Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

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A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...
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Betrayal by Karin Alvtegen

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I love Karin Alvtegen. She tells stories about ordinary people, or almost ordinary. There is always a twist to the story and you never know how it will end up. It is psychological and enters into the mind of the characters she is creating.

In Betrayal we meet Eva and Henrick who have a little bit of a marital problem. As the relationship unfolds everything is not what it seems to be. At the same time we meet Jonas who is guarding his girl friend, Anna, who is in a coma in the hospital. Due to circumstances Eva's and Jonas' lives are intertwined and takes a turn for the worse.

For Eva life is marriage and a happy family. That is how she grew up and she can not consider anything else. When this life is threatening her and her son Axel, she goes to extraordinary circumstances to save it. But has she ventured in to the wrong way to solve the problem?
... In some way she had to defend herself against the feelings he awaked in her. Shield herself. If she allowed herself to give in she was lost, a victim, poor Axel's rejected mamma who had lost control over her life. Sometime in the future he would understand that she did it all for his sake. That she was the one who took responsibility and tried to protect him, not like his father."
When Jonas girlfriend dies his life is turned upside down. Circumstances have it that he meets someone who reminds him of Anna and he has already planned their life together. For Jonas love is unconditionally.

" The day he got married and someone really loved him for the person he was, the day someone truly saw him, he would never again look at anyone else. He would drag out all the passion inside him and make his woman a queen. He would worship her, do everything she asked, be there loving her every second. He would never fail. His love could work miracles if someone would only let it. If anyone would only accept it. Why could no woman see his capacity, see the inherent power in him? Why was there no one who wanted to accept all that he had to give?
Anna had known. And yet he wasn't good enough for her." 
 Eva is craving to be loved and taken care of. She is always the strong one, she is the one keeping the family together. When she finally gets the unconditioned love she wants, it comes her way in the mind of a dangerous man.

As in all of Alvtegen's books there is a scary undertone in the story. Sometimes you can not touch it, it is just there. When it finally shows itself it is scary. More so since her characters are what we would consider normal people, but underneath lurks something bad.


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