The latest addition to my website is Dag Solstad‘s T. Singer (T. Singer). This is the story of a man who, as usual for Solstad is ordinary but, when subject to more detailed scrutiny is less than ordinary and also a man who on the surface seems normal – job, marriage, social relations – but, … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jon Fosse‘s Melancholia II (Melancholy II), a coda to his Melancholy, about the very real Norwegian painter Lars Hertervig. In this novel, Lars has died earlier in the year and we follow a day in the life of Oline his older sister. Oline is old, a widow and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jon Fosse‘s Melancholia I (Melancholy). This book is about a real person, the Norwegian painter Lars Hertervig, though there is no indication in the English translation that he was real. Hertervig came from a poor background but was discovered and sponsored by a local businessman and was sent … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Lars Mytting‘s Svøm med dem som drukner (The Sixteen Trees of the Somme). This is a very well-told tale by the author of the definitive guide to wood-chopping, Norwegian Wood. Edvard Hirifjell lives with his grandfather on a remote farm in Norway. His parents died when he was … Read more
Well, I am glad someone said it. While I have quite enjoyed the two volumes of Karl Ove Knausgård‘s six-volume My Struggle, I have been somehwat baffled that Knausgård has been hailed as the next big thing, possible Nobel Prize winner, a Norwegian Proust or Proustian, if you prefer, or even a modern Proust. In … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Karl Ove Knausgård‘s Min kamp. Andre book (Book Two: A Man In Love), the second in his six-volume My Struggle autobiographical novel series. As the third one is already out in English, I thought that I should get to this one sooner rather than later. While I admit … Read more