A message to Nathan Filer
Kategori: Jaget
My name is Elin, I live in Sweden and this weekend I turned 25. Though I got most of my quarter-life crisis out of the way last year, it's still got me reeling a bit with the finite-ness of my existence. I handled this by turning to YouTube, specifically to people talking about books. That usually does it for me. And also to adding books to my ever-growing to-read-lists on Goodreads, I find organizing potential future experiences soothing.
Today, due to my decision to hunt down and add award-winners to the lists, I came upon the Internet version of you, and have spent most of the afternoon reading all the articles, essays and blogposts I could find (without looking to hard). Here is the thing though, I am 87 pages into your book. And I am starting to worry.
For context, I bought The Shock of the Fall in my local bookstore (called the English bookshop, it's a wonderful place of overflowing bookshelves, confusing section systems and passion) on a whim last spring. The gorgeous cover caught my attention, the first sentence (that I like to sneak a peak at) intrigued me and the "... in a couple of pages he'll be dead. And he was never the same after that." on the back made me buy it. Didn't make me read it though. In August The Shock of the Fall was selected for the English bookshops monthly book club (yeah, it's that kind of bookshop) and I read 87 pages in a blinding frenzy. Then it turned out I couldn't attend the meeting, and I just stopped. No need to take it personally though, for a while there I just wasn't reading. But I have been thinking a lot about it. All through the winter I have been holding on to a girl with read hair and a doll with a yellow coat, and even though I forgot her name after a while she stayed with me. (I just looked it up, Annabelle. It's a good name.) Short version, I loved the book. Loved the mood and themes, the pacing, the language and most of all the incredible sense of honesty. There is something deceptively simple in the way you present the complicated things this book is about.
I always meant to finish it, and for the new year I decided to make a conscious effort to get back into reading. I am currently working my way through the abandoned piles, Shock of the Fall being second to the top by now, and here is my worry. (Wow, that turned into a lot of context.) I will very soon be reading your book again, and I'm not sure I want to know all those things I found out about you today when I do.
I have never been in this position before, of getting to know an author while in the middle of a book. The only authors I know (from the Internet basically) in any significant ways are John Green of the vlogbrothers (and The Fault in our Stars-fame), and Swedish horror writer John Ajvide Lindqvist (who is brilliant, by the way), and sometimes when I read them now I hear their voices in my head. Which doesn't sound so bad, but it doesn't end there, I think about funny things they said in interviews and them having dinner with their wives and I become aware, more than I usually am, that what I'm reading is not real. These people made it up, the characters that I love existed in their heads first. And of course it is a marvelous thing, the magic of reading, that something that is not real can exist in someones head and then by way of words exist in mine, but I don't know, there is something about seeing, and to me especially hearing, an author that make it so, I don't know, definitive? The knowledge that this story comes from this specific head does something to how I experience it. I don't think I want to know who you are, because I am afraid that knowing will affect my reading of your book.
When I started reading it I rather liked that there was no author picture, that all I had to go on in forming my impression was your name, a four sentence introduction stating that you were a mental health nurse and a performance poet and the book in my hand itself.(And I'm not gonna lie, the Costa award mattered to.) Also, The Shock of the Fall just seemed very separate for me. I hadn't read about it, hadn't seen any reviews and as far as I knew I didn't know anyone who'd even heard about it, which I realize is not good for you, but to me it made it very much my own. And now, I don't know. I'm not quite sure what I'm getting at, but I think at the end of the day what I'm trying to say is that I'm not gonna watch your talks and slam poetry things tonight, even though I really want to. There is a very peculiar relationship between author and reader, and before I finish your book I don't want to rock the boat. I don't want to risk finding out what happens.
I might let you know when I finish. For know, thank you for this book. I am looking forward to experiencing the fall. And good night.
