Books on the Menu

My soul´s beloved

@brittarnhild

I plan to celebrate this Christmas with a Swedish poet;
Göran Sonnevi.

A book with his poems, Din vinge, som bærer meg, Selected poems 1996-2005 is laying on my desk. From time to time I open it. To read a poem, to reread a few lines from yesterday, or from just now. Sometimes it feels like being kicked in the stomach. Other times I have to stop and let silence fill the air around me. His words are made of love, of sorrow, of questions, music and summer wind.

Er du min sjels
elskede, spurte jeg deg
i går, før vi sovnet
Det kan bare du
vite, sa du, og så
på meg med øyne - 

Are you my soul´s
beloved, I asked you
yesterday, before we fell asleep.
Only you can
know, you said, and looked
at me with eyes - 
(translated by me)

I don´t often read poetry,
but after I illustrated my father´s poems and helped him to get his book published,
my interest has been awaken.

Now I am slowly, slowly getting to know a few of the myriads of poets out there.

And I seem to like what I find.

 

In the blizzard

@brittarnhild

For days I have been inside a blizzard, or rather several blizzards. Havy, strong, fatal ones. First together with a group of fishermen, in an open boat out on the open icy cold ocean. Then crossing mountains together with a postman and his young helper.
All of it around 100 years ago!

 

My guide into the blizzards has been the Icelandic writer Jón Kalman Stefánsson, and his two books Heaven and Hell, and The Sorrow of Angels.

Stefánsson has written a masterpiece (so far I have only read two books out of the trioligy) set in the Icelandic countryside, painting the hardship of nature and the way people react to it.

I bought the two first books only a few days ago. "Make sure you read them slowly" the book seller told me. But as soon as I started, this became impossible. Page after page after page......I needed to know what happended to the people.

Again and again I told myself. This can´t be true. April in Iceland can´t be like this, with an evergoing snow storm.

But then I remembered.
Terje and I drove around the island of Iceland in April this year. And sure, the weather can be like this in April. The weather is like this in April.

We were lucky though.
We were not out in an open boat.
And we did not have to trust our own feet.

 

And in between the blizzards we even had some summer......almost.

 

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Let´s have lunch at the Pre-Raphaelite café

@brittarnhild

Sunday morning in V&A in London, Victoria & Albert Museum. That´s about as perfect as a Sunday can be. And even more so since I had a "date" with Fran, one of my blog readers. Marta and I left our hotel after breakfast, and walked through the parks over to Kensington. Facebook, twitter and instagram updates from Trondheim told about a heavy blizzard there, here we were, walking through the beauty of a sunny December Sunday. We stopped at Café Lido on the edge of The Serpentine. Hot chocolate for Marta, a pot of tea for me, and we took a detour in the park for some photographing, but soon we found ourselves under the Chihuly chandelier near the main entrance, and not much later Fran was there as well.

 

Fran ands I share a passionate love for both books and art and for years letters and emails where we discuss our passions, have been flowing back and forth between southern England and Trondheim. This Sunday at V&A was our first meeting face to face, and for hours we could not stop talking. 

In V&A we both wanted to see the Pre-Raphaelite collections, William Morris of course, but also the other members of the group. Fran was overflowing with information, I drank from it like a dry plant. And not only the Pre-Raphaelites, but also other artists, brand new to me.

Like the Indian born British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. Discovering this woman was like being given a Christmas gift. Now I hardly can wait to unwrap it and slowly learn more about this talented lady.

Filled with art, we headed for the café for lunch, the Pre-Raphaelite café at V&A, the first museum café ever. And without doubt one of the most charming ones.

The café was crowded, but we managed to find a table,

and our sharing of litterature, art and life continued.

I have several books going on for the moment, one of them, which will follow me into Christmas and beyond, is Jan Marsh´s Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood.....

.....and then I must search for books/information about Julia Margaret Cameron...

....and then Fran has sent me links to other books,
and other interesting places to see in London.....

.....and then......