Magnus Ljadas Blog

It’s late October and I wake up with the sensation of being bitten by, not one, but three mosquitoes (assuming the average mosquito blood-feeds only once). It’s (from what I know) unlikely to be bitten at this time of the year, but hadn’t it been for the two books I recently devoured I may not have contemplated much over the itch. The two books have a common denominator–bees. Bees and people being facinated (and stung) by bees. I know you’re thinking bee and mosquito are not the same–one has a stinger and the other has a schnabel. Well, both cases you’re left with a itchy spot on your skin, so technically there’s a correlation, although bee’s sting is a maginitude worse than mosquito’s bite. Anyhow, the first book is about young AH (world’s most infamous dictator who’s name I need not utter in public) or Adi as his mother called him. Through the eye’s of a devil we’re there to follow AH and his family until the to-be-dictor becomes a teenager. Author Norman Mailer (now late) adds the longest bibliography I’ve seen in a piece of fiction to his “The Castle in the Forest”, so I can only guess he’s being accurate when he (the devil) reveals AH is product of multilevel incest (AH’s father is a product of a brother and sister, and AH’s mother is his fathers daughter). It turns out that incest plays an important role in the devil’s, call it “mythology”, about great leaders. I think Mailer makes an incredible job telling us this family story through the eye’s of a devil. A large part of the story is devoted to AH’s father interest in bees, or apiculture as it’s called. The father’s love for the little bees is a strong contrast to his otherwise sadistic characteristics. I’d say only a devil could make such a tale plausible. It got to be a though case writing a piece like this, and perhaps it takes a guy like Norman Mailer to pull it off. Mixing history and superficial fiction, like civilized and well-spoke devils, is a balancing act. This book oozes evil on every page, and yet I start feeling for the people in it, which leaves me with… hmm… mixed feelings. Wow. The other book is Douglas Coupland’s “Generation A”, a title paraphrasing his own debuting novel “Generation X”. Here we find ourselves in a Huxlean not-so-distant-future where bees are extinct (along with most fruits and flowers) since five years or so. It’s much like now but worse and cameras have more mega-pixels. Most people are on the new drug “Solon” which makes you feel contempt and not to worry about the future (and the past). However, five seemingly disconnected people get stung by bees in a matter of weeks, and all of them being captured by helicopter rescue teams and taken to remote science facilities for strange examinations. Coupland is the only writer I know that can come up with a new word in every second sentence. To me, his ability is jaw-dropping and I can’t stop reading just to see what new word will turn up in the next sentence. He’s to the point like no other. Although I consider myself a DC fan I couldn’t get through JPod (I will some day), but this experience was pretty much nonstop. So what’s all fuzz about the bees? I won’t tell you. But as Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” the team of five meet up with a tribe of natives and weird things unfolds. Gotcha! I caught one of the perpetrators from tonight’s bloodletting with my bare hands. It’s all sqwoosh now.