Reviews for Aliss at the Fire

The average rating for Aliss at the Fire based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-10-07 00:00:00 Jose Flores 'what ties two people together?' I'm always on the lookout for a novella that can pack an enormous emotional and intellectual sting into a tiny package of few pages. Jon Fosse's Aliss at the Fire is certainly a rewarding book of this sort, and the reader is left in awe at the enormous landscape of thought and emotive power that stands before them as Fosse reaches his surreal, efficacious conclusion. While the 'reality' of the book consists only of Signe, an elderly widow, lying on a bench in 2002 after looking out over the fjord that swallowed her husband, Asle, back in 1979, the brilliant metaphysical qualities of this novella open a kaleidoscopic world dancing before Signe's eyes that bring past and present together, ironing out the wrinkles of time, to allow the dead and the living to comingle in order to grant Signe, and the reader, a painfully insightful look into Asle's grim family legacy. Told in a long, swirling sentence full of a repetitive cadence that gives language the feel of waves crashing upon the shore, Fosse crafts a microscopic meditation of family and loss that explodes with a prodigious impact through the dazzling, yet haunting mental images that are sure to enchant the mind's eye. Jon Fosse is a highly regarded novelist and dramatist in his home country, so much so that he was awarded a lifetime stipend from the Norwegian government to continue his literary career. As someone whose 'rockstar dream' is to be a college professor that writes novels ¹, that seems to be about as cool as it possibly gets. There is such a wonderfully haunting visual nature to Aliss that hints at his talents as a playwright; Fosse perfectly constructs his scenes with deft attention to spatial and surreal visual details that spring such a flawless mental image that I recall the book in retrospect more as something I've viewed than read. Brevity is Fosse's true talent as he dives right to the core of human suffering and resurfaces in only 107pgs with a fist-full of truths that are sure to weigh heavy on the readers mind for days and weeks to come, and the book seems ripe for a one-act stage play. The dialogue, though sparse, is crisp and witty, and rather humorous for a novella of such heavy themes, and feels perfect to be heard echoing from a stage. It is no surprise that he is often compared to Henrik Ibsen, and, as I am yet unaquianted with Ibsen (I use Hamsun's disdain for Ibsen as my scapegoat for this blatent reading inadequacy), the surreal and hallucinatory nature of Aliss conjure up memories of Sartre's one-act plays we studied during my undergrad days¹. What a haunting play it would be, giving physical form to the hypnotic words upon the page much like Asle's family members back through generations given form in the modern day to relive out their past, aquatic tragedies while a young Signe stares out the window awaiting a husband who will never return and an aging Signe lies upon a bench in grief and horror at the waking nightmares that assail her each night. whether he notices it and thinks about it or not the walls are there, and it is as if silent voices are speaking from them, as if a big tongue is there in the walls and this tongue is saying something that can never be said with words, he knows it, he thinks, and what it's saying is something behind the words that are usually said, something in the wall's tongue… Signe lives in a house formerly occupied by her late husbands generations stretching back deep into time, and her grief has unlocked their tragedies, unstuck them from time. Fosse expertly pulls the reader through her consciousness as she relives the final moments with her husband, then allows the dead to dance about the fjord and house as the reader and Signe witness a family history forever linked to the fjord'a source of life, as it is full of fish to feed a family and provide a modest living as a fisherman, and death. Aliss, the great-great-grandmother of Signe's Asle, must rescue her infant son from the icy waters so he may live to foster an Asle that will drown on his seventh birthday in the same waters that Signe's Asle will perish in years later. Fosse's fiction is reminiscent of the American Southern Gothic where the past is forever lurking in the peripheries to cast its mighty hand upon the fates of the present. It is actions, the unspoken, that speak the loudest, that echo eternally in the rotting wood of Signe's home, speaking volumes of torment and grief with each creak brought on by the icy northern winds that toss boats upon the waves. The repetition of events and ideas, two souls snuffed out beneath the frigid waters, or Aliss' fire (rife with pagan imagery) recalled by the mid-summer festivities when Signe allowed two youthful boys to burn the late Asle's boat washed up and neglected upon the shore, crash repeatedly on the shore of the readers mind, demanding a connection to ascribe meaning in the void of existence. As if the remembrance of these untimely deaths could validate their ever being here, to resurrect their memory in an eternal flame in the darkness of eternity. but it's big, the fire, and pretty, the yellow and red flames in the darkness, in this cold, and in the light from the fire he sees the waves of the fjord beat like always against the stones of the shore… As with most Norwegian literature, nature is a primary character, lurking in the shadows as the reader trains their eyes upon the flesh-and-blood characters, but holding the true power and control over their lives and stories. Aliss is kept dismal and dreary with constant imagery of cold and dark. It is interesting that Asle vanishes into the darkness while wearing a black sweater knit by Signe herself. he is standing and looking out into the darkness, with his long black hair, and in his black seater, the sweater she knit herself and that he almost always wears when it's cold, he is standing there, she thinks, and he is almost at one with the darkness outside, she thinks, yes he is so at one with the darkness that when she opened the door and looked in she didn't notice at first that he was standing there… Perhaps part of Signe's torment is a belief that she herself cast her husband into the darkness, cloaked him with it not only physically with the sweater, but through the distance between them. It is hinted that Asle returns to his doomed vessel in order to avoid Signe's form standing waiting at the window. It is the absence of a woman's immediate care that causes each tragedy: Aliss is tending to the roasting sheep's head when her son runs into the water, young Asle drowns when his mother is not watching, and Signe's Asle drowns when he leaves to, as is hinted, avoid her. Everything moves in waves and cycles. Fosse wields language much in the same way as his cycle of motifs. He is fond of repetition, cycling through several ideas multiple times before moving forward, with each repeated phrase coming crashing back like another wave. It would be interesting to hear this read out-loud, especially in it's original language as I wouldn't be able to understand it, but would hear the repetition rolling back in and out. It is almost like a miniature chorus or a repeated phrase of music, over and over, harmonizing with what is present and what is to come yet always pulling us back to what has been. The repetition can be, however, rather grating on the reader and was, for me at least, initially repelling. It is as if forward progress is stifled at times, or like trying to drive fast in too low a gear, yet it is really Fosse trying to best understand an idea that is before us. Like a child first learning their bearings in the world, he takes an idea and turns it over again and again, viewing it from all angles and leaving nothing untouched so as to properly project a fully defined message. He has a few other linguistic quirks that assist him in his goals, yet could easily, and understandably so, be frustrating or annoying to a reader. Aliss has this really fascinating ability to seamlessly transition between characters, usually from Signe into her husband's perspective and back. However, the voice of the narration never changes, leading the reader to believe that it is one perspective that attaches itself to another, or at least to it's notion of what another perspective might be perceiving. The lack of periods in the novella's punctuation lends assistance to building this feel. The conclusion to Aliss is especially haunting, as Fosse drops a heavy, burden of a final statement into the readers hearts and souls, then leaves it open without a period, as if the story is to now flow into the reader, as if the weight is now transferred onto them to carry and come to grips with in the days to come. It is only in the first and final lines (to say sentences does not make sense with the structure of this work) that Fosse mentions an 'I', and while the conclusion connects many dots, the elusive 'I' only brings more questions to the table. Aliss at the Fire is a heart-wrenching meditation on loss and family legacy that really comes alive with the hypnotic and haunting visual imagery created by the compression of time. It is not for the faint of heart, both with the poetic style that borders on both genius and annoying, but for the weighty conclusions and difficult truths the reader is faced with. Time is no comfort to the broken hearted here, but only a long line carrying a monstrous baggage that will continually beleaguer the broken hearted. This is a book best examined in hind-sight, making it one that I feel requires patience and willingness from the reader to appreciate. Truth be told, I did not particularly enjoy reading it until the final third of the book, however, I feel that a book cannot be adequately judged until it is viewed in it's entirety, as a completed portrait, and passing judgment before the final unveiling would be a grave misgiving. I had intended to only give this three stars until writing this review made me realize a few things about the book I hadn't thought of. It is a book that, while being a bit cumbersome, really comes together once you've allowed it to properly cook and simmer and be enjoyed with its full flavor. Jon Fosse is a marvelous writer with a sense of style not commonly found, and once you've attuned yourself to it, there are fantastic things to be discovered. Aliss at the Fire, with all it's loss, grief and frozen landscapes, is a brutally savage package of emotional and intellectual power that is haunting to the core. 3.78/5 'and the darkness outside the window was black and he was almost impossible to tell apart from the darkness out there, or else the darkness out there was almost impossible to tell apart from him, that's how she remembers him, that's how it was…' ¹ It probably comes as no surprise that David Foster Wallace is an idol of mine. The fact that this is written as a footnote is probably a huge tip-off. Alas, I should cease being so off topic lest the Goodreads Karma police nab me for my crimes of review loitery. ² Fun fact: If my MLA cited resources are correct from my Sartre essay back during my Existentialism course, Sarte wrote one-act plays so the audience could view a stage performance yet still have time to get home in before the curfew enforced by the German occupation.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-12-01 00:00:00 Brent M Rothchild it's an old house, yes, it's an old house. darkness, bleak, black, have you seen the fire? the purples, the reds, the yellows out in the fjord? who is this in my mind? is it me? is it Alse? let me live vicariously through you, let me be within your being, let me think, let me see, let me roam, let me live, let me die. november, it snows, the pale white snow. peering out of the window I see him. I see them. it's been 20 years. why do I still see him? why hasn't he come back? Signe, get up, you are alive. old Aliss is out there: motherly, grandmotherly, great-grandmotherly. they walk, they scream, they are immortal, the fire burns as the dead live again.