8. A book that feels like it was written just for you

Faunen (The Faun) by Anna-Karin Palm. This book found me when I was 21, and it really felt like the author had been thinking of me when she wrote it.

It’s really three stories in this book, each written in different styles. First, there is the story about Amelia, author of romance novels in 1880s London. One day she finds a faun in her writing room who announces he is very vexed with her. It turns out he is not pleased with the book she is writing about Medieval Eleanor, because she is not describing what really happened. This is the start of a series of events that turns Amelia’s life upside down.

There is the diary of a young Swedish woman in contemporary London. She becomes obsessed with a painting of a faun and woman at the National Gallery, and throughout the diary she returns to it several times, interpreting it differently. She’s haunted by something she did to her best friend, and she also writes about the man who she can’t keep from running to as soon as he wriggles a finger.

And there is the story the faun tells Amelia, about Eleanor and the unicorn. This is the shortest story, written in a very stylized language. It’s more like a fairy tale, and you don’t get as close to Eleanor as you do to Amelia and the diary writer.

There are several themes in this book; friendship, betrayal, and creativity. Both Amelia and the diary-writer allow a man to shape their narratives, and the faun also shapes Eleanor’s life in the story he narrates to Amelia. And as a direct result of the faun intruding on Amelia’s life the most important relationship in her life, that to her best friend, gets into jeopardy.

It’s also about responsibility. When amelia takes back the control of her life, her narrative, she not only empowers herself, she also mends it, and she also saves Eleanor. And when the diary-writer realizes that his betrayal isn’t a betrayal; that she has to allow her friend to take responsibility for her own life, she can also break free from the hold of her lover and shape her life in a way that úits her.

When I read this book I had just broken up a very toxic relationship with a man who was very jealous and controlling. And I was also struggling with a friendship. Faunen came to me just when I needed them most, and it was very helpful. It’s also written in a style that suited me, and it’s very visual, which I am as well. And the bits about Stockholm was so very familiar; the same Stockholm I love din, visiting the same places and bars I went to.

I also loved her next novel Målarens döttrar (The Painter’s Daughters) which also is a novel with more than one timeline. One contemporary where Swedish Maria travels with her brother to England in search of their father, an artist. And then there is English Laura 100 years earlier who lives with her artist father. As with Faunen it centres around women and female identity. Palm’s books are translated to German, Dutch, French, Norwegian, Danish, Spanish, Polish, and Icelandish, but unfortunately not English.



All the questions:

1. A book that haunts you

2. A book that was an interesting failure

3. A book where you really wanted to be reading the "shadow" version of the book (as in, there are traces of a different book in the work and you would have much preferred to read that one)

4. A book with a worldbuilding detail that has stuck with you

5. A book where you loved the premise but the execution left you cold

6. A book where you were dubious about the premise but loved the work

7. The most imaginative book you've seen lately

8. A book that feels like it was written just for you

9. A book that reminds you of someone

10. A book that belongs to a specific time in your mind, caught in amber

11. A book that came to you at exactly the right time

12. A book that came to you at the wrong time

13. A book with a premise you'd never seen before quite like that

14. A book balanced on a knife edge

15. A snuffed candle of a book

16. The one you'd take with you while you were being ferried on dark underground rivers

17. The one that taught you something about yourself

18. A book that went after its premise like an explosion

19. A book that started a pilgrimage

20. A frigid ice bath of a book

21. A book written into your psyche

22. A warm blanket of a book

23. A book that made you bleed

24. A book that asked a question you've never had an answer to

25. A book that answered a question you never asked

26. A book you recommend but cannot love

27. A book you love but cannot recommend

28. A book you adore that people are surprised by

29. A book that led you home

30. A book you detest that people are surprised by