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“This is a book of
exceptional literary power.”
The
River (novel)
Reviewed by Unni Lindell for Bokklubben
Nye Bøker
Young Aksel Vinding
enters into pacts with two strong women: Selma, a fifty-year-old
piano teacher, and Marianne, the mother of his dead girlfriend.
We find ourselves at
the beginning of the 1970s, in the midst of the abortion debate,
women’s liberation, the EC and the Vietnam War. But Aksel is not
concerned with current events. He has enough trouble dealing
with his own problems: the powerful emotions that women and
music awaken in him. Aksel Vinding wants to be a musician. But
the lonely piano student is above all a man of flesh and blood,
which is not always easy to cope with. He is surrounded by
strong women.
Aksel is living in a
minefield of feelings. He is obsessed with the dead Anja, the
anorexic girlfriend he has lost. He is confused, vulnerable,
driven by instinctual urges, and is afraid of not living up to
the expectation of his fifty-year-old piano teacher, Selma Lynge,
that he will become a renowned pianist.
In
her childhood bedroom
Aksel visits Anja’s
mother, the socialistically-inclined doctor Marianne Skoog. She
rents Anja’s room to him cheaply. What’s more, the family’s
superb grand piano is at his disposal. In Marianne’s house he
can be with Anja, lie in her bed, gaze at her walls, dream the
dreams that she didn’t have a chance to dream, play on the piano
keys that she loved. Aksel’s devotion to someone who is dead is
heartbreaking. But his problems become no less complex when he
discovers that his attraction has been transferred from daughter
to mother.
The content of the
story is based on powerful urges, vulnerability and music. Bach,
Chopin and Czerny are all present, as are Mahler and Mozart. But
Joni Mitchell and Woodstock are also there. Marianne, a
liberated woman, opens up a new world to Aksel – a world of
modern music and adult sexuality.
Diametrically
opposed to Marianne is the ambitious, classically trained piano
teacher Selma Lynge. Almost as though this were a crime novel,
we are drawn into Aksel Vinding’s predicament, torn as he is
between Marianne Skoog and Selma Lynge. Selma exerts an intense,
nearly psychopathic pressure on Aksel. She is fierce, strikes
him, holds him in a vice-like grip, and Aksel knows that only
she can open the doors of music for him. His future becomes her
project – she says that he will be her last student, so she must
succeed with him.
“The River” is
constructed as dramatically as a Wagner opera, with a compelling
story that gathers momentum as it progresses. The music itself
functions as a space between the events of Aksel’s life as he is
driven from pillar to post by strong and perhaps dangerous
women, and as the intensely focused world of classical music is
disrupted by rock and Woodstock.
Powerful
urges
Ketil Bjørnstad has
created a masterful work, carving out an obsessive tale, a real
page turner, about the relationship between aversion, powerful
urges and extreme vulnerability. This is what brings Aksel
Vinding alive. He deals with his reactions quietly. Throughout
the entire story the music is present, like a backdrop, like an
electric current that lights up the words. This is a book of
exceptional literary power. It draws the reader in; it is tough
and serious, gently searching and sophisticated. And the ending
is quite brutal.
It is wonderful to read
a really good book – a book that is first-rate literature and a
thrilling story at the same time. I cannot help comparing “The
River” to the critically acclaimed “Christmas Oratorio” by Gøran
Tunstrøm. And that happens to be my favourite book. |