July 5, 2024
I am going to tackle a book that some call epic and some call a new way of writing, with at least one critic to declare a renewed belief in the divine because of it.
But first, the author.
Jon Fosse (Yon Foss- eh, b. 1959) is a Norwegian author who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2023. His body of work includes a wealth of novels, short stories, poetry and, according to the book cover, more than 40 plays. His work has been (per NY Times Article 2/22/22, and elsewhere) translated into “over fifty languages.”
So he’s more than legit when it comes to writing and being a writer. My sole experience in reading him is with Septology, a series of 3 volumes in 7 novels (hence 7 = septology = a series of 7 works.) The third volume, A New Name, was a finalist for the National Book Award, the International Booker Prize, and National Book Critics Circle Award.
As for praise, it is abundant. Here’s one from NY Times writer Randy Boyagoda taken from the Google Books site: “An extraordinary seven-novel sequence about an old man’s recursive reckoning with the braided realities of God, art, identity, family life and human life itself…the culminating project of an already major career.”
Also from Google Books: “Jon Fosse’s Septology is a transcendent exploration of the human condition, and a radically other reading experience – incantatory, hypnotic and utterly unique.”
Regardless of the praise, Septology is a challenging read. Just south of 300,000 words and just north of 660 pages (the 2022 paperback edition, other editions approach 800 pages,) the encounter in reading is one of a kind. Each of the novels is essentially a single sentence (some would say ‘phrase,’ not even rising to a sentence.) One can still see and understand the breaks and follow the story, but there’s no getting around these books are each written in one sentence, which takes Joycean stream of consciousness to an almost absurd level (“absurd” isn’t necessarily a criticism.) The writing is flooded with repetition, as may happen to any of us when in an internal dialog (and most of the book is internal.) One source indicated that out of (their count) 292,302 words, there were only 6,606 unique words – Source: Hopscotch Translation. So prepare yourself for repetition on a grand scale with full sentences and often repeated lines by one character back and forth to the other. “Yes, that’s how it is then…” “No, I said, you’re right, that’s how it is.”
This series is Scandinavian to the extreme. Written in Norwegian we should also recognize Damion Searls as the translator (a major, long time translator from Scandinavian languages and both French and German.)
I am the 4th generation in the US since my kin arrived from Norway. Yet the 3rd generation, my parents, actually had to learn English in school since they only spoke Norwegian at home. And Septology is so-so-so Norwegian I found myself laughing when there was nothing really funny. To wit here’s an exchange between our protagonist Asle and a neighbor, Åsleik, who begins this excerpt:
“It’s not because I like being in a boat that I’ve spent so much time in one, it’s because I had to, he says
To make a living, he says
and it’s silent for a moment
And that’s probably about my father having been lost at sea, he says,
Yes, I say
and it’s silent for a moment
They never found him, Åsleik says
No, I say
and it’s silent again…”
The number of silences and actual reference to them is stunning. While this may be a poignant moment as Åsleik approaches the fact his father was lost at sea, we find “and it’s silent for a moment” or “and then no one speaks” at any time throughout the novels, even amid mundane conversation. As for repetition, “Yes, I say” and “Yes, he says” or “No, I say,” that’s true or “No, he says,” that’s true, all abound.
This was my childhood as I sat in the upper stairwell out of sight around the corner and listened to my parents and neighbors in discussion during Saturday card night. Silence for no reason but to let the last comment seat itself among them, then the next person speaks. And the use of “no” to affirm and not deny someone or something was SOP: No, you are right… or No, that’s how it is then… They also spoke in Norwegian, sometimes but rarely cursing as in ‘dritt’ which you may translate to an English four letter word in consideration of losing a hand at Whist.
Septology does have structure. Each of the seven novels begins and ends the same: beginning with Asle, the artist, studying a painting of an X he is working on along with the self-talk that pervades the book (different topics in different places,) and ending with the recitation of the rosary in Latin and the Lord’s Prayer as Asle reaffirms a faith that is at the same time in doubt. Yet in between, the internal workings of Asle’s mind and his repetition can be numbing to a reader where the critic’s description of an “incantatory, hypnotic” narrative seems in reality: boring. Suffice it to say that a new writer, submitting this exact work, would have been summarily rejected since no new writer offering these many words with this much repetition could emerge from a publisher’s slush pile, never to arise, like the phoenix, from the myriad hopes and dreams stacked there by all would-be writers.
So are the critics wrong in their praise? Well, IMHO, yes and no. A few days after finishing this interminable book, the reflection, the relationship with God, the life lived and mis-lived, the mystery of Asle’s doppelganger alcoholic, dying, other self (not sure he really exists, and may be nothing more than Asle’s own past remembered,) all coalesce to make a sort of sense out of it all. There is completion. The rosary and the Lord’s Prayer and the self-fulfilled life of an artist, a painter having painted what he was meant to paint and declares:
“…and I think that I don’t have the strength to paint anymore, I’ve done my part, I’ve done all the painting I’m going to do, I’m done with painting, I don’t want to paint anymore, I think, enough is enough, I think…” (p 462)
At this point, we see the trajectory heading to the conclusion of the book where (I assume) we witness his death at the end of prayer in the final novel. A life completed.
Some have called Fosse the Beckett of the 21stCentury. And from my perch post reading, I can see that we were waiting, but didn’t know for what. But I am left with a familiar Scandinavian sensibility at the end where all things may be nothing if not nihilistic, and life, although sad and disappointing, is, or should be, lived in a sort of long-suffering gladness.
My recommendation? Read it. Take it as a challenge. Just be ready for what you’ll encounter.
Write&Read 
Leave a comment