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Septologien #1-2
Der andere Name: Heptalogie I–II
Jon Fosse, einer der größten europäischen Autoren und Dramatiker, ist in seinem neuen Roman wieder ein Meister der Sprache, der Musik.
Asle, ein Maler, lebt seit dem Tod seiner Frau allein in einem kleinen Ort bei Bjørgvin, einer Stadt, die an der Südwestküste Norwegens liegt. Er will nicht mehr malen, was er sieht, sondern will bis zu einem Punkt vordringen, der hinter dem Gegenständlichen liegt. In seinem gerade vollendeten Ölgemälde etwa, auf dem sich zwei breite Pinselstriche kreuzen, bringt er ein besonderes Licht zum Vorschein, ein beinahe göttliches Leuchten.
Seine einzigen Freunde sind sein alter Nachbar Åsleik, ein Fischer und Kleinbauer, der Junggeselle ist, sowie Beyer, sein in der Stadt lebender Galerist. Dort lebt auch ein anderer Asle, der ebenfalls Maler, aber dem Alkohol verfallen und sehr einsam ist – zwei Versionen eines Menschen, zwei Versionen eines Lebens. Dass sie einander in der Weihnachtszeit begegnen, ist das Herzstück des Romans.
Vor dem Hintergrund der norwegischen Landschaft, dem Meer, den Fjorden, erzählt Jon Fosse in diesen ersten beiden Teilen seines siebenteiligen Opus magnum auf eindringliche, geradezu betörende Weise von den existentiellen Fragen des Lebens, von Liebe und Einsamkeit, Leben und Tod, von Licht und Schatten, Glaube und Hoffnungslosigkeit - und vom Wesen der Kunst. Alles ist immer da, nichts ist vergangen, also fließen Vergangenheit und Gegenwart in eins. »Langsame Prosa« nennt er dieses melodiöse Buch, dabei ist sein wunderbar kreisendes, tastendes Schreiben auch bisher schon nicht hastig gewesen. Jetzt erreicht es eine neue Qualität.
Asle, ein Maler, lebt seit dem Tod seiner Frau allein in einem kleinen Ort bei Bjørgvin, einer Stadt, die an der Südwestküste Norwegens liegt. Er will nicht mehr malen, was er sieht, sondern will bis zu einem Punkt vordringen, der hinter dem Gegenständlichen liegt. In seinem gerade vollendeten Ölgemälde etwa, auf dem sich zwei breite Pinselstriche kreuzen, bringt er ein besonderes Licht zum Vorschein, ein beinahe göttliches Leuchten.
Seine einzigen Freunde sind sein alter Nachbar Åsleik, ein Fischer und Kleinbauer, der Junggeselle ist, sowie Beyer, sein in der Stadt lebender Galerist. Dort lebt auch ein anderer Asle, der ebenfalls Maler, aber dem Alkohol verfallen und sehr einsam ist – zwei Versionen eines Menschen, zwei Versionen eines Lebens. Dass sie einander in der Weihnachtszeit begegnen, ist das Herzstück des Romans.
Vor dem Hintergrund der norwegischen Landschaft, dem Meer, den Fjorden, erzählt Jon Fosse in diesen ersten beiden Teilen seines siebenteiligen Opus magnum auf eindringliche, geradezu betörende Weise von den existentiellen Fragen des Lebens, von Liebe und Einsamkeit, Leben und Tod, von Licht und Schatten, Glaube und Hoffnungslosigkeit - und vom Wesen der Kunst. Alles ist immer da, nichts ist vergangen, also fließen Vergangenheit und Gegenwart in eins. »Langsame Prosa« nennt er dieses melodiöse Buch, dabei ist sein wunderbar kreisendes, tastendes Schreiben auch bisher schon nicht hastig gewesen. Jetzt erreicht es eine neue Qualität.
475 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2019
About the author
Jon Fosse
232 books1,464 followersJon Olav Fosse was born in Haugesund, Norway and currently lives in Bergen. He debuted in 1983 with the novel Raudt, svart (Red, black). His first play, Og aldri skal vi skiljast, was performed and published in 1994. Jon Fosse has written novels, short stories, poetry, children's books, essays and plays. His works have been translated into more than forty languages. He is widely considered as one of the world's greatest contemporary playwrights. Fosse was made a chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite of France in 2007. Fosse also has been ranked number 83 on the list of the Top 100 living geniuses by The Daily Telegraph.
He was awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 "for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable".
Since 2011, Fosse has been granted the Grotten, an honorary residence owned by the Norwegian state and located on the premises of the Royal Palace in the city centre of Oslo. The Grotten is given as a permanent residence to a person specifically bestowed this honour by the King of Norway for their contributions to Norwegian arts and culture.
He was awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 "for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable".
Since 2011, Fosse has been granted the Grotten, an honorary residence owned by the Norwegian state and located on the premises of the Royal Palace in the city centre of Oslo. The Grotten is given as a permanent residence to a person specifically bestowed this honour by the King of Norway for their contributions to Norwegian arts and culture.
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October 5, 2023
! 05.10.2023 Now the deserved winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2023 and the perfect nudge to read this one again.
I do enjoy Scandinavian literature, especially the Norwegian one, I think, so I think it is good idea to start the Man Booker Longlist with The Other Name, written by a Norwegian, the other two novels I read were 5 stars, I think, reviews for this were positive, I think, What can go wrong? Nobody seems to notice the structure of this novel, I think they must be too used to weird books, I think, otherwise I do not understand why nobody said anything that it has no paragraphs, no sentences, no breaks except a line break when someone talks, I think it is a bit distracting but I go on, I think this is a good trick, it will score points with critics, who cares it gives me a headache? A headache is good if it is from too much thinking, I think, so I go on and get into a rhythm, I appreciate the idea of a doppelganger of the old artist, I think, it is smart, I should continue reading, it is art, and it will grow on me I think, and it does a bit, I think, but not enough that I do not want to slap the author with the constant repetition of that one damn word, I think, and I should make more sense, I should have written a different review, yes, I should start over, but what am I thinking? I do not want to start over, this is enough, I think, and in the end I think is an interesting concept, with an interesting character but I could not get used to the writer enough to care, and I think it will make the shortlist, yes, I think it will make the shortlist but what do I know?
I do enjoy Scandinavian literature, especially the Norwegian one, I think, so I think it is good idea to start the Man Booker Longlist with The Other Name, written by a Norwegian, the other two novels I read were 5 stars, I think, reviews for this were positive, I think, What can go wrong? Nobody seems to notice the structure of this novel, I think they must be too used to weird books, I think, otherwise I do not understand why nobody said anything that it has no paragraphs, no sentences, no breaks except a line break when someone talks, I think it is a bit distracting but I go on, I think this is a good trick, it will score points with critics, who cares it gives me a headache? A headache is good if it is from too much thinking, I think, so I go on and get into a rhythm, I appreciate the idea of a doppelganger of the old artist, I think, it is smart, I should continue reading, it is art, and it will grow on me I think, and it does a bit, I think, but not enough that I do not want to slap the author with the constant repetition of that one damn word, I think, and I should make more sense, I should have written a different review, yes, I should start over, but what am I thinking? I do not want to start over, this is enough, I think, and in the end I think is an interesting concept, with an interesting character but I could not get used to the writer enough to care, and I think it will make the shortlist, yes, I think it will make the shortlist but what do I know?
November 7, 2024
The Other Name is a continuous, without a single break, stream of consciousness… And Jon Fosse is smoothly maneuvering between Thomas Bernhard and Samuel Beckett…
The hero is an old pretentious artist dwelling in the world of fake values…
But first of all he is a human being… And he possesses his own unique individuality… And he lives his own unique life… Methodically performing his everyday customary moves he keeps incessantly analyzing his steps and motives and remembering his past life: his family, his childhood, his young years, his married life, his relatives, his artistry, friends and people he knew… And in all his remembrances and contemplations there is a hint at the slight shift in reality and a vague tinge of duality and ambiguity…
Our life isn’t just what we are doing; our life is also a stream of our thoughts.
The hero is an old pretentious artist dwelling in the world of fake values…
…I take another look at the picture with the two lines crossing, both in impasto as they put it, and the paint has run a little and where the lines cross the colours have turned such a strange colour, a beautiful colour, with no name, they usually don’t have names because obviously there can’t be names for all the countless colours in the world, I think and I step a few feet back from the picture and stop and look at it and then turn off the light and stand there looking at the picture in the dark…
But first of all he is a human being… And he possesses his own unique individuality… And he lives his own unique life… Methodically performing his everyday customary moves he keeps incessantly analyzing his steps and motives and remembering his past life: his family, his childhood, his young years, his married life, his relatives, his artistry, friends and people he knew… And in all his remembrances and contemplations there is a hint at the slight shift in reality and a vague tinge of duality and ambiguity…
…they think God is the reason why anything exists at all, and that’s true, yes, there are skies so beautiful that no painter can match them, and clouds, yes, in their endless movements, always the same and always different, and the sun and the moon and the stars, yes, but there are also corpses, decay, stenches, things that are withered and rotten and foul, and everything visible is just visible, whether it’s good or bad, whether it’s beautiful or ugly, but whatever is worth anything, what shines, the shining darkness, yes, is the invisible in the visible, whether it’s in the most beautiful clouds in the sky or in what dies and rots, because the invisible is present in both what dies and what doesn’t die, the invisible is present in both what rots and what doesn’t rot, yes, the world is both good and evil, beautiful and ugly, but in everything, yes, even in the worst evil, there is also the opposite, goodness, love, yes, God is invisibly present there too, because God does not exist, He is, and God is in everything that exists…
Our life isn’t just what we are doing; our life is also a stream of our thoughts.
October 5, 2023
Update 5/10/2023 - he's won the Noble!
Update: I have finished now all 3 parts of this novel published separately. And this, first part, has created the most strong impression on me. But all observations below could be equally referred to the novel as whole.
There is an episode somewhere close to the beginning when a young man pushing his girlfriend on the swings. She does not want to go high first. But he persists and then she goes higher and higher, and loves it. Also she loves dropping back rapidly. And when the inevitable slowdown comes, she asks for more. And it starts again from slow to quicker and higher all to the point when it takes her breath away. That is exactly the way how reading this book felt to me: from slow and mundane, slightly disorienting to intense, almost painfully poignant. And always in a rhythmical motion.
The novel is written in a long rhythmical sentences with the elements of repetition. The words are relatively simple but there is a wonderful music in it a bit like a lullaby for a grown-up, a bit like a fugue. A middle-aged artist goes to check on his friend who, he suspects, is unwell and poisoned with drinking. The novel describes a bit more than 24 hours of his life. The man thinks. The man remembers. That is all. But it is a lot.
It is a full-blown struggle with Kant metaphysical trio: God, freedom of will and immortality. Only I do not think the man knows about Kant. He just thinks. "because either God is all-powerful and then there’s no free will, or God isn’t all-powerful and there is free will, within limits, but in that case God is not all-powerful, so ever since God gave humanity free will he gave up his omnipotence, something like that must be true, because without a will that’s free there can’t be love, and God is love, that’s the only thing that is said of God in the New Testament, and that’s why God lacks divine omnipotence, he has God’s weakness, impotence even, but there’s a lot of strength in weakness, yes, maybe the weakness is itself a strength? The man prays. He tries to find his own way to believe and keep his faith.
It is questioning the purpose of art from the perspective of its creator. He thinks of his art, a bit like old Plato with his cave, as showing something which cannot be totally seen, just getting close to it: “I know I can paint pictures that only I can paint, because I have my very own inner picture that all the other pictures come from, so to speak, or that they all try to get to, or get close to, but that one innermost picture can’t be painted, and the closer I am to that inner picture when I paint the better I paint, and the more light there is in the picture, yes, that’s how it is “. And then: so I had to paint them the way people wanted them, but none of them saw what I actually painted, nobody saw that, just me, and maybe a few other people, because what I painted were the shadows, what I painted was the darkness in all that light, I painted the real light, the invisible light, but did anyone see that?did they notice that. That is something I was thinking a lot recently in relation to the writers and their work. We had a discussion about Henry James and his story The Figure in the Carpet. In the story, the writer was claiming that there was always a hidden message in his work which so far none of the critics have managed to pick up. Here, it goes even one step further when even the artist does not totally realise the message…
And it is simply a moving story of a life lived with its love, loss, the roads not taken, its memories and something that fades forever.
I am very unhappy the blurb in English. There are two men in the novel with the same name. Blurb says "He (the other man with the same name) and the narrator are doppelgangers – two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life. " But Fosse is much more subtle, much cleverer than this. He leaves the reader a lot of space to chose his own path through the novel, to form his own view. It is unfair that blurb narrows the scope of the alternative readings, a big disservice to this book.
The novel touches upon something universal that is always has been and always will be. And that is why this novel will likely endure.
And, the last thing, it made me discover how beautiful “Our Father” prayer sounds in Latin…
that’s how it also is with all the paintings by other people that mean anything to me, it’s like it’s not the painter who sees, it’s something else seeing through the painter, and it’s like this something is trapped in the picture and speaks silently from it, and it might be one single brushstroke that makes the picture able to speak like that, and it’s impossible to understand, I think, and, I think, it’s the same with the writing I like to read, what matters isn’t what it literally says about this or that, it’s something else, something that silently speaks in and behind the lines and sentences,
Update: I have finished now all 3 parts of this novel published separately. And this, first part, has created the most strong impression on me. But all observations below could be equally referred to the novel as whole.
There is an episode somewhere close to the beginning when a young man pushing his girlfriend on the swings. She does not want to go high first. But he persists and then she goes higher and higher, and loves it. Also she loves dropping back rapidly. And when the inevitable slowdown comes, she asks for more. And it starts again from slow to quicker and higher all to the point when it takes her breath away. That is exactly the way how reading this book felt to me: from slow and mundane, slightly disorienting to intense, almost painfully poignant. And always in a rhythmical motion.
The novel is written in a long rhythmical sentences with the elements of repetition. The words are relatively simple but there is a wonderful music in it a bit like a lullaby for a grown-up, a bit like a fugue. A middle-aged artist goes to check on his friend who, he suspects, is unwell and poisoned with drinking. The novel describes a bit more than 24 hours of his life. The man thinks. The man remembers. That is all. But it is a lot.
It is a full-blown struggle with Kant metaphysical trio: God, freedom of will and immortality. Only I do not think the man knows about Kant. He just thinks. "because either God is all-powerful and then there’s no free will, or God isn’t all-powerful and there is free will, within limits, but in that case God is not all-powerful, so ever since God gave humanity free will he gave up his omnipotence, something like that must be true, because without a will that’s free there can’t be love, and God is love, that’s the only thing that is said of God in the New Testament, and that’s why God lacks divine omnipotence, he has God’s weakness, impotence even, but there’s a lot of strength in weakness, yes, maybe the weakness is itself a strength? The man prays. He tries to find his own way to believe and keep his faith.
It is questioning the purpose of art from the perspective of its creator. He thinks of his art, a bit like old Plato with his cave, as showing something which cannot be totally seen, just getting close to it: “I know I can paint pictures that only I can paint, because I have my very own inner picture that all the other pictures come from, so to speak, or that they all try to get to, or get close to, but that one innermost picture can’t be painted, and the closer I am to that inner picture when I paint the better I paint, and the more light there is in the picture, yes, that’s how it is “. And then: so I had to paint them the way people wanted them, but none of them saw what I actually painted, nobody saw that, just me, and maybe a few other people, because what I painted were the shadows, what I painted was the darkness in all that light, I painted the real light, the invisible light, but did anyone see that?did they notice that. That is something I was thinking a lot recently in relation to the writers and their work. We had a discussion about Henry James and his story The Figure in the Carpet. In the story, the writer was claiming that there was always a hidden message in his work which so far none of the critics have managed to pick up. Here, it goes even one step further when even the artist does not totally realise the message…
And it is simply a moving story of a life lived with its love, loss, the roads not taken, its memories and something that fades forever.
I am very unhappy the blurb in English. There are two men in the novel with the same name. Blurb says "He (the other man with the same name) and the narrator are doppelgangers – two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life. " But Fosse is much more subtle, much cleverer than this. He leaves the reader a lot of space to chose his own path through the novel, to form his own view. It is unfair that blurb narrows the scope of the alternative readings, a big disservice to this book.
The novel touches upon something universal that is always has been and always will be. And that is why this novel will likely endure.
And, the last thing, it made me discover how beautiful “Our Father” prayer sounds in Latin…
that’s how it also is with all the paintings by other people that mean anything to me, it’s like it’s not the painter who sees, it’s something else seeing through the painter, and it’s like this something is trapped in the picture and speaks silently from it, and it might be one single brushstroke that makes the picture able to speak like that, and it’s impossible to understand, I think, and, I think, it’s the same with the writing I like to read, what matters isn’t what it literally says about this or that, it’s something else, something that silently speaks in and behind the lines and sentences,
Read
January 6, 2024CONGRATULATIONS TO JON FOSSE FOR WINNING THE 2023 NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE
"I already have ten or so big paintings finished plus four or five small ones, something like that, fourteen paintings in all in two stacks next to each other by the kitchen door, since I'm about to have a show, most of the paintings are approximately square..."
So Asle tells us on the opening page of The Other Name.
Asle is a painter living alone on the southwest coast of Norway. I can imagine one of his paintings in the stacks might look something like the artwork above. Or, perhaps this bold diagonal brushstroke can be likened to a section of his largest canvas, the one Asle is working on now, the one on the easel in his studio, a large rectangular painting, wider than it is high, one thick diagonal line painted in brown, the other thick diagonal line painted in purple, the two thick dripping lines crossing in the middle.
Jon Fosse relates his daily schedule when writing this, his longest work: while living in an apartment outside Vienna in Austria, he would wake up at four in the afternoon, start writing at five and continuing through the night until nine the next morning (that's sixteen straight hours of writing!). As the Norwegian author acknowledges, it was a very strange experience. And since he always has written shorter novels, the length of Septology surprised him. Note: Septology is a 667-pager and contains seven parts in three volumes: I-II The Other Name, III-V I Is Another and VI-VII A New Name.
When speaking of his own writing process, Jon Fosse notes he doesn't have a set plan when writing a novel. He just sits down and listens. The novel is fully formed somewhere in his subconscious, and all he has to do is write it down before it disappears – and the hearing happens as he's writing. For Jon, it's too boring to plan things out in advance; rather, it's all about the excitement of the journey into the unknown where something comes into existence that he didn't know before. That is to say, Jon would never write in an autobiographical way. Worth underscoring: Jon Fosse is not writing autofiction a la fellow Norwegian Karl Ove Knausgård or Kjersti Skomsvold.
The action of the novel is straightforward enough: Asle does things like speak with his neighbor Åsleik who clears his driveway when it snows, drives from his home in Dylgja to the small city of Bjørgvin, and, one time while in Bjørgvin, comes to the rescue of another painter by the name of Asle who collapsed dead drunk out in the snow. This second Asle brings up a key question: what is the narrator's relationship with his namesake and how close are their individual identities entwined? After all, both Asle and Asle are unmarried painters with long grey hair, are of similar age, have the same build, and have, or had, an issue with being an alcoholic.
Or, is their relationship more subtle? What's happening to the narrator, Asle? Is he imagining or dreaming or even hallucinating a second self? Or, more plausibly, the second Asle is actually the narrator in his past life, a time when he had way too much to drink, passed out in the snow and required hospitalization.
And the novel's language itself - hypnotic, repetitive, what Jon Fosse terms “slow prose” where he circles back in describing a simple happening or feeling or observation or reflection in ways that are reminiscent of classical music in minimalist mode played on piano or cello or xylophone. Speaking of Septology, Jon said, "I wanted to give each and every moment the time I felt it needed. I wanted the language to flow in a peaceful way."
It's time to shift to an aspect of Jon's novel that is critically important: mystical transformation via direct experience of the divine light. In an interview, Jon relates: “This mystic side has to do with when I was seven years old and close to dying. It was an accident. I saw myself from outside, in a kind of shimmering light, peaceful, a very happy state, and I’m quite sure that accident, that moment, that close-to-death experience formed me as a writer. Without that, I doubt I would have even been one. It’s very fundamental for me.” It's not for nothing that Åsleik says Asle strikes him as a Russian monk. Again, Jon is definitely not writing autofiction but there's an undeniable spiritual kinship between Jon the writer and Asle the painter, as per this snip of Asle's musing on art and life:
“...but in summer too I try to cover the windows and make it as dark as possible before looking at where and how much a picture is shining, yes, to tell the truth I always wait until after I've seen a picture in pitch blackness to be sure I'm done with it, because the eyes get used to the dark in a way and I can see the picture as light and darkness, and see if there's a light shining from the picture, and where, and how much, and it's always, always the darkest part of the picture that shines the most, and I think that that might be because it's in the hopelessness and despair, in the darkness, that God is closest to us...”
With Asle's vision here, the author's following words carry added power: “When I manage to write well, there is a second, silent language. This silent language says what it is all about. It’s not the story, but you can hear something behind it — a silent voice speaking.”
A silent voice speaking. Like Asle, Jon Fosse converted to Catholicism but we shouldn't think of religion in the conventional form. Not at all. Both men read Meister Eckhart and both men's reflections bring to mind not faith so much as a Gnostic knowing, particularly in terms of art and aesthetic experience as a revealer of light.
According to Jon Fosse, writing is a mystery, and painting is a mystery that can't be explained in words. Asle can't explain his paintings and he as author can't explain his writing. Thus, as readers, we are well to open ourselves to the language behind the language – the underlying music.
Coda: A special call-out to translator Damion Searls for rendering Jon Fosse into fluid, clear English.
Norwegian author Jon Fosse, born 1959
October 5, 2023
‘And I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows except him who receives it.’—Revelation 2:17
it’s always, always the darkest part of the picture that shines the most, and I think that that might be because it’s in the hopelessness and despair, in the darkness, that God is closest to us
The Other Name: Septology I-II has been translated by Damion Searls (he of the magnificent translation of Anniversaries) from Jon Fosse’s Det andre namnet Septologien I-II, and published by the wonderful Fitzcarraldo Editions.
Searls has said that he learned Norwegian specifically to be able to read, and ultimately translate, Fosse (https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...) and his take on Fosse’s place in the Norwegian pantheon is:
Fosse’s Septology is a major new work, with the remaining five parts to be published in two further books, I is Another: Septology III-V (parts III-V, 2020), and A New Name: Septology VI-VII (parts VI-VII, 2021).
The novel opens with our first person narrator, an artist, Asle, contemplating his latest picture, one whose significance becomes clearer to him, as well as the reader, as the novel progresses:
And I see myself standing and looking at the picture with the two lines that cross in the middle, one purple line, one brown line, it’s a painting wider than it is high and I see that I’ve painted the lines slowly, the paint is thick, two long wide lines, and they’ve dripped, where the brown line and purple line cross the colours blend beautifully and drip and I’m thinking this isn’t a picture but suddenly the picture is the way it’s supposed to be, it’s done, there’s nothing more to do on it, I think,..
Asle is a moderately successful artist, earning a living from his painting. He lives alone in the (fictional) hamlet of Dylgja on Sognefjord, after the death of his wife Ales. Ales was herself an artist, specialising in religious icons, her mother Judit was of Austrian origin, and Ales inherited the house after the death of her paternal aunt, Alise. His sister Alida is also deceased, dying suddenly as a child. Asle no longer drinks, and, encouraged by Ales, has also found faith in God and joined the Catholic Church.
Asle’s thoughts run also to another artist, also called Asle, who lives in the nearby large town of Bjørgvin (the ancient name for Bergen). The Bjørgvin Asle is rather less successful, an atheist, and now an alcoholic. But he wears the same trade-mark black velvet coat and brown shoulderbag. Family wise, he also has a deceased sister called Alida. He has two ex-wives who are alive although they and their children are no longer living in the area, his first Liv (with whom he had a son, referred to simply as The Boy), and his second Siv (their two children, The Son and The Daughter).
The names, but not the identities, of various of the characters, and the place names are also recycled from Fosse’s earlier works (e.g. the Aliss of the English Aliss at the Fire was actually Ales in the Norwegian original.)
The novel is written is what Fosse refers to as ‘slow prose’, which while not quite at the infinitesimally slow level of Simon Okotie’s magnificent Absalon trilogy, means that very little action occurs, although what does is described in considerable detail, but instead we are largely party to Asle thoughts, and Asle’s thoughts on the other Asle.
The entire plot of these two volumes unfolds over a couple of days. On Monday, a week before Christmas, Asle makes two trips from Dylgja to Bjørgvin, firstly to visit his gallerist Beyer (who he doesn’t actually meet) and to do his monthly shop, and the second to visit the other Asle, who he finds collapsed in the snow and takes to hospital. He stays overnight in the town, retrieves Asle’s dog, Bragi and returns on Tuesday to his home, where he engages in a lengthy conversation with his neighbour, a fisherman, Åsleik, who tries to persuade him to spend Christmas with him and his sister, who he refers to simply as Sister. Åsleik also studies Asle's paintings, as each year Asle allows him to select one as a gift for Sister (“Åsleik says yes well since you get lamb ribs and lutefisk and wood and other things in exchange for the painting I get to give Sister, mutton too.”)
Even Asle himself gets confused when Åsleik’s sister later transpires to have the same name, Guro, as an odd lady he met on his trip to Bjørgvin. The Guro Bjørgvin, who first said she was called Silje, is a neighbour and former lover of the Bjørgvin Asle, but also claims to know (including ‘in the biblical sense’) the Dylgja Asle. Both Guro’s also have a former partner known as The Fiddler.
My sister’s name is Guro, yes, Åsleik says
Yes, I say
and I think that’s strange too, because the woman I ran into in Bjørgvin who kept Bragi for the night at her place was named Guro as well, and it’s not such a common name, but maybe it was a common name in the countryside at one point, I think
Asle also sees one his journeys a young couple of lovers, and also a boy and a girl, which in his memory become respectively he and Ales in the early days of their relationship, and Asle (which Asle isn't clear at this point) and his sister Alida as children. As for he and Ales:
sitting there looking at the young man in the black coat on a bench with a brown leather bag on his shoulder and the young woman in a purple skirt on a swing, because they’re still just sitting there, without moving, yes, like part of a painting, yes that too, but when I paint it’s always as if I’m trying to paint away the pictures stuck inside me, yes, the ones like this picture, of him and her sitting there, to get rid of them in a way, be done with them,
Towards the end of the novel, the second recollection/imagined story, which had seemed bucolic, includes both the drowing of a young child, Bard and an unpleasant incident for Asle with The Bald Man, after Asle ignores his parent's warnings never to get into his car.
This all rather makes the novel sound an intellectual puzzle but that is to completely misrepresent it. Fosse instead is concerned with faith, loneliness, identity, memory, and the meaning of art. And the prose is magnificent, his treatment of immanence in artistic creation reminding me of Krasznahorkai’s Seiobo There Below:
I can see the picture as light and darkness, and see if there’s a light shining from the picture, and where, and how much, and it’s always, always the darkest part of the picture that shines the most, and I think that might be because it’s in the hopelessness and despair, in the darkness, that God is closest to us, but how it happens, how the light I get clearly into the picture gets there, that I don’t understand, but I do think that it’s nice to think that maybe it came about like this, that it came to be when an illegitimate child, as they put it, was born in a barn on a winter’s day, on Christmas in fact, and a star up above sent its strong clear light down to earth, a light from God, yes l, it’s a beautiful thought, I think
and
I know I can paint pictures that only I can paint, because I have my very own inner picture that all the other paintings come from, so to speak, or that they try to get to, or get close to, but that one innermost picture can’t be painted, and the closer I am to that inner picture when I paint the better I paint, and the more light there is in the picture, yes, that’s how it is, I think, and what I’ve seen and lived, and know deep inside, in my innermost picture, is something I want to tell the world, something I want other people to know, or to have hanging over the sofa for that matter, because I want to, yes, share what I know, show it, yes of course it can’t be said, but maybe it can be shown? at least a little of it? and insofar as it can be shown I want to show it to someone else, since it’s true, I’m sure of it and I know it’s good
Although he later qualifies this:
it can’t be said, but maybe it can be shown, or almost shown, yes, whatever it is that can be captured in a picture somehow and showed rather than said, but not only on a painting, it can be shown as least as well in literature, I think
The painting Bridal Procession on the Hardangerfjord - the narrator Asle's first venture into painting, aged 12 was to reproduce this work, although he later moved on to rather different, and in his view artistically better (in that they represent his own vision) works of his own. The other Asle carries around a printed copy of the painting, folded into his wallet, which for him represents a standard to which he can not even aspire.
The theme of light and darkness, extending to the beautifully described autumn setting of the present-day story:
it’s autumn, some leaves have already started changing colour, this is the best time of year, the most beautiful, I think, and maybe most beautiful of all in the evening when the light is right at the point of disappearing, when some darkness has entered the light but it’s still light enough to see clearly that some of the leaves have lost their green colour, I think, this is my time of year, it always has been, for as long as I can remember autumn has been my favourite, I think
Mostly Ales thoughts remain ordered but at one telling stage, his thoughts and his imagined thoughts of the other Ales blend into one stream of consciousness:
...he’s so tired and so drunk he sees the stars shining clearly one star and then he and Father are in a rowboat his son they’re fishing books drawings paintings reading painting just painting just that and beer vodka that good rush the best nothing much at first and then better and better and he drinks and she says he mustn’t drink every night a little rush every night and he drinks paintings money no money sells pictures for money has no money exhibition exhibitions critics selling pictures tubes of oil paint canvas always oil paint and always canvas oil on canvas stretchers boards stretchers nails canvas her and the woman who comes and sits down at his table and they start talking and she’s seen his exhibitions home to her place lying next to each other kissing the woman one of his sons kissing her they take off their clothes he holds her tight they lie next to each other they talk go home she’s lying there his son is asleep go home she’s lying there she’s lying there on the floor she’s almost not breathing ambulance boy crying and crying howling ambulance he and his son she writes him a letter they meet kiss eat together he’s sitting and drinking and she comes and sits down exhibitions oil paint canvas stretchers need to find a place to live boards nowhere to stay pictures the others vodka feeling warm beer another pint talk about this and that laugh she comes and it’s Christmas lamb ribs summer her parents’ house the white house the silence and painting never stopping always continuing they can say whatever they want just continuing the dark eyes children several children paintings house he sits and drinks children paintings their house needs repainting pictures days nights can’t get to sleep and he lies there and he shakes up and down jerks...
The novel is a Septology in seven parts, but published in three physical volumes, with this one covering parts I and II. Each part begins with Asle contemplating the picture with the two lines that cross (diagonally, so a St Andrew's cross) in the middle, and ends with him reciting prayers with his rosary.
and I hold the brown wooden cross between my thumb and my finger and then I say, again and again, inside myself, as I breathe in deeply Lord and as I breathe out slowly Jesus and as I breathe in deeply Christ and as I breathe out slowly Have mercy and as I breathe in deeply On me
Highly recommended and now read for the third time and I have rounded my 4.5 stars up to 5, as new depths emerge on each re-reading.
it’s always, always the darkest part of the picture that shines the most, and I think that that might be because it’s in the hopelessness and despair, in the darkness, that God is closest to us
The Other Name: Septology I-II has been translated by Damion Searls (he of the magnificent translation of Anniversaries) from Jon Fosse’s Det andre namnet Septologien I-II, and published by the wonderful Fitzcarraldo Editions.
Searls has said that he learned Norwegian specifically to be able to read, and ultimately translate, Fosse (https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...) and his take on Fosse’s place in the Norwegian pantheon is:
I think of the four elder statesmen of Norwegian letters as a bit like the Beatles: Per Petterson is the solid, always dependable Ringo; Dag Solstad is John, the experimentalist, the ideas man; Karl Ove Knausgaard is Paul, the cute one; and Fosse is George, the quiet one, mystical, spiritual, probably the best craftsman of them all.
Fosse’s Septology is a major new work, with the remaining five parts to be published in two further books, I is Another: Septology III-V (parts III-V, 2020), and A New Name: Septology VI-VII (parts VI-VII, 2021).
The novel opens with our first person narrator, an artist, Asle, contemplating his latest picture, one whose significance becomes clearer to him, as well as the reader, as the novel progresses:
And I see myself standing and looking at the picture with the two lines that cross in the middle, one purple line, one brown line, it’s a painting wider than it is high and I see that I’ve painted the lines slowly, the paint is thick, two long wide lines, and they’ve dripped, where the brown line and purple line cross the colours blend beautifully and drip and I’m thinking this isn’t a picture but suddenly the picture is the way it’s supposed to be, it’s done, there’s nothing more to do on it, I think,..
Asle is a moderately successful artist, earning a living from his painting. He lives alone in the (fictional) hamlet of Dylgja on Sognefjord, after the death of his wife Ales. Ales was herself an artist, specialising in religious icons, her mother Judit was of Austrian origin, and Ales inherited the house after the death of her paternal aunt, Alise. His sister Alida is also deceased, dying suddenly as a child. Asle no longer drinks, and, encouraged by Ales, has also found faith in God and joined the Catholic Church.
Asle’s thoughts run also to another artist, also called Asle, who lives in the nearby large town of Bjørgvin (the ancient name for Bergen). The Bjørgvin Asle is rather less successful, an atheist, and now an alcoholic. But he wears the same trade-mark black velvet coat and brown shoulderbag. Family wise, he also has a deceased sister called Alida. He has two ex-wives who are alive although they and their children are no longer living in the area, his first Liv (with whom he had a son, referred to simply as The Boy), and his second Siv (their two children, The Son and The Daughter).
The names, but not the identities, of various of the characters, and the place names are also recycled from Fosse’s earlier works (e.g. the Aliss of the English Aliss at the Fire was actually Ales in the Norwegian original.)
The novel is written is what Fosse refers to as ‘slow prose’, which while not quite at the infinitesimally slow level of Simon Okotie’s magnificent Absalon trilogy, means that very little action occurs, although what does is described in considerable detail, but instead we are largely party to Asle thoughts, and Asle’s thoughts on the other Asle.
The entire plot of these two volumes unfolds over a couple of days. On Monday, a week before Christmas, Asle makes two trips from Dylgja to Bjørgvin, firstly to visit his gallerist Beyer (who he doesn’t actually meet) and to do his monthly shop, and the second to visit the other Asle, who he finds collapsed in the snow and takes to hospital. He stays overnight in the town, retrieves Asle’s dog, Bragi and returns on Tuesday to his home, where he engages in a lengthy conversation with his neighbour, a fisherman, Åsleik, who tries to persuade him to spend Christmas with him and his sister, who he refers to simply as Sister. Åsleik also studies Asle's paintings, as each year Asle allows him to select one as a gift for Sister (“Åsleik says yes well since you get lamb ribs and lutefisk and wood and other things in exchange for the painting I get to give Sister, mutton too.”)
Even Asle himself gets confused when Åsleik’s sister later transpires to have the same name, Guro, as an odd lady he met on his trip to Bjørgvin. The Guro Bjørgvin, who first said she was called Silje, is a neighbour and former lover of the Bjørgvin Asle, but also claims to know (including ‘in the biblical sense’) the Dylgja Asle. Both Guro’s also have a former partner known as The Fiddler.
My sister’s name is Guro, yes, Åsleik says
Yes, I say
and I think that’s strange too, because the woman I ran into in Bjørgvin who kept Bragi for the night at her place was named Guro as well, and it’s not such a common name, but maybe it was a common name in the countryside at one point, I think
Asle also sees one his journeys a young couple of lovers, and also a boy and a girl, which in his memory become respectively he and Ales in the early days of their relationship, and Asle (which Asle isn't clear at this point) and his sister Alida as children. As for he and Ales:
sitting there looking at the young man in the black coat on a bench with a brown leather bag on his shoulder and the young woman in a purple skirt on a swing, because they’re still just sitting there, without moving, yes, like part of a painting, yes that too, but when I paint it’s always as if I’m trying to paint away the pictures stuck inside me, yes, the ones like this picture, of him and her sitting there, to get rid of them in a way, be done with them,
Towards the end of the novel, the second recollection/imagined story, which had seemed bucolic, includes both the drowing of a young child, Bard and an unpleasant incident for Asle with The Bald Man, after Asle ignores his parent's warnings never to get into his car.
This all rather makes the novel sound an intellectual puzzle but that is to completely misrepresent it. Fosse instead is concerned with faith, loneliness, identity, memory, and the meaning of art. And the prose is magnificent, his treatment of immanence in artistic creation reminding me of Krasznahorkai’s Seiobo There Below:
I can see the picture as light and darkness, and see if there’s a light shining from the picture, and where, and how much, and it’s always, always the darkest part of the picture that shines the most, and I think that might be because it’s in the hopelessness and despair, in the darkness, that God is closest to us, but how it happens, how the light I get clearly into the picture gets there, that I don’t understand, but I do think that it’s nice to think that maybe it came about like this, that it came to be when an illegitimate child, as they put it, was born in a barn on a winter’s day, on Christmas in fact, and a star up above sent its strong clear light down to earth, a light from God, yes l, it’s a beautiful thought, I think
and
I know I can paint pictures that only I can paint, because I have my very own inner picture that all the other paintings come from, so to speak, or that they try to get to, or get close to, but that one innermost picture can’t be painted, and the closer I am to that inner picture when I paint the better I paint, and the more light there is in the picture, yes, that’s how it is, I think, and what I’ve seen and lived, and know deep inside, in my innermost picture, is something I want to tell the world, something I want other people to know, or to have hanging over the sofa for that matter, because I want to, yes, share what I know, show it, yes of course it can’t be said, but maybe it can be shown? at least a little of it? and insofar as it can be shown I want to show it to someone else, since it’s true, I’m sure of it and I know it’s good
Although he later qualifies this:
it can’t be said, but maybe it can be shown, or almost shown, yes, whatever it is that can be captured in a picture somehow and showed rather than said, but not only on a painting, it can be shown as least as well in literature, I think
The painting Bridal Procession on the Hardangerfjord - the narrator Asle's first venture into painting, aged 12 was to reproduce this work, although he later moved on to rather different, and in his view artistically better (in that they represent his own vision) works of his own. The other Asle carries around a printed copy of the painting, folded into his wallet, which for him represents a standard to which he can not even aspire.
The theme of light and darkness, extending to the beautifully described autumn setting of the present-day story:
it’s autumn, some leaves have already started changing colour, this is the best time of year, the most beautiful, I think, and maybe most beautiful of all in the evening when the light is right at the point of disappearing, when some darkness has entered the light but it’s still light enough to see clearly that some of the leaves have lost their green colour, I think, this is my time of year, it always has been, for as long as I can remember autumn has been my favourite, I think
Mostly Ales thoughts remain ordered but at one telling stage, his thoughts and his imagined thoughts of the other Ales blend into one stream of consciousness:
...he’s so tired and so drunk he sees the stars shining clearly one star and then he and Father are in a rowboat his son they’re fishing books drawings paintings reading painting just painting just that and beer vodka that good rush the best nothing much at first and then better and better and he drinks and she says he mustn’t drink every night a little rush every night and he drinks paintings money no money sells pictures for money has no money exhibition exhibitions critics selling pictures tubes of oil paint canvas always oil paint and always canvas oil on canvas stretchers boards stretchers nails canvas her and the woman who comes and sits down at his table and they start talking and she’s seen his exhibitions home to her place lying next to each other kissing the woman one of his sons kissing her they take off their clothes he holds her tight they lie next to each other they talk go home she’s lying there his son is asleep go home she’s lying there she’s lying there on the floor she’s almost not breathing ambulance boy crying and crying howling ambulance he and his son she writes him a letter they meet kiss eat together he’s sitting and drinking and she comes and sits down exhibitions oil paint canvas stretchers need to find a place to live boards nowhere to stay pictures the others vodka feeling warm beer another pint talk about this and that laugh she comes and it’s Christmas lamb ribs summer her parents’ house the white house the silence and painting never stopping always continuing they can say whatever they want just continuing the dark eyes children several children paintings house he sits and drinks children paintings their house needs repainting pictures days nights can’t get to sleep and he lies there and he shakes up and down jerks...
The novel is a Septology in seven parts, but published in three physical volumes, with this one covering parts I and II. Each part begins with Asle contemplating the picture with the two lines that cross (diagonally, so a St Andrew's cross) in the middle, and ends with him reciting prayers with his rosary.
and I hold the brown wooden cross between my thumb and my finger and then I say, again and again, inside myself, as I breathe in deeply Lord and as I breathe out slowly Jesus and as I breathe in deeply Christ and as I breathe out slowly Have mercy and as I breathe in deeply On me
Highly recommended and now read for the third time and I have rounded my 4.5 stars up to 5, as new depths emerge on each re-reading.
Read
May 11, 2023Yesterday I came across this quote from Ezra Pound: Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.
I want to pause here to think about the serendipity of finding just the right quote to describe the experience of reading Jon Fosse's The Other Name, because serendipity, or good-reading-luck as I like to think of it, is something that often follows me, the right quote pops up or I have a relevant dream or something else happens that throws light on the book I've just read and the often puzzling thoughts that it has left me with. All that is just to underline how appropriate I found Pound's quote about a book being like 'a ball of light in one's hand' because all the passages I'd marked in Fosse's puzzling and dark book concerned light, in particular the way light can be rendered in a painting. The light described was 'ball of light' bright and it illuminated the whole book for me.
The Other Name, subtitled Septology I-II, reads like a moment-by-moment account of two days in narrator Asle's life, two days in which he goes about his present-day activities in real time but lets his mind wander over episodes of what the reader presumes to be his past, and which he recounts in the third person.
Septology I is narrated over the course of a Monday in the darkest month of winter, beginning with the moment when Asle realises that a painting he has just created may be the best thing he's ever done.
Septology II begins early on the following morning when Asle wakes from a fitful sleep, and the episode plays out over the entire day until he lies down again for the night.
The first day, as described in Septology I, is extra dark because it's snowing and the sky is not visible at all, but there are many mentions of the kind of light that darkness can hold, how light can emerge out of darkness.
When the second day begins, the sky is clearer, and the moon and stars are visible in the early morning.
I'm currently reading Septology III and accompanying Asle through day three, and I'm looking forward to the other four days in the remaining four episodes of Septology (if Fosse sticks to the separate day format), and to seeing more of the world that Asle creates (or maybe destroys). And I'm anticipating the seventh day, and curious to see what 'rest' will mean for Asle (if he turns out to get any).
The quote by Ezra Pound with which I began this review states that readers should be intensely alive as they read. And I did read Fosse's book intensely, so intensely in fact that I noted every one of the many transitions from the present moment into the past and back again and from first-person narration to third and back again. Indeed, I paused often to admire the smoothness of those transitions which all happen from one word to the next—there are no full stops or breaks in the text. I noticed many repetitions too, and I thought I understood why they had to be there: our lives are full of repetitions and if we recorded ourselves moment-by-moment, and especially our communications with those around us, we would see the pattern clearly.
But even though I was intensely interested in the way the book was written, I was thinking about the surface of the story as well. Story is hardly the word to use as there is almost no plot to speak of, but I experienced moments of tension all the same although nothing particularly riveting was happening in the narrative. Because I was reading so intensely, my mind latched on to tiny details and I'd find myself wondering if the narrator would remember about them and come back to them. I worried that he wouldn't remember that the dog needed to be let out to pee, for example, or that he'd forget to give his friend Åsleik the bag of groceries he had bought for him. In fact I worried that his own groceries hadn't been put in the fridge—that's how much I was involved in this moment-to-moment narrative.
The result is that the painting with which the narrative begins and ends is clearly visible to my mind's eye, also the room where it is, the room with the round table by the window looking out towards the sea. I can see Asle's car clearly too, the place where he does so much of his remembering. The road from Dylgja to Bjørgvin which he drives back and forth on during the course of the two days is familiar to me, its twists and its turns, the houses and turnoffs along the way, the view of the fjord that appears and disappears.
Reader, I was there.
I want to pause here to think about the serendipity of finding just the right quote to describe the experience of reading Jon Fosse's The Other Name, because serendipity, or good-reading-luck as I like to think of it, is something that often follows me, the right quote pops up or I have a relevant dream or something else happens that throws light on the book I've just read and the often puzzling thoughts that it has left me with. All that is just to underline how appropriate I found Pound's quote about a book being like 'a ball of light in one's hand' because all the passages I'd marked in Fosse's puzzling and dark book concerned light, in particular the way light can be rendered in a painting. The light described was 'ball of light' bright and it illuminated the whole book for me.
The Other Name, subtitled Septology I-II, reads like a moment-by-moment account of two days in narrator Asle's life, two days in which he goes about his present-day activities in real time but lets his mind wander over episodes of what the reader presumes to be his past, and which he recounts in the third person.
Septology I is narrated over the course of a Monday in the darkest month of winter, beginning with the moment when Asle realises that a painting he has just created may be the best thing he's ever done.
Septology II begins early on the following morning when Asle wakes from a fitful sleep, and the episode plays out over the entire day until he lies down again for the night.
The first day, as described in Septology I, is extra dark because it's snowing and the sky is not visible at all, but there are many mentions of the kind of light that darkness can hold, how light can emerge out of darkness.
When the second day begins, the sky is clearer, and the moon and stars are visible in the early morning.
I'm currently reading Septology III and accompanying Asle through day three, and I'm looking forward to the other four days in the remaining four episodes of Septology (if Fosse sticks to the separate day format), and to seeing more of the world that Asle creates (or maybe destroys). And I'm anticipating the seventh day, and curious to see what 'rest' will mean for Asle (if he turns out to get any).
The quote by Ezra Pound with which I began this review states that readers should be intensely alive as they read. And I did read Fosse's book intensely, so intensely in fact that I noted every one of the many transitions from the present moment into the past and back again and from first-person narration to third and back again. Indeed, I paused often to admire the smoothness of those transitions which all happen from one word to the next—there are no full stops or breaks in the text. I noticed many repetitions too, and I thought I understood why they had to be there: our lives are full of repetitions and if we recorded ourselves moment-by-moment, and especially our communications with those around us, we would see the pattern clearly.
But even though I was intensely interested in the way the book was written, I was thinking about the surface of the story as well. Story is hardly the word to use as there is almost no plot to speak of, but I experienced moments of tension all the same although nothing particularly riveting was happening in the narrative. Because I was reading so intensely, my mind latched on to tiny details and I'd find myself wondering if the narrator would remember about them and come back to them. I worried that he wouldn't remember that the dog needed to be let out to pee, for example, or that he'd forget to give his friend Åsleik the bag of groceries he had bought for him. In fact I worried that his own groceries hadn't been put in the fridge—that's how much I was involved in this moment-to-moment narrative.
The result is that the painting with which the narrative begins and ends is clearly visible to my mind's eye, also the room where it is, the room with the round table by the window looking out towards the sea. I can see Asle's car clearly too, the place where he does so much of his remembering. The road from Dylgja to Bjørgvin which he drives back and forth on during the course of the two days is familiar to me, its twists and its turns, the houses and turnoffs along the way, the view of the fjord that appears and disappears.
Reader, I was there.
November 16, 2024
Юн Фоссе совершенно не торопится с изложением, в книге напрочь отсутствует динамизм, мысли рассказчиков крутятся вокруг одних и тех же событий и слов, циклично повторяясь; герои в десятый, в сотый раз перебирают их в голове. Хоровод этих мыслей звучит рефреном, бубнит и не отпускает. Эти постоянные "говорит он", "думает он" создают какой-то ритм, как в шаманских заклинаниях, а иногда напоминает рассказ человека с особенностями ментального развития. Действительно, Асле упоминает, что у него были сложности со школьной программой.
Не тронуть этот роман не может, хотя он по-северному суров, строг и где-то скучен.
Люди живут медленной, размеренной, повторяющейся изо дня в день жизнью. Два соседа - Асле и Аслейк. Один из них художник, довольно успешный, поскольку с детства мог зарабатывать живописью на жизнь, другой - рыбак и фермер. Они не то, чтобы дружат, а скорее просто общаются в процессе взаимовыгодного обмена. Один снабжает другого мясом, рыбой, колет полешки, другой дарит картины, которые передариваются сестре на Рождество, причем у Аслейка природное чутье на картины, он инстинктивно выбирает самые лучшие. Вообще говоря, общаются в этой книге мало, герои одиноки среди людей.
Есть ещё один Асле, и он явно очень сильно болен, болен "белочкой", белой горячкой, он одинок и, когда на него нападает дрожь, он борется с ней, выпив алкоголя. Его нестерпимо тянет в море, чтобы зайти в него и не вернуться, как не вернулся соседский мальчик Брод из его детства, или исчезнуть, как сестра Алида. Только эта мысль крутится и крутится, а "...все прочее – пустая отдаленность, пустая близость, да нет, пустоты нет, но в его потемках все равно пусто, а все прочие мысли, сколько бы ни пытался, он помыслить не в силах, слишком они тяжелые, неподъемные...". К нему невозможно не испытывать сочувствие, он нуждается в помощи. Другой Асле тоже раньше страдал от алкоголизма, но ему повезло, он бросил, ему помогли люди и вера в бога.
Асле - католик, и для него вера значит много, хотя перешёл в католичество он из-за Алес, его покойной жены, он молится на новонорвежском и на латыни, кстати, автор перевел Библию на новонорвежский. "...я никогда не жалел, что стал католиком, думаю я, потому что католическая вера много мне дала, и я считаю себя христианином, примерно так же, как считаю себя коммунистом или, во всяком случае, социалистом, и я на свой манер каждый день, даже по нескольку раз на дню, молюсь по четкам и, когда удается, непременно хожу к мессе, ведь и в ней, в мессе, есть своя правда, как и в крещении есть своя, крещение тоже участвует в правде, оно тоже может вести вперед, да-да, прямо к Богу, думаю я, поскольку Бог, пожалуй, таков, каким я могу Его помыслить, хотя есть и иные способы помыслить Его и действительно искренне верить в Него; всё, что всерьез обращено к Богу – использует ли человек слово «Бог», или ему, быть может, хватает ума или дурости не делать этого перед лицом неведомого божества, – всё ведет к Богу, так что, в сущности, все религии суть одно, думаю я, и в этом смысле религия и искусство одинаковы..."
Формулировка Нобелевского комитета была "за новаторские пьесы и прозу, которые выражают невыразимое".
Не эта ли цитата один из образцов выражения невыразимого?
"лицо Алес под дождем, во тьме, дождь стекает по ее несчастному лицу, но во все�� боли, во всем страдании светит ее свет, черный свет, совестит меня, только вот на глаза мне набегают слезы, сейчас, когда я лежу, свет, черный свет в ее несчастном лице, незримый свет, страждущие глаза, измученные болью, полуоткрытый рот, и дождь стекает по ее лицу в темный вечер, или, по контрасту, вспышкой, спокойное задумчивое лицо Алес, когда она, погружаясь в себя, становится частью непостижимого света, незримо струящегося от ее лица, ах, в памяти такое множество лиц, одни в боли, другие в покое, а зачастую просто лицо, словно без сознания, просто чем-то наполненное, чем угодно, ах, лиц так много, что они вот-вот сложатся в одно-единственное, думаю я, и действительно мелькает лицо Алес, озаряющее своим заботливым светом то, на что она смотрит, думаю я,"
Эта книга о свете и тьме, о Боге и искусстве. Картины, по мнению Асле, имеют ценность, если в них много света, незримого света. Свет связан с тьмой. Без тьмы нет света. Невозможно написать красками свет без использования темных цветов, и даже черной краски, которую художники избегают использовать. "...тьма сияет-светится, по крайней мере, в моей жизни свет возникал, как раз когда было темнее всего, и тогда тьма начинала светиться". Герой много размышляет о Боге. "...никто ничего сказать о Боге не умеет, но можно помыслить, что без Бога ничего бы не было, ведь даже если Бог никакой не Бог, он отличен от сотворенного, которое всегда есть нечто ограниченное, Он вне времени и пространства, Он то, что мы не в состоянии помыслить, Его нет, Он невеществен, а стало быть, Он ничто, говорю я, а невещественное, ничто не существует само по себе, ибо как раз благодаря Богу что-то вообще есть, без Бога ничего бы не было, говорю я, а Аслейк говорит: что толку этак думать? ведь тогда не во что верить, а? ведь от веры в ничто проку нет? и я говорю, что тут он прав, тут я с ним согласен, но неверно и говорить, что Бог есть ничто, ибо Он одновременно есть всё, всё вообще, вот я и думаю, говорю я, что, коль скоро ничего бы не существовало, если б Бог этого не создал, не сделал существующим, не позволил этому быть, то именно Он есть, Он един для всех вещей, и о Себе Самом, о том, как Его называть, Бог говорит, что имя Его – Сущий, говорю я"
Не тронуть этот роман не может, хотя он по-северному суров, строг и где-то скучен.
Люди живут медленной, размеренной, повторяющейся изо дня в день жизнью. Два соседа - Асле и Аслейк. Один из них художник, довольно успешный, поскольку с детства мог зарабатывать живописью на жизнь, другой - рыбак и фермер. Они не то, чтобы дружат, а скорее просто общаются в процессе взаимовыгодного обмена. Один снабжает другого мясом, рыбой, колет полешки, другой дарит картины, которые передариваются сестре на Рождество, причем у Аслейка природное чутье на картины, он инстинктивно выбирает самые лучшие. Вообще говоря, общаются в этой книге мало, герои одиноки среди людей.
Есть ещё один Асле, и он явно очень сильно болен, болен "белочкой", белой горячкой, он одинок и, когда на него нападает дрожь, он борется с ней, выпив алкоголя. Его нестерпимо тянет в море, чтобы зайти в него и не вернуться, как не вернулся соседский мальчик Брод из его детства, или исчезнуть, как сестра Алида. Только эта мысль крутится и крутится, а "...все прочее – пустая отдаленность, пустая близость, да нет, пустоты нет, но в его потемках все равно пусто, а все прочие мысли, сколько бы ни пытался, он помыслить не в силах, слишком они тяжелые, неподъемные...". К нему невозможно не испытывать сочувствие, он нуждается в помощи. Другой Асле тоже раньше страдал от алкоголизма, но ему повезло, он бросил, ему помогли люди и вера в бога.
Асле - католик, и для него вера значит много, хотя перешёл в католичество он из-за Алес, его покойной жены, он молится на новонорвежском и на латыни, кстати, автор перевел Библию на новонорвежский. "...я никогда не жалел, что стал католиком, думаю я, потому что католическая вера много мне дала, и я считаю себя христианином, примерно так же, как считаю себя коммунистом или, во всяком случае, социалистом, и я на свой манер каждый день, даже по нескольку раз на дню, молюсь по четкам и, когда удается, непременно хожу к мессе, ведь и в ней, в мессе, есть своя правда, как и в крещении есть своя, крещение тоже участвует в правде, оно тоже может вести вперед, да-да, прямо к Богу, думаю я, поскольку Бог, пожалуй, таков, каким я могу Его помыслить, хотя есть и иные способы помыслить Его и действительно искренне верить в Него; всё, что всерьез обращено к Богу – использует ли человек слово «Бог», или ему, быть может, хватает ума или дурости не делать этого перед лицом неведомого божества, – всё ведет к Богу, так что, в сущности, все религии суть одно, думаю я, и в этом смысле религия и искусство одинаковы..."
Формулировка Нобелевского комитета была "за новаторские пьесы и прозу, которые выражают невыразимое".
Не эта ли цитата один из образцов выражения невыразимого?
"лицо Алес под дождем, во тьме, дождь стекает по ее несчастному лицу, но во все�� боли, во всем страдании светит ее свет, черный свет, совестит меня, только вот на глаза мне набегают слезы, сейчас, когда я лежу, свет, черный свет в ее несчастном лице, незримый свет, страждущие глаза, измученные болью, полуоткрытый рот, и дождь стекает по ее лицу в темный вечер, или, по контрасту, вспышкой, спокойное задумчивое лицо Алес, когда она, погружаясь в себя, становится частью непостижимого света, незримо струящегося от ее лица, ах, в памяти такое множество лиц, одни в боли, другие в покое, а зачастую просто лицо, словно без сознания, просто чем-то наполненное, чем угодно, ах, лиц так много, что они вот-вот сложатся в одно-единственное, думаю я, и действительно мелькает лицо Алес, озаряющее своим заботливым светом то, на что она смотрит, думаю я,"
Эта книга о свете и тьме, о Боге и искусстве. Картины, по мнению Асле, имеют ценность, если в них много света, незримого света. Свет связан с тьмой. Без тьмы нет света. Невозможно написать красками свет без использования темных цветов, и даже черной краски, которую художники избегают использовать. "...тьма сияет-светится, по крайней мере, в моей жизни свет возникал, как раз когда было темнее всего, и тогда тьма начинала светиться". Герой много размышляет о Боге. "...никто ничего сказать о Боге не умеет, но можно помыслить, что без Бога ничего бы не было, ведь даже если Бог никакой не Бог, он отличен от сотворенного, которое всегда есть нечто ограниченное, Он вне времени и пространства, Он то, что мы не в состоянии помыслить, Его нет, Он невеществен, а стало быть, Он ничто, говорю я, а невещественное, ничто не существует само по себе, ибо как раз благодаря Богу что-то вообще есть, без Бога ничего бы не было, говорю я, а Аслейк говорит: что толку этак думать? ведь тогда не во что верить, а? ведь от веры в ничто проку нет? и я говорю, что тут он прав, тут я с ним согласен, но неверно и говорить, что Бог есть ничто, ибо Он одновременно есть всё, всё вообще, вот я и думаю, говорю я, что, коль скоро ничего бы не существовало, если б Бог этого не создал, не сделал существующим, не позволил этому быть, то именно Он есть, Он един для всех вещей, и о Себе Самом, о том, как Его называть, Бог говорит, что имя Его – Сущий, говорю я"
April 16, 2023
My dopplegänger (Aen) and I (also Aen, because all names start with an “A”) decided to read The Other Name by Jon Fosse, yes, and Karl Ove Knausgaard, a fellow Norwegian writer with no shortage of “A”s in his name as well, calls Fosse “a major European writer,” I think, and I must admit that Fosse out-Knausgaards Knausgaard because Karl Ove is known, I think, for writing about minutiae, and Jon sees him and raises him one, yes, and I think too Fosse put copy and paste to good use, yes, because many times he writes the same thing Karl Ove-r and Ove-r such that the book reads like waves, yes, like Virginia Woolf, I think, or Bach’s music, maybe, because the most ordinary of actions and thoughts, I think, keep appearing in this narrative, which also includes the most ordinary of actions and thoughts, and I think at first that I might not like reading about One Name or The Other Name because surely they’re the same name, Asle, but I get used to it as I read, I think, and it becomes easier as I read, and I ignore the voice of my old grammar teacher and his big fear of comma splices, I think, and it’s true after awhile that the book is like a painting that seems to have a certain light projecting from its dependable Norwegian darkness, yes, but Aen says people believe Scandinavians are the happiest people in the world, and I say I think that is only the Danes, I say, yes, the Danes are the happiest people in the world, though I don’t know what makes them so happy, perhaps it could be bikes, I say, and Aen says yes, there are the bikes, perhaps, and we see that the book is divided in two sections, I think, the second being all Hansel and Gretel like about young Asle and his sister being disobedient children in repetitious ways by going to the Wharf, I think, and the rowboat, yes, and the Co-Op and the Dairy, and sister keeps saying no, Mother will be displeased because she says never do this and never do that, no, and Asle, he is disobedient and says yes and eventually will regret too many yeses, I think, by the end, I mean, and then Aen says to me that there are yet two more books of this, I think, and I say, yes, I might just read them because under all the maddening repetition, I think, and the comma splices, I think, and the paragraphs that go on and on, not to mention the topic, yes, it can grow dreary, but it is artful dreary, I think, so yes, maybe, just as I read all but one of Karl Ove's navel-gazing but fun books I can some day, I think, read all but one of Fosse's, or maybe even all of them if Bragi is included, because Bragi is my favorite character in The Other Name, I think, so cheerful, and the way he barks and shakes off snow, and the way he looks at Asle with his innocent little eyes that have no dark Scandinavian pasts, I think, yes, maybe, but first I need some rest because I am so terribly tired, I think, and the The Country Inn has a room for me, and in the bedside table instead of a Bible will be Fosse's second book of the Septology, maybe, but first I need some sleep, I think, because Aen says I look tired and I shouldn't write anymore, no, else our review will look like I'm a major North American writer, I think, or at least American writer, maybe, or Maine writer, yes, that, at the very least that, I think.
January 30, 2023
Longlisted for the Booker International Prize 2020
This book is intense and personal. It is a continuous monologue with no sentence or paragraph breaks, the only exceptions being line breaks before and after reported speech, a few question and exclamation breaks and the header pages for section II. That sounds difficult to read, but other than the problem of finding suitable break points it felt surprisingly easy to read, if rather more difficult to decode.
The book describes two consecutive days in the life of its narrator Asle, a widowed painter who lives alone on a remote fjord in the village or hamlet of Dylgja. On the first day he drives to Bjørgvin (described as the second city, so a fictionalised Bergen), which is where his friend Beyer runs a gallery that exhibits and sells his paintings. On the return journey (still in Bjørgvin) he passes the house of his "friend", also called Asle, who is also a painter, but is a twice-divorced alcoholic whose drinking is life-threatening. It gradually becomes clear that this Asle is an alternative version of the narrator, sharing a common background and many other similarities, but it is never entirely clear what is real and what is imagined by the narrator. The narrator considers going to see the other Asle but decides to drive on. Further on in the journey, he stops the car near a playground where he watches a young couple who also appear to be versions of Asle and his dead wife Ales.
On arrival at Dylgja Asle describes a conversation with his only other friend Åsleik, a bachelor smallholder and fisherman who clears the snow from Asle's drive and helps him in other ways, and is rewarded by Asle's gifts of food and money (neither accepted without argument) and a painting every year which Åsleik gives to his sister. Narrator Asle's conversations with Åsleik are formulaic and repetitive, which adds to the hypnotic nature of the narrative. At the end of this conversation Asle decides to return to Bjørgvin to visit the other Asle, who he feels is reaching a crisis point and needs his help. This return trip develops a nightmareish, rather Kafkesque quality.
Another strand, mostly explored in part II, concerns Asle's childhood. This account is initially described as the other Asle's story, but when the narrator mentions the parents they sound like his own, blurring the distinctions between the two further.
I suspect this account fails to describe any of what is important or unique about the book, but I came close to giving it five stars, and will look forward to the remaining parts of the Septology.
This book is intense and personal. It is a continuous monologue with no sentence or paragraph breaks, the only exceptions being line breaks before and after reported speech, a few question and exclamation breaks and the header pages for section II. That sounds difficult to read, but other than the problem of finding suitable break points it felt surprisingly easy to read, if rather more difficult to decode.
The book describes two consecutive days in the life of its narrator Asle, a widowed painter who lives alone on a remote fjord in the village or hamlet of Dylgja. On the first day he drives to Bjørgvin (described as the second city, so a fictionalised Bergen), which is where his friend Beyer runs a gallery that exhibits and sells his paintings. On the return journey (still in Bjørgvin) he passes the house of his "friend", also called Asle, who is also a painter, but is a twice-divorced alcoholic whose drinking is life-threatening. It gradually becomes clear that this Asle is an alternative version of the narrator, sharing a common background and many other similarities, but it is never entirely clear what is real and what is imagined by the narrator. The narrator considers going to see the other Asle but decides to drive on. Further on in the journey, he stops the car near a playground where he watches a young couple who also appear to be versions of Asle and his dead wife Ales.
On arrival at Dylgja Asle describes a conversation with his only other friend Åsleik, a bachelor smallholder and fisherman who clears the snow from Asle's drive and helps him in other ways, and is rewarded by Asle's gifts of food and money (neither accepted without argument) and a painting every year which Åsleik gives to his sister. Narrator Asle's conversations with Åsleik are formulaic and repetitive, which adds to the hypnotic nature of the narrative. At the end of this conversation Asle decides to return to Bjørgvin to visit the other Asle, who he feels is reaching a crisis point and needs his help. This return trip develops a nightmareish, rather Kafkesque quality.
Another strand, mostly explored in part II, concerns Asle's childhood. This account is initially described as the other Asle's story, but when the narrator mentions the parents they sound like his own, blurring the distinctions between the two further.
I suspect this account fails to describe any of what is important or unique about the book, but I came close to giving it five stars, and will look forward to the remaining parts of the Septology.
May 27, 2020
A beautiful, quiet book about the daily life and memories of a modestly successful ageing Norwegian artist and his alcoholic doppelganger and namesake - the latter a man who seems to embody "there but for the grace of God go I". It is so meditative and form-orientated that it remakes themes as profound which in a more conventional novel would be cheesy and didactic.
It could sound solipsistic, with characters reflecting one another in name as well as life: Asle, Asle, Åsleik, Ales, Alise, and taking place entirely in a small area of Norway, in an analogue for Bergen and its rural hinterland, among reclusive older people. Yet it feels spacious and expansive, and it is aware of hard subsistence manual work and the good fortune of those able to make a living by art; of how incidents like abuse can turn a life on a sixpence; of have and have-not, and is generous in understanding and support towards the latter.
It seems to lay down no overt rules for its metaphysical spacetime, where a man can observe his younger self as a passer-by, and be friends with what appears to be another less fortunate self of his own age - who coexists several miles away, rather than being in a parallel universe or on a separate timeline. The attention to in-the-moment detail rather than the how or why, and the meditative sense of acceptance, makes this possible, these things simply *are*. Any questioning of reality is instead to do with mundane moments of absent-mindedness which could happen to almost anyone, such as not being sure which house number an acquaintance lives at.
This is probably the most convincing portrayal I've ever read in fiction of life as a visual artist: the thought processes, the working processes and how one looks at the world and at other art. (However, actual artists need to have the final say on this. I'm not one myself - though I've always periodically had pictures appear in my head which I would like to draw and don't have the skill to render well enough, meaning I could start to relate to Asle's head-pictures - and I've only spent much time with one person who was a professional artist.) Art-creation in fiction - or perhaps my idea of how it should be - seems to require minute attention to detail, and slowness and space to represent that detail: the film about painting I found most convincing was the four-hour La Belle Noiseuse.
Works of art about the ageing (white) male artist are obviously unfashionable these days, and the gender and sexual dynamics of La Belle Noiseuse make it obviously dated. The Other Name, however, is notable in contrast with many other 20th and early 21st century novels and films about male artists for how little is sexualised. Even at moments where it could have been and which might make some politically-aware contemporary readers flinch instinctively at first - where Asle watches a student couple hanging out in a playground - it turns out to be about memory, contemplation and grief: the couple are himself and his late wife around the time they first met. (I liked the mention of the long purple skirt in this scene, which was the first thing that made me think the couple might be from the past, especially combined with the young man's long hair; purple hasn't been really fashionable for a long time, the last time purple clothes were really ubiquitous was in the 90s.) The lack of sexualisation, replacing it with emphasis on contingency and spirituality, separate it from works about similar characters from earlier decades - yet the technological 'timelessness' makes it feel like very much one of them. The characters use cars and fridges, and phone lines appear to be fixed. No computers are mentioned, but those might play a relatively small part in the lives of men like Asle and his farmer neighbour Åsleik even today. The only thing that prevents the novel's present day being as early as the 1950s or 60s is that Asle-the-narrator and his late wife Ales were young at a time when there were hippy or goth-like fashions. There is lots of snow - what could be more traditionally iconic for a Scandinavian novel, and at a time of increasing awareness of climate change, increasingly suggestive of a more stable past. The late 90s or early 00s could seem the most likely chronological setting - but that is very much not the point here. I think it's meant to feel timeless, perhaps especially to those of us old enough to remember life without smartphones and always-on internet, yet not so old-fashioned it's historical fiction.
There's a certain kind of honesty which also seems to hark back to the novels of earlier decades, in Asle's cringing intrusive thoughts about how Åsleik's response to a new painting, and how he incrementally processes them during several iterations, this being the fourth:
it’s a St Andrew’s Cross, Åsleik says, and he’s right, and then he says it again, St Andrew’s Cross, he says and he puts a heavy stress on the words like he’s proud of knowing them, proud that he, Åsleik, knows a term like that, something like that is what he’s saying in the way he says the words, and things like that just make him look stupid, putting on that provincial pride makes him worse than he is.
After the last few years when confessional interviews and memoirs that sounded to me as a late Gen Xer, like soul-baring intended to show that we all think some bad things and need to be honest about that if any improvement is to be made, have often been greeted online by the anger of incredulous younger people yelling "But why would you even say that?" the quote above might be categorised as judgemental snobbery that helps no-one. But I liked the recognition of how moments like this can stick in one's head like earworms. (When I was younger I often experienced stuff like this anyway, both about things other people said and things I said, and still do occasionally.) And I especially loved the complex way the novel as a whole communicates, through the gradual accumulation of narrator-Asle's thoughts about Åsleik, how one can have affection and admiration for someone yet also find them embarrassing and boring at times.
Before reading The Other Name, I had no idea about all the religious content. (It wasn't by accident I capitalised God in the first paragraph.) Narrator Asle is a Catholic, but the church establishment and its views seem relatively unimportant to him: his is a felt-sense religion of immanence which seems to have more in common with mystics and meditators of other religions, including Buddhism, than with the typical image of active churchgoers in the 21st century. By the time he quotes medieval mystic Meister Eckhardt, you're pretty much expecting it if you've any passing familiarity with these subjects. I always find it difficult to write GR reviews about books with religious components, because friends have such widely differing views, and it's probably impossible to phrase something in a way that wouldn't annoy one side or another. But I think that atheist or neopagan friends who are comfortable with the more hippyish, anti-establishment sort of Christian could find Asle likeable, provided they don't mind a significant amount of mystical content. (Asle is also a socialist or communist, which Åsleik finds a strange combination with Catholicism.) It could hardly be more different from the other novel on this International Booker shortlist about a bereaved rural, religious household, The Discomfort of Evening: unlike the repressed, transgressive Dutch teenagers, Fosse's narrator derives joy and inspiration from his practise, thinks and creates freely, and he seems to me to have a fulfilling and near-ideal life.
Jon Fosse's writing has been described as "slow prose" and its rhythms indeed feel similar to "slow TV", and art films in which the details of mundane activities are shown at length (e.g. Jeanne Dielmann. It is singularly relaxing. Even the arguments still seemed essentially calming to read. It was only a couple of times, when Bjørgvin Guro kept badgering the narrator, and when he was having trouble getting access to alcoholic-Asle's apartment, that the novel made me feel tense on any character's behalf. There are no full stops, but there are clearly many sentences here. There is dialogue with the usual line-spacing. There are sometimes question marks and exclamation marks within the narrative. And it's easy to see where the very long sentences could be divided. It's a very different experience from the long sentence of Krasznahorkai, which, for me at least, contain a sense of tension, of holding one's breath - and it is certainly not effortful reading in the same way as the more complex of Krasznahorkai's works, like Seiobo There Below.
From the books on the International Booker longlist, The Other Name has been one of the favourites among people I know both in the Mookse group and in the bloggers' shadow panel. It was a surprise and a disappointment to most when it was not on the official shortlist. Was it the old school subject matter of a male artist's life? Perhaps. Though I suspect it may have been more one of finer timing. The Other Name is a gorgeous piece of writing, but its calm and space means that it isn't as good for pushing out other thoughts as more action-filled or tense novels. The judges would have been re-reading the longlist just as the covid pandemic was getting worse, and for me and some readers at least, that was a time when we particularly wanted books that were attuned to the way we were feeling. By the second half of April, when I first read a little of The Other Name I could appreciate how escapist it seemed, like certain other Nordic, especially Norwegian, fiction had for me years ago, because of the calm, the quiet prosperity and sometimes the countryside setting. But it was still an effort to get into its rhythm. Two and a half weeks later though, and really quite bored of the topic of coronavirus, increasingly neglecting to read much new news and being happy with that, the rhythm of this novel felt close enough to current life that I was able to appreciate it in a different way, more as I think I would have done much of the time Before.
This would surely be a very different novel if it were narrated by alcoholic Asle. Bitter? Or probably something more nuanced, having seen the excellence of Fosse's craft and Damion Searls' translation here. (Though the world of alcoholics is entirely convincing as seen through a friend, and I say that having once lived with an alcoholic.) Perhaps that other narration will come later in the Septology of which this is Part I-II. As someone who quite often thinks about parallel-universe versions of myself who were luckier in certain ways, but started out with more or less the same CV in youth, perhaps I ought to argue more for the unlucky Asle to tell his story, but rather I loved and welcomed the extent of escape into the life of the modestly successful Asle, and experiencing the world through him. It was, I think, particularly important that he was not wildly successful, or materialist, or anything so crass and obvious, but a quiet man who living a solitary lagom sort of life which I admire and would like to have. Like Out Stealing Horses by Fosse's compatriot Per Pettersen, the world of this novel is obviously not perfect, but I would very much like to live in it, to live rather like its protagonist.
(Read & reviewed May 2020.)
It could sound solipsistic, with characters reflecting one another in name as well as life: Asle, Asle, Åsleik, Ales, Alise, and taking place entirely in a small area of Norway, in an analogue for Bergen and its rural hinterland, among reclusive older people. Yet it feels spacious and expansive, and it is aware of hard subsistence manual work and the good fortune of those able to make a living by art; of how incidents like abuse can turn a life on a sixpence; of have and have-not, and is generous in understanding and support towards the latter.
It seems to lay down no overt rules for its metaphysical spacetime, where a man can observe his younger self as a passer-by, and be friends with what appears to be another less fortunate self of his own age - who coexists several miles away, rather than being in a parallel universe or on a separate timeline. The attention to in-the-moment detail rather than the how or why, and the meditative sense of acceptance, makes this possible, these things simply *are*. Any questioning of reality is instead to do with mundane moments of absent-mindedness which could happen to almost anyone, such as not being sure which house number an acquaintance lives at.
This is probably the most convincing portrayal I've ever read in fiction of life as a visual artist: the thought processes, the working processes and how one looks at the world and at other art. (However, actual artists need to have the final say on this. I'm not one myself - though I've always periodically had pictures appear in my head which I would like to draw and don't have the skill to render well enough, meaning I could start to relate to Asle's head-pictures - and I've only spent much time with one person who was a professional artist.) Art-creation in fiction - or perhaps my idea of how it should be - seems to require minute attention to detail, and slowness and space to represent that detail: the film about painting I found most convincing was the four-hour La Belle Noiseuse.
Works of art about the ageing (white) male artist are obviously unfashionable these days, and the gender and sexual dynamics of La Belle Noiseuse make it obviously dated. The Other Name, however, is notable in contrast with many other 20th and early 21st century novels and films about male artists for how little is sexualised. Even at moments where it could have been and which might make some politically-aware contemporary readers flinch instinctively at first - where Asle watches a student couple hanging out in a playground - it turns out to be about memory, contemplation and grief: the couple are himself and his late wife around the time they first met. (I liked the mention of the long purple skirt in this scene, which was the first thing that made me think the couple might be from the past, especially combined with the young man's long hair; purple hasn't been really fashionable for a long time, the last time purple clothes were really ubiquitous was in the 90s.) The lack of sexualisation, replacing it with emphasis on contingency and spirituality, separate it from works about similar characters from earlier decades - yet the technological 'timelessness' makes it feel like very much one of them. The characters use cars and fridges, and phone lines appear to be fixed. No computers are mentioned, but those might play a relatively small part in the lives of men like Asle and his farmer neighbour Åsleik even today. The only thing that prevents the novel's present day being as early as the 1950s or 60s is that Asle-the-narrator and his late wife Ales were young at a time when there were hippy or goth-like fashions. There is lots of snow - what could be more traditionally iconic for a Scandinavian novel, and at a time of increasing awareness of climate change, increasingly suggestive of a more stable past. The late 90s or early 00s could seem the most likely chronological setting - but that is very much not the point here. I think it's meant to feel timeless, perhaps especially to those of us old enough to remember life without smartphones and always-on internet, yet not so old-fashioned it's historical fiction.
There's a certain kind of honesty which also seems to hark back to the novels of earlier decades, in Asle's cringing intrusive thoughts about how Åsleik's response to a new painting, and how he incrementally processes them during several iterations, this being the fourth:
it’s a St Andrew’s Cross, Åsleik says, and he’s right, and then he says it again, St Andrew’s Cross, he says and he puts a heavy stress on the words like he’s proud of knowing them, proud that he, Åsleik, knows a term like that, something like that is what he’s saying in the way he says the words, and things like that just make him look stupid, putting on that provincial pride makes him worse than he is.
After the last few years when confessional interviews and memoirs that sounded to me as a late Gen Xer, like soul-baring intended to show that we all think some bad things and need to be honest about that if any improvement is to be made, have often been greeted online by the anger of incredulous younger people yelling "But why would you even say that?" the quote above might be categorised as judgemental snobbery that helps no-one. But I liked the recognition of how moments like this can stick in one's head like earworms. (When I was younger I often experienced stuff like this anyway, both about things other people said and things I said, and still do occasionally.) And I especially loved the complex way the novel as a whole communicates, through the gradual accumulation of narrator-Asle's thoughts about Åsleik, how one can have affection and admiration for someone yet also find them embarrassing and boring at times.
Before reading The Other Name, I had no idea about all the religious content. (It wasn't by accident I capitalised God in the first paragraph.) Narrator Asle is a Catholic, but the church establishment and its views seem relatively unimportant to him: his is a felt-sense religion of immanence which seems to have more in common with mystics and meditators of other religions, including Buddhism, than with the typical image of active churchgoers in the 21st century. By the time he quotes medieval mystic Meister Eckhardt, you're pretty much expecting it if you've any passing familiarity with these subjects. I always find it difficult to write GR reviews about books with religious components, because friends have such widely differing views, and it's probably impossible to phrase something in a way that wouldn't annoy one side or another. But I think that atheist or neopagan friends who are comfortable with the more hippyish, anti-establishment sort of Christian could find Asle likeable, provided they don't mind a significant amount of mystical content. (Asle is also a socialist or communist, which Åsleik finds a strange combination with Catholicism.) It could hardly be more different from the other novel on this International Booker shortlist about a bereaved rural, religious household, The Discomfort of Evening: unlike the repressed, transgressive Dutch teenagers, Fosse's narrator derives joy and inspiration from his practise, thinks and creates freely, and he seems to me to have a fulfilling and near-ideal life.
Jon Fosse's writing has been described as "slow prose" and its rhythms indeed feel similar to "slow TV", and art films in which the details of mundane activities are shown at length (e.g. Jeanne Dielmann. It is singularly relaxing. Even the arguments still seemed essentially calming to read. It was only a couple of times, when Bjørgvin Guro kept badgering the narrator, and when he was having trouble getting access to alcoholic-Asle's apartment, that the novel made me feel tense on any character's behalf. There are no full stops, but there are clearly many sentences here. There is dialogue with the usual line-spacing. There are sometimes question marks and exclamation marks within the narrative. And it's easy to see where the very long sentences could be divided. It's a very different experience from the long sentence of Krasznahorkai, which, for me at least, contain a sense of tension, of holding one's breath - and it is certainly not effortful reading in the same way as the more complex of Krasznahorkai's works, like Seiobo There Below.
From the books on the International Booker longlist, The Other Name has been one of the favourites among people I know both in the Mookse group and in the bloggers' shadow panel. It was a surprise and a disappointment to most when it was not on the official shortlist. Was it the old school subject matter of a male artist's life? Perhaps. Though I suspect it may have been more one of finer timing. The Other Name is a gorgeous piece of writing, but its calm and space means that it isn't as good for pushing out other thoughts as more action-filled or tense novels. The judges would have been re-reading the longlist just as the covid pandemic was getting worse, and for me and some readers at least, that was a time when we particularly wanted books that were attuned to the way we were feeling. By the second half of April, when I first read a little of The Other Name I could appreciate how escapist it seemed, like certain other Nordic, especially Norwegian, fiction had for me years ago, because of the calm, the quiet prosperity and sometimes the countryside setting. But it was still an effort to get into its rhythm. Two and a half weeks later though, and really quite bored of the topic of coronavirus, increasingly neglecting to read much new news and being happy with that, the rhythm of this novel felt close enough to current life that I was able to appreciate it in a different way, more as I think I would have done much of the time Before.
This would surely be a very different novel if it were narrated by alcoholic Asle. Bitter? Or probably something more nuanced, having seen the excellence of Fosse's craft and Damion Searls' translation here. (Though the world of alcoholics is entirely convincing as seen through a friend, and I say that having once lived with an alcoholic.) Perhaps that other narration will come later in the Septology of which this is Part I-II. As someone who quite often thinks about parallel-universe versions of myself who were luckier in certain ways, but started out with more or less the same CV in youth, perhaps I ought to argue more for the unlucky Asle to tell his story, but rather I loved and welcomed the extent of escape into the life of the modestly successful Asle, and experiencing the world through him. It was, I think, particularly important that he was not wildly successful, or materialist, or anything so crass and obvious, but a quiet man who living a solitary lagom sort of life which I admire and would like to have. Like Out Stealing Horses by Fosse's compatriot Per Pettersen, the world of this novel is obviously not perfect, but I would very much like to live in it, to live rather like its protagonist.
(Read & reviewed May 2020.)
March 23, 2024
Not gonna lie, the first time I encountered this book and saw that Karl Ove Knausgård praised it, I immediately was turned off.
But then the same critics, who were critical of Karl, praised this book, so I gave it a second thought.
It turned out to be… interesting.
I don’t even know how to describe this. All written in one sentence without full stops, it’s like a prayer, uttered by a deeply religious artist, mourning the death of his love, a contemplation and recollection of his life as a child, his life with the love of his life, losing her. About his art, about his God. Contemplation about “what could’ve beens” if he married and had children, like this alternative Asle, his doppelganger without faith, all alone and with advanced destructing alcoholism. Maybe? I don’t know, nothing is clear here and interpretations are multitudes. At one point I, inspired perhaps by Solar Bones, thought that our narrator is in Purgatory, the cold world where directions are meaningless and there’s always snow. And sorrow, pain and suffering. There’s a lot of that.
And there’s a st. Andrews cross, always looming in the background and foreground, I had always felt as if only I had more knowledge in theology or Catholicism (I have none), I could unearth another layer of meaning.
Anyways, a strange lulling metaphysical theological contemplation, the first two books of septology, that I enjoyed? I don’t think it’s the right word. Admired maybe? But do I want to continue with the next five? I'm not sure.
But then the same critics, who were critical of Karl, praised this book, so I gave it a second thought.
It turned out to be… interesting.
I don’t even know how to describe this. All written in one sentence without full stops, it’s like a prayer, uttered by a deeply religious artist, mourning the death of his love, a contemplation and recollection of his life as a child, his life with the love of his life, losing her. About his art, about his God. Contemplation about “what could’ve beens” if he married and had children, like this alternative Asle, his doppelganger without faith, all alone and with advanced destructing alcoholism. Maybe? I don’t know, nothing is clear here and interpretations are multitudes. At one point I, inspired perhaps by Solar Bones, thought that our narrator is in Purgatory, the cold world where directions are meaningless and there’s always snow. And sorrow, pain and suffering. There’s a lot of that.
as if Asle was too hard, as if his pain, or his suffering, maybe that’s the better word, made me want to keep driving, not because I didn’t want to see him or spend time with him but because, no, I don’t know, but I wanted to get away, and maybe I thought I could drag his pain with me in a way, pull it behind me, that I could pull his suffering off of him and away from him if I kept driving?
as if Asle was too hard, as if his pain, or his suffering, maybe that’s the better word, made me want to keep driving, not because I didn’t want to see him or spend time with him but because, no, I don’t know, but I wanted to get away, and maybe I thought I could drag his pain with me in a way, pull it behind me, that I could pull his suffering off of him and away from him if I kept driving?
I think and suddenly I feel miserable, I feel grief, yes, it’s like grief is bursting from inside me, from nowhere, from everywhere, and it feels like this sorrow is about to choke me, like I’m breathing the sorrow in and I can’t breathe it out and I fold my hands and I breathe in deeply and I say to myself inside myself Kyrie and I breathe out slowly and I say eleison and I breathe in deeply and say Christe and I breathe out slowly and say eleison and I say these words again and again and the breaths and the words make it so that I’m not filled with sorrow any more, with fear, with sudden fear, with this sorrow in the fear so strong that’s suddenly come over me and that overpowers me and it’s like it’s made what’s I in me very small, turned it into nothing, but a nothing that’s nonetheless there, lodged firm
because all of this, is it even really happening? or do I just think it’s happening? or remember it happening? is it something that happened to me once? it must have been a long long time ago because I can’t remember it
because it’s like he’s fallen out of himself, out of where he usually is, like he no longer knows himself, like he’s gone, away from himself,
could someone be an artist and consider himself an artist just because he had something all his own in the pictures he painted? doesn’t a person need more
no, I probably don’t, no one can believe something like that, it goes against all wisdom and understanding, because either God is all-powerful and then there’s no free will, or God isn’t all-powerful and there is free will, within limits, but in that case God is not all-powerful, so ever since God gave humanity free will he gave up his omnipotence, something like that must be true, because without a will that’s free there can’t be love, and God is love
And there’s a st. Andrews cross, always looming in the background and foreground, I had always felt as if only I had more knowledge in theology or Catholicism (I have none), I could unearth another layer of meaning.
Anyways, a strange lulling metaphysical theological contemplation, the first two books of septology, that I enjoyed? I don’t think it’s the right word. Admired maybe? But do I want to continue with the next five? I'm not sure.
February 8, 2024
BETWEEN ART AND GOD
In this monumental work, Fosse manages to reflect in the most delicate way on life, art, love, religion, choices made in life. The protagonist Asle, an old man passing through a critical moment, relives certain important moments of his life over a period of several days around Christmas.
With the Scandinavian fjords in the background and the Norwegian desert landscape providing a perfect basis for reflection, the painter Asle wanders outside and inside himself, on the verge of a major existential crisis, determined by the loss of reference points: on the one hand painting, Art, on the other Faith, both accentuated by the death of his wife, an event he never managed to get over.
Fosse's prose is hypnotic because he follows Asle's inner struggle in sentences hundreds of pages long, and because he repeats the key concepts and scenes in his discourse dozens of times, while also revealing, when less expected, novelties and plot twists.
That’s to say I believe SEPTOLOGY could be regarded as a universal literary masterpiece focussed on the exploration of the meaning of life. From this perspective, it stands alongside other monumental works that share the common theme of existential inquiry, such as Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" and Musil's "The Man Without Qualities".
In this monumental work, Fosse manages to reflect in the most delicate way on life, art, love, religion, choices made in life. The protagonist Asle, an old man passing through a critical moment, relives certain important moments of his life over a period of several days around Christmas.
With the Scandinavian fjords in the background and the Norwegian desert landscape providing a perfect basis for reflection, the painter Asle wanders outside and inside himself, on the verge of a major existential crisis, determined by the loss of reference points: on the one hand painting, Art, on the other Faith, both accentuated by the death of his wife, an event he never managed to get over.
Fosse's prose is hypnotic because he follows Asle's inner struggle in sentences hundreds of pages long, and because he repeats the key concepts and scenes in his discourse dozens of times, while also revealing, when less expected, novelties and plot twists.
That’s to say I believe SEPTOLOGY could be regarded as a universal literary masterpiece focussed on the exploration of the meaning of life. From this perspective, it stands alongside other monumental works that share the common theme of existential inquiry, such as Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" and Musil's "The Man Without Qualities".
May 1, 2024
Triplegänger Insomnia Ballade
I have two hours lain in bed
And I can’t seem to get to sleep
There’s so much thinking in my head
Why even bother count the sheep?
I say my prayers and I weep
Sliding wooden beads along
A string of memories so deep—
In Norway nights are very long
I have two hours lain in bed
And I can’t seem to get to sleep
There’s so much drinking in my head
I feel so helpless I could weep
The hidden bottles that I keep
Sing to me their siren song
I think I’ll take a tiny sip—
In Norway nights are very long
I have two hours lain in bed
And I can’t seem to get to sleep
There’s so much reading in my head
I’ve frightened off my snow-white sheep
But there’s no reason for to weep
Well-nigh have I finished my song
And my poor brain it just went bleep—
In Norway nights are very long
L'Envoi
Sleep, pray summon your man Philippe
By sounding your imperial gong
And let us in your castle keep—
In Norway nights are very long!
April 5, 2024
And there is real light only in the shadows, because only in the shadows a glowing becomes a real glowing and this is also true for people and their suffering, their darkness, their memories and their thoughts and some have to paint and some are fishermen and the fishermen catch fish and the painters try to exorcise their suffering, their darkness, their memories and their thoughts through painting and by doing so they start to glow and we see their glowing or feel their glowing, as it is an invisible glowing, but we feel it in our hearts and we feel with them, we suffer with them and we want to help them out of their darkness, because their darkness is also our own darkness and we feel ourselves absorbed in the painter's thoughts and at some level we don't know anymore if these are his thoughts or our own thoughts and so we are part of this book and we see a glowing in our own darkness, it is only an invisible glowing, but it gives us hope nevertheless and this is what art should be about, isn't it?
And there are two painters who are called Asle and this is quite remarkable as it seems that they are both two shadows of the same man and as real light only glows in the shadows, these two painters, who are both called Asle, glow very bright in their darkness and one is suffering from alcoholism and one is suffering from depression and so they seem to be the shadow of one man and even though they are suffering, there is also light and light is hope and their art is hope and their friendship is hope and hopefully they will let us be part of their darkness to feel the glow and our own redemption
And there are two painters who are called Asle and this is quite remarkable as it seems that they are both two shadows of the same man and as real light only glows in the shadows, these two painters, who are both called Asle, glow very bright in their darkness and one is suffering from alcoholism and one is suffering from depression and so they seem to be the shadow of one man and even though they are suffering, there is also light and light is hope and their art is hope and their friendship is hope and hopefully they will let us be part of their darkness to feel the glow and our own redemption
October 25, 2023
Weltliteratur. Etwas nie Dagewesenes. Ein Buch, das mir wochenlange Übelkeit beschert - um Worte ringen lässt. Gedanken fließen, verästeln - Wachstumsschmerz. Existentielle Frage ätzen sich gnadenlos wie Alienspeichel, durch Mauern und Wälle einer mühsam errichteten inneren Ordnung, meiner Existenz.
Asle – Künstler und Maler, von Fosse zur Kunst, einem Bild im Bild, stilisiert. Eine physische Existenz, die zur Allegorie erhoben wird.
Fosse tritt an, um die Psychoanalyse und seinen Vertreter, Lacan, herauszufordern.
Kann das Unsagbare, das jeglicher Symbolisierung widersteht, der Gottesbegriff, die Verschmelzung mit Gott, im irdischen, physischen, lebenden Zustand zugänglich gemacht und erreicht werden?
Dafür muss Fosse alles aufbieten, um das Reale, das Chaos, das sich im Widerstand zeigt, so nah wie möglich heranzurücken. Seine einzige Möglichkeit: Auflösung der Ordnung des Symbolischen. Nichts darf eine Bedeutung bekommen, nichts darf konkret benannt werden, alles muss fließen, ineinander übergehen, muss verwirren. Keine Schnitte! Der stetige, unaufhaltsame Gedankenstrom, dieses famose Mittel, das Fosse anwendet, dient einem Zweck: Zerstörung des symbolischen Ordnungssystems. Die Fähigkeit zur Unterscheidung geht verloren, Benennungen werden beeinträchtigt.
In kreisenden Mantren zieht Fosse, Asle, an das Reale – Wiederholungen, Orientierungslosigkeit und Halluzinationen. Asle tritt in eine tiefe Psychose ein.
Ein Wesen, entfremdet von seiner Welt, sich als Schmarotzer fühlend, durch Trauer und Trauma gepeinigt - einsam, haltlos, nur dem einen Gedanken zustrebend: Gott, das Licht der Dunkelheit, die Schatten, die leuchten. Gott ist.
Er ist so kurz davor. Die Idee bekommt Schemen.
An dieser Stelle gibt Fosse die Antwort, auf eine der Fragen: können wir in unserer physischen Gestalt, Gott begreifen? NEIN.
Die Psychose endet in tiefster Dunkelheit. Keine Antwort, findet ihren Weg ins Licht der Erkenntnis. Nur durch den literarischen Trick, Asle selbst zur Allegorie werden zu lassen, erhaschen wir eine Ahnung davon. Zurück, im physischen Körper, muss die symbolische Ordnung wiederhergestellt werden. Denn dummerweise thront in ihr Gott. Eine Einheit mit Gott, wäre nach Lacan ein paradox. Das Subjekt bleibt immer in einer Position der Trennung und Entfremdung.
Vielleicht ist alles auch nur der Versuch, die Philosophie aus „2001:Odyssee im Weltraum“ literarisch zu verarbeiten. Die KI Dave singt so wunderschön: „Hänschen klein, ging allein, in die weite Welt hinein….“ und kehrt in den Schoß seines Schöpfers zurück. Wartet hier die nächste Stufe der menschlichen Evolution?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Erste Gedanken, wirr und zusammenhangslos:
Bin dem Buch seit Wochen eine Wertung und Worte schuldig.
Widerstand.
Habe es als Hörbuch gehört: schält die Rhythmik und den hypnotischen Charakter der Stils grandios heraus. Hat mich halb wahnsinnig werden lassen. Sehr unangenehmer Stil, unangenehme Bilder, bedrückend, erkenntnisreich.
Ich bin nach wie vor verstört.
Für mich ein Buch, das komplett auf der Lacanschen und Freudschen Folie zu lesen ist.
Nur ein paar Blitzlichter. Für eine kohärente Besprechung reicht es noch lange nicht.
"Was, wenn dasjenige, was wir als »Realität« erfahren, durch Phantasie strukturiert wäre und wenn die Phantasie als Schirm diente, der uns vor der direkten Überwältigung durch das rohe Reale beschützen würde? Dann kann die Realität selbst als Flucht vor der Begegnung mit dem Realen dienen. In dem Gegensatz zwischen Traum und Wirklichkeit befindet sich die Phantasie auf der Seite der Wirklichkeit, und in unseren Träumen begegnen wir dem traumatischen Realen – es ist nicht so, daß Träume für diejenigen sind, die die Realität nicht ertragen, die Realität selbst ist für diejenigen, die ihre Träume (das Reale, das sich in ihnen ankündigt) nicht aushalten können."
(Aus Lacan: Eine Einführung )
Schläft Åsle deshalb kaum?
Freud: „Das Reale ist das, was am selben Platz immer wiederkehrt“ - Wiederholungszwang -
Fosse: Rhythmische Wiederholungen - denke ich, ich denke...Rituale...Hund streicheln...Beten...religöse Litaneien...
Ein radikal zufälliger Bedeutungsprozess: Åsle ist orientierungslos, scheinbar chaotische Handlungen, ständiges Verlaufen, kann Namen nicht merken - Die Intention und der große Andere kreuzen sich - eine Bedeutung verweist auf eine andere.
Andreaskreuz: "Der Signifikant liefert nicht nur die Hülle, den Behälter der Bedeutung, er polarisiert sie, er strukturiert sie, er führt sie in die Existenz ein."
Der Pferdeschwanz
"Willkommen zu Hause": Das Imaginäre - Åsle und sein Nachbar.
"Die Beziehung zum idealisierten Körperbild interveniert in die sozialen Beziehungen und induziert Rivalität und Hass. Wir projizieren das Bild der Ganzheit auf andere, die uns ähnlich sind, und machen sie dadurch zu unseren Idealen; die Beziehung zu den idealisierten anderen ist jedoch ambivalent, wir haben das Gefühl, dass sie unseren Platz einnehmen wollen und dass wir sie deshalb bekämpfen müssen"
[aus https://lacan-entziffern.de/reales/da...]
Ideenwelt Platos - Åsles Idee von Gott - Åsles Weg raus aus der Höhle
Das Ende - Das Unausprechliche offenbart sich.
Asle – Künstler und Maler, von Fosse zur Kunst, einem Bild im Bild, stilisiert. Eine physische Existenz, die zur Allegorie erhoben wird.
Fosse tritt an, um die Psychoanalyse und seinen Vertreter, Lacan, herauszufordern.
Kann das Unsagbare, das jeglicher Symbolisierung widersteht, der Gottesbegriff, die Verschmelzung mit Gott, im irdischen, physischen, lebenden Zustand zugänglich gemacht und erreicht werden?
Dafür muss Fosse alles aufbieten, um das Reale, das Chaos, das sich im Widerstand zeigt, so nah wie möglich heranzurücken. Seine einzige Möglichkeit: Auflösung der Ordnung des Symbolischen. Nichts darf eine Bedeutung bekommen, nichts darf konkret benannt werden, alles muss fließen, ineinander übergehen, muss verwirren. Keine Schnitte! Der stetige, unaufhaltsame Gedankenstrom, dieses famose Mittel, das Fosse anwendet, dient einem Zweck: Zerstörung des symbolischen Ordnungssystems. Die Fähigkeit zur Unterscheidung geht verloren, Benennungen werden beeinträchtigt.
In kreisenden Mantren zieht Fosse, Asle, an das Reale – Wiederholungen, Orientierungslosigkeit und Halluzinationen. Asle tritt in eine tiefe Psychose ein.
Ein Wesen, entfremdet von seiner Welt, sich als Schmarotzer fühlend, durch Trauer und Trauma gepeinigt - einsam, haltlos, nur dem einen Gedanken zustrebend: Gott, das Licht der Dunkelheit, die Schatten, die leuchten. Gott ist.
Er ist so kurz davor. Die Idee bekommt Schemen.
An dieser Stelle gibt Fosse die Antwort, auf eine der Fragen: können wir in unserer physischen Gestalt, Gott begreifen? NEIN.
Die Psychose endet in tiefster Dunkelheit. Keine Antwort, findet ihren Weg ins Licht der Erkenntnis. Nur durch den literarischen Trick, Asle selbst zur Allegorie werden zu lassen, erhaschen wir eine Ahnung davon. Zurück, im physischen Körper, muss die symbolische Ordnung wiederhergestellt werden. Denn dummerweise thront in ihr Gott. Eine Einheit mit Gott, wäre nach Lacan ein paradox. Das Subjekt bleibt immer in einer Position der Trennung und Entfremdung.
Vielleicht ist alles auch nur der Versuch, die Philosophie aus „2001:Odyssee im Weltraum“ literarisch zu verarbeiten. Die KI Dave singt so wunderschön: „Hänschen klein, ging allein, in die weite Welt hinein….“ und kehrt in den Schoß seines Schöpfers zurück. Wartet hier die nächste Stufe der menschlichen Evolution?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Erste Gedanken, wirr und zusammenhangslos:
Bin dem Buch seit Wochen eine Wertung und Worte schuldig.
Widerstand.
Habe es als Hörbuch gehört: schält die Rhythmik und den hypnotischen Charakter der Stils grandios heraus. Hat mich halb wahnsinnig werden lassen. Sehr unangenehmer Stil, unangenehme Bilder, bedrückend, erkenntnisreich.
Ich bin nach wie vor verstört.
Für mich ein Buch, das komplett auf der Lacanschen und Freudschen Folie zu lesen ist.
Nur ein paar Blitzlichter. Für eine kohärente Besprechung reicht es noch lange nicht.
"Was, wenn dasjenige, was wir als »Realität« erfahren, durch Phantasie strukturiert wäre und wenn die Phantasie als Schirm diente, der uns vor der direkten Überwältigung durch das rohe Reale beschützen würde? Dann kann die Realität selbst als Flucht vor der Begegnung mit dem Realen dienen. In dem Gegensatz zwischen Traum und Wirklichkeit befindet sich die Phantasie auf der Seite der Wirklichkeit, und in unseren Träumen begegnen wir dem traumatischen Realen – es ist nicht so, daß Träume für diejenigen sind, die die Realität nicht ertragen, die Realität selbst ist für diejenigen, die ihre Träume (das Reale, das sich in ihnen ankündigt) nicht aushalten können."
(Aus Lacan: Eine Einführung )
Schläft Åsle deshalb kaum?
Freud: „Das Reale ist das, was am selben Platz immer wiederkehrt“ - Wiederholungszwang -
Fosse: Rhythmische Wiederholungen - denke ich, ich denke...Rituale...Hund streicheln...Beten...religöse Litaneien...
Ein radikal zufälliger Bedeutungsprozess: Åsle ist orientierungslos, scheinbar chaotische Handlungen, ständiges Verlaufen, kann Namen nicht merken - Die Intention und der große Andere kreuzen sich - eine Bedeutung verweist auf eine andere.
Andreaskreuz: "Der Signifikant liefert nicht nur die Hülle, den Behälter der Bedeutung, er polarisiert sie, er strukturiert sie, er führt sie in die Existenz ein."
Der Pferdeschwanz
"Willkommen zu Hause": Das Imaginäre - Åsle und sein Nachbar.
"Die Beziehung zum idealisierten Körperbild interveniert in die sozialen Beziehungen und induziert Rivalität und Hass. Wir projizieren das Bild der Ganzheit auf andere, die uns ähnlich sind, und machen sie dadurch zu unseren Idealen; die Beziehung zu den idealisierten anderen ist jedoch ambivalent, wir haben das Gefühl, dass sie unseren Platz einnehmen wollen und dass wir sie deshalb bekämpfen müssen"
[aus https://lacan-entziffern.de/reales/da...]
Ideenwelt Platos - Åsles Idee von Gott - Åsles Weg raus aus der Höhle
Das Ende - Das Unausprechliche offenbart sich.
November 28, 2021
Beckett meets Knausgard, meets Master Eckhart
As you can notice, this literally was a mixed bag for me. Disorientation is the first impression you get when you start this book, especially if you have not read any other work by the Norwegian writer Fosse before. The author offers an elongated stream of consciousness, with many repetitive elements and sentences without a period, 350 pages long. It is not clear who is speaking: the artist Asle or his friend/neighbor Asleik? Or are they one and the same person, or are there other characters with - coincidentally - the same name? I am by no means the first to suggest that Fosse seems very strongly inspired by Samuel Beckett, his influence is quite obvious.
What we can more or less distinguish is that the narrator drives a few times up and down between his house and the city, helps a friend with a serious alcohol problem (or maybe rather a depression?) and constantly muses about his last work of art, a painting with a horizontal and a vertical stripe, which he associates with intense religious experiences. The story is interrupted by long, banal conversations and trivial acts, and the description of a few touching scenes between a boy and girl, which may just be a flashback of the narrator to his first acquaintance with his recently deceased wife.
Fosse deliberately leaves a lot unclear, but the recurring musings of the main character about his paintings, stressing the light in dark scenes, to me seemed very reminiscent of Karl Ove Knausgard: they share the same obsession with the banal and the sublime in reality, with the light and dark in life. Perhaps this is something typical Scandinavian? ( in the meantime my Goodreads friend Katia kindly informed me Knausgard was - literally - a pupil of Fosse) ). At least with Fosse, there's also a very clear connection with religion: at times the musings of the protagonist in this novel had a clear aesthetic-mystical slant, hence my reference to Master Eckhart. This makes for an enticing read, and at times even resulting in great scenes, but on whole also rather opaque and thus frustrating.
I can understand that some people are absolutely crazy about this, but for me this was just a bit too cerebral, just a bit too much of a jumble of words leading nowhere, to really appeal. I'm not sure at this point whether I'll venture into the next installments of this trilogy. But I’m open to comments to make me change my mind!
As you can notice, this literally was a mixed bag for me. Disorientation is the first impression you get when you start this book, especially if you have not read any other work by the Norwegian writer Fosse before. The author offers an elongated stream of consciousness, with many repetitive elements and sentences without a period, 350 pages long. It is not clear who is speaking: the artist Asle or his friend/neighbor Asleik? Or are they one and the same person, or are there other characters with - coincidentally - the same name? I am by no means the first to suggest that Fosse seems very strongly inspired by Samuel Beckett, his influence is quite obvious.
What we can more or less distinguish is that the narrator drives a few times up and down between his house and the city, helps a friend with a serious alcohol problem (or maybe rather a depression?) and constantly muses about his last work of art, a painting with a horizontal and a vertical stripe, which he associates with intense religious experiences. The story is interrupted by long, banal conversations and trivial acts, and the description of a few touching scenes between a boy and girl, which may just be a flashback of the narrator to his first acquaintance with his recently deceased wife.
Fosse deliberately leaves a lot unclear, but the recurring musings of the main character about his paintings, stressing the light in dark scenes, to me seemed very reminiscent of Karl Ove Knausgard: they share the same obsession with the banal and the sublime in reality, with the light and dark in life. Perhaps this is something typical Scandinavian? ( in the meantime my Goodreads friend Katia kindly informed me Knausgard was - literally - a pupil of Fosse) ). At least with Fosse, there's also a very clear connection with religion: at times the musings of the protagonist in this novel had a clear aesthetic-mystical slant, hence my reference to Master Eckhart. This makes for an enticing read, and at times even resulting in great scenes, but on whole also rather opaque and thus frustrating.
I can understand that some people are absolutely crazy about this, but for me this was just a bit too cerebral, just a bit too much of a jumble of words leading nowhere, to really appeal. I'm not sure at this point whether I'll venture into the next installments of this trilogy. But I’m open to comments to make me change my mind!
November 6, 2023
The Nobel committee is playing it too safe.
July 2, 2020
Loved this, mostly. Felt like the perfectly digested, unique synthesis of Kafka, Bernhard, Beckett, and Knausgaard, somehow without seeming derivative. Yes, and some Joycean Molly Bloom soliloquy vibe in there too. Loved so much of this, really, particularly the blurred, misty, half-asleep, slant reality, the characters all named Alse or Ales or Alesik, blended like the two lines on the painting he's working on, two lines of thick oil paint intersecting, purple and brown, the horizontal line at an angle like a St. Andrews Cross, which one character never fails to mention and the narrator never fails to silently chide for mentioning. At first there was some disorientation -- not until I was done did I read the back-cover synopsis that refers to the two Alses as doppelgängers. That's not quite the case. More so they're similar yet different, possibly an alternate life in which one Alse hadn't quit drinking, or maybe just another painter named Alse with similar hair. Really took off and realized I was in it to win it when Alse overlooks a young couple on swings and making snow angels and maybe covertly copulating in the snow under their coats, they may be strangers with the same names, actually Alse and Ales when young like a vision into the past, or just a memory he's reanimating, a fantasy of a lost life. Not so much moving or engaging but intriguing, quietly beguiling, easy clear transparent flowing prose (with unconventional punctuation), about anxiety, alcoholism, Catholicism, prayer, artistic processes, the nature of God, the nature of light and shadow. Loved the weird interaction with Guro at the Food and Drink, all of which reminded me of K.'s weird shadowy sexually charged interactions with helper women in The Trial and The Castle. Liked a stream-of-consciousness section as the exhausted narrator tries to sleep in a hotel room and thought dissolves. Rounded all-important astral-rating down from the full five pentacles for a 43-page retrospective digression that comes out of nowhere, with no more than a phrase or two transition in the climax slot and really went on too long and seemed too repetitive, at best a bit like the early pages of The Waves, setting up I suppose the sudden, surprising, sensationalist conclusion of book II that, although really well done and riveting and wrenching and made me reconsider the previous ~320 pages as it set up future installments of the scheduled five books, seemed out of character with everything preceding. Will definitely read the remaining volumes and more, possibly all, of Fosse, even if the last third of this volume (or last half of the second book, really) maybe too radically departed from the excellent precedent of the first volume. Single lingering impression: the retrospective shockwave of the revelation at the end reduces the established pervasive Nordic semi-surreal mythic sense and modulates it but also degrades it from abstracted dreamy canonical sublime into something unexpected, sensational, earthy, and very much real? Anyway, looking forward to reading more by the author and the remaining parts of this project.
January 1, 2022
Did a review of this book here: https://youtu.be/-lbJlwg-prg
September 3, 2023
…we never had children, just the two of us, so why am I thinking I am driving home to my wife and child? it’s probably that I fall into a kind of stupor when I’m driving and when that happens thoughts can come to you, but I know perfectly well I’m not crazy, that I’m going home to my old house , home to Dylgja, to my house … the house where Ive lived alone all these years…
There’s a theme in Jon Fosse’s The Other Name that I’m cheekily going to call confusion. It’s not confusion because I’m confused, though I am often disoriented, or taken to a narrative place that confounds me and what I knew before. It’s confusion in the sense that the day-to-day stream of thoughts (sometimes a kind of banter) in our own head is rarely ordered as though continuously narrated by a coherent person. I could also call this the self, because that feels more right for the way Fosse uses narrative; he is playing with an idea that we are not necessarily the same self we were say years earlier. We can be confused between past selves and current ones, even the actions of current self. Perhaps our mind is a heterogeneous mess? Perhaps Pessoa was right to keep splitting his narrative creators among heteronyms.
I’m not sure whether the person I am today is like the person I was yesterday. I am likely a being unique to others, but I wonder how true this is when I make mental and emotional connections whether with people or books. Confusion.
Fosse’ narrative structure keeps splitting this self – ie his narrator – into bits. Which is a welcome way to understand some of our own internal mechanics. We often interrogate ourselves as though we are split – I’ve often said “why did you do that you idiot!” I rarely speak in my own head in first person narrative, unless I’m arranging some dinner party stories beforehand. Sometimes I have full blown high and mighty ideas in a grandiose manner using high minded third person narratives about myself. This could be a narcissist of course. And you might think narcissism is a first person ‘I’ everywhere, but really, when you’re thinking in third person, it could be proof you have tickets on yourself. Or, let’s be fair to ourselves, in third person mode we might be trying to figure something out by distancing ourselves from the voice in our head.
Asle, the painter fellow narrating the story, is sober. He doesn’t seem to be a narcissist, but he often tells this story in a shifting manner between third and first person. Perhaps he has to, to figure something out; he is always questioning. He has a friend named Asle who lives 2 hours away in the city of Bergen who is a fall down drunk. Asle the narrating painter was also a fall down drunk until around seven years ago. So Asle the painter knows about how much care and attention drunks need to get back on track. He had painting and then religion that helped him get back on track. But Asle who falls down drunk in Bergen also painted at some stage of his life. Now this sounds confusing, but then maybe there are two characters and maybe there aren’t. Either way, when Asle goes to Bergen for the second time in a day, he does so because he has an inclination that not checking in on Asle who drinks will probably lead to a disaster. Which it sort of does. He should’ve checked on drunken Asle earlier, but he didn’t. So he had to go back. When he does, Asle finds Asle in a lane, near the boozer outside Guro’s house. Guro met both Asles during the day but distinguishes between the two of them. Guro reminds sober artist Asle that he spent plenty of nights at her place years ago. He cannot remember. She says he can spend more if he likes.
You’ve been here before after all she says.
Lots of times, she says
And she laughs
But I guess you don’t remember, she says.
You didn’t even remember me last night, she says.
I would’ve thought you would, she says.
And she says she thought about me a lot, because I did used to come looking for her, yes, she says come looking for her…
See, confusion is a centrepiece here.
Sober Asle may not be the same as drunken Asle, but he spends much time in the past. On his first drive to Bergen, he stops to watch/stare at a couple playing on a swing. It is both like a memory and like something he is watching at the same time. He is self-conscious looking on as though perhaps what he is seeing is separate to him. He goes deeper and deeper into it like his memory. We know how vivid memories are, we can touch them sometimes, or feel them as powerfully – perhaps more powerfully later because we layer meaning over them as time passes. What we remember of them becomes heightened by more recollections, more emotions, more meaning that seems to outstrip the original. The tension in the encounter with the girl and boy at the swing made me fall right into it. I felt the to and fro of the swing, the power of the interaction. The constant tug of some powerful force of experience.
The prose loops around in endless repetitions of itself, half repetitions, emulating perhaps the mind questioning itself, recalling, never letting go of moments it wants to consider, then reconsider. I’m very fond of such writing. It seems difficult, tiresome, irritating when I’m tired, but it has that rhythm that once learned, like playing an instrument, you know like a kind of muscle memory. You tune into it, you know its processes.
I’ve only read the first two volumes, there are seven, I have five days to go. The vagaries of publications and international postage mean I cannot find III-V anywhere and it’s not available here now. I’ll have to wait.
October 15, 2023
128th book of 2023.
4.5. So nearly a five but I'm holding back for whatever reason. I was underwhelmed by Fosse's slim novella, A Shining (though I found it an interesting piece of work nonetheless), but this is what I was hoping when I got into it. I've had a Septology book on my case since Fitzcarraldo published it so his winning of the Nobel Prize is a good excuse to finally read the whole thing. As many others have said: no full stops, stream-of-consciousness, Fosse has been called the Beckett of the 21stC by Le Monde, and he's certainly got a streak of Bernhard in him. That's always a win for me, too.
Asle is a man who lives with his grief and loneliness, his faith, which is incredibly strong but paradoxical (like all self-aware faith, I think), and his past alcoholism. I've seen someone close to me be destroyed by alcohol, to the point it killed them incredibly quickly, and I read that Fosse himself battled with these issues, so the parts about cutting it out, and the shaking and troubles of other Asle, were poignant to me. There was more 'plot' than I was imagining and without full stops, I just glided through the book. 351 pages in two days, with ease. On multiple occasions I panicked on the train, thinking I'd missed my stop. When driving I kept looking at the passenger seat, where the book lay, and wished I could pick it up and read it. It's hypnotising and addictive, repetitive and original. If the rest of the Septology continues in this way then the Nobel is worthy. After my tantrum about the Booker Prize, I think the only thing I take stock in now is the Nobel and MB International (the latter less than I used to). As for contemporary literature, Fitzcarraldo continue to carve the path for me, and the rest falls by the wayside. I know what they publish, even if it isn't good or enjoyable, is worthwhile. I have no doubt I'll be writing more personally about this novel on mooseteabooks, mine and Alan's Instagram page.
4.5. So nearly a five but I'm holding back for whatever reason. I was underwhelmed by Fosse's slim novella, A Shining (though I found it an interesting piece of work nonetheless), but this is what I was hoping when I got into it. I've had a Septology book on my case since Fitzcarraldo published it so his winning of the Nobel Prize is a good excuse to finally read the whole thing. As many others have said: no full stops, stream-of-consciousness, Fosse has been called the Beckett of the 21stC by Le Monde, and he's certainly got a streak of Bernhard in him. That's always a win for me, too.
Asle is a man who lives with his grief and loneliness, his faith, which is incredibly strong but paradoxical (like all self-aware faith, I think), and his past alcoholism. I've seen someone close to me be destroyed by alcohol, to the point it killed them incredibly quickly, and I read that Fosse himself battled with these issues, so the parts about cutting it out, and the shaking and troubles of other Asle, were poignant to me. There was more 'plot' than I was imagining and without full stops, I just glided through the book. 351 pages in two days, with ease. On multiple occasions I panicked on the train, thinking I'd missed my stop. When driving I kept looking at the passenger seat, where the book lay, and wished I could pick it up and read it. It's hypnotising and addictive, repetitive and original. If the rest of the Septology continues in this way then the Nobel is worthy. After my tantrum about the Booker Prize, I think the only thing I take stock in now is the Nobel and MB International (the latter less than I used to). As for contemporary literature, Fitzcarraldo continue to carve the path for me, and the rest falls by the wayside. I know what they publish, even if it isn't good or enjoyable, is worthwhile. I have no doubt I'll be writing more personally about this novel on mooseteabooks, mine and Alan's Instagram page.
January 20, 2024
"Der andere Name" enthält die ersten beiden Teile der Heptalogie des Literaturnobelpreisträgers Jon Fosse. Es ist der mitreißende Gedankenstrom eines Künstlers an zwei aufeinander folgenden Tagen, Montag und Dienstag. Der Maler Asle wohnt in dem kleinen Dorf Dylgja. Der Fischer Åsleik ist sein Freund. Seine Frau Ales ist verstorben. Sein Galerist heißt Beyer. Dessen Galerie ist in Bjørgvin. Der Weg dorthin ist die einzige Strecke, die Asle mit dem Auto fährt. Und dabei kommt er ins Denken.
"nie herrscht Klarheit in meinen Gedanken, sie hängen nicht zusammen"
Im Text gibt es keine Trennungen der Sätze durch Punkte. Es ist ein rauschhaftes Denken, das sich beim Lesen auf mich übertragen hat. An einer Stelle ist die Rede von Bildern, die einem Gebet ähneln, das unsichtbar in den Bildern ist. So kann man auch diesen Roman lesen.
Der Text lässt unterschiedliche Interpretationen zu. Geht es um zwei Maler - einer davon Alkoholiker, der andere nicht - oder sind es unterschiedliche Blicke auf eine Person oder unterschiedliche Lebensphasen einer Person? Eine eindeutige inhaltliche Deutung war für mich beim Lesen nicht wichtig.
Dieser betörende Sound, den Jon Fosse durch seine Sprache erzeugt, hat mich sofort in seinen Bann gezogen. Die Sprache ist der Star dieses großen Kunstwerks. Für solche Romane wurde die Literatur erfunden. "ja früher oder später fängt die Dunkelheit dann an zu leuchten"
Der Folgeband mit den Teilen drei bis fünf der Heptalogie heißt "Ich ist ein anderer". Ich werde ihn lesen, jau.
"nie herrscht Klarheit in meinen Gedanken, sie hängen nicht zusammen"
Im Text gibt es keine Trennungen der Sätze durch Punkte. Es ist ein rauschhaftes Denken, das sich beim Lesen auf mich übertragen hat. An einer Stelle ist die Rede von Bildern, die einem Gebet ähneln, das unsichtbar in den Bildern ist. So kann man auch diesen Roman lesen.
Der Text lässt unterschiedliche Interpretationen zu. Geht es um zwei Maler - einer davon Alkoholiker, der andere nicht - oder sind es unterschiedliche Blicke auf eine Person oder unterschiedliche Lebensphasen einer Person? Eine eindeutige inhaltliche Deutung war für mich beim Lesen nicht wichtig.
Dieser betörende Sound, den Jon Fosse durch seine Sprache erzeugt, hat mich sofort in seinen Bann gezogen. Die Sprache ist der Star dieses großen Kunstwerks. Für solche Romane wurde die Literatur erfunden. "ja früher oder später fängt die Dunkelheit dann an zu leuchten"
Der Folgeband mit den Teilen drei bis fünf der Heptalogie heißt "Ich ist ein anderer". Ich werde ihn lesen, jau.
March 24, 2024
3,5
Jon Fosse consegue ser brilhante. Fiquei deslumbrada até à página 70 ou algo que o valha, mas a partir daí a escrita do norueguês arrastou-se demasiado. Confesso que não entendi a existência de dois Asle. Se alguém entendeu, agradeço que me elucide São os dois Asle que ele poderia ter sido ou os que foi efetivamente?
Adorei a reflexão sobre Deus e a metáfora da luz que só pode ser vista na mais absoluta escuridão. Bate certo com o cristianismo, a que o personagem se converteu. Há conceitos assombrosos. Alguns, porém, ficam pela rama, é como se não chegassem a despontar, a florir, como uma flor de que se vislumbra a quase existência e que se esgota antes de se expor. Como uma quase palavra que se perde debaixo da língua. Intencional?
Preferi, de Fosse, a Trilogia e o Manhã e Noite.
Jon Fosse consegue ser brilhante. Fiquei deslumbrada até à página 70 ou algo que o valha, mas a partir daí a escrita do norueguês arrastou-se demasiado. Confesso que não entendi a existência de dois Asle. Se alguém entendeu, agradeço que me elucide São os dois Asle que ele poderia ter sido ou os que foi efetivamente?
Adorei a reflexão sobre Deus e a metáfora da luz que só pode ser vista na mais absoluta escuridão. Bate certo com o cristianismo, a que o personagem se converteu. Há conceitos assombrosos. Alguns, porém, ficam pela rama, é como se não chegassem a despontar, a florir, como uma flor de que se vislumbra a quase existência e que se esgota antes de se expor. Como uma quase palavra que se perde debaixo da língua. Intencional?
Preferi, de Fosse, a Trilogia e o Manhã e Noite.
November 14, 2023
Das Bewusstsein im Moment kurz vor seinem Verlöschen, Erzählung ohne Erzählung, oder was bleibt, wenn nichts mehr bleibt. Eine literarische Katharsis.
Ausführlicher, vielleicht begründeter auf kommunikativeslesen.com
Eine der Begründungen für die Verleihung des Literaturnobelpreises im Jahr 2023 an Jon Fosse lautet, dass Fosse dieser dem Unsagbaren eine Stimme verleihe. In seinen eigenen Aussagen führt er dies näher aus, nämlich als das Schreiben eines Erzählers, der sich an der Grenze zwischen Leben und Tod befindet:
[…] bald sind wir dort, denke ich und ich gehe weiter und ich schaue auf den Hund, der sich seinen Weg durch den Schnee bahnt, und er scheint etwas müde geworden zu sein, er keucht schlimm, denn es ist ein kleiner Hund und er hat schon ein paar Jahre auf dem Buckel, also bleibe ich stehen und hebe den Hund auf und dann gehe ich weiter, den Hund auf dem Arm, und ich denke nichts und es schneit immer weiter und kein Mensch ist zu sehen und es schneit immer weiter […]
Fosses Roman „Der andere Name“ gehört zu jenen Büchern, die fast gar keinen äußerlichen Plot besitzen. Er schrumpft auf das Minimale zusammen. Ein Maler bricht auf, um in der nächst größeren Stadt, Bergen, einkaufen zu gehen, kehrt zurück und begreift, dass er vergessen hat, nach einem Freund, ebenfalls Maler, zu sehen. Er fährt zurück, findet ihn besoffen im Schnee liegen und bringt ihn in eine Notfallstation. Er übernachtet in einem Hotel, findet aber keinen Schlaf, fährt zurück, spricht mit seinem Nachbarn und schläft endlich ein. Zwei Tage in einem punktlosen Monolog voller Erinnerung, Überlagerungen, voller Dialoge, innerer Gespräche, Ängste, Hoffnungen und Bilder voller Trauer:
[…] man soll auf keinen Fall mit Schwarz malen, denn das sei keine Farbe, sagten sie, aber Schwarz, ja wie sollte ich meine Bilder malen, ohne Schwarz zu benutzen? Nein das begreife ich nicht, denn in der Dunkelheit wohnt Gott, ja Gott ist Dunkelheit, Gottes Dunkelheit, ja dieses Nichts, ja das leuchtet, ja aus Gottes Dunkelheit kommt das Licht, das unsichtbare Licht, denke ich […]
Was Fosses Erzählweise in „Der andere Name“ auszeichnet, lässt sich als Parallaxenverschiebung beschreiben. Alle Figuren tauchen verspiegelt und gespiegelt auf. Der Ich-Erzähler Asle hat einen Freund namens Asle. Beide haben eine Schwester namens Alida. Der Ich-Erzähler hat eine Affäre mit einer Frau namens Silje, die sich aber als Guro vorstellt, so heißt aber auch die Schwester Åsleiks, sein Nachbar. In dem Spiegelkabinett stehen nur der Nachbar Åsleiks, als bodenstämmiger Seemann, und der Hund Brage als Fixpunkte. Sie geben dem Ich-Erzähler halt. Alles andere verschwimmt, geht ineinander über, wird unerkennbar identisch, als Grau in Grau:
[…] da sind auch so viele Graufarben, für die es keinen Namen gibt, und Die Schwester sagt ja und er hält ihre Hand fest, man könnte fast Angst bekommen, dass es so viele Graufarben gibt und so viele Tönungen der anderen Farben, man sagt Blau, einfach nur Blau, aber dann gibt es sicher tausend verschiedene Blaufarben, tausend, mindestens tausend, nein es sind zu viele, man kann sie gar nicht zählen, denkt Asle […]
Namen reichen nicht aus. Die Individuen, die einzigartigen Erscheinungen lassen sich nicht zählen und nicht erzählen. Eine tiefe Sprachscheu breitet sich durch den Text aus. Nichts darf benannt werden, denn der bloße Versuch nährt die Hoffnung, etwas wie Schmerz, wie Trauer, etwas wie Verlust könnte beschrieben werden. Adjektivlos, fast detaillos gleitet der Text über einen gähnenden schwarzen Abgrund, den Tod, das Ende aller Dinge. Fosses „Der andere Name“ nimmt einen auf diese Reise mit, ein Höllenritt. Alles ist Angst. Alles ist Schmerz, Verlust, und die Sprache vermag nichts. Weder zu trösten noch zu erklären noch einzubetten. Nur die Wiederholung, die Litanei, das Verdrängen der sichtbaren Welt tröstet, das totale Versinken im kosmischen Schwarz, in welchem alles wieder eins wird.
Verwandt mit Samuel Becketts Der Namenlose, durchdrungen in Assonanz und Motivik mit Knut Hamuns Hunger, schwarz und rauschend wie Elfriede Jelineks Die Kinder der Toten und Hermann Brochs Der Tod des Vergil und gerahmt von einem Mystizismus eines Meister Eckharts und dessen Schriften und Predigten, Vol. 1: Aus dem Mittelhochdeutschen Überfest (Classic Reprint) umkreist Jon Fosse eine urverdrängte Simplizität: das Bewusstsein und die Antizipation seines Verlöschens und die ungerechtfertige Hoffnung auf ein wie auch immer geartetes Danach.
Ausführlicher, vielleicht begründeter auf kommunikativeslesen.com
Eine der Begründungen für die Verleihung des Literaturnobelpreises im Jahr 2023 an Jon Fosse lautet, dass Fosse dieser dem Unsagbaren eine Stimme verleihe. In seinen eigenen Aussagen führt er dies näher aus, nämlich als das Schreiben eines Erzählers, der sich an der Grenze zwischen Leben und Tod befindet:
[…] bald sind wir dort, denke ich und ich gehe weiter und ich schaue auf den Hund, der sich seinen Weg durch den Schnee bahnt, und er scheint etwas müde geworden zu sein, er keucht schlimm, denn es ist ein kleiner Hund und er hat schon ein paar Jahre auf dem Buckel, also bleibe ich stehen und hebe den Hund auf und dann gehe ich weiter, den Hund auf dem Arm, und ich denke nichts und es schneit immer weiter und kein Mensch ist zu sehen und es schneit immer weiter […]
Fosses Roman „Der andere Name“ gehört zu jenen Büchern, die fast gar keinen äußerlichen Plot besitzen. Er schrumpft auf das Minimale zusammen. Ein Maler bricht auf, um in der nächst größeren Stadt, Bergen, einkaufen zu gehen, kehrt zurück und begreift, dass er vergessen hat, nach einem Freund, ebenfalls Maler, zu sehen. Er fährt zurück, findet ihn besoffen im Schnee liegen und bringt ihn in eine Notfallstation. Er übernachtet in einem Hotel, findet aber keinen Schlaf, fährt zurück, spricht mit seinem Nachbarn und schläft endlich ein. Zwei Tage in einem punktlosen Monolog voller Erinnerung, Überlagerungen, voller Dialoge, innerer Gespräche, Ängste, Hoffnungen und Bilder voller Trauer:
[…] man soll auf keinen Fall mit Schwarz malen, denn das sei keine Farbe, sagten sie, aber Schwarz, ja wie sollte ich meine Bilder malen, ohne Schwarz zu benutzen? Nein das begreife ich nicht, denn in der Dunkelheit wohnt Gott, ja Gott ist Dunkelheit, Gottes Dunkelheit, ja dieses Nichts, ja das leuchtet, ja aus Gottes Dunkelheit kommt das Licht, das unsichtbare Licht, denke ich […]
Was Fosses Erzählweise in „Der andere Name“ auszeichnet, lässt sich als Parallaxenverschiebung beschreiben. Alle Figuren tauchen verspiegelt und gespiegelt auf. Der Ich-Erzähler Asle hat einen Freund namens Asle. Beide haben eine Schwester namens Alida. Der Ich-Erzähler hat eine Affäre mit einer Frau namens Silje, die sich aber als Guro vorstellt, so heißt aber auch die Schwester Åsleiks, sein Nachbar. In dem Spiegelkabinett stehen nur der Nachbar Åsleiks, als bodenstämmiger Seemann, und der Hund Brage als Fixpunkte. Sie geben dem Ich-Erzähler halt. Alles andere verschwimmt, geht ineinander über, wird unerkennbar identisch, als Grau in Grau:
[…] da sind auch so viele Graufarben, für die es keinen Namen gibt, und Die Schwester sagt ja und er hält ihre Hand fest, man könnte fast Angst bekommen, dass es so viele Graufarben gibt und so viele Tönungen der anderen Farben, man sagt Blau, einfach nur Blau, aber dann gibt es sicher tausend verschiedene Blaufarben, tausend, mindestens tausend, nein es sind zu viele, man kann sie gar nicht zählen, denkt Asle […]
Namen reichen nicht aus. Die Individuen, die einzigartigen Erscheinungen lassen sich nicht zählen und nicht erzählen. Eine tiefe Sprachscheu breitet sich durch den Text aus. Nichts darf benannt werden, denn der bloße Versuch nährt die Hoffnung, etwas wie Schmerz, wie Trauer, etwas wie Verlust könnte beschrieben werden. Adjektivlos, fast detaillos gleitet der Text über einen gähnenden schwarzen Abgrund, den Tod, das Ende aller Dinge. Fosses „Der andere Name“ nimmt einen auf diese Reise mit, ein Höllenritt. Alles ist Angst. Alles ist Schmerz, Verlust, und die Sprache vermag nichts. Weder zu trösten noch zu erklären noch einzubetten. Nur die Wiederholung, die Litanei, das Verdrängen der sichtbaren Welt tröstet, das totale Versinken im kosmischen Schwarz, in welchem alles wieder eins wird.
Verwandt mit Samuel Becketts Der Namenlose, durchdrungen in Assonanz und Motivik mit Knut Hamuns Hunger, schwarz und rauschend wie Elfriede Jelineks Die Kinder der Toten und Hermann Brochs Der Tod des Vergil und gerahmt von einem Mystizismus eines Meister Eckharts und dessen Schriften und Predigten, Vol. 1: Aus dem Mittelhochdeutschen Überfest (Classic Reprint) umkreist Jon Fosse eine urverdrängte Simplizität: das Bewusstsein und die Antizipation seines Verlöschens und die ungerechtfertige Hoffnung auf ein wie auch immer geartetes Danach.
September 7, 2021
Now re-re-read in preparation for the final volume (books VI-VII of Septology) because I decided to read all 7 parts back-to-back mainly as a treat to myself because I enjoy the books so much.
This time through, I took more notice of the talk about creation of art (there's something new to think about every time) and I felt the ambiguity about the characters came through to me more (it is perhaps not as clear cut as my original review suggests it was and it is better when it is ambiguous).
-------------------
Now re-read in preparation for reading "I Is Another (Septology III-V)". I just want to add a quote from the book:
"...and, I think, it’s the same with the writing I like to read, what matters isn’t what it literally says about this or that, it’s something else, something that silently speaks in and behind the lines and the sentences..."
Oh, and I also want to say that the passage which describes a couple in a playground on the swing and then on the seesaw is just brilliant.
ORIGINAL REVIEW
The Financial Times reported on an interview with Jon Fosse in May 2018. This article include the quote
His writing at times has an atmosphere of fever dreams, filled with a vague sense of menace but leaving it unclear as to what, if anything, is really going on.
This serves as a pretty good summary of my first experience reading Fosse. Those who have read other reviews I have written will know that this is a good thing.
In the same article, Fosse himself says:
”You don’t read my books for the plots, but it’s not because I want to be a difficult writer. I’ve never tried to write in a complicated way. I always try to write as simply and, I hope, as deeply as I possibly can.”
This lack of plot is another thing that attracts me to Fosse’s writing.
Then, at musicandliterature.org, there is an interview with Fosse (http://www.musicandliterature.org/fea...) in which we read
Fosse felt the need to let the writing flow at its own pace, and he imagined writing what he describes as “slow prose,” that is to say, fiction that takes its time, is a bit meandering and hypnotic, and doesn’t rush from one thing to the next—prose that slowly turns or bends forward, with “transport stages” and “descriptions” and “reflections.”
These quotes, I hope, give a flavour of what it is like to read a Fosse novel. Perhaps I should be more specific and say this Fosse novel as I have not read any others.
Here, we read of Asle. Well, actually, of two Asles. Fosse himself has described this book as a doppelgänger novel and this story has a kind of “sliding doors” feel to it where a life has split at some point and taken two different paths. Not only that, but there are ghosts and echoes from other pasts, other lives. And all these swirl around one another often switching from one to another in mid-sentence. The writing is hypnotic and there were times when I had to skip back a few pages to work out how I got to be reading about, for example, a couple in a playground in the snow when I didn’t remember leaving the story about one Asle feeling guilty about driving past the other Asle’s house when he he knew that Asle 2 probably needed his (Asle 1’s) help.
It’s the kind of book that you pick up for a short 20 minute read and then wake from a trance a couple of hours later to discover you have lost a chunk of your day.
No complaints, though.
I am not going to write about what’s in the book. I just wanted to record what it felt like to read it. I am looking forward to the next instalments.
This time through, I took more notice of the talk about creation of art (there's something new to think about every time) and I felt the ambiguity about the characters came through to me more (it is perhaps not as clear cut as my original review suggests it was and it is better when it is ambiguous).
-------------------
Now re-read in preparation for reading "I Is Another (Septology III-V)". I just want to add a quote from the book:
"...and, I think, it’s the same with the writing I like to read, what matters isn’t what it literally says about this or that, it’s something else, something that silently speaks in and behind the lines and the sentences..."
Oh, and I also want to say that the passage which describes a couple in a playground on the swing and then on the seesaw is just brilliant.
ORIGINAL REVIEW
The Financial Times reported on an interview with Jon Fosse in May 2018. This article include the quote
His writing at times has an atmosphere of fever dreams, filled with a vague sense of menace but leaving it unclear as to what, if anything, is really going on.
This serves as a pretty good summary of my first experience reading Fosse. Those who have read other reviews I have written will know that this is a good thing.
In the same article, Fosse himself says:
”You don’t read my books for the plots, but it’s not because I want to be a difficult writer. I’ve never tried to write in a complicated way. I always try to write as simply and, I hope, as deeply as I possibly can.”
This lack of plot is another thing that attracts me to Fosse’s writing.
Then, at musicandliterature.org, there is an interview with Fosse (http://www.musicandliterature.org/fea...) in which we read
Fosse felt the need to let the writing flow at its own pace, and he imagined writing what he describes as “slow prose,” that is to say, fiction that takes its time, is a bit meandering and hypnotic, and doesn’t rush from one thing to the next—prose that slowly turns or bends forward, with “transport stages” and “descriptions” and “reflections.”
These quotes, I hope, give a flavour of what it is like to read a Fosse novel. Perhaps I should be more specific and say this Fosse novel as I have not read any others.
Here, we read of Asle. Well, actually, of two Asles. Fosse himself has described this book as a doppelgänger novel and this story has a kind of “sliding doors” feel to it where a life has split at some point and taken two different paths. Not only that, but there are ghosts and echoes from other pasts, other lives. And all these swirl around one another often switching from one to another in mid-sentence. The writing is hypnotic and there were times when I had to skip back a few pages to work out how I got to be reading about, for example, a couple in a playground in the snow when I didn’t remember leaving the story about one Asle feeling guilty about driving past the other Asle’s house when he he knew that Asle 2 probably needed his (Asle 1’s) help.
It’s the kind of book that you pick up for a short 20 minute read and then wake from a trance a couple of hours later to discover you have lost a chunk of your day.
No complaints, though.
I am not going to write about what’s in the book. I just wanted to record what it felt like to read it. I am looking forward to the next instalments.
April 11, 2022
Reading this book was like a mystical experience.
There is something very pure and otherworldly about Fosse’s prose — written in one long sentence, with minimal punctuation — as if transcribed from a place uncorrupted by the analytical forces of the brain. Think of it as a Rothko painting, or a mystical poem.
This is not the type of writing I usually enjoy: the text is not particularly lyrical. In fact, it is stripped down and sparse. And yet, there is a rhythm to it, a musicality that, if you give into it, puts you into a kind of buzz. You’re not meant to think too hard about it. You’re just meant to experience it. Like literary ASMR:
“… it gives me a certain peace, I fall into a kind of stupor, yes, to be honest it gives me a kind of happiness…”
The novel is populated with characters that share the same name and circumstances: Asle and Asle are both professional painters, albeit on different trajectories (one finding solace in Catholicism, the other in alcohol), while Guro and Guro are both women recovering from a failed relationship with a violinist. There are also adjacent characters with very similar sounding names — Ales (Asle’s deceased wife), Åsleik (Asle’s neighbour), Alise (Ales’ aunt), Alida (Asle’s sister), and so on. Much of the plot takes place in a surreal twilight zone, with an accumulation of strange coincidences and bizarre symmetries.
In my interpretation of the novel, the text employs the doppelgänger motif (Asle + Asle) to explore the idea of interconnectedness: the idea that we are different expressions of the same universal force, albeit with modulations. And it is this universal force that artists tap into when creating their art (whether that be painting or writing or something else).
For me, it was this “invisible something”, this uncorrupted sincerity, that made the reading experience so unique:
“…it’s the same with the writing I like to read, what matters isn’t what it literally says about this or that, it’s something else, something that silently speaks in and behind the lines and sentences…”
Reading this book requires a complete mental shift. But once you’re in it, you might not want to come out of it again, so easily.
Mood: Like a meditation, or a dream
Also on Instagram.
There is something very pure and otherworldly about Fosse’s prose — written in one long sentence, with minimal punctuation — as if transcribed from a place uncorrupted by the analytical forces of the brain. Think of it as a Rothko painting, or a mystical poem.
This is not the type of writing I usually enjoy: the text is not particularly lyrical. In fact, it is stripped down and sparse. And yet, there is a rhythm to it, a musicality that, if you give into it, puts you into a kind of buzz. You’re not meant to think too hard about it. You’re just meant to experience it. Like literary ASMR:
“… it gives me a certain peace, I fall into a kind of stupor, yes, to be honest it gives me a kind of happiness…”
The novel is populated with characters that share the same name and circumstances: Asle and Asle are both professional painters, albeit on different trajectories (one finding solace in Catholicism, the other in alcohol), while Guro and Guro are both women recovering from a failed relationship with a violinist. There are also adjacent characters with very similar sounding names — Ales (Asle’s deceased wife), Åsleik (Asle’s neighbour), Alise (Ales’ aunt), Alida (Asle’s sister), and so on. Much of the plot takes place in a surreal twilight zone, with an accumulation of strange coincidences and bizarre symmetries.
In my interpretation of the novel, the text employs the doppelgänger motif (Asle + Asle) to explore the idea of interconnectedness: the idea that we are different expressions of the same universal force, albeit with modulations. And it is this universal force that artists tap into when creating their art (whether that be painting or writing or something else).
For me, it was this “invisible something”, this uncorrupted sincerity, that made the reading experience so unique:
“…it’s the same with the writing I like to read, what matters isn’t what it literally says about this or that, it’s something else, something that silently speaks in and behind the lines and sentences…”
Reading this book requires a complete mental shift. But once you’re in it, you might not want to come out of it again, so easily.
Mood: Like a meditation, or a dream
Also on Instagram.
March 6, 2023
The best not-bad book I’ve read this year?
It’s a lonely road to embark upon something that all your reading friends have pronounced wonderful and find it just okay. Just okay means you can’t even gather much steam to your disagreement. In fact, you can sort of see what all the fuss is about. The writer clearly has great talent and has put great thought into all of this. Occasionally, when he gets it together, there’s a transcendent scene that really is on another level to most things you read.
There’s a scene like that near the beginning of The Other Name. An aging painter is watching a young man and woman swing in a deserted playground. They may be real people, they may be doppelgängers, they may be memories.
In this scene, the strange, repetitive language of the book, the very visual and yet very minimalist aesthetic, and the pathos of something lost, all come together. The woman rises higher and higher on the swings, and the reader can’t look away. There’s a similar scene near the end of the book, when a boy and his sister go wandering to all the places they are forbidden to go and the tension is unbearable.
Unfortunately these are the only two scenes I found memorable. The rest of the book is very much in the style of an interior monologue and I found the repetitive language very repetitive indeed. There are some beautiful observations and some profound thoughts. There are some interesting characterizations.
And yet I am unmoved. This novel reminds me of two others that are widely loved that I have been unmoved by: Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair. I suspect the same issue affects me with all three. They are concerned with religion, the loss (or here the recovery) of faith in a possibly Godless world. I understand this is something people are interested in, but I am so entirely not interested in it that the reading experience becomes almost satirical.
I’m afraid I couldn’t gather much passion for the meaning-of-art thread of this book either. And if I never read the words The Country Inn or St Andrew’s Cross again it won’t be too soon.
I suspected I wouldn’t gel with this based on the back cover and reader, I knew myself. That at least is some comfort!
It’s a lonely road to embark upon something that all your reading friends have pronounced wonderful and find it just okay. Just okay means you can’t even gather much steam to your disagreement. In fact, you can sort of see what all the fuss is about. The writer clearly has great talent and has put great thought into all of this. Occasionally, when he gets it together, there’s a transcendent scene that really is on another level to most things you read.
There’s a scene like that near the beginning of The Other Name. An aging painter is watching a young man and woman swing in a deserted playground. They may be real people, they may be doppelgängers, they may be memories.
In this scene, the strange, repetitive language of the book, the very visual and yet very minimalist aesthetic, and the pathos of something lost, all come together. The woman rises higher and higher on the swings, and the reader can’t look away. There’s a similar scene near the end of the book, when a boy and his sister go wandering to all the places they are forbidden to go and the tension is unbearable.
Unfortunately these are the only two scenes I found memorable. The rest of the book is very much in the style of an interior monologue and I found the repetitive language very repetitive indeed. There are some beautiful observations and some profound thoughts. There are some interesting characterizations.
And yet I am unmoved. This novel reminds me of two others that are widely loved that I have been unmoved by: Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair. I suspect the same issue affects me with all three. They are concerned with religion, the loss (or here the recovery) of faith in a possibly Godless world. I understand this is something people are interested in, but I am so entirely not interested in it that the reading experience becomes almost satirical.
I’m afraid I couldn’t gather much passion for the meaning-of-art thread of this book either. And if I never read the words The Country Inn or St Andrew’s Cross again it won’t be too soon.
I suspected I wouldn’t gel with this based on the back cover and reader, I knew myself. That at least is some comfort!
Read
February 4, 2023The Difference Between Loose Writing and Inaccurate Writing
I'd like to offer corrections to two ideas that are common in reviews of The Other Name and the Septology as a whole, and then propose a critique of the way the book is written.
Reviewers often call the Septology and its author religious. That's true in a literal sense: both the author and the main character are converts to Catholicism, and we read the Lord's Prayer several times in Latin. (One reviewer said he skips those passages--an amazing lapse of critical responsibility. I won't name the reviewer.) But it doesn't help to describe the book, its author, or its main character simply as religious, not only because religion does not illuminate everything in the book, but also because religious belief is presented as a desperate last bid for sanity in a life nearly ruined by loss and by alcohol: that is, it's part of the narrative.
The second problem in the critical reception has to do with the identity of the principal character, Asle. He shares a name and a profession with another character also named Asle. A number of reviewers have called them "Doppelgaengers." (The Guardian, November 9, 2019; The Irish Times, January 4, 2020.) They certainly are that, since both are single, have grey hair, and are painters, and alcoholism has been, or is, part of their lives. (I'll call the main narrator, who earns his living from painting, the older Asle, and the other, who is on the point of dying from his alcoholism, the younger one.)
Toward the beginning, I imagine most readers wonder if they are the same person, but after the older Asle visits the younger one, rescues him from freezing and takes him to a hospital, it may appear that Fosse is up to something else--yet it's curious no reviewers I've read say exactly what that might be. The New York Times reviewer thinks all possibilities are open: "the namesake-doppelgänger story line is never definitively established as an extended speculative exercise or an astounding coincidence (or taciturn act of autofiction)." (February 22, 2022.) Surely definitive resolutions aren't the stock in trade of 800-page novels, but hopefully interesting accommodations are. There is another possibility, which needs to be taken seriously: the sober Asle is actually misremembering an episode earlier in his own life, when he was rescued (by someone else, now erased from his memory) and taken to the hospital. There are reasons to consider this, which have to do with some disjointed descriptions later in The Other Name.
For example there's a long episode about the older Asle and his sister when they were children. During this there are several pages in which the two children are disturbed by a loud noise. A little later a third child dies, and the noise is forgotten. Later in the novel, the older Asle is alone in his house, in a state of exhaustion, possibly asleep, and a disturbing noise intrudes on his thoughts. It turns out to be a friend's snowplow. That is intended, I think, to let us know that the earlier episode of the children was also dreamt, or hallucinated, by the older Asle.
The problem here is that hints and parallels like this are inconsistently depicted. The book as a whole is loosely written, by which I mean quickly enough, with a sufficiently small number of revisions, so that difficult narrative structures--like the possibility that the entire memory of the children takes place when the older Asle is asleep, rather than driving, as we're told--become unpersuasive. There wouldn't be sense in criticizing a book for being too quickly written, or for being written without revisions: there are too many examples of successful improvisational books for that to make sense. (I am thinking of Aira and Bolano, but also of Tao Lin and Mark Leyner.) But there's a suggestion in this book that is fairly spectacular--that the main character has been permanently damaged by his alcoholism and more or less continuously experiences the hallucination that his younger, alcoholic self lives an hour away and might be rescued--but in order for that to work as a serious possibility, the constructions of dreams, daydreams, and waking truths need to be adjusted so they are consistent enough to permit readers to doubt each of them. As proof of this I offer the fact that no reviewer I've seen takes seriously the possibility that there is only one Asle: the reality and temporality we're given is too consistent, and the character's dreams, daydreams, and hallucinations are too safely sequestered in the times he's exhausted or actually sleeping.
Fosse is a relentless repeater of everyday actions and trivial conversation, exactly like his one-time student Knausgaard. I marked many passages as perfect anticipations of Knausgaard's affectless inventorying of everyday life. (I won't quote any here: they're long and by their nature devoid of insight.) It may be one of Knausgaard's biggest achievements to have realized that the mode of relentless reporting is not easily mixed with dramas of life crises, drownings, molestation, and other events that happen in Fosse's book. And many novelists, I think, will see places where the dreams and hallucinations could have been handled more carefully, so that readers would keep wondering: Could it be? Could this person be that deeply deranged, so that he lives his waking life with a specter of his earlier self?
I'd like to offer corrections to two ideas that are common in reviews of The Other Name and the Septology as a whole, and then propose a critique of the way the book is written.
Reviewers often call the Septology and its author religious. That's true in a literal sense: both the author and the main character are converts to Catholicism, and we read the Lord's Prayer several times in Latin. (One reviewer said he skips those passages--an amazing lapse of critical responsibility. I won't name the reviewer.) But it doesn't help to describe the book, its author, or its main character simply as religious, not only because religion does not illuminate everything in the book, but also because religious belief is presented as a desperate last bid for sanity in a life nearly ruined by loss and by alcohol: that is, it's part of the narrative.
The second problem in the critical reception has to do with the identity of the principal character, Asle. He shares a name and a profession with another character also named Asle. A number of reviewers have called them "Doppelgaengers." (The Guardian, November 9, 2019; The Irish Times, January 4, 2020.) They certainly are that, since both are single, have grey hair, and are painters, and alcoholism has been, or is, part of their lives. (I'll call the main narrator, who earns his living from painting, the older Asle, and the other, who is on the point of dying from his alcoholism, the younger one.)
Toward the beginning, I imagine most readers wonder if they are the same person, but after the older Asle visits the younger one, rescues him from freezing and takes him to a hospital, it may appear that Fosse is up to something else--yet it's curious no reviewers I've read say exactly what that might be. The New York Times reviewer thinks all possibilities are open: "the namesake-doppelgänger story line is never definitively established as an extended speculative exercise or an astounding coincidence (or taciturn act of autofiction)." (February 22, 2022.) Surely definitive resolutions aren't the stock in trade of 800-page novels, but hopefully interesting accommodations are. There is another possibility, which needs to be taken seriously: the sober Asle is actually misremembering an episode earlier in his own life, when he was rescued (by someone else, now erased from his memory) and taken to the hospital. There are reasons to consider this, which have to do with some disjointed descriptions later in The Other Name.
For example there's a long episode about the older Asle and his sister when they were children. During this there are several pages in which the two children are disturbed by a loud noise. A little later a third child dies, and the noise is forgotten. Later in the novel, the older Asle is alone in his house, in a state of exhaustion, possibly asleep, and a disturbing noise intrudes on his thoughts. It turns out to be a friend's snowplow. That is intended, I think, to let us know that the earlier episode of the children was also dreamt, or hallucinated, by the older Asle.
The problem here is that hints and parallels like this are inconsistently depicted. The book as a whole is loosely written, by which I mean quickly enough, with a sufficiently small number of revisions, so that difficult narrative structures--like the possibility that the entire memory of the children takes place when the older Asle is asleep, rather than driving, as we're told--become unpersuasive. There wouldn't be sense in criticizing a book for being too quickly written, or for being written without revisions: there are too many examples of successful improvisational books for that to make sense. (I am thinking of Aira and Bolano, but also of Tao Lin and Mark Leyner.) But there's a suggestion in this book that is fairly spectacular--that the main character has been permanently damaged by his alcoholism and more or less continuously experiences the hallucination that his younger, alcoholic self lives an hour away and might be rescued--but in order for that to work as a serious possibility, the constructions of dreams, daydreams, and waking truths need to be adjusted so they are consistent enough to permit readers to doubt each of them. As proof of this I offer the fact that no reviewer I've seen takes seriously the possibility that there is only one Asle: the reality and temporality we're given is too consistent, and the character's dreams, daydreams, and hallucinations are too safely sequestered in the times he's exhausted or actually sleeping.
Fosse is a relentless repeater of everyday actions and trivial conversation, exactly like his one-time student Knausgaard. I marked many passages as perfect anticipations of Knausgaard's affectless inventorying of everyday life. (I won't quote any here: they're long and by their nature devoid of insight.) It may be one of Knausgaard's biggest achievements to have realized that the mode of relentless reporting is not easily mixed with dramas of life crises, drownings, molestation, and other events that happen in Fosse's book. And many novelists, I think, will see places where the dreams and hallucinations could have been handled more carefully, so that readers would keep wondering: Could it be? Could this person be that deeply deranged, so that he lives his waking life with a specter of his earlier self?
November 5, 2022
Tipo un Iperborea scritto da Bernhard, con un flusso costante di pensieri che si ripetono allo sfinimento. A parte il dover trovare punti di interruzione adeguati, è sorprendentemente facile da leggere, un po’ più complesso da decodificare. Pochi personaggi, tutti perlopiù solitari. I due principali hanno lo stesso nome, e le loro vite tendono a confondersi.
Dire di che parla non ha molto senso, per il 90% è stile, interpretazione, ricordi e natura ipnotica della narrazione.
Molto consigliato, ma non adatto a tutti i palati.
In attesa dei prossimi capitoli.
[82/100]
Dire di che parla non ha molto senso, per il 90% è stile, interpretazione, ricordi e natura ipnotica della narrazione.
Molto consigliato, ma non adatto a tutti i palati.
In attesa dei prossimi capitoli.
[82/100]
November 22, 2023
wszystko o tej książce już zostało powiedziane.
zostawiła we mnie jakiś dziwny osad. uwielbiam za tę mantryczność, nieprzerwany strumień myśli, które w swoim rytmie uparcie kojarzyły mi się z mamrotaniem pacierza, a do tego jakąś gorączkę, kontrastującą z zimnem i śniegiem w treści, zupełnie niespodziewaną, ale tak to czułam.
cała ta książka jest napisana obrazami i cały ich szereg mi po niej w głownie zostanie.
bardzo dobre, chyba nawet wybitne. zostawia w czytelniku więcej pytań niż odpowiedzi i tak być powinno.
aha, i pani Iwona Zimnicka przetłumaczyła wspa nia le. jak zawsze z resztą, ale to chyba było bardzo trudne, a czyta się, jakby było łatwe.
"(...) a on zawiesza dłoń nad jej włosami, tuż nad nimi, nie dotykając ich, potem się obejmują i tulą do siebie, a on kładzie rękę na jej włosach i zaczyna głaskać te jej ciemne długie włosy, raz po raz, a ona opiera mu głowę na ramieniu i widzę, jak tam stoją, wydają się nieruchomi, jak jeszcze jeden obraz, jak jeszcze jeden z tych obrazów, których nigdy nie zapomnę, tak stoją jak obraz, który namaluję, namaluję ich i wymaluję, tak jak teraz stoją, namaluję ich i wymaluję, myślę, bo teraz boje od nich jakby światło, kiedy tak stoją, tak blisko siebie, jakby byli jednością, stoją tak, jakby dwoje ludzi było jednym człowiekiem, tak blisko siebie stoją, nadchodzi wieczór i ciemność pada na tych dwoje jak śnieg, jak płatki śniegu, a mimo to pada jako jedność, jedna ciemność, niepodzielna na kawałki, choć w płatkach, a im bardziej się ściemnia, tym więcej światła bije od nich, tak, bije od nich coś w rodzaju światła, widzę to, i chociaż tego światła być może nie widać, to jednak można je zobaczyć, bo również od człowieka może płynąć światło, zwłaszcza z oczu i najczęściej w przebłyskach, niewidzialne jaśniejące światło, lecz światło, które płynie z tych dwojga, jest równe, spokojne, cały czas jest tym samym światłem, jakby oni, stojąc razem, byli jednym światłem, tak, takie płynie od nich światło, jedno światło, myślę, a on czuje, że ona teraz jest prawie samym światłem, takie ma wrażenie, tak myśli, stojąc tam, ale jak można myśleć tak głupio? i stoi, i obejmuje kobietę z krwi i kości, i myśli, że ona jest światłem, niemądrze tak myśleć, ale do końca mądry przecież nigdy nie był"
zostawiła we mnie jakiś dziwny osad. uwielbiam za tę mantryczność, nieprzerwany strumień myśli, które w swoim rytmie uparcie kojarzyły mi się z mamrotaniem pacierza, a do tego jakąś gorączkę, kontrastującą z zimnem i śniegiem w treści, zupełnie niespodziewaną, ale tak to czułam.
cała ta książka jest napisana obrazami i cały ich szereg mi po niej w głownie zostanie.
bardzo dobre, chyba nawet wybitne. zostawia w czytelniku więcej pytań niż odpowiedzi i tak być powinno.
aha, i pani Iwona Zimnicka przetłumaczyła wspa nia le. jak zawsze z resztą, ale to chyba było bardzo trudne, a czyta się, jakby było łatwe.
"(...) a on zawiesza dłoń nad jej włosami, tuż nad nimi, nie dotykając ich, potem się obejmują i tulą do siebie, a on kładzie rękę na jej włosach i zaczyna głaskać te jej ciemne długie włosy, raz po raz, a ona opiera mu głowę na ramieniu i widzę, jak tam stoją, wydają się nieruchomi, jak jeszcze jeden obraz, jak jeszcze jeden z tych obrazów, których nigdy nie zapomnę, tak stoją jak obraz, który namaluję, namaluję ich i wymaluję, tak jak teraz stoją, namaluję ich i wymaluję, myślę, bo teraz boje od nich jakby światło, kiedy tak stoją, tak blisko siebie, jakby byli jednością, stoją tak, jakby dwoje ludzi było jednym człowiekiem, tak blisko siebie stoją, nadchodzi wieczór i ciemność pada na tych dwoje jak śnieg, jak płatki śniegu, a mimo to pada jako jedność, jedna ciemność, niepodzielna na kawałki, choć w płatkach, a im bardziej się ściemnia, tym więcej światła bije od nich, tak, bije od nich coś w rodzaju światła, widzę to, i chociaż tego światła być może nie widać, to jednak można je zobaczyć, bo również od człowieka może płynąć światło, zwłaszcza z oczu i najczęściej w przebłyskach, niewidzialne jaśniejące światło, lecz światło, które płynie z tych dwojga, jest równe, spokojne, cały czas jest tym samym światłem, jakby oni, stojąc razem, byli jednym światłem, tak, takie płynie od nich światło, jedno światło, myślę, a on czuje, że ona teraz jest prawie samym światłem, takie ma wrażenie, tak myśli, stojąc tam, ale jak można myśleć tak głupio? i stoi, i obejmuje kobietę z krwi i kości, i myśli, że ona jest światłem, niemądrze tak myśleć, ale do końca mądry przecież nigdy nie był"
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