Aliss at the Fire
Author: Jon Fosse,
Translated by: Damion Searls
Published by: Fitzcarraldo Editions
Pages: 74
Format: Paperback
My Rating: ★★★★
Translated by: Damion Searls
Published by: Fitzcarraldo Editions
Pages: 74
Format: Paperback
My Rating: ★★★★
In her old house by the fjord, Signe lies on a bench and sees a vision of herself as she was more than twenty years earlier: standing by the window waiting for her husband Asle, on that terrible late November day when he took his rowboat out onto the water and never returned. Her memories widen out to include their whole life together, and beyond: the bonds of one family and their battles with implacable nature stretching back over five generations, to Asle's great-great-grandmother Aliss.
In Jon Fosse's vivid, hallucinatory prose, all these moments in time inhabit the same space, and the ghosts of the past collide with those who still live on.
In Jon Fosse's vivid, hallucinatory prose, all these moments in time inhabit the same space, and the ghosts of the past collide with those who still live on.
My thoughts:
Aliss At The Fire is a hallucinatory account of a woman living in the frosted land of Norway whose husband goes out at night and unexplainably does not return. It has been years now but still she finds herself looking out the window at the fjord or seeing herself do so from the bench where she lays. She watches ancestors return to this old house, watching their trials and tribulations.
The novel opens with a series of shifts in perspective, time and identity that hint at the experimentation that follows. We immediately meet Signe, an aging woman living alone near a fjord.
Written in a single paragraph, in the form of an extended interior monologue, Fosse's haunting story begins in 2002 and unwinds to cover five generations. Signe is soon thinking back to the day her husband, Asle, died while boating in the waters. She relives the day of her loss over and over. Nothing is forgotten. She recalls the final exchanges with her husband, the look of his retreating back, her sense of anxiety before she confronts the ghosts of her husband's family and an earlier tragedy over 100 years before.
In time the reader will hear the inner thoughts of not just Signe but also Asle and numerous other ancestors, going as far back as his great-great-great grandmother Aliss. Gradually, the voices of these ghosts and their lives intermingle with her own. The style takes a bit of time to get used to, but Fosse's writing style is hypnotising, repeating phrases and images. There's a clear, icy simplicity to the writing that's addictive, and allows the book to take liberties with moving around in time in a way that just feels fluid and natural. Nothing really happens and yet there is something quietly dramatic about Fosse's meandering and rhythmic prose. This story has a very strong sense of place and is largely about memory, visual imagery and loss as Fosse replays the scene of a death using ghosts of the past, questioning life and portraying deep regrets and grief.
In this slim novella, the story is stripped down to its emotional core, making for an intense reading experience. With virtually no punctuation and the constant repetition of the same words and scenes, this short novel could have easily failed for me but the rhythm of it, the dark Nordic winter landscape and its generational layers with tragedy repeating itself had me hypnotised.
Overall reaction:
Aliss At The Fire is a hallucinatory account of a woman living in the frosted land of Norway whose husband goes out at night and unexplainably does not return. It has been years now but still she finds herself looking out the window at the fjord or seeing herself do so from the bench where she lays. She watches ancestors return to this old house, watching their trials and tribulations.
The novel opens with a series of shifts in perspective, time and identity that hint at the experimentation that follows. We immediately meet Signe, an aging woman living alone near a fjord.
Written in a single paragraph, in the form of an extended interior monologue, Fosse's haunting story begins in 2002 and unwinds to cover five generations. Signe is soon thinking back to the day her husband, Asle, died while boating in the waters. She relives the day of her loss over and over. Nothing is forgotten. She recalls the final exchanges with her husband, the look of his retreating back, her sense of anxiety before she confronts the ghosts of her husband's family and an earlier tragedy over 100 years before.
In time the reader will hear the inner thoughts of not just Signe but also Asle and numerous other ancestors, going as far back as his great-great-great grandmother Aliss. Gradually, the voices of these ghosts and their lives intermingle with her own. The style takes a bit of time to get used to, but Fosse's writing style is hypnotising, repeating phrases and images. There's a clear, icy simplicity to the writing that's addictive, and allows the book to take liberties with moving around in time in a way that just feels fluid and natural. Nothing really happens and yet there is something quietly dramatic about Fosse's meandering and rhythmic prose. This story has a very strong sense of place and is largely about memory, visual imagery and loss as Fosse replays the scene of a death using ghosts of the past, questioning life and portraying deep regrets and grief.
In this slim novella, the story is stripped down to its emotional core, making for an intense reading experience. With virtually no punctuation and the constant repetition of the same words and scenes, this short novel could have easily failed for me but the rhythm of it, the dark Nordic winter landscape and its generational layers with tragedy repeating itself had me hypnotised.
Overall reaction:
