#CBR6 Book 53: "Teori og praksis" (Theory and Practice) by Nikolaj Frobenius

Page count: 295 pages
Rating: 2 stars

Nikolaj moves to a newly constructed house in a suburb in one of the counties surrounding Oslo in the early 1970s. His father is one of the architects who planned the area, and is full of dreams about the social opportunities the new affordable housing will mean for families in the area. As it turns out, most of the families who move in stick to a rigid routine of conformity and normality - their children wear the same thing, cut their hair the same way, they mow their lawns on the same day and wash their cars once a week. As the only boy in the neighbourhood with shoulder-length hair, a father who's a hippie and a mother who's Danish, Nikolaj finds it difficult to fit in. All his attempts at youthful rebellion are thwarted because his parents are fully supportive of youthful protest, defiance and voicing one's own opinion. They cheer him on rather than disapprove.

When Nikolaj's mother is killed by a hit and run driver, his life irrevocably changes. Magnus, his formerly jovial and cheerful father withdraws completely into grief and depression, forcing Nikolaj to take on the role as caretaker. His aunt and uncle take his younger brother away, leaving Nikolaj alone with the grieving widower. He barely ever goes to school and desperately seeks a way out. He finds some outlet of his own grief and frustration in punk, forming a punk band with some of his friends and starts experimenting with drugs. Initially, Magnus seems baffled by his son's love of the Sex Pistols and other punk idols, but eventually ends up almost co-opting this attempt at teenage rebellion too, even stepping in to help out on drums at one of the band's concerts. Things are bound to come to a head, and they do.

The blurb for this novel describes it as a "lying autobiography". The protagonist shares the author's name, and grew up in the same place as him in the 70s, but his father was not an architect and most of the events, while somewhat loosely based on the author's adolescence are heavily fictionalised. The book was also turned into a successful movie here in Norway in 2011 (with a cameo appearance by Johnny Rotten), the screenplay adapted by the author himself. I wrote about the adaptation from novel to movie in exam term paper, comparing and contrasting the two.

Out of the two, I absolutely preferred the movie, possibly because the film compresses most of the action to a year of Nikolaj's life, and skips most of his early childhood, where not that much actually happens, except small things that add up to set the scene for his later rift with his father. The book is also a lot more focused on how the "theory" of the social-democratic ideals of the 1970s failed spectacularly in the area where Frobenius grew up, the "practice" being that the almost forced expectation of conformity and sameness, without any proper outlets for leisure activities, except the local mall, resulting in a huge amount of disenfranchised youths turning to drugs and alcohol when trying to rebel against their middle class parents. The movie is more a portrayal of the father-son relationship with its ups and downs before and after the mother's death.

As of yet, I haven't received the resulting grade for my exam paper, so I don't know yet whether I did a good or a disappointing job on my analysis. I doubt I would have chosen to read the book if it wasn't part of my coursework, even though it's set about 20 minutes away from where I grew up in the mid-80s to 90s. Where I grew up, Rykkin (the area Frobenius grew up) had a bad reputation, and it was well known that you didn't want to go to that mall after dark, as that was where all the druggies were. Can't say that the book dispelled my youthful preconceptions.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 18: "Haiene" (The Sharks) by Jens Bjørneboe

Page count: 213 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars

The Norwegian Peder Jensen is the second mate on a sailing ship, the Nepture, on route from Manilla to Marseille, in 1899. In the prologue it is revealed that six months after this ship set sail, it is still missing without a trace. In the novel we discover what happened to the ship and the crew. As second mate, and third in command on the ship, Jensen also has to be the crew medic, and spends a lot of his time patching up the various crew members that keep fighting viciously.

There is a lot of tension aboard the ship, partially because the crew members are from all over the world, some with very different religious and ideological views. The situation is not improved by the fact that corners have been cut when the crew provisions were purchased, so the crew basically eat slops while the officers dine in luxury. Thirdly, the captain is unpopular, and one of the crew members seem to have sworn revenge on him because he killed said crew member's brother in a mutiny some years back.

Jensen rarely agrees with the decisions his fellow officers make, and try to help the crew as much as he is able. After saving one of the young boys, having been hoisted up the mast by the third mate, the nervous young former street urchin latches on to him with all he's got, deciding that Jensen is now his father, whether the man wants the responsibility or not. As the journey progresses, both literal and figurative storms keep threatening the Neptune and its crew. As a massive typhoon approaches, the readers also discover why the ship was reported missing without a trace.

Yet another of the novels I had to read for my course, this was absolutely the best of the lot I had to read in February. Written in the 1970s by Jens Bjørneboe, it's basically a big ol' metaphor for how the author sees the world in general, and how he'd like the ideal society to be. The ship, with all the disparate crew members from all races and creeds, complete with a rigid class division and a lot of tensions is how he pictures the world. The sharks swimming along side the ship are metaphors for pure greed and thoughtless evil, which is ever present. The mutiny on board as a huge tropical storm is threatening is the revolution that the author clearly feels needs to happen, and the aftermath of the mutiny and the storm is clearly how the author wishes society could become.

I've never been particularly drawn to the ocean, although I find it beautiful and awe inspiring. I find it interesting that there is a whole genre of literature, devoted to sea travel and seafaring life, because even after reading several, I just don't see the fascination. I also notice that all the authors of these kinds of books seem to all be men. I just don't think women writers are all that bothered about exploring man's struggle with internal and external nature while travelling the seven seas. I know I as a female reader am fairly unmoved by it. This book was perfectly ok, but nothing more. As the prologue told me disastrous things were going to happen, I kept waiting for them to do so. Jensen's philosophical ramblings as he pottered about the ship doing everyday second mate things weren't exactly thrilling.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR6 Book 17: "Nokon kjem til å komme" (Someone is going to come) by Jon Fosse

Page count: 80 pages
Rating: 1 star

A couple, he somewhere in middle age, around his fifties (according to the stage directions), she in her thirties arrive at a house by the ocean, in a remote and lonely location. Here they are finally going to be alone, alone together, away from everyone and everything. But she is worried. "Someone is going to come" she laments. Their perfect solitude will be shattered by outsiders, she's convinced of this. He tries to reassure her that no one will come, they will just be alone, together.

Of course, someone does come. Their closest neighbour, the young man in his twenties who sold them the house, is clearly desperate for company, what with living in such a lonely and remote location. The man hides as he approaches, and watches the neighbour's somewhat needy conversation with the woman. He is racked with jealousy. Perhaps she wasn't lamenting earlier? Perhaps she wanted someone to come? Maybe she'd rather talk to the young man than be alone with him in their new home?

As I mentioned in last year's review of The Son, a different Jon Fosse play that I had to read for my course back then, I'm not a fan of Modernist literature. As Fosse is one of the chief Neo-Modernist playwrights writing today, it was never going to be a good fit between us. I like the things I read to have purpose of some kind. I like characters to be complex and develop and my favourite stories are strongly character driven narratives, preferably with a bit of romance, action and adventure thrown in. This play is not very long, and there is little character or plot development to speak of. It's easy to read, because the same damn three lines keep being repeated ad nauseum throughout. "We will be alone", "Alone together, in our love", "Someone is going to come".

There are only the three characters in the entire play, and even the sadsack neighbour only appears in two scenes. It becomes painfully obvious as soon as he shows up that whatever relationship the couple are planning on having alone in by the sea is doomed to failure, if the man is going to fall to pieces with jealousy as soon as the woman so much as looks at another man. Perhaps buying a house in the middle of nowhere wasn't such a good idea?

Among the students of my course, there were also a lot of different interpretations of the tone of the play, and how the neighbour was perceived (which is one of the advantages of such a minimalist play with hardly any stage directions). Myself and several others thought he was a threatening presence, and that he acts aggressively pushy towards the poor woman, who also has to contend with an insanely jealous partner, who falls into a massive sulk and forces her to do any further communication with the neighbour, even when she appears very unwilling to do so. Quite a few felt that she'd do well to get the heck away from said lonely location as soon as possible, lest she be either murdered by her jealous partner, or assaulted by the desperate and lonely neighbour. Of course, if such a thing were to happen, there would actually mean something happened, which it doesn't. There's conversations outside the house, and inside the house, and nothing really seems to happen or come to a head or be resolved in any way.

Having now read two Fosse plays, I desperately hope I won't have to read anymore. I find him tedious in the extreme, a waste of time (although because his plays are so short, at least it's a blessedly short amount of my time being wasted) and I certainly don't see why anyone would want to pay money to see this frustratingly sparse play be acted out on a stage. I clearly have much better things to do than to read Neo-Modernist drama. If you like Beckett and Pinter, than you should absolutely check Fosse out, because he keeps being very favourably compared to them. In my case, this play is definitely going to be on my worst of the year list.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 16: "Innsirkling" (Encirclement) by Carl Frode Tiller

Page count: 285 pages
Rating: 2 stars

David has lost his memory. A news paper notice appears, asking people whether they know him and encouraging friends and acquaintances to write to him, to help him restore his memories. In this book, we get to read the letters of three of the people who write to him, as well as read about their current lives. As we read their stories and letters to David, more of his identity is revealed, but much more so, the identity of the letter writers.

The first third of the book introduces us to Jon, an aspiring musician with an ailing mother and a fraught rivalry with his only brother. He doesn't have the heart to tell his mother, who never had faith that he would make it as a professional bassist, that he quit his band in the middle of their tour. He feels like a constant failure, not helped by the fact that he recently broke up with his long term girlfriend, who his mother keeps hoping he'll get back together with. Then he discovers that his brother and sister-in-law are about to adopt a child, fulfilling his mother's dreams of becoming a grandmother, and he seems to lose it completely.

The second third features Arvid, David's stepfather, who sees the newspaper notice while in hospital, trying to come to terms with the fact that he's going to die of cancer. The opportunity to reconnect with his stepson through the letters gives the former priest renewed faith in the God he felt abandoned by, and brings him new hope.

The last third is about Silje, a middle aged woman going having marital troubles, considering divorce and trying to come to terms with the death of her overbearing mother. She keeps picking fights with her husband, and can't seem to help making her situation worse than it already is.

The letters focus on the friendship between Jon, David and Silje, and give three very different accounts of the relationship dynamic of the three. In Jon's letters, Silje is mostly on the periphery, while he and David share a secret and experimental homosexual relationship, while discovering existential philosophy, art, literature and being as pretentious and different from the other teenagers in their little town as possible. In Arvid's letters, we see his deep love for David's mother and his wish to be a good father figure for the boy. He observes that there was an unhealthy power dynamic in the group, with David and Silje frequently goading the insecure and impressionable Jon into doing things he would otherwise never have done. Silje's letters paint her as David's girlfriend, with Jon the slightly clueless and melodramatic third wheel. Who is really showing us, and David, the truth about the past?

This book was awarded the Brage Prize in 2007, an award that since 1992 has aimed to recognise significant works of contemporary Norwegian literature. It has an interesting premise, with themes of identity being explored though its somewhat unusual structure. Because the reader gets to see the three letter writers in the present, as well as reading their accounts of the past, and all three people give very different versions of David's teenage years, it raises questions about which of the narrators are actually reliable.

While the unusual structure and idea makes the book interesting, I didn't really like the book much, because I couldn't really stand Jon and Silje. Their present lives were uninteresting to me, and they were so clearly mainly the cause of their own misfortunes. I also found their stories unconvincing. The only character I found sympathetic was Arvid, the stepfather, and while I'm sure his version of his personal life with David's mother might be coloured more favourably towards him as an understanding husband and sensitive and caring stepfather, I don't see what he would gain from portraying the relationship between the three friends in anything but a true light.

I was also frustrated by the fact that all these three people were supposed to be writing to help this David remember who he was, and managed to make the letters and their accounts all about themselves. Which is probably the author's way of showing that even when supposed  to try to help another, human nature is inevitably selfish and narcissistic.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 2: "Svart Elfenben" (Black Ivory) by Arne Svingen

Page count: 183 pages
Rating: 3 stars

The book opens with a quote from Heart of Darkness, making the reader pretty aware that this is unlikely to be a cheerful story full of rainbows, bunnies and unicorns. Our unnamed narrator is a young Norwegian boy, not yet turned eighteen, on a rather impulsive journey to the Ivory Coast with his best friend, a former Liberian child soldier named Sam. Sam, who has lived in Norway for some years, has been told that his mother is still alive and the two boys are now trying to find her. It's revealed in brief, teasing flashbacks that they secured the money for the trip through rather shady and morally dubious means, and our narrator is on the whole, not entirely sure about how wise their course of action is.

Still, as a life-long foster care kid without any real parental figures of his own, he understands Sam's need to find his mother. He is fiercely loyal to his best friend, even if it means taking a very ill-advised journey into a foreign country ravaged by civil war. Within the first day there, they lose a large amount of money through the carelessness of our narrator, and things go from bad, to worse to really very dangerous and there is no way this is going to end well at all is there? rapidly. The narrator bought a copy of Heart of Darkness at the airport, and keeps reading and re-reading it throughout the ever more perilous journey. As well as discovering what a charmed life he has led in Norway, even without loving parents to raise him, our narrator also discovers that his best friend is a very different person in Africa than he was when they were hanging out on the streets of Oslo. Does he actually know Sam at all? Can you ever escape your past?

The book is a young adult book clearly written with boys in mind. It starts and continues at a breathtaking pace, constantly upping the danger and complications for our two young protagonists. Our narrator is never even named, and there is a very sparse gallery of supporting characters to keep track of, most of them described indirectly through words and actions. There are a lot of thorny issues dealt with in the book, not least how far is it reasonable to be expected to go in the name of friendship? Even for someone you love as a brother. It is a wild, fairly uncivilised and scary Africa depicted in the book, but a book set in a country ravaged by civil war, dealing with the issue of child soldiers would have been dreadful if it didn't show the ugly sides of such warfare. Even as the boys are dragged closer and closer to their seemingly inevitable doom, there are flashes of hope. Several of the characters are hopeful that the future of their countries will be improved, and the close friendship between the two is admirable, even as our narrator discovers that Sam might be a complete stranger to him.

This was one of the books I had to read for my Norwegian course this semester, and I doubt I would have picked it up if I hadn't had it assigned as part of my curriculum. It's good to see that even in immensely privileged Norway, there are authors who highlight the less pleasant issues in the world today, and try to make teenagers aware of it without preaching or getting sanctimonious. I have several pupils I suspect would like this book, and will recommend it to them.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR5 Book 53. "Does My Head Look Big in This?" by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Page count: 360 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Amal is sixteen, and about to start her second year as the only Muslim at a posh private high school, when she has an epiphany while watching Friends.She decides to start wearing the hibab full time, fully aware that this will attract all sorts of attention, and that it may be the most popular of decisions. Her parents, worried that it will give her too much negative attention, try to make her change her mind, but the more she thinks about it, the more resolved she is. Of course, when she shows up in school, the principal and a lot of the teachers think she's been coerced into it by her parents, or religious leaders, and she has to be very firm about the fact that it's her own choice, her own decision, and that they can't prohibit her from her personal expression of her faith, no matter what the school regulations about uniforms state.

Most of her friends, while a bit puzzled at first, are extremely supportive. Only the mean girl clique try to bully her about it, but as Amal points out to herself and her friends, now they have something specific to tease her about. Amal is more concerned about the opinions of Adam, her lab partner, and one of the cutest and most popular boys in school. She has a massive crush on him, and would hate for him to see her as some sort of religious fanatic just because she chooses to wear a head scarf.

While it may seem as if this book is all about heavy issues like religion and personal choice, it's mostly a very light and frothy young adult book about being a teenager. Through Amal's first person narration we get insight into her life, which is full of text messages, internet chats, shopping, girl talk, swooning over boys and conflicts with parents. Amal's parents are a doctor and dentist, respectively, highly educated with very progressive views. They're concerned Amal will be limiting her choices and opportunities by choosing to wear the hijab at such a young age, but they're also supportive of her decisions.

As a contrasting view of Muslim traditions, there is Amal's good friend Leila, whose parents are still living their lives dictated by old village traditions from the small place they're from in Turkey. Leila's brother is allowed to run wild and do whatever he pleases, while they expect Leila to do all the housework and get married, rather than go to university to become a lawyer and fulfill her dreams. Amal is deeply critical of this, and only after Leila does some very drastic things, does she come to realize that she may have been a bit narrow minded and judgemental herself.

In some ways, this book is like a young adult chick lit. Amal is a girly girl, and despite her choice to wear the hijab, and trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life (like most teenagers), she lives a fairly typical life, without any big conflicts. I'm glad her choices weren't made into major issues, but at the same time, it feels as if the author had a chance to explore some serious topics, in an easy to relate to way, and squandered this opportunity a bit.

#CBR5 Book 50. "Sandor slash Ida" by Sara Kadefors

Page count: 284 pages
Rating: 4 stars

From the blurb, as it sums up the first impression of the characters quite well: She's pretty and popular. He's a nobody. She lives in the middle of Stockholm. He lives in a hole outside Gothenburg. She spends hours in cafes with her friends, he devotes all his time to dance. She's fed up with sex, he's a virgin. She gets called bimbo, he gets called fag. She hates her life. He hates his life. Her name is Ida. His is Sandor.

 Ida's father lives in the US, with his new wife and children. Ida is left, trying to cope as best she can, even though her mother suffers from deep depression (and likely alcoholism, as well). Ida has to be the grown up, making sure that the rent and bills are paid, that groceries are bought and dinner is made. She's very pretty, seemingly a ditzy party girl, who secretly loathes her Mean Girl lifestyle and super popular friends, who she can't really talk to about anything important. She knows that if she tells anyone about her mother's neglect, Social Services are likely to come and put her in a foster home.

Sandor is the middle child of Hungarian immigrants. His mother used to be a top class ballet dancer, and desperately wants her children to follow in her footsteps. Sandor's younger sister has already decided she never wants to dance again, but Sandor loves the ballet, and practises four times a week, enduring the jeers and taunts of most of his classmates. He's in love with Christina, one of the girls in his ballet class, but barely has the courage to say hello to her at practise, let alone confess his feelings. One day, when his mother's sky high expectations towards him feels especially heavy, and the jerks on the bus have been more offencive than usual, he goes online and pours out his frustration in a chat forum. Only Ida, feeling very similarly, is the only one who sends him a serious response. Soon the two strike up a friendship by e-mail, which impacts on their lives in more ways they could have imagined at first.

The story of Sandor and Ida is told in changing perspectives all through the book, we get to see both the teenagers' lives, from their own point of view. A fair bit of the first half is told through the e-mails Sandor and Ida send each other, and show the ways in which they pretend to be someone they're not to the stranger they've met on the internet. Neither is able to keep up the pretence for very long, however. Though from very different backgrounds, they are both teenagers, struggling with doubts, insecurities, hopes and dreams. The book is just as much about the two protagonists discovering who they are, and want to become in the future, as finding friendship, and later possibly something more. It's not a book I'd heard of before, but one of the more enjoyable ones I've read this semester.

#CBR5 Book 45. "Maskeblomstfamilien" (The Figwort Family) by Lars Saabye Christensen

Page count: 285 pages
Rating: 1.5 star

"I had a good childhood. My father died when I was twelve. My mother went to bed early. I was an only child." 

These are the opening lines of Maskeblomstfamilien, a title which can be translated as The Figwort Family, but which can be interpreted in several ways, and holds more than one meaning. The plants and flowers of the Figwort Family usually have large leaves that cover up and blanket the ground. The flowers are often without scent, but if they do smell, it's more of an unpleasant stench than a refreshing smell. Foxglove, and other flowers in the Digitalis family, which is a subgroup of the Figwort family, are all poisonous.

In Norwegian, the title can also be broken into three - maske means mask, blomst means flower and familien means the family. Every significant person in this novel are not entirely as they appear at first, they all wear masks. The Greek tragedy of Oedipus also plays a central part in the last third of the novel, which is in itself structured as a classical tragedy in three acts. The flower is Adrian, the protagonist, who, considering the environment in which he is raised, unsurprisingly grows up to be a deeply twisted individual. The Wang family, his family, are not supportive or nurturing, and they all have dark secrets.

Adrian Wang might claim he had a good childhood, but the reader quickly learns that he is a very unreliable narrator. Born in the 1950s, during a solar eclipse, living in a dark and mostly empty flat in the centre of Oslo, situated right behind the Royal Palace, the reader quickly sees that he is not quite like other children. He doesn't take part in P.E, with a doctor's note ensuring that he can stay on the sidelines. He is told by more than one adult that he is completely shameless. He overhears his parents arguing with the family doctor about an operation that needs to be performed before he grows too old, and it's too late. He appears completely devoid of empathy for others, a calculating, devious child, always wanting to manipulate situations to his own advantage.

His mother is beautiful, delicate and distant. His father works long hours as a patent engineer. He doesn't seem to be around much, and when he's not working, he shuts himself away in his home office, or sits in the parlor, reading Time magazine with hands covered in white gloves. There is also an aunt, his father's older sister, who Adrian nicknames "the skeleton". She's skinny, bitter and cracks her knuckles loudly. These are the adults our protagonist is supposed to take his guidance from.

When it comes to peers his own age, Adrian doesn't really have any. He's a solitary child, with no real friends to speak of. None of the other boys seem to like him much, and more than once he is bullied and beaten up. The closest thing he has to a friend is Emilie, the Albino girl who lives one floor down from him. She's also an only child, and more of an obvious victim with her milky white skin, cleft lip and red, sensitive eyes. She tries to show Adrian kindness and friendship, but is frequently met with scorn and rebuffed.

The book follows Adrian from the age of 12 until he is 17. As he says in the opening lines - his father died when he was twelve - by shooting himself in the head with a shotgun. Whether it's because his business is failing, or something darker and more sinister, is unclear. Lillian, Adrian's already frequently distant mother, retreats into silent grief and/or shame and becomes the Widow for the remains of the story. The aunt moves in and tries to take control of the household. The Widow is moved from the master bedroom to the maid's pantry, spending most of her time in bed, until she is finally so far gone that she is taken away by the family doctor, and only Adrian and the Aunt remain, locked in a battle of wills. Then, at the end of the first act, Emilie disappears, to be found three days later, dead in the basement. Was her death an accident, or did something worse happen to her?

Lars Saabye Christensen is a very critically acclaimed Norwegian writer, and most of his books deal with boys growing up in Oslo in the 1950s and 60s. His protagonists are often a bit different, wanting nothing so much as to fit in, be one of the guys. He has a brilliant way with words, but despite this being the sixth of his novels that I've read, his books at best leave me indifferent and bored, and at worst, creep me out and disgust me. This book was one of the ones that absolutely disgusted me. I found it completely impossible to even vaguely sympathise with Adrian, despite the ways he is mistreated as a child, and clearly not given the help he so desperately needs. When he was bullied and beaten, a part of me cheered the bullies on. It's obvious from very early on that bad things are going to happen in the book, and that Adrian is going to be the cause of some of them. He is a sociopath and a very evil person. I wanted horrible things to happen to him. I don't like feeling that way when I read, I was comforted to hear that most of the others in my Norwegian course, including the lecturer felt much the same way - you're clearly not meant to like Adrian. Even so, I've given Christensen six chances, and with each new book I read, I'm more convinced than before that his books are not for me. I'm not going to be reading any more of Christensen's books, even if most of them don't have such twisted protagonists.

#CBR5 Book 39. "Ett öga rött" (One Eye Red) by Jonas Hassen Khemiri

Page count: 252 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Halim is a teenager in Stockholm, who feels as if he's in opposition to everything and everyone. When he's told the Arabic lessons in school have to stop because of funding cuts, he shows his displeasure by covering the school toilets in graffiti. His father, who runs shop selling a little bit of everything,  worries about his academic progress and stresses the importance of speaking good Swedish if he wants to make something of himself. Both feel the loss of Halim's mother, who died a few years back, greatly. They both try to be supportive of their friend, Nourdine, a washed up actor who's convinced he's just the right interview away from a big break.

Ett öga rött is one of the books I have to read for my Norwegian course, and it's an important and representative example of the sort of migration literature that second and third generation immigrants have written in Scandinavia in the last few decades. While this book is about a second generation teen in Stockholm, his struggle to reconcile the various sides of his identity, and figure out what he wants from life, is just as applicable to immigrants in Norway (which is why we're reading it for my course). A lot of the issues raised in this book are things I see several of my pupils experiencing as well.

Khemiri uses language very deliberately, writing in a broken Swedish that reflects the language and syntax Halim feels most comfortable with. The book is structured as a diary, written in a notebook Halim is given by an elderly family friend, who's the closest thing Halim has to a maternal figure, and who tries to encourage his patriotism towards all things Arabic. It's also made clear from parts of the narrative, that Halim could write syntactically correct Swedish if he wanted to, but he chooses to write the way he does in protest of the oppressive forces who are trying integrate him against his will, by serving fish sticks in the cafeteria, slanting the media against all things Arabic and blaming financial difficulties for the school's cut backs.

A very insightful and engaging novel, showing the development of Halim over the course of his final year of secondary school. His two closest male role models, his father and Nourdine, are both wonderful supporting characters. It's clear that a lot of the turmoil Halim feels, is because of the loss of his mother, and the fact that he and his father rarely speak about the things that really matter to both of them. It probably helps that the protagonist so closely reminds me of several of the boys I've taught over the years, and I recognise a lot of his attitude in the kids I see in my work. One of my favourite course books that I've read this year.

#CBR5 Book 34. "Få meg på, for faen" (Turn me on, damn it) by Olaug Nilssen

Page count: 192 pages
Rating: 2 stars

Maria, the eldest of eight daughters, is a sociology student in Bergen and works part time as a cleaner. She's due to make a big presentation as part of her coursework, and is certain that the way she shows the oppression and hardship that cleaners face every day will be so revelatory that all instances of the media will want a piece of her, and she will appear on news programs, talk shows radio shows and in the news papers. While cleaning classrooms and lecture halls, she dreams of the media attention. Of course, she has to write the presentation first.

Alma is fifteen, and completely consumed with lustful thoughts and desire. Every waking moment, she thinks about sex and fantasizes about having sex with pretty much everyone in her daily life. Her friend, her boss (the local shopkeeper), the boys in school. Her mother gets increasingly more upset, as Alma starts stealing booze, racks up a huge phone bill calling phone sex lines, shop lifts a porn magazine and seems to get more and more out of control.

Maria's mother, wife of the local shopkeeper (and mother to eight girls) is feeling increasingly more dissatisfied and unfulfilled. Her days consist of tending house, cleaning and cooking for her large family. She feels unappreciated and unnoticed by her family, and wants to get a job, and make a difference. When she hears that there is a chance the local turnip factory may be closing down (or perhaps just have to initiate some cutbacks), she packs a bag and goes to Oslo to stage a protest in front of the Parliament.

This was a decidedly odd book, but thankfully it wasn't very long, or difficult to read. The theme connecting the three women seems to be dissatisfaction with their lot in life, wanting a change, and wanting to be noticed. Maria is bored as a student and some time cleaner, Alma just wants boys to notice her (she's not one of the popular girls) and Maria's mother (whose never even given a name in the book) is sick of being a housewife and wants a change. The narrative changes very suddenly and unexpectedly from reality to fantasy, and to begin with, it was difficult for me to keep up with what was real, and what was flights of fancy.

The shortest section of the book, the one where Alma's story is related, also gets surprisingly graphic. With the amount of romance and paranormal fantasy I read, it's not like I clutch my pearls in horror or am even adverse to sexual content, but some of the things going through Alma's mind were pretty out there. Not entirely sure what the author was trying to do with that.

I'm also not entirely sure what the purpose of this book was, and what Nilssen is actually trying to say. There's bits that seem like she's trying to make some sort of social or possibly feminist commentary, but then there are also huge amounts of just absurdist fantasy. It's yet another book I can cross off my TBR list, and another course work text in the bag. I guess I'll just have to be thankful for that.

#CBR5 Book 27. "Sonen" (The Son) by Jon Fosse

Page count: Not sure, it was part of a collection of plays
Rating: 1 star

Jon Fosse is a contemporary Norwegian novelist, poet and playwright and his works have been translated into more than forty languages (which isn't shabby for a Norwegian). He is highly critically acclaimed both nationally and internationally and apparently considered one of the world's greatest contemporary playwrights.

In the play Sonen, or The Son, an elderly couple (most likely living somewhere in the picturesque but often sparse region in the West of Norway - because that's where Fosse sets a lot of his works) go about their daily life in the same monotonous routine as every other day. They keep repeating the same phrases over and over, lamenting the darkness outside (it's worth pointing out that in the winter time, much of Norway barely gets any daylight at all) and the increasing lack of people in their little village. The young people move away to the cities because there is nothing to do, the old people wither away and die. The only light they see is the window of their neighbour's house. They wonder about their son, who they haven't heard from in months.

It seems their widowed neighbour, who is prone to drunkenness, has heard their son was in prison for some unspecified crime. They're not sure what to believe, but as they haven't heard from their son, they are worried and uncertain. When the long lost son suddenly shows up for a surprise visit, they don't know how to relate to him at all. The drunken neighbour's presence doesn't improve things.

The best thing about this play, which is one of the many texts I have to read for my current course, is that it's short. I read it in less than an hour. Having listened to a very interesting lecture, and several of my fellow students discussing the play earlier today convinced me that I wanted to give it a try, even though my previous attempts at Fosse's literary output in assorted short stories left me decidedly unmoved and unimpressed. I doubt I would've bothered finishing the play if I hadn't already listened to a very engaging analysis about it.

Fosse is classified as a neo-Modernist, and there is a lot of things in the play that reminded me of Becket and Pinter, while the play is a lot less absurd than some of their output. Now, I absolutely loathe Modernist literature, and I didn't like the extremely minimalist style in which Fosse writes. Because he leaves immense amounts of things unsaid in every scene, it's up to the reader to interpret and draw his or her own conclusions. There are very sparse descriptions and stage directions, leaving a lot up to the reader (or viewer, in the case of the play). The characters are incredibly passive, and static. Fosse has stated that he cares very little for obvious themes or messages in his works, and that's painfully obvious here.

Very little actually happens in the play. The mother and father are colourless, inscure and spineless. The drunken neighbour is like a malevolent serpent spreading unsubstantiated rumours. One might have a bit of sympathy with the son, but at the same time, the young man has been gone for over six months without any communication with his parents, so no matter how neglectful and inept his parents may have been in the past (and again, most of this is left up to the reader to interpret for themselves), he seems a bit callous and heartless. Then again, if your parents would rather believe unsubstantiated gossip from an alcoholic rather than your word, maybe you'd want to disown your parents too? Based on this play, and the previous short stories I've read, I'm not really interested in exploring more of Fosse's writing. He may be one of the great Norwegian writers of right now, but it's clear it's not for me.

#CBR 5 Book 20. "Ut å stjæle hester (Out Stealing Horses)" by Per Petterson

Page count: 246 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

I work as a secondary school teacher, teaching Norwegian teenagers English and Norwegian. Because I don't actually have any formal training as a Norwegian teacher, I'm also studying it part-time, which last semester meant studying grammar at a much more advanced level than I'd ever previously done, and this semester involves language history and reading a representative selection of contemporary Norwegian fiction. I'm ashamed to say that fond as I am of reading, the last time I finished a Norwegian novel was in 2010, when I read Victoria by Knut Hamsun with the tenth-graders. I read pretty exclusively in English, and this semester will be my chance to read more in my mother tongue.

Trond is an elderly man, clearly just past his pension age, who's moved out into the middle of the woods in the Norwegian country side. He clearly enjoys solitude, and spends his days walking his dog,  fixing up little things around the rustic cabin where he lives. A chance meeting with his closest neighbor, another solitary elderly man,  sets him reminiscing about his past, mostly returning to the summer of 1948, when he was 15 and his life changed forever.

Having felt the absence of his father keenly during World War II, when said father would disappear for months on end on secret missions for the Resistance, Trond is grateful and pleased that his father wants to spend the summer alone with him in a little croft not far from the Swedish border. An early morning, his friend Jon shows up suggesting that they "steal" horses, and the day that begins with trying to ride the horses of the local landowner, ending in a rather uncomfortable incident where Jon crushes a bird's nest and destroys all the eggs. Trond only finds out the truth behind his friend's strange state of mind that evening, in the first of several losses that summer.

Considering at least a quarter of the book depicts an old man pottering about chopping firewood and doing mundane tasks around the house, it's a surprisingly engaging book that kept me turning the pages. It deals with grief, loss, abandonment and betrayal, but also friendship and strong father and child relationships. First published in 2003, it's won a whole slew of Norwegian and international literary awards, and like a lot of Norwegian novels I just never seem to get round to reading, it's been on my TBR list for years and years. I'm glad I finally had the impetus to actually read it.