More Real than Real..............thankyou Fredrik Backman (the author of this remarkable book)
I'm deep in book bereavement this morning. Ok, it was pouring with rain outside and everything here grinds to a halt in the rain, but either way I stayed in bed until I finished this remarkable read. So now I can't stop thinking about it and pondering the fact that it was all so real.
I don't often write about books I've read because for a person who is seldom short of words I struggle to find anything adequate to describe the ones which impress me the most, because I've just believed in them, lived in them, am probably suffering book bereavement at that point, and really a series of snapshots is what I need to explain - or even better, for you to just read that book yourself and experience what I can hardly being to describe unless you've been there too.
I chose this book for it's quirky title and the intriguing blurb on the back, as I have done with so many other treasures languishing on the shelves of charity shops. (I don't want to digress at this point as I often do, but how books are chosen is another thing to spout off about......) I didn't know what to make of it, another one which didn't make it clear what it was really like or who it was aimed at. But I wanted to find out. (or have had)
Wise beyond her years almost-eight Elsa took me with her through her experiences, happy, sad, scary and funny and ultimately triumphant because it is really a fairy tale and not just that they (fairy tales) are the subject of the book. She is a huge fan of Harry Potter, and those are tales which transcend the age ranges normally specific to a particular book, so it comes as no surprise that this should be equally successful in appealing to all ages whether or not they have (or have had) an eccentric superhero granny and a house full of odd neighbours, get bullied at school and go nightly to the Land of Almost-Awake which stops the nightmares and opens a whole new world quite literally. And yes, there is even a wardrobe with accommodating expansive sides but it isn't the way in.......the childhood fears, the bullying, the loneliness, the lack of a friend, being different, it resonates with adults who may have suffered some of the same or can empathise, and how wonderful to have had a granny so resolutely unpredictable and rebellious but so wise, so loyal, so dependable especially one with so little regard for propriety and whose language is as bad as her spelling.........it's the best of all kinds of stories to me: fantastic but so credible I'm envious I'm not there, so human yet so surreal, funny, sad, the scary bit offset by the ending, which promises happy if not entirely in place by the last page, and as any really good book should be, I'm so glad I read it and so sorry it's over. I can't be doing with loose ends and not knowing what happens next but this had all the feel of the fairy tales told within which all are part of the big tapestry woven from them all. It feels complete but not isolated.
It's why I do what I do, because however many people sidle off with their soul-less pieces of electronic disposable convenience, you can't beat a good book. There is enormous satisfaction in recommending something which is really enjoyed and in matching people to the books they like. Physical books that is. Elsa is in favour of her electronic versions but confronted by the lady in the black skirt's extensive bookcases, is forced to admit that a book is a book however you read it, but then she is only nearly-eight at the time. I've always loved books for their ability to take you into another world, someone else's life or situation, - to take you to places of which you may not even have dreamed, to be people you will never be, but to discover the shared nature of being human and alive, to be happy or sad, brave or afraid, to laugh out loud or to cry, to enrich your life beyond anything you can be shown. Words are wonderful things and the nuances of meaning to be marvelled at, to be savoured and used to embellish, to extend, to enlighten, and not as so often these days where they are subject specific or even recently created, used to reinforce the exclusive nature of those who use them, to make them sound more important, to exclude those outside "the know". If they are not understood then there is no point in having them, the whole point is to enrich, to be able to understand more not less...........but of course I'm not talking about the secret language of Miamus which Granny and Elsa share..............
Read it. Please. Or you're missing something special.