While walking up the stairs after my run today I thought I might write boastfully here about my first sub-hour circumnavigation of Södermalm, and how I did it solo, without a wheezing bouncing Joachim by my side, after he broke an agreement to come running with me, citing prior children.
But taunting Joachim like that would not be nice, so I won’t, though I fear you might be disappointed by what then remains of my post: sage descriptions of jogging Swedes that crossed my path in droves as I squinted into the late evening sunlight, a segue into how healthy Swedes are; how, more generally, duktig they are in everything they do. I’d then have to explain the word duktig to you, and recount how Emma once said there is no accurate English equivalent. It does not merely mean “good, able, capable;” there is an element of relentless self-improvement implied by its use; it is an inner initiative to learn from mistakes that makes Swedes duktigIKEA pitches in with an illustrated example of the word duktig.. At least all those who are not slarvig.
Or I might try to recount the thought processes of an hour-long run, how fragments of a rather good short story I had read just previously came back at odd moments, but I’d just embellish it, and maybe even make stuff up, like for example how some people can look like they are running fast when they are not, and vice versa — I just thought of that now. In any case, such writing would come across as earnest, and we hate that.
Perhaps I should just start a new genre where I do not actually write a blog but just describe imagined blog entries that I have not written. Noncommittal writing, I would call it, and I would engage in it in the more transient phases of my life, when nothing is really certain or cherished notions are in a state of flux, when writing down thoughts would give them more permanence than they deserve, like putting shacks up on the World Heritage List. And there is something wonderfully Calvinoesque or Borgesian to it all. Maybe I should just post reviews of my imagined rants, pronounce them the work of genius, but report back inexpertly and confused, and depend instead on the imagination of readers to construct something of proper greatness out of them.
That reminds me of when I read gushing reviews of hyped bands, and the music I imagine is always so much better than what is actually being described.
Now, if I could only capture that music and move it from inside my head out into the world… It’d most likely get savaged by the critics, though. You see, I’ve got *pretentions*.
Reminds me of Stanislaw Lem’s excellent collections of reviews of non-existing books.
I liked the story. I feel it falls apart after the first encounter. Maybe it ia thing of the “anticipation” factor, but I sense it better knit during the period.
I have the same thing happen to me, with music. Parts of a symphony or piece will pop into my head, mostly triggered by minute things like the turning off or on of a sign, a light bulb, the rhythm of the jog or the colors of the sky at sunset. It is quite a great sensation.
pd. Sice my grasp of swedish is limited to reading it in spanish, and a fewe thong off short-wave radio ( a1979 recording of TOMTEN read by A. Lindgren), the translation dictionary is great… I catch myself trying words, similar to opening the dictionary in on a random page…!
atemeragrot! (a with circle)
L.
Stefan? Running?
Gee, since 9/11 everything really HAS changed.
Duktig: perhaps it is equivalent to Hellenist Greece’s use of the world ‘virtue’.
your word duktig is clearly based on the germanic root of tüchtig, which is used liberally here in Germany for “upstanding” and “proper”. kind of like work ethic almost.
“Duktig” supposedly is the same word as “dygdig”, hence related to “Tugend” and “tuechtig”. But, except to children, it is used ironically, I believe.
I think it’s all right to be “duktig” but I definitely draw the line at “gullig”. Then it’s far better to be “jobbig.”
Can I steal your imaginary blog genre? It’s a fvbulous idea.
Vanessa, by all means. And Bengt is right: My Swedish teacher just confirmed that use of the word duktig usualy implies condescension. I am now in the process of retroactively reevaluating all conversations in which I wsa called duktig. It’s not going to be pretty.