Hello Gentle Reader
Autumn is here again. Take a deep breath through your nose. The air rushes in and at the very end there is a sting at the tip of the nostrils. The sensitive rings of flesh. Look outside and one can see leaves changing. Last night the window was open while I slept. The air was cool and humid. The moistness in the air though was not warm or inviting. It was chilled and nipped at my exposed flesh like frost. The dampness seeped even into the blankets. Early this morning when I was awoken by the sensation of cold moisture in the house, I thought I saw the slight ghostly remnants of my breath. It was then decided in a groggy state of mind, still heavy with sleep that I should shut the window. After that I crawled back into my warm bed, which had slightly cooled off; but still resembled coal embers.
The autumnal period of the year; is the best time of the year. It’s cold off quite a bit now; the summer heat has turned to cool mists, and yellowed leaves. The grass is stunted in shock; no longer growing. I’ve noticed the cat’s coat, which was once a silvery grey pelt has now turned dull and dark charcoal gray. As if he rolled around in soot or ash. He’s put on a few pounds as well. When pointed out to him, he got offended, and gave me a well-earned swat. Even though I love autumn, it still stirs anxiety in my stomach. Like butterflies releasing from their chrysalis. After while a though the fluttering dies down. A feeling best equated with that of a nut. As if my intestines have become a string of hallow nuts; which when they collide reverberate throughout my whole body with nauseated happiness.
Jon Fosse has been called one of the greatest living playwrights alive and working today. He has been given the honorary honour of a stipend from the Norwegian government as well as a royal honour of having the Grotten as his residence. This honour that he received as of two-thousand and eleven, was bestowed upon him by the Norwegian King; which is given to a person who has contributed to Norwegian arts and culture. He is also a recipient of the Swedish Academy Nordic Prize. This Swedish Academy Nordic Prize, is awarded by the Swedish Academy (the same academy that awards the Nobel Prize for Literature) to an author from one of the Nordic Countries. The recipient is chosen because of their significant contribute to an area of interest of the Academy. The inaugural of the award was in nineteen-eighty six, first given to the Danish author and philosopher Villy Sørensen. He was the most famous and influential Danish philosopher since Søren Kierkegaard. Since then it has been awarded to such authors such as Inger Christensen, Tomas Tranströmer, Henrik Nordbrandt, and Einar Már Guðmundsson. This award should not be confused with its senior the Nordic Council’s Prize for Literature; which is awarded to a Nordic author.
Jon Fosse’s short poignant novella “Aliss at the Fire,” takes place in autumn, and with his prose that borders on dramatic piece of work and prose, it goes back and forth in time, with ease – though, it is more like a hallucination of a dying person’s life slowly flickering before their eyes. Dreamlike and reflective on time and memories to the point where the rules of time becomes less direct and circular. Time flickers and bleeds into itself; from one point in time to another. But it is also sporadic ending abruptly and firing off again, almost without warning.
It is a simple story – at least that’s what it sounded like at first. Signe is the main character of the present. She is sitting in the kitchen in two-thousand and two; she is contemplating the disappearance of her husband Asle. Who had disappeared in nineteen-seventy nine while out in his boat, in the fjord. However it doesn’t stop there. The novella than goes in many different directions; much like a prism that refracts lights; the story is refracted into different time periods all the way back to Asle’s great-great grandmother Aliss, who tends a fire.
“[. . .] and hasn’t he changed recently, he is so rarely happy now, almost never, and he is shy, he really is, he doesn’t want to see people and he turns away if anyone does come and if it ever happens that he does have to talk to someone the he stand there and doesn’t know what to say, he stands there and feels sick with embarrassment everybody can, see it, she thinks, and what is the matter with him? She thinks, he was always a little like that, a little withdrawn, a little as if he thought o himself, as always being a lot of trouble for other people, upsetting other people just by being there, as a nuisance, an absolute to what this or that other person wanted, as if he didn’t understand and it’s getting worse and worse, before he could at least be round other people but now anymore, now he off to be by himself the second anyone other than her appears.”
Written in a long expressive paragraph, one could almost feel like that Jon Fosse just sat down and began to write the story that had formed in his head. It is like a black widow spider’s web. It is connected; but disjointed. As are the thoughts of Signe and Asle; as the memories and fiction blend and bleed together. Despite the complexity of the narrative and as the quote above shows, there is no pyrotechnics to Jon Fosse’s narrative. His dialogue is sparse and straight. It shows how the characters are unable to communicate with one another – much like the tradition of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. Repetition of phrases and words are also common, which allows for the annoying feeling of déjà vu; that something was already read.
“What are you thinking about, Signe says
No nothing special, Asle says
No, Signe says
I guess I, Asle says
Yes I, he says
and he stands there and looks at her
I, he says
I, I, yes well. I’ll just, he says
You, Signe says
Yes, Asle says
You’ll, Signe says
I, Asle says
I guess I’ll go out onto the fjord for a while, he says
Today too, Signe says
I think so, Asle says”
Some would say that the inability of the characters to talk or communicate properly is humorous. But one must always remember at (at least in my case) that to present humour in a written format it is next to impossible (against at least in my case). Humour has a lot of physical components; something witty that is done by natural conversation not by written or wooden formats. It is something that is done on the stop. It is fast paced and runs almost on a methamphetamine pace. Whereas literature runs on a different pace, but the comedy of it will always be lost somewhere down the line. At least for the comedic ignorant such as myself. However it gives one the idea of how the dialogue works.
“he thinks and he looks up and he sees that the fire is back on the show below the boat house again, back down on the bay, and then the fire gets smaller, turns into a just a flame, flickering weekly in the wind and in the darkness and then he can see it in one place or another in the heavy darkness, and the darkness is dense and think, now it is one single darkness, a play of blackness, and then he can see a flicker of flame out there and then not anymore, because then he it’s black, but then the flame gets bigger, it become a small fire again, out there, down in the bay, down below, below the boathouse a fire is burning now, he thinks, and he stops and he stands and looks at the fire. And now the fire is big. Down on the shore a fire burning. And then the first is near him again. And it must be the darkness, and the fact that he’s so cold, that makes him unable to tell exactly where the fire is burning, he thinks, but he sees it, he does see it, and there in the darkness, those yellow and red flames.”
In the end “Aliss at the Fire,” presents something of a bizarre novella. It is haunting in its melancholic subject matter, which is delivered in dream life prose of a dying person’s last glimpses of their lives, in a projected or dreamlike manner. It does become rather interesting, that Jon Fosse uses “she thinks,” as a way to ground the narrative in its cerebral home base of Singe’s mind and her memories. With that in mind though its sparse repetitive prose, and almost alienating narrative allows for one to see the autumnal feeling of loneliness and sadness in this work. Unanswered questions and tragedies are abound. It is a wonderful narrative though full of existential crisis and of memory, love, and death. Spanning through a disjointed time period, and I don’t think Asle is the only one lost on his boat in the fjord. Singe is lost in her memories, and Aliss lost in her grief. It is a wonderful novella though. My only wish though is that it was more descriptive even a bit more lyrical. The choice of words at times (and this could be translation – though Dalkey Archive Press is a wonderful publisher!) felt minimal and chosen based on convenience and sometimes worked against the complexity of the narration of the novella. In the end however it was a delightful piece of work. Truly I am glad to have become acquainted with Jon Fosse.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
