A New Masterpiece?

We are talking about seven books divided into three volumes, with the lonely and aging painter Asle at the story’s centre. Septology is the title, and the writing is finished. All that remains are a few corrections and some refinements, but readers will not see it before next autumn, when the first volume will be simultaneously released in a number of languages. This first volume will be about 600 pages, and when all three volumes are released, we can look forward to 1550 pages of Fosse’s prose. Without a single full stop.

“Yes, I’ve been fiddling with this slow prose for a few years, but the absence of full stops doesn’t mean that it’s difficult to read. I think it flows nicely. There are seven major text blocks, with dialog. But it flows. I don’t think you will find it a difficult text,” says Fosse.

Frankfurt 2019

We meet the author to talk about Septology, awards, writing, and Norway as Guest of Honour at Frankfurt 2019.

Fosse thinks it is wonderful that Norway is the Guest of Honour at Frankfurt in 2019:

“I’m very happy about it. It means a lot for Norwegian literature, and for Norwegian authors.”

This summer, another award- winning Norwegian author, Jan Kjærstad, wrote a much-discussed post in one of Norway’s biggest newspapers Aftenposten, saying that the Guest of Honour effect is overestimated, that all the media coverage will be forgotten about the following day, and that its value “is worth nothing in reality’s long and merciless course.”

“Who thinks there is room for 80 Norwegian fiction writers in Germany?” Wrote Kjærstad in Aftenposten. “It is one thing to be translated, but something else to attract enough interest, win readers. In most cases, you will end up with a minor publisher and sell a hundred copies.”

Fosse totally disagrees.

“I have great sympathy for NORLA (Norwegian Literature Abroad), who were jubilant when this went through. That joy spread to me too – and this idea that it is so wrong for a few authors to be highlighted, I don’t go along with that.” says Fosse.

“Of course all writers, both younger and more established ones, need all the support they can get, and to oppose this commitment is totally wrong. It’s like comparing care of the elderly with theatre,” says the author.

“But I agree with Kjærstad that it’s terrible to be an author amongst the chaos of that book fair,” he smiles. “I’ve been there twice. The first time I had no idea what I was going to. The second time I can’t quite remember. But now I’m prepared,” smiles Fosse, implying that it will be a day trip this time.

Fosse also points out how important Germany is for Norwegian writers. Many have been translated into German, and have been published by large and small publishers.

“Admittedly it was France where things first took off for me, but it was actually random. There’s an unbelievable amount of literature translated into German. Small publishers and small runs yes, but very often you get the books you want at some library or other. In German.”

Septology

Now there is new masterpiece underway from the poet who lives in Norway’s honorary residence. In Septology we meet Asle, an aging painter who has shut himself off in a place called Dylja. He has lived in seclusion for a long time, and has lost the woman he loved. But he still talks with her. He also has a friend living in the city. Many will recognise the place names from Trilogy, since both the fictional Dylja and the city of Bjørgvin – which is very similar to Bergen – are included. His friend lives in Bjørgvin too.

“The friend is also called Asle,” says Fosse smiling. “He is also a painter and the two have a great deal in common. They are very alike, but are also very different. Some things gel and some don’t.”

Readers can also look forward to meeting Dylja-Asle’s neighbour Åsleik, a fisherman with his own boat. He also has a sister called Guro, one of two Guros in the novel, who lives in Instefjord. On Christmas Eve, Asle and Åsleik set off in the boat – after much persuasion – to celebrate Christmas with Guro.

“She wants Asle and Åsleik to cele brate Christmas at hers, but Asle doesn’t normally want to. Except this Christmas.

“Asle is a painter. Is he a respected painter?”

“He is a good artist, but he is not respected within the art world. In his own eyes, he is good. And he is helped by a gallery owner, called Bjørgvin.”

Compulsive writing

The acclaimed author is constantly writing, beginning at five o’clock in the morning every day. Whether he is at the artist residence Grotten, or his house in Frekhaug north of Bergen, or at the house he and his family share just outside Vienna.

“I’ve never been able to afford the luxury of having ‘writer’s block,” says Fosse. “On the contrary, I have some kind of writing compulsion. I write and write. It comes easy to me, the words just come. I’ll always write so that I can get through life,” he says.

In 1995, when he finished his first novel Melancholia 1, about the painter Lars Hertervig, it nevertheless happened. “Yes, I felt very heavy. I lost the urge to write. So I then began with drama, and found that it was easier. And one piece led to another, and allbthe productions started to come, and it just went by itself. And to a certain extent it still does.”

“So why have you abandoned drama now?” “I felt that I had no more to offer as a dramatist. So I decided to try and go back to where I began. I started writing prose and poems in the eighties, and I’ve dabbled with prose while I have been writing drama too, but not poems. I’m doing that now.”

Translations

In addition to his own poems and the new prose, Fosse spends his time doing translations and reinterpretations. A new edition of Peer Gynt is on its way in book form, following its run at The Norwegian Theatre. It was translated for Robert Wilson’s production at the same theatre in 2004, but has now been refined a little.

“I also translated Georg Trakl into nynorsk. Olav H. Hauge translated some of his poems, some of which I read when I was young. Now I am translating Trakl’s collection The Dream of Sebastian.

In addition to translating the Austrian lyricist, Fosse is translating several classics for the small West Norway publishing house, Skald. One of these, James Joyce’s novella The Dead, has now been made into a New Norwegian language version as Dei døde – as have works by Beckett and Kafka. He is now starting work on Kafka’s The Trial. He has also translated saga literature to New Norwegian, also for Skald.

The Nordic Council – and Nobel

Jon Fosse was awarded the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize in 2015, and expressed great pleasure at receiving it. “Has the award had any bearing on the writing?”

“No. The writing has its own place. It’s not affected by external things. It could be influenced by alcohol, but it’s not affected by bad reviews or good reviews, or by getting awards or not getting awards. It doesn’t matter. I was happy about the award, but I wouldn’t have been very disappointed about not receiving it. I’ve had so much good fortune with my drama that it would have been totally fine. But I have been nominated once before, for Morning and Evening, and I was disappointed when the award went to Jan Kjærstad and not to me. It’s not often I’m disappointed, but I thought it was a very good novel. I still think so.”

“You are mentioned annually when it comes to that really big award too. What do you think of your candidacy for the Nobel Prize?”

“I can’t comment on that. Of course I don’t know if I really am a candidate or if it’s just something you are writing. I have no comment on it,” says Fosse. Anyway, there will be no Nobel Prize this year, as it is not being awarded in 2018. But next year, the Swedish Academy is likely to be on track again, and by then its members will surely agree that Jon Fosse has a new masterpiece on the way.

Resembling life

And next autumn we can all read about the ageing, isolated artist, doing what he does. And since Jon Fosse is also an artist – if not aging then an adult one at least – many will certainly ask themselves how much of Jon Fosse there is in this Asle.

So we asked him.

“None,” says the author. “And that’s true. People don’t think so, but it’s true. It may resemble my life, but it resembles yours too. And his and hers. I’m unable to make up stories about my own life. The landscape, experiences and thoughts are all there, but it must be created. I’m writing about life in Western Norway, but I’m fictionalizing it. It will probably look like both when I’m done, but it will resemble Western Norway first and foremost,” says Fosse.

“And in the future. What will you be writing after the Septology?”

“I don’t want to plan my future writing. It might be more for theatre, but I don’t know. A play will have to come to me. I’ve written some shorter prose, and there will be another book sooner or later.” “And I would like to translate more. As I mentioned, I’m working on Trakl and Kafka, and I also write poetry. I let the writing just come. I’d actually never thought I would write for theatre either. It just happened. The same with Trilogy,” says Fosse, who also reveals his two great literary role- models: Tarjei Vesaas and Samuel Beckett. “I write with them and I write to them. My play, Someone Is Going To Come is a response to Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.” “I don’t write like them. But I too am searching for the “soul in the sentence.” Something Vesaas and Beckett both had.”

For more information

Winje Agency: Jon Fosse , Septology

Books from Norway: Jon Fosse