Stöllet

Sweden

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, “This is what it is to be happy.”

Sylvia Plath

Addendum – Rachelle took pictures of last night’s dinner and was unimpressed that they were not featured in yesterday’s post. This has been rectified below.

I had high hopes that a darkened room would help me sleep better. Unfortunately, the centre of the bed was a former glacial flow. All night we rolled into the valley of the mattress.

A restorative walk amongst the farms returned my vigour. A coffee and porridge, this time with stewed green apples, and we were on the road.

A slow meandering drive with a stop for lunch after a few hours. Once again, lunch is sandwiches made from the back of the car. We pull off the road onto a gravel parking spot. It seems ugly at first glance, but as I finish my second and third sandwich, Shell, who eats like a normal person, takes a stroll. Wildflowers surround us. Hundreds of flowers defy the road and the gravel. Quite beautiful between oversized mouthfuls.

At some point after lunch, we finish Revolutionary Road. A truly brilliant book and easily in my top ten. Rachelle reads me some of the reviews. It is not surprising Yates’ biggest critics are those entrenched in suburbia, working jobs they hate and convinced they are different from the millions of soulless doing the same.

April Wheeler remains one of the best crafted, tragic characters in American literature. On par with Cather’s Antonia and Williams’ Katherine Driscoll.

“The Revolutionary Hill Estates had not been designed to accommodate a tragedy. Even at night, as if on purpose, the development held no looming shadows and no gaunt silhouettes. It was invincibly cheerful, a toyland of white and pastel houses whose bright, uncurtained windows winked blandly through a dappling of green and yellow leaves … A man running down these streets in desperate grief was indecently out of place.”

Richard Yates

We arrive at Stöllet. Some places you look forward to leaving, others you want to stay longer. LadansLoft is the latter.

Sitting on the Karälven River, it is an oasis of nature. The cabin is a loft, and has everything you need. There are Barnevelder chickens, beehives, a wonderful vegetable garden, and a short walk to the Karälven.

We assess the kitchen and head into the village to buy supplies for dinner. There is no wine, so we grab beers.

We eat dinner outside until the rain comes, and then we finish inside listening to the rain. We wash it all down with the beer and wonder what the mattress is like. Everything else is perfect.

I look out over the farm and read my book. Cat’s Cradle is brilliantly absurd, but comes nowhere near the brilliance of Revolutionary Road.