Naive Super By Erlend Loe

Naïve. Super by Erlend Loe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this book over a couple of days. This coming of age book is simple and easy to read. The author is the protagonist and as a 25 year old, he is trying to understand the meaning and purpose of life. The author Erlend Loe is a Norvegian and this book was touted as Norway's 'Catcher in the Rye'.
 

Most of the book is self-observation, observation of the world around and developing a perspective towards life.
 

The author is highly influenced by the writings of scientist Paul Davies. He seems to have taken a liking to the concept of time. As per scientific principles, time is affected by gravitational pull. The more the gravity, the faster the time moves.
 

This has two implications. One, as you go higher, time moves slower and you age slower. The second aspect is even more profound, there is nothing called time. I mean if the time is different at the bottom of Empire State Building and on top of it, which time is right? Since you can't answer it properly, I mean every meter you move higher the time moves slower, it implies that there is nothing called time.
 

This is a great philosophical question. The author do not discusses this in detail, but it is obvious that this puzzle is something that he spends a lot of time thinking about.
 

Towards the end of the book author visits America and as is wont, that country provides him with some answers that he was looking for.
 

A good coming of age book. (even though the protagonist is 25).

There are two things that impressed me about this book. One is a list of items that the protagonist admires and appreciates. These are definitely the items that he is grateful for. The list is very exhaustive. Some of the items in the list are hammering, sitting on the loo, having someone rub his back, music, friendship, water etc.

 

I have read it a number of times that you must start and end your day by being grateful for your blessings. I never understood this. Till I read this book, that is. I am healthy in general. When I see very unhealthy and sick people around me, I guess I must be grateful for my health. Likewise, I live in my own home, I have a great family, my mother is healthy and stays near where I stay, I have some work to do and something to look forward to when I wake up in the morning, I have clean bowels every morning (I remember the time when I struggled over three years with extreme constipation), have food to eat and water to drink....

 

I mean there are a number of things I must be grateful about.

 

Another list that the protagonist makes impressed me. That is the list of things that he saw each day. He observes and sees a lot of things. Love and pain in the eyes of people, nasty behaviours, kindness, politeness, rudeness, even simple things like a man sitting on the side of the road drinking water from a bottle. When I look back at my day, I can't remember a single thing I saw. Which is equivalent to not seeing anything right. What the author is doing is what is known as mindfulness. Just observing without any judgement. 

 

That is Zen.

 

By the way, I loved the first paragraph. Great start to the book.

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Highlighted Quotes

• Something is going to have to happen.
• I thought time was time and gravity was gravity. Evidently that’s not the way it is
• It’s been a long time since I worked up a real sweat.
• I speculate about making a list of things that excite me today. I find pen and paper, but notice that I am hesitating.
• I should never have stopped running.
• For some reason I suspect that I know too much about things it’s stupid to know a whole lot about.
• An animal is an animal, he reckons. You can’t blame the dog for being ordinary.
• He is a human being living in disharmony with almost everything.
• If it’s already nothing, there’s no reason to say it in a more complicated way
• (The universe) has about a hundred billion stars the size of the sun. These numbers are so absurd that I strangely enough find myself in a good mood. It’s all so immense. I think Paul feels a bit like this as well. There is so little I can do to make a difference. It is liberating.
• I sit there thinking that I’m a really good guy and never mind space and time and all the rest of it.
• When the universe is ephemeral, one can easily feel that human existence is meaningless. Why should I do anything at all?On the other hand it is tempting to try and make the best of it. I’m here, anyway.
• many people are in a position similar to mine. That they know a helluva lot, but don’t quite know what to do with it.
• They’re strange things, girls. One can’t avoid them. They’re so pretty. And they’re everywhere. There’s something very strange about girls. First they’re not there and everything is a little difficult. But then they’re there, and things become nicer.
• Americans seem to live according to the simple theory that two is better than one, three is better than two, etc. For example, they believe two hundred dollars is better than one hundred. It’s a cute theory.
• (He is walking someone else's dog in the park, he says that people will mistake him for a dog owner) Seeing as I’m not a dog owner in New York, that also means everybody else could be something other than what they seem to be. That means it’s impossible to know anything at all. 
• Everybody is good at something.
  
• Presents are important. Little presents are often better than big ones.