The Half Brother : A Novel

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Summary: Grateful to have been raised as an only child
Review: Not having read any Norwegian literature since "Sophie's World," I was expecting something foreign and ethereal, a sort of psychological drama that would take place in one of those 480-square-foot Ikea showrooms. However, there is no escaping America, which makes its appearance in the form of Lauren Bacall in the first pages of Christiensen's novel and then reappears frequently, as a Buick Roadmaster in its most sinister incarnation. I hear they have high rates of alcoholism and suicide in Norway. After reading The Half Brother, I believe it; the cruelties of everyday life in Oslo that the author seems to take for granted are rather hard to take, particularly when meted out to young children. Other reviewers have called this novel "compulsively readable" and so it is, in the same way that foods that are not necessarily good for us and not all that good tasting can sometimes become "compulsively edible." Readers who keep going until they have polished off the whole platter of lutfisk will be glad they did. Despite the novel's large scope, Christensen ties it all up by the end and gives meaning to everything that has gone on before, except perhaps for a near-miss with the Fab Four that seems somewhat contrived in a very Hollywood way.

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Summary: A Nobel Prize caliber work
Review: On the surface, The Half Brother is a story, at times bizarre, of an unusual boy growing up in an unconventional family. The story deals with Barnum Nilson (named after P.T. Barnum, pioneer of commercialized deception) and his older half-brother Fred (conceived on May 8, 1945; his name is the Norwegian word for peace). The two boys are raised by three generations of single mothers in a time and place less tolerant of unorthodox belief or lifestyle. The book opens with Fred's conception after his mother's brutal rape by a fleeing German soldier at the end of the Nazi occupation of Norway and follows a series of fortunate and unfortunate events to Barnum's adulthood as a film writer.

The Half Brother deals primarily with Barnum (and Fred's) quest for inner peace, illustrating their path through adversity to make their half-selves whole. Christensen's achievement in this respect is remarkable in itself, but it is his masterful interweaving of manifold leitmotifs with Wagnerian skill and sophistication that make The Half Brother Nobel Prize caliber. Without sacrificing plot or subtlety, Christensen brings the reader to a rich ocean of symbolism and allegory just beneath the surface of the main storyline. While dealing with deep ontological and epistemological questions, he maintains an accessible and uncomplicated style throughout, at once accessible and profound. Finally, The Half Brother is, as one reviewer has called it, "unputdownable."

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Summary: "How little does it take to save a person?"
Review: One of the biggest, most ambitiously conceived, and richly imagined novels ever, The Half-Brother has already won the Nordic Council Literature Prize, and it has been nominated for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. A haunting story of four generations of a strange Norwegian family, each member of which is "different" in some respect, this is as complete a family saga as you will find. Every character is fully delineated, and all his/her relationships and relevant past history are brought to life here, filtered through the mind of Barnum Nilsen, the son of a circus worker and grifter. Barnum's unusual but ultimately close relationship with his brother Fred, the product of his mother's rape by a soldier, is at the heart of the novel, with Fred being huge, active, and very physical while Barnum is unusually small, more passive, and cerebral. Two halves of the same coin, neither brother is very successful alone.

Four generations of the family live together, and some "absent" characters, who have affected the lives of family members, "live on" through objects that they have left behind with the family. Barnum and Fred often seek a connection to the past by reading the last letter their great-grandfather sent from Greenland before he vanished. Vera's best friend Rakel leaves Vera with a treasured ring, just before she is taken during the Nazi occupation of Norway. Barnum buys a ring for his first girlfriend, and it has meaning for him even when he is middle-aged. "We do not disappear without a trace," Barnum learns. "We leave a wake that never quite disappears, a gash in time."

As this immense story unfolds, the reader finds the action harking backward, forward, and in upon itself, with silence, disappearances, and deaths pervading the action. Vera and Fred both go silent for months as a result of trauma. The great-grandfather and Vera's father never appear, and Arnold Nilsen, Barnum's father, disappears periodically after his marriage to Vera, as does Fred, the half-brother. Permanent disappearance, i.e., death, occurs to the Old One and a host of other characters, and accidents involving still other characters cast a pall over much of the novel, highlighting the "aloneness" of each person, and the quixotic nature of fate. Still, there is much humor here as the characters keep soldiering on.

This is a huge book, but the pages fly by, despite the fact that the author does not insert much paragraphing. Whole pages continue without any breaks at all, and dialogue is simply imbedded within paragraphs. With hundreds of well-drawn, memorable scenes, dozens of carefully presented characters whose entire lives and history you know completely, surprises buried within seemingly ordinary tales, and the creation of a complete and unique universe, this is a novel which will richly reward the reader who is not intimidated by its size. Mary Whipple

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Summary: Please Read It
Review: The Half Brother
Lars Saabye Christensen
Arcadia Books Ltd. 2003

This is a book that cries out to be read. It is, as one reviewer has put it, 'unputdownable.' It is a big book - in the English translation 764 pages.

Read it please. Read it please because it is a masterpiece in two of the three essentials of all great literature and art. It creates in the mind a sense of place and a sense of time.

Read it please because, like Tolstoy's 'War and Peace' or Margaret Mitchell's 'Gone with the Wind' it will stay with you for the rest of your life.

If you have read Dostoevsky - remember Raskolnikov in 'Crime and Punishment.' If you have read Knut Hamsun's 'Hunger' - remember the streets of Oslo. If you have read neither - do so now. Recall if you can the spirit of Lauren Bacall and Bogart's line "I'm not very tall either. Next time I'll come on stilts."

It is rare that a translator can capture the spirit of the original. Kenneth Steven has achieved this. In a translators note he writes: 'All translation is a compromise; there are inevitable losses in bringing a richly woven literary text from its native tongue. It is not the thousands of words that pose the difficulty, it is the single words that have been chosen by the author for their resonance, for their resemblance to other words in the language, their interplay with different elements of the text.' A poet, Steven has isolated the words and given them their resonance.

The story begins with a rape and ends in an enigma. On page 659 you will read: "Tme and place; time seen from the place, and, not least, the place seen through time."

Action there is - this is no 'Waiting for Godot.' But when you have read from cover to cover you will be left with the words: "To tell you all this."

There can be no doubt but that this book has its place in literary history - not only as the winner of the Nordic Pize for Literature 2002 but also as a landmark in the long march from Beowulf to Eliot, Joyce, Dylan Thomas and beyond. It deserves its place in the canon of great literature.

Lars Saabye Christensen is at his best presenting the cosmos of childhood and family. Towards the end he seems to run out of steam as if he is anxious to get on with the next 764 pages. We look forward to reading them.