Thursday, November 22, 2007

November Reign

Been reading alot lately, getting some "books-I-must-read" crossed of my list like "Heart Of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad, "Doctor Glas" by Hjalmar Söderberg and "Gentlemen" and "Gangsters" by Klas Östergren.
I've also been rereading "A day in the life of Ivan Denisovitj" by Aleksandr Solzjenitsyn, Noise Water Meat by Douglas Kahn, "Treasure Island", "Moby Dick", "Typee" and "Billy Budd" by Herman Melville amongst others...but most of all I've been soaking in the amazing works of Fritiof Nilsson Piraten.





Born Nils Fritiof Adam Nilsson, on the 4th of december 1895 in Vollsjö in the south of Sweden, he were to become known as "Skrönans mästare" ("the Master of tall stories") and is most famous for his debut "Bombi Bitt and Me". I'm not sure if he ever was translated to any other language.

His stories have an amazing style to them and I get thrown years back into my childhood while reading them, even though it's quite before my time. I used to listen to an audiobook recording of Hans Alfredsson reading Bombi Bitt on cassette alot when I was small and I recently realised that alot of phrases and words that I use come from these tapes and stories.







On his gravestone it is printed: "Här under är askan av en man som hade vanan att skjuta allt till morgondagen. Dock bättrades han på sitt yttersta och dog verkligen den 31 januari 1972."

Basically: "Here lies the ashes of a man who had a habit of leaving everything to the next day. Though upon his death bed he reformed and DID die on the 31th of January 1972.)

The translation ins't 100% but fair enough.


Well, if you're interested in hearing or reading these stories you can find them over at www.thepiratebay.org

I warmly recommend it!


I also sent a few masters away for pressing the last couple of weeks. 2 fullengths and a 7" is in the making. More on that later.




This dude is back in town. God Bless.