The first read from my Summer 2011 series of Reading from Female Nobel Prize Winning Authoresses. I have to say that it was one of the strangest books I've ever pressed through. It was very dark, which, actually I enjoyed. Still, the hyper-dramatic self-loathing got to be a bit much at times. Fortunately it was tempered with some chuckle-inducing humor. I suppose I'll go back and read the scholarly introduction to it - in case I missed what was so amazing about it entirely. But, if I had to guess why it won the Nobel is that this work of fiction was told in such a way as to evoke feelings of hearing tales told of days long past ... oral history-style. For that part, I can say it was a nice introduction to Swedish literature.