When my son Bret told me he was
reading a book by the Norwegian writer Jon Fosse, who won last year’s Nobel
prize for literature, I was intrigued. He
was reading “Septology”, one of many works by Fosse, (pronounced Fossah
in Norwegian), who has written many plays, poems and other books that are
especially popular in Europe. Maybe I
should read it, I thought. Bret warned
me that it contains seven parts in three volumes of about 700 pages. What’s more there are no periods in the whole
book, making it one very long sentence.
One reviewer says it has 5 or 6 sentences. Whatever! Many of the reviewers say they have never
read a book like it. That’s true for me,
too.
The last Norwegian to win the
Nobel for literature was Sigrid Undset in 1928, for her body of work - the best
known was “Kristin Lavransdatter”, a trilogy about life in Norway in the middle-ages. Judy
read all three of those books several years ago and I read one of them, also long books. Undset is a very good writer about day-to-day life, social conventions, and
political and religious undercurrents of the period.
Septology reminds me a bit of
Marilynne Robinson's “Housekeeping” and Virginia Woolf's “To the Lighthouse”. These
are the kind of stories where at times you wonder ‘where the heck is this going?’,
trying to imagine how it will ever end – you might even get a bit boughed down in
the repetitious details at times. Robinson’s
novel treats the subject
of housekeeping, not only in the domestic sense of cleaning, but in the larger
sense of keeping a spiritual home for oneself and family in the face of loss. There is a lot about loss, the traumas of
ordinary life, and the spiritual journey in Septology. Woolf’s book is mostly written as thoughts and
observations, and that is certainly true in Fosse’s writing - lots of thoughts of
the main character, Asle. The words, “I
think” are repeated hundreds of times within a stream of consciousness about
his present and past life. Perhaps these
words are a substitute for a period.
The narrator, Asle, says things
like, "all my thoughts are sort of jumbled together, it's like they don't
exist in any order but sort of all at the same time" (p.569). Sound familiar? I go through most days with many
thoughts and wonderings going through my mind, some of which are comforting and
some a great distraction.
Christian faith, especially the
Catholic version, pervades the book like a ghost. The book is considered to be quite
autobiographical, as the main character, Asle, experiences a conversion to
Catholicism in this story, as did Fosse earlier in his life. The writing captures both the essence of
Roman Catholic spiritual practices and the challenges belief poses to
the adherent. Devotion and doubt are
woven into Asle’s thinking throughout the few days when the story takes place during
Advent, leading to its culmination on Christmas eve.
One reviewer describes
Septology like this: “For over 700 pages, Asle meditates on his life as he
drives back and forth between the town of Bjørgvin (that seems to be the city
of Bergen), and his home in the countryside, near the village of Dylgja. Sometimes he visits Bjørgvin hoping to check
in on another Asle, whom he refers to as his “namesake” and whom he has
recently helped check in to a rehab facility. (this Asle had a much more
tortured life of drinking and failures). Other times he visits Bjørgvin to deliver his
paintings to a local art gallery for an upcoming show. During these trips, Asle
looks back on his life’s relationships and his journey to become a successful
painter, but his story is often messily intertwined with his namesake’s, so
much so that sometimes it becomes almost impossible to distinguish between the
two men. This confusion is by Fosse’s design, as the series attempts to explore
themes of personhood, individuality, love, art, and religion all through the
lens of sameness”. Quoted from Spectrum Culture by Miyako-Pleines.
The two Asle doppelgangers bring to mind what if questions, like “what if
life had gone this way rather this that way because of choices along the way? There are also two women in the story, both
named Guro; or is it really just one person?
Asle is quite successful in
selling his pictures, and he does much thinking about them, especially one with two simple lines crossing each other, which his only friend and neighbor, Asleik, calls the St Andrews Cross. Asle talks of the “inner pictures” inside himself that he must get out onto a canvas. Through his meandering
thoughts he tries to work out what he thinks about art, God and life and death. The other Asle is also an artist, but his
destiny ends up much differently.
He prays at the end of each of
the seven parts of the book, using the rosary to say the Lord’s
prayer, Ave Maria and other prayers in Latin and Norwegian (translated of
course to English). His favorite mystic
is Meister Eckhart, and there are several quotes in German I wished I was able
to read and understand.
He thinks about God a lot and
tries to put in words what is unsayable, like this quote,
“God is so far away that no one
can say anything about him and that’s why all ideas about God are wrong, and at
the same time he is so close that we almost can’t notice him, because he is the
foundation in a person, or the abyss, you can call it whatever you want,”
Asle sometimes falls into a
kind of contemplative silence such as that which I have read about as described
by an anonymous mystic of the Middle Ages in “The Cloud of Unknowing”. But Asle’s active mind, with constant
thinking and remembering, seems to be a distraction from pure silence – not an
uncommon occurrence for those of us who have tried to practice contemplative
prayer.
I don’t think I would recommend
this book to everybody, unless your interest is piqued by some of what I tried
to describe here or in reading other reviews. I read the first book and listened to the audio
of the second and third. It can be downloaded
on Libby, and if you have the time to listen, the reader Kyle Snyder is
excellent as is the English translations by Damion Searls. I kept thinking it must take tremendous perseverance
and patience to translate 700 pages of this kind of narrative. There are many reviews online, and most are
overwhelmingly positive.
