The DCBC met on Sunday, May 29, 2022 to discuss May's book: Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman (selected by Paige).
Attendees were: Paige, Miriam, Sarah, Jessy, and Ashley.
“That's the power of literature, you know, it can act like little love letters between two people who can only explain their feelings by pointing at other people's.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People
Anxious People was a "whimsical" and "playful" novel in which a "hapless bank robber accidentally takes hostages." Backman creates twelve fully-developed (and of course highly anxious) characters whose lives are woven together in ways that were sometimes surprising and sometimes not so surprising, but still a joy to read about.
“We don't have a plan, we just do our best to get through the day, because there'll be another one coming along tomorrow.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People
We also had an impromptu viewing of the first episode of the Anxious People TV series (Netflix), because why not?
“We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we're more than the mistakes we made yesterday. That we are all of our next choices, too, all of our tomorrows.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People
The TV series made some different choices than the book, with some characters missing, others added, and a change-up in the order the story is being told. We absolutely could not get over the running visual gag of Jack's hair, which was a fun addition to accompany the change in medium.
“It's always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People
We also learned that "how's tricks?" is a common British expression, meaning "how are things going?" The exact origins of this phrase are all over the place, with "trick" being a nautical term, or from card games, or referring to sex work. The internet is chaos and we may never know.
In any case, after much digging, I did manage to find enough of an excerpt of Folk med Ångest in Swedish that I was able to translate the real estate pun. "Hur är läget?" means, "how's it going?" in Swedish (I think a more literal translation would be something like "how's the situation"). "Läget" also means "the location." So in the original text, the real estate agency is called Läget. Because location, location, location! Translated into English, the name and reason given for it ("Because when you buy an apartment, you want to buy from someone who knows all the tricks, don't you?") are evidence that translator Neil Smith was deeply committed to giving us a real estate pun in some form.
Thank you to Paige for hosting, and to Miriam and Ashley, whose Goodreads reviews helped me remember what we talked about (because I started and then forgot to take notes)!
The Verdict:
Taken from the average DCBC member ratings on Goodreads who had marked the book as read and rated at the time of this writing:
Anxious People 4.5 stars
Next Month: June 2022: What Comes After, by Joanne Tompkins (selected by Ali)
