Lene Berg’s father, Arnljot Berg, was a leading filmmaker in the early seventies. He made both feature films and documentaries, and published two collections of short stories, as well as a book about his time in prison. But he was also heavily alcoholic, struggled with mental problems, and ended up killing his French wife, Lenes Berg’s stepmother, in a car in Paris – before taking his own life a few years later. Lene Berg has previously told the story of her father in the form of an art exhibition during the Bergen Games last year. At the exhibition, the public was able to see, among other things, the letters and cards that Berg and his little brother sent to their father when he was in prison in the French capital. Tobacco and Old Spice Berg also recreated the night of the murder itself as a filmed puppet show, where the audience could see, among other things, a model of the car the father and his wife Evelyne were in on that fateful night. TRAGEDY ON FILM: When Berg had to convey the family tragedy to a physical audience, she used several visual tools. The festival audience even got to experience the smell of the father as Berg remembered it: a mixture of tobacco and the perfume Old Spice. “From father” thus appealed to several senses at the same time. news’s art critic Mona Pahle Bjerke concluded that it had become a “poignant exhibition about murder in the immediate family”. Abrupt transition Lene Berg has now told the story of her father, with all its question marks, in novel form. That transition will be rather abrupt. The handwriting of a child writing to his imprisoned father, which in an art exhibition can tell us so much, we don’t get to see here. As you know, a novel consists only of typewritten letters on white paper. IN WORDS YOU SHOULD BECOME: All the associations that the sight of the child’s handwriting gives in the art exhibition disappear in the novel. Literary mechanisms must therefore come into force when visual art is to be transformed into word art, so that we as readers can live into what is happening. Literary puzzle In the novel, Lene Berg presents the story as a puzzle that the reader is invited to piece together. We get extracts from several of the medical records written by doctors and psychologists from the periods the father was hospitalized. Another important source is an autobiographical text written by the father himself, in which he recounts that in his youth he had a sexual relationship with an older man in the neighborhood – a relationship of the kind that we would definitely call sexual abuse or abuse today. Lene Berg has also gained access to police reports and articles from Norwegian and French newspapers. THROUGH THE DAUGHTER’S EYES: Arnljot Berg was a filmmaker, author and educator, and worked for a number of years at news. He took his own life in 1983. Photo: Henrik Laurvik / NTB She also writes down the memories she herself had of her father. Both as he appeared to her at the time when the murder took place, and in the years that followed, from when he was released from prison until he took his own life. A strong moment occurs when the father enters the bookshop where the daughter works as Saturday help: In this situation we see the father both as a professional, as a father a daughter can look up to – and a father women can fall in love with. Lacking empathy Still, it is as if he does not become clear enough. Did he really manage, in between the drunken balls, the madness and the prison stay, to create something that will stand, that deserves to be brought out again? What were they about, the movies he directed and the books he wrote? The good novel, like the good film or work of art, has the unique property that it can open the door of our heart. One is enabled to empathize with a wild stranger who we do not know before. But in order for this empathy to be awakened for Arnljot Berg, he must first be developed as an artist and fellow human being. He must be written out. That doesn’t happen enough here. It is easy to understand the background for Lene Berg opening the door to this dark chapter in her own life story. It is easy to sympathize with the desire to understand the man who, despite his shortcomings and misdeeds, was one’s own father. But “Fra far” does not become engaging literature. news reviewer Photo: Kolon Forlag Title: “Fra far” Author: Lene Berg Genre: Novel Publisher: Kolon Number of pages: 217 Date: 9 January 2023 Hi! I read and review literature in news. Please also read my review of “Kairos” by Jenny Erpenbeck, “Etterliv” by Abdulrazak Gurnah or Franz Kafka’s “The Process” translated by Jon Fosse.
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“From father” by Lene Berg – news Culture and entertainment
