popturf

city: stockholm

pelikan

from my struggle book 2 posted in literature by ratsnamgod

Oh, how nice it was here. The typical, pure beer hall style led my mind elsewhere, to more classical periods, not that the place came across as museum-like for that reason, there was nothing forced about the atmosphere, people came here to drink beer and chat, the way they had done ever since the 1930s. This was one of Stockholm's great virtues, that there were so many places from different epochs that were still in operation without their making a great song and dance about it.

- My Struggle Book 2,
Karl Ove Knausgaard

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stadsbiblioteket

from my struggle book 2 posted in literature by ratsnamgod

Twelve times we sang hi to our friend before all the children had been named and we could move on. The next song was about parts of the body, which, of course, the children should touch when they were mentioned. Forehead, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, stomach, knee, foot. Then we were handed some rattle-like instruments that we were supposed to shake as we sang a new song. I wasn't embarrassed, it wasn't embarrassing sitting there, it was humiliating and degrading. Everything was gentle and friendly and nice, all the movements were tiny, and I sat huddled on a cushion droning along with the mothers and children, a song, to cap it all, led by a woman I would have liked to bed.

- My Struggle Book 2,
Karl Ove Knausgaard

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normalmstorg

from my struggle book 2 posted in literature by ratsnamgod

We walked to the marketplace at the end of Biblioteksgatan, where the hostage drama that shook all of Sweden and gave rise to the concept of Stockholm syndrome had been enacted some time in the innocent 1970s, and we followed one of the back streets up to the NK where we were going to do our food shopping this evening.

- My Struggle Book 2,
Karl Ove Knausgaard

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nk stockholm

from my struggle book 2 posted in literature by ratsnamgod

"You reek of alcohol," she said, wriggling free. "How could you do that to me? Today of all days?"
"I'm sorry", I said. "But it's no big deal, is it?"
She didn't answer, began to walk. Didn't say a word as we left the station. On the escalator up to Klarabergsviadukten she started to swear at me. She shook the door to the drugstore at the top, but it was Sunday and was closed. We continued down to the drugstore on the other side of NK. She was furious the whole way. I walked beside her like a dog...


- My Struggle Book 2, Karl Ove Knausgaard

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karl ove knausgaard’s flat [summer 2003 - fall 2006]

from my struggle book 2 posted in literature by ratsnamgod

It was the most bourgeois apartment I had ever seen. An enormous Russian-style stove from the previous century at one end of the room, with a massive marble front; another one, just as tall, slightly less massive, in the bedroom. White, beautifully carved panels on all the walls, stuccowork on the ceilings, which were more than four meters tall. Fantastic herringbone parquet floors from the end of the nineteenth century. Her mother's furniture was in the same style: heavy, artistic, late nineteenth century.
"Can we live here?" I said as we walked around looking.

- My Struggle Book 2,
Karl Ove Knausgaard

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