More on the strange narrative style of Dag Solstad

Norwegian writer Dag Solstad's Shyness & Dignity (1996) continues in its weird, meandering narrative manner; it's a short novel - only 150 rather small pp., with no chapters or section breaks - and even so very little happens. As noted yesterday the first 40 pages or so tell of a burned out h.s. teacher who has an outburst and nervous breakdown one day in school and will no doubt lose his job as a result. (Most of this section taken up w/ tedious recollection of the class lesson he's trying to convey to bored students.) Over the next 40 pages or so, we get the back story on this teacher's youth and his marriage, which is in short: in college he (Elias) became close friends w/ a dynamic and seemingly brilliant grad student (Johan?), a real counterpoint to the shy and self-conscious Elias. At one point J introduces E to his new girlfriend, later his wife, Eva (?), whom the narrator describes as extraordinarily beautiful. As time goes on, the Elias settles into a quiet loneliness and bachelorhood - extremely awkward w/ women - and J's life doesn't follow the prescribed course. His dissertation was not quite as brilliant as all had anticipated, he fails to find a good teaching job. Then one day he calls Elias and, with no forewarning, tells him he's moving to NY to take a job in advertising and leaving behind wife and daughter, whom he says are now E's responsibility. We can only assume that J has mental illness, probably bipolar disorder? Elias does marry Eva, but we know, from the outset of the novel, that she has lost her beauty and their relationship is cold and strained. What drags this potentially good novel down is Solstad's odd narration, in which re redundantly repeats points again and again - much like this sentence. At best, the prose has a kind of incantatory effect - for ex., his repeated references to the beauty of Eva seem almost Homeric - but you also keep hoping Solstad will get on with the story. As readers of this blog know, I am very patient with long interior narratives, from Proust the Karl Ove Knausgaard (who has recommended Solstad to readers), but only if the interior narration continues to provide insight and emotion. Here, the narration feels stuck, stalled - perhaps like life (we all do ruminate over and rework the materials of our inner lives), but offputting as well, for all that.

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