This is another of the books (and readers) I discovered during my “short” stay in Macedonia. A small jewel of contemporary literature.

Original title: Cathedral.
Author: Raymond Carver (USA, 1938 - USA, 1988).
Content:

• Feathers.
• Chef’s House.
• Preservation.
• The Compartment.
• A Small, Good Thing.
• Vitamins.
• Careful.
• Where I’m Calling From.
• The Train.
• Fever.
• The Bridle.
• Cathedral.

Year: 1984.
Genre: Short Stories, Minimalism, Realism.
Language: English.
Read in: English.
Publisher: Vintage Contemporaries.
Pages: 230.
Size: -
ISBN: 978-0-679-72369-1.

Plot outline
This book is a compilation of stories that are not related to each other, so there’s not an overall plot. And, of course, I’m not going to bother writing the plot for all of the independent stories present in here.

Comment without Spoilers
The stories present in this novel are a shocking hit of the reality of some people. But sincerely, I think that the balance in them is not fair, as most are really oppressive and depressive. Fortunately, you can find also tales like Cathedral, that is particularly beautiful, and is able to partly release you from the feeling given by the rest.

The way in which Carver express the feelings in his tales is really good, being completely minimalistic, both in the narrative and in the descriptions of characters and environment. This helps the reader to feel closer and more involved to the story and the events that happens in them.

The edition of the book wasn’t very spectacular… in fact I would say that it was barely decent, as the paper used was gray and low quality and the printing quality wasn’t anything exceptional either.

I really loved the narrative style, but probably the content of most of the tales was too pessimistic for me, as reading this book really made me feel bad. Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot, particularly thanks to the literary quality that the author shows.

So I really recommend this book, because it’s worth reading. But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, just to people who doesn’t get too emotionally affected by what they read.

Related links:

• Wikipedia: Cathedral (stories).
• Wikipedia: Raymond Carver.

Barely 4 days after finishing The Baltic Trip I had to return back to Spain, leaving the city that has been my home for 8 months and a half. A place in which I’ve lived both some of the best and also some of the worst moments in my life. A place in which I’ve left a lot of important memories.

Although Karlskrona is a very small city (as I said in previous posts), I didn’t really feel oppressed or trapped in the city. Maybe the biggest problem that came from having such a small size, is that there were barely a handful of night clubs to party in. But of course you could also find alternatives to that.

From all the places I’ve visited during my life, I still think that Karlskrona is the most beautiful one I’ve ever been in. It’s wonderful in any time of the year, and there are always hidden great places to discover in the nature that surrounds it.

One of the problems I see in Karlskrona, is that it doesn’t have a nearby airport with a real low cost company (Blekingeflyg only flies to Stockholm, Gdańsk and Visby), so for traveling, you have to rely on the railway network (which I have to say that is excellent) or on the ferry line that goes to Gdynia. So the international tourism projection from the city is quite limited, and it requires you to move to a bigger metropolis as a middle step on many of your trips.

An important drawback of the city is its university, the Blekinge Institute of Technology (Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, BTH), which is really young (I’m older than it), and thus, it lacks both of prestige and important economical resources, which means that its technological equipment at the moment is quite limited.

As a comment, I also have to say that the BTH is many times used as an entrance door to the Swedish educational system by foreign students, and that many of them, during their first year at BTH, apply to other Swedish universities with more prestige.

Despite its size, Karlskrona has a franchise of most of the important chains of the country (except IKEA :S), such as ICA and WiLLY:S (where you can find Eldorado products :D). And there I found two shops I really fell in love with… Åhléns for house ware and Brothers for clothing. The design of the things sold by them is usually really impressive.

To get adapted to the rhythm of life from Karlskrona is really easy, even if you take into account the cultural differences that separate Swedes from the rest of nationalities that you can find in the city, such as Spanish, Iranian, Pakistani, Chinese, USA, etc. What it’s clear is that sometimes it can be hard to mingle with the natives in a regular basis, but usually the only thing needed for that is time. A lot of time.

Because it’s curious, as Swedes there seem to have a lifestyle quite sociable inside of their circle of friends, but in the beginning they are usually very reluctant to maintain any relation with people outside that circle, aside from giving some help when needed.

Well, I don’t really know what else to say… there are so many feeling and thoughts coming to me that I feel unable to express them. But what I can say is that I love this place, I think it’s a small piece of Heaven on Earth and that I’d really love to go back anytime soon.

Karlskrona Impressions:

• mrithail.com: Introducing Karlskrona.
• mrithail.com: Karlskrona: First Impressions.
• mrithail.com videolog: Dusk in Karlskrona.
• mrithail.com videolog: In Front of Polhemsgatan 27, Karlskrona.
• mrithail.com: Karlskrona: Impressions II.
• mrithail.com videolog: Beach in the Outskirts of Karlskrona.
• mrithail.com videolog: In the (Swedish) Navy.
• mrithail.com videolog: Calm in Karlskrona.

Related links:

• mrithail.com: From Karlskrona to Gdynia and back, aboard Stena Baltica (Stena Line).
• Official site: Karlskrona Municipality.
• Official site: Blekinge.
• Wikipedia: Karlskrona.
• Official site: Blekinge Institute of Technology.
• Official site: Åhléns.
• Official site: Brothers.

Finally, with this post I’m coming to and end to The Baltic Trip series. This video was recorded on the way from Gdynia to Karlskrona , aboard Stena Baltica from Stena Line (I talked about it almost one year ago). Of course I don’t know where I recorded this video exactly, but probably it was somewhere around here

Where’s the horizon?

The Baltic Trip:

• mrithail.com: The Baltic Trip.
• mrithail.com: Stockholm: Impressions.
• mrithail.com: Tallin: Impressions.
• mrithail.com videolog: A Little Bit of Tallin.
• mrithail.com: Riga: Impressions.
• mrithail.com videolog: Falling From Riga’s Sky.
• mrithail.com: Warsaw: Impressions.
• mrithail.com videolog: In the Middle of the Baltic Sea.

Related links:

• mrithail.com: From Karlskrona to Gdynia and back, aboard Stena Baltica (Stena Line).

It’s time to get to the last “long” stop of The Baltic Trip, but this is not the last post I will write about it. In Warsaw we stood for two days (instead of only one day, like in the other places). After here, we took the Hell’s train to Gdynia, and from there, straight to the ferry to Karlskrona .

Warsaw, as you may already know, is the capital of Poland, and the 8th largest city in the European Union, with about 3,350,000 inhabitants in its metropolitan area. It’s placed about 370 kilometers from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains, on the shore of Vistula River.

Although the first settlements on the location of the current Warsaw are dated on the 9th century, the modern city was established in 1300 by the Prince Bolesław II of Masovia, who was born in the nearby city of Płock.

During the World War II, around 85% of the city was destroyed, but in the years after the war, many of the historic buildings, like churches, were completely restored. Alongside with them, a lot of large prefabricated buildings appeared, making a really strange mixture in the city.

Although the city tries to pretend greatness and being a peak of culture, the feeling I got from it is that it was a very gray and dirty city; depressing and without a really interesting lifestyle.

The truth is that since I went to Berlin some years ago, I got so in love with that city that I desperately wanted to go to Warsaw, as I expected it to be like Berlin, but with a stronger communist feeling. However, when I got here I got deeply disappointed, as it didn’t offer what I was expecting. Anyway, and fortunately for me, what I was wrongly looking for in Warsaw, I found it in Riga , the beautiful capital of Latvia.

I know my words are hard, maybe too much… as you can, of course, find really nice and interesting places to visit, like the nice Royal Baths Park, the Saxon Palace, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier or the Palace of Culture and Science, to say only some of them. But they are very specific places, and the feeling they gove doesn’t extend to the rest of the city.

So, as you can see, Warsaw is not a city I particularly loved… in fact, to me it was the worst visited place during The Baltic Trip, and I wish I had spent here only one day, and dedicate the other to, for example, Kaunas . But well, that can’t be changed now.

Maybe part of this feelings are coming from how tired we were in this last stages of the trip. Also, probably if I come to this city again in the future, I would change my mind about it, but as of today I can think in many alternative interesting places to visit before this one.

The Baltic Trip:

• mrithail.com: The Baltic Trip.
• mrithail.com: Stockholm: Impressions.
• mrithail.com: Tallin: Impressions.
• mrithail.com videolog: A Little Bit of Tallin.
• mrithail.com: Riga: Impressions.
• mrithail.com videolog: Falling From Riga’s Sky.
• mrithail.com: Warsaw: Impressions.
• mrithail.com videolog: In the Middle of the Baltic Sea.

Related links:

• Official site: Warsaw.
• Wikipedia: Warsaw.

During my stay in Macedonia (about which I’ll speak in a near future, or at least I hope so) I discovered a lot of amazing literature, like this book from Carol Ann Duffy that made me believe again in poetry.

Original title: The World’s Wife.
Author: Carol Ann Duffy (UK, 1955 - ).
Content: Little Red Cap, Thetis, Queen Herod, Mrs. Midas, from Mrs. Tiresias, Pilate’s Wife, Mrs. Aesop, Mrs. Darwin, Mrs. Sisyphus, Mrs. Faust, Delilah, Anne Hathaway, Queen Kong, Mrs. Quasimodo, Medusa, The Devil’s Wife, Circe, Mrs. Lazarus, Pygmalion’s Bride, Mrs. Rip Van Winkle, Mrs. Icarus, Frau Freud, Salome, Eurydice, The Kray Sisters, Elvis’s Twin Sister, Pope Joan, Penelope, Mrs. Beast, Demeter.
Year: 1999.
Genre: Poetry.
Language: English.
Read in: English.
Publisher: Faber and Faber, Inc.
Pages: 76.
Size: -
ISBN: 0-571-19995-X.

Plot outline
This book is a compilation of legends and myths seen from the point of view of the women present in them; either wives, girlfriends, lovers or even the female main characters of the stories, such as Penelope, Medusa, Little Red Cap…

Comment without Spoilers
As this book is a compilation, and a poetry one, this will be a really short post, for I can’t write about many of the aspects I usually do and I don’t really know how to face a comment about a book like this.

The point of view in this poems is ironic, sarcastic and critic, completely demythologizing and, many times, really cruel. But, of course, always with a very ingenious content. Also, the literary style is impressive, being very refreshing and fitting perfectly with the content of the poems.

The edition is nice, but not perfect. The book is robust and the paper has a very good quality. However, the printing is not always as clear as one would desire, and that part could be improved.

As I said in the introduction paragraph of the post, Carol Ann Duffy really made me believe again in poetry, as I found this book really amazing, and you can’t imagine how much I enjoyed reading it. The only drawback I found in it is that it’s really short… I wish it were longer!

Related links:

• Wikipedia: The World’s Wife.
• Wikipedia: Carol Ann Duffy.