I never really was a fan of short stories - until now, it seems.

When I was younger I rejoiced when I found a really long book (children's books tend to be short). While I loved a lot of books that had regular "child length" (i.e. 150-200 pages), any book that came as a huge and heavy, bulky bundle of pages to me always had a special place in my reading heart and I was biased to like it. Probably because I could never get enough. Also once I started reading a book, like in real life, it took me quite some time, longer than others, to get acquainted to it's characters and settings. So when I finally felt at home in a book and it's world - the book was over. So I read books over and over again.
Later on the books I read got longer and after a phase of really digging into huge tomes I actually settled down to focus on the contents first and maybe even consider my mother's maxim that the true proficiency would lie in shortness (she had been indoctrinated with this by one of her teachers and constantly tried to "hammer" that into me, too*).

But for a long time even this beginning insight didn't make me like short stories at all. My old prejudices or problems with "getting" and "getting into" them stood firm for years. One of the very few exceptions to this rule made Edgar Allan Poe's stories. Why I don't exactly know, but to his stories I always had a very special connection and something drew me into each one of them, made me read them over and over again (probably an important point!) and never get tired of them.
Another exception was a special short story anthology with stories written for young adults all painting pictures of the future of mankind. This book is still one of my favorite books of all times (partly also because of the incredibly weird smell the book had and still has - I can smell it right now in my mind, just thinking about it...). Those stories were frightening and lovable, intelligent and artful, never dull and had new aspects each time I read them over.

Anyway. Only very lately, with studying literature and for those reason being forced not only to read several short stories (it started with The Portrait of Mr. W.H. by the divine Oscar Wilde, which lead me into a wild chase through literature theory in search of this ominous "Mr. W.H." of Shakespeare's), but also really intensely and deeply work with them (here my first one was Gogol's A Bewitched Place) the full meaning and the realm of possibilities of short stories became seizable to me. And I'm ready to explore!

So while I still won't declare it my motto, I do agree with Shakespeare's Polonius: Brevity is the soul of wit.
True genius is able to use nothing more than the absolute necessary to express the maximum.
And with appreciating this, I value short stories in a new light and salute writers who are skillful enough to write a short story who carries this principle.**

And so I found my admiration (because I still cannot wholeheartedly call it love) of short stories. Well done short stories. Those that open up a whole new world of literary possibilities to me. And this is why I joined in the Short Story Reading Challenge 2010.
I already read some short stories for the challenge and will post my reviews (maybe short reviews, too) soon.

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*Maybe here would a little excursion be necessary how I couldn't get enough of long, sheer endless sentences, in my own writing thought only those were true and tried to make them as artful as possible - and, as you may have guessed by now, am still not quite over it. But this can be the topic of another post...
**And yes, I do also try to be true to this maxim, when I write, but... but sometimes I indulge myself and go on rambling along as my heart pleases (never without a bad conscience however). Being adequately short is a lot of work ( - and hurts my inherent love of adjectives).

I decided I'll enter into the world of reading challenges this year. :D
(Honestly, I should enter any challenge dedicated to studying rather one of leisure reading...)

Anyway, there are so, so many challenges and so, so many of them sound really VERLOCKEND, so it's hard to decide! Then I found my batch, huge batch - but all of them allow overlaps with other challenges, so I might just make it. Here we go:

First of all the Original TBR challenge. That really is the thing I need. Here's my list (and my alternate list, which I will surely need!):

1) "A Journey Around My Room" by Xavier de Maistre
2) "Rilla of Ingleside" by Lucy Maud Montgomery
3) "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac
4) "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
5) "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
6) "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
7) "Die Kameliendame" by Alexandre Dumas
8) "No Name" by Wilkie Collins
9) "Die Ethik" by Spinoza
10) "A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian" by Marina Lewycka
11) "Traumnovelle" by Arthur Schnitzler
12) "Love in the times of the Cholera" by Gabriel Garíá Márquez

Alternatives:
1) "Perlmanns Schweigen" by Pascal Mercier
2) "Die Löwin von Aquitanien" by Tanja Kinkel
3) "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova
4) "Dantons Tod" by Georg Büchner
5) "Allerseelen" by Cees Nooteboom
6) "The Portrait of a Lady" by Henry James
7) "The Life of Charlotte Brontë" by Elizabeth Gaskell
8) "The Witches of Eastwick" by John Updike
9) "Hard Times" by Charles Dickens
10) "Vanity Fair" by William Makepeace Thackeray
11) "Middlemarch" by George Elliot
12) "Demian" by Hermann Hesse

My, what I haven't read by now! I really want to make this challenge!


Second the Lucy Maud Montgomery Reading Challenge, which only lasts through January. I'm determined to read at least "Rainbow Valley", but with any luck I'll make it through another LMM book this month.

Made for me: The Read the Book, See the Movie Challenge - this one is made for me! :) I'll try and go for the Saturday Movie Marathon level: four books/movies.

Then the Short Story Reading Challenge. A wonderful idea. I'm actually not really a fan of short stories, but some times I find one, which I really do like. And on the other hand I love some classic short story authors like E.A.Poe for example, but haven't read nearly all of his work, so this will definitely be one of my stories. I'll be modest and try for Option 1: reading 10 short stories in one year.

I'll also go for the Historical Reading Challenge, I'll start with the "Curious"-level: 3 novels (I'm hoping I'll be able to upgrade maybe though...)

Also a favorite: The Terry Pratchett 2010 Challenge. I'll go for the easiest level: 1-3 books - Cashier at Ankh-Morpork Mint. I've been wanting to read more Pratchett for ages!

This one fits in with my reading habits and ambitions: 18th and 19th Century Women Writers Reading Challenge. A minimum of two books should be do-able!

This one is really drawing me in, I have so many ideas for memoir-like books I want to read, journals, letters and other stuff...: The Memorable Memoir Challenge. I hope I'll reach the goal of four books for 2010.

Our Mutual Read: A Victorian Reading Challenge is a must, and if only for the wonderful title. ;-) Again I'm in for the lowest level, 4 books, at least 2 written during 1837 - 1901. The other books may be Neo-Victorian or non-fiction. I'm really looking forward to this one and hope to maybe stray a bit from Victorian mainstream here, too.

For the 2010 Bibliophilic Books Challenge I already have my three books in mind, but I'll see which ones I'll really end up with. Three will make me a "bookworm". ;-)

And another one where I'll go for "The Easy Challenge" (a book a continent): 2010 Global Reading Challenge. I'm especially looking forward to books from Africa and Australasia...

And then the Audio Book Challenge. I love my audio books and made it to about 10 last year, so I'll go for the "Addicted level" (12 audiobooks).

I haven't really decided on any of the books yet (aside from two LMM books and the "Original TBR" challenge), I'll just do that as I read along. :) But I have certain candidates in my mind.

Aside from that (and to sum it all up), I'll be doing the "Read A Book A Week" challenge in Sullivan's Anne of Green Gables Message Board. I failed last year, but who knows, with all the other challenges I might end up making it this year.

Wow! That's a lot! Well, I'm really looking forward to this, I'm planning (of course) to make all challenges and I'm excited to start reading! (I started reading a new book today and I really am in a reading mood, so so far it's going well.)

Looking for a challenge for you? Thanks to A Novel Challenge there's all of them in one place. :)

The book I really would like to read right now:
A smart and clever mystery/detective/thriller/ novel set in a very warm country, very close to the sea (best would be some island), which has lots of literary and/or cultural references, but no clichés, a smart and beautiful, but not superficial female lead, some romance might take place, but please without being tacky and never in the center of the story.

Anybody know any such book?

So, well, I just saw I never posted my report on the Gothic November project, even though I wrote it some time ago. Here we go:

November is long gone, and even my prolonged November came to an end some days ago.
I didn't watch as many movies as I had hoped, and of course read even less, no books at all and hardly a story. But here's my updated list:

Read:
√ - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
- EA Poe (The Masque of the Red Death;)
- The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
- No Name
- E.Gaskell short story
- Udolpho
- DuMaurier
- Les Fleurs du mal
- The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- The Vampyre by Wiliam Polidori
- Villette by Charlotte Brontë
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
- Anne Rice
- The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
- The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
- 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
- Mr. Darcy, Vampire
- Dragonwyck by Anya Seton
- Baudelaire
- Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
- The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki
- The Italian by Ann Radcliffe

Watch:
√ - Dracula (
√ - Sleepy Hollow
- Wuthering Heights (2x)
- The Phantom of the Opera (Charles Dance version)
- Carrie
√ - Interview with the Vampire
- Jane Eyre (version?)
- Rosemary's Baby
- The Night of the Living Dead
- The Skeleton Key
- The Grudge
- The Woman in White
√ - From Hell
- The Shining
- Heavenly Creatures
- The Munsters
- The Crow
- Lost Highway
- The Corpse Bride
- Snow White (Miranda Richardson)
- Rebecca (2 versions)
- hush, hush sweet Charlotte
- The Others
- The Moonstone
- All Series Halloween episodes
√ - Diabolique
- Silent Hill

So, well, even though I didn't make it as far as I wanted to, I really enjoyed it and am looking forward to next November! :D

While this is the first review for the Period Drama Challenge and as well the first thing I ever write about this two movies (or miniseries), I've watched "Madita" (or "Madicken" in Swedish) time and again since I was a child. And I always loved her.
So I'm afraid, this review, be warned, is going to be biased as I cannot imagine anything that would be wrong with this adaption.



I'm reviewing two movies called "Du är inte klok, Madicken" (1979) and "Madicken på Junibacken" (1980). The latter "movie" was actually put together later from a miniseries that aired on tv in 1980 for the first time in Sweden. As most of Astrid Lindgrens work and the tv/movie adaptions of it, it was and still is highly popular in Germany. To my knowledge there is no English language version available, aside from German it has, more naturally, been translated into Danish, Norwegian and Finnish.
So, I'm sorry, there's a treasure English-speakers are missing.

Madita (I'm going to call her by her "German" name, as it's the one I grew up with) is a 7-year old girl, living with her family in a Swedish town ca. 1910. She has a little sister called "Lisabeth" or "Pim", then there's her mother, Kajsa, her father, the editor in chief of the local newspaper and Alva, the maid, nanny and good soul of the house. Their neighbors the Nilssons are "Uncle Nilsson", a philosophical drunkard, his wife and their son Abbe, Maditas best friend, even though he is about 15 years old.



The characters are absolutely adorable! I love the whole family, the parents are so loving and seem to be the perfect couple indeed. While the mother is more the serious one, I love the father's humor. Even though he seems to be a bit cold-hearted sometimes, he just isn't. And his mocking of the world mirrors his discontent with a world full of bad. This is a weird figure in this book that is filled with so much love and sunshine, happiness and friendship and little adventures, but that's Astrid Lindgren for you, she makes up real unreal people, how perfect the world she's describing may be, there's always some bitterness or mockery in it, that makes is bearable. And here the father gives little barbs with heaps of self-awareness, instead of simply taking the easy life they lead as a given. Some say that in the Madicken-stories there is much more of the "real" and bad outside world, than in other Lindgren books, but to me Madicken's world is just as perfect, or even more so, than others. For example, Madicken is never punished for any of the things she does, her knowledge that what she did was wrong is always enough etc.



Alva, the good soul, I always loved her. Not like Susan in the Anne-of-Green-Gables-Series, who will always remain a stranger and some kind of an intruder in Anne's world to me, Alva was always a true part of the family, not competing in attention or love with the mother etc. Alva is such a kind person and aside from the role she has in the family is somehow independent as a character.



Then of course Lisabeth. She is described in the books with so much love and impertinence and fun, that it seems incredible, she could be brought to the screen with anything of this esprit - but she is! So much so! The little actress is perfect for the part and I adore this little Pim maybe even just a tiny bit more than the one in the books.
What I always will like about the family in particular is that the adults take the two girls very seriously, they don't talk down to them, they explain things (or try to), the answer questions with more than set phrases. All in all there's so much liberal and modern thoughts in the stories and dialogues, which make the story so fresh to watch (or read) each time.



There would be much more to say... about the alcoholic neighbor who is giving his poor wife no rest. About their son, Madita's friend Abbe, who is in an in-between state, it seems, he cares for Madita obviously, but what shows mainly is only his temptation to play with her, scare her, test her, as she just is a naive little girl, growing up in so guarded a universe, that she's ready to believe anything he tells her.



Well, and for the rest: The whole production is done with such love of detail, the setting, the nature, the costumes... it all is like a perfectly composed painting. Watching it is like a short trip to historic Sweden, like a little holiday for the soul.
There are rather elaborate scenes (with an historic aeroplane for example), some stunts for the kids and lots of little scenes where props are crucial (like in the newspaper office or the school etc.) and everything is done with a meticulous care and comes off true to the period.
The music theme also is composed with such tenderness and an understanding for the story, it accompanies the whole series like the sweet and fresh Swedish air that you think you're breathing when watching it.




So, all in all. This movie, like some of the other Lindgren adaptions, is perfection and nothing but. It captures the book, it's story, it's characters and it's spirit, and paints it with such colorfulness that you can feel it, not just see it.


This now is not such a good review then, I cannot, even if there was some tiny thing wrong with this adaption, criticize it. I love it way too much and I am way too grateful for the mixture of sinnesfrid (peace of mind) and längtan (longing) it gives me.

Why my November needs to last longer... ;-)



And more pics over at the other blog.

A little later than planned... but isn't it always? ;-)

Anyway, slowly the "Gothic November" projects begins to take form:
I'll not be writing reviews about the movies or films (or whatever other thing I might include in this), except if I manage to write a review for the Period Drama Challenge and maybe combine the two projects (I have about 7 unfinished, but started, reviews for the PDC here... I really have to get them online!). So maybe I'll watch Dracula and review it for both challenges, maybe Sleepy Hollow as well, we'll see.
It's mid of November and tthis is a kind of final list, maybe with options, anyway no must-do-all-of-it list.
But I have a few goals I want to reach as a minum:
Read one short story (e.g. Poe, Gaskell, Dickens, etc.) per week; watch two movies per week and finish one book.
And another thing, my November this year last at least one week into December, as I'm kind of skipping next week to take a lovely, but not at all dark and spooky holiday...

... and here's the new list (with way too much stuff to do in just one month, so this is just brainstorming and maybe also collecting ideas for another Gothic month next year?):


Read:
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
- E.A. Poe (The Masque of the Red Death;)
- The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
- No Name
- E.Gaskell short story
- Udolpho
- DuMaurier
- Les Fleurs du mal
- The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- The Vampyre by Wiliam Polidori
- Villette by Charlotte Brontë
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
- Anne Rice
- The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
- The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
- 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
- Mr. Darcy, Vampire
- Dragonwyck by Anya Seton
- Confessions of an English Opium-Eater
- The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki
- The Italian by Ann Radcliffe

Watch:
- Dracula (
√ - Sleepy Hollow
- Wuthering Heights (2x)
- The Phantom of the Opera (Charles Dance version)
- Carrie
- Interview with the Vampire
- Jane Eyre (version?)
- Rosemary's Baby
- The Night of the Living Dead
- the Skeleton Key
- The Grudge
- The Woman in White
- From Hell
- Shining
- Heavenly Creatures
- The Munsters
- The Crow
- Lost Highway
- The Corpse Bride
- Snow White (Miranda Richardson)
- Rebecca (2 versions)
- hush, hush sweet Charlotte
- The Others
- The Moonstone
- Make a special from all series I have on DVD with their Halloween episodes


TA DA!

And back later with a report... ;-)

So Halloween's done with (actually I kind of skipped Halloween... or does watching a documentation about how Russian woman try to get richer count as spooky?), less fuss about it this year, I had the feeling.
But I'm in a kind of spooky and eerie mood and declare November to be my personal Gothic Month!
I'm really embracing the Gothic mood as it is: last night while riding the bus I am pretty sure there was an invisible man sitting right behind me. I'm reading "The Legend of Sleeping Hollow" by Washington Irving (via dailylit.com) right now, so maybe I got a bit dragged along... but I swear, there was an invisible man sitting right behind me! The bus was empty except for me and the driver and I was sitting in the backmost part. And someone was coughing and clearing their throat constantly. I looked around several times, because I startled and was confused. And I really felt like someone was present... It was really spooky!

Anyway, back to the November - The Gothic Month:
It'll be my own personal challenge (while anybody interested of course can take part!). I'll try to watch as many gruesome movies as possible and read as many nightmarish books as possible.

I have a little list ready (just what came from brainstorming) and will see how it goes. Some of those I already started reading, some are not really too gothic, I'll see, what else comes my way.
As of now I only have this idea of my Gothic Month, but no real "goal", like how many movies to watch etc. But maybe that will change...

Here's the temporary list:

Read:
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
- E.A. Poe stories
- The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters
- No Name
- E.Gaskell short story
- Udolpho
- DuMaurier

Watch:
- Dracula
- Sleepy Hollow
- Wuthering Heights (2 different versions)
- The Phantom of the Opera (Charles Dance version)

+ So getting to my 8am lecture this morning in time did actually work (and I manged to stay awake for at least 45 minutes, before fighting the sleep got in way with being able to follow the prof's speech). I would only hope that the lecture would remain as interesting for the rest of the seminar as this part is... I just love to hear about the ancient Romans...

+ The highfalutin lit-art-philosophy-seminar last week was a bit overwhelming indeed. I am still not quite sure, what the exact point is (but that's normal, I guess) and feel kind of overstrained* and inadequate, well... we'll see how that goes. My topic in the seminar (or part of it), is Bachtin's view of bodies... hm, I'm trying to find out about that.

+ Yesterday I held a genuine book from 1772 in my hands - oh, how I love that! I can order any books from the library and end up touching (or maybe even reading!) those really old books. And that without any precaution (aside from them keeping the books locked in a safe until I want to read them). Not that I question this availableness of books to everybody, but handing out gloves to protect a 327 year old book from my hand's oils and acids wouldn't hurt too much.

+ Dreary weather lately, real "stew-weather". All dark and foggy and wet... I'll be heading over to the cafeteria now and see what they have.


Funny, mainly study-related entries lately... but I don't do much else lately. I would want to, however!



(*see more about that over in the old place...)

First day of the semester... I hate first days of the semester (all those "freshmen"! So many of them! Always standing everywhere in line for something or standing in crowds, walking in hordes, waiting in bunches, everywhere...), but I love the first week of a new semester, all is fresh, you think you can do it all, finding out about all the classes you're going to take...

Actually I skipped three of four possible classes today, because I still haven't finished this one paper, and as I already have another one due next week, I'm determined to finish it today.
I went, however, to my Ivo Andrić class, now I want to read everything he has ever written, and a biography, too... I'm certain this is going to be an interesting class, but I have a lot of reading ahead of me there.

So, my other seminar in literature (or rather art or philosophy) is on thursday. I'm slightly scared because I don't really know what to expect and also because it is a seminar for the so called elite degree program "Historical Discourses of art and images" (or something of the sort) - ain't that fancy! But we "normal" post-preliminary students are admitted also...

Anyway. I'm so tired right now, my head still aches and all I want to do is sleep and sleep. I do not want to get up at 7am and go to that stupid lecture about History of Romanic languages (the lecture probably isn't stupid at all, but to hold it so early in the morning is just mean!).

No, I won't pull an all-nighter. What a dreary thing to do anyway (if it's not to do something fun that is...).
It's close to 3 am and I'll be getting some sleep now, in front of the tv probably, but sleep none the less.

I tried to finish that paper on Catherine the Great and censorship today, but I really couldn't. Aside from a lack of time and motivation I got a really bad headache, too, and now I feel like I'm getting a cold... no wonder anyway, it's not fall here anymore, no, it's winter already, a bit of snow and it's freezing (as in water becomes ice outside). It's supposed to be warmer coming week, but still. I'm only glad my Whoogas are here already! More golden they are, than what I would have wished for, but what warm feet they make!

Wow, I tend to blabber, when I'm tired.
Anyway, there's nothing cuter than a cat licking/drinking milk (what's the word for that?) and nothing more annoying than a cat demanding attention while you try to work on a paper...

Tomorrow is the first day of the new semester... I'm going to skip two out of three classes...

And I'm gone for now.