It will not surprise you to learn that we’ve been reading a lot of books in our time abroad. Even if we do have to do most of it in electronic form. (Though we have also spent a lot of time in the downtown Oslo library.) We’ve been focusing on the Norwegian novel, both classic and modern. We are struck by their almost-universally dark tone. Maybe we were (un)lucky, maybe not. But there’s a cynicism that surprised us. Also, a focus on individualism, lots and lots of rowboats and drownings, and a real sense of the passage of time in seasonal terms – winter is never far away, even in the height of summer.
The Classics
A friend described the three-volume Alberta series by Cora Sandel as a Norwegian Little Women. They might be better than that, but we get the comparison. The books, of which the first and probably best is Alberta and Jacob, are loosely autobiographical, about a young woman growing up in Tromsø and becoming an artist. It does an excellent job of capturing what adolescence feels like, and reminded us a little of Colette.
Then we read Tarjei Vesaas’ The Birds about Mattis and Hege, brother and sister who struggle to make ends meet. Mattis is simple-minded, and Hege is often frustrated with him. Change comes, and it is for the worse, at least for Mattis. Ice Palace is his most famous novel, also dark and involving death. (Both of these are written in Nynorsk, indeed, are the first classics in that language).
Knut Hamsun is one of three Norwegian writers to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, and his most famous work is the novel Hunger. Written in 1890, it is the story of a penniless writer living in Kristiania/Oslo. To the extent that there is a plot, it focuses on his hunger and frequent delusions. When he happens to get money, he almost immediately loses it again, largely because of his innate sense of morality and a pride which keeps rearing its head, even when he is at his most down and out. In its depiction of a man devoted to living and writing his own way, it has few equals.
Finally, no one thinks of Norwegian literature without thinking of Ibsen. Because he is a classic, it’s easy to think of him as staid. John, at least, did. He had never seen or read A Doll House, one of Ibsen’s most famous and influential plays. He was sure he knew how it was going to end, so it shocked him. It gave him a sense of just how revolutionary the work is, and how striking the early reception of the work must have been. (We also learned that to make it acceptable to a German audience Ibsen gave the play a much more traditional ending, which he later called ‘barbaric’!)
The Contemporary Novel
We’d been told to read Erlend Loe’s Naive. Super but, being contrary, we didn’t. It sounds a little like Jostein Gaartner’s Sophie’s World, a philosophical novel which we have read and liked a bunch (not for everyone). What we did read by Loe, Doppler, was fabulous and made us eager to track down more; it’s about a man in Oslo who decides to live in the woods outside of Oslo. He’s trying to be less focused on capitalism, less ‘nice’. Also, his best friend is a moose. We have not yet read Vigdis Hjorth’s Will and Testament, but it’s on the list.
We also made a start on Karl Ove Knausgård, the greatest living Norwegian writer (some say the best since Ibsen). And we mean a start, having worked our way through two-thirds of A Death in the Family, the first of the six volumes in his provocatively titled My Struggle (Min Kampf, which is the Norwegian title of Hitler’s autobiography). It begins with a brilliant meditation on death (reminiscent of parts of Proust), followed by contemporary autobiographical details. It then segues into a more ‘regular’ novel about a young man growing up in Norway. Much of the book seems based on Knausgård’s own life, and some have criticized him for revealing too much about his friends and family. Nonetheless, the book is beautifully observed. We’re not sure we’ll make it through all six, we’ll certainly keep reading.
The Crime Novel
We confess; this isn’t exactly our genre; as you’ll remember from our post on Norwegian TV and movies we like cartoonish violence, and find Nordic noir a bit too gruesome. Because we’re here, though, we did read Jo Nesbø’s Blood on Snow. This one is not part of the famous Harry Hole books, but starts a new series. It was not bad, actually: good twists and a great narrative voice. We also read one by Agnes Ravatn, The Bird Tribunal, just to make sure we still don’t like these books. Again, well done for what it is (psychological thriller + Jane Eyre). We’d even recommend it if that’s your jam.
More than one person has recommended to us crime fiction by Anne Holt (Norway’s former Minister of Justice), Karin Fossum, Alex Dahl, Gunnar Staalesen, Jorn Lier Horst, and Thomas Enger. If these showed up in paper form we would undoubtedly read them. Or if you tell us we really should, we might.
What have we missed? Have you read any of these?
