“Septologien”, Jon Fosses 896 sider lange, oppslukande meisterverk, er nådelaust. Her tida går så sakte at den nesten står stille. Det tek nokre titals sider å venna seg til stilen og den rå utføringa. Kva meiner eg med det? Jo, boka er i botn og grunn ei einaste lang samanhengande setning, utan teiknsetjing.
Medvitsstraumromanar er populære igjen (mellom anna av Michel Houellebecq, Paolo Giardino, Ray Loriga og andre), men Fosse har sin eigen vri der han tek medvitet til sine eigne endelause tankar saman med dei andre «skodespelaranes». Han bruker gjentagelser – gnagande og ofte irriterande tankar som masar på han/oss – til å skapa ei draumeverd der alle personlegdommar blir skildra som konkurrerande, forstyrrande og konkurrerande tankar.
Kven kan hevda at dette ikkje er røyndommen vår? Men etter kvart interagerer lesaren sine eigne tankeprosessar med forfattarens, og då er me fullt og heilt med på denne vakre indre reisa. Då byrjar lesaren å skapa denne røyndommen saman med forfattaren Fosse.
The death of poetry.
Fifty years ago…
when poetry was still popular…
my creative writing teacher preached that
while history repeats itself by nature,
a good poet never does.
He particularly frowned on
«the ever-stuttering Gertrude Stein»
and attacked the beat poets as opportunists
in a time characterized by trends, warning
that the death of poetry was approaching
and that its demise would surely
hasten intellectual senility.
The witty old man now lives in a retirement home,
and barely recognizes me when I come to visit.
Yet nothing can spoil the love I feel
when he excitedly tells me the same damn
stories I’ve heard for fifteen years,
over and over again.
“The Septology”, Jon Fosse’s 896-page immersive roman-fleuve masterpiece, is relentless. Here time passes so slowly that it almost grinds to a halt. It takes a few dozen pages to get used to the style and the raw execution. What do I mean by that? Well, the book is basically one long continuous sentence, without punctuation.
Stream-of-consciousness novels are popular again (by Michel Houellebecq, Paolo Giardino, Ray Loriga and others), but Fosse has his own twist, taking the consciousness of his own endless thoughts along with those of the other «actors». He uses repetition – nagging and often irritating thoughts that nag at him/us – to create a dream world where all personalities are portrayed as competing, disturbing and competing thoughts.
Who can argue that this isn’t our dream world? But eventually, the reader’s own thought processes interact with the author’s, and then we are fully and completely on this beautiful inner journey. Then the reader begins to create this openness together with the author Fosse.
— « Death of Poetry » by Adam Donaldson Powell, 2005, “Collected Poems and Stories”.
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