finished reading Jurtjyrkogården 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑
https://neodb.social/book/7HZQm56CCTAldcvrC9E3nw

Allt börjar i en fråga: Den där händelsen med Victor Pascow. Hur kommer det sig att han redan då visste vad som var på väg att hända med Louis? Det här är det första egentliga mötet med berättelsens mystiska kärna. Är det en miss i kronologin? Hade det inte funkat bättre om den här händelsen ägt rum efter det där med Church? Jag bara undrar. Men den frågan ligger och skaver i mig under större delen av läsningen, inte minst eftersom Pascow återkommer efterhand historien utvecklar sig.

Men är det här bra då? Jag minns den som härligt läskig när jag läste den första gången, även om jag kanske var mer fokuserad på skildringar av hjärnsubstans, mossiga lik, förvridna kroppar och blödande sår än den motorväg mot helvetet romanens huvudperson färdas längs i allt större hastighet desto närmare slutet vi kommer. Och det är bra - fram till slutet. (Det är ju på något konstigt sätt ett kännetecken hos King.) Rumphugget och antiklimaktiskt - men det kunde varit värre. Men några sidor till hade slutet kunnat dras ut - eller hur?

Han skriver det inte rakt ut, men jag får känslan att vägen till begravningsplatsen utspelar sig i ett slags liminalt utrymme, befolkat av varelser från andra världar. En hotfull plats där man inte bör stanna, utan endast färdas igenom. (Jag får en långsökt association till Steven Eriksons "warrens" - de farliga dimensioner magikerna i hans fantasyvärld rör sig i.) Det är en spännande grej jag inte läst in i några King-verk tidigare (men kanske finns de där, om man vet vad man ska leta efter).

Det är sådana grejer, plus att det trots allt är välskrivet, som gör att jag gärna vill klassa den här som lite bättre än genomsnittet av hans böcker. Samtidigt lyckas ju inte slutet motsvara de förväntningar han byggd upp under de föregående 450 sidorna, och det måste ju tala till bokens nackdel, eller hur?

Det som ändå tippar över till Kings fördel är kanske en miss, en bortglömd röd tråd. (Fast kanske är det just det att det liksom glömts bort som gör det så effektfullt.) Boken slutar i en massa typisk Kingsk dramatik och ond, bråd död. Allt som kan gå fel verkar gå fel.

Men vad blev det av Ellie?

Det låg jag i mörkret och begrundade efter att jag slagit ihop boken, lagt den på nattygsbordet, släckt lampan och låg under täcket och tittade upp i taket på de projicerade siffrorna från klockradion när de slog över till noll.

finished reading Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus 🌕🌕🌑🌑🌑
https://neodb.social/book/0Rhxw6wx9JUb57tcOKuX04

Wrote a pretty bad review of this novel yesterday. After sleeping on it I suddenly felt guilty about it. Maybe I was too harsh? Maybe this review would come back and haunt me; drag my name in the mud.

I, who proud myself on writing personal, yet reasonable, reviews.
I, who consider myself to be nuanced and rational.

So I thought about going back and deleting it - which I absolutely could do, in contrast to poor Victor Frankenstein, who spends most of the book trying, but failing, to erase his creation. Not that bringing life to a hideous creation of flesh and blood is at all comparable to a sloppy review. But I think the comparison still may be valid. Sort of.

We all make mistakes. And some of those mistakes do come back to bite us in the ass. And in the case of Victor Frankenstein, it's not just a question of deleting the mistake, hoping not too many people saw it. What he fails to do though, is to own his bad decision. Just own it. Say to himself that "yeah, I messed up big time. But what's done is done. Let's at least try to make this a learning experience."

But no. Both Victor and the monster seem drawn to wallowing in self pity. Victor sees himself as the victim (sic!) from the moment he realizes (and regrets) that his experiment has been a success. He does reflect on his responsibility for the carnage left in the wake of the monster, but never truly accepts that notion. And the monster similarly never seems to realize his own agency in creating said carnage. Instead he constantly blames Victor with a "look what you made me do"-attitude that turns the story into a blame game starring two self proclaimed victims, locked in a dance of death.

I'm probably missing all the points Shelley tried to make with this story. Ah, well. I guess that to stay in line with the story I would not be wrong in blaming her for that. Just as she in her turn would/could blame me for being too stupid to understand it.

And thus the blame game continues...

finished watching Sinners 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑
https://neodb.social/movie/2Kw48SfPW3N1lWUhMjhkaz

So I finally got round to watching the most hyped movie of the year (so far). Unsurprisingly, I was highly sceptical going into this, but as the movie crept along I got more and more invested and, well...

This might - in some aspects - be viewed as little more than your standard (read classic) horror action movie with lots of things to complain about, if you're that kind of "critic"; the apparently greenscreened train station scene (I dare you to prove me wrong!), the music scenes have a pretentiousness to them that's hard to ignore, Jordan did NOT have to play two parts ("that's a PR-gimmick", as Max Rockatansky would say, while pointing at the two Jordans) an so on.

But at the same time, this is a well crafted (albeit shallow) story that also deals with racism, segregation, a longing for community and is - when push comes to shove - a movie that can be seen again and again with the same amount of excitement and joy each time. Just because it's all of the above: Vampires, racists, musicians, cool characters and some pretty intense action.

It captures the essence of good entertainment in a way few of it's contemporaries manages to do.

finished watching The Fly 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
https://neodb.social/movie/6Rk5XmO47kVUdTevolCWqU

Yay! For my 100th movie in 2025 I had to choose an old favorite by one of those directors that seem to be one of a kind (although this one has a son that might just be the second of this kind). David Cronenberg's remake of "The Fly" is one of those wierd things where a pretty mainstream "beauty and the beast"-style monster movie starring a couple of pretty mainstream actors (Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis) fuses with usually obscure and relentless body horror where people vomit acid, lose body parts and philosophize about "penetration beyond the veil of the flesh" (not to speak of the piece de resistance; an unfortunately deleted scene featuring both a monkey-cat and self mutilation, that can be found on the bluray).

The story moves on swiftly and before we know it, things are set in motion that cannot be undone (not for lack of trying, though). Unfortunately though, it actually feels a bit rushed. Like Cronenberg starts off just wanting it to be done and over with. And it has it's share of melodrama á la "Frankenstein" or "Hunchback of Notre Dame"; segments that can be interpreted as homages to the original movie from 1958, but also as a whispered apology from the director: "I think this is stupid too. I'm only doing this for the money".

But it's not stupid. It's effective, because it contrasts against the relentless horror of the transformation of Seth Brundle into Brundlefly. The practical effects are as gruesome today as they were in 1986. And speaking of effects it's pretty mindblowing when you realize the wall- and roofcrawling scenes were made more than 15 years prior to Sam Raimi's "Spider-Man"!

All in all, David Cronenberg's "The Fly" is - despite it's flaws - well worth your attention if you're curious about the kind of stuff described above. It's a gateway movie to body horror and a milestone that has served as an inspiration to many others. For example, the "ear"-scene has been emulated by Peter Jackson in "Braindead" ("Dead/Alive") while Neill Blomkamp's "District 9" in essence is an action and sci/fi oriented reimagining of the story where, among other things, the final transformation of Wikus van de Merwe is strikingly similar to the fully transformed Brundlefly.

I can probably not recommend this movie enough.