A novel of 1,250 pages, one long, very long sentence, filled with inexplicable emotional tension caused by anxiety and uncertainty, minimalist poems that raise existential questions – Norwegian writer John Fosse’s works range from the “mysticism” of ordinary life. Are full. In awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2023 to Mr Fossey, a longtime contender, the Swedish Academy called for his “innovative plays and prose that give voice to the unspoken.”
It’s also an incredible win for Fitzcarraldo Editions, a barely nine-year-old independent publisher that also publishes Nobel laureates Olga Tokarczuk, Annie Ernaux, Svetlana Alexievich and Elfriede Jelinek.
Mr. Fosse’s first novel, red black, was published in 1983, and some of the themes he explored in it, including suicide and his laconic style, called “Fosse Minimalism”, are also found in his later work. Born in Haugesund on the Norwegian west coast in 1959, the 64-year-old’s novels, plays and poetry collections include seas, forests and mountains, the mysteries of nature that can thrill and evoke feelings of awe and fear, and man’s inner self. , the conflicting relationship between the mind and the outside world.
Keeping the human condition at the center of his writing, he creates layers in which characters talk or think about the past and present, their feelings about love, loss, grief, and the ups and downs of life. In between, the eternal search for peace, which is often unattainable. Respected and much-admired in Norway, Mr. Fosse, which means “waterfall” in Norwegian, writes in Nynorsk, one of the country’s two official languages.
In his play, NameIn this film, which won the Norwegian Ibsen Prize in 1996, a young couple are expecting a child, but there are differences in how the girl and the boy approach their new roles as mother and father. She’s waiting for him to welcome their baby into the world, but he’s taking his time. His plays are full of short sentences, pauses and silences – Mr. Fosse has talked about his Wahlverwandschaften (alternate relationships) with Samuel Beckett and Franz Kafka; Norwegian writers Tarjei Vesas and Georg Trakl. Critics have compared him to Harold Pinter and Ibsen.
One of his plays, Rambuku, begins with an elderly character in a living room, addressing another elderly character, she: “We have always been here (pause); Years go by… and you don’t say anything… why don’t you say something… don’t just stand there… and watch and watch.’ She tries to cheer him up by telling him about going to Rambuku (which we are not told is a place or a person) to get “liberation from the unbearableness here”. Nightsongs is another play on the weaknesses of the human character in which a woman cannot decide whether she has made the right decision in moving in with a new man. Fosse has received extraordinary recognition from the general public of Europe – not from America, where his plays received a lukewarm response. Nobel Committee Chairman Anders Olsson attributes Fossey’s widespread acceptance to his courage in opening himself up to the uncertainties and anxieties of everyday life.
In 2015 his translator Damien Searles told paris review Mr. Fosse reminded him of The Beatles’ George Harrison, who was “quiet, mysterious, spiritual” and perhaps the best craftsman among the other Norwegian ‘Beatles’, Per Peterson, Dag Solstad and Karl Ove Knausgaard. Mr. Fosse was Mr. Knausgaard’s creative writing teacher and he criticized a poem he had written. Mr. Knausgaard turned to prose and famously said he found Mr. Fosse’s darkness “dazzling.”
return to fiction
In the 1990s, Mr. Fosse began writing for the theater, but after about 30 plays, he went back to writing fiction—in a period of “slow prose” that was “somehow the opposite of brevity and intensity.” It’s needed in a play,” as he told Bookerprizes.com. His critically acclaimed prose work is septology (2021; a novel in seven parts, compiled into a trilogy). In 2022, Septology (A New Name-VI-VII) was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, the same year Gitanjali Shree won the award for Tomb of Sand; He was also listed for a long time Septology (another name I-II) In 2020.
The novel begins with Asle, an aging painter and widower, reminiscing about his life and art. He lives in the village of Dylgja and travels to The Bear Gallery in Björgvin to deliver some of his paintings. On the way, after eating a simple open-faced ground-beef sandwich with onions, he scolds himself for not looking at his friend, also called Esley who lives with his dog Braggy and is drinking water from the bottle. There is a fight with him. Mr. Fosse is a master of providing access to the interior monologues and nuances of everyday experience that give his novels a dream-like quality; Nothing is as it seems and many emotions are quietly clamoring for attention.
“Maybe that’s why I wrote septology I felt that I had something important to say and it was my duty to say it. I can’t say what it is, only the novel can tell, but it has to do with the mysticism of ordinary life…,” Mr. Fosse explained, describing it as ‘mystic realism’, two words. Can be used to describe his entire oeuvre.
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