Gunnhild ØyehaugReseñas

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.

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.

'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.

3.5 stars

This book on the NBA longlist for translated works is about a group of loosely connected characters who are all artists or studying art and their relationships. There was some interesting reflections on art, but there were a lot of characters to keep track of, which was difficult as many weren’t connected to a central story. Also, I think the author wanted to make this feel like watching a movie. Much reference is made to the movie ‘Lost in Translation’. Unfortunately, that resulted in a lot of sentences like: “We now see Sigrid . “. The whole book reminded me of watching a movie with the narration for the visually impaired turned on. It made for a slow, annoying reading experience.

A microscopic view of many characters whose inner lives and thoughts are laid bare for us, and whose paths just may or may not cross. A peculiar and often humorous journey that puts in perspective life views that we often have ourselves; those from within our own heads.
The writing is precise, the plot is multidimensional in the extreme. Within the characters, you are sure to find at least one that you can personally relate to, and perhaps one that downright annoys you! This one is unique.
*I received an arc from the publisher through NetGalley for an honest review

This little book is full of various short stories. Some told in first person and others in third. Some stories lead the reader to serious discussions, such as depression or true happiness. Some seem to be pointless. Most are well-crafted fables.

I enjoyed this author’s varied writing style. Each of her stories are unique and told in a manner which provides the most impact in the least amount of words. Some stories were extremely short, as in a single scene. I wanted to know what came next, but then I realized it didn’t matter. The important part of the story was just that one scene the author wrote about.

This read was a new experience for me. I’ve been spoiled by typical books which have a definite beginning, middle, and end. This took me out of my comfort zone. I wasn’t sure I’d want to finish reading it, but the more I read, the more interesting it became. I am so happy this book found its way into my hands.

It is a random and unexpected encounter that brings the student Sigrid and the author she has been admiring for years together. They are mutually attracted immediately and in a café try to get closer without revealing too much of them at first. Trine, however, is ready to reveal a lot as a performance artist who works with her body. But she is struggling with being a mother. Another couple is somehow trying to imitate a film scene which is originally set in Paris but transferred to Copenhagen by the director Linnea. It is just a short glance at their lives, but we see the decisive moment that has to potential to transform everything.

I was eager to read “Wait, Blink” since I usually like the Scandinavian way of telling stories. However, I couldn’t really get into the novel. I assume this is due to the fact that there is not one story, but several quite independent stories are told alternatingly and I was always waiting for the moment in which they connect and form a whole which I didn’t really find.

The scenes about Trine were hardest for me since this character is quite unique and I could hardly follow her thoughts and actions. I liked Linnea and her idea of reproducing “Before Sunrise” – “Before Sunset” in her own life. Sigrid is not really a sympathetic character, but I could link with her thoughts and her struggle to appear as a strong and independent woman while she is actually insecure and afraid of human beings.

Even though the content did not really convince me, I adored Gunnhild Øyehaug’s style of writing. She has found an exceptional tone for her narration and the way of the narrator to talk to you as the reader like he was a good friend and his slightly ironic undertone were great to read. Øyehaug shows what she is capable of and I am looking forward for another novel by her.

I am frustrated, because I was blown away by Gunnhild Øyehaug's storytelling, Kari Dickson's translation and Heather Wild's reading, but the way the audiobook was formatted left much to be desired.

I can't easily tease out the difference in storytelling and translation here, but in particular appreciated the matter-of-fact narration style in all the stories, which I suspect is if not linguistically then culturally appropriate. It didn't pressure you into having an emotional reaction to a story but when you did have one it felt more genuine. I found the stories of "Knots" rich with symbolism, self-aware and painfully real. So many stories were full of people behaving exactly as I've seen myself and my friends behave, even though almost no character was at their best during the story. I was not initially sure I enjoyed these stories and I'm still not sure that's the word I'd use. However almost all of them made me uncomfortable. I kept asking myself "Why would she do that?" "Why does he want this?" "How can they be so unhappy?". Questions I found easy to ask about fictional characters but not often about the circumstances of my own life. That is why I am impressed by Øyehaug's work, and am going to check out any other English translations available.

On the downside, and this is stated better elsewhere, the weakest point was the audiobook formatting, which had no chapter titles and no pauses in between each chapter. This might have been less irritating in a novel, but when every story story packs a punch, I really needed a chance to breathe between them. I ended up pausing the book between most chapters to just sit and think, which was made difficult by the non-existent pauses.

In summary, I was strongly affected by these stories but found the audiobook formatting and to some extent the audiobook style interfering with my engagement with them.

I was given an audio version of this book in exchange for an honest review.

There are three elements at play with the audio version of this book: the stories, the recording, and the narrator. Lyehaug’s stories are tightly written, each one a slice of life with the main character dealing with some type of problem. Venturing from the ordinary of a man dealing with agoraphobia while shopping at Ikea to the bizarre of a son tethered to his mother’s umbilical cord, these stories reminded me of Kunlyoshi Hitomi’s Palm-of-the-Hand Stories – thought provoking short fiction which requires several readings to search for the true meaning. Five stars for storytelling.

Unfortunately, Lyehaug’s stories do not translate quite so well into the audio world. The nature of these stories demand the reader’s attention to the detail of the story, to savor the nuances of her well-chosen words. The tracks are identified only by a number. While this alone does not make it a bad recording, stories either ran together on the same track or were cut on two different tracks. This type of recording made impossible to return to any particular story to listen again. This problem could have been easily solved by each story having its own track. One star for recording.

Sometimes the intensity or flavor of a story can be lost in translation when moving from one language to another. Heather Wilds, the narrator for Knots, had a strong, clear voice ideal for narration. However, her delivery bordered on monotone with little inflection while reading. Additionally, there were no significant pauses from one story to the next to alert the reader when one story ended and another began. Three stars for narration.
Overall, three and ½ stars.

Once again, I am the recipient of a new Scandinavian author, Gunnhild Øyehaug. According to the dust jacket, she is an award-winning poet, essayist, and novelist. Her first novel, Wait, Blank, was made into an acclaimed film. She has also worked as a co-editor of two literary journals. She lives in Bergen, where she teaches creative writing. Her collection of short stories, Knots, was first published in 2004. This “radical collection rangers from the surreal to the oddly mundane. It prods the discomfort of mental, sexual, and familial bonds.” For example, one story is of a mother who delivers a male child, but all attempts to cut the cord fail. The two live the remainder of their lives bound together. Then his mother’s ghost appears off and on to comfort him. Bizarre? Yep, but it is also oddly compelling
Story.

Some of the stories are brief—as little as 3 pages on a small format book. In “Grandma Is Sleeping,” Bragg writes, ‘She got both glaucoma and cataracts early on in life, but she always managed, continued to crochet runners with tiny patterns, weave tapestries of small birds in a tangle of branches, colorful tulips twisting out of the soil and around each other, to the delight of her seven children and her seven children’s spouses and her seven children’s nineteen children. But today it bothers her. Today she stands at the kitchen window and looks up at the mountains and wishes she could distinguish where the mountains finish and the sky begins” (57). She is expecting her family for a large dinner she has prepared. As the family arrives, she does not answer the door.

In a story of a single page, “The Deer at the Edge of the Forest,” Gunnhild writes, The seed stood at the edge of the forest and was miserable. He felt like there was no point in anything, like he might as well give up. I walk around here, day in and day ouy, the deer thought, and there’s no one who sees me. Am I invisible, or what? He didn’t think so. I walk around here and could change people’s lives if only they could see me, but no one sees me. Here I am, a hart, and no one cares. The whole point is that I am supposed to be difficult to see, I know that, I am supposed to roam around the forest and not be seen. But it is the very premise of my life that is now making me miserable. I want to be seen. So here I am at the edge of the forest. I am open to being seen, to being shot. If someone doesn’t see me soon, I am going to do something drastic, I mean it. Right now it feels like I’m trapped in deerness. Oh, I would love to change everything, be someone else, something completely different. Oh, imagine if I could be a roe deer, an elk” (88). Several of the longer stories—seven pages—are also appealing. My favorites are “It’s Snowing” and “Two by Two.” One short piece was a play with only the thoughts of a woman about her life.

I am not entirely sure why I am attracting all these Scandinavian stories and novels, but I am certainly glad to add these authors to my collection of world literature. Gunnhild Øyehaug’s collection of stories, Knots, are thought-provoking, and at times funny, serious, sad, and mysterious. Only a story or two might be uncomfortable, but teasing out of the imagery and description, offers quite a few thoughts on ordinary events, ordinary people, and that should get your mind whirring. 5 stars

--Jim, 1/15/18

I've noticed that my reading this past year has included a relatively large amount of short fiction (1 or 2 a month at least) and within that there has been a high incidence of short short fiction aka flash fiction. That genre is defined as fiction of less than 1,000 words which is about 3 to 4 pages in standard print format. Short fiction has been around ever since Aesop's Fables but it does seem to be more prevalent these days if my experience is any indication.

I haven't been looking for short short fiction in particular but I just seem to run across it by chance, whether it is the work of Dorthe Nors in "Karate Chop: Stories", Kirsty Logan in "The Psychology of Animals Swallowed Alive: Love Stories" or this present collection by Norwegian writer Gunnhild Øyehaug.

The Øyehaug came about as I collect fictional references to a favourite composer of mine, named Arvo Pärt, and maintain of list of them at Fictional Characters Who Love Arvo Pärt.

I mention this connection as it is likely the reason that I found the story "Blanchot Slips under a Bridge" which fixates around the Arvo Pärt album "Alina" to be memorable due to the extra association that I had to it. The only other story here that had the same effect was "Vitalie meets an Officer" which was about the meeting of the mother and father of Arthur Rimbaud, a poet whose life and career have intrigued me ever since I read an historical fiction of his life ("The Day on Fire" (1958) by James Ullman) at an impressionable age. The downside to short short fiction otherwise seems to be that it is not very memorable unless you have some particular association to it. What I am left with is the feeling of oddness about most of these stories without any specific memories of most of them.

The exceptions to this were the longer first story "Nice and Mild" (about a quirky trip to IKEA) and the much longer extended final story "Two by Two" (about a cheating husband and the wife that waits at home for him) where you spend enough time with the characters to grow some association to them.

Overall I enjoyed listening to this audiobook. A major problem for me was, however, the transitions between the stories. The reader, who was easy to listen to, would just finish one story and then start the next one. It was a problem occasionally knowing that one story had ended and another one had started. It would have been better to have had a couple of different readers who went back and forth with the stories so that there was a clear delineation between stories. The stories themselves were really good and each one was entertaining. It was necessary for me to really pay attention to the stories so that I would not recommend listen to this audio book while driving or doing a demanding task.

I received this audio-book in exchange for an HONEST review...a review is my OPINION.

I am going to write this review the way the author wrote the book.

I received a package in the mail. There was no return address. The package I received had no return address. Inside the package were some CDs. I was supposed to review the CDs. The package had no return address. It caused me to hate the CDs.

I listened to the CDs that came from the package with no return address. The CDs that I am supposed to review. I did not like the stories. I did not like them at all. They came on CDs in package with no return address. That made me hate the CDs first. The stories made me hate the CDs again. I hated that those things made me hate the CDs.

The stories had no purpose. The stories were ramblings. The stories were completely and utterly boring. The stories were a waste of my life. They came on the CDs in the package with no return address. Who doesn't use a return address? I listened to the stories that I hated because I made a promise. I promised to review the CDs that cam in the package without a return address. I didn't know the package would not have a return address.

OK, ENOUGH!!!!!

The stories had ZERO purpose. There was NOTHING remotely interesting.
The narrator also added to the annoying experience with her voice and style of reading. I found my self yelling at the car radio, "Shut up, Shut up, Shut up...please just shut up!"

Complete and utterly pointless stories that did nothing but bore me.
There are two things I liked:
1) It was short---albeit not short enough
2) It gives me hope...if this can get published and made into an audio book and the author can win awards, I can be the next Stephen King! OH YEAH! (maybe I should move to Norway...small talent pool)

1/2 star...I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS TO ANYONE!½

I listened to the audio version of Knots by Gunnhild Oyehaug.
In fact, I listened to disc 1 twice because I thought perhaps I was merely being unattentive. The truth is I began with eager anticipation to experience a new author. New to me, that is. The truth is I forced myself to listen almost all the way through disc 3. The truth is I could not listen to anymore. The truth is I am not a fan.
Perhaps this only proves the triumph of the author to "make the world just a little more strange." Perhaps some nuance of meaning was lost in translation and perhaps some of the art form was lost in the transition from printed page to audio book.
I found this audiobook odd and strange (per the author's intention), and could not justify spending anymore time listening. Would I recommend this audio book to anyone? No.

I had a tough time with this one. Although I loved the narrator, who gave the stories a very cosmopolitan feel, there was a lot of repetition in words, phrases and sentences in almost every story. It was like an editor hadn't cleaned them up yet. Now, that may have been some stylistic choice on the writer's part, or since English wasn't the author's first language, maybe a miscommunication through the translator. I chose to look at these stories as an awkward translation that made the stories appear to still be in a rough-draft stage.

If this was a purposeful technique and had only been used in one or two entries, I might not have been so drawn out of the stories. Because it was overused, I was immediately pulled out every single time.

The stories themselves were odd. Some in an okay way, some in a meh way.

Overall a quick listen, so I may try them again in hopes I can be a little more appreciative of the style.

Not sure an American audience will embrace these as maybe something is missing from the original written language. By no means am I insulting anyone's intelligence or taste, but I think this would definitely be for a niche group.½

I'm on the fence about this one. No one story was extremely memorable for me. It's a strange collection, almost like the author had all these stories or pieces of stories lying around and decided to make a collection. Many of them seem to have no point whatsoever. Most seem kind of fable-like. Not a terrible read/listen overall but I just wasn't impressed and, in a collection, I expect at least a few stories to standout. Not the case here.

(Although I moved five months ago and updated my address in LibraryThing, this audiobook was sent to my old address; I let the new owners keep it and checked a hardcopy out of the local public library for the purposes of writing this review. I'm glad I did: I'd not have wanted children to overhear the surprisingly vulgar--though vulgar in a "cute," "common" sort of twenty-first-century way, I suppose--audio of several of the twenty-six stories in this collection. So I cannot comment on the narrator of the audiobook version; sorry.)

If you like strange stories, you might like these. If you like contemporary fiction that's probably a lot harder to write than it seems; if you have a soft spot for the Nordic regions; if you don't need much in terms of character development--the longest story in this collection is just 23 pages (and is actually my favorite), and the shortest is just one paragraph (not even 200 words)--well, then, you might just like these stories. These are not the kinds of stories that I'll be returning to: there's no need to reread this sort of writing; it's just, for me, a way to pass the time. Now, I'll admit that I did manage to quote one of the stories in a review of a Harvard University Press book I'm currently writing: "Vitalie Meets an Officer." Here's the line in question: "Sometimes when you read, it's like certain sentences strike home and knock you flat. It's as if they say everything you have tried to say, or tried to do, or everything you are" (pp. 133–34). Anyway, that's a nice point, and I'm glad I stumbled across it. Again, though, it was entirely thanks to the LibraryThing Early Reviewers scheme; I'd not have picked up this sort of work on my own volition, simply because I prefer a different--much more old-fashioned--sort of aesthetic. But that's one of the joys of LibraryThing: introducing me to new genres, new authors, new voices.

Stories ranging from short to very short. Nothing bad here, but also nothing memorable.

Les bokanmeldelse her:

http://www.librarything.com/work/7745740/details/43661098½

En fordel om du har lest Dante og Franz Kafkaz Slottet før du leser denne boken, men intet must.

Boken hadde et melankolsk slør over seg, men er likevel morsom og god, lett og vanskelig samtidig. God skrevet.

Folk er rare. Folk er også sånn. Det er fint. Som boken. Fin og trist. Som personene i boken.

I boka "Vente, blinke" er mange historier vevd sammen, og det er ikke enkelt å skrive en dekkende bokanmeldelse. Vi møter kvinnene Sigrid, Wanda, Elida, Linnea og Trine, men det er Sigrid og hennes forhold til Kåre som står mest sentralt.

Sigrid er en ung, selvbevisst og selvopptatt litteraturstudent. Hun lengter etter å høre sammen med noen, den store kjærligheten, å bli sett. Helt tilfeldig kommer hun over en diktsamling av en mannlig forfatter, og hun blir svært betatt av ham. Like tilfeldig treffer hun på ham - Kåre - og de finner umiddelbart tonen. Kåre er 20 år eldre enn Sigrid. Sigrid tenker at dette må være den store kjærligheten. For Kåre er det ikke like enkelt. Han har nemlig nylig avsluttet et forhold med Wanda, kvinnen Kåre trodde var kvinnen i hans liv ...

Boka er humoristisk skrevet, og fremkalte latteren mang en gang. Som Sigrids prosjekt om å skrive om sårbare kvinner i for store herreskjorter og bustete hår. Selv føler hun seg bare tjukk og dum i for store herreskjorter ...

Jeg storkoste meg med denne boka, som ble nydelig lest av Arnhild Litleré. Dersom jeg skulle fremheve en svakhet ved boka, må det være at det tidvis ble for mange historier og at det var litt vanskelig å holde å tråden. Dette er imidlertid bare en bagatell i det store og hele. Boka er en liten perle!½

"Vente, blinke" is a novel with several histories. We meet the young and somewhat shy literature student Sigrid when she meets the man in her dreams, the author Kåre, we meet the film director Linnea on location research in Copenhagen, all of the characters are longing to belong to someone or somewhat The Novel is a broad and complexed history and the author's style is playful and serious at the same time.
Some referances are picked from other books or films, so you has to read more.

Dette er ein roman med fleire historier kor vi bl.a. møter den unge litteraturstudenten Sigrid og forfattaren Kåre, filmregissøren Linnea, performancekunstnaren Trine som slit med mjølkespreng, den lengtande litteraturstudenten Viggo og fiskehandlardattera Elida. Ein roman om kjærleik, drifter, draumar og det å våge å vere seg sjølv. © DnBB AS