Broken glass

  I initially passed on Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas since an endorsement on the cover compared it to Game of Thrones and the Hunger Games. That sounded pretty much like a copycat of sorts to me. I was both right and wrong. As usual the endorsements didn’t really help the book, but just confused a potential reader. The story didn’t truly remind me much of either series of books mentioned, but is a somewhat original take on the mythical fantasy assassin.

  Celeana is in jail, in beyond cruel slavery in hellish salt mines, a dreary, unending existence, without any visible hope of getting out, but eventually she does, anyway. Her further path remains perilous. One wrong move may mean death. Her freedom beckons, but only if she can survive a competition between killers and become the King’s Champion. She does not ask if it’s the right thing to do. She doesn’t have a genuine choice. So she fights and keeps fighting, like she’s practically born to do.

  There is cruelty here, even if there should have been more, there is realism, even though there should have been more of it and better defined. I read the entire book through and that is certainly rare enough in itself. Usually, I lose interest halfway. The story does hold my attention. Its suspense is sufficient to hold my interest to the end, and I might want to read the next book in the series in spite of its flaws.

  This is a young adult romance book and that is ruining much of my enjoyment. An assassin behaving like a lovesick brat is so infuriating that I can hardly express it. The absence of sex and of truly mature themes in general is always insulting.

Total honesty and true freedom: a life without hypocrisy

I remember seeing a TV-program about the Norwegian black metal scene in the early nineties. It was a riveting experience. I was about ten at the time, and it clearly opened my eyes to many things, at least long term.

The program was about the music, really, but the music couldn’t be removed or seen apart from what was an integral part of black metal, of what quite a few of the performers did in their spare time. It was a fairly deep dive into the lives and various philosophies of the members of the bands, and therefore into Satanism and mysticism in general, at least as deep as a program made by the national Norwegian public broadcasting company could go, without being closed down.

We lent the ears of a wide variety of people in the «movement», both people just in it for the music and others, with a more or less well developed and critical view of the world and existence as a whole, christian Satanists (believing in the bible, but with a slightly different focus compared to other christians) and independent Satanist, rejecting all sides of christianity, inspired by Anton la Vey, Aleister Crowley (who wasn’t a Satanist btw) and others. Boys with long hair and dressed in black were interviewed inside churches and replied with impunity to all the ridiculous questions, questions basically formed by the christian mindset of those asking them. It was a refreshing change of pace, for one thing, to say it the least.

I remember seeing a man in a dark bedroom expressing his contempt for ordinary people, calling them soulless beings. It sounded right, more than right to me. I remember all the church burnings. Churches had always felt wrong to me. I had, to a point been forced to go there, every christmas, with the rest of my class, as part of my school’s christmas arrangements. To burn down churches felt right, very right. I had seen a lot of christian hypocrisy and tyranny in my life, and had always rejected and resented it.

Hysteria, what was clearly religious panic ravaged Norway at the time. Even I, in my youth and ignorance knew that what the so called experts said about most of what was happening and people’s reason for doing it was pure baloney. One expert, for instance, spouting his uneducated nonsense in the local newspaper stated, without the slightest doubt in his mind that Satanism and paganism were two sides of the same coin and both dangerous and inhuman. Or worse: he didn’t really distinguish between them at all. A ten year old boy knew better than an old man with a professorate in the subject (comparative religion, I believe).

Me? I found both exciting. It wasn’t like a bolt of lightning from the blue sky or anything like that, but I had always been a keen observer (one of my better features), and I saw right through everybody criticizing and attacking the recent resultant bedlam and, as they saw it: the inevitable end result of the success of the black metal music. In hindsight I would say it helped me see through, then and in the years to come a society surviving through hypocrisy, dishonesty and tyranny, and set me on the path I am on, now: that of a free, independent and beyond honest human being.

In the ashes of old buildings raised as homage to a non-existing god, a temple to deceit, ignorance and intolerance I found my own fire, one just burning stronger as the years go by.