Frode Grytten
Author of The Ferryman and His Wife: A Novel
About the Author
Image credit: Credit: Jarvin, Nov. 6, 2007
Works by Frode Grytten
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1960-12-11
- Gender
- male
- Occupations
- journalist
- Awards and honors
- Brage award (1999 for his novel Bikubesong)
- Nationality
- Norway
- Birthplace
- Bergen, Norway
- Places of residence
- Odda, Norway (birthplace)
- Associated Place (for map)
- Norway
Members
Reviews
Favorite Quotes:
The old furniture was heavy and dark, as if it would stand here for all time. Three generations had passed through these rooms, fluttering around like insects, filling each floor with the sounds of life and joy.
Yes– it’s perfectly possible to see whether or not a man is happily married. I can see it a mile off. But no man with love in his life can understand how hard it is to be without it, and no happy person can truly grasp just how unhappy another might be.
So how did show more you die? he asks. Of dehydration, she replies. Dehydration? Yes– didn’t you know that women who live alone shrivel up? I don’t know how it is for men, but a woman gets dehydrated if she spends her life alone. You weren’t happy, then? Happy? Only mediocre people are happy.
Oh, the idiocy of having to depend on others, she said.
In his logbook, he wrote of his passenger: Beautiful people expect so much more from life than life is willing to give them.
It was the first time Nils had ever seen a dead man. He’d thought it would be more dramatic– Gerhard Myklebust looked peaceful, the life had simply trickled out of him, as if his fuel tank had run empty.
My Review:
I found this piece to be brain-rattling, confusing, haunting, heart-squeezing, brilliant, perceptive, and profoundly written. I adored it and was riveted and itchy with curiosity throughout perusal. I couldn’t settle or decide if he was hallucinating, dreaming, or in the process of dying. I alternated between deep emotions as I read with passages that occasionally made me smirk but also broke my heart before putting it back in place. Frode Grytten has mad skills and seriously powerful word voodoo. show less
The old furniture was heavy and dark, as if it would stand here for all time. Three generations had passed through these rooms, fluttering around like insects, filling each floor with the sounds of life and joy.
Yes– it’s perfectly possible to see whether or not a man is happily married. I can see it a mile off. But no man with love in his life can understand how hard it is to be without it, and no happy person can truly grasp just how unhappy another might be.
So how did show more you die? he asks. Of dehydration, she replies. Dehydration? Yes– didn’t you know that women who live alone shrivel up? I don’t know how it is for men, but a woman gets dehydrated if she spends her life alone. You weren’t happy, then? Happy? Only mediocre people are happy.
Oh, the idiocy of having to depend on others, she said.
In his logbook, he wrote of his passenger: Beautiful people expect so much more from life than life is willing to give them.
It was the first time Nils had ever seen a dead man. He’d thought it would be more dramatic– Gerhard Myklebust looked peaceful, the life had simply trickled out of him, as if his fuel tank had run empty.
My Review:
I found this piece to be brain-rattling, confusing, haunting, heart-squeezing, brilliant, perceptive, and profoundly written. I adored it and was riveted and itchy with curiosity throughout perusal. I couldn’t settle or decide if he was hallucinating, dreaming, or in the process of dying. I alternated between deep emotions as I read with passages that occasionally made me smirk but also broke my heart before putting it back in place. Frode Grytten has mad skills and seriously powerful word voodoo. show less
Rating: 4* of five
The Publisher Says: In the spirit of Amor Towles and George Saunders, the renowned, bestselling Norwegian author Frode Grytten takes readers on a quietly epic journey: ferry driver Nils Vik's last route along the fjord, on what he knows will be his last day alive.
Nils Vik wakes up on November the 18th and knows it will be the day he dies. He follows his morning routine as voices from his past echo in his mind, and looks around the empty house one last time, before stepping show more onto his beloved boat.
His dog, dead these many years, leaps aboard with him, and then the other dead begin to emerge—from the woods along the fjord, from each of the ferry stops along the route, from his logbook full of memories and quotations and jotted-down notes about the weather conditions. The people from the past accompany him now, prodding him, showing him what he might have missed before, as he waits for his Marta, his late, remarkable wife, to finally join him on the boat again.
Winner of the prestigious Brage Prize, and considered to be Grytten's long-awaited masterpiece, The Ferryman and His Wife is the story of a quiet, yet utterly profound, life told in reverse. Timeless and absorbing, this is a novel about what we take with us—those moments that might seem insignificant as they happen but prove to be the most meaningful, in the end.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Wisdom comes late in life, if it bothers to stop by your place at all.
Nils Vik, the ferryman of the title, has a good store of wisdom built up, and uses his last day of life to put it in order.
Aper&çu after aphorism following quotable line, this is a lovely sentimental ruminative summing-up of a small life lived well.
If the need for a warm toddy on a cold day is upon you, read this book. It is lovey; it is short; it answers that need we all share for feeling seen and valued for ourselves, for our gifts and how we've given them.
I found the one discordant note, some people traveling in Nils' ferry to exterminate feral dogs, sufficiently off-putting to skip over any possible details I might be offended by and ding a star off the rating.
Its impact was warming overall, and the prose went down well; will I remember it in a week? Not likely; it was an afternoon's pleasant entertainment. show less
The Publisher Says: In the spirit of Amor Towles and George Saunders, the renowned, bestselling Norwegian author Frode Grytten takes readers on a quietly epic journey: ferry driver Nils Vik's last route along the fjord, on what he knows will be his last day alive.
Nils Vik wakes up on November the 18th and knows it will be the day he dies. He follows his morning routine as voices from his past echo in his mind, and looks around the empty house one last time, before stepping show more onto his beloved boat.
His dog, dead these many years, leaps aboard with him, and then the other dead begin to emerge—from the woods along the fjord, from each of the ferry stops along the route, from his logbook full of memories and quotations and jotted-down notes about the weather conditions. The people from the past accompany him now, prodding him, showing him what he might have missed before, as he waits for his Marta, his late, remarkable wife, to finally join him on the boat again.
Winner of the prestigious Brage Prize, and considered to be Grytten's long-awaited masterpiece, The Ferryman and His Wife is the story of a quiet, yet utterly profound, life told in reverse. Timeless and absorbing, this is a novel about what we take with us—those moments that might seem insignificant as they happen but prove to be the most meaningful, in the end.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: Wisdom comes late in life, if it bothers to stop by your place at all.
To be born was to live long enough to discover what air and sea and earth and hate and love are, then to say thank you and goodbye.
Nils Vik, the ferryman of the title, has a good store of wisdom built up, and uses his last day of life to put it in order.
This life is like an item of clothing, the beauty exists on the outside but the warmth is found within.
Aper&çu after aphorism following quotable line, this is a lovely sentimental ruminative summing-up of a small life lived well.
"He loved his wife. I always said they lived like two clapping hands, she was the left hand, he the right."
If the need for a warm toddy on a cold day is upon you, read this book. It is lovey; it is short; it answers that need we all share for feeling seen and valued for ourselves, for our gifts and how we've given them.
"And don’t think I’m about to ask you. About what? Whether or not you were happy – because I know exactly what you’ll say. You’re one of those people who thinks you’re happy where you are, somebody who wants no more than what you already have."
I found the one discordant note, some people traveling in Nils' ferry to exterminate feral dogs, sufficiently off-putting to skip over any possible details I might be offended by and ding a star off the rating.
Its impact was warming overall, and the prose went down well; will I remember it in a week? Not likely; it was an afternoon's pleasant entertainment. show less
I received this book for free, this does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review
At a quarter past five in the morning Nils Vik opened his eyes, and the last day of his life began.
Prepare to sob, really, that's all you need to know. I mean, if this doesn't gut punch you with the grief: He simply stared at his eldest daughter. Her clear eyes, her feminine movements, the way she said things, the way she laughed – and all the while, he saw her mother. It was all he had show more now. To other people it would have been nothing, but for Nils it was almost too much.
All his passengers – they ooze out of the logbooks, arise from his handwriting, grow out of his memory. They line the fjord, they are with him, they present themselves in the hope of being recognised. See us. Touch us. Speak of us.
The Ferryman and His Wife was a shorter story of a Norwegian man who knows it's his last day on earth and he becomes a sort of Charon on his fjord as he ferries ghosts from his past and thinks back on his life.
After Marta, he still flicked off the lamp on the nightstand and said: Goodnight, sweetheart, sleep well. After Marta, he whispered the words from his side of the bed, but from the other there was no longer any reply.
It's all from Nils' point-of-view with such descriptive setting writing that you'll freeze on the fjords with him at times. Readers learn that he still lives in the home that he grew-up in and he's followed in his father's footsteps as a ferryman for the community since he was fourteen.
Everyone needs to be seen – there isn’t a single person on this earth who isn’t longing to be discovered.
His wife has already passed on and he has two grown daughters, are the bare facts we know as he starts his ferry up for the last time. It's all pretty intrapersonal but through his thoughts and feelings you get such a beautiful scope of all the people and moments that make a life.
He can remember no point in his life when he hasn’t loved her, or when he’s doubted that she truly loved him back. Sometimes, when he turned on the radio at home and heard people harping on about being unhappy in love, all the bitter experiences of their lives, he would walk into whichever room Marta was in and just look at her. What are you staring at, Nils Vik? she might ask him then. I’m staring at you, Marta Haugen Vik. Well, you can bloody well stop it – go on, get away with you, Nils Vik.
Nils first passenger is his dog that died twenty-five years ago and their communication and love will be your first sob-fest and from there on readers are treated to vignettes about passengers Nils has had over the years. It's a heartfelt look at how his job integrated him into the community and how everyday people can make such a huge difference.
A cigarette in her hand, and strangely enough it was the cigarette that had shaken Nils the most – not the smoking itself, but that she was sitting there on the edge of the bed with a cigarette, when she usually never smoked. It was as if there were another Marta, one he had no knowledge of, one to whom he had no access. Who was his wife? And who was his best friend?
As he's traveling picking up some ghostly passengers and reminiscing about others, there's always going back to thoughts and feelings about his time with his wife Marta. I loved how his memories showed the highs and lows of a longterm relationship, the way that couples can grow apart and grow together; Nils changing and working a little harder for Marta is subtle but there in a big way.
How could I ever have prepared myself for you? he whispered. How could I ever have prepared for these days, which became these weeks, which became these months, which became these years, which became this life?
This, to me, is the best of literary fiction, it set me in a place I could feel and delivered on the emotions that make you run the gamut, crying, smiling, struggling, questioning, and wanting to understand yourself and others more. The grief, love, connection, and with all the mistakes and doing right of a life well lived was beautifully relayed in this story. Read this, get your book clubs to read this, and then come talk to me about it (sob with me about Luna and let's talk tea about that photographer bestfriend). show less
At a quarter past five in the morning Nils Vik opened his eyes, and the last day of his life began.
Prepare to sob, really, that's all you need to know. I mean, if this doesn't gut punch you with the grief: He simply stared at his eldest daughter. Her clear eyes, her feminine movements, the way she said things, the way she laughed – and all the while, he saw her mother. It was all he had show more now. To other people it would have been nothing, but for Nils it was almost too much.
All his passengers – they ooze out of the logbooks, arise from his handwriting, grow out of his memory. They line the fjord, they are with him, they present themselves in the hope of being recognised. See us. Touch us. Speak of us.
The Ferryman and His Wife was a shorter story of a Norwegian man who knows it's his last day on earth and he becomes a sort of Charon on his fjord as he ferries ghosts from his past and thinks back on his life.
After Marta, he still flicked off the lamp on the nightstand and said: Goodnight, sweetheart, sleep well. After Marta, he whispered the words from his side of the bed, but from the other there was no longer any reply.
It's all from Nils' point-of-view with such descriptive setting writing that you'll freeze on the fjords with him at times. Readers learn that he still lives in the home that he grew-up in and he's followed in his father's footsteps as a ferryman for the community since he was fourteen.
Everyone needs to be seen – there isn’t a single person on this earth who isn’t longing to be discovered.
His wife has already passed on and he has two grown daughters, are the bare facts we know as he starts his ferry up for the last time. It's all pretty intrapersonal but through his thoughts and feelings you get such a beautiful scope of all the people and moments that make a life.
He can remember no point in his life when he hasn’t loved her, or when he’s doubted that she truly loved him back. Sometimes, when he turned on the radio at home and heard people harping on about being unhappy in love, all the bitter experiences of their lives, he would walk into whichever room Marta was in and just look at her. What are you staring at, Nils Vik? she might ask him then. I’m staring at you, Marta Haugen Vik. Well, you can bloody well stop it – go on, get away with you, Nils Vik.
Nils first passenger is his dog that died twenty-five years ago and their communication and love will be your first sob-fest and from there on readers are treated to vignettes about passengers Nils has had over the years. It's a heartfelt look at how his job integrated him into the community and how everyday people can make such a huge difference.
A cigarette in her hand, and strangely enough it was the cigarette that had shaken Nils the most – not the smoking itself, but that she was sitting there on the edge of the bed with a cigarette, when she usually never smoked. It was as if there were another Marta, one he had no knowledge of, one to whom he had no access. Who was his wife? And who was his best friend?
As he's traveling picking up some ghostly passengers and reminiscing about others, there's always going back to thoughts and feelings about his time with his wife Marta. I loved how his memories showed the highs and lows of a longterm relationship, the way that couples can grow apart and grow together; Nils changing and working a little harder for Marta is subtle but there in a big way.
How could I ever have prepared myself for you? he whispered. How could I ever have prepared for these days, which became these weeks, which became these months, which became these years, which became this life?
This, to me, is the best of literary fiction, it set me in a place I could feel and delivered on the emotions that make you run the gamut, crying, smiling, struggling, questioning, and wanting to understand yourself and others more. The grief, love, connection, and with all the mistakes and doing right of a life well lived was beautifully relayed in this story. Read this, get your book clubs to read this, and then come talk to me about it (sob with me about Luna and let's talk tea about that photographer bestfriend). show less
First, this is a love story. A love story with youthful romance, then struggles with daily life with it’s cares and challenges, the temptations that threaten, and ends with eternal love that haunts the survivor.
Second, this is the story of a man’s life. A small life, a life without expanse or broad knowledge of the world, but a life rooted in duty and consistency. Nils first ran his father’s ferry boat across the fjord as a teen, and as a man dedicated his life to the lonely and show more essential work.
Last of all, this is a book about the impact even a small life can make, the lives he can change. It is a book about love for friends and neighbors as well as for wife and family, and even a dog.
Such a life comes to an end, not lost and alone, but accompanied by the ghosts of all the people—and the dog–whose lives Nils touched.
The silence and the storms of a life on a boat crossing from one shore to another has its beauty and terror, its regrets and joys. All beautifully rendered with impactful simplicity.
It gives one pause: what will my last day look like? What ghosts from the past will accompany me on that last journey? What comfort or pain will those hosts bring? If it will be anything like that of Nils, there is nothing to fear.
Read, weep, and be comforted.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book. show less
Second, this is the story of a man’s life. A small life, a life without expanse or broad knowledge of the world, but a life rooted in duty and consistency. Nils first ran his father’s ferry boat across the fjord as a teen, and as a man dedicated his life to the lonely and show more essential work.
Last of all, this is a book about the impact even a small life can make, the lives he can change. It is a book about love for friends and neighbors as well as for wife and family, and even a dog.
Such a life comes to an end, not lost and alone, but accompanied by the ghosts of all the people—and the dog–whose lives Nils touched.
The silence and the storms of a life on a boat crossing from one shore to another has its beauty and terror, its regrets and joys. All beautifully rendered with impactful simplicity.
It gives one pause: what will my last day look like? What ghosts from the past will accompany me on that last journey? What comfort or pain will those hosts bring? If it will be anything like that of Nils, there is nothing to fear.
Read, weep, and be comforted.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book. show less
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 45
- Also by
- 3
- Members
- 679
- Popularity
- #37,220
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 31
- ISBNs
- 105
- Languages
- 14
- Favorited
- 3