Saturday, February 13, 2016

Brilliant literary criticism, and a little whipped cream – Swedish Dagbladet

Author
Genre
nonfiction
Publisher
Norstedts
ISBN
9789113071534

299 s.

S for young bookworms I loved to walk sideways along Östermalmstorg metro station and discover new parts of Siri Derkert seemingly endless wall artwork. “Carvings in concrete” became a way into an alternative cultural history where names such as Virginia Woolf, Elin Wagner and Simone de Beauvoir weighed as heavily as Albert Einstein. In their best moments operates literature professor and culture critic Ebba Witt-Bratt’s “Culture Man and other texts’ which Derkert artwork – an eye opener where new names and different approaches make literature exciting and raw, a world to be discovered again. One example is a brilliant feminist reinterpretation of Selma Lagerlof’s road to success, and a chapter on the right Siri Derkert relation to the women’s movement, where an impressed Susan Sontag piloted around among Stockholm’s public artwork.

Everything is not about women : the collection is “Culture man” a shining example of the his’n’her story – where representatives of both sexes are given space, but interpreted according to their different conditions. They are written for a broad audience rather than academia and is characterized by an inviting spoken: agile, battle ready, fastidiously referential but not at the expense of clarity. Ebba Witt-Brattström know just how much light is required, and is something of a truffle pig when it comes to tracking literary influences.

Ideally, her texts read without prejudice, “without father “as Roland Barthes would say (” or without a mother, “as Witt Brattström probably had replicated), but it is almost impossible. Horace Engdahl Ebba Witt-Bratt’s marriage has taken place on an open stage. As Eric Schüldt pointed out in the pod “60 minutes” they are part of the very limited group of cultural figures spoken of with the first name of the public.

Later in our gives Ebba Witt-Brattström the key novel ” century love war “on the couple’s breakup. The anger that will probably have its outlet in the book, there is very little of the “Culture Man and other texts.” It is instead a generous collection of texts which testify to a large, indeed enormous, formation and great commitment to literature. We are far from the caricature of Witt Brattström as “angry” feminist, which never sued, her strategy resembles rather the teasing the kid in the schoolyard. Personal attacks will that digs – playfully veiled, hidden in a subordinate clause or between the lines, and test masochistic limit of the ambient anger is triggered.

The most obvious example of this is the article that gave the book its name, which was central in one of last year’s most rancorous cultural debates. Technically accused Witt Brattström certainly not the male authors Stig Larsson and Karl Ove Knaus Farm for pedophilia and repressed homosexuality, but it was their literary creations were attacked. While it was evident highly intelligent Witt Brattström obviously well aware that the words that would break through the media clutter and make left in the readers’ ears, long after details of her articles have been forgotten, were just “pedophilia” and “homosexuality.”

Even a younger generation of feminists get themselves some nips. In the “eating disorder peoples, they imposed imperial cuts and shaved muttornas” era of lacking humility in the face of previous generations struggle as well as the ability to appreciate the specifically feminine experience – of motherhood, sisterhood, and the female body.

the best is Witt Brattström when she assumes the Community in the andravågsfeminism which today is her mental resident. Then she can focus on the strong links between totalitarianism and sexual violence in Sofi Oksanen’s authorship and get me to experience the “purge” in a whole new way. Then she let Kerstin Ekman’s “grand final of the kidding industry,” lay bare the Janus personality (on the one hand, beautiful and manageable on the other hand, smart and questioning) required by women who want up at the Parnassus.

The popular science språkskruden dress Witt Brattström well. She is instantly recognizable as himself, cheeky but elegant opposition (as when she calls it which is usually just called “literature” for “party literature”), and – like the tease in the schoolyard – pretty funny. Especially in short-term rates that comes with the poker face: “Yes, you read that right.” “Just so you know.” “End quote.”

Sometimes it However, the whipped cream. Like when Freud should have thanked the Swedish Ola Hansson for the help with the sexual theory by encoded characters in his works. Or like when Witt Brattström follows researcher Stephanie von Shnurbein (try that in this context does not pull smile on your face to the name) in the grooves and make too much of a spoon porridge Espen Aksel Sand Moses “A refugee crosses his tracks” have difficulty swallowing . Represent porridge semen? Or is it the milk? Say no more , which Ebba Witt-Brattström’d written. (She has a tendency to pick up English words in their lyrics, which unexpectedly gives elasticity rather than embarrassment point.)

A few times in the “Culture Man and other texts,” she sounds too psychoanalytically laid colleagues lure her away into well-theoretical view corridors (there are, for example, what happens in the controversial text of Knausgård and Larsson). It can be exciting as intellectual drill (and it is obvious that Witt Bratt’s is a mind that needs to be exercised) but it will be limited to analysis then concluded so to speak, is arranged before närläsningen even started.

Usually offers “Culture man and other texts” However, the exact opposite. For those who have little patience with Tease Witt Brattström is this great discoveries and a contagious openness to literature and its possibilities. Thus it is a book that succeeds impressively well in its overall intention: to display a wide reading audience to the feminist gaze on literature (and in life) need not involve any blinders, but on the contrary (to borrow Ebba Witt-Bratt’s own words) creates “helbildning” instead of “half-education.”

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