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Jump to navigationJump to searchNovel 11, Book 18 by Dag Solstad (view source)
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{{infobox infobox1
|title= Novel 11, Book 18
|author= Dag Solstad
|buy= Yes
|borrow= Yes
|pages=192
|publisher= Harvill Secker
|date= November 2008
|isbn=978-1843432111
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>1843432110</amazonuk> |amazonusaznuk=1843432110|aznus=<amazonus>1843432110</amazonus>
}}
There might have to be a famous transformation, although that would be telling. And there really ought to be a change to the style we normally get with our novels – the paragraphs might well be too big to fit on one page, there could be very sparse dialogue, the narration would definitely be on the omniscient side, and any comedy would have to be the darkest possible.
All the above is are present and correct, although I should reassure you that the advance proof copy I received of this was such a weeny little paperback it was no surprise the paragraphs could stretch from one page to a third. And I don't think this is a hardship at all. In fact , I can find very little at all disagreeable with the style or content of this book – it ticked all my boxes for modernist fiction very nicely.
It was unusual to read a book set out in one chunk of writing that was so easily split into three thirds – Turid and the drama, the son's lodging, the third section (which for me was the most fun, even with the theatricals early on). The breaks between the sections might jar with some people, for they can be rather abrupt. I don't think I'd be alone in finding the second third a page or two too long, as it and elsewhere has the author give us the smallest of repetitions – we are shown or told things two or three times over, when the precise, concise style has already clearly got the message across.
It was more than a surprise for me to find this book coming out of contemporary Norway. If I were to come across it blind I would have definitely said it was part of the modernist style I read a lot of at sixth form and uni – it would have been written in the 1930s, and was translated from the original German.
A literature teacher has a flash of revelation while going over a standard text with a class of sixth formers. But seeing how little this, his telling of it – and him himself – means to his class, he flips and takes it out on his umbrella. A huge flashback proves this has not been the first time he has been adrift from other people.
This , however , is the flipside to the modernist coin – an author lathering himself up into a frenzy regarding one aspect of life, with huge, eighteen-page paragraphs, tautology, and sentences with huge amounts of clauses. (Now you know where I get it from.) Two and a half stars, proving again the prior book is a gem to relish. For another translation, we can recommend [[Dark Matter by Juli Zeh]].
{{toptentext|list=Top Ten Books Not Originally Written In English}}
{{amazontext|amazon=1843432110}} {{waterstonestextamazonUStext|waterstonesamazon=61930401843432110}}
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[[Category:Literary Fiction]]
