Swedish writer Frederick Bachman’s second Chinese novel has finally met with Chinese readers. In an interview, Bachmann said: “The most attractive people to me are the middle-aged and elderly people over 55 years old and children under 10 years old, because they are the people who don’t care about the established rules of society.”
“When people reach a certain age, their values will gradually become such a sentence: ‘Do you know what other people think, it’s none of my business.’ Then children have not yet learned how to adapt to this society. I am very interested in these people. They will not follow others, but only choose their own path, but also not be regarded as a miracle by others. They are just caught in the crowd, and their pace and others are not too good The same. ”
Frederick Bachman, the Swede who wrote this book, was born in 1981. He started his writing with writing blogs and columns. He can very keenly capture the details of daily life and write the trivial things around him into his blog articles in a very interesting way. Bachman, who has two children, recorded a lot of details about getting along with the children in his blog. These experiences eventually turned into interesting and true plots in “Grandma’s Apology Letter”. His own story also proves that this book has the temperature to heal the heart. Almost all foreign readers who have read this story marvel that this book reminds them of their grandmother, and even wants to be a parent like her. People marvel that Bachmann makes us fall in love with this hyperactive grandmother and love life again.
Bachmann’s characters come from different classes and ages in Sweden, from children to tramps, far beyond the limits of Bachmann’s contemporaries. These characters are very grounded and full of life.
The story of “Grandma’s Apology Letter” is a combination of a precocious and intelligent seven-year-old girl and a crazy seventy-seven year-old grandmother. When laughter and tear gas are perfectly integrated, this story about love, forgiveness and protection is bound to touch the softest part of everyone’s heart.
Aisha is a precocious but super cute seven-year-old girl. In this world, her favorite is her grandmother, Harry Potter and Wikipedia. Because she has far more EQ and IQ than her peers, she seems too special, so she is often bullied by her classmates. Aisha’s grandmother was seventy-seven years old. Her first appearance was to dress the snowman so that the neighbors mistakenly thought someone had fallen downstairs from the balcony. Not only that, she also stood on the balcony with her bathrobe (naked inside) and shot the salesman with a paintball gun, while driving and eating the barbecue, but shouted Aisha to shift gears and wipe the oil of the male nurse… All kinds of crazy behaviors are “too numerous to record”.
Such a seemingly “irresponsible” grandmother is Aisha’s only friend. When she was injured and scared, she led her into the fairy tale world to experience adventure stories to avoid the shock and fear brought by reality. When Aisha was wronged at school, her grandmother helped Aisha “rewrite her memory” by doing stupid things (very funny). In Grandma’s words, “If you can’t get rid of bad things, you must cover them with more ‘good stuff'”.
This book is not only about the warmth of a pair of grandparents, but also about the author’s understanding of “humor and sadness of life”. Because the most important story will appear in the fourth chapter. Then, the neighbors related to Grandma appeared one after another – a vicious big dog who loves candy, a monster who always disinfects and washes his hands, an annoying person who manages the east and the west, and an alcoholic psychologist. Their appearance adds a lot of realistic cruelty to this seemingly easy and funny story.
“I have to feel these characters, and every sentence of mine is feeling the characters… The novel is based on emotion. Sometimes I leave my friends, my social circle, and sometimes they leave me. Because I am born with difficulty in maintaining a long-term relationship with others, my characters will sulk at themselves in an empty room. This is not written out of thin air. I am such a person.”
Grandma is such a person. One time, Aisha heard someone say that Grandma could fight alone in an empty room. When Aisha told her grandmother this sentence, she looked very angry and even asked an illogical question – what if the room was the first to find fault?
It is our birthright to be brave to be different from others. This is the point of view that is frequently emphasized and implemented by Grandma throughout the book. Grandma is different, and she also hopes that Aisha can dare to express her differences. Only by setting aside those meaningless codes of conduct and values can Aisha truly understand the life of her grandmother and the stories of her neighbors.
There is such a detail in the book: When Aisha asks too many questions, Grandma will roll her eyes and ask: “Have you not heard that story? A girl thought too much and then exploded.”
The “Grandma’s Apology Letter”, which is composed of Buckman-style humor and healing, is widely welcomed around the world. In the face of fans, He is calm: “There is a documentary about Grant Morrison, the author of Batman cartoons. At a signing meeting, a reader asked him: ‘Why can your story move me, even make me cry?’ Morrison replied: ‘I can only say that my work is to spread those things that move me to you.’ He said too accurately. It is like a wire connecting you and me. When my story moves me, I hope Look at you at the end of the wire. ”
This book is dedicated to every adult who still loves stories.
