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Roman
Publisher:
October
Release year:
2021
«Tender debut novel about longing, art and fish.»
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Stein Torleif Bjella is loved for his warm, everyday lyrical shows. He also garnered many praises for the collection of poems «Jordsjukantologien» (2017). Now the musician and poet makes his debut as a novelist with «Fiskehuset». The book is a treat for those who are weak for net fishing, old traditions and the Halling dialect. And for the bell-ringing mixture of melancholy, shame and sorrow.
“One riddle night is one riddle one night, it should be self-explanatory tea for you, Jon.” It’s the old man Ivar who gets rid of the slightly sharp comment to his nephew Jon. The two will spend an autumn week together on the mountain, in the hut «Fiskehuset», to fish and make rakfisk. Day after day they put aura yarn. Ivar wants Jon to inherit the fishing water, and while Jon is rowing, Ivar talks about the fish and old traditions. You have to think like a fish, he teaches. “It’s just the mouth that works,” Jon thinks.
Jon – a forty-seven-year-old assistant teacher, musician and village hipster – notes everything, day by day. It’s not just fishing Ivar is laying out about. The words of wisdom about art and life come on the assembly line. It also does with the sarcasm aimed at Jon. He gets it straight so his ears flutter: “You can maybe manage as an artist, but it’s never a big deal.” Or: «Your game is outgoing and ignorant. A terrible combination ».
Jon accepts, is silent, ponders and doubts. But Jon also has a limit.
Stein Torleif Bjella’s book debut seems fundamentally unambitious
Hallingmål
Fishing as a framework for reflections on life, longing, loneliness, nature and death in novels, is well used. Gunnar Larsen is one of the Norwegians who has done it beautifully. Also with Bjella – with his natural lyrical observations and pictures – the frame works well. Still, it takes time for the story to come to life. The novel form is not quite in place.
For a while, “Fiskehuset” appears more as a well-written, local historical text, than as a story that pulsates. Like a novel. A novel requires a good, dynamic structure. It happens eventually, when the enumeration of family history is toned down and the interaction between the two characters is adjusted upwards, but then we are all a bit out of the short book.
The language, on the other hand, is solid, with beautiful nature pictures and fresh lines on sounding halling goals. It’s just to enjoy.
Harassment and life counsel
“Fiskehuset” has a good dose of charm: The silent and hurtful, and the barduse and talkative, are a fun, awkward couple. The two conversations about the important things in life. Besides fish, it’s about the art of living, music and love. Ivar agrees with Virginia Woolf that the artist must have the practical things in order to create. Jon himself struggles to find peace in love – he is a man who carries a lot of unrequited longing. A dispute at the end of the book surprises and stirs. “Fiskehuset” is a tender debut novel about loneliness and longing, about lived life and life to be lived.
You’ve never heard Bjella so catchy
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