It began with a New York Times article that Lars shared about Norwegian author Jon Fosse. Passing this article to MKV she gave me Fosse's book Septology for Christmas. Showing the book to M, who lives here in the building, she began reading him. Fosse is in the subjective, introspective tradition of Norwegian Author, the late Knut Hamsun. Hamsun was a pioneer in the subjective stream of consciousness novel. Hamsun received the Noble Prize for Growth of the Soil in 1920 as Fosse got the Noble in 2023 for Septology.
Though she is very widely read M was not familiar with Hamsun. To bring her up to speed I lent her Hamsun's Pan, published in1894. She was much taken with the book and scheduled a lunch with me to discuss it. Yikes! It's been 33 years since I read it. To correct that fault I reread it today...it's only 188 pages, and nothing like the length of Septology.
Critical analysis of books is not my forte, I go for "I liked" or "I didn't like it. MJV (I have two reading friends, unrelated and one is MJV and the other MKV.) on the other hand does sophisticated descriptions of books that are dissertation level, complete with attached reviews. So, about all I remembered from reading Pan 33 years ago was that I liked it. I still do!
Takk for alt,
Al
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