It's Swedish to Me

From time to time, I like to exercise my reading muscles. This way, I never find myself walking up the down escalator at a department store, because even though it was broken and so it can be used as stairs in either direction, I would have read the "DOWN" and went to the other side, since I wanted to go "UP." Quite helpful.

Recently, and quite accidentally, I've found myself with novels from foreign authors taking place in foreign countries but thankfully written entirely in English. I was able to really get into the Kite Runner, despite many unfamiliar words, places and references to historical events. The story was beautiful and moving, though I think I'd have a hard time watching the movie if some of the more heartbreaking scenes are graphically portrayed. Even though many of the words and ideas were foreign to me, the author did a great job of explaining them, and sprinkled them throughout, giving the book that authentic cultural experience feel.

Before this enlightening read, however, I had tried reading Stiig Laarson's novel "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," but found it really difficult to get into. Everything takes place in Sweden and has a weird name. It's like the Swedish Chef teamed up with IKEA to take me on a verbal tour of Nonsense-Land. I made it 2 pages in and was overwhelmed by the amount of quadruple vowels and letters that have no business being adjacent to each other. It did leave me with a hankering for swedish meatballs and lingonberry jam. Or, just kotbuller and tyttebærsyltetøy* as they'd say in Sweden.

*technically, this is Norwegian, but there's NO way you would have known that without me telling you.