gachunia

A Review of Naïve Super

The Times called it a charming debut novel,but i thought it like a crazy little book. I wondered why on earth HALD a Christian institution would recommend this book to its students! This book must be understood in its context. The Writer Erlend Loe has two unique things which in my opinion affects his writing. He has worked in a psychiatric hospital as a social worker and has also written several children's book.

Naïve Super is a fascinatingly simple novel. The writer brings out such beauty in simplicity. The greatest things that we probably value most are free. The narrator buys a kaleidoscope for his girlfriend Lise and says “Lise will probably be glad when i give it to her. Presents are important Little presents are often better than big ones.” In a very competitive world where the bigger the better this is an interesting and a sobering way of looking at life. He alludes to the fact that money is not important it comes and goes.

The use of very short sentences is amazing. On page 195 he has a sentence with only one word :Water!This makes the readers to pose and see the very thing he is talking about. It creates a picture in the mind. This book is more or less like a painting of a very obvious thing. Sometimes in life things become too common that we stop noticing them. He forces us to reassess the way we look at things until we get there where:the most trivial things become attractive patterns .He breaks short chapters to have us see each idea at a time however small or trivial .

He lists a lot of familiar things like Menus in hotels they are easy to read with not many explanations aren't they?He has this phrase that anybody who rides a bike is a friend of mine. By Gary fisher!He believes in cleansing the soul through fun and games. He makes a friendship with a very small boy called Borre. He gets to the world of this boy of counting the animals he has seen. He seems to blend so well,he gets a new perspective. He gets in touch with the boy inside him.

Life is too fast in the west. The bus goes on the minute!You miss the train by seconds! It is very easy to align with the schedule and just be busy without getting fulfillment or even meaning of what one is doing. In a clamor to look smart we are shy to stop and ask for help or even slow down to search for meaning. Whether we get it is another thing but at least that is a step in the right direction The narrator has a funny habit of hammering .He says he is not ashamed of having such thoughts and such likes. This hammer revolves all over the book. He carries it to New York and back to Norway. It always helps him to think when there is so much meaninglessness.

Life is a search for meaning. This book exposes one of the most hopeless situation humanity has found itself in.Dr.Hugh Moorhead,a philosophy professor at Northeastern Illinois University,once wrote to 250 best known philosophers,scientists and writers,and intellectuals in the world,asking them, “what is the meaning of life?”some offered the best guesses,others were honest enough to say they were clueless . In fact a number wrote back requesting the professor to write once he discovered the meaning to that question.

The narrator in his quest for meaning sends letter to a Prof Davies who unfortunately replies:he has a policy of not replying mails! What an ending for a book based on search for meaning .The author points out that the meaning of life may not be found by looking inside ourselves,thinking hard or traveling to the world. What options does he leave to us?

The vastness of the world is fascinating and confusing at the same time.

He also mentions a prognosis that conclude that the total number of galaxies in the universe seems to be in the regions of ten billion...These numbers are so absurd that i strangely enough find myself in a good mood. Its all so immense...There is little i can do to make a difference is all liberating. My own responsibility is decreasing considerably. We definitely are overwhelmed by the world problems. The United nations. South and North issues and the way they affect development. The gaping secularization !.all these are big issues one feels like we have no chance. Are these issues for me to change. What should i do about it.

The narrator gets a girl friend through whom he gets a lot of satisfaction and meaning.

We all have our melancholy moments. Days when the feeling of meaninglessness creeps in and we sink to cynicism and sarcasm. Days when we stop believing in love and that everything will be alright in the end. Family and the people we love are at the core of life itself. They help us get meaning in life and they hold us when we have nowhere else to go.

In the last chapter called journey. He says that he is unsure that all will be well or if everything will fit together but he believes that something means something. When hope is lost then all come crushing down. It does not matter whether one is European or African,Muslim or Christian .Kim is organized but he also gets to a point when he needs to hammer a little. We all have our days. We should not be ashamed of ourselves when we reach there .It always time to ask for help and lay off all human expectations on us. Take time off to cleanse the soul. When we stop hoping in Someone higher than ourselves that something will add up to something then we could end up in despair. We must always hope.

Success,popularity and power can indeed present a great temptation,but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of a much larger temptation of self rejection.We have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable,then success,popularity and power are easily perceived as as attractive solutions ...self rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the beloved.Being beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.

Our being is not constitued in what people say or think  or what we feel.But rather what we know as the factual truth.The movies have exalted feelings above all things and tampered with our capacity to believe the spiritual facts...The lord of the rings,the immortal Elf gives up immortality for the love of Aragorn while in the city of angels,Nicholas cage makes the switch from angel to human..aasked if it was worth it he answers i would rather have had..one kiss of her lips,one touch of her hand,than an eternity without it.

The underlying statement is that one can give up all for a feeling which later dictates who is who.It is a higher calling to end like Paul saying i have fought a good fight,i have finished my course,i have kept the faith.His circumstances did not seem so cool but men thats a powerful ending statement.

good day