And there was much rejoicing...

It happened. I got a Hungarian text that I can actually read, look up some words per sentence and understand without too much trouble. All thanks to my Tandem partner! It's even a funny text. An extract for the Hungarians (from Bezzeg az én időmben by Fehér Klára):

Hálóingben nem lehet iskolába menni.

Nem. Akárhogy nézem, nem lehet.

Esetleg levágnék az aljából egy fél métert, akkor nem lógna ki a szoknyából. Múltkor, amikor nem volt időm rendesen megfésülködni, a hajamból is lekanyarítottam a kimaradt fürtöt. Igaz, hogy másnap a fésülködésnél éppen ez a hajcsomó hiányzott... Nehéz az élet. Még egyszer körül kell néznem a lakásban.

A konyhában, a ruhaszárító kötélen két árva zsebkendő lóg. Igaz, tiszta zsebkendőm sincs. De ezek még vizesek. A fürdőszobában, no persze, a fürdőszobában, a kádban, mosóporba áztatva ott vannak a kombinék és - engedelmet kérek - a bugyik, amiket este könnyelműen én magam hajigáltam bele.

And speaking of languages, I'm toying with the idea of writing in Russian here. Not sure if it's a good idea, if I should keep it English (with the extremely occasional French) or turn it more multilingual. Time will tell. I'll go French first, anyway.

There was a sale and I'm a woman.

Well actually, I did not buy all of these books at this year's book sale. Usually I buy more, but that's just because the Swedish book sales are actually cheap...

Speaking of Sweden, I visited a bookstore with my boyfriend the other day, and we went by the Swedish corner. There's always lots of Swedish crime novels in Norwegian bookstores, but this particular one also has a table with a sign saying "Swedish paperbacks are extremely cheap". And with paperbacks that cost 75NOK instead of the usual 100NOK, I guess that's true. For me, that's still a lot of money for a paperback. My boyfriend snatched up a book, went and paid for it and told me it was about me. It's the book in the picture that says "Duktighetsfällan", with a mirror on it. "Duktig" is one of those Swedish words that I always have some trouble translating; it's both "good" (as in "Good boy!"), "skillful", "dutiful"... lots of things! "Fälla" is much easier: trap. "The trap of being too good." The book deals with the problem of burning yourself out doing too many things, a problem that mostly affects women in today's Sweden and that leads to some only being able to work for seven or eight years before becoming permanently ill. It's about perfectionism and high demands. Even though I don't think all of it really applies to me, I do recognize many things, like for example how all the women in the book (patients) get annoyed by how little their boyfriends do, at how they can just exist. There are actually two sorts of "duktighetsfällor", the female kind and the male kind. The female kind is more about pleasing everyone, never saying no and neglecting yourself until it makes you break down. (Boring.) The male variant, however, is about measuring worth in achievement (you are what you achieve), and never being satisfied with the results - a sort of perfectionism that women are taking over. Quite appropriately, everyone I know who fits this description are women. But I've only read half the book so far, so I'm no expert yet.

During our three hours in Kiel on Tuesday, I naturally had to visit a bookstore. Again, my boyfriend just went and picked up a book that he liked the look of, Mängelexemplar by Sarah Kuttner, and suggested I get it. And I did, because I found the synopsis appropriate.

"Karo lebt schnell und flexibel. Sie ist das Musterexemplar unserer Zeit: intelligent, selbstironisch und liebenswert. Als sie ihren Job verliert, ein paar falsche Freunde aussortiert und mutig ihre feige Beziehung beendet, verliert sie auf einmal den Boden under den Füssen. Plötzlich ist die Angst da."

I love things that have something to do with anxiety!

Let's move on to my book sale shopping! I never buy hardcover books, simply because they are ridiculously expensive and there's always a paperback that's cheaper. But when there's a sale... Funnily enough, the last time I bought hardcover books was when my boyfriend entered a book club and got three books for free. I got (yes it was more like me joining the club) Per Petterson's Jeg forbanner tidens elv (I curse the river of time), Magda Szabó's The Door, and another book. What did I get this time? Per Petterson's Ut og stjæle hester (Out Stealing Horses) and Magda Szabó's The Deer! What a coincidence. I can't wait to read some more Szabó. I got a third book as well, perhaps the most spoken about Norwegian book in many years, after Ut og stjæle hester I guess. Min kamp by Knausgård. There are six or so books in this series, and everyone reads them. There's been lots of scandal around them, because they are based on the author's real life - and he hasn't gone too very much trouble to dissimulate the other characters in the book. It will be fun to finally read it.

Hungary seems to have a lot to offer.

Some time ago, my boyfriend received a rather interesting and beneficial offer to join a book club. Upon joining, you could choose a number of books, and one of the books I chose was "The Door" by Magda Szabó. First of all, it cost almost nothing (so I could choose more books), and secondly, it was written by a Hungarian author. Now I am very happy I chose that book, and that I actually got around to reading it since I usually just put the books I buy in my little library, and then they sit there for years and years. Magda Szabó is probably one of my new favorite authors, and I really look forward to reading more of her books, and to finally perhaps read one of them in Hungarian.

This book is really not particularly long, but it's written in a very dense manner, and it took me much more time to read than I had expected. I read the book in Norwegian, but I still had trouble following sometimes. Szabó's sentences are not like most authors' sentences, something that made reading this book a different reading experience. In the beginning, I was a bit annoyed sometimes, but then I think I just got used to it and started to appreciate her intricate manner of writing instead.

The story is rather special. I never read the text on the cover before reading a book, so I had no idea what this one was about. In short, it's the story of a female author who hires a housekeeper to keep track of her house so that she can focus on writing. The housekeeper, Emerenc, is also the care keeper of the neighborhood, and thanks to her, everything is in order. She's an old woman who never sleeps, but only works and works and works and who never lets anyone into her apartment. She does not accept praise or gifts, she chooses her own pay and doesn't work for just anyone. She decides her own working hours, and may come in the middle of the night to do her tidying. Soon the housekeeper is the one who is in charge of the house and the relationship between her and the narrator turns into something rather complicated. It's a very fascinating story. I can't help but appreciate the simple stories that are somehow made awesome by the author. This is not a flamboyant love drama or a detective story that can draw anyone in, there are no heroes or anything of that kind, just pure good writing. You never even find out the name or the appearance of the main character, the author and narrator, not even her age, and you really don't need to...