Faldbakken is an author who doesn’t do anything half way: In his debut novel “The Cocka Hola Company” the environment is extreme in many ways, an extremely urban area in an unnamed city has also been added. When he has now set the plot in a farm, the farm is extremely old-fashioned, and it is also peppered with hints of feudal conditions in selected passages. We are – and are not – in a Norwegian, nameless village in a time that is many different times. So. What are we doing here? A Mowgli in a Norwegian spruce forest Perhaps we are here because of the kid who one day comes sneaking out of the forest, more on four than two legs, with a paper folder under one arm. Oskar (19) finds the child and captures it. Oskar is the “boy” on the farm. He has worked there for board and lodging since the age of 12, because the parents could not look after their child. He is silent and hardworking. The natural child lacks language and culture in the broadest sense: She (yes, because it turns out to be a girl), sleeps, eats and pees like an animal. The neglected child Oskar takes care of the neglected, nameless girl. They have a silent pact that drives them far away from the farm, to a life neither of them is particularly capable of coping with. Strong tension curves and moving speech This is not about how the state, the municipality or the family neglects its children. “Poor” is an original and well-told story, with plenty of suspense and an action that is hard to guess. But I also read the novel as an exploration of the human, how it comes to light and what can destroy it or develop it. The starting point is Oskar and the girl, two marginal and traumatized individuals. An extremely large topic, which I think I can glimpse in small glimpses. Especially where the two are not understood and taken care of. Then things go wrong, and the girl has to act as an interpreter between the two of them and society at large: “I write and say that we have experience of a different order. That around the accident around the accident in the unhappy unhappy kid lies a country. That the land area is called the Dark Continent. I write and say that the continent is wider than life is long. That not I and not you can cross the dark continent. That we don’t get to the accident, Oskar.” Matias Faldbakken has a large style register, where irony, satire and exaggerations often create distance from the characters. When the girl here throws herself out with limping syntax and poetic desperation, a new feature emerges: This is downright touching. Open and captivating The depiction of outsiders has changed radically since rabid activists tried to break out of the paralyzing tolerance and all-consuming commercialism at the start of the authorship. “Poor” is a completely different place and the exterior is of a completely different character. This is a captivating fable about growing up in the state of nature and about the collision with culture. The enigmatic story plays on many strings and is open to interpretation. That’s one of the fascinating aspects of Faldbakken’s novels, they never quite end. I mean to register that the discomfort in the culture is gradually less massive. And that civilization, at its best, can be a good thing for the weakest. This authorship keeps taking unexpected turns. I am looking forward to where we will go next. Even further out in the country? news reviewer Photo: October Title: “Poor” Author: Matias Faldbakken Genre: Novel Publisher: October Number of pages: 183 Date: September 2022 Hi! I am chief critic of fiction at news. Feel free to read my book reviews of “Våkenetter” by Christine Nitter, “Matrix” by Lauren Groff or “Invictus” by Sunniva Lye Axelsen.
ttn-69
