Del i serien Norwegian Literature Series

Replacement

Häftad, Engelska, 2012

339 kr

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Tor Ulven is one of the most renowned Norwegian authors of the twentieth century, beginning his career writing poetry and ending it with unclassifiable explorations of the possibilities of prose, reminiscent of writers as disparate as Laura Riding and Peter Handke. Replacement, his only novel, published two years before Ulven’s suicide, is a miniature symphony, wherein the perspectives of fifteen unrelated characters are united into what seems a single narrative voice: each personality, having reached a point of stasis in their lives, directing the book in turn. These people reminisce, dream, reflect, observe, and talk to themselves; each stuck in their respective traps, each fantasizing about how their lives might have turned out differently. A masterpiece of compression and confession, Replacement dramatizes the tension between the concrete realities we think we cannot alter, and our interior lives, where we feel anything might still be possible.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2012-06-07
Mått147 x 203 x 9 mm
Vikt318 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
SerieNorwegian Literature Series
Antal sidor158
FörlagDalkey Archive Press
MedarbetareStig Sæterbakken
ISBN9781564787132
ÖversättareKerri A. Pierce, Kerri A Pierce

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Moderna och samtida romaner inom Skönlitteratur

Widely considered one of the greatest postwar poets in Norway, Tor Ulven (born 1953) was also one of its greatest innovators in prose, influencing countless other fiction writers, not least Jon Fosse and Stig S terbakken. Ulven committed suicide in 1995.Stig Saeterbakken (1966-2012) was one of Norway's most acclaimed contemporary writers. His novels include Through the Night and Siamese (also published by Dalkey Archive).

Replacement returns us to the rough ground underfoot, to reality as it is before we’re aware of it. Summer fields are soon replaced by fossilized skeletons, by driftwood, detritus, and all of life’s “deafening biological racket.” This too, Ulven tells us, is truth. The true world, a dying voice claims as the book closes, is one where “if we’d never been born it’d make no difference.” Like life itself, Replacement is full of both beauty and suffering. Finally though, it feels full of something far beyond both. It’s filled with as much of the blind will of the world as any book can capture. But what we learn from it is that we’re bound to the world, and that the world is what binds us together.