"Morning and Evening" by Jon Fosse

This was a wonderful surprise. Jon Fosse was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2023 and I would never have read his work had he not done so. I thought it might be wise to start with a shorter book and so when this one, translated by Damion Searls, was recently published by Fitzcarroldo I took the opportunity. It is a glorious novella of about a hundred pages full of beauty and beautiful thoughts.

When I opened it and saw that it was written as a stream of consciousness I was irritated. I do not generally get on with such a style, finding the absence of proper punctuation, repetitions and weird layout to be pretentious. But in this case it did not irritate at all and, I have to admit, enhanced the reading experience.

The book tells a simple story of an ordinary man's life. It starts with his birth and ends with his death, focusing on the really important stuff like love, marriage, parenthood and friendship. At times you are not totally sure about whether the narrator is alive or a ghost. That sounds weird, but it works really well. I just sat down one morning, picked it up, started reading and did not move from my armchair until I finished.

A lovely, dreamy read.