extraordinary how he captures the mingled ... ( )

12 årige norske Arvid er m,ed sin mor på ferie i Nordjylland, hvor ingenting og alting sker ( )

The impulse for my reading of this novel was that it was set in Denmark. And indeed I think Per Petterson describes well the light-filled north of the island of Jutland. I would describe him as a writer of the coast.

Because the novel is filled and washed with light, whether this is the light of the sun or the foggy light of winter, it means that whenever Petterson describes the colours of anything, they stand out. For example 'the blue-painted boats' on p.52, or the 'yellow and red and orange from the lights at the station' p.60, or the 'jaundice yellow' on p.123..

However the main focus of the novel is the young man Arvid who is beginning adolescence and who is desperately trying to keep control of his life in all its aspects. We note that he has been wetting his bed and that that has just stopped. What was the bed-wetting a reaction to? The death of his brother at a very young age? The relationship between his parents? The lack of a relationship with his father? Questions about who his real father was?

What is the theme of this novel? The young and innocent get damaged or die? Jesper? Arvid? The unknowingness of adults' effects on children?

Although he speaks Norwegian and seems to speak Danish, Arvid feels like an outsider. He has dark hair like his Italian grandfather and indeed his grandfather is a presence in the novel with the Italian songs Arvid's mother sings and which Arvid knows by heart.

The reader is left with a lot of questions at the end of this short novel but it is a story that stays with you. ( )

Echoland is Per Petterson’s first novel, published in 1989 in Norway, but not translated into English until now. It is the story of a twelve year old boy confronting adolescence and all the emotional and hormonal turbulence that goes with it, exacerbated by unexplained tensions within his family.

Petterson doesn’t write long books, but this one is shorter still at only 132 pages. Yet it has a powerful impact on the reader, partly because of what we recognise as Petterson’s trademark spare prose on display here in his first novel, but also because of the preoccupation with death and alienation. Arvid is on a beachside holiday with his family in Denmark, staying with his grandparents, but it is no idyll. There is friction of long standing between his mother and grandmother, and his father is drawn into it because he failed to offer the support that was needed when it was needed – and it’s too late now.

This author doesn’t make things explicit in his almost plotless books, but careful reading between the lines can bring some strands together. Arvid’s mother ‘went away’ without explanation as a young woman; and Arvid is noticeably not Norwegian in appearance. His Italian colouring provokes comment almost straight away when he meets and makes friends with Mogens, who turns out to be as much interested in Arvid’s older sister Gry as he is in Arvid. Perhaps the Italian genes are from the Neapolitan ancestor who in 1874 migrated to Norway, and perhaps they are not. What matters to Arvid is that they make him different, and different to his sister too, who has blonde hair and brown skin. Sometimes he embraces this difference, declaring to the stranger on the ferry that he’s Italian, and he sings the Italian song Come Prima about first love that is his mother’s constant refrain, but he doesn’t understand the words because he doesn’t know Italian. Sometimes he yearns to belong.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/09/19/echoland-by-per-petterson-translated-by-don-... ( )

'Ekkoland' er Pettersons anden roman, og det er også den anden roman med Arvid Jansen, den gennemgående figur i store dele af hans forfatterskab. Hvor Arvid i 'Aske i munden, sand i skoen' var seks år, er vi nu rykket frem til starten af 1960'erne, hvor han er 12. Romanen skildrer familiens sommerferie i Nordjylland hos bedsteforældrene på moderens side. Det er en beretning om Arvids forhold til faderen og bedstefaderen, og det er også en skildring af rendyrket drengeliv med strand, fiskeri og strejfen omkring uden for hverdagslivets normale struktur.

Arvid er lige på grænsen af puberteten. På den ene side vil han stadig gerne være med i bedstefaderens snedkerværksted og på hans budcykel, men på den anden side begynder han at opdage piger, eksperimentere med cigaretter osv. Undertiden bobler frustrationerne over i vredesudbrud mod resten af familien, og med til overgangen til voksenlivet hører også en større bevidsthed om, at der må lægge noget bagved, når bedstemoderen græder om natten, og når moderen undertiden raser over forældrene.

Pettersons sprog og forståelse af drenge og forholdet til deres fædre er som altid i top, men læseren kommer kun til at fornemme de underliggende familiedramaer - bl.a. udfoldet i Til Sibirien. Man kan selvfølgelig hævde, at Petterson blot følger Arvids perspektiv konsekvent, men jeg fandt det lidt utilfredsstillende. Jeg har også en mistanke om, at forfatteren på dette tidspunkt besluttede sig for en romanserie og derfor gøder grunden for senere bøger. Det giver bare 'Ekkoland' et lidt ufuldendt skær.

Til sidst et lille eksempel på det Petterson kan med sprog og iagttagelsesevne: "Men solen bagte og himmel og hav gik i ét langt derude, man kunne ikke se hvor det ene sluttede og det andet begyndte, det var som et stort tæppe af silke, blødt og køligt og hvis man havde kroppen med sig og ikke var for tyk eller gammel, men var dreng og havde kroppen tæt, tæt omkring sig, kunne man kaste sig ind i tæppet med fuld fart og komme lige så hel tilbage igen." (27-28) Det er da smukt! ( )