that Life is always theater is not difficult to accept when
confronted with it so aggressively as Loe is wont to do. By also involving the couple’s later attempt at viewing
together the great seven and a half hour Hungarian film Sátántangó by Béla Tarr the absurdness grows amidst the
reality of their creative adulteries. Having been myself subjected to this film twice already, the haunting soundtrack
composed by Mihály Víg, by default, as well saturates the Loe narrative for me. Sátántangó was based on one of
the great novels written by László Krasznahorkai, who is a regular collaborator in most Béla Tarr directed films.
Contrary to the mostly lukewarm reviews of Lazy Days, I found this title to be fresh and invigorating, and one of
the best reads of the year so far for me.|This is the kind of book an author only gets away with because he's
written some brilliant books before it. This novel is terrible.|[2.5] Mostly inane. May hold marginally more interest
for people who've been in decade-plus long relationships like the holidaying, constantly bickering central couple or for readers of Henry Miller (on whom it's some kind of odd satire). Otherwise not recommended reading, unless
possibly you're half asleep, drunk or suffering from a fever. As something to read when I was too tired or
distracted to concentrate on another chapter of Krasznahorkai, it had its uses. [In an unexpected moment of
synchronicity, the film of Satantango was mentioned late in the novella.]
It doesn't start too promisingly- here's the epigraph, equivalents of which must have been aired in a few rag mags:
Unfortunately a small dog was hurt while I was working on this book, but it received treatment fairly quickly and is
now doing well, all things considered.
One of the few jokes which I did like, being a heavy user of Google Translate, was calling the holiday destination
'Mixing Part Churches' (Garmisch Partenkirchen) - originating from raw machine-translated emails sent by the
owners of the self-catering house the family stay in. Everyone's using English as the lingua franca, but some more
competently than others.
Norwegian Erlend Loe has had two very good short novels translated to English, Naive. Super and Doppler.
Perhaps in his home country, Loe is so well-liked that anything he writes gets the green light, however flawed like Ian McEwan's frequently derided Saturday in Britain. The reviews from Norway aren't very good either, so this
may not be a case of humour failing to cross national boundaries. Anyhow, presumably this turkey was chosen for
translation because of its British references.
Nina & Bror Telemann, and their three children Heidi, Berthold and Sabine, are on holiday in Bavaria. She, a
teacher, loves modern German culture - guess who named the kids? He, I imagine to look like the bearded
ordinary dad from the current Sky TV Christmas ads, but inside he has the mind of Adrian Mole. He has two
obsessions: one, Nigella Lawson- two, The Theatre, and the play he hopes to write, which he goes on about with
all the intelligence and detailed knowledge of teenage Adrian on the subject of 'being an intellectual'. It's
impossible to believe this man is a director at a national theatre... British comic novelists can do a prattish writer
character far better than this one, and a hundred times less irritating.
After noticing the original title (Stille Dager i Mixing Part) a few times, I had a hunch, and searched Stille Dager i
After noticing the original title (Stille Dager i Mixing Part) a few times, I had a hunch, and searched Stille Dager i
Clichy. Bingo. I'd always meant to get round to the smutty 1970s film - which I'd assumed was French not Danishnor had I previously realised (as with so many films) that it was originally a book. I gather that Henry Miller's Quiet
Days in Clichy is about two male housemates who spend their days writing and fucking- the irony here is evidently
that Bror spends a lot of time just thinking about these things. Perhaps the conceit is that his life is as close as one
can get to Henry Miller whilst surrounded by the expectation of being that subtype of Norwegian husband
satirised in Lillyhammer, who's overdone the New Man thing to such an extent he's turned himself into an
oppressed 1950s housewife. Oh yeah, and stupid dumbing-down English translators again who for no good
reason stripped a layer of meaning by not titling this Quiet Days in Mixing Part.
Nigella hasn't bothered to say anything about this book AFAIK (in contrast with Scarlett Johansson, who set
lawyers on a French novelist who wrote a male character obsessed with her). Maybe seeing your dad as a Spitting
Image puppet and the subject of countless newspaper cartoons gives you a thick skin as far as satire and fame are
concerned. Though Bror's fantasy that Charles Saatchi was controlling and violent (his notion being to rescue her)
looks inadvertantly and bizarrely prescient after those photos a year or two ago.
I could see what kind of buffoon Bror was being painted as, but it just wasn't funny. Instead it was almost as
irritating as being stuck with the man himself and his repetitive crap jokes about Germans (you can't blame her for
being snarky with him one bit). Loe also lazily re-used a major dramatic device from Doppler. (view spoiler)[Whilst
Doppler gets a bump on the head before deciding to leave civilization, Bror has a minor stroke before lapsing into
actual erotomania re. Nigella (hide spoiler)]. Trying to write it like a play, with plenty of dialogue only scenes, was a
nice try at least, but speaker names and detailed stage directions and scenery descriptions would have enhanced
those chapters a good deal.|I need a new shelf called "Silly." Loe is talented, no doubt about it. A few laughs
escaped me in a surprise assault. But he indulges himself this time. I suspect he didn't have a subject, so he just
picked something--anything--so he could make a few bucks. Such is his reputation in Europe and Norway that he
could pull that off.
A playwright and his family vacation in Germany. The playwright, obsessed with Nigella Lawson since his wife gave
him one of her cookbooks for Christmas, does not like Germany and pretends to be working while his family tours.
In fact, he daydreams about Nigella in her "thin blue sweater" making him taste her concoctions. He's got the
whole ridiculous obsession thing down, humiliatingly familiar to us all as it is. He makes it funny, because his wife
seems to divine what he's up to and doesn't seem to mind awfully much. We can hear her sigh. She's just as happy
to have him out of her hair, what with his comments about Germany getting very annoying and sometimes
embarrassing.
For those brain-dead from a fast-paced working life who none-the-less feel guilty on vacation without having a
book on their chaise as they sit in the sun, this nothing-really-happens ridiculous train-of-thought by a Norwegian
nutcase is a good companion. It's funny enough to pick up and put down for a week without ever being really
challenged.
Loe's Doppler was a runaway bestseller in Norway and Europe. It established his reputation and is also small,
funny, and great vacation material. It might be a classic of existential angst in our time of plenty-for-some. It is
perfect for that overworked executive beginning to wonder if life in the fast lane is worth the effort.|We have so
much fun in Europe.
Ksakru, kdo to nezná, aspoň si to umí představit: dovolená rozloží rodinu, i když předtím vypadá všechno skoro v
pořádku. Obzvlášť, když se jede do Mixing Part, tedy do Ga-Pa, kde Nina vidí jen věci hodné obdivu a Bror jen
nácky. Neusnadňují jim to nijak zvlášť ani jejich tři děti, ani manželé Baderovi, u nichž si pronajali letní byt, a už
vůbec jim to neusnadňuje Nigella Lawson, na kterou Bror myslí tak intenzivně, až začne Nina myslet na pana
Badera. Ten je ovšem poblíž, zatímco Nigella je nedosažitelná - nebo ne? Koneckonců, jak dlouho trvá dostat se z
Mnichova do Londýna? A jak dlouho trvá, než se vám dovolená zbortí natolik, že se od sebe v rámci rekreačního
střediska rozstěhujete a dohodnete si střídavou péči o děti?
Byla by to v podstatě strašná blbina, kdyby Erlend Loe neuměl tak dobře psát. Fakta o Finsku se mi líbila víc, ale
tohle taky vůbec není zlé. Autor nějakým zázrakem dosáhl toho, že Tiché dny nejsou ani komedie, ani melodrama,
Byla by to v podstatě strašná blbina, kdyby Erlend Loe neuměl tak dobře psát. Fakta o Finsku se mi líbila víc, ale
tohle taky vůbec není zlé. Autor nějakým zázrakem dosáhl toho, že Tiché dny nejsou ani komedie, ani melodrama,
ani postmoderní samoúčelnost. Má dar dívat se na svět jaksi o kousek vedle, posunutě: jako když Bob Dylan zpívá
pod tónem a trochu to rve uši a trochu je to krása a rozhodně to je zbrusu nová zkušenost v tomto světě, kde je
nových zkušeností tak málo. Dokázali byste - troufli byste si - napsat úplně originální knihu o rodinné dovolené v
Německu? Potíž je v tom, že tato metoda nemůže fungovat věčně. Loe sice tvrdí, že se Tiché dny nepodobají
ničemu z toho, co dosud napsal, ale pravda to tak docela není a ten patent se zpíváním pod tónem mu jednou
přestane fungovat, neboť falešný nápěv se stane novou kanonickou melodií. Nebo ne?
Jednu ukázku dialogu jsem už napsal do anotace, přidám další:
Nino, začal jsem si psát seznam lidí, které známe a kteří dostali rakovinu, chceš se podívat?
Klidně.
Rozdělil jsem je do tří kolonek.
O.K.
Jedna kolonka pro ty, co jsou mrtví, jedna pro ty, co přežili, a jedna pro ty, u kterých se ještě uvidí, jestli to
zvládnou, nebo ne.
Jasně.
Není to snadná práce, nemysli si.
Ne, to si nemyslím.
Za prvé to je emočně vyčerpávající a není snadné si na všechny vzpomenout. Zdá se mi, že rakovinu mají všichni
do jednoho.
Celý text je z větší části v dialogu, což je jistě záměrné, uvažování Brora Telemanna, jednoho ze dvou hlavních
hrdinů, se stále točí kolem divadla, vždyť mu autor také přisoudil profesi dramaturga Národního divadla- a Bror se
snaží napsat divadelní hru (stejně jako se hrdina Faktů o Finsku snaží napsat propagační brožuru). Ostatně Tiché
dny si o inscenaci jen říkají.
Hele, tenhle Loe... už zas dost dost dobrý, vážně.