A review by leviathandreamer
Jagannath by Karin Tidbeck
4.0
I absolutely love short stories. Some find them difficult to both read and write (I feel the opposite), but I like the trickiness and sense of fragmentation they tend to have. You get only a glimpse of a story, you don't know anything about the characters, you're confused about what's happening and you might not find an explanation, but that's good - instead of being faced with a definite conclusion which you have to accept, you can make sense of it yourself.
Having said that, the short stories feature people falling in love with machines, failed suicide attempts, a ''call centre'' which would be Kafka's choice of employment if he lived in the 21th century, a die hard fan of the Cure who disappears into a forest (of course she does) with a group of elfish race whose most characteristic trait is insanity, a lot of actual body horror and an obligatory womb level you'd find in any 90's/early 00's horror game... but beneath all this surreal madness, one can sense much more ''trivial'' and very palpable problems - parent/child relationships, the loss of security, questions about identity, the desire to leave something/somewhere/someone and leave something here.
Also, massive plus points to the author for touching on the subjects of language and translating her own work (I read a translation of her translation, so... meta?) to her non-native tongue. I wish I could read it in Swedish, so the reindeer mountain would come alive in all its northern glory.
Having said that, the short stories feature people falling in love with machines, failed suicide attempts, a ''call centre'' which would be Kafka's choice of employment if he lived in the 21th century, a die hard fan of the Cure who disappears into a forest (of course she does) with a group of elfish race whose most characteristic trait is insanity, a lot of actual body horror and an obligatory womb level you'd find in any 90's/early 00's horror game... but beneath all this surreal madness, one can sense much more ''trivial'' and very palpable problems - parent/child relationships, the loss of security, questions about identity, the desire to leave something/somewhere/someone and leave something here.
Also, massive plus points to the author for touching on the subjects of language and translating her own work (I read a translation of her translation, so... meta?) to her non-native tongue. I wish I could read it in Swedish, so the reindeer mountain would come alive in all its northern glory.