Reading between the lines

The recent cinema release of the Americanised (why can't they just leave stuff alone ?) version of one of the Stieg Larsson Millennium series books has spurred me into action. About a year ago I bought the set in a local second hand book store. I decided that I was going to start reading Swedish books like a real Swedish person, instead of weaseling my way through with books I had nicked from the childrens section of the public library in order to scrape my way through the Swedish language course requirements. So I had been wandering through the first book when I had the time and the motivation. 700 pages does take a bit of motivation when my attention and concentration maxes out at around 10 pages per session. I had probably read about half of it over a 6 month period. But now it's all hands to the pumps and I'm breaking into the final hundred pages. After all this effort there's no way in hell I'm going to see the movie until I've finished the book.

One of the things I've discovered is my newly acquired ability to quickly detect the writing habits and styles of authors. When the text is in Swedish. In a way that I have never done in English. I guess I'm focusing more on the text these days, instead of simply digesting the content, because the language is still very new to me. If I had to write about the writing style of William Shakespeare, I wouldn't have a clue really. I'd probably end up prowling around in Wikipedia looking for the answers. But I can tell you that, after 600 painstaking pages, I know all of Stieg's favourite words, phrases, sentence structures, and grammatical quirks. I had also read a Marianne Fredriksson book (a very unique and kick arse author who I thoroughly recommend) and found the same thing. Although I never consciously thought about it before now. I don't know that I could do it in English, mind. And I wonder if the average native Swedish speaker could do the same so easily when reading a Swedish book ? Maybe this is one of the few perks of learning a new language.

Another 10 pages tonight and I might almost be finished before the film ends up being sold in the bargains bin at the local video store.