My Dragon has done an amazing thing for me and discovered for me the title of a book I read as a child and that I had forgotten the name of, thus stymieing any hope of me finding a copy. It is a marvellous gift. For those who are curious, the novel is Ronia, the Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren (the author of Pippi Longstocking). The book itself is Romeo and Juliet if it happened in... well, the innately romantic setting of the ruins of a castle split in two by a ravine inhabited by two enemy families of outlaws and thieves. It's... very sweet and romantic and, hence, so... appropriate, so right that my Dragon should have discovered this for me.
Curiously, Lindgren's home in Näs, the town she grew up in (in Sweden) was somehow just what I'd pictured for Pippi Longstocking (what is it with books and films about feisty red-headed orphans?!). More curious still is the fact that there appears to be an Astrid Lindberg themepark.
But this I find especially curious:
It is a memorial to Lindgren, located in Vimmerby (a town near her home), called "Källa Astrid" (roughly translating to the 'well' or 'source' of Astrid) and known locally as "Sagornas Död" or "The Death of All Tales." As a memorial for a woman whose books are filled with vitality, with delight as well as depth and poignancy, this seems... bleak.
But this I find especially curious:
It is a memorial to Lindgren, located in Vimmerby (a town near her home), called "Källa Astrid" (roughly translating to the 'well' or 'source' of Astrid) and known locally as "Sagornas Död" or "The Death of All Tales." As a memorial for a woman whose books are filled with vitality, with delight as well as depth and poignancy, this seems... bleak.
3 comments:
Amazon have it in stock, so you should be able to find it somewhere local I would think, but if your desperate, you can buy from them.
http://www.amazon.com/Ronia-Robbers-Daughter-Astrid-Lindgren/dp/0140317201
Oh! Thank you so much, sweetie! ^-^
Perhaps, being a memorial, the idea is that true tales in the world have ended since she is dead and not here to tell them? A kind of non-literary pat on the back, since it ignores the fundamental truth that all tales are part of the Great Storytelling which goes on forever, though tale tellers come and go.
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