Fans can breathe easy: The third band in the hedge trilogy, “Skråpånatta”, lives up to the promise of “Søsterklokkene” and “Hekneveven”. There are no big surprises or unexpected twists here, just more of what made many happy in the past: A mythical adventure story at its core. Good environmental descriptions. An interesting main character. A wealth of other novel characters. Local anchoring, linguistically and geographically. Band between countries. Insight into nature, history, the people. Simply solid novel craftsmanship. All this from an author who understands work and art better than many, and who has taken it upon himself to guide the reader through a particularly important historical era. Lars Mytting Photo: Robert Rønning / news Norwegian journalist and author, born 1968. From Fåvang in Gudbrandsdalen. Had his big breakthrough with the non-fiction book “Hel ved” (2011). Has also published the novels “Hestekrefter” (2006) “Vårofferet” (2010), “Svøm med dem som drukner” (2014) “Skråpånatta” (2023) is the third release in the trilogy “Hekne” where “Søsterklokkene” (2018) was first book and “Hekneveven” (2020) was the second book. Lars Mytting’s books have been translated into more than 20 languages. Admittedly, he perhaps loses a little energy when he writes about a time and a topic many people know from before, namely the war seen from a Norwegian village. The trilogy as a whole turns into a fine web of images, where thin and thick threads attach nicely and make sense together. Picking up the thread The first volume, “Søsterklokkene”, deals mostly with the 1880s. “Hedgehog” mostly around the 1910s and 20s, with the First World War and the Spanish flu as the most important historical events. In “Skråpånatta” we have reached the 1930s and 40s. It will mean the last part of the interwar period, and the Second World War. Throughout the trilogy there are also important bands from the 17th century. According to the soga Mytting dictates, the grown-up witch sisters lived then. They wove a magical picture carpet. In the image web, they predict that midnight will come. In the local dialect, it means “the end times” or “the apocalypse”. Hear the review in “Open Book: The Critics”: Nostalgic Åra, which the main story deals with, are important years in Norwegian history. This is the time when modernity came to the whole country, not just the cities. In the most isolated villages, such as in the fictional Butangen far inside Gudbrandsdalen, the change came last. In return, everything went very quickly. Throughout the hedge trilogy, Mytting writes a lot about agriculture in the past. About seat operation. Traditional, particularly labor-intensive methods. People live far up in the dirty, hidden sky, where no one would think that anyone could live. Always keep accidents away from starvation and misery. Then comes the new era. Water power. Electricity. Light! Roads that affect communication. Telephone. Cars. Dairy and cheese making. Land trade rather than self-salvage. Lars Mytting describes all the changes. Definitely with arousing interest. But also with a certain nostalgia. What was not lost in terms of knowledge and culture, now that no one makes their own clothes anymore, but buys them ready-made in a shop? When concentrated feed takes over for seat operation? The main character throughout the trilogy, the priest Kai Schweigaard, thinks his way: Mythical Mytting Some of the traditional lives on in handicrafts. In bunad seam and wood shavings. Lars Mytting ties the craft nicely into the text. Nevertheless, or perhaps because of this, he loses a little energy in “Skråpånatta” compared to “Hekneveven”. The traditions are weaker in the 1940s than a hundred years before. People care less about myths. But Mytting cares! And brings the reader along. The ardor is at its strongest when he tells about the Hekne sisters, and about the very special church bells they gave their names to. In these passages, he draws close to narrative techniques that are recognizable from folk poetry. From fairy tales. Sucks. Folk songs. Mytting uses contrasts. Between friend and foe, love and hate, nature and culture, truth and (super)faith. The question looms over them all: Will the scary predictions from the hedgerow come true? Are the end times coming? Our blind spots Lars Mytting has created a distinctive Nordic form of magical realism, with elements of adventure in the modern era. He uses history to show us things even in our own time. What blind spots do we have, wonders priest Schweigaard. What are we doing that will be considered barbaric in the future? When the Nazis come to Butangen, he warns from the pulpit: The paradox is that we can actually learn from the history Lars Mytting presents in his trilogy. He argues for tolerance and broad-mindedness. To look forward, but also not to forget what lies behind. For the art, and for the value in knowing traditional techniques. Lars Mytting uses advanced novel building techniques. But he masters the craft. “Skråpånatta” is a satisfying end to the adventurous soga hekne trilogy. news reviewer Photo: Gyldendal Title: “Skråpånatta” Author: Lars Mytting Publisher: Gyldendal Genre: Novel Number of pages: 574 Date: 15 September 2023 Hi! I am a new critic at news, with a particular interest in Norwegian and translated fiction. Feel free to read my review of another historical novel, “Xiania” by Lotta Elstad, or “The Wrecker” by Lars Saabye Christensen, and “Fire, teeth, water, tongue” by Nhu Diep. Feel free to write to me! The address is [email protected]
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“Skråpånatta” by Lars Mytting – Reviews and recommendations
