i really enjoyed the feeling and pacing of this book. the prose is poetic and careful. i saw the word mundane used in a description and liked it, this book is mundane and incredibly beautiful. “teaching them the names of the birds in the air and the flowers in the fields that didn’t regret yesterday or dread tomorrow, but lived only for today” ( )

"Long Live the Post Horn!" is about a public relations professional in her thirties who gets involved with a campaign to reject a European Union directive that would open up letter delivery services to private companies. If that plot doesn't sound exactly thrilling, it's because it isn't. What this novel is really about is how to deal with the lonliness and social disconnection that modern first-world life so often implies these days. At the beginning of the book, our main character's partner -- who, like her, is young, successful, and no longer single -- vanishes and then kills himself. The reasons for every suicide are necessarily obscure, but, in a sense, the our protagonist spends the rest of the novel figuring out how to avoid the same fate. It's a novel that's very much of the moment.

And it's very well constructed. Hjorth skillfully shows how the sort of precise but empty language that's used in most public relations campaigns -- and most modern public discourse -- necessarily leeches everything around it of meaning. The author seems to be telling us that although writing bright, clean copy a good professional skill to have, it cannot describe anyone's reason for being. The most effective stories here come straight from people's mouths and are told forcefully and straightforwardly. Interestingly enough, the main character finds herself defending cliches and commonplaces -- the sort of thing she strives to avoid at work -- because, inelegant as they are, people can use them with real conviction, which is more than she can say for most of her work product. As the novel goes on, she meets people, hears stories, and attends events that wouldn't usually play any role in her everyday life, and slowly but surely reconnects with herself and with those around her. The little things that make us individuals -- our handwriting, our scent, our stories, and our memories -- slowly begin playing a larger and larger role in the book. "Long Live the Post Horn!" is a novel about an emotionally dulled character coming back to life and rediscovering herself. It's the sort of book that might we all might benefit from reading these days.

Despite the fact that "Long Live the Post Horn!" is sharply observed and full of nice little touches and subtle connections, the reason I gave it only two-and-a-half stars is that it isn't much fun to read. The main character may feel like more of an individual by the time the novel ends, but the writing here is fairly flat and anonymous -- what the French sometimes call "white writing." It sometimes makes the book seem more like an instruction manual or a useful but essentially functional allegory. To say the least, the book's prose doesn't match up particularly well with the book's main themes. It's not that Ellinor isn't likeable -- she is! -- but I don't feel that I had a really good idea of who she was when the book ended, even though I'll grant you that she had a better idea of who she was by the novel's last page. "Long Live the Post Horn!" is a admirable and effective book in a lot of different ways, but it's not a terribly enjoyable read. Even so, I'm just one reader. Your mileage, as they say, may vary. ( )

Thanks to NetGalley for my ARC.

Long Live the Post Horn! is a fever dream of a novel set mostly within the mind of Ellinor, a 35 year old woman working for a advertising agency. From the onset Vigdis Hjorth takes the reader by the hand into the inner-space of grief, loneliness, and the art/journey of learning who one really is. This novel is all about the ongoing lonely journey of self discovery and Vigdis Hjorth tells it through the diary and daily experiences of Ellinor as she confronts the death / suicide of a colleague and the journey that it sets off for her by way of the Norwegian Post Office. There are many references of course to Norwegian politics and topics so if you are reading this as a translated work take the time to web-search what you are not familiar with.

After a series of dates with a boyfriend who is obviously not a good fit and complications related to this relationship and then the sudden disappearance and discovery of the death / suicide of a work friend, Ellinor ends up with a huge responsibility in working against the EU's Postal Directive. The book documents through Ellinor's eyes this difficult process, up to the Labor Party's annual meeting in 2011. Through this process she discovers a sense of purpose, self, and connection to her place in the world.

The writing is clipped and sometimes terse and other times it is not. It feels very much like inhabiting the mental space of the main character. It is relatable and real and also deep in places and overall light enough to carry the reader through all of Ellinors ups and downs. The novel chuggs along at a nice pace and allows the reader to connect with various parts of Ellinors thoughts.

Long Live the Post Horn! is intelligent, political, inventive and most importantly human. It takes all of the mundane things in life, specifically Norwegian life, and connects them to the inner-space of a lonely 35 year old woman. It blasts social injustice through the daily life of an everyday person. There is no grand hero here there is no real grand event. Long Live The Post Horn! is ordinary and through this daily domestic blandness of the settings and characters the story very clearly looks out onto the world and tells something about the responsibility we all have, all of us ordinary domestics, to each other locally and globally. Through Ellinor and her very specific journey the reader is shown a way to see how we are all part of the same system but from different places and direction.

Long Live the Post Horn! is highly specific to its place and characters and events but is also universal and relatable. Vigdis Hjorth is a refreshing joy to read its a book with purpose that does not preach but tells and shows the way. ( )