Gunnhild Øyehaug

Had a few moments where it favorably contrasted transcendence, even the miraculous, against the pattern of routine everyday life, and these I appreciated. See opener “Birds” in which a woman loses the part of her brain containing all knowledge about birds, the subject of her nearly completed dissertation, and rediscovers natural wonder. And “White Dove, Black Crow” in which a pedestrian witnesses a bird’s transformation from the former to the latter, stumbles, and the story instantly forgets that vision to drily summarize the remaining decades of her life married to the driver of the car that stops to check on her after her fall.

Generally the stories can be said to play with form and expectations. They are so short that “tone poems” does seem an apt descriptor, along with noting their absurdism and surreality. Which generally is not my thing but I’d recommend the book to you if it’s yours.… (meer)

This is a delightfully odd book. It is about a woman who is reading a book, and misreads a word, thus inventing a new word that has never existed before. The sudden existence of this new word spawns a new alternate reality where she does not have a daughter. In the new daughterless reality, she feels like there is something missing, but she doesn't know what. In that other world, her daughter continues to exist, but lives a completely different life without her mother. The book alternates between the two realities, where both women grapple with the feeling that there is something wrong while negotiating relationships with mothers, daughters, and spouses.

The narrator intrudes often, in very delightful ways, sometimes even daring to knock on the doors of her characters.

As much as the book explores loss, it is also full of joy. It's a quirky and interesting read.… (meer)

'We can safely say there's little about Laura to indicate that she's living in a parallel universe created by a misreading. But, in fact, she is.'

This oddly compelling short novel is certainly one to give your brain some exercise. Whilst watching her daughter Laura on her bike in the back garden, Anna misreads a word in a book of poetry and bam!, suddenly a parallel world is created in which she does not have a daughter called Laura, although Laura continues to exist in another world, but without a mother called Anna.

The book explores the lives of the two women, often going back and forward in time, to explore the existential questions of this parallelity. Events mirror themselves, a set of emergency stairs in a block of flats is a parallel version of the main stairs, a music concert happens at the same time but in different universes....

And then there is the narrator, a character in their own right who comments and draws attention to themself throughout. We are always conscious that this is a construct, a work of art, made out of language - and this runs central to the core themes of the book. There are hints of creation myths (especially the Bible), and lots of references to high-brow philosophers and writers. It's deep - but is so in a very human way, as we watch the characters struggle with family, relationships and somehow just managing to exist, all the time with a niggling feeling in the back of your mind that something is off somehow, a little bit off kilter.

This will not be a book for everyone. There are no easy answers, no neat resolution. Indeed, there are always more questions than answers, and the narrative voice only adds to the quirky nature of the book. In tone and style it reminded me in some ways of Frederick Backman or Lars Saabye Christensen, two of my favourite Nordic writers. It is lyrical and the excellent translation by Kari Dickson stays true to the beauty of the language.

For me, this was a genuine pleasure to read and will be one to ponder long after I put it down. A joy and a beautifully crafted work of art.… (meer)