Lori’s Comments (group member since Dec 12, 2017)

Lori’s comments from the Nordic Book Club group.

I loved your questions on here, Laura! And thank you for always adding these for us on here for us to think about, and also hoping that we'll all be able discuss books at SH again soon.

One of the things I thought about when you mention the importance of time/dates is the way it seems like Jonas seems to balance facts and memories about his life with knowledge of how to fix things, as if he's trying to understand everything through a diary that's also a repair manual. The ending did feel complete to me that way, like it would be no longer necessary for him to write.

I'd meant to read this one before the last book club, but I really enjoyed reading it this week. I'd agree with Christina's thoughts on this; the pace of it helped me to get more of an understanding of the other figures at the Hotel Silence, while Jonas was learning to know them.

Again, thanks to Laura for all her great work on keeping book discussions online! They are always great to think about, and looking forward to having you lead them again soon.

I wasn't able to join at the book club for this one, but I read the book last month and am definitely up for discussing it! Here are some of my thoughts on Laura's questions.

Encouraging anyone who drops by here to check out the book and join in; it's definitely a good time for some Nordic literary escapism.

I really enjoyed this one. Agnete Friis's writing felt incredibly atmospheric, and it had a really vivid sense of place. I forgot that it was winter while I read this...

I also really enjoyed the way that the text varied in style between the two decades; it felt like Jacob's powerful reaction to nature during his teen years contrasted with his inability to fully understand events around him. Did anyone else feel this way?

It also seemed like Friis was getting at the way that some of the toxic behavior in this is learned, and evolved into from an early age; particularly in his toxic relationship with his parents (and theirs to one another), and how this leads him to fetishize Ellen while having a callous reaction to Lise and Anders.

That's a great quote from Hitchcock, Laura. This felt much more like a suspense than thriller to me, since the mystery of Ellen for Jacob is more about understanding who he was at the time, and who the people he knew really were, and why that led things to play out as they did.

As far as symbolism, the relationship between Jacob's relationship with nature and his desire to be an architect felt very symbolic — as far as his love/hate relationship with the violence and unpredictability of nature, and his need for control. What did everyone else think?

I'd be interested in hearing what everyone else thought about Jacob. I thought that Friis did a good job of making him sympathetic while also incredibly flawed; I could relate to how Ellen reacted to him, by finding him sensitive at first and then being horrified later. I also wondered if Anton wanted Jacob to come back to the farm because he was looking for atonement.

I'd love to hear what anyone else thinks!

Hi Judy, thanks for checking in with the book club!

Our book for March will be "You Disappear" by Christian Jungersen. I've just updated this on the site here.

Thank you to everyone who came out last night to Scandinavia House for a discussion on "They Know Not What They Do," by Jussi Valtonen! We'd love to continue discussing the book with any online readers. Here are some of the questions that interested us -- please feel free to add your own!

1. How did you experience reading this book? Were you immediately drawn into it, or did you connect more to it as you continued to read?

2. How did you feel about the characters — did you find them relatable? Were there certain characters that you related to more than others?

3. What did you think about the lead character, Joe, and the different choices he made? Did you find his decision-making to be questionable or hypocritical in any ways?

4. What did you think about the critiques aimed at different subjects in the book, such as technology and devices, academia, animal rights and activism, and parent-child relationships? Did you find these fairly delivered? Why is it useful to be exploring those subjects?

5. What did you think of the iAm device? What would be your thoughts on having this available in the real world? Do you think it would create the same problems in causes in the book?

6. What did you think about the way that people did (or did not) communicate with one another in the book? What were the consequences of the way they did or didn't speak to each other, and what message do you think Valtonen was trying to send with that?

7. What did you think about the relationships between parents and their children in the book? How did you feel about the levels of awareness that parents had of what was going on with their children?

8. What did you think about the presence of "Freedom Media"? How much does it relate to things going on today in academia and publishing?

9. What did you think about the way animal testing and animal activism is explored in the book? How do you think both sides justified their decisions?

10. What did you think about the way the author explored Finnish and American cultural differences? How did you find these related to the overall themes in the book?

10. What message did you think the author was trying to send about communication, and the way that people look at and respond to different viewpoints? In what ways do you find this to be relevant in contemporary society?

Thanks as always for being part of our book group!