The “Oskespiralen” takes place in our time, although the father in the house is almost a pre-modern figure of the kind you hope there aren’t too many of in reality. He kills his wife already in the second chapter. Their two twin sons are grown and have moved on from this nest of abuse and abuse. Different life destinies The sons are both marked for life by this rough upbringing, but in different ways. One has inherited the violence from his father and has just finished serving a long prison sentence. The other has found Jesus, and believes in salvation and the forgiveness of sins. There is really not much more to say about the action, other than that revenge is what we can call an archetypal motif in literature, and works very well as an engine in the narrative. The novel briefly transforms us readers into a bloodthirsty cheerleader. Will the mother, and the sons, get legal support? What is a just punishment in this context? It can be revealed that this will not end in the courts. Carved in stone It all unfolds in a text that is almost carved in stone. The father quarries stone, and sets up stone fences. They live in a race-prone area. Leander Djønne has previously also made a film about this interest in rock and mountains, and man’s traces in them. Perhaps mastering this hard material is the ultimate challenge for man? “And the place is called Uren, luren, himmelturen, steinrøis, steinrøis, svelt hel” says the folk tune “Anne Knutsdotter”. Leander Djønne makes us feel for a while that this is the most primitive state – the most Norwegian of the Norwegian. The fact that civilization has appeared since the last time in the form of mobile phones, cars and job opportunities at polling institutes is just a veneer that covers who we really are. Short distance from dot to dot The landscape is not unlike what we encounter in Fosse’s “Septology”. Here, too, it is a mild, western winter. Black night against gray stone, only broken up by white peaks of foam when the two twin brothers are out at sea. But here there are short distances from point to point. Oddingen Djønne writes a type of short prose that forms an amusing contrast to the punctuated sentences of his writer colleague from Strandebarm. Sunk in the fjord The story alternates between the four family members. The mother who floats as a kind of luminous consciousness through the narrative. Within the book’s covers, this also seems completely natural. Even not when we are inside the father’s head, we become somewhat wiser about where they come from, the destructive forces, which make him work systematically to wipe out his own family, and ultimately himself. Looking backwards in time In this respect too, it is as if Leander Djønne is doing his utmost to escape the zeitgeist and is rather looking backwards in time. Towards the timeless, perhaps all the way back to saga literature, where they were not particularly concerned with equipping misdeeds with explanations either. It also seems as if the next generation is condemned to live with and carry on the sins of their parents. Here we can perhaps say that Leander Djønne almost becomes an exponent of a form of neo-naturalism, where inheritance is far more governing who we become than the environment we grow up in. Based on such a way of thinking, it is not surprising that children of abusers themselves become abusers. Emmen apple pages It’s all dark, but complete. Even the famous apple cider, of which they are so proud in this part of the country, smells strongly of abuse. In this fictional universe, there is obviously no room for extenuating circumstances. “Oskespiralen” by Leander Djønne is a unique stone that seems to shine by itself in the Norwegian book harvest. news reviews Photo: Forlaget Oktober Title: “Oskespiralen” Author: Leander Djønne Genre: Novel Publisher: Oktober Number of pages: 216 Date: September 2022 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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“Oskespiralen” by Leander Djønne – Reviews and recommendations
