I LOVED Peter Pohl's books as a kid. Or rather, I super-loved some and didn't understand the rest, because sometimes the weird play with language and constant vagueness interspaced with painful eloquence just turns you away. As an example I remember reading one book not being sure whether or not the main character was the same one as in another book because it was just that vague, which is an impressive feat. I still tried to read all of them to figure out which ones that were amazing and which ones weren't readable (to me), and this one definitely comes down in the former category.
This book is about Krille, a twelve year old in 1955. One day a new boy shows up and inserts himself into his friend group. Janne is an odd one, small and scrawny, almost girly, who seems to know everything there is about bikes (bicycles are big with these kids), who doesn't hesitate to smack anyone who asks for it, and who has secrets. A lot of secrets.
The air that surrounds Janne is that of flightyness. You never know when he'll show up, you'll never know what will make him take off or how long he'll be gone. It's a very painful portrayal of a broken kid who's trying desperately to feign normalcy but coming up so woefully short, and of the friend who cares so much about him, but can't make sense of what's there and wants to know everything... or so he thinks.
This was a heartbreaking book to read when I was in my early teens. Reading it at 36, seeing these two twelve-year-olds not as kids like me, but as children... God, it hurts. I knew the twists and turns of this one, I knew just how painful it would be to get to the end, and I imagine if this book was spoiled beforehand it wouldn't be so powerful, but knowing it from this being a reread for the hundedth time, it only made it better.
This book has been translated to English at some point, but reading it I wonder if it'll lose some of its power in translation. A lot of the language is very specific to Stockholm, to the fifties, to being a kid at this specific point in time, and I'm not sure whether a translation would do it much justice, especially if you don't know these streets, these parts of the city, these turns of phrases. So I don't know if I can recommend people reading the translation, since I have no idea how to the point it is, but yes. I love this book. I love it sfm an tbh each of the one star reviews hurts my soul.
But yes. As far as final books of the year goes, this was a good one to end with.