The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

I am of the persuasion that sometimes you have to work to enjoy a book. It may not be the most captivating thing, but even if I’m not engrossed after the first fifty pages I will solider on (unless I hate it so much and have no optimism, see “Eat, Pray, Love”). And based on reviews of Larrson’s “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (though I prefer the Swedish title of “Men Who Hate Women”) I thought I had a big payoff coming after the first couple of hundred pages. And this book is long, my copy was a standard paperback clocking in at almost 700 pages. Even though the middle was enjoyable, I don’t think it was worth it.

Larrson has three main issues that he tries to work into this thriller. The first, violence against women, he does fairly well with. The female protagonist is believable, and though the scenes of graphic rape and the way she consequently deals with it are graphic and disturbing, you’re still rooting for Lisbeth Salander. There are a lot of men who hate women in this book, and the male protagonist is painted as a passive man taking whatever women wants him (and for a middle aged man and convict there seem to be a lot) into bed, and letting them totally dictate the relationship. Violence against women is a major theme, one dealt with realistically and well worked into the central plot.

The second issue is financial corruption among major corporations. Readers might read with glee after all of America’s wall street messes recently, but I did not find this particularly enjoyable. It reads like an average Joe on a soapbox (at one point the fictional book the fictional character wrote is extensively quoted on the problems with lax financial investigative journalism) with a juvenile revenge fantasy. The antagonist in this subplot (dealt with the first and last hundred pages, a murder mystery takes the middle) is never fleshed into an actual character and instead seems to be corruption incarnate.

The third issue is Nazism. In this the Nazi characters are simply categorized as insane, and that’s left as that. There is no exploration of the Swedish collective ideology on the manner, or what lead to their beliefs. Instead, it is an idea that is never quite fleshed out.

The writing in the middle, what I believe the book should have been edited out to, is a standard mystery. I hesitate to use the word thriller as times when the protagonists are in any danger is very brief. Was that part a good read? Yes. Was it the epic family saga or great literary gemstone all the buzz is about? I don’t think so. For me this book was poorly edited, mediocre writing, and never lived out as the great book I think it could have been. If you’re to read this, I’d cut out a fourth on either end. The middle is quite enjoyable. How much of this can be blamed on the translation I don't know.

Ann Arbor

My friends were awesome and hosted us in Ann Arbor for a night, took us around to see the city (they knit sweaters for trees here), a mural of Poe, and the university.

Toronto

Friendly Manitoba lives up to its slogan

Manitoba was amazing. We left this morning after being there for a wonderful 6 days. No WWOOF farm could host us, so we ended up staying with a friend of our first hosts who are building a sustainable house out of straw and clay. They already had the walls with the straw part up, but Nick and I sifted clay and then making plaster, and then applying the plaster to the walls. It was really interesting to see in progress and work with rather than just read about it in Dwell.


This family was so kind, they weren’t even signed up to deal with crazy WWOOFers and still took us in. The couple’s children who all mostly live in Winnipeg volunteered to show us around the city. Winnipeg is relatively tiny, but pretty charming. We walked around the historic area, took in some green juice at a vegan café, wandered around the riverfront, and made dinner. Heading back to the country we wandered down to our trailer by the moonlight, and woke up to heavy fog. The house itself was in an undeveloped meadow covered with wildflowers , our hosts hope to take up beekeeping.



We stayed in a trailer on the riverfront part of the property, and ate tasty all from scratch food including sprouted wheat germ bread. Also, I got to see some buffalo!

Land of the Living Skies

A turn for the better! After our disastrous round in Alberta, we quickly sped to Saskatchewan. Land of the living skies. Or, (the motto I prefer), Saskatchewan, naturally. Our current stop isn't WWOOF at all, but a friend of my dog's breeder. We’re boarding at one of the premier Newfoundland kennels worldwide, which means that there are puppies!

11 to be precise. Ranging from 5 weeks to 8 week s and all totally adorable. We’re doing a lot of window washing (which we’re bad at), and weeding (which we’re good at all. Not only that but we’ve lined up our next spot to stay in Manitoba where we will be plastering! Not getting plastered, keep in mind.

We’re sitting in a coffee shop in Regina, which is pronounced quite awkwardly. My day gets made when I hear someone say ‘eh’, and I’m learning tricks like a little Listerine makes a dogs coat look real good. Also got to smash up an old dog door with a hammer this morning, which was tons of fun. Regina seems like a nice city, an oasis of trees in this prairie. Just getting to our hosts require about 10 miles on gravel roads. Nick and I tried to take a walk only to find that the landscape didn’t change a bit, which was nice and odd.

Why I hate Alberta

Or, perhaps more accurately, why does Alberta hate me?

The morning started off great in BC, a farewell pancake breakfast and some recommendations from our wonderful host. We began driving, through beautiful BC, over mountains, and stopping at the world’s largest truck for lunch. Or rather, the grocery store next to the world’s largest truck.

Then we crossed the border. A call to our hosts at our designated meeting spot simply got a response of other WWOOFers who had no clue how to get to the place. We wandered around lost on the gravel roads for two hours in the sun, before finally finding the place. As we stopped to open the gate the car behind us stopped, and out stepped a fake tanned woman in a small pink halter. Not the German proprietress I had expected, but our host nonetheless. I introduced myself, showed her the e-mails we had send confirming, but she was not happy to see us.

As I had not e-mailed her yesterday to confirm a third time she claimed she had assumed we were no shows and had a couple from German coming in tomorrow (I know I plan my adventures across oceans in one day and leave the next) and was too full for us. All she had was a tent. I asked if we could at least have the tent for the night, and would head out in the morning. She responded that there were bears in the area, and we wouldn’t be able to shower. I explained that I had gone three months without a shower just fine. She said no.

So, although the stereotype is WWOOFers not showing up apparently it works the other way as well. We kept driving, not knowing what to do, and headed up towards Calgary. Our first town was full, a rodeo was happening, so we continued on, finally stopping at this strip mall of a place. Naturally my debit card didn’t work, and when I called the bank to authorize it they had no one on staff. Luckily Nick was able to get his to work at a different location and we’ve got a place for the night. But nowhere to go tomorrow.

We’ve gone for home cooked meals of chili, Thai peanut noodles, chocolate caked from scratch, to my dinner of poptarts and fries. The fast food joint was all out of salad. Here’s hoping that we can get out of this province and into something better before too long. But of course, this is just a bit of a plot twist in our journey and with any luck we will be on to a wonderful host soon enough.

Bear spray and other sundries

July 16th (will add in pictures with better internet later),

Tonight is our last night here at Ravencourt Bed and Breakfast, and I’m sad to be going. I’d highly recommend it for WWOOFers or vacationers. We’ve weeded and window washed but mostly have simply been fed well. Its nice working mornings and then lounging afternoons, hikes involve bringing a can of bear spray, which doesn’t work as repellent so much as pepper spray it would appear. Sadly, no bears in sight.

Tomorrow we cross the Rockies and head into Alberta, further East in Canada then I have ever been. Normally if I travel that direction its to another coast, and I’ve never stopped much in between. Even driving through Eastern Washington was a new surprise. Read a collection of Vonnegut’s short stories today and did a load of laundry that dried fast in the afternoon sun. Dinner was some scalloped potatoes and cheese and a tasty bit of ice cream sundae for dessert.

Beautiful BC

Nick and I are holed up on the floor of a library using internet for the first time. After a long but uneventful nine hour drive mostly through the landscapes of Eastern Washington we arrived at our Bed and Breakfast a few days ago to start our WWOOFing adventure. Our first host is a super nice lady who feeds us delicious things (though the maple syrup is Kirkland brand!), and in exchange we work for a couple of hours weeding the garden or washing the windows. Its no farm, but it is a good time. We’ve been hiking, have foraged wild huckleberries, and are now exploring the nearest town of Nelson, which is a good 35 minute drive away.

Lifesaver: The Prius converts to kilometers per hour for me!

Oh Canada

Off to the next adventure! After three months in Kyrgyzstan filled with revolution and mass ethnic cleansing, I for reasons we won't talk about here (the pause in this blog was due to some PC censorship) I came back to America.
And started planning my next trip. My cousin Nick and I are driving from Seattle to Toronto, WWOOFing it along the way of our trans-Canada adventure, and then taking a classic Americana roadtrip back. The car is packed, the trail mix is made, the mix CDs are burned, and all that's left to do is start that engine. So stay tuned for pictures and updates, which depending on how often I get internet, may be quite infrequent.
Also, know someone in Manitoba? We've still got four free days there.

Not Always Sunny

Today was staging! This is basically Peace Corps orientation. We did group bonding activities, did some skits, etc. Nothing earth shattering, but I thought I’d let you know I’m an official Peace Corps Trainee and am safe in Philly. My flight out of New York is at 4:30pm tomorrow, though we’re leaving for the airport at 8. I should arrive ten hours later in Istanbul, at 10am, and have most of the day there. We will arrive in Bishkek a little before 2 am and, get this, are expected to arrive in our business casual attire.
Woke up early this morning, 6:30 Philly time, so 3:30 back home. Walked all the way to Reading market only to discover it was closed, ate a stack of pancakes and came back to my room. Of which I was no longer the only occupant! My lovely roommate got in on a red eye, and it was a surprise to see her. Letting her sleep I went out again, but nothing opened till 10 and by then I didn’t want to pay the money for only half an hour at a place, so I walked around in the gloomy weather. Not always sunny in Philedelphia apparently. I did stumble upon a Syangouge where the mueseum part wasn’t open, but the Rabbi and I had a nice chat before I headed out again.
Back at the hotel at 10, I went down to Chinatown with my roommate and indulged in some chicken fried rice, which was very tasty. I hate having to sit still on planes and it was nice to be able to do so much walking today. Of course, it didn’t last as staging began and we were there from noon to seven.
Dinner I had chicken alfredo and then for dessert had delicious ice cream. Really really good. Black raspberry ice cream at Franklin Fountain or something with a similair name. I’ve never seen so many things named after Franklin in my life, but understandable I suppose.
Well, I’m off.