A review by james1star
Aliss at the Fire by Jon Fosse

dark emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.75

I hated this book. 


Review done! 


No, for real this book was definitely an unenjoyable reading experience for me and I personally would not recommend it at all. I’ll start with the plot which follows a woman called Signe in 2002 as she sits on a bench at home, she then begins to see herself over twenty years prior on the day her husband Alse took his boat out into the fjord but never returned. There is sort of more to the story as the couple also see long-dead relatives of Alse, including the titular Aliss, his great-great grandmother. But on the whole externally little happens and the prose does switch POV with both rehashing the same events. The writing is alrightish, it’s rather pleasant and transportive at times with a lot of Norwegian-focused-ness (not a word I know) but my god is it jarring. Fosse’s prose is so repetitive, tedious and annoying! It’s horrible to read and he uses ‘she thinks’ and ‘he thinks’ so many times, like every three lines! Nope, no way could I get on board with this at all. It’s also very much stream of consciousness and hallucinatory with sentences that run over two-five pages  that just go on and on… and on and on and on. The transitions between the POVs are also very harsh with no real gradient that eases between the two. 

Overall, I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with the story or characters as such, but it’s the writing that made me really hate this book. Others have recommended reading this like an introduction to Fosse’s other works with his Septology being a longer version in some sense. If this is the case then I will certainly not be picking up anymore books by him, I’ll have to check it’s a ‘normally’ formatted prose beforehand. 
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