Resisting temptations

I am quite proud of myself that I had, until this morning, resisted one of the greatest temptations of my life. Just ten miles from here lies a Very Dangerous Place, at least if you are a crazy dolls-house maker. They call themselves The largest dolls house shop in the world and after I've been there I am prepared to believe it.

The reasons I had resisted the temptation are plenty. One is like waiting to open your Christmas present, or even better, as Winnie-the-Pooh says: there is a moment even better than eating honey, it's the moment just before you are going to eat honey. For a year and a half, I had been waiting to go to the largest dolls house shop in the world. Then of course I am a recycler so buying thing for the dolls house is not half as fun as making them and then comparing your own creation to something you see in a magazine or on the web, stating that yours is no worse and much better. But I also know that I am very bad at resisting temptations. And in the largest shop in the world it is all too easy to abuse your credit card.

Still I decided to go today, and my brave husband went with me because we both thought it would be in a village with a nice bar or coffee shop nearby. In fact, it was in a barn in the middle of nowhere, and the coffee shop was closed. So Staffan had to sit in the car while I drooled over magnificent houses and zillions of small things most of which I can make myself, no worse and much better, and supplies and tools and... well, I told myself to be sensible, and I told myself that I am a big girl and can get myself a plaything every now and then.

Afterwards, I feel ambivalent. I've succumbed to some furniture kits. At least I have to glue and paint, so it's not quite like buying a ready thing. But who knows what this may lead to. The shop is dangerously near.

On the other hand, I keep telling myself, I wish this was my greatest sin.

PS The reason I finally decided to visit the shop is that last week Staffan surprised me with a splendid dolls house he found at the Tesco recycling station. I now know that it is called The Corner Shop and that there are thousands of things to fill it with.

A dream come true

I don't remember when I got interested in children's literature. I mean, I always loved children's books, even when I should be growing out of them; but I remember when I was in upper secondary school my great-aunt tried to entice me into School of Librarianship, where she worked, by mentioning that you could study children's literature as an academic subject. I also remember my mother suggesting that I study Swedish because I liked Astrid Lindgren. So it all began before I went to university.

I then took a long and winding road to children's literature, but I always had a vision of a research centre. When I applied for a chair in Stockholm - goodness, twelve years ago - a centre was on my programme. I had a good experience when I was involved in a project in Finland: it was physically a centre, where a group of researchers worked day to day, with lunch seminars and scholarly discussions over afternoon tea. In San Diego I was very close to a centre, but it fell through then. They did get a centre after I had left.

So when we opened the Cambridge/Homerton Research and Teaching centre for children's literature last week it was a dream of a lifetime come true.

Burns

One day when I was twelve perhaps, our English teacher said: "We are going to have a Robert Burns club". We had no idea who Robert Burns was, but I guess that was the point. To begin with, we found out all about Scotland, which was just as real as Alfa Centauri. We admired post stamps with Burns on them, on envelopes we got from a school in that mysterious country. We learned and recited poetry. Burns was acceptable for the regime because he supported the poor. He was the poet of the people. We liked his love poetry. We didn't understand all the subtleties, and I am sure that not even our teachers understood all the dirty things, but it was about love and on the border of the forbidden.

I found and read a 500-page Burns biography, written by a great Russian translator and scholar of British literature. At the age of twelve, the number of Burns' illegitimate children nade a great impression on me.

Yestesday I experienced my first Burns Night. (Somehow I missed it last year). In my old-old country, great national poets were celebrated officially, with the authorities' support. It's wonderful to see people who do it voluntarily and with such genuine engagement.

A day to be pleased with

Some years ago one of our granddaughters, then perhaps eight years old, went to a two-day summer camp, and the busy parents asked Staffan to fetch her home. It was a couple of hours ride, and they had a nice time together discussing the camp experience. Staffan was impressed by her way of putting it: "We had five activities!" So it has become a recurrent saying with us.

Today, I had three activities that I am pleased with. First, I had a lecture for our master students about the difference between social sciences and humanities. It was very useful for me because since I took my PhD training in philosophy of knowledge twenty-five years ago, I hadn't given this issue a single thought.

Next, I had a discussion group with my PhD students where they were asked to present and apply some literary theories that they were not using in their own research. I truly enjoyed it.

Finally, there was a book launch in my research group PLACE. A book launch, as I have learned here in Cambridge, is an opportunity to celebrate your colleagues' achievements. I like it. We never had book launches in the old country.

In between, the webpage for my new research centre was uploaded. I guess it counts as a fourth activity.

On poetry

Homerton College has a poetry competition, and I have been asked to be on the jury. It is a very sad and beautiful story. A young, brilliant female student died in an accident some years ago. Her parents have donated money for a poetry competition in her memory.

I have always had a very intimate relationship to poetry. Russia has lots of great poets, 19th and 20th century, and I used to know heaps of it by heart, and I still do. Russian poetry is rhymed and metric and easy to memorize. But poetry does not travel well. You have to be a great poet to translate great poetry. This is why Shakespeare in Russian is great, translated by great Russian poets when their own works could not be published. Serendipity of censorship. Unfortunately there are very few good translations of Russian poetry into Swedish or English, which means I cannot share my favourite poetry with my non-Russian friends.

I read a lot of English poetry when I studied English, Donne and Shakespeare and Wordsworth and Byron, Robert Burns and Robert Frost, and Emily Dickinson. Poetry can be enjoyed for its music, even though you don't understand every nuance. But I think it is a challenge to analyse or judge poetry which is not written in your mothertongue.

When I taught Literary Theory in Stockholm, we were supposed to teach two poetry texts, one classic and one modern. Modern Swedish poetry is, with very few exceptions, prose broken into short lines. If there is no rhyme or meter in poetry, there must be something else. "Poetry is compressed meaning" (Yuri Lotman). Emily Dickinson could do it. Edith Södergran could do it. Emily Dickinson could have translated Edith Södergran into English.

We have received 24 contributions to the competition. Some were good. It was a tough job to select a winner. And it was fun talking about poetry. What was it we were looking for? What is a good poem? An excellent poem? Curiously enough, we finally agreed.

Beautiful equations

Last Tuesday I went to a lecture on mathematics.

I may have mentioned before that among many things I like about Cambridge are all these lectures. At Homerton, there is a lecture every week, by one of the Fellows, on a level accessible for other Fellows.


When I was nine and wanted to be an astronomer, my mother told me that I was lousy in maths and so could forget it. I was doubtless lousy in maths, and still am (I cannot do a simple sum - three cheers for calculators when I have to pay bills). But I have always been fascinated by pure mathematics that has nothing to do with sums and calculations, but is just an exercise of thought. A game of glass beads, for its own sake. Cannot be applied. Cannot be used for anything practical. There is no social importance in knowing how many primes there are in the first billion. But it is sublime. I wish there was something like this in my field. Maybe there is. I just need to think of it. I have a weird feeling that a popular lecture at Homerton this week has changed my life.

...there is a season

First year when we lived in California I asked a friend: "And when does winter come here?" The answers was: "We've just had it".

This morning I decided to re-pot my plants, which had been long due. All plants I have brought from the old country have survived, so I guess it means they like it here. But some of them really needed larger pots. After I'd done it and was ready for mid-morning coffee we noticed that it was actually sunny and warm, and at long last we sat outdoors again. Then I saw something green coming up between rotten leaves.

There is magic in coming out to the garden first time after winter and tidy up yesteryear's withered plants and see the daffodil tips just about an inch high and nice fat hyacinth buds. The snowstorms have done some damage to my conifers, but most trees and shrubs have made it, and soon, very soon there will be colour, and once again, we have lived though winter.

Of course, just because I said it, tomorrow there will be another snowstorm.