”A provocative nude report on female sexuality in all its complexity”.
If I were to write such a klichéfylld inledningsmening to my review of Helena Österlund’s new novel, ”My vulnerable body,” so it would not be my fault. But Helena Österlund.
this is a ”novel” (and I’ll get back to the quotes) that you can not read with profit for what is in it, but one has to ask: why does she like this? What does she want? And it is there to portray female sexuality, I see this as a likely answer.
Maria Schottenius: It possessed the interest of the private is a sign of literature, and the crisis
we are a woman, with the same name as the author, and whose portrait adorns the cover, and writing poetry, as well as Has done in the past. She talks about her life, about the separation that makes her depressed, if visit on the psyche and on countless encounters with men she meets on the sexsajter. The text consists of the diary entries, letters she writes to various female artists whose images she identifies with, transcripts of conversations with psychologists and friends.
Everything is told in the same style, with simple and straightforward sentences, subject, predicate, and point. So here it can sound: ”on Monday I went with the metro to Slussen. It was early in the morning. When I got there I went by. Then I waited for the bus that would go to Duvnäs utskog. It was raining. I had with me my umbrella. Then came the bus.” Or in the frequent sexskildringarna: ”He fucked me anal when I stood on all four. I couldn’t remember that I ever become so hard and nice fucked. He had put both me and himself with the lube.”
Despite the fact that I get to know more about this woman’s intimacies than what I know about my best friend’s, it becomes rigid and silent within me. Österlund succeed not to create obesity in their words, no shadows, no sea or heavens; they remain thin words that tells me nothing other than ”dog” if it says ”dog”. She loads, simply not its text in the way that a literary text should be loaded to give meaning.
book review: Helena Österlund ”Word and colour”
read the ”My vulnerable body,” as the autobiography I see it as – despite the fact that it says novel on the cover – so I see that it really is self-revealing, brave if you will. I see it as honest. Maybe it should be enough? A woman who, as it is called, ”take for themselves” sexually, and fighting to get to live out their lust with men who may have difficult to not be the one who controls every kättjan will lead the lovers. Some stories, perhaps, should be told not for its own sake, but for their effects on us, the readers, on our view of women? A book might be important in the public sphere, but it is dull as individual läsakt? As it can be. And if we think it warrants a release or not depends on what kind of litteratursyn we have.
In the harsh, straight and reporting style as Helena Österlund, using it can suddenly be things like: ”I feel an inconsolable loneliness”. When I read the sentence I am completely unprepared for that she was experiencing an inconsolable loneliness. Which means: I have not gotten to know this woman. Is it a failure? And in this case, from the author’s or my side? I do not believe that the author himself sees it as a failure. She reports about their experiences. She doesn’t want me to come closer to her than that. Anyway, I know exactly how many fingers her lover can get in her vagina before it hurts too much. It becomes a strange mix of withdrawal and exclusion. There will be an intimacy that lacks coverage.
a few years ago, Per Svensson in an article that the entrance to the public – and he intended, above all, the television media – have become the individuals ‘ readiness to testify about their own shortcomings and show up their secrets. I wonder if this might have spread even to the publishing industry; a story where a man bares his body and soul are more and more often as ”roman”. It is an unfortunate development.
