What is the nature of work and why is it done? The core of this small book, which straddles the line between fiction and non-fiction, is this and other queries. The brief novel seems to fly by before your eyes, and the prose has a captivating quality. ( )

Masterpiece. ( )

This is my third book by this gifted Norwegian author. I had to read it in Danish because I couldn’t get hold of the English version in these corona times, where the library responsible for ordering books from abroad was shut down.

Espedal received the Citizen’s Prize (Borgerprisen) for this work.

The book is mostly devoted to describing Tomas’ relationships with two women – Agnete and Janne. I’m assuming this is not a work of fiction.

Agnete was very beautiful – there was something ugly and uneven about her face that made it especially beautiful. She was an actress and had played the main role in an award-winning film.

“She had an indifferent, slightly tired expression on her face, it was the way she was, unapproachable and distant.”

She became pregnant – “the heavy and indifferent, tired and remote expression that had characterized her face disappeared, or moved from her face to mine.”

“She was an actress, farmer, gardener, carpenter, soon to be mother and writer. I was nothing. I was paralyzed.”

Agnete got a job in Nicaragua – he had to go too and would receive a large monthly income, but they had to get married.

They didn’t love each other. “We lived together, had a child together, co-operated, but the love between us was gone. Perhaps it had never been there. Now we were going to get married.”

Tomas read Shakespeare’s works to his two-year-old daughter; he wanted to read to her what he himself liked, since he couldn’t stand children’s books. Later, she told him that he’d scared her to death with the Shakespearean readings – she had had nightmares from the graveyard scenes and poisonings, from the witches and ghosts, from the swords and knives, and that this was the cause of her resistance to all the books he recommended that she read. She wouldn’t read Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights or Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar or any of the books he gave her.

Later, Agnete died but it wasn’t clear how.

Then Tomas fell in love with Janne. He was going to write a little book on happiness. He was exactly twice her age.

A friend came to see them. When he left, he said “It was lovely to see you and your daughter.”

“Was happiness shameful; our happiness was shameful, it wasn’t natural, it went against Nature.”

They stopped going out together; they isolated themselves.

They made love in all the rooms in the house, but they stayed at home.

Janne moved to Oslo. Tomas’ daughter moved to Oslo. He felt abandoned.

Tomas’ relationship with Janne was like that of Abélard and Héloise. Abélard was 38 and Héloise was 16. That relationship ended badly, particularly for Abélard. (I won’t specify what happened, since it was barbarous, perhaps the worst that can happen to a man.

In the notebooks at the end of the book, Tomas describes his loneliness when Janne leaves.

“She is everywhere in the house, everywhere in the house she is gone.”

“I’ve never loved anyone like Janne. The great love at the age of forty-eight, that is deadly dangerous.”

“I just don’t know how to be alone in the house. What does one do? What shall I do with myself?”
“It was hard when Agnete died and I was left alone with Harriet (Agnete’s child by another man) and Amalie ---.”But this is harder in a more dangerous way; now I’m alone with myself.”

“I am a person who is abandoned; it means I’m a person who is left behind; I can’t do anything else, I can’t do anything but stay in the house where I live.”

“Come back to me.

Come back to me.”

He eats junk food, ready-made food, in a hurry. They used to buy three bottles of wine and drink two of them – now he drinks the three bottles alone.

He doesn’t work, doesn’t shave. He’s lost four kilos. He eats only white bread swallowed with red wine.

“A broken heart is a special disease.”

“I cry, throw up, sweat, have fits of anger, as though everything inside me has to come out.”

“Insomnia, fever. Nightmares, fits of jealousy, as though everything outside has to come in.”

Tomas Espedal has a unique, poignant style. One really understands how he feels. He is a brilliant writer, and I highly recommend this book. ( )

Another amazing book by Tomas Espedal. I love reading his truth, an honesty that holds no prisoners, that frees like few others have the power to release. This is a wrenching love story that has no end, and figures to remain a spiritual part of me for the rest of my life. A beautiful man who has composed another wondrous title to behold. ( )

Fremragende lille roman af den norske forfatter Thomas Espedal. De selvbiografiske elementer gør den bare endnu mere intens. Især sidste halvdel er en hjerteskærende og fremragende skrevet oplevelse af forladthed, ensomhed og kærestesorg - men også af en mand der ikke går på kompromis og "flygter" fra følelserne ( )