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I wouldn't go as far as to call out Abrahamsson as a charlatan, but this collection of lectures and articles explains very little or virtually nothing about those unseen forces mentioned (promised?) in the title. Nor does he go in-depth in any of those texts. It'a a mere scratching on the surface, an obscured invitation ("DO YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE?" of sorts to apply for a membership that will provide to you the Truth - if you can handle it. ("YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!").

I have friends in deep rabbit holes who would love this book for it's mix of talks on individual spiritual growth paired with the occational dog whistles about contemp(t)orary, woke society.

That said; some of Abrahamssons main points about the creative force of opposites and his mentions of magic/magick as a term for the unmeasurable, invisible (occult) aspects of existence do resonate with me. In a rationalist society, these occult aspects are - when discovered - forcibly transmuted into rational entities, thus losing all or most of their value. Or as Abrahamsson puts it, turn into "mere outer construction work" or "reading of a (cosmic) manual" (p 225).

Being a teacher, I se a possibility to interpret these occult aspects as forms of "applied experience" and magic as the process of a holistic, didactic analysis in the vein of Wolfgang Klafki (perhaps as preparation for the ritual of teaching - but that might be stretching it a bit).

Looking forward to experimenting further with this idea.

With splashes of Kazuo Ishiguro's "The Buried Giant" in a setting partly reminiscent of Mervyn Peake's "Gormenghast"-trilogy, Clarke's book is a melancholy, yet innocent, account of the life of the man known to himself (and referred to by the Other) as "Piranesi".

Between the lines lies the question of identity (also asked by Ishiguro); who this "Piranesi" is, was and will become forms a central part of the story. As does the general question of what defines me as an individual and how this current manifestation of "Me" relates to earlier manifestations of myself. Where does yesterday-Jan Kjellin reside and what influence - if any - does he have the power to wield over now-Jan Kjellin? And further: what influence will now-Jan Kjellin have over tomorrow-Jan Kjellin? Does yesterday-Jan Kjellin sleep inside me? Can I wake him when/if I should need him?

Let's get back to the book, though. I find the House to be one of the better incarnations of Gormenghast that I have read so far. Of course, it's not a Gormenghast per se, but it still has that immense, bordering on the infinite, feel to it that make Peake's books so intriguing. A world within a world.

We live in a world in which we exist and live and need to make sense of to be able to exist and live in. The House is a world within and without that world, that helps us to live in this world, given that we can access that inner/outer world.

If I'm to take anything with me from "Piranesi", it might be that it communicates the value (to some it might be a need) of having that access. Of being able to communicate freely with yesterday-Jan Kjellin to the benefit of today-Jan Kjellin as well as tomorrow-Jan Kjellin. It has he power to set you free.

Or, in the words of a current energy drink commercial: "The House gives you wings".

This was an interesting read from start to finish. The auto-ethnographic framing provides a hands-on perspective to questions easily dismissed as too theoretical, far-fetched or even general (as in being able to apply to all and anyone who has ever felt displaced) to have relevance in discussions on migration and refugees, as well as racism and nationalism.

The border as intertwined between the imagined communities of nations is something Khosravie doen't really discuss explicitly until the latter part of the book, but it's nonetheless present throughout the entire text. Crossing - or rather entering - it, transforms the human and displaces her to outside a world where nationality defines her very existance and thus strips her of her (human) rights.

Leaving is easy. It's entering that's at the root of the problem. I appreciate the way Khosravi manages to navigate through immigration policies and the often atrocious handling of refugees without getting caught in the sort of resigned moralizing so common when discussing these issues. Instead, the bureaucracy of immigration services and border control, as well as the rituals of border crossing (not rarely involving bribes and/or sexual violence) are discussed as inevitable, albeit tragic, consequences of the existance of borders in themselves.

The notion of home, he reflects, is also the notion of having the right to define who has the right to enter that home; who is welcome and who is not. And the notion of being an "illegal" traveller is in that same logic the notion of being bereft ot that right - of having no home and thus being at the mercy of those that have homes. This said as a manner of speaking. Khosravi - between the lines, at least, implies his own sense of homelessness in Sweden, even though he has been granted asylum, has a home and a job there. Even formally a swede, he still suffers that homelessness as someone having been "let in". Immigration policies revolve in that sense around "letting the right one in" - a perhaps subconscious nod to the vampiric myth that says it (the vampire/other) cannot enter a home (or nation) unless invited, baked in with the immigrant as a symbol/cause for the downfall of nations; an entity that threatens to suck the lifeblood from the people already living there if invited.

During the course of the book, Khosravi also uses the term "necropolitics" in describing the terms under which these people live during their time as "illegal" travellers. He also describes societies as being either anthropophagic (cannibalistic) or anthropoemic (vomitory) in regard to their imimgration policies. The former bears recemblance to a strictly assimilating policy, where the immigrant - those aspects that make her stand out as an other - are devoured by the welcoming society, while the latter focuses on ejecting unwanted entities by either sending them away or incarcerating them.

All in all, an interesting read. I have not mentioned everything I take with me from this book, but this should be enough to make you want to tead it too, I hope.

Reading this collection of poems in parallell with the constant newsflow from Russia's invasive war in Ukraine does affect my understanding of it. The words are undoubtedly accompanied by televised images, realizing the depicted places in ways far surpassing my own imagination.

This of course make it difficult to provide a nuanced review. How do I disregard the current siege of Marioupol [I read the book in may 2022 -Janne] to evaluate the flow and sincerity of Boris Khersonsky's poems? How can I not weave in the constant flow of reported atrocities while reading Borys Humenyuk's depiction of blood red seagulls / dropping pieces of human flesh / like rain / stolen from the battlefield?

Some of the poems - as well as individual verses and lines - I'll carry with me as the war rages on. Others, I have to confess, weren't in my taste. But the overall feeling of being in a war that isn't a war - a waiting filled with everything but waiting - might be my main takeaway from this collection of poems.

And just like Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky talk about in the preface, maybe the poetic perspective has the ability to provide a more human take on the order of things in a time and a place where the things aren't in order?