Books in lockdown

On Friday I walked to the post office to pick up a tome, about seven hundred pages of Iris Murdoch's letters, Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch 1934-1995. Initially, I bought it to put under the Christmas tree, a gift from me to myself, but instead, it will be my lockdown book. A book with a role.

Tomorrow Austria goes into lockdown due to a surge in COVID cases. It's safe to say that the mood is peculiar these days; I believe I’m not the only one dealing with lockdown weariness. I had been looking forward to finishing this term in early December, strolling the decorated streets of Linz, and spending time in bookshops and snug cafés. We can expect everything to reopen sometime before Christmas, meaning the city centre will be crowded, which I do not care for despite being vaccinated. One advantage of a lockdown is the ample time for pleasure reading and cosiness at home. A decent stack of books awaits me so I cannot complain.

With lots of unread books on my shelves, there will be no shortage of books in this lockdown. Recently I was in a bookshop and bought two German ones, including Medea. Stimmen by Christa Wolf (1929-2011). I have never read her work. I was in the mood for Greek mythology because during coffee breaks this autumn I have kept Mythos by Stephen Fry within reach. What a fun read, he's so witty. I have also been reading a new collection of Icelandic literary essays, Póetík í Reykavík: Erindi 14 höfunda. This publication celebrates the 10th anniversary of Reykjavik being a UNESCO City of Literature. One of the authors was so kind to send me a copy unexpectedly. These books will be on my next reading list, which I have been postponing to share on the blog.

A classic study break with veggie pasta

The entrance of Alex - Eine Buchhandlung

One bookshop I like is called Alex Buchhandlung, located at Der Linzer Hauptplatz, a large square close to the main bridge over the Danube River. It's a small bookshop with a vast selection of German books. I almost bought there a Fischer edition of Franz Kafka's diaries but thought to myself that my German might not be good enough to truly enjoy it. I decided to wait until I had read his stories The Judgement and Metamorphosis, which have been sitting on my shelves. I read an Icelandic translation of the latter ages ago but I have yet to read Kafka in German.

images mine, the 1st, 2nd and 5th appeared on Instagram 19/11/21; 15/11/21; 02/10/21

№ 28 reading list | Oh, Vienna ...

Here you have my new reading list. Something about this stack of books delights me immensely. I had trouble deciding which book to start with (I'm trying to break the habit of reading many at once) and in the end, I picked up Max Perkins by A. Scott Berg, the winner of the 1980 National Book Award. This is the biography of perhaps the most important editor of the 20th century, a book about books and the act of writing. Perkins was the editor of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, to name a few. Given that The Great Gatsby has become a classic, it's almost astonishing to read Fitzgerald's letters to Perkins before its publication in 1925, full of doubts, especially about the title. Unfortunately, his concerns were valid because the book sold poorly, compared to his first, This Side of Paradise (1920). If only the dear old sport had known its fate.

№ 28 reading list:

1  Essayism  · Brian Dillon
2  This Little Art  · Kate Briggs
3  Forty-one False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers  · Janet Malcolm
4  Shuggie Bain  · Douglas Stuart
5  Unquiet  · Linn Ullmann
6  Max Perkins: Editor of Genius  · A. Scott Berg
7  The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million  · Daniel Mendelsohn

Translated by: 5) Unquiet: Thilo Reinhard

The Shakespeare & Company bookshop in Vienna

In my last reading list entry, I told you about the COVID-19 restrictions in post-lockdown Austria: This summer would be different and there would likely be some train-hopping if one could go to cafés and restaurants without planning ahead. Sitting down to enjoy refreshments one needs a negative test, which limits spontaneity. My oldest daughter and her Dutch boyfriend recently came for a visit and we spent a day in Vienna. We went to the Belvedere Museum, greeted Napoleon - or Napi, as we call him - and took our time to admire Klimt's Kiss. We walked all over the city and enjoyed lunch in a public park. Our stroll ended in the Jewish quarter, where the English bookshop Shakespeare & Company is located, in Sterngasse to be exact. I love this district in Vienna, thus I give the members of Ultravox the last word, Oh, Vienna ...

images mine, the 2nd appeared on Instagram 16/07/21

Playwright Thomas Bernhard and white Austria

If you follow me on Instagram you know that I usually don't write long captions, nor do I copy nor share them on the blog. Sometimes I use the same pics. Yesterday, however, I wrote about my experience in Austria and would like to keep these reflections on the blog. You can look at this as a peek into my next reading list, which includes the play Heldenplatz by the Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard. I will probably write about it later, in a Reading journal entry. That said, here is yesterday's caption with added links:

Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989) is an Austrian novelist and playwright that I still haven't read. For my next reading list, I bought a Suhrkamp edition of his play Heldenplatz, which he wrote on the 50th anniversary of the 'Anschluss', the annexation of Austria by Hitler's Germany [the Anschluss took place on 12 March 1938]. Anti-Semitism is the play's major theme.

Austria is my adopted country and I believe literature is one of the best ways to learn about the history and culture of a nation. By that, I'm referring to the things the history books usually leave out. Most of my time in Austria has been spent in this pandemic, which has limited my chances to be out and about; to meet people.

The Austrians I have met are all very friendly. However, what I cannot help noticing is that in magazines this country is depicted as White. Whether it's done intentionally, I cannot say. As I'm white, I have no experience of racism, but I have sat in waiting rooms and leafed through Austrian magazines, which present an idyllic view of a rich country with beautiful landscapes and white people. Lots of white people. I have searched and counted: In one magazine I found a group photo with one Asian woman and in another a small one with a black man. I wonder if the Austrians themselves even notice this.

Anyway, Bernhard's play, which some Austrians found hard to swallow, is one way for me to practise my German during the pandemic.

(Bloomsbury has published an English translation of the play Heldenplatz by Meredith Oakes.)

Adding to yesterday's reflections, I do realise that Austrians are in the majority, about 80%, but in light of history and increased immigration, I would have expected growing awareness. I have lived in several European countries and perhaps there I didn't notice this white image in magazines. Yet, I don't think so. I don't remember this kind of evident whiteness. By the way, I found an interesting article from 2018 on the website of The Irish Times, called Vienna is ranked world’s ‘most liveable city’, but for whom? (with the subtitle: For some of my immigrant friends here, the welcome has been far from warm). It focuses on the situation in Vienna and its author paints a completely different picture than a white one, of a multinational community to which the magazines I have leafed through do not seem to make an attempt to appeal.

Well, spring has sprung with sun and seventeen degrees so there is no reason to complain about the Austrian weather.

image by me, appeared on Instagram 25/03/21

Happy New Year

May the new year bring you peace and joy, my dear blog readers!

image by our daughter Margret Asmund
- taken 29/12/2019 by Traunsee, Gmunden, Austria

Glimpses of life in Austria

I haven't made it a habit to share on the blog the images I post on Instagram, but these last months the time for blogging has been limited and a lot has happened: We recently moved to Austria, both our daughters went to university abroad and I decided to switch gears: I started my Master's in Museology, which I'm fortunate to be able to study online at the University of Iceland. Textbooks, lectures and assignments are keeping me busy but I felt the blog needed updating and decided to use images from my archive, of the Traunsee region, a bookshop in Vienna and two study-related still lifes.

This was my first visit to the Traunsee region and I will never forget the moment I first spotted the lake: My heart skipped a beat. The scenery was achingly beautiful. On a sunny Sunday we drove through small villages, enjoyed lunch by the lake in Altmünster, and afterwards headed to Gmunden. Later we were invited to a garden party in Gmunden, where we dined al fresco on the hillside overlooking the lake, with the Traunstein mountain so close it almost felt as if we could reach the hand out and touch it.

I love finding books in my mailbox. The staff at Fitzcarraldo Editions sent me a copy of I Remain in Darkness by Annie Ernaux, published last week in the UK (translated by Tanya Leslie). This is how I described the book on Instagram: 'It's the author's account of losing her mother to Alzheimer's disease. This short book is powerful, filled with raw, gut-wrenching emotions. Sometimes I need to take a break from the reading to let a sentence, or one word only, sink in.' The book will be on my next reading list and later I will review it.

After accompanying our oldest daughter to the Vienna airport one morning, I spent the rest of the day in the city. I hadn't been there in a long time, headed straight for the metro and got out on the Schwedenplatz station. From there I walked a short distance to Sterngasse, a street where Shakespeare & Co. is located, a bookshop that sells English books (independent, not a brand of the one in Paris). It's small, vintage-looking, with a surprisingly good collection.

After strolling in the vicinity of the bookshop, I headed east along the Fleischmarkt and Postgasse streets. This part of the city was bursting with life, people everywhere sitting outdoors at small cafés and restaurants. Wonderful mood, distinctively European, if that makes sense. I grabbed sushi and found a bench in Stadtpark where I sat in the shadow of a tree and did some people watching. Then I headed south towards the Belvedere Palace and enjoyed its beauty. This time I didn't enter the museum; I have been there before and promised my daughter that I would later go with her to see The Kiss by Gustav Klimt and other paintings.

As I will be busy with my studies, I will not have much time for pleasure reading, and for photographing books, but soon I intend to share a new reading list. I have some ideas about how to keep my blog more alive during my studies and one is starting a new category where I feature book covers.

You may have noticed that I renew and rotate covers in the blog's sidebar and footer. These are new editions that I'm particularly interested in, and sometimes books coming out in paperback for the first time. I would like to give some of these covers a more permanent place on the blog, mainly to praise a beautiful book design. Then there are a few entries that I still owe, mainly Reading journal entries. If you think not much is happening on the blog you can always check my Instagram, where I occasionally share photos of books, mainly.

images by me, appeared on Instagram in August & September 2019