Karin Tidbeck

Amatka starts as a fairly rote dystopia, a grey society organized into a brutal collective due to scarcity and the punishing cold. Shades of [b:The Left Hand of Darkness|18423|The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle #6)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1488213612s/18423.jpg|817527]. One little detail made in the beginning gets gradually more and more attention until it encompasses the mystery at the center of the novel and surreally transfigures, or perhaps liberates, the world.

Every object in Amatka is made out of the same identical grey gloop and be willed into existence for what it is. Objects must be marked: a toothbrush must be physically labeled as a toothbrush and this name said out loud, likewise spoons, doors, buildings, and so on. The commune's daily chores include the "marking song" where they systematically acknowledge the existence and names of everything they have. To forget to do this is to risk the collapse of the object back into its original state of grey goo-- an excellent little detail added is that this substance isn't merely gross but also psychically horrific and unsettling like a dead body or a religious blasphemy. Worse is if you call an object by the wrong name and create something indefinably wrong. This is such an amazing metaphor for the creative process; for the related tyrannies of language, culture, and symbolism; for neurosis and mental illness... personally I focused on the novelty of Saussure's langue as a literal dictatorship, but the sign of a great premise is that it can be interpreted in many ways.

So it was a remarkable turnaround. Just when I was sick of the unremarkable setting and beginning to get resigned to the possibility that this novel would let a great concept go to waste the book seemed to reach out, to sense my frustration and correct course. Furthermore it kept going; in the manner of Junji Ito Amatka takes the central idea and spins it to its logical, if absurd and horrific conclusion.

Although, of course, the conclusion isn't supposed to be horrific at all. Certainly disturbing but also just and good given the paradigm the novel presents. Language constrains ideas into arbitrary containers and so allows humans to handle them. Like wiring a bonsai tree it makes a growing thing manageable but also necessarily stunts it. This is why being bilingual is so important; Yuri Herrera says in his [b:Signs Preceding the End of the World|21535546|Signs Preceding the End of the World|Yuri Herrera|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1398195367s/21535546.jpg|15089950] "if you say Give me fire when they say Give me a light, what is not to be learned about fire, light and the act of giving? It’s not another way of saying things: these are new things." Discovering a new way of understanding a concept like "fire" that has grown independently of your known etymologies or sign-systems is to discover something new entirely.

In Amatka the constraints apply to physical objects. This thing is a toothbrush, it is, it is, it is. For it to not be a toothbrush, to even forget that it is a toothbrush, is to literally risk everything melting away and society falling to pieces. But what if our constraints are wrong? What if they're arbitrary? What if they contain inherent contradictions and our slavish devotion to them blinds us to inevitable problems? What if a thing isn't a thing at all? What if a toothbrush is a key? What if a man is a woman? What is a person is many people?… (més)

A book club pick :)

The Memory Theater is beautifully written and exquisite in its *otherness* and darkness.

When I was small, a I had a favourite book of fairy tales – there were Charles Perrault’s stories, Beaumont’s Beauty and the Beast etc etc. These were the originals, not the saccharine “modern” versions stripped of their power. There was a parental advisory of sorts in the introduction, “please read these stories carefully yourself before giving them to your children”. I ignored it, of course, and my family didn’t even know it was there (thank you, family, I love you). While reading the Memory Theater I was reminded of the feel and the universe of those tales. This book also felt like an extension of the sinister undercurrents of Alice in Wonderland.

Violence becomes more stark and more terrible when described in simple terms. There is a distilled essence of many dark things in fairy tales, and Karin Tidbeck digs them out for all to see.

I liked the multiverse and how it worked in this book. And how can one not love the fact that the characters end up in Sweden at one point? (Trust a Swedish author to do this, oh yes.) It was very satisfying when creatures from Scandinavian mythology got a mention or put in an appearance.

I loved the theater troupe that acts out true stories so that they will not be forgotten. I loved Dora and Thistle.

“They’ll be angry or they won’t be,” she said. “But until you know, there’s no use in being afraid. And if they’re really powerful, then there’s nothing we can do. And then there’s no use being afraid either. I promise I’ll be afraid later if we need to.”

There is a quest, of course, as there should be. There is love, and fear, and trauma, and heartbreak.
There is also a homecoming, but not the kind you’d expect if you’ve only been reading “happy” fairy tales.

I loved this so much.… (més)

Like a crossover fanfiction between Solaris and We, though it lacks the sort of, I don't know, intellectual seriousness of those works. Tidbeck introduces a lot of interesting ideas but doesn't delve into the philosophical/political/psychological implications of those ideas, at least not with any real depth, which I wouldn't hold against her except that the world reminded me so much of Solaris—which obviously is more philosophically inclined than most science fiction.
Nonetheless, the mystery and horror aspects are, I think, both effective and novel, though Tidbeck takes her sweet time getting to them considering how short the whole thing is. In fact if the first half or so was cut, I'd like it a whole lot more—at first I was thinking I'd give up on tracking down Jagganath, her short story collection, but the second half drew me back in. We'll see—but I think the length did this one a disservice.… (més)

I had it in my head that these would be folkloric stories, but they're a lot more. I suppose speculative fits, but I'm really just delighted to find my favorite - fiction that is imaginative stories, not tailored to any marketing genre. I suspect my desire to transcend labels marks me as old more than anything else I say, but still I take great pleasure in anything that thwarts an algorithm and won't fit comfortably into a description. You tell good stories, and I'll listen. Anyway I really like this borderland imagination, I will certainly read more and might need to buy a copy for my permanent short story collection.
(A note, though, maybe take out Jagannath and use a different title.)… (més)