The latest addition to my website is Sigbjørn Hølmebakk‘s Karjolsteinen (The Carriage Stone). Olav Klungland, an author and Communist, while visiting a comrade in hospital, meets Eilif Grøtteland,a former minister, whose wife has cancer. Eilif will later tell Olav his life story and, in particular how he lost his faith. He had come from a … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Ingvar Ambjørnsen‘s Brødre i blodet (UK: Beyond the Great Indoors; US: Elling). The book tells the story of two men- Elling and Kjell Barne – who have been in an institution, Elling, who lived alone with his mother and never went out and was unable to cope after … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Knut Faldbakken‘s Aftenlandet (Twilight Country). This is a low-key dystopian novel set in Sweetwater (the English name is used in the original Norwegian), in an unnamed industrial country. Things are not going well (but not too badly either). Allan Ung, his young wife Lisa and their four-year old … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Nikolaj Frobenius‘s Latours katalog (De Sade’s Valet). The focus is on Latour, the historical valet of the Marquis de Sade, though his story is much invented by Frobenius. His mother was the most repulsive woman in France, his father an escaped convict. He shows a nasty side as … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Tomas Espedal‘s Imot kunsten (Against Art). The narrator – Tomas Espedal – has just lost his wife and is now responsible for being both mother and father to his fifteen-year old daughter, Amalie. He is a writer and we learn how he became one but also see how … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Cora Sandel‘s Alberte og Jakob (Alberta and Jacob). This is a semi-autobiographical novel, the first in a trilogy, set in a small town, based on Tromsø. Alberta is a young woman who has left school and now has nothing to look forward to but marriage and a family. … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Jan Kjaerstad‘s Forføreren (The Seducer). This novel is about Jonas Wergeland, a TV documentary producer, who charms everybody (hence the title) though women adore his magic penis. At the start of the novel he arrives home from Seville to find his wife has been murdered. We jump backward … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Sigurd Hoel‘s Møte ved Milepelen (Meeting at the Milestone). Published only two years after World War II, this book had considerable impact in Norway, as it deals with the issue of Norwegian collaboration with the Nazis. Our unnamed narrator has provided a safe house for the Resistance and … Read more
The latest addition to my website is Axel Jensen‘s Ikaros – ung mann i Sahara (Icarus – A Young Man in Sahara). Our unnamed narrator, a young Norwegian, heads for Algeria but finds Algiers too noisy so goes off to the remote town of Tamanrasset, where the sensible doctor tells him everything is going to … Read more
Latest on my website: Jens Bjørneboe‘s Frihetens øyeblikk (Moment of Freedom) This is a thoroughly grim account by a forty-six year old Norwegian, living in a remote Alpine part of Germany called Heiligenberg, who cannot remember his own name. He works in a menial position for a court and is writing a History of Bestiality … Read more