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If you want to recommend a good book, of course you should never tell the story, because you are never the one who makes the book good. If someone had told me to read a book about Madame Tussaud’s or about the royal ship Vaasa, about canal boats in England, French dressage horses, or 19th century women in Britain, I would probably have fallen asleep right away. Why would you be interested in that?
Still, we always start with the plot when we describe a book that has impressed us. We avoid describing what the book really is, what it does to us, what we experience, and how we change during reading. Often due to uncertainty, of course, who knows if the next reader will have the same experience as me?
Then it is easier to retreat to the plot. Well, “Petite” by Edward Carey is a book that describes the turbulent times that led to the French Revolution and the reign of terror that followed in the footsteps of the revolution. From the point of view of the future Madame Tussaud.
Yes. A dry history book.
But what does a book do The good thing is always the author himself, the way of telling it, the ability to enchant the reader and perhaps make him change a little, a little bombastic. But you can also suddenly learn, as a bonus, how the horses move in French Le Cadre Noir, what the decorations look like on the Vasa ship, or how the locks on the English canals work.
My favorite example is Ann Rosman’s detective story “Vågspel”, which I read when it came out in 2016. Unfortunately, I never get the emotion across, but I always start talking about how much I now know about divers in the North Sea. The audience loses interest immediately.
Of course, it wasn’t the topic that made the book worth reading, but sometimes I can recognize myself in nerds who want to lecture on the universe of Star Wars movies with a proper view of the story, the expressions cultural and weapons.
We cannot give up, even if we know that magic is never in things but in history itself: that magic that makes the wax doll suddenly, against all odds, turn its head and look us in the eye. This is the enchantment we are trying to tell about. Although you already know: it cannot be described.
5 x new relationship novels
“Chiquita”
Photo: an editorial
Edward Carey – “Petite”
Translation by Helen Sonehag, Etta publishing house
Some novels are so stubborn that they are almost indescribable. Madame Tussaud is known for her wax cabinet in London, which has been there since the 19th century.
She herself was born Marie Grosholtz in Strasbourg in 1761 and learned to make wax figures from Dr. Curtius in Switzerland. They eventually moved to Paris, where they lived during the French Revolution.
Edward Carey builds an ingenious maze of thoughts, events, emotions, and reactions. In fact, let Marie Grosholtz talk about how life changes when the father dies first and then the mother. People and their emotions are not trustworthy. She learns to make wax heads, when Curtius realizes that he can earn money casting famous people.
Alive, at the beginning.
Edward Carey worked at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum when he was young. He now lives in Austin, Texas.
Photo: Elizabeth McCracken
It’s an unlikely story even in reality, and Edward Carey tells it as a gruesome, gripping and crazy farce. Marie Grosholtz, so small that Curtius calls her Petite, works hard for Curtius and the tailor he moves in with. For a time, Marie is sent to Versailles and works for a princess.
And then comes the French Revolution. You don’t seem to believe, because Edward Carey strictly adheres to Marie’s limited perspective. The screams outside. Smells. The fear when someone knocks on the door: now they are going to execute us?
So what is, “Petite”? A story about images, about how we make the world understandable by trying to retell it in an understandable way. How circumstances and those in power govern us, but we use what little room for maneuver we have. How people become things that move, or how wax dolls become a more human company.
“Petite” is an unusual sight, another way of looking at people. Then you shake off your surprise: what happened? And the world looks a little different.
“Under the bridges of London”
Photo: Editorial Printz
Jojo Moyes – “Under London Bridge”
Translation by Lena Karlin, Printz publisher
She is one of the most famous feel-good authors, so you understand that the editor also translates early (and maybe worse?) Works. “Under the Bridges of London” is a love novel of the strangest kind, in which a lonely teenage girl cannot do without her horse.
A horse? It sounds sad, especially if you, like me, mainly sneeze at horses. Still, I keep reading in fascination, because Jojo Moyes already had his ability to participate. Even when it comes to horses.
The horse is not just any horse, but a French racehorse that Dad trains for Le Cadre Noir, the elite French riding school. Only environmental descriptions are worth the entire book – the exact exercise in Le Cadre Noir that is set in the sunken area of the stable under the bridge in London, where no limits apply.
“Amy Snow”
Photo: Piratförlaget
Tracy Rees – “Amy Snow”
Translation Carina Jansson, Piratförlaget
Legendary on the verge of nonsense, I only think about when I read about the young lady finding a baby in the snow. The girl’s name is Amy Snow and she grows up in the mansion, like a small and frowned upon shadow for eight-year-old Aurelia.
Then the plot becomes even more absurd, when the girl in the mansion dies and still manages to force Amy Snow on a strange treasure hunt across England: to London, Bath and York. But it’s surprisingly entertaining, because Tracy Rees tells vividly about an old British class society that is captivating in many ways. Amy Snow is the class traveler who alternately disappears not knowing the rules, alternately sees what is hidden behind the scenes. And, of course, the treasure hunt doesn’t get her where she thinks.
“Summer on the canal”
Photo: an editorial
Anne Youngson – “Summer on the Canal”
Translation Jan Hultman and Annika H Löfvendahl, Etta publishing house
Predictably, I snort annoyed at first. Two very different women are responsible for driving a canal boat a longer distance on the canals of England, because the owner has to go to the hospital.
You understand how it should go. Revaluation of life, new clarity, etc.
Whereupon the book gently but firmly draws my hectic reading to a leisurely pace along the canal, while Eve and Sally gradually learn to shut down, drive through dark tunnels, find their way through the intricate canal system, hang out. with people who are not always completely ready for the salon.
There is also a common feel good story, but it is not the main thing. It is the storytelling technique itself that is relaxing for meditation, an almost Zen Buddhist experience.
“Ek”
Photo: Modernista
Frida Andersson Johansson – “I”
modernist
The royal ship Vaasa is the most visited Swedish tourist destination – the ship that sank during its maiden voyage in 1628 and was rescued 333 years later. Today, it is the base of an impressive museum in Stockholm, the large dark ship that is so well preserved, with tens of thousands of associated objects.
Around this, Frida Andersson Johansson has woven a suggestive and unpleasant horror story. The oaks that were felled in Lake Mälaren brought bad luck, it was said as early as the 17th century. Or it was something much worse than bad luck.
In our time, a marine archaeologist with experience in conservatories is commissioned, together with a researcher, to try to restore a sculpture, a savage half a meter long with an evil, cruel appearance. But they change with work and strange things start to happen in the museum.
Read more from Lotta Olsson and more about books.
