Doppler

Doppler slår seg i hodet og skjønner at han må flytte fra kone og barn og ut i skogen. I skogen lever han alene, forsøksvis i en jeger/sankertilværelse, men diverse hensyn, primært behovet for skummet melk, gjør at han holder seg i nærheten av sivilisasjonen. Etter hvert får han også selskap av en elg og forskjellige mennesker. Doppler forfekter et nobelt syn om at naturen er for alle, men stjeler også uten hemninger fra både andre mennesker og butikker. Han får det for seg at "flinkheten" er den store samfunnsfienden, men her vil jeg si at han forveksler flinkhet med materialisme og statusjag. Dopplers tanker og tilværelse får en til å tenke seg og gir mye både å kjenne seg igjen i og ikke å kjenne seg igjen i. Ikke show more minst er boka også morsom. Anbefales. show less

This book defies description, but I’ll have a go. It’s about Doppler, a Norwegian guy who after the death of his father has an accident on his bike and subsequently turns his back on civilization to live in the forest. His sole companion is Bongo, an elk calf which he feels responsible for having shot Bongo’s mother for food. The conversations with Bongo made me smile. It’s a tale about family, grief, alienation and a gradual warming towards civilization again, or so you think. No matter how much Doppler wants to be alone, he seems to attract people around him.
It’s a charming tale with a cutting edge. Doppler is happy in the forest but is a keen observer of the society he has rejected. Forced to communicate again with his show more pregnant wife and two children, he struggles to cope with modern society and his responsibilities, Teletubbies add Bob the Builder included. His teenage daughter Nora, named after an Ibsen character of course, insists on talking to him in elfish. His son Gregus forgets the television and instead helps him carve a totem pole, intended as a memorial to Doppler’s father but which comes to represent the three male generations of Dopplers and Bongo.
I read it quickly and wished it was longer, a book that will yield more for re-reading I think.
Read more of my book reviews at http://www.sandradanby.com/book-reviews-a-z/ show less

This is a brilliant book. Like Loe's other ones, this is also about an apocalypse in the mind, body and soul. A busy family father topples from his bike onto the ground which stuns him; as he lies in the grass, concussed and estranged from his hectic everyday existance, he starts unraveling and reaches two conclusions: 1) he dislikes people and 2) he must move to the forest.

So he does move into the forest, away from his wife and two kids, and befriends a deer (after slaughtering its mother). And that's just the start.

Radiant writing, quite in-tact with Loe's previous writings so if you've read him before I think you'll fairly soon find your way around this novel as well, and if you haven't, you're in for a treat.

A lot of humor, a bit of show more tragedy and a lot of everyday bliss. Paper-bag-from-American-Beauty-ish. Love it. show less

Doppler is a very strange book for all the right reasons. It is the stream of consciousness of a man, Andreas Doppler, who comes to the realisation that he has grown weary of living a proper life with all the other proper people doing proper things. He decides to go live out in the woods for an indefinite amount of time. Pointless, yes, but no more so than anything else he could be doing. The book is both funny and clever without getting too pleased with itself. It also manages to maintain a slight discomfort and uneasiness throughout. It's impossible not to like the main character, but at the same time it is impossible to accept his thoughts and his actions. Doing so would invalidate too many of the premises our society is based on. show more However, the book never becomes preachy. It poses many questions, but doesn't claim to know all, or even any of the answers. Even when it makes judgements (and quite harsh ones at that) it is done in a slightly absurd and irreverent way which I doubt would offend anyone, even if they happened to identify with the conservative-voting money-grabbing stereotype the main character dislikes so much. In short the book manages to put question marks next to many established truths and wisdoms in a way which I think will give everyone some food for thought without patronising anyone. That's quite rare. show less

I picked this book up because of the cover, because of the blurb and especially because of the moose. I'm intrigued by Scandanavian stories and had high hopes for Doppler. My reading was that Doppler is meant to be a sort of anti-consumerist messiah. He doesn't grow or evolve through the story, rather everyone around him comes to embrace his views. Or they're idiots. If you've been looking for a tale to affirm your decision to ditch the wife and kids and get in touch with your inner forest troll, this is the book for you. But be warned: the moose does't turn up as much as you might wish.

http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/128021163103/doppler-by-erlend-loe

A refreshing tale of personal hate and one man’s effort to exist freely enough to express it on a daily basis. Doppler’s War is one against conformity and stupidity and a personal quest to discover eventually if the entire world is actually this pathetically dumb. The hope that he will one day find intelligent life somewhere on the planet provides enough incentive for himself, his young son Gregus, and his adopted teen-aged elk son Bongo, to head off to forests unknown and the ultimate adventure of a lifetime. A novel use of truth as impetus for an invigorating fiction.

Marketed in the UK as a Christmas book with the tagline "An elk is for life... not just for Christmas", in fact a book which has an elk in is not just for Christmas either. Whilst the main charcater, Doppler, does indeed team up with an elk, it is more about one man's reaction to an overdose of consumerism as he takes to the forest. A funny book, both haha and peculiar.