Arvid returns as an adult - in deep distress, grieving, remembering
If you can read this book and not be in love w Petterson you might be a stone
One of favorite lines is on p ( )

Reading this novel about life in the wake of loss was a viscerally painful experience. Having lost parents and two young siblings in a ferry disaster 6 years prior to the start of the story, two brothers are trying to survive the seemingly never-ending ripples of grief from destroying their lives. Patterson evokes the soul deep experience of grief so magnificently that the reader aches along with the brothers. Watch out, folks. This is an intense read! ( )

30% van de NL vertaling gelezen, Kielzog. Dat was wel genoeg. Eindelijk weer eens een dikke vette 1. Irritant vanaf de eerste blz. Onnodig ingewikkelde vertelstijl met lange monologues interieures, flashbacks, modieus modern, draagt niets bij aan de zeggingskracht, en de lezer zoekt het maar uit. Als je dan net iets veel beters hebt gelezen met vergelijkbare thematiek, dan valt deze auteur genadeloos door de mand. Zijn laatste boek was wel de DWDD keus van de maand. Zou dat echt beter zijn? ( )

In the Wake is the third of Per Petterson's novels that I have read, yet it is the first of his novels translated into English. I previously read Out Stealing Horses and I Curse the River of Time. Each of these books has increased my esteem for this award-winning Norwegian author.

In the Wake tells the story of Arvid, a writer in his early forties. It is a Proustian tale in the sense that the bulk of the story is built on Arvid's memories of events that have shaped his life. The actual timespan of the novel is relatively short. In it Arvid's loneliness is intense, his grief has settled in to the point where his sanity is not guaranteed. He has lost his father, mother and two younger brothers in a ferry accident. (Petterson lost his parents and a brother in a ferry accident, too, but prefers to leave this out of his publicity material.)

Arvid's life as a writer has slowed to a standstill and yet he keeps moving, driving his beaten-up Mazda through wintry Norwegian landscapes and we keep him company, waiting for a thaw. The novel is startling, especially its opening. It takes a while to adjust to it, like a plunge into icy water, after which the body temperature must revert to normal. It is in prose passages like this describing a moment with his brother that the book comes alive: "We got out of the van, not slamming the doors but pushing them shut, because of the silence around us, not a sound but the sea sighing as it always does behind the trees but the shore when I realize that is what I can hear and stop thinking it is silence itself." His brother is sometimes a mirror for Arvid as is the memories of his father. The action of the book is muted but Arvid's willingness to keep moving and his interaction with real living people provides hope for the reader that he will survive his grief and loneliness.

It seems appropriate that many of the scenes in the book occur in doorways or on actual thresholds, for it seems that this is where Arvid is in a psychological sense. One night, locked out, he stands outside his neighbor's house - and wakes her up. Thus begins a chapter about admission in many senses - Arvid tells his neighbor things about his dead father he has never told anyone. And it is clear that it is the confession that leads him to her bed.

Arvid is a reader as he explains, "On Sundays I sit at home reading whether it's sunny or raining or snowing." And like Per Petterson himself, Arvid used to work in a bookshop and refers to favorite books, as if reading might accomplish what life could not. He describes one author's work like this: "Full of landscape and air and you can smell the pine needles and the heather a long way off." Petterson's own novel is like this, too. It is prose you can almost inhale - the atmosphere is clear and overwhelming.

Hemingway is one persistent influence on Petterson, and so is Knut Hamsun—the protagonists of two early Hamsun novels, “Mysteries” and “Pan,” could be models for Petterson’s unmoored people, especially in the way that Hamsun, like Petterson, at once reveals and obscures rational motivation. Trying to separate fact from fiction with his memories flowing through his mind Arvid shares this thought: "It must have been a dream, of course, because I do not remember what that house looked like from outside or what he saw from the windows or why we were actually there. I remember a lot of dreams. Sometimes they are hard to distinguish from what has really happened. That is not so terrible. It is the same with books."

In the end Arvid's story and he himself are memorable because of his ability to become someone like the reader of his book. He rereads books, and he makes lists of favorite books. They help him deal with the the pain of the world and find a way to go on living and writing. In the end he shares a real life Hemingway moment with his brother. The reality of living in the present overcomes all the memories of the painful past. ( )

http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/86546194843/in-the-wake-by-per-petterson

I find nothing pretentious or false in a Per Petterson novel. At least in the first two I have read thus far. To handle grief in the most tragic sense of it and bring it off in a believable tale of circuitous events all a part of the greater whole is truly remarkable. There is no development in this novel that is not understood and certainly applicable to a person with the character of Arvid Jansen. From the awful lonely and severe grimacing of the opening pages, and the movement on to dealing with the always at once vivid and then forever mounting daily tragedies of both past and present events, this remaining family of two middle-aged and recently divorced brothers seem to have been glued fast to their challenging fate. Of course, emotional and physical escape routes are spontaneously planned, and a severe action taken by one brother to finally end all this pain of guilt-laden suffering.

Although I personally have not had to deal with grief or guilt in the way Per Petterson presents the awful circumstances his character Arvid, not to mention himself, have been subjected to, I still felt something of gargantuan measure, which is what most days I really want. To feel so much on a given day is to live large, and though the pain at times seems unbearable, the essence of it is something to be cherished. And of course, as have others, I too have had my own share of grief and bad things happen to me, but nothing really, nothing compared to what this story relates in its heartfelt and aching fiction. Confusing and painful poison darts come at these two men from every direction off the board and the piercing stings add layer upon layer to this many-storied predicament. If revealed within this framework of mine the many details presented by this novel I would spoil the number of gems gifted to us along the roads Per Petterson takes us amidst Arvid’s own home remedies for self-healing. But the book sadly never made me cry, but it did indeed make me ache and have empathy rarely materialized in my own flesh. In truth I live probably too much in my fiction, whether it be my own or somebody else’s. But I prefer my life to be this way. Much as I also admit to my preference of dogs over human beings when it comes to meaningful relationships. Per Petterson certainly has a gift for writing penetratingly good prose. And I understand he was for years a pretty serious reader himself. I look forward to the next novel of his that finds me ready for his gift.
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