In the novel “Habeas Corpus”, Kjartan Fløgstad refines material he has been concerned with for a long time. It’s about capitalism. It’s about ideology. And it is about how individuals, if they do not actively resist, can contribute to injustice. As one of the many lawyers in the book reflects: Lawyers and other rats “Habeus Corpus” has a very rich personal register where lives cross and touch each other across borders and decades. CROSSING LIFE: The table of contents shows the book’s extensive personal register. The chapters touch each other with links back and forth between the various people. What many have in common is that they directly or indirectly support the Nazi social order. Many of them primarily for convenience. Here, for example, is the story of Feliks Korczak, born in 1911. He is a philosophy student in Germany in the 1930s and sits quietly in the boat when the National Socialists burn books on the university campus. He begins to study law and joins the National Socialist German Workers’ Party for purely formal reasons. Here is also the story of Vegard Mikkelsen, born in 1962, who gets a shock when he discovers that his grandfather was an NS man and front fighter. He himself works in a parastatal analysis agency and develops a theory of state governance. He will renew the radical cultural critique by looking at right-wing radicalism in the interwar period in Germany. Mikkelsen’s theories are praised and discussed internationally and few criticize the ideological background. LATIN: “Habeus Corpus” is a Latin expression from jurisprudence which states that an arrested person must be brought to justice within a certain time. Retrained Nazis Between the many fictional life courses there is also a good deal of fact. Many of the people in the first half of the novel are connected to the leadership training in Bad Harzburg in Germany, founded by the former Nazi ideologue and jurist Reinhard Höhn in 1956. At this school, many former Nazis were retrained before they were given high-profile positions in business and civil service . The novel also shows how important jurists in Nazi Germany later helped shape the design of the European Court of Justice after the war. Fløgstad’s presentation of history is educational and stimulating. The injustice that does not affect you The novel attempts to show how the ideological threads of fascism continue into our time under the guise of the freedom of liberalism. Pharmaceutical companies, banks and the European Court of Justice are some of the institutions Fløgstad dissects. As a former mine manager, now a goose farmer and hermit at Jarfjord in Finnmark, reflects: You may have heard the message before, but Fløgstad manages to convey it in a way that no technical article, essay or reportage could achieve. During the reading, I sit with a goofy feeling. What similar contexts am I part of? Tragic comedy Fløgstad’s analysis eventually has something predictable about it. And when almost everything nowadays becomes reprehensible, nothing becomes so. Few of the Nazis or their descendants appear particularly human. The literary tone is consistently ironic. But the book is not so much a compassionate exploration. It is more of a tragic comedy. It also helps that the text, in addition to humor and biting satire, has some warm glimpses of coming-of-age descriptions. Whether you buy Fløgstad’s analysis or not, the novel will definitely make you think. But that thinking doesn’t come for free. Complicated This is a demanding novel. Fløgstad’s often referential style is really packed. I don’t think this book could have been written before the internet. The chapters touch each other as if they were Wikipedia articles with links back and forth between the various people. The network of Nazis in particular is involved. The previously mentioned Feliks Korczak also appears in Norway in 1941 on an inspection trip for the Nazi government. The driver is Vegard Mikkelsen’s grandfather. It is a paradox that the novel is based on the technology and logic of the internet when it requires the deep concentration that is difficult to achieve with frequent link clicking and tab switching. It is said that the human short-term memory can deal with about seven units at a time. “Habeus Corpus” has so many traces, and so many people, that when Fløgstad brings in a previous person, I often have to scroll back to check, who was this really? It is as if the book was written by an artificial intelligence, not fully adapted to human capacity. This is both a criticism and a compliment. After finishing reading this original and densely woven novel, I feel a little smarter, like I’ve upgraded my mind’s software. news reviews Title: Habeas corpus Author: Kjartan Fløgstad Genre: Novel Publisher: Gyldendal Number of pages: 317 Date: August 2022 SINGABLE TEXTS: Kjartan Fløgstad writes so singably that many of his texts have been set to music by Norwegian artists. And the author’s rhythmic reading led to his debut as a dancer! Listen to the episode from the news program Spillerom.
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“Habeas Corpus” by Kjartan Fløgstad – Reviews and recommendations
