Jeg løfter hælen, sænker hælen. Står let på tæer, mens jeg står og kigger ud på min altan, ud på morgenhimlen. I køkkenet brummer nespressomaskinen, den brygger dagens første kop kaffe. Pludselig mærker jeg noget. Mine tæer bliver kolde. Jeg kigger ned, og der, mellem gulvbræddernes usynlige sprække, bobler der vand op. Jeg kigger på altandøren, dér hvor vinduespartiet møder gulvet. Der er intet at se. Jeg kigger paf rundt i lejligheden, hvor kommer vandet fra? Så ser jeg den. Strålen af gult vand, der står lodret ud af røret. En lille tynd, næsten usynlig stråle. Der har samlet sig en lille sø af vand i lejlighedens fjerneste hjørne.
Et opkald til vicevært og udlejer og et par håndværkeres vurdering af vandskaden, senere er jeg i gang med at pakke min lejlighed ned. Gulvet skal af, betonen skal tørre. Og jeg skal genhuses imens. Der er kun et par dage til jul, og jeg står pludselig i et kaos, hvor jeg skal pakke det tøj og de ting, som jeg vil få brug for i en ubestemt periode. Noget af det eneste jeg er sikker på, der skal med, er bøger. Jeg skal have nok bøger med. Bøger som kan sætte tiden i stå, og som jeg kan forsvinde ind i – og så kan virkeligheden passe sig selv et øjeblik.
EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVE er lige den slags bog, der skal med. Jeg har bestilt, og modtaget, den for flere måneder siden, og fra jeg pakkede den ud af pappet, har jeg glædet mig til at læse den. Og selvom jeg ikke har haft tid til at læse den, før nu, så har jeg allerede bladret lidt i bogen og læst nogle af de sjove lister, som Dolly Alderton laver.
Rødvin direkte fra flasken og læsning til langt ud på natten
På hotelværelset kan jeg godt føle mig lidt som Bridget Jones, når jeg sidder i sengen (der er ikke andet at sidde på) mens jeg spiser den pizzasandwich, som jeg har hentet hos et af Vesterbros bedste pizzeriaer FONTANA DI TREVI og drikker rødvin direkte fra flasken. Værelsets eneste vandglas er tilkalket og står ude på badeværelset, og det kan jeg ikke rigtig arbejde med, så jeg lader det stå uberørte. Jeg læser i bogen, EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVE, og den er det bedste selskab til denne kaotiske – og til tider også komiske – situation, det er at bo på et lille hotelværelse. Jeg læser til langt ud på natten, fordi jeg ikke kan slippe Dolly Aldertons anekdoter, tilbageblik og kloge refleksioner om livet som en søgende ung voksen.
Refleksioner og ærlighed
EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVE er en hyldest til kærligheden. I alle dens former. Det er en sjov, skøn og ærlig bog om at blive voksen, finde sig selv og finde kærligheden til sig selv. Jeg elsker den bog. Og da jeg læste den snappede jeg flere af bogens passager til mine venner, fordi jeg synes, de var så rigtige. Så sjove. Så ærlige. At jeg var nødt til at dele dem.
EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVE er et memoir, der består af personlige anekdoter og i bogens kapitler deler Dolly Alderton oplevelser fra sit liv. Vi hører om dårlige dates, gode dates, byture, venner, roomies og også livets alvorlige sider som sygdom og død, som Dolly Alderton mindes med en refleksion, der er fin og ægte. Det er den refleksion og selvindsigt, der fuldender bogen og gør det vedkommende. Dolly Aldertons humoristiske pen får ekstra plads, når hun deler lister som ”The most annoying things people say” eller opskriften på den perfekte tømmermændsret.
Et par uger efter, jeg har læst bogen færdig (og talt begejstret om den til alle, jeg kender) får jeg en mail fra forlaget, der kan præsentere Dolly Alderton og ALT HVAD JEG VED OM KÆRLIGHEDEN. Bogen udkom(mer) i dansk oversættelse den 31. januar 2019. Det er et sjovt tilfælde, jeg har jo lige læst bogen. Og da jeg læser mailen, ved jeg, den her bog skal jeg lave noget med til bloggen.
VIND ET EKSEMPLAR AF ALT HVAD JEG VED OM KÆRLIGHED + ET FINT NET
Derfor er jeg rigtig glad for, at jeg kan udlodde et eksemplar af ALT HVAD JEG VED OM KÆRLIGHED (den danske udgave) og et flot net til én af jer. For at deltage i konkurrence skal du blot følge mig på Instagram og skrive en kommentar om kærlighed til dette billede (Obs. Konkurrencen er slut). Det kan være noget, du ved, du har lært eller noget af alt det, du ikke ved om Kærlighed. Der er fri leg!
Min kommentar om kærlighed ville være: If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion… love actually is all around – ja, jeg citerer Premierministeren fra Love Actually. For jeg synes, det er vigtigt at huske på. Din sidste date var måske dårlig, din kæreste er måske gået fra dig eller du er så single, så single, at du ikke kan huske, hvornår du sidst havde en kæreste. Love actually is all around: for kærlighed er mere end den hollywood-romantiske (gisp, forventningspress) af slagsen. Kærlighed er også kærligheden til dine venner, dit arbejde, din hobby, din hund eller kat eller måske dine monstera-plante. Al kærlighed gælder, alle former for kærlighed er værd at glæde sig over. Love is all around. Peace ❤
Her til sidst vil jeg dele nogle af mine yndlingscitater fra bogen. Nogle af dem, der er blevet delt med venner på Snapchat. Jeg må dog lige advare om, at der optræder et citat, som kan ses som en spoiler, da det afslører, hvad der sker for en af Dolly Aldertons venner, som vi følger gennem Dollys fortællinger:
Fra kapitlet: “Being a bit fat, being a bit thin”
(…)
And a woman can never really be thin enough, that’s the problem. It is not seen as too high a price to pay to be hungry all the time or to restrict an entire food group or to spend four nights a week in a Fitness First gym. To be an empirically attractive young man, you just have to have a nice smile, an average body type (give or take a stone) a bit of hair and be wearing an all-right jumper. To be a desirable woman – the sky’s the limit. Have every surface of your body waxed. Have manicures every week. Wear heels every day. Look like a Victoria’s Secret Angel even though your work in an office. It’s not enough to be an average-sized woman with a bit of hair and all-right jumper. That doesn’t cut it. We’re told we have to look like women who are paid to look like that as their profession.
And the more perfect I strived to be, the more imperfections I noticed. I had been more body confident as a size 14 than I was over three stone lighter. When I got naked with a new partner, I wanted to apologize for what I had to offer and list a series of things I’d change, like a middle-class hostess who says, ‘Oh, don’t look at the carpet, the carpet’s dreadful, I promise it’s all going to change’, when she has guests round.
Fra listen: “Things I Am Scared of”
Dying
People I love dying
People I hate dying so I feel guilty about all the times I said bad things about them
Drunk men on the street telling me I’m tall
Drunk men on the street telling me I’m fat
Drunk men on the street telling me I’m sexy
Drunk men on the street telling me I’m ugly
Drunk men on the street telling me to cheer up
Drunk men on the street telling me they want to shag me
Drunk men on the street telling me they’d never shag me
Drunk people ‘trying on’ (stealing) my hat at parties
Losing jewellery
Falling out of a window
Accidentally killing a baby
Parlour games
Talking about the history of American politics
Starting fires everywhere
Not understanding the washing machine
Cancer
STDs
Biting down on wooden lolle sticks
Plane crashes
Plane food
Working in an office
Being asked if I believe in God (a bit)
Being asked if I believe in horoscocpes (a bit)
Being asked why I believe in the above
Going into an unarranged overdraft
Never owning a dog
Fra kapitlet: “ The uncool girls of uncool Camden”
(…)
I am so grateful that I fetishized the measured-out-in-coffee-spoons minutiate of adulthood so vividly as a teenager because the relief of finally getting there meant I have found very little of it to be a burden. I’ve loved paying my own rent. I’ve adored cooking for myself every day. I even used to get a thrill sitting in the GP’s waiting room, knowing I registrered and got myself there without the help of anyone else. In my first year of billpaying, I’d practically go weak-kneed over a letter from Thames Water addressed to me. I would happily take on the administrative weight of responsibility that comes with being an adult in exchange for the knowledge that I always have the freedom to go to the pub on my own and make friends with an old man any day of the week.
To this day, I have never, ever been able to get over the fact I don’t need to drink gin from shampoo bottles any more; that there is no lights-out; that I can stay up watching films or writing until four a.m. on a weeknight if I want to. I am relieved, energized, invigorated that I can eat breakfast foods for dinner, play records really loud and have a cigarette out of my window. I still can’t quite believe my luck. (…)
Fra kapitlet: “EVERYTHING I KNEW ABOUT LOVE AT TWENTY-FIVE”
Men love a woman who holds it all back. Make them wait five dates to have sex with you, three dates at the very least. That’s how you keep them interested.
The boyfriends of your best friends will, annoyingly, stick around. Most of them won’t be exactly who you imagined your best friend would end up with.
Suspenders and stockings can be bought cheap and in bulk on eBay.
Online dating is for losers and I include myself in that. Be endlessly suspicious of people who pay to have an embarrassing profile on a dating website.
Forget what I said earlier about using hair-removal cream when you’re dating someone. If you go bald, you’re letting the sisterhood down. We need to actively take a stand against the patriarchal control of female anatomy.
Never make an album as good as Blood on the tracks ‘our album’ with a boyfriend because, years after you break up, you still won’t be able to listen to it. Don’t make that mistake at twenty-one.
If a man loves you because you are thin, he’s no man at all. If you think you want to break up with someone, but practical matters are getting in the way, this is the test: imagine you could go into a room and press a big red button that would end your relationship with no fuss. No break-up conversations, no tears, no picking up your things from his house. Would you do it? It the answers is yes, you have to break up with them.
If a man has always been single a forty-five – there’s a reason. Don’t hang around to find out what it is. The worst feeling in the world is being dumped because they say they don’t fancy you any more. Always bring a man back to your house, then you can trick him into staying for breakfast and trick him into falling in love with you.
Casual sex is rarely good.
Fake orgasms will make you feel guilty and terrible and they’re unfair on the guy. Use them sparsely.
Some women get lucky and some women don’t. There are good guys and bad guys. It’s sheer luck who you end up with and how you get treated.
Your best friends will abandon you for men. It will be a long and slow goodbye, but make your peace with it and make some new friends.
On long, lonely nights when your fears crawl over your brain like cockroaches and you can’t get to sleep, dream of the time you were loved – in another lifetime, one of toil and blood. Remember how it felt to find shelter in someone’s arms. Hope that you’ll find it again.
Fra kapitlet: “Heartbreak hotel”:
(…)
I went to the bar and ordered a bottle of Proseccco.
‘Right’, I said, pouring the ice-cold fizz into poolside plastic flutes. ‘You would’ve been making vows now. I think we should make vows.’
‘To who?’
‘To ourselves,’ I said. ‘And to each other.’
‘OK,’ she said, putting her sunglasses on top of her head. ‘You go first.’
‘I vow to not judge however you handle this when we get home, ‘ I said. ‘If you want to have a really heavy amphetamine and casual sex phase, that’s fine. If you lock yourself in your house for a year, that’s fine too. You’ve got my support whatever you do, because I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose the people you’ve lost.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, taking a sip of her Prosecco and pausing to think. ‘I vow to always let you grow. I’ll never tell you that I know who you really are just because we’ve known each other since we were kids. I know you’re going through a period of big change and I’ll only ever encourage that.’
‘That’s a good one,’ I said, clinking her glass. ‘OK, I vow to always tell you when you have something in your teeth.’
‘Oh, always.’
‘Particularly as we get older and our gums start receding. That’s when the leafy greens can really get lodged.’
‘Don’t make me more depressed than I am,’ she said.
‘Do a vow to yourself.’
‘I vow to never lose sight of my friends if I fall in love again,’ she said. ‘I’ll never forget how important you all are and how much we need each other.’
DOLLY ALDERTON er britisk journalist, bestsellerforfatter, instruktør og podcastvært. Hun skriver for flere af landets største dagblade, bl.a. Sunday Times og Daily Telegraph. Hun er derudover vært for THE HIGH LOW, en populær podcast som ugentlig dækker nyheder og popkultur. Lær Dolly Alderton bedre at kende på www.dollyalderton.com og hendes Instagramprofil.
Vil du også læse ALT HVAD JEG VED OM KÆRLIGHED?
Forfatter: Dolly Alderton
Udgivelse: 2018 – i dansk oversættelse 2019 (af Siri Ranva Hjelm Jacobsen)
Forlag: Fig Tree, Penguin Books – Hr. Ferdinand, Politikens Forlag
Find bogen hos arnoldbusck.dk*, bogreolen.dk*, coop.dk* og saxo.com*
Min Goodreads bedømmelse: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
*reklamelinks: Jeg får ikke penge for at dele bogen, men jeg får en lille skilling, hvis du via linket foretager et køb i webshoppen.
BØGER PÅ STRIBE 