Similar to Out Stealing Horses, Per Persson’s latest novel I Refuse features a lonely man looking back on a childhood marred by a life-changing incident. It’s a very different novel after that, with a much more urban feel compared to the beautiful countryside evoked in Out Stealing Horses.

Persson shifts the narrative between the down-and-out Jim and the financially successful Tommy, as well as through the decades from their 60s childhoods to the present day. The narrative focus also occasionally shifts to minor characters, and between third and first person. This is a lot of gear-shifting in a relatively short novel, and it feels somewhat artificial and forced. The prose is a lot more mundane than in Out Stealing Horses, but I guess that could be a function of the novel’s more urban setting.

I enjoyed the journey that Persson takes us on with a couple of appealing characters and the turns that their lives take. I did feel cheated by the ending though, which I found pretty unsatisfactory.

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The novel opens in the early morning hours of a September day in 2006 with a chance meeting between childhood friends Jim and Tommy, now in their fifties. They last saw each other thirty-five years earlier. Jim has struggled with mental illness. He has been unable to find work after collecting benefits for a year. Tommy had a rough childhood. He and his siblings were abandoned by their mother and abused by their father. After dropping out of school, getting work in a mill, and parlaying his head for numbers into job with a financial firm in Oslo, he has become a successful investor. Both have experienced losses. Both are lonely. During the day they reconnect, each will confront a personal crisis and make an important decision.

The harshness of the Norwegian landscape is a perfect setting for this sad, quiet, reflective, and atmospheric work. The prose is spare and elegant. Chapters are told by Jim, Tommy, and Tommy’s sister, Siri. Though the present action takes place in a single day, the background of their lives is filled in via flashbacks. The later chapters are told in third person, leading up to the climactic scenes. Themes include absent parents, bonds of friendship, emotional wounds, the passage of time, and making one’s way in the world. It is beautifully told (compliments to the translator), with much left between the lines for the reader’s interpretation. I liked this one, but my favorite of Petterson’s work is Out Stealing Horses, which I highly recommend.

3.5
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Twee jongens groeien op in gebroken gezinnen. De een is enig kind, de ander heeft drie zusjes. Ze maken in hun jeugd heel wat mee, ze groeien uit elkaar en komen elkaar na jaren ineens weer tegen. Ze weten het van elkaar niet, maar bij die ontmoeting is er al geen enkele mogelijkheid meer om opnieuw met elkaar bevriend te raken. Geen vrolijk boek. Wel een om over na te denken.

I read and enjoyed Out Stealing Horses by the same author and so picked this up in a book store on a whim. In some ways it was similar in that the writing is sedate even through very dramatic events. There aren't any question marks (literally) used which makes for a sort of monotone reading of the book. Also, similarly to Out Stealing Horses, ramifications of traumatic childhood events are explored in the characters' adulthoods.

I liked this book, but I didn't quite know what to make of it. I was left with a lot of questions and didn't feel like things were wrapped up very well. Sometimes that works for me, but here it felt like an error. So I think fans of Out Stealing Horses, which I know several of you have read, will be interested to read this as well, but I would be curious to know if you feel as I did that its less successful. ( )

This is the fifth novel of Petterson's that I've read, and it maintains the very high standard of his oeuvre, from my perspective. "I Refuse" deals with growing up, friendship and its loss, family breakdown, social change and the emptiness of materialism, among other matters. It's familiar territory for Petterson, perhaps, but he approaches it differently in this novel. Through multiple narratives and time shifts, he shines new light on his material and delivers fresh insights that caused this reader to reflect upon his own life.

You don't read Petterson for the laughs, though there is a dark humour at work here. His purpose isn't to provide the reader with distraction, but I found the fragmented narrative compelling. It's a starkly realist story of life's hardships and disappointments. There are no neat endings here. Parts are oblique and defy interpretation - much like life. The storytelling, characterisation and prose - at least, in Don Bartlett's translation - are all executed beautifully. Highly recommended for those who enjoy writing that reflects the formlessness of lived experience, its resistance to meaning. ( )