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Forty-year-old Elling, victim of a wildly overactive imagination, has spent his entire life secured under his mother's thumb. However, when she dies Elling is left without the first idea of how to look after himself so he admits himself into the very helpful Broynes Rehabilitation Centre where he meets and befriends fellow inmate Kjell Bjarne.After a short stint at Broynes, Elling and Kjell Bjarne return to Oslo where they start their new lives together as room-mates on a quest to become show more normal average people. But the real world is fraught with fears that they must first learn to conquer; answering the telephone for one, leaving the house for another and the journey outdoors is by no means an easy one.By the end of the novel Kjell has found himself a girlfriend, albeit a pregnant drunk, the upstairs neighbour Reidun, and Elling has discovered his love for poetry, in the pursuit of which he makes friends with an elderly poet. Finally both men are on their way to a more normal life. Told with deceptively simple language, gentle quirky comedy, and wonderful characters this offers a surprisingly profound view of the world. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
This was an unexpected pleasure - Elling is a middle-aged man on the fringe, awkward with every person, every social situation, every walk down the street. And yet he is unabashedly the hero of his own story. He is living with another man with whom he was released from a psychiatric half-way house, and the two get into the maddest adventures. Elling decides he's a poet, but wants to be the Zorro version of poetry, slipping his one poem into packaged food at the grocery store to be discovered by customers upon opening their groceries. His roommate ends up as some sort of virgin knight errant, taking an upstairs neighbor under his damaged wing until a romance that neither he nor Elling are prepared to handle.
4 bones!!!!
Recommended!!!!
4 bones!!!!
Recommended!!!!
This is a brilliant book about two characters who will rock your world: Elling and Kjell. These two characters are struggling to acclimate to the real world after being released from a rehab center where they were treated for mental issues. Both characters have difficulty interacting with people and performing the typical social norms (like going to dinner or to the store). The duo have a care taker who checks in on them from time to time and advises them to go out into the world. The book details Elling and Kjell's friendship, Kjell's attempts to seduce the neighbor, Elling's friendship with a poet and a road trip that shows them both how far they have come. Such a hilarious book that is original and refreshing!!!
This is a funny and touching novel about two men who become blood brothers, and the problems they have. Apart from the originality and the tangibility of the story and the characters, the book is also exceedingly well written. I have rarely read a novel with such a natural flow.
The Finnish translation leaves something to be desired, though.
The Finnish translation leaves something to be desired, though.
This book is hilarious, tragic, fun, sad, insane, true. Go and read it. (And if you can find a version of the movie based on it, "Elling", with English subtitles, please let me know.)
Roman touchant, à la fois tragile et extrêmement drôle sur la difficulté à vivre sa vie quotidienne lorsque l'on est confronté à des phobies sociales. La description de la vie intérieure et émotionnelle du personnage principal Elling est subtile, riche et fouillée. Le livre, très bien écrit, reste léger en dépit de sa gravité. Excellemment traduit par Jean-Baptiste Coursaud.
Sep 9, 2012French
Number 3 in the Elling series is a fun read, full of comedy, but at the same time a “serious” look at the trials and tribulations of overcoming fear and learning to cope with the world.
Jul 25, 2025 (Edited)English (UK)
Elling, obra que recibió el Premio de los Libreros de Noruega, nos cuenta las aventuras de uno de los personajes más tiernos y entrañables que ha dado la literatura nórdica en los últimos años. Elling posee una complicada e hiperactiva imaginación y ha sido siempre mimado por su madre, así que, cuando ella muere, le cuesta adaptarse a su nueva vida y es internado en un centro, del que saldrá para compartir un piso tutelado en Oslo junto a su compañero Kjell Bjarne, su hermano de sangre, que es su contrapunto en todos los sentidos, empezando por su enorme diferencia de estatura…
Jun 23, 2022Spanish
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Author Information
88+ Works 1,731 Members
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Awards and Honors
Awards
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Serie Piper (2776)
Work Relationships
Is contained in
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Blutsbrüder
- Original title
- Brødre i blodet
- Original publication date
- 1996
- People/Characters
- Elling; Kjell Bjarne; Frank Asli; Reidun Nordsletten; Alfons Jørgensen
- Important places
- Oslo, Norway; Brøynes Treatment Center
- Related movies
- Elling (2001 | IMDb)
- First words*
- "Als kleiner Junge habe ich schrecklich gern Johannisbeeren gegessen", sagte Kjell Bjarne.
- Last words*
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"So einfach ist das im Grunde."
- Original language
- Norwegian
- Disambiguation notice
- This work is the novel "Brødre i blodet" (the third book in the Elling Quartet), known as "Beyond the Great Outdoors" in the British Commonwealth, as "Elling" in the United States, and as "Potes pour la vie" in French.
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 839.82 — Literature & rhetoric German & related literatures Other Germanic literatures Danish and Norwegian literatures Norwegian literature
- LCC
- PT8951.1 .M35 .B76 — Language and Literature German, Dutch and Scandinavian literatures Norwegian literature Individual authors or works 1961-2000
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 271
- Popularity
- 119,765
- Reviews
- 9
- Rating
- (3.77)
- Languages
- 11 — Czech, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 26
- ASINs
- 6
