Who is the man standing with his bag outside the prison walls waiting for the scheduled bus? Is he the same as before he was locked up? Or is he a new, and possibly better person? The novel’s title points in several directions. The expression new man has a very concrete meaning: But the title also plays on what punishment and punishment do to us. Is it possible to get rid of one’s past? What when society’s punishment is over? Can we be saved from sin and shame? A rare inside story Per Marius Weidner-Olsen opens the door to a world that few have access to. If you have seen a prison from the inside, it is almost certainly due to American films. Perhaps you have read Vigdis Hjorth’s “Thirty Days in Sandefjord” or heard “Røverradion”. I have more experience than that. When I was eight or nine years old, I was with my children’s choir in one of Oslo’s prisons to sing Christmas for the inmates. I remember nothing of the actual meeting with the prisoners, but the trembling tension ahead is still there: What would it be like to meet thieves and murderers, for real? The child’s view of thieves and murderers as one defined group – outside the ranks of the normal – is also a notion Weidner-Olsen reflects on. As a child, the narrator imagined that all prisoners were prisoners for eternity. And he writes: This is good. It is clear that the author, who himself has served time behind bars, knows what he is talking about. Prison conditions are not just something he has read about. The level of precision makes the text even more impactful for me. With an eye for detail, the I-narrator constantly returns to the time when he was in prison, but which has now been covered. Through five parts, which span from the day of imprisonment to a point several years later, he drills into the details of routines, rules and rigid frameworks. I think the descriptions of prison life are brilliant. They are concrete, on a micro level: Here there are breadcrumbs in the margarine packet and traces of margarine in the jam. A sprawling stack of timber outside the walls, where the narrator gets to work, turns into a troll-like stick game. Weidner-Olsen’s linguistic images draw me into the text with a suction. I can almost physically experience the terror of moving out into the air yard with the other prisoners. Where is the limit for the integrity of others? What can you talk about – and what absolutely cannot be talked about? The insecurity has transfer value to other areas of life, I think. Many will recognize that horror, in a milder form, if you are shaken together with people you do not know. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: The descriptions from the prison captivate, but will the author ever finish his sentence? Photo: Philip Hofgaard / news An evil joy glows During the humiliating daily body search, the point of view switches from I to he, as if this is too tough to talk about. It is an effective move. At the same time, an evil joy glows in the narrator: The prison guards who have to carry out the searches also have their integrity violated. Based on such razor-sharp individual scenes, thoughts spin around guilt, atonement, power and freedom. Often the reflections spring dynamically from the concrete experiences, at other times I think they are more constructed and instructive. For example, when he talks about “the earthly being”, it quickly becomes both pompous and comical. Debut book with ramblings Per Marius Weidner-Olsen was nominated for the Brage prize for his debut “I had an upbringing almost like my own”. It created an uproar. The publishing house Oktober ended its collaboration with him when it became known that he had a prison sentence behind him. They believed he had a duty to provide information which he had breached. Cultural commentators and critics accused the publisher of not accepting society’s general rules for punishment and punishment, but imposing both a professional ban and public shame on the author. Is “New man” a response to the publisher’s treatment of the debut book? No, I don’t want to say that, although anyone who searches can easily find allusions to the matter. The novel makes no attempt at a clean sweep or apology. Rather than portraying the sins, Weidner-Olsen depicts a human being trying to find his way after the fall. Significant authorship Towards the end, the narrator becomes convinced that we are not to be saved from the sins of the past. Perhaps it is rather a life without conscience that we should be saved from, since conscience and personal atonement make us better? he thinks. I think that is an adult insight. Literary nudge or not – the novel stands on its own two feet, regardless of prehistory and personal biography. I think Per Marius Weidner-Olsen proves with solid literary weight that the debut book was not just a hoax. news reviewer Photo: GNF Title: “New man” Author: Per Marius Weidner-Olsen Publisher: Gyldendal Genre: Novel Number of pages: 192 Date: 4 November 2022 Hear the review of “New man” in “Open book: The critics”:
ttn-69
“New man” by Per Marius Weidner-Olsen – Reviews and recommendations
