I is Another: Septology III- V (2021) by Jon Fosse

 Book Review

I is Another: Septology III- V (2021)

by Jon Fosse

   I'm sure almost everyone outside of Norway groaned when they first learned that Jon Fosse won the Nobel Prize in Literature 2023.  By "everyone" I mean the international community of readers who does things like going out and reading the best known work of the Nobel Prize in Literature winner each year. I know one such cat- he's an adman and poet who lives in London- he went to Oxford- he tried to "keep up" on these things like me- he made the mistake of buying a paper copy.  I, on the other hand, went the Audiobook route- which really pays off once you realize that Fosse writes without paragraph or much punctuation and the entire Septology is a single paragraph interrupted only by roman numerals and line breaks.   Thus, what is an undoubtably "difficult" read in the meaning of 20th century literary modernism turns into a rambling but thematically cohesive Audiobook, and it is a clear example of why the New York Times has recently started reviewing Audiobooks separately.   I can now tell you that five volumes in, Septology starts in the present, with narrator Asle interacting with his friend Asleik, a hopeless alcoholic.  The action in the present involves Aselik collapsing in an alcoholic stupor on this way to the pub, and Asle helping him out.

  Once the reader arrives at Septology III- V, the story within a story, about Asle and his mysterious double Asle 2, comes into focus as Asle-the-narrator continues to deal with Asleik and prepares for a "final" show with his gallerist, Breyer.  There is, I confess, a mesmeric/hypnotic quality to Fosse's prose, particularly his unyielding use of the introduction "I think"- which must be uttered a thousand times over these pages.  The clear comparison is with Proust and his Remembrance of Things Past, which, come to think of it, would be a great Audiobook to tackle since I ain't never going to read the whole series in print.  However it is hard not to think about the My Struggle series by Karl Ove Knausgard, since Fosse appears throughout that series in thinly fictionalized form as Knausgard's  literature professor.  Also the fact that both the Septology and My Struggle have six volumes.  Now Knausgard remains an international literary celebrity who has moved on to a series of supernatural thrillers and Fosse has his Nobel Prize in Literature and people outside Norway will continue to largely ignore him because his books are difficult to read. 

  No, I would not be listening to the Septology in Audiobook nor reading it were it not for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but I'm not bummed at spending the time.  The books aren't that long- something under four hours a piece in Audiobook format, and he's basically telling a single tale from the point of view of one narrator, so without the difficulty of making it through the print copy, it has been easy sailing.