The plot—if there is one—is simple: An ordinary, if somewhat rebellious and gifted boy named Asle grew up in a little seaside village in Norway, dropped out from high school for art school, met and married the love of his life, a devout but free spirited Catholic, became a successful painter, lost his wife, lives a secluded life in the countryside except for a good faithful friend Asleik who watches out for him and keeps inviting him to his sister's house for Christmas every year...
And there was another painter with the same name and almost the same look as Asle living in the city, that he met and cared for, who was twice divorced, an alcoholic and ended up dead from it, and another woman who also has the same name and look as Asleik's sister who enjoys Asle's paintings as Asleik's sister does...
You've got some surreal feel already, don't you? But more, for the story is told through Asle's "stream of consciousness" narration that weaves his hallucinating memories, artistic musings, spiritual wonderings, and mundane activities in one day in one long sentence, one chapter, for seven consecutive days, seven chapters, that make up this 650+ page volume.
Through his own inner dialogue, Asle reveals his thoughts and ruminations on
God
"God put limits on himself by giving human beings free will,"
"God is not all-powerful, he is powerful in his powerlessness,"
"the greater the despair and suffering is, the closer God is,"
liturgy, symbolism
"when the people there, five or six or seven of us, stood up to take communion there was a wonderful sense of atonement,"
"both prayer and mass, and most of all the eucharist, can lead us closer to God, closer to eternity and nothingness, closer to the shining darkness inside us, because I experience that every time I go to mass or see the halo around the host, or the glimmer coming from it, the light, in the transfiguration happening, in the consecration,"
"the words are simple, they’re words everyone can understand, and that’s why the meaning too of these words is something for everyone, but if you get hung up on the literal meaning, to the extent you can, then the words become meaningless,"
art
"a good picture is a gift, and a kind of prayer, it’s both a gift and a prayer of gratitude, I think and I never could have painted a good picture through force of will, because art just happens, art occurs, that’s how it is,"
"my inner pictures in their own picture are always pointing towards something beyond themselves, there is a kind of longing for afar in all the pictures, and at the same time what the pictures are yearning for is always in them already,"
good and evil
"it's from God's darkness that the light comes,"
"even if good and evil, beauty and ugliness are in conflict, the good is always there and the evil is just trying to be there, sort of,"
silence
"a painting is a silent voice that speaks, and the voice says that there is a silence that at the same time brings something close,"
"God’s language speaks silently from everything that exists, and this silence was first broken when The Word came into the world,"
"mother Judit could kind of just fall into herself and become silent,"
mysticism
"isn’t God just something that is, not something you can say anything about?"
"it’s when you understand that you can’t understand God that you understand him,"
"The Bible has to be interpreted, has to be read metaphorically, yes, like it’s not the real thing but a picture, like a painting, with its own truth, because The Bible is literature, and when it comes right down to it literature and visual art are the same thing,"
It does no justice to the book to group thoughts and ruminations the way I just did, for 1) thoughts and ruminations are in truth interrelated and cannot be bounded by abstract topical grouping as such, and 2) the book does an excellent job capturing the random, spontaneous and free flowing nature of the inner working of human mind by faithfully recording the protagonist's ever wandering, overlapping, reappearing "I-think"s as they arise, in simple but rhythmic proses, that is smooth, tranquil, incantational telling of a solipsistic tale.
And a mesmerizing read for me.
For the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Septology-Jon-Fosse/dp/1945492759/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
You've got some surreal feel already, don't you? But more, for the story is told through Asle's "stream of consciousness" narration that weaves his hallucinating memories, artistic musings, spiritual wonderings, and mundane activities in one day in one long sentence, one chapter, for seven consecutive days, seven chapters, that make up this 650+ page volume.
Through his own inner dialogue, Asle reveals his thoughts and ruminations on
God
"God put limits on himself by giving human beings free will,"
"God is not all-powerful, he is powerful in his powerlessness,"
"the greater the despair and suffering is, the closer God is,"
liturgy, symbolism
"when the people there, five or six or seven of us, stood up to take communion there was a wonderful sense of atonement,"
"both prayer and mass, and most of all the eucharist, can lead us closer to God, closer to eternity and nothingness, closer to the shining darkness inside us, because I experience that every time I go to mass or see the halo around the host, or the glimmer coming from it, the light, in the transfiguration happening, in the consecration,"
"the words are simple, they’re words everyone can understand, and that’s why the meaning too of these words is something for everyone, but if you get hung up on the literal meaning, to the extent you can, then the words become meaningless,"
art
"a good picture is a gift, and a kind of prayer, it’s both a gift and a prayer of gratitude, I think and I never could have painted a good picture through force of will, because art just happens, art occurs, that’s how it is,"
"my inner pictures in their own picture are always pointing towards something beyond themselves, there is a kind of longing for afar in all the pictures, and at the same time what the pictures are yearning for is always in them already,"
good and evil
"it's from God's darkness that the light comes,"
"even if good and evil, beauty and ugliness are in conflict, the good is always there and the evil is just trying to be there, sort of,"
silence
"a painting is a silent voice that speaks, and the voice says that there is a silence that at the same time brings something close,"
"God’s language speaks silently from everything that exists, and this silence was first broken when The Word came into the world,"
"mother Judit could kind of just fall into herself and become silent,"
mysticism
"isn’t God just something that is, not something you can say anything about?"
"it’s when you understand that you can’t understand God that you understand him,"
"The Bible has to be interpreted, has to be read metaphorically, yes, like it’s not the real thing but a picture, like a painting, with its own truth, because The Bible is literature, and when it comes right down to it literature and visual art are the same thing,"
It does no justice to the book to group thoughts and ruminations the way I just did, for 1) thoughts and ruminations are in truth interrelated and cannot be bounded by abstract topical grouping as such, and 2) the book does an excellent job capturing the random, spontaneous and free flowing nature of the inner working of human mind by faithfully recording the protagonist's ever wandering, overlapping, reappearing "I-think"s as they arise, in simple but rhythmic proses, that is smooth, tranquil, incantational telling of a solipsistic tale.
And a mesmerizing read for me.
For the book:
https://www.amazon.com/Septology-Jon-Fosse/dp/1945492759/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
