Naïve. Super

I’m curious, did you hear about this book from 1996, in the same way I did? That would have been in the political coverage of presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. Seems that Mayor Pete found the book while at Harvard, and when he discovered that the Norwegian author, Erlend Loe, didn’t have any other works that had been translated, he learned Norwegian. Mayor Pete was certainly an original politician in many ways.
Curiosity of discovery aside, this slim paperback is one very clever and original coming-of-age novel. The style is simple and tells of a young man who has dropped out of a MA program, isn’t working, has no obvious ambition, and is house sitting for his brother. He does have a compunction to make lists of all sorts of show more things, and to bounce a red ball off the wall for hours at a time. Oh, and he finds great comfort in one of the kids toys where you hammer the pegs through the bench, and then flip it over and pound them all right back. The simple things can many times be the most rewarding.
As little is expected of him, he does the simple things that bring him pleasure, the things that he can control, while all the major decisions of his life are currently over the horizon of this temporary phase of his life. He knows that they will come his way eventually, but he’s into the uncomplicated pleasures of life—while he can. [I can strongly relate to this situation, at his point in my own life.]
The writing reflects the simplicity of his life, as well as the self-controlled nature of his days. Many lives get complicated at this point—when one knows that the major decisions of life won’t be leaving you alone much longer. Many times those complications are drugs and other addictions. Another way is when someone start making a few or many of the myriad of self-destructive choices possible in life.
There are hoards of coming-of-age novels, stories in which characters feel that the time has come when they must grow up, must make all those major life decisions. However, just maybe, this stellar and slender novel is a grand example of the time in life before all that happens. Or, on the other hand, it may be not be showing what precedes, but what can supersede all that.
No matter how closely you feel to the life depicted within this story, this extremely funny and insightful book was a real treat to read and to relate to, and it is wonderfully original and fresh. show less

What a satisfying read. Nothing happens, in the most fascinating way imaginable. Just as I wrote that last sentence I remembered the feeling of watching My Dinner with Andre for the first time. This novel gave me a similar feeling--happy to be alive, happy to be literate, happy to have time to read and to think. It's that kind of book.

A lovely book about a young man trying to find some sense of meaning in his life, reminds me of The Catcher in the Rye's narrator, the nameless main character having a unique voice and way of seeing the world.
A perfect book for people who like to make lists.

These kinds of novels with a childlike, naive narrator seem to be becoming more popular; or, perhaps, I am on a streak, having recently read Matt Haig's "The Humans" and Fredrik Backman's "A Man Called Ove." I find it a bit tiresome. It reads like a literary exercise, an excuse for the author to dispense "wisdom" without actually having any. This book is particularly bad, lacking redeeming qualities like an original premise (e.g., math and aliens in "The Humans") or an interesting character (Ove). I don't usually complain about this, but the narrator's dilemmas also reek of privilege. Forgettable.

Of course, this is the sort of novel that could only happen in a relatively benign place like Norway where a grown man playing with a little boy doesn’t inspire the need in every passerby to call Chris Hansen, and to a person who has a brother with an empty apartment. The protagonist is the most earnest character an American like me can possibly hope to read. With so many novels so sickeningly drenched in irony, the protagonist in Naïve. Super is completely devoid of it. And because he is not self-referentially hip in his depression and his attempts to make meaning of his world, it is tempting to write him off as simple, possibly stupid. It means something when, confronted with earnestness and a complete lack of irony, it is tempting show more to dismiss it as lacking intellect. I’m too tired to discuss what that means, but believe me when I say the protagonist is not mentally retarded or otherwise lacking in intellect. He’s just finding himself in a manner that does not involve utter self-destruction and the delivery of oh-so-clever one-liners. That having been said, in the midst of such simplicity, this is a deeply funny book.

The protagonist begins the novel explaining that he has two friends, one good and one bad, and his brother, who is less friendly than him, but a good guy nonetheless. One has to agree that his brother is a good man, because he permits his 25-year-old brother, a man who rather enjoys spending hours playing with Brio toys and making seemingly pointless lists, stay in his apartment in exchange for just giving him his messages. When his brother returns from his trip, he realizes the protagonist is having a gentle nervous breakdown combined with a mild existential crisis, and cares for the protagonist, including taking him on a trip to New York. Perhaps the brother senses that brutally beating the protagonist at croquet was what initially made the protagonist feel like there was no purpose to life. Even so, it’s hard to fault the brother. People who need a villain in a book will not like Naïve. Super because this is a novel filled with nice people. Nice, quirky and not entirely familiar people, but nice people nonetheless. You can read my entire review here: http://ireadoddbooks.com/naive-super-by-erlend-loe/ show less

This is one of those slightly off the wall books I would probably never have found if I didn’t go poking around in second hand shops. In it, the unnamed (aren’t they all nowadays?) narrator tells of a mini-breakdown in his life which caused him to question just about everything in his life and, in particular, the nature of time.

He drops out of university, spends ages throwing a football against the wall, and plays games with the five year old next door. The parents of the said five year old agree to leave the child in his care for the day, despite discovering that he (the narrator) has spent the previous day playing with a child's hammer and peg board. Bizarre. Next thing, they are racing up and down the road in a Volvo. It's a sort show more of random stream of thoughts and events, some of which had me nodding and thinking 'yes, I often feel like that too', and others which made me want to give him a kick in the pants and tell him to pull himself together.

Despite its weighty topics, this book is very easy to read and is the sort of thing you could whizz through in a day. The chapters are short, there are frequent lists, and towards the end there are whole pages devoted to a visual joke which probably works better in the original Norwegian and which I skimmed over in less than ten seconds.

This was an enjoyable read inasmuch as it represented something different from the norm: a trip along a literary back-alley. A world view filtered through unfamiliar eyes with some fascinating facts thrown in. On the other hand I would have preferred it to last a little longer and to provide something more substantial to chew on show less

http://msarki.tumblr.com/post/129068048393/naïve-super-by-erlend-loe

A refreshing look at a young man from Norway trying to make sense of his life and attempting to find meaning in it. Perhaps the narrator is a bit too serious or obsessive in his assessments over the purpose of his life. He thinks constantly about the question of time and space. His over-adjustment to this uncomfortable predicament is to simply throw a ball against a wall all night or repeatedly hammer wooden pegs into a board. And this might seem too juvenile based on the literary and scientific interests of the narrator. Of course he isn’t dumb, only childish in his new behavior. But finding a girlfriend helps, as does a trip overseas to NYC to visit his brother. show more Having fun and playing games instead of worrying all the time becomes his new reason for living, and in this process he learns to love and be loved. But the question remains throughout the entire book if it will be okay for him in the end. show less