As Jon Fosse writes? We have a fragment of “Septologia” – the most important novel by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature [TYLKO U NAS]

“Rhythmic, hypnotic” – this is how the publisher describes the prose of the Nobel Prize winner in literature. Jon Fosse writes in Nynorsk, which is used by 10-15 percent. inhabitants of Norway. And what is “Septology” about? A painter and widower, Asle lives alone in a house in Dylgja. The only people he still sees are his neighbor, the fisherman Åsleik, and Beyer, a gallery owner in Bjørgvin, a few hours’ drive south. There is also a second Asle living in Bjørgvin, his doppelganger, or maybe a shadow or a second version of the same life? The first of them became religious, quit drinking and achieved success, the second had a more difficult fate. Everything is slowly leading to a meeting of both painters.

Jon Fosse “Septology” – excerpt:

A man doesn’t have to be stupid even if he spends his time fishing, I say

Probably the other way around, says Åsleik

You tend to go stupid when you paint too much, he says

and I can’t say anything other than that he’s probably right, fishing gives you more wisdom and intelligence than painting, yes, fishing has some truth in it, I say, because you never know what will happen, whether you will catch a fish, or not, I say, blind luck rules here, just like in life, I say, and Åsleik says that I may be somewhat right about this, but in order to catch a fish, you have to at least fish, and then it is no longer blind luck decides whether someone fishes or not, fishing is something that a person plans or sets for himself, something that he does, an act, yes, he can use such a big word, he says, and when a man decides to do this act, that is, fishing, then he does it for the first time, because once is the first time, and there is always a first time, and then he repeats it, and yes, you also have to tell yourself that, eventually he starts to know how to fish, he knows where to keep himself. a fish, when it bites, a person learns many landmarks and signs, and each ‘and each sign has its own characteristics, there are signs that are good at high tide and there are signs that are good at low tide, not to mention the currents! nor what time of year, month, moon, nay, week it is! it all matters for fishing, yes, it’s so obvious that there’s nothing to talk about, clear as day, obvious, says Åsleik emphasizing the word obvious and repeats it again, obvious, yes, obvious, he says and I say, that’s for sure

So it’s not just blind luck, he says

Well, yes, but life is not ruled solely by blind luck, that goes without saying, I say

Of course, says Åsleik

and then, in his characteristic way, he looks at the floor, and when Åsleik looks down like that, it’s as if he’s not looking down but up, as if he’s seeing everything, as if he’s seeing a great context without realizing it, and then at his something appears on his face, as if he were suddenly falling out of this evil world and finding himself in a space of peace, silence, light, yes, shining darkness, as if he was falling out of himself, from the way he usually is, as if he didn’t know himself, as if he was moving away from himself, when he stands there and looks down, surrounded by the light that can suddenly flow from the sky despite the clouds, yes, similar light emanates from Åsleik, and such light can also emanate from a dog, from a dog’s eyes, yes, it often happens like that, yes, After thinking about it, I can say that I have often seen such a strange light coming from dogs’ eyes

Is that why you went to Bjørgvin today? says Åsleik

To see this friend of yours, this Namesake of yours? says

Are you suddenly so angry that you have to go? says

and he looks down again, and I think that I didn’t tell him anything about Aslem and I didn’t go to Bjørgvin to see Aslem, this thought came to my mind later, because I only thought about Aslem when I passed this block, where he has an apartment, but maybe I was thinking about it after all, but I just didn’t realize it? I think and say that it probably was like that, yes, but that I didn’t understand it myself? and I say that sometimes an image suddenly makes me want to do something, but this happens very rarely

rarely, although the images often, yes, in fact always, have some connection with something I have seen, which has stuck with me in some way, and which I suddenly see again, it is a bit like a vision, as if I had a huge collection of images stored in my head, images that I cannot I can forget and I try to get rid of them by painting them, I say, and Åsleik says that’s probably the case, and he continues to stand looking at the floor, so I also lower my head and look down, we stand there in silence for a long time

Well, I haven’t achieved anything in life, says Åsleik

and he says it as if to himself

Nothing, he says

I was born in Dylgja, I lived in Dylgja and in Dylgja I will die and go to the grave, to the earth and I myself will return to the earth, he says

I haven’t achieved anything, he says

My baptism and confirmation took place in the church in Vik and my funeral will be there, in the cemetery next to the church in Vik my baptism and confirmation took place and my funeral will take place there too, in the cemetery next to the church in Vik they will bury me and I will rot there, says Åsleik

and I think he’s going on with his usual talk about how he’s always been a bachelor, and Åsleik says there wasn’t a woman in the world who would want someone like him, which is easy to understand, because why would anyone want someone like him? a fool like him? so, unlike all decent men, he gave up getting married already in his youth, yes, even as a young man he knew that he would live his life alone, in solitude, because there would be no wedding in the church in Vik for him and there would be no baptism of his children, he says, and then there’s the farm, although a farm is just like a farm, it’s a piece of a slope with boulders as big as boat sheds scattered across the fields, if you can call them fields at all, and then a steep rock wall, and often a stone breaks off from the rock and falls, and then he lies in the field, and he, Åsleik, is afraid almost every night before he falls asleep, and he thinks that now, now, now, a big boulder will fall or a great avalanche will come down, which will carry away the buildings in the farm, the field, and push everything away together to the fjord, yes, he had imagined it, he had imagined it so often, he had seen a boulder the size of a house break loose, or the entire hillside slide away, turning into stones that were rushing downwards faster and faster, taking with them the grass and the earth and buildings smashed to splinters along with their equipment and sheep, and in the middle of it all he is, flying down, falling and disappearing, yes, he is lost in the sea, along with all his farm, with all his possessions, he disappears in the sea, yes, he lay and he imagined it before falling asleep, and this thought seemed to refuse to let go, at night he was often woken up by one or another smaller avalanche, and this fear of avalanche was probably passed on to him by his parents, especially his mother, but his father also constantly talked about the avalanche that must come someday , about the one that not only can come, but must, it’s a matter of time, today, tomorrow, next year, twenty years, a hundred years, maybe even later, but one day this avalanche will come, that’s certain, clear and certain, not we only know when the Father and Mother said this to each other, they also talked about it in front of the children, in front of Åsleik and Sister, because did the adults even think back then how such talk affected the child? where, they didn’t think about it at all, and he and his sister were about the same age, he was two years older, the firstborn son, it kept repeating itself as if it were something incredibly wonderful, yes,

the term firstborn son was repeated with particular emphasis, with particular respect, the firstborn son was the firstborn son, he was to one day take over the entire farm with everything that belonged to him, just as the Father once took it over from his father, and the other from his, so , it is not entirely known how long people from his family have been living on this farm, and all the men who lived earlier were apparently able to find a woman, because the farm was passed from father to son up to him, so he was the first to not marry, he stayed an old bachelor, yes, he tried several times, he tried to attack a few times, but luck was not on his side, not even any old maid wanted him, so he didn’t find a wife, he lived alone, yes, he had these sheep, he got a few pennies for the meat, not much for wool, not much, but he didn’t need much either, and if he had a successful catch, he moored at the quay in Vik, at the quay belonging to the Shop in Vik, and sold some fish there, because there were many who did not fish themselves, but they bought fresh fish from him, and they also bought dried fish from him, because he hung almost all the cod he caught to dry, in the attic in the house in winter, and outside under the eaves in summer, and dried fish was always easy to sell, and he sold crabs and lobsters, which were also usually easy to sell, yes, there is no point in talking about it, he made quite a lot of money from it, over the years it would have accumulated quite a sum, to be honest, and he had wood, he prepared and sold quite a few piles of wood, mainly people from the village, but after the road was built, a lot of Bjørgvin people wanted to buy wood from him and on Sundays they knocked on his door so often that, to tell the truth, he started locking the doors, well, yes, he had never done that before, but eventually he just started locking the doors and he didn’t open the door when someone knocked, so somehow he always managed, and besides? yes, he always liked to read and he visited the Vik Library almost every time he was there, it was located in the Municipal Office, not far from Kei, but I know about it, I was there many times myself, so why is he talking about it? something like this now? and after shopping in the Store, he went to the Library almost every time and read basically everything, either on a specific topic or novels, yes, he even read poems eagerly and had a lot of fun with it, especially poems by young poets, Well, what else can they come up with! there was rarely any broader context or meaning in these poems, but there were gusts of wind, sudden turns, a new way of speaking, a new way of seeing, often impossible to imagine, and he liked most of these poems, but when one was too similar to the other, yes, when one was almost impossible to distinguish from the other, he quickly got bored with it, a poet must have something special about him to be worth something.

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