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tenna's review
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
annarella's review
4.0
It took me a bit to be involved in this book as the pace is very slow but I got used to the style of writing and started savoring the descriptions and the flow of the plot.
It's not an easy read, it's a book you have to read slowly to enjoy the style of writing and the life of the different characters.
I loved how it describes Oslo, it's so good it could work as a tourist guide, and I love the characters.
I look forward to reading other books by this author.
Recommended!
Many thanks to Quercus Books and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.
It's not an easy read, it's a book you have to read slowly to enjoy the style of writing and the life of the different characters.
I loved how it describes Oslo, it's so good it could work as a tourist guide, and I love the characters.
I look forward to reading other books by this author.
Recommended!
Many thanks to Quercus Books and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.
veslemyhj's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
arirang's review
4.0
“It is a national holiday. Savour the words. They feel good. Most things are national in this post-war period, before affluence grows too much and everyone has to look after themselves and not others. Most things that happen are the same and people talk about the same. That doesn’t mean you say the same.”
Tales of the City, translated excellently as ever by the wonderful Don Bartlett, and from Machelose's consistently strong list of world literature, was published in the Norwegian as Byens Spor: Ewald og Maj in 2017.
It is the first in a planned trilogy (the second has already been published in Norwegian). This is the 5th Lars Saaybe Christensen novel in translation that I have read, and one of the strongest of an impressive body of work.
The novel opens on 21 September 1957, with a beautifully drawn panoramic sweep through the Oslo of that time, before zooming in on one individual:
“The boy, or rather the young man, because he is in the process of becoming a man, sitting on the tram, the one you can see passing by early this morning while everyone wakes to the saddest news a grateful nation can receive, wants to leave, leave Fagerborg, leave Oslo, everything, just leave. His name is Jesper Kristoffersen and he has a bulging seaman’s kitbag beside him on the seat. Take note of his eyes if you can: vacant yet alert, he sees and is seen. Incidentally, below his left eye there is a blue shadow, a relic of the past. Once he was diagnosed as sensitive.”
The sad news is the death of the Norwegian King, Haakon VII, but for the Kristoffersen family, his mother Maj and younger sister Stine, the day is more noted for young Jesper (aged c15) leaving home and signing on for duty on a merchant ship, having been declared fit for work, and no longer sensitive.
The story then returns to October 1948 and the post war City and the Fagerborg district, where Jesper is 6 years old, an only (Stine is yet to be born) and odd child, his schooling delayed a year, though of by people, including his parents Maj and Ewald, as, variously: restless, troubled, difficult, stubborn, indifferent, angry, on edge, his eyes flitting.
In practice he is, as per the quote above, sensitive and particular seems to have (undiagnosed) heightened auditory sensitivity and (as yet undiscovered) musical talent: “He can break as easily as he can produce the most beautiful sounds.”
As this volume of the novel progresses through the next five years, the story also introduces us to the butcher’s son Jostein, who loses most of his hearing in an accident, and who Jesper befriends on their first day at school, both being outsiders; the family’s neighbour Margrethe Vik, a widow, who starts a tentative romance with Olaf Hall, a widower and antiquarian bookseller (“she is wearing a perfume he likes so much today, although nothing can compare with the aroma of books”); Enzo Zanetti, an Italian immigrant and pianist, who introduces Jesper to his calling, music; and the family physician, Doctor Lund (responsible for the two diagnoses above), and whose wife inducts Maj into the local branch of the Red Cross.
The unfolding years, and a picture of the post war austerity years, are very effectively evoked by the unusual device of including at frequent intervals, the minutes of this local Red Cross branch.
“A SHORT RESUMÉ OF OUR FIRST YEAR, 1947
The Norwegian Red Cross, in order to rationalise and ease the workload, mapped out the city of Oslo and divided it into departments, each with its own board. In June 1947 a department was established in Fagerborg.”
And along with the standard third person narration, the novel, sometimes adopts a collective narrative voice to emphasise the social milieu, for example of those who don’t leave the city for the summer:
“We stayed in Oslo. No-one talks more about the weather than those left in the city. We sometimes complain and blame the Meteorological Institute, which isn’t far away, in Blindern. But when it starts to rain, which often happens in this area, no-one breaks into a run. They just continue walking at the same quiet pace, going nowhere in particular. When it stops, you notice that the buildings are a different colour and gleam in a different way. No renovation work has been done and it is not the rain’s fault, either. It is the light breathing on the facades, especially in the evening, slowly drawing out the day. Inside the abandoned flats the furniture is covered with sheets, which soon fade and resemble yellow bandages when the residents return in August. The flats sicken at being vacated, but on days with cloudless skies, which generally come one at a time, the people left in Oslo know where they are going. To Ingierstrand Beach, Lake Sognsvann or Fornebu Airport to watch planes taking off.”
There are also individual moments, such as when the family’s long wait for a telephone line finally ends (in passing, I’d note that Oslo was 30 years ahead of the rural Norfolk of my childhood in that regard):
“The telephone rings. They both jump. Ewald steps forward, hesitates, carefully lifts the receiver from the cradle and says in a tremulous voice: “This is the Kristoffersen household, hello.”
He hears a woman speaking fast.
“Ewald Kristoffersen, date of birth September 4th, 1911?”
“That is indeed the person you are talking to at this moment.”
“This is the telephone switchboard. You’re registered. Thank you.”
The conversation is broken and Ewald carefully replaces the receiver. He thinks: I exist. They exist. We exist.
“Who was that?” Jesper asks.
Ewald turns to him, running the back of his hand across his eyes.
“That was the world.””
This volume ends in April 1951 with, in that wider world, Red Cross aid being sent to war struck Korea, but also on a melancholy personal note for various of the characters. Maj watches her son and his friend playing:
“They are still children, but the war, of which they remember barely anything and yet cannot forget, has cast a shadow over them that causes their childhood age to lose its meaning. They are already carrying the darkness of adulthood. They are children in camouflage.”
I eagerly await the translation of the 2nd volume (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41019645-byens-spor), apparently set in 1956-7 and subtitled Maj (which arguably should come with a spoiler alert, albeit one hinted at in the opening pages of this book).
Overall a nicely crafted story. Perhaps lacking the black humour and sheer crazy invention of The Half Brother but, particularly I suspect when read as the trilogy it will eventually be, as impressive in scope. Recommended and one to watch for the 2020 International Booker Prize. 4 stars
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC
Tales of the City, translated excellently as ever by the wonderful Don Bartlett, and from Machelose's consistently strong list of world literature, was published in the Norwegian as Byens Spor: Ewald og Maj in 2017.
It is the first in a planned trilogy (the second has already been published in Norwegian). This is the 5th Lars Saaybe Christensen novel in translation that I have read, and one of the strongest of an impressive body of work.
The novel opens on 21 September 1957, with a beautifully drawn panoramic sweep through the Oslo of that time, before zooming in on one individual:
“The boy, or rather the young man, because he is in the process of becoming a man, sitting on the tram, the one you can see passing by early this morning while everyone wakes to the saddest news a grateful nation can receive, wants to leave, leave Fagerborg, leave Oslo, everything, just leave. His name is Jesper Kristoffersen and he has a bulging seaman’s kitbag beside him on the seat. Take note of his eyes if you can: vacant yet alert, he sees and is seen. Incidentally, below his left eye there is a blue shadow, a relic of the past. Once he was diagnosed as sensitive.”
The sad news is the death of the Norwegian King, Haakon VII, but for the Kristoffersen family, his mother Maj and younger sister Stine, the day is more noted for young Jesper (aged c15) leaving home and signing on for duty on a merchant ship, having been declared fit for work, and no longer sensitive.
The story then returns to October 1948 and the post war City and the Fagerborg district, where Jesper is 6 years old, an only (Stine is yet to be born) and odd child, his schooling delayed a year, though of by people, including his parents Maj and Ewald, as, variously: restless, troubled, difficult, stubborn, indifferent, angry, on edge, his eyes flitting.
In practice he is, as per the quote above, sensitive and particular seems to have (undiagnosed) heightened auditory sensitivity and (as yet undiscovered) musical talent: “He can break as easily as he can produce the most beautiful sounds.”
As this volume of the novel progresses through the next five years, the story also introduces us to the butcher’s son Jostein, who loses most of his hearing in an accident, and who Jesper befriends on their first day at school, both being outsiders; the family’s neighbour Margrethe Vik, a widow, who starts a tentative romance with Olaf Hall, a widower and antiquarian bookseller (“she is wearing a perfume he likes so much today, although nothing can compare with the aroma of books”); Enzo Zanetti, an Italian immigrant and pianist, who introduces Jesper to his calling, music; and the family physician, Doctor Lund (responsible for the two diagnoses above), and whose wife inducts Maj into the local branch of the Red Cross.
The unfolding years, and a picture of the post war austerity years, are very effectively evoked by the unusual device of including at frequent intervals, the minutes of this local Red Cross branch.
“A SHORT RESUMÉ OF OUR FIRST YEAR, 1947
The Norwegian Red Cross, in order to rationalise and ease the workload, mapped out the city of Oslo and divided it into departments, each with its own board. In June 1947 a department was established in Fagerborg.”
And along with the standard third person narration, the novel, sometimes adopts a collective narrative voice to emphasise the social milieu, for example of those who don’t leave the city for the summer:
“We stayed in Oslo. No-one talks more about the weather than those left in the city. We sometimes complain and blame the Meteorological Institute, which isn’t far away, in Blindern. But when it starts to rain, which often happens in this area, no-one breaks into a run. They just continue walking at the same quiet pace, going nowhere in particular. When it stops, you notice that the buildings are a different colour and gleam in a different way. No renovation work has been done and it is not the rain’s fault, either. It is the light breathing on the facades, especially in the evening, slowly drawing out the day. Inside the abandoned flats the furniture is covered with sheets, which soon fade and resemble yellow bandages when the residents return in August. The flats sicken at being vacated, but on days with cloudless skies, which generally come one at a time, the people left in Oslo know where they are going. To Ingierstrand Beach, Lake Sognsvann or Fornebu Airport to watch planes taking off.”
There are also individual moments, such as when the family’s long wait for a telephone line finally ends (in passing, I’d note that Oslo was 30 years ahead of the rural Norfolk of my childhood in that regard):
“The telephone rings. They both jump. Ewald steps forward, hesitates, carefully lifts the receiver from the cradle and says in a tremulous voice: “This is the Kristoffersen household, hello.”
He hears a woman speaking fast.
“Ewald Kristoffersen, date of birth September 4th, 1911?”
“That is indeed the person you are talking to at this moment.”
“This is the telephone switchboard. You’re registered. Thank you.”
The conversation is broken and Ewald carefully replaces the receiver. He thinks: I exist. They exist. We exist.
“Who was that?” Jesper asks.
Ewald turns to him, running the back of his hand across his eyes.
“That was the world.””
This volume ends in April 1951 with, in that wider world, Red Cross aid being sent to war struck Korea, but also on a melancholy personal note for various of the characters. Maj watches her son and his friend playing:
“They are still children, but the war, of which they remember barely anything and yet cannot forget, has cast a shadow over them that causes their childhood age to lose its meaning. They are already carrying the darkness of adulthood. They are children in camouflage.”
I eagerly await the translation of the 2nd volume (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41019645-byens-spor), apparently set in 1956-7 and subtitled Maj (which arguably should come with a spoiler alert, albeit one hinted at in the opening pages of this book).
Overall a nicely crafted story. Perhaps lacking the black humour and sheer crazy invention of The Half Brother but, particularly I suspect when read as the trilogy it will eventually be, as impressive in scope. Recommended and one to watch for the 2020 International Booker Prize. 4 stars
Thanks to the publisher via Netgalley for the ARC
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