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A review by expendablemudge
The Christmas Oratorio by Göran Tunström
3.0
Rating: baaarely 3* of five
Well, the Nordic reputation for gloom and depression and sadness and cheerlessness is safe again, thank goodness. I thought a book with Christmas in the title, especially a piece of Christmas music that's renowned for being, if not jolly, then upbeat could make the reader smile! No, no, not part of the character of Tunstrom's novel, no smiling, no no, none of that!
Death. Lots of that, and only some of it physical. The psychic deaths of everyone in this book take place in locales that are lovely to look at and lushly described, as if to counterpoint the misery and sadness the humans in these places carry around with them.
I still think it would be delightful to visit Sweden, and one day before I die I WILL see New Zealand in the flesh so to speak, despite the author's best efforts to make me perceive these places as sinks of hopelessness and the futility of human happiness.
Since the work is a translation, I have no idea if the writing is good or not, so I make no comment thereon. But this is one gloomfest of a novel, and I will never, ever pick it up again. Should anyone offer me another novel by Tunstrom, I will politely decline the opportunity to make myself wretchedly depressed by reading it, tear-dampened kleenex crumpled in one clenched fist and suicidally large dose of pills in the other, searching desperately for a glimmering of a reason not to end this wasted, purposeless thing I've not-so-laughingly called my life.
So, on balance, not really recommended.
Well, the Nordic reputation for gloom and depression and sadness and cheerlessness is safe again, thank goodness. I thought a book with Christmas in the title, especially a piece of Christmas music that's renowned for being, if not jolly, then upbeat could make the reader smile! No, no, not part of the character of Tunstrom's novel, no smiling, no no, none of that!
Death. Lots of that, and only some of it physical. The psychic deaths of everyone in this book take place in locales that are lovely to look at and lushly described, as if to counterpoint the misery and sadness the humans in these places carry around with them.
I still think it would be delightful to visit Sweden, and one day before I die I WILL see New Zealand in the flesh so to speak, despite the author's best efforts to make me perceive these places as sinks of hopelessness and the futility of human happiness.
Since the work is a translation, I have no idea if the writing is good or not, so I make no comment thereon. But this is one gloomfest of a novel, and I will never, ever pick it up again. Should anyone offer me another novel by Tunstrom, I will politely decline the opportunity to make myself wretchedly depressed by reading it, tear-dampened kleenex crumpled in one clenched fist and suicidally large dose of pills in the other, searching desperately for a glimmering of a reason not to end this wasted, purposeless thing I've not-so-laughingly called my life.
So, on balance, not really recommended.