Life – a user's manual Part II - Boksidan

However, it is not necessarily to all the time describe how the environment looks. Sometimes it can benefit
the story better to write a little story about some details in it, which the author of the next quote has done.
"The school had a central radio system, small speakers were bolted to the wall above the classroom doors
and above the entrance to the kitchen. Two weeks earlier, they had taken down the framed portraits of the
old and bloodhound like wrinkled president and replaced him with the newly elected one, admittedly bald
and with glasses but otherwise appeared virile and assertive, with steel in his eyes, sharp chin and carrying
voice. It was the voice that was heard from the speaker when Werner and Leo stepped into the kitchen, there
was a broadcast from the parliament and the president began with the words: "Dear representatives of the
Finnish people ...""
From “The danger of being Skrake" by Kjell Westö.
The novel "The new land" (588 pages) is quite choosy on environment descriptions, especially towards the
end. In the 100 pages (over 3000 lines) at the end of the book there is less than 400 lines that can be
considered to contain environmental descriptions. In the beginning, however the scenario is painted in a
moderate number of descriptions, such as in the novel's opening paragraph, in which the following
description is read. It is really not a description of the setting in the ordinary sense, i.e. it’s not a
scenographic description. Instead, the aim was probably to give the story a poetic introduction and a picture
of the new era in America.
"A giant trees was knocked over by a storm and had fell on a path that ran along the shores of the Ki-Chi-
Saga, a lake in the Chipewain indians country. It lay untouched where it had fallen, obstructing walkers on
the trail that went a detour around the roots. No one got the idea that it could be cut down and rolled to the
side. With time a new trail was made, that went in a big hook around the tree. Instead of moving away the
obstacle the Indians moved the way. So was the big tree there and as the years went by moss spread over it.
A man's age passed by, and the fallen tree began to rot. The path around it was now well used, and no one
remembered anymore, that it once had been a different route here. Hunters wasted over the years a lot of
time to go around the tree, but this people utilized their time wasting it. One day a man of a different skin
color walked the trail. He carried an ax under his arm and walked heavily in footwear, which had been made
in another continent. With his ax he cutted the tree in some places and threw it away."
From "The new land" by Vilhelm Moberg.
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