Customer Reviews (5)

Only science ficton book to receive a Nobel prize
Harry Martinson's epos Aniar should rank as one of last century's most beatiful books. Written already in the fifties, but still as actual as ever. A spaceship carrying refigees from Earth to Mars. It's steering is damaged by a meteorite. Helpless, the refugees follow the spaceship out into the cold voids outside of our solar system. They die of hopelessness when they understand that twenty years of travel has only brought them a few light-days away from Earth ("A lightyear is a grave").
Martinson invented new words to describe the technology, all of them beatiful. The translation works just great.
Part of Martinson's greatness is that he saw that we were heading in the wrong direction much earlier than his contemporaries; either stuck in the "American Dream" or trapped by "Soviet Progressive" ideals. The book cn be read in so many planes: belief in technology while forgetting human values, fear of nuclear war, shallow searches for instant gratification, man's - and mankind's - loneliness in an uncaring universe.
Martinson was an apostate from communism, and he was ostracised by the Swedish intellectual establishment, and later commited suicide.

Wow. You know... Wow.
Aniara, by Harry Martinsson, is about a space ship which is damaged, in such a way that the people travelling with it can no longer control where they are going. This makes for a fascinating read, unlike anything you have ever read.

The main problem about Aniara is that noone can tell you what it is like, you have to see for yourself. Trying to describe Aniara is like telling you what a song sounds like whitout singing: You either get the wrong impression or don't get it at all. You have to experience it by yourself.
See that you do.

strangely beautiful
Martinson's epic poem is composed of separate episodes which form distinct and richly resonant threads in a tapestry of voices, each clearly and palpably real.The language has a range similar to that of the composer,Mahler, delving fearlessly into the plain, the sparse, even the tacky,pausing there only to soar with equal courage into the shatteringlybeautiful.Suffused throughout with a combination of subtle insight anddeep compassion, the work is deeply moving as only great things are.Anyconcern that an "epic poem" or "science fiction" arenot for you should be gently set aside.Pick a starry window on a quietnight and read this book.

Aniara--Epic story of man's fragility and folly
After more than twenty years of searching for an English translation of this poem, I finally have had the great fortune to obtain a copy!

This is the 24-year story of how the 8,000 inhabitants of a doomed 'space ark' tryto cope with their hopeless situation. It is a dark review of the humancondition, sometimes difficult, often beautiful.

The introduction andtranslator's notes are a must-read. Strangely, there is no mention at allof the 'modern' opera by Karl-Birger Blohmdahl (the only true 'spaceopera'?) which is how most non-Swedes have been introduced to Aniara formany decades.

The Aniara Suite was featured as side 2 of a very rarerelease of the "2001..." soundtrack years ago. If stillavailable, the 1985 Caprice 2-CD set (CAP 22016 1-2) is an excellentcompanion to this book.

Aniara is an excellent piece of art
This review is based on the Swedish version since the English is not yet in print at the time of writing. Aniara is a poetic tale of a spaceship with the same name.Aniara is lost in space, headed out of oursolarsystem, and beyond all rescue.Experience the frustration, fear, andyearning for confort that the passangers feel, in this fantastic poem. ... Read more

Product Description
Fatherless and abandoned by his mother at age six, Nobel Laureate, Harry Martinson, grew up mostly in rural foster homes in the south of Sweden in the early years of the 20th century. He left school at thirteen and became a sailor and vagabond--a global nomad--at sixteen. After permanently leaving the sea in 1927, he began to transform the story of his life into art. He painted, wrote poetry, autobiography, fiction, drama and essays. Using imagery and language that was fresh and striking, readers found his books moving and appealing, and he quickly wrote himself into the hearts of Scandinavian readers. Today, Martinson is still a widely read author in Sweden and new translations of his work continue to find readers around the world. In this bilingual edition (Swedish and English), translator Lars Nordstrom introduces the reader to Martinson's early work as a poet. None of the sixty poems included here have ever been translated into English previously. Martinson's painting, a self-portrait entitled "Portrait of a Stoker", graces the book's cover and inside is a sketch of Martinson by the Swedish artist, Arne Cassell. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Looking More Closely at Nature's Secrets
Coming upon Harry Martinson's VIEWS FROM A TUFT OF GRASS is a reminder of how few writers and poets have stepped out of the ordinary means of painting visual pictures with words to transcend the written page and enter the ether of the atmosphere that contains all of nature's beauty.

Harry Martinson, born in Sweden in 1904 and awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1974, approached such apparently routine topics - water, boating, maps, etc - in a manner that supported his thesis that reality and imagination must be intermingled in order to illustrate nature through words.Included in this inspiring little book are essays on the subject of nature writing, strongly suggesting that the use of familiar terms to describe unique moments results only in clichés.His message is to urge writers (and readers!) to heighten their sensitivity by pushing the standard limits of descriptive words into a realm that allows a stronger communication of the mysteries of the moments of nature that pass us constantly, for the most part unnoticed.

His language is simple and eloquent: 'In a sky reflected downward on a lake, the clouds whirl around like summer spirits, and as you row across this sky of water your oar dips quietly towards evening like a dark wooden spoon into the cloud-milk'. The book is translated from the Swedish by Lars Nordstrom and Erland Anderson in what seems to be a deeply sensitive manner.This brief book (only 152 pages) should be part of the library of every poet and every reader of poetry.Harry Martinson has much to offer, both in his own writings and in his advice to all of us.Grady Harp, September 06 ... Read more

Product Description
Aniara: En Revy om Manniskan i Tid och Rum by Harry Martinson. 1959 hardcover published by Bonniers. Text in Swedish. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Scandinavian Studies, published by Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study on June 22, 2002. The length of the article is 1090 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Bengt E. Anderson. Att rannsaka en barndom: Harry Martinsons Nasslorna blomma: Tillkomst och tematik.(Book Review)
Author: Paul Norlen
Publication: Scandinavian Studies (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 2002
Publisher: Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study
Volume: 74Issue: 2Page: 228(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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Chapters: People From Olofström Municipality, People From Ronneby Municipality, Harry Martinson, Jan Gunnarsson, Haquin Spegel. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 18. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Harry Martinson (May 6, 1904February 11, 1978) was a Swedish sailor, author and poet. In 1949 he was elected into the Swedish Academy. He was awarded a joint Nobel Prize in Literature in 1974 together with fellow Swede Eyvind Johnson. The choice for Eyvind Johnson and Harry Martinson was very controversial as both were on the Nobel panel. They and Graham Greene, Saul Bellow and Vladimir Nabokov were the favored candidates that year. Martinson was born in Jämshög, Blekinge County in south-eastern Sweden. At a young age he lost both his parents, whereafter he was stationed in the Swedish countryside as a foster child (Kommunalbarn). At the age of sixteen, Martinson ran away, and enrolled on a ship where he spent the next years sailing around the world, visiting countries such as Brazil and India. A few years later, lung problems forced him to set ashore in Sweden. The next years were spent travelling around Sweden without a steady employment, at times living as a vagabond on country roads. In the city of Malmö, he was arrested for vagrancy, at the age of 21. In 1929, he debuted as a poet. Together with Artur Lundkvist, Gustav Sandgren, Erik Asklund and Josef Kjellgren, he authored the anthology Fem unga (Five Youths), which introduced Swedish Modernism. His poetry combined an acute eye for and love of nature with a deeply felt humanism. His popular success as a novelist came with the semi-autobiographical Nässlorna blomma (Flowering Nettle), in 1935, about hardships encountered by a young boy in the countryside. It has since been translated into more than 30 languages. One of his most famo...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=200521 ... Read more

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This digital document, covering the life and work of Harry (Edmund) Martinson, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 2774 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author