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Aliss at the Fire
Aliss at the Fire | Jon Fosse
5 posts | 4 read | 3 to read
From the 2023 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, a haunting masterpiece exploring love, loss, and human fate. In her old house by the fjord, Signe lies on a bench and sees a vision of herself as she was more than twenty years earlier: standing by the window waiting for her husband Asle, on that terrible late November day when he took his rowboat out onto the water and never returned. Her memories widen out to include their whole life together, and beyond: the bonds of family and the battles with implacable nature stretching back over five generations, to Asle's great-great-grandmother Aliss. In Jon Fosse's vivid, hallucinatory prose, all these moments in time inhabit the same space, and the ghosts of the past collide with those who still live on.
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review
Gleefulreader
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Pickpick

This was a pick with the caveat that it may not be for everyone, as the writing style could be difficult. There are shifting narratives, sometimes within the same sentence, and lots of extended paragraphs of text where ideas loop back and are repeated. It‘s a story of loneliness and grief and the repeated trauma of generations. Definitely will need a reread to capture what I missed in the first reading.

review
Jari-chan
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Pickpick

At first I was sceptical about the new Nobel Prize Winner (*cough* diversity *cough*), but this book, even though small in page numbers, is magnificent. Ghostsory, Historical Fiction, Family Drama, Lovestory - all this in a stream of consciousness that left me breathless. The story switches between point of views and time periods. If you want to know if you're ready for Ulysses, try this book first.

26 likes1 stack add
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Dilara
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Those 75 pages pack a punch! The writing repeats itself, and revisits, loops and circles around the main traumatic event(s) - drownings in the local fjord - in a very effective stream-of-consciousness style with a hint of magical realism. Clearly not to everyone's tastes, but I liked it.

photo of Trondheim fjord from Orcaborealis, Wikimedia

Jari-chan I'm reading it right now and totally agree with your review 1y
Dilara @Jari-chan It feels nice to be with like-minded people! I look forward to your post about this book 😁 1y
31 likes1 stack add2 comments
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Dilara
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Well, Jon Fosse has just received the #NobelPrize in Literature, and I hadn't read anything by him. Luckily, scribd has Aliss at the Fire in its catalogue, and it's under 100 pages long (nothing else, unfortunately). I've downloaded it and started it straight away, so I know what he's about 😁

Ruthiella I‘ll be interested to hear what you think. I‘ve not heard of him before either. 1y
SamAnne Looking forward to reading him. 1y
27 likes2 comments