Further details on the sights seen in the west to follow, for now; the books:
Though I didn’t find any of the books I had on my current “look for these right now” list, I obviously managed to spend some money in Fjærland nevertheless. I found some of the Lord Peter Wimsey books (some of those that I had managed to get from the library for the first reading) in reasonably cheap paperbacks, and since I was planning to reread these soonish, I thought I might as well get them. I also got the other odd book or two, including some by Baroness Orczy, mostly in the Scarlet Pimpernell “series”. But then… I came across a box full of Puk books. These are Danish school-stories for girls written in the 50ies. I’ve been haphazardly collecting the Norwegian translations over the last year or so, but here they had the vast majority of them in Danish. Not only that, but it turns out only about half were ever translated anyway. In Norwegian I think I’ve seen up to 27 – in Danish there are 58…! Could I resist? Of course not. So now I have a few Puks in Norwegian for sale if anyone’s interested. Since I am still missing a few – even if I now want them in Danish – I did a Google search on the author this morning. Turns out the very female name of the author, Lisbeth Werner, actually hides the presumably male Knud Meister. So much for the books being girly. Come to think about it, it shouldn’t surprise anyone, as Puk is not a very girly girl and the most girly thing about the books is, in fact, their colour – they are all a lovely (ugh) shade of pink. It does, however, say quite a bit about the 50ies – a series for girls obviously had to be written by a woman – hence the nom de plume. Seems silly now, perhaps, but consider that the very first print run of Harry Potter had “Joanna” spelled out, until someone figured that boys might not want to read books ostentatiously written by a woman, and they changed it to J period.
It’s a mad, mad world.
I’m following an auction at QXL.no at the moment. I have been outbid by someone on my original maximum bid, and I figure the best thing to do is put in a bid again shortly before the auction ends on Friday, in the hope that the other person will think that the lack of activity in the next couple of days will mean that they’ve won and won’t check in just then. It is quite nerve-wracking, though, as I really do want the lot, and, of course, I have no idea what their maximum bid is. Repeat after me: “Aloof, unavailable Ice-queen. Aloof, unavailable Ice-queen.” (Not quite the original context, but it might work in this case, too.)
Music in my head: Hemmet – Hoola Bandoola Band
I’ve had it stuck in my head on and off for the last couple of days, and I just located the lyrics on the internet, as I was really only sure about the first couple of lines. The first stanza goes:
“Jag har varit och taget igen meg ett slag
på ett hem för så’na som jag.
Dom sa, jag behövde vila ett tag,
se’n skulle allting bli bra.
Men jag sover med öppna ögon
och jag vilar med öppen mun.
Och så vitt jag förstår, är det tvärtom så
att det blir värre för var sekund.”
Which can be loosely translated:
“I’ve been away to collect myself
at a home for people like me
They said I needed to rest for a while
and then everything would be fine.
But I sleep with open eyes,
and I rest with open mouth.
And as far as I can tell, to the contrary of what they say,
it gets worse for every second.”