DN’s critics choose the most interesting books right now
Last weekend I read about Isaac Asimov’s foundation trilogy. It was published as a book series during the first half of the 1950s, when everything was comparatively straightforward in the world. I would really just read the first chapter, but it never happens.
The intrigue takes place for many generations from about the year 12,000 (galactic time count), but the pervasive protagonist Hari Seldon is dead when the first novel « The Foundation » begins. The title foundation, or two foundations, is psycho historian Seldon’s creation.
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Psycho history tries to mathematically and statistically predict future political events based on how large populations are expected to react. Since the big empire controls twenty -five million inhabited worlds, there is a fairly large population. But the empire basically shakes and will decay in barbarism, tracks Seldon. His foundations are intended to shorten the thirty thousand years of barbarism to just a thousand.
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It is rightly one of the major classics of the post -war period and an excellent introduction as to why one should read science fiction rather than ninety percent of the volatile that goes for fine literature. The entire Star Wars universe would be unthinkable without Asimov’s trilogy. As in all other early SF, there are of course strange things here for a contemporary reader. Mobiles and the Internet are missing, for example. And knowledge of nuclear energy is somewhat insanely exclusive.
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Tonight, I and many other injured people took part of the exchange between US President Donald Trump and his former Adjutant Elon Musk. Hardly no advanced psycho history was needed to predict that this would happen. Two narcissistic giant babies cannot hold the same if one’s universe were to depend on it. On the other hand, a mutant sticks in the wheel stands for Hari Seldon’s calculations in the trilogy. The psycho history is about greater context – random individuals who have the power to change the conditions cannot be included.
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A task for psycho historians might be to shorten the barbarism that threatens after the fall of the Empire, after the death of free trade, after the ecological disasters, mass migration, social media, artificial intelligence and crisis of criticism. One can hope that the humanity that crouches in the caves can at least read Asimov’s foundation details.
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We celebrate National Day by presenting Frans Wachtmeister’s novel on integration on the critic list. In « Lost Mark » he toured the same theme as he made in his debut this year. Both are about the basically hopeless in being a part of Japanese society as a young Swedish. Greta Schüldt wrote like this in her review: « With simple means – humor, violence, terrifying Buddhist wood sculptures – he does something new of the contemporary novel ».
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1. Daniel Kehlmann: « Light play »
Overs. Jesper Festin, Albert Bonnier’s publisher, 368 pages (1)
Slapstick and tragic alternate in the novel about German film director Georg Wilhelm Pabst during Nazism.
2. Clarice Lispector: « The moment of the star »
Overs. Örjan Sjögren. Tranan, 160 pages (2)
Brazilian’s last novel is a fate -filled personal will, now in a new translation.
3. Isabella Nilsson: « Emptiness and tenderness »
Emportic, 160 pages (3)
Hundreds of short texts about loneliness, writing, reading and impossible reality.
4. Zara Uzun Kjellner: « Radio Yerevan »
Nirstedt/Literature, 456 pages (6)
The story of five Kurds in the embezzlement is characterized by sharpness and trust in the reader.
5. Victor Klemperer: « Light and shadow »
Overs. Tommy Andersson. Glue production, 299 pages (4)
The literature professor who analyzed the language of Nazism kept this film diary in 1929-1945.
6. Fredrik Sjöberg: « Bruno Liljefors. A biography »
Albert Bonniers Förlag, 387 pages (5)
Entertaining biography that captures the entire extent of the artist’s messy life and deed.
7. Vigdis Hjorth: « The repetition »
Overs. Jen’s hero. Nature & Culture, 145 pages (7)
Autofiktive family drama with a sixteen -year -old, future writer in the center.
8. Ida Börjel: « Red anemon »
Albert Bonnier’s publisher, 247 pages (9)
Recordings from a trip to the West Bank 2011 foreshadows the abuse of our time.
9. Henrik Bromander: « The closest »
Weyler, 565 pages (8)
50 years of everyday life and extremes in Jönköping where the thrill novel meets the family epic.
10. Frans Wachtmeister: « Lost land »
Empire, 245 pages (new)
Innovation about a young Swedish alienation and integration attempt in the new home country of Japan.
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