Suicide (at the public library)

I made a quick trip downtown today, on my bike, to the public library. I was looking for books by Peter Handke.

After the controversy when he received the Ibsen Prize, I got curious. I want to read a couple of his books, to make up my own mind.

I wasn't the only one. All the books by Handke were out.

So, I borrowed a book by Stig Sæterbakken instead. He was one of our finest contemporary authors. I say was, because he died in 2012. He committed suicide at the age of 46. He often wrote about dark and unpleasant themes, such as loneliness.

I have always found authors who comitted suicide (for instance Hemingway and Bjørneboe) very inteteresting.

The French/Algerian author Albert Camus said that "the only serious philosophical question is suicide"

All animals and humans have a natural fear of death. Those who commit suicide are able to defeat the greatest of all fears.

Don't worry; I'm not one of them. I just find it interesting>:)

Nothing is sacred anymore

I was shocked and horrified yesterday, when little boy came home with this new book from the school’s library. Nothing is sacred anymore, not even the Hardy Boys.

When I was a kid, I read about all the books about the Hardy Boys, at least 60-70 of them. This series was the backbone of my literary childhood. I had to buy the books myself, or borrow from friends. The librarian in my hometown (hardly a town, it was on the country side) refused to take in the books. She thought it was junk literature. What the Hell, the Hardy Boys, that’s the best books ever written … well, at least when you’re 10 years old.

Yesterday little boy came home with a book from the new Hardy Boys series; Undercover Brothers. I hadn’t seen this series before, so I got curious. We read the book loud together. It was “written by” Franklin W. Dixon of course (that guy has an impressing career, starting in the 1920s). The story is told in 1st person with POV alternating between Frank and Joe. They are undercover agents and get their missions from an organisation called American Teens Against Crime (ATAC).

The new series is modernized, in the sense that it's set in our cell-phone-and-computer-game age. It’s probably done to make the kids relate more easily to the setting and the environment. Maybe it’s needed to boost sales.

I’ve always thought that half the fun of reading books is to learn about life in past times and different places. And I definitely prefer the original Hardy Boys before the new. Don't mess with the Hardy Boys.

Maybe I’m a little bit prejudiced, or maybe I'm just getting old >:)