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Loading... The Silence: An Anti-Novel and Absolutely the Very Last Protocolby Jens Bjørneboe
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.  MSarki | Jan 24, 2015 |  Se bokanmeldelser: FRIHETENS ØYEBLIKK – BIND I (http://no.librarything.com/work/details/35589347 ) KRUTTÅRNET – BIND II (http://no.librarything.com/work/details/35589650 ) STILLHETEN – BIND III (http://no.librarything.com/work/details/35589777 ) (  ) Rose-Marie | Mar 23, 2009 | no reviews | add a review
Belongs to SeriesThe History of Bestiality (book 3) Belongs to Publisher SeriesJens Bjørneboe (Samlede verker) (book 13) Lanterne (L 271) Literatur im Trotzdem-Verlag (Bd. 2)
"This novel marks the apex and the culmination of the author Jean Bjomeboe's investigations into the nature of evil. Here the study moves to a broader canvas than in earlier works; the enquiring narrator explores not just European history, but the crimes committed by Europeans against the rest of humanity in the name of expansion and conquest. Cortez' destruction of the Aztec empire and Pizarro's of the Incas were crimes of genocide comparable with Hitler's against the Jews, and Columbus' glorious discovery of America becomes simply an act of colonialism: "The Indians had discovered America long before I came." His realization of European culpability and anticipation of the blood-bath that will ensue when the Third World claims its rightful share of the world's riches lead the narrator into a long plunge into the tunnel of depression, from which he emerges in a cathartic realization that human beings have not only an unfathomable capacity for evil, but also an immeasurable capacity for good; man is the destroyer of all things, but also the renewer of all things. The twenty-five years that have passed since this novel was first published have not diminished its relevance and its urgency."--Jacket. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)839.82Literature German literature and literatures of related languages Other Germanic literatures Danish and Norwegian literatures Norwegian literatureLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (4.38)
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Wikipedia in English
1
The silence referred to, it is important to note, is the calm before the storm. For example, the eery quiet just before a hurricane. And this silence exists it seems for the somber hope present in the moments before a revolution.
Because there is no story to begin with, and the text at first appears boringly political in its talk of revolution, and the words go on and on in such a way that offers doubt for any hope of entertainment, still a reader such as myself buckles down and presses on. And before the reader knows it he, or she, is sucked in again to the marrow and excessively violent world of Jens Bjørneboe. It is nothing short of a miracle to me how his books fascinate, and The Silence is no exception.
Historical figures make their many appearances throughout the novel and their stories are told through the voice of a steady narrator at times unhinged by his life experience and given to bouts of heavy drinking and his own self-inflicted physical abuse. But the narrator manages still to prevail and the reader is rewarded with rich historical accounts of characters such as Columbus, Pizarro, and Cortez, ending with one of the best known and influential figures of the French Revolution Maximilien de Robespierre, the Incorruptible. The accounts of genocide are numerous and graphic in the Bjørneboe telling.
Esther Greenleaf Murer is the brilliant translator of this work and she offers an introduction to The Silence that is sufficient and superior to anything I might write about this book. Bjørneboe’s very last chapter is one of the best endings to a book I have ever read. I could not recommend this book more to all of humanity, both good and evil, the righteous and unrighteous among us, and the penetrating gaze made available for all of us to peer unflinchingly into the abyss where suffering has no end and pain has no meaning. (