Serenissima by Erica Jong
I can’t believe I’ve forgotten about this book. Of course it’s been ages since I read it, but today I suddenly remembered and looked it up on Goodreads. As so often happens, there were mixed reviews. What I remember of this book was great. I loved it. Most people seemed to find it really awful. I wonder why.
I loved the time travel. The erotic content was ok, but since then I’ve read a lot of fan fiction and slash so I think if I read it again I might find it rather tame. Or not. I really need to find the book and try again.
This isn’t really a review, more a sort of brief note to myself. If I find the book I’ll definitely read it again and then I’ll probably write a proper review.
Oh and the edition I posted on Booklikes and Leafmarks is not the actual edition I read. Mine was translated into Swedish and I think it came as a freebie on the big annual book fair. When I was a kid, we got actual printed books as freebies sometimes. 🙂
Maria Lang – Crimes of Passion
A while back I posted a review of Josephine Tey’s novels. It occurred to me that Swedish mystery author Maria Lang (Dagmar Lange), is in some ways similar to this author. Unfortunately, I can’t offer you a page with freebies, but there are two e-book titles available in English, on Amazon.co.uk and on Amazon.com.
I have read a few of her books (in Swedish) and so far I can’t say I have noticed anything political in her writing. What I do see is quite a bit of passion. Her characters are all filled with passion and jealousy. Most, if not all, seem to be motivated by love and sex.
The main characters are Puck (a young woman) who’s a scholar in literature. At the beginning of the series, she meets an attractive young man who is also a scholar, Einar Bure. He has a very good friend, Christer Wijk, who is a cop.
I love this mystery-solving trio. They work so well together. And having a background in fan fiction and slash, I can’t help thinking I could write some really cool fan fiction about them, preferably with a bit of slash. 😉 Something tells me the author might understand the slash, if not the concept of fan fiction – although I know there was fan fiction written early on, based on Jane Austen’s books and the Sherlock Holmes books. Apparently, Maria Lang’s mystery writing colleague Dorothy Sayers was a member of the Sherlock Holmes fandom.
From that first case, the three keep working together solving crimes. The mysteries are quite cosy, but like I said, they were at the time (1940’s and on) considered rather ‘erotic’. Don’t get your hopes up though, what was considered erotic in the 1940’s and 50’s is not what we would call the same thing. They’re a lot of fun to read for someone like me, who is interested in history. The cover art is beautiful and evokes the look of the era, if I may say so. I have seen one of the movies – looking forward to seeing the rest soon – that have recently been made from the first six books (that were recently re-published). It’s really fascinating to see all the details – architecture, cars, fashion, furniture etc. The books are never too graphic or depressing. It’s all just good old-fashioned puzzle mystery fun. Maria Lang also caused a bit of a stir, when one of her characters was gay, long before that became common in literature.
On one of my blogs I’ve already mentioned this, but once when my mum was very young and a student, she used to go to the opera all the time, escorted by an older, married male classmate. They went to all the shows and after a while they began to notice that this author was ‘stalking’ them, taking notes, always looking away, ignoring them if they caught her staring. In the end, my mum and her classmate, who, for the record, weren’t involved, ended up as a young married couple in one of the books.
