Finer minds than mine have waxed eloquent about this book, but FWIW, I enjoyed it as a slow, melancholy, hypnotic rumination on art, life and the choices we make.

Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2022 and longlisted for the National Book Awards, Translated Literature 2022, Septology is said to be the magnum opus of Norwegian author Jon Fosse (b.1959). Importantly, as far as I'm concerned, Septology is nothing like the self-indulgent meanderings of that other famous Norwegian author who has mined his own life, and the lives of his significant others, ad nauseam. (I have read one of his, and I hope made it clear in my review that I loathed his cruel observations about his family.)

Septology was originally published in three volumes, all translated by Damion Searls and published in English by Fitzcarraldo Editions.

• Det andre namnet - Septologien I-II (2019). The Other Name: Septology I-II;


• Eg er ein annan - Septologien III-V (2020). I Is Another: Septology III-V; and


• Eit nytt namn - Septologien VI-VII (2021). A New Name: Septology VI-VII.

In October 2022, Giramondo published this Australian edition of the series in one volume for the first time.

Septology is not a book for all tastes. Considering that it's a very long book, not much happens, and some of what happens is confusing. But by the time the reader reaches the last chapter, it's impossible not to be invested in the narrator Asle, and to care about what happens to him and the other people in his life. And to feel a sense of loss on the last page.

BTW There are some 'spoilers' in what follows, but nobody reads Septology for the plot. Even during the heart-stopping sequence when there is a risk that Asle might die in the blizzard or fall into the sea under Åsleik's drunken seamanship, the reader knows that there are many pages to go so it's not a spoiler to observe that he survives those events.

In Book 1 we meet Asle, an ageing painter sufficiently successful to have made an adequate living out of his art. Since the death of his wife, he lives alone on the Norwegian coast in Dylgia, a few hours' drive from Bjørgvin, now known as Bergen. The name Dylgia seems to be a bit of a Norwegian in-joke, because my Google search revealed that it was the site of a battle in one of the sagas. Well, Septology is a saga, and the central character seems to have struggled with himself for most of his life.

Book I, like Books II-VII, begins with Asle contemplating the same painting. In Book I, it is Monday.

And I see myself standing and looking at the picture with the two lines that cross in the middle, one purple line, one brown line it's a painting wider than it is high and I see that I've painted the lines slowly, the paint is thick, two long wide lines, and they've dripped, where the brown line and purple line cross the colours blend beautifully and drip and I'm thinking this isn't a picture but suddenly the picture is the way it's supposed to be, it's done, there's nothing more to do to it. (p.3)

These pairings in the painting prefigure numerous other pairings in a work suffused with doppelgangers.

But in Book II, these same thoughts take place on Tuesday and he is less sure about the painting, and by Book V it is Thursday, and he thinks it's a really bad painting. By Book VI the crisis in his life is upon him:

... I can't look at this picture anymore, it's been sitting on the easel for a long time now, a couple of weeks maybe, so now I either have to paint over it in white or else put it up in the attic, in the crates where I keep the pictures I don't want to sell, but I've already thought that thought day after day, I think and then I take hold of the stretcher and let go of it again and I realise that I, who have spent my whole life painting, oil paint on canvas, yes, ever since I was a boy, I don't want to paint anymore, ever, all the pleasure I used to take in painting is gone... (p.551)

He doesn't understand why, but he just wants to get rid of it all and in Book VII, his aversion has solidified. And this is the man who in Book I was obsessed by light. He sees pictures in his head and paints to clear his mind of them.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/12/06/septology-by-jon-fosse-translated-by-damion-... ( )