Norwegian Angst

Surely Norway can't be as depressing as it's depicted by its fiction writers, can it? Karl Ove Knausgaard's "My Struggle" paints a bleak picture, Jo Nesbø's 'Nordic noir' crime novels are dark and brooding, Per Petterson’s "Out Stealing Horses" is full of melancholy and regret. But Petterson’s newest novel I Refuse is darker still. Just look at the book cover!

It opens in 2006 with a powerful scene of the chance meeting in early morning between Jim and Tommy on a bridge outside of Oslo, where Jim, shabbily dressed, is fishing and Tommy, in a sleek new Mercedes, is on his way to work. The two have not seen each other in over thirty years. Tommy comments obliquely about “the way things can turn out”, and then drives away.

From there the story jumps back in time to 1966 in the small town of Mørk, where the two boys share a friendship forged in part by their loneliness, isolation, lost parents, and, in Tommy's case, domestic violence. The narrative continues to shift back and forth in time between their adolescent years and the day of the bridge meeting. Some passages are told in the first person by Tommy, his sister Siri and Jim; others are told in third person, in a way that is impressionistic but not confusing. Gradually these fragments fill in the events that have shaped their lives, including one that has driven a wedge between them. In some ways they have moved in opposite directions, but both have been scarred by their pasts and share an inability to fully connect with life.

The prose is sometimes taut but sometimes rambles in long sentences (could these have been better translated?). The most powerful and unforgettable scenes occur as the two teenagers are both connected and tested by their friendship. On the other hand, it was distracting to feel as if I needed a map of the Oslo area to follow the detailed driving descriptions.

This is a sad and poignant story and you will have to judge for yourself whether hope remains at the end. But I warn you...it's Norwegian.

Everyday Life

What possessed me? Why did I want to read volume one of a six volume autobigraphical novel, translated from Norwegian, short on plot, frequently described in reviews as boring and banal? But My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard has also generated a firestorm of interest, both in Europe and the US, generating lavish praise from literary figures and bitter criticism from a few unimpressed critics, as well as from family members who objected to Knausgaard's frank depictions.

So, what's it like? It's like being inside someone's head. You're a witness to everything Karl Ove is thinking, from his deeply felt views on art, death, parenthood to his adolescent plotting to obtain beer for a New Year's Eve party. His style is straightforward and reportorial, but not without lyricism. Most of the second half of the book revolves around Knausgaard and his older brother dealing with the aftermath of their father's death. Karl Ove's relationship with his father was difficult, so as he cleans up the mess (literally) that his father has left behind he speaks frankly of his self-doubt and his attempts to come to terms with the loss of this cold, judgmental man.

What makes this book so unusual is Knausgaard's willingness to risk being boring by talking about ordinary, everyday events – a haircut, a cleaning chore, a train ride – without losing the reader's interest, and to examine his life with unsparing honesty. Somehow, it worked for me.

Growing Up with Secrets

Roy Jacobsen, the Norwegian author of "ChildWonder" tells us that this is a story about an Oslo of "rather rough experimentation. Before oil. Before anybody had any money at all. " The award winning author grew up in this era. The story takes place on an "estate" (we may recognize it as a sprawling group of apartment buildings) in a working class area outside of Oslo. The narrator is Finn, a boy of about nine years old. He lives in a two bedroom apartment with his divorced mother. When his mother suddenly decides to advertise for a tenant to live in the second bedroom, Finn's life undergoes radical changes. The story, from Finn's perspective, is riveting. Because Finn is nine years old, he is unable to really understand what is happening around him (aka the unreliable narrator). His mother is no help at all. Similar to parents, world wide, in the 60s, she makes life altering decisions without consulting with Finn. And then she mysteriously disappears with no explanation, for weeks. The reader is often left as much in the dark as poor Finn.  A tenant arrives who has his own secrets. And most perplexing is the arrival of Finn's half-sister, Linda. But something is seriously wrong with Linda. It becomes the job of Finn's mother and then Finn himself to help Linda.  The ensuing events of the story lead the reader to question what really happened that year and the extremes people will go in the attempt to "make things right".  The conclusion comes abruptly without warning. And then the last chapter advances about ten years  and allows Finn to explain some of the choices that were made, but it does not explain the complicated history that led to those choices. It seems that many of the answers will stay Finn's mother and the people who grew up in the 50s and 60s protecting their secrets. This is a beautifully written story about Norway in the 1960s told by an author who may have lived this story more intimately than he has led us to believe.

More Fathers and Sons

I have actually spoken to one person who did not like Out Stealing Horses (OSH) by Per Petterson but otherwise everyone I know who has read it thought it was superb (see blog of April 28, 2008). So I was eager to follow up with reading Petterson’s earlier novel In the Wake. After reading this book I looked up the author’s biography and was totally confused. I thought that I had been reading a book of fiction but in fact it so closely follows the details of the author’s own life centered around a family tragedy that you have to wonder why he chose to write it as fiction.

Like OSH, In the Wake focuses on the family, in particular on the father-son relationship, but in this instance it is a bleak estrangement rather than the love of OSH. In the Wake doesn’t have the lyrical descriptions that were such an outstanding feature of OSH but it is nevertheless firmly rooted in the geography and place of Scandinavia. Young boys almost anywhere can climb trees for adventure but there are not too many places where two brothers can hop on drifting ice flows. Actually a better knowledge of the geography and place names of the Scandinavian countries would have been helpful - but not essential.

Petterson describes a sense of loss and abandonment. In his loneliness he almost verges on madness. He hints of a previous divorce and failed attempts as a writer. But he also reaches out to his daughter and his brother in ways that are touching and almost humorous. In the Wake does not, in my opinion, come close to OSH as literature but taken as autobiography this book takes us into the mind and sensibilities of a very talented writer – something to which we as readers of fiction rarely have access.