In the book Orakelet taler (The Oracle Speaks – Seven Life Advice Against Life Advice), the Swedish author and social commentator Liv Strömquist reveals, among other things, the shame many feel when they try to have fun on command – and fail.
With her characteristic, seemingly simple lines and language, she makes it impossible to ignore how we are all caught up in this mess. It’s like getting a new pair of glasses – once you see them, you can’t look away.
Liv Strömqvist, born 1978, debuted with the book “Hundre procent fett” (2005), the same year she started at Serieskolan in Malmö. Since then, she has published the comic books “Drift”, a sex series illustrated by Jan Bielecki (2007), “Einsteins fru” (2008), “Prins Charles känsla” (2010), “Ja til livet” (2011) and «Fruit of Knowledge» (2014), about the taboo of menstruation and the vulva in society, also translated into Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, Galician, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovene, Spanish, Turkish and Ukrainian.
Strömquist studied sociology at Lund University and earned a degree in political science at Malmö University. She has been awarded an honorary doctorate twice, in 2016 by Malmö University and in 2021 by UCLouvain. Her comics are mostly about sociopolitical issues from a feminist and left-wing perspective. They are satirical essays about power and injustices.
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The Oracle Speaks
În her recent book “The Orace Speaks, Duchess Meghan Markle is supposed to shine a light on a charity that distributes food to sex workers living in poverty and substance abuse. The Duchess had what seemed like a really great idea: full of enthusiasm, she grabbed a pen and began scribbling encouragement and slogans on the bananas that were given with the food packages.
In the book, Strömqvist reveals, among other things, the shame many feel when they try to have fun on command – and fail. With her characteristic, seemingly simple lines and language, she makes it impossible to ignore how we are all caught up in this mess. It’s like getting a new pair of glasses – once you see them, you can’t look away.
It’s perhaps no wonder that the Duchess finds it difficult to imagine what the world looks like from the perspective of women in crisis. But Meghan’s attempt to encourage them backfires. The exhortation to “work hard” takes on a whole new meaning when you imagine what it might mean for someone who works in the sex industry. (More thorough blowjobs? More clients at once?) The message to smile, or “live, laugh, love,” is, of course, also tragically out of place on a banana in the hands of a woman covered in bruises.
Several keen life advisors are portrayed in this comic book
Drawing on the sociologist Edgar Cabanas’ concept of “emodity,” Strømquist reveals how our insecurities about beauty, happiness, and pleasure are commodified. Suddenly, you see: That one too many lager on the town isn’t just a failure of self-control—it’s your role as a pawn in the neoliberal machinery, in what Strøquist calls the “fun-happy-pretty industry.”
The Duchess of Sussex is one of several keen life advisors portrayed in this comic book. You will also meet check-up guru Rollo Tomassi, super celebrity therapist The Holistic Psychologist, and a colorful group of randomly selected makeup and fitness influencers, who you may have already encountered in your own Instagram feed in real life.
But all of this is just new acts in the fun-happy-pretty industry’s endless spectacle. Strömquist claims we are both actors and audience in our own consumer drama. And no, no one escapes – not even you with your demonstrative dumb phone and well-worn Dag Solstad novel in your inner pocket. In “The Oracle Speaks,” she reveals how even those who rise above the Instagram chase have changed the scene: They now play the leading role in another aesthetic drama, where fun, pretty, and happy are still mandatory exercises – just wrapped in a more intellectual wrapper.
A Serious critique of our average existence
In “The Oracle Speaks – Seven Life Advice Against Life Advice,” Strömquist elegantly glides between philosophers, psychologists, and other intellectual voices. Through the comic’s colorful twist paper, she serves up a serious critique of our average existence – a diagnosis that hits so hard that it sticks in the body. With a sharp pen, she uncovers the absurd paradox of our time: We first construct a sicker self, just to be able to “self-optimize” ourselves into a healthier self. Perhaps Strömquist is the outlet that encourages us to do the completely unthinkable: To give up being fun, pretty, and happy. Let’s instead throw ourselves headlong into boredom, embrace mediocrity, and give ugliness a real chance. Because who knows – when we finally stop running like crazy with 550 steps under the heart rate target at 11:56 p.m., maybe that’s when we can actually start enjoying ourselves. For real.
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Here are Strömqvist’s seven counter-advice to influencers’ advice:
- Lose control of your health
- Lose control of your body
- Lose control of your love life
- Don’t follow advice
- Give more to others than you get back
- Don’t have personal goals
- Go out!
Funnily enough, Strömquist shows that this is nothing new. In fact, the author traces today’s self-optimization trend back to the origins of modernity in the 18th century. Because when humans stopped believing in God, she explains, something happened to what we considered the meaning of life.
A Swedish Oracle Speaks, Tor Kjolberg reports
Next time in Sri Lanka, I intend to take the time to explore Colombo’s unique character.