Doktor Proktor og verdens undergang. Kanskje. – Jo Nesbø

doktor_proktorDa har jeg fått lest oppfølgeren til Doktor Proktors prompepulver og Doktor Proktors tidsbadekar. Og sjarmerende lesning var det.

I Doktor Proktor og verdens undergang. Kanskje. må våre helter – Lise, Bulle og Doktor Proktor – igjen trå til og redde seg selv, Norge og hele verden forsåvidt. Norges befolkning har blitt hypnotisert av noen vesener som er beskrevet i Dyr du skulle ønske ikke fantes, boken Bulles bestefar har skrevet, og det ser mørkt ut. Ved hjelp av noen nye allierte – noen av Bulle og Lises lærere, en mislykket hanggliderselger fra Sør-Trøndelag og en konge i eksil – rydder våre helter selvsagt opp.

Når jeg leste de to første bøkene var jeg litt kritisk til at de lignet stilen til Roald Dahl så ettertrykkelig. Det opplevde jeg ikke som et problem denne gangen. Som bemerket i forbindelse med smakebiten jeg serverte på søndag er slektskapet til en annen barnebokforfatter framtredende i denne boka, Bulle kunne helt klart vært Pippis barnebarn. At en person fra Di Derres repertoar – Madsen, korpsdirigenten med pilotsolbriller – også får en litt mer framtredende rolle hjelper på å gi persongalleriet mer spennvidde, og er forøvrig en herlig detalj og et nikk til voksne lesere. Likheten med Roald Dahls forfatterskap er tilstede fortsatt, men ispedd alle andre referanser er det ikke lenger forstyrrende.

Plottet er ubetalelig. Dyr du skulle ønske ikke fantes er skumle. Spenningskurven er akkurat slik den skal være. Vennskap er toppen. Annerledeshet er bra. Å redde verden er gøy og forsøket er verdt det selv hvis man skulle mislykkes, for livet er faktisk herlig. Og ikke minst, Bulle og Lise og Doktor Proktor er fortsatt verdens beste bestevenner.

I det hele tatt er dette en serie Nesbø fortjener vel så mye cred for som for Harry Hole. Skikkelig gode barnebøker er det relativt langt mellom. Dette er i alle fall årets første julegavetips fra meg.

Only Time Will Tell – Jeffrey Archer

archerArgh. I’ve done it again! And I can’t even blame anyone else this time, I mean the book clearly states «The Clifton Chronicles Volume 1». Why, why, why did I not take five seconds to check online and confirm that, yes, there will be a sequel, and no it’s not available yet (April next year, apparently). Then I could have put the book back on the shelf and found something else to read. Instead I read it. I even got so caught up in the story I read waaaaaaay past my bedtime (I would have finished it that night if the lass hadn’t woken up and demanded to sleep in our bed, so I had to turn off the lights to get her to sleep). And then, of course, as the amount of pages left in the book diminished while there was obviously quite a lot of story still to go, it dawned on me. But too late, alas.

So now I wait with bated breath for April.

Only Time Will Tell centers on Harry Clifton, who is born in 1920 into a working class family in Bristol. Harry’s father died when Harry was a baby, and no one wants to talk about him or his death. Harry is told he died in the war, which he soon figures out can’t be true. Harry is an exceptionally bright child, and luckily he also has the voice of an angel before his voice breaks, he is therefore able to attend a good school on a choral scholarship. Little by little Harry uncovers the truth about his background. This first volume takes us to the start of WW2.

Harry’s story encompasses some of my favourite Archer clichés (clichés are not all bad, you know), the poor boy making good, the hidden past needing uncovering, selfish «villains» from the upper class suffering from major entitlement issues, decent people from all classes standing by the hero through his struggles, and so on. It’s all familiar stuff, but it works beautifully, and Archer weaves the whole into a gripping story. I’ll have to wait for the sequel to see where it all goes, and to judge whether I’m happy with the whole, but so far it’s promising.

Read it. But don’t read it before the sequel(s) is out. In the meantime, if you’ve yet to read Archer, I’d recommend As the Crow Flies or Kane and Abel as good starting points.

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter – Mario Vargas Llosa

llosa_aunt_juliaWell, I finished. Not in September, I grant you, but I hope I may be forgiven. I may also struggle with managing North America in October, I suspect, unless I locate my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird quite soon.

Now, then, what did I think about it?

To start off, it’s not the book’s fault that it’s taken me three weeks to finish. Neither is it the Kindle, though I had one occasion when I wanted to read where the battery was low and I had no charger, reading on the Kindle was mostly problem-free. I also loved the possibility of looking up words there and then, especially since Llosa (or, rather, Llosa’s translator) used a few words I didn’t understand. The slowness was an effect of the backlash I tend to get when I’ve been reading the Aubrey/Maturin series, since while rereading that I tend to spend all my so-called spare time reading, so when I finish I tend to read less for a couple of weeks (spending my time on the PC or even – gasp – watching television, instead).

Having said that, it did take a couple of chapters to get into Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, but once I did get into it, it seemed to flow by quite quickly.

The plot centers on Mario, an 18 year old aspiring writer who works at a radio station in Lima while studying law. Aunt Julia is a divorcee who comes to Lima to live with her sister (who is married to Mario’s uncle), and despite the age difference, the two fall for each other. Parallel to the love story runs the story of Pedro Camacho – the scriptwriter – who is hired by Mario’s employers to write the novelas (soap operas) that are broadcast by the station. The novel is autobiographical (something I’d partly guessed but which I only had confimed when I loked it up on Wikipedia just now).

I’m afraid I didn’t really engage in Mario, which automatically means I didn’t really engage in the novel as much as I would have liked. I didn’t really care, for example, how the love story would turn out. I didn’t really care whether he was going to become a writer, a lawyer, a radio news editor or a failure. I was much more interested in Pedro Camacho, at least as a phenomenon if not a person. Unfortunately that part of the story sort of petered out a bit and felt somewhat unfinished (though I am sure that is because I was interested in Pedro as an end in his own right, rather than as a means to educate Mario – which is how I feel Llosa meant him). On teh whole, therefore, though I liked the novel and feel like I should probably read more Llosa, I didn’t love it – not by a long stretch.

According to my father The Feast of the Goat is Llosa’s best novel (of the ones he’s read). I might try that next (especially because I can borrow it from him).

Smakebit på en søndag: Doktor Proktor og verdens undergang, kanskje

doktor_proktor

Dagens smakebit kommer fra Jo Nesbøs tredje bok om Doktor Proktor, Lise og Bulle, Doktor Proktor og verdens undergang, kanskje:

«Hva gjorde de andre, ‘a?»
«Vi rekker opp hånda når vi vil spørre om noe, Bulle!» sa frøken Strobe strengt.
«Ja, det gjør dere sannelig,» sa Bulle. «Men jeg kan ikke se at dere får noen bedre svar av den grunn.»

Dette er et sitat som gjør det klart at Bulle slekter på en viss svensk jente med rødt hår og fletter. Siden han også har rødt hår skulle det ikke forundre meg om han var direkte etterkommer.

Jeg irriterer meg forresten over at de har endret design på omslagene fra bok 1 og 2 til denne. Kan det være nødvendig?

Flere smakebiter finner du på Flukten fra virkeligheten.

M – Marzan og Opars juveler – Mads Eriksen

Instruksen til tegneren: "Noe med whisky"
Instruksen til tegneren: «Noe med whisky»

Som nevnt var vi på boksignering på Outland i Trondheim på lørdag, og sikret oss dermed et eksemplar av Mads Eriksens siste: M – Marzan og Opars juveler. Det fine med serietegnere er at de ikke bare signerer boka, men faktisk lager et lite kunstverk på bestilling (i alle fall har alle jeg har vært på signering med gjort det). Ulempen med dette er at køen tar mye lenger tid enn ved en «normal» signeringmen det kan man vel tåle for en gangs skyld. Siden både M, Mads Eriksen og vi er ganske glade i skotsk maltwhisky ba vi om «noe med whisky» når det ble vår tur. Resultatet ser dere på bildet. Vi var mer enn fornøyd.

 Så til boka:

Den inneholder på sett og vis tre deler. Den første delen er rene striper, de fleste av disse var nye for meg (vi abonnerer på flere norkse tegneserieblader, men ikke M, siden vi ikke er så glad i bi-seriene i bladet, og M-stripene får vi jo uansett i og med at vi kjøper alle album og bøker), og jeg kan med glede avsløre at jeg til stadighet humret høyt, blandt annet over stripen jeg serverte som smakebit i går. Jevnt over holder materialet en svært god kvalitet.

M er kanskje ikke en serie for «hvem som helst», den er spekket med kulturreferanser – til det man gjerne kaller «nerdekultur» – og i tillegg inneholder mange av stripene interne referanser til andre striper slik at det rett og slett blir umulig å fatte poenget om man ikke har lest stripa det refereres til. Jeg skal ærlig innrømme at det slett ikke er alle referansene jeg tar heller, enkelte av stripene framstår derfor som helt meningsløse for meg (det var riktignok få av disse i denne samlingen), men jeg har ingen problemer med å akseptere det til gjengjeld for de stripene som til de grader treffer spikeren på hodet.

Del to består av «Mads tegner og forteller»-sider som jeg innbiller meg har vært på trykk i M-bladet. Jeg mener å ha sett noen de gangene jeg har sett på bladene. Del tre består av det samme konseptet, men sider som tilsynelatende er satt sammen for denne bokens skyld. Begge disse delene består altså av gamle striper med en kommentar fra tegneren. Noen av kommentarene er nesten like morsomme som stripene, og i det hele tatt er dette en «bonus» ved bokutgivelser framfor avisstriper som jeg setter stor pris på. Det er ett problem i denne boka at et par striper gjentas både i det jeg oppfatter som del 2 og del 3. Det gjelder ikke mange striper og kommentarene er forskjellige (og vel verdt å lese), men det gir ett litt klønete inntrykk.

Hadde jeg vært redaktør hadde dette vært noe jeg hadde ryddet opp i. Jeg tror også med fordel delen med nye striper kunne vært splittet i to, slik at leseren hadde fått noen fler nye striper helt på slutten av boka også. Det hadde gitt en bedre «spenningskurve», for å bruke det uttrykket.

Innvendingene mine er likevel stort sett tekniske, og uttrykker overhodet ikke misnøye med det kunstneriske innholdet i boka. Jeg er svoren M-fan, noe som slett ikke endres av denne boka, og vil gjerne benytte anledningen til å ærklære min kjærlighet (platonisk sådan) også til Madammen. Hun er ei grepa dame. Å lese M føles ofte litt som å lese om eget samliv, bortsett fra at det varierer hvilken rollefigur jeg identifiserer meg med. (Og vi er vel ikke fullt så sprø. Tror jeg.) En av sekvensene som kommenteres er en gammel stripe med scenariet «dersom Madammen ikke hadde møtt M» og «dersom M ikke hadde møtt Madammen», som er aldeles herlig.

Smakebit på en søndag: M – Marzan og Opars juveler

Jada, jeg vet det er mandag, jeg bare glemte å få tatt bilde i går. Denne gangen kommer smakebiten nemlig fra Mads Eriksens siste: M – Marzan og Opars juveler, som vi kjøpte på Outland på lørdag når unge herr Eriksen i egen høye (? Han satt.) person var der for å signere, og det blir ikke på langt nær like morsomt uten bilder.

Sånn har jeg det også når jeg forsøker å tenke på økonomi
Sånn har jeg det også når jeg forsøker å tenke på økonomi

Flere smakebiter finner du på Flukten fra virkeligheten.

Smakebit på søndag: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

llosa_aunt_julia

I’m late, but I am reading Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, and I’m rather enjoying it, too. Writeup hopefully in the next few days, in the meantime, here’s a quote, as an entry in Mari’s Smakebit på søndag round.

I asked the bank clerk to summon my brother Juan, and surprisingly (since I’d never had any brothers), he came and told me, by way of the kindly voice of the medium, not to worry about him, because he was with God, and that he prayed continually for me. Reassured by this bit of news, I lost interest in the séance and occupied myself mentally writing my story about the senator.

Since I’ve got the Kindle edition I have no idea what page that is on, I’m afraid.

I Left My Tent in San Fransisco – Emma Kennedy

kennedy_san_fransiscoI Left My Tent in San Fransisco by Emma Kennedy was one of the books I managed to pick up in Elgin last Saturday. After cracking up over The Tent, the Bucket and Me in February, it was a must-have. When the kindle ran out of battery one evening and I couldn’t immediately lay my hands on the charger, I started it, and I also brought it on the plane, as the kindle is no good during take-off and landing (being «electronic equipment» which has to be switched off).

Emma and her friend Dee go to the USA in 1989. The plan is to get jobs in San Fransisco for two months, earn lots of money and then travel back to New York for flights home, seeing the country on the way. Unfortunately, getting jobs in San Fransisco isn’t as easy as the pair have been lead to believe, and they end up having very little money to cover their trek across the nation.

The book is very funny. It is even laugh-out-loud funny, just like its prequel. It’s less funny than said prequel, but perhaps that’s mostly because I have been camping but I have never travelled across the USA by ground transport, and so the force of recognition is diminished (though not absent, I have, after all, travelled in the USA and also made my way around rather large chunks of Europe by bus).

Some of the best parts of the book concern the people Emma and her friend Dee meet along the way. They have to rely heavily on the kindness of strangers in their travels, and meet some pretty odd characters. To a certain extent this is also where the book is least satisfactory, because the description of the people and the situations are just a bit too shallow or short to really grab me as a reader.

But still: Very, very funny.

The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde

The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde
The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde

As I said in Smakebit på søndag, when I’d read the first chapter of The Last Dragonslayer on Friday, far too late in the evening already, I didn’t want to put it down, and in other circumstances I probably wouldn’t have. As it was it was Sunday before I finished. And it is a compelling story, with Jennifer Strange as a most compelling heroine. But while I liked it, I really, really liked it, I still felt it fell a little short of perfection (unlike Shades of Gray which really IS perfection).

For while the story is compelling, I felt it lacked something, a little drive, perhaps? And I should have liked to see more of Tiger Prawn, a most worthy sidekick. And I should have liked to see more of the wizards, too, even the ones – or perhaps especially the ones – with a less than sunny personality. And I really want more quarkbeast. Charming creatures, they are.

Now I realise that this is the first book in an intended series, so that hopefully I WILL see more of these characters, but though I adore series, even long series, I still feel that at least the first volume ought to be able to stand on its own two feet. It should leave you wanting more, yes, of course it should, but there is a difference here. Comparing, again, with Shades of Gray, which had me craving more the moment I closed the book, but which felt very much like a complete whole, The Last Dragonslayer leaves me wanting more because the book itself feels somewhat incomplete. 

Perhaps it’s because it’s written for a younger market? I don’t know. I’m not sure that’s an excuse, though. Why should younger readers not want complete books?

On the whole, though, The Last Dragonslayer is better than most books out there. I could compare it to almost any book and it would come up trumps, I just know Fforde can do better, and so I am a little disappointed. A very little. I’m still preordering The Song of the Quarkbeast, because, well, complaining that I want more and then not grabbing at it with both hands when I’m offered more would just be stupid, right?

On a side note: Why, oh why have they radically changed cover designs between volumes 1 and 2?

En smakebit på søndag: The Last Dragonslayer

The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde

I finished with Jack and Stephen Friday evening and started The Last Dragonslayer immediately, even though it was really time for bed already. I read one chapter and realised I really didn’t want to put it down. Ten years ago I would probably have finished it that night, but then I didn’t have someone who’d wake me demanding breakfast in the morning (and since the husband was working Saturday, it would be me she’d demand breakfast from).

Anyway, here’s a quote:

Tiger was staring thoughtfully at Prince Nasil, the carpet and the Yummy-Flakes box. Mystical Arts was a strange industry to work in and was much like a string of bizarre occurences occasionally interspersed with moments of great triumph and numbing terror. There was boredom, too. Watching wizards build up to a spell is like watching paint dry. It can take some getting used to.

En smakebit på søndag – a taster on Sunday – is an initiative from Mari at Flukten fra virkeligheten.