It's Fine By Me

Arvid Jansen #2.5

by Per Petterson, Don Bartlett (Translation)

Fans of Per Petterson's other books in English will be delighted by this opportunity to observe Arvid Jansen in his youth from a fresh perspective. In It's Fine By Me, Arvid befriends a boy named Audun. On Audun's first day of school he refuses to talk or take off his sunglasses; there are stories he would prefer to keep to himself. Audun lives with his mother in a working-class district of Oslo. He delivers newspapers and talks for hours about Jack London and Ernest Hemingway with Arvid. But he's not sure that school is the right path for him and feels that his life holds other possibilities. Sometimes tender, sometimes brutal, It's Fine By Me is a brilliant novel from the acclaimed author of Out Stealing Horses and I Curse the River of Time.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Coming Of Age, Contemporary, Novels, Young Adult, Roman

199 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Petterson knew from the age of 18 that he wanted to be a writer, but didn't embark on this career for many years - his debut book, the short story collection Aske i munnen, sand i skoa, (Ashes in the Mouth, Sand in the Shoes) was published 17 years later, when Petterson was 35. Previously he had worked for years in a factory as an unskilled labourer, as his parents had done before him, and had also trained as a librarian, and worked as a bookseller.
In 1990, the year following the publication of his first novel, Pettersen's family was struck by tragedy - his mother, father, brother and nephew were killed in a fire onboard a ferry.
His third novel Til Sibir (To Siberia) was nominated for The Nordic Council's Literature Prize, and his fourth novel I kjølvannet (In the Wake), which is a young man's story of losing his family in the Scandinavian Star ferry disaster in 1990, won the Brage Prize for 2000.
His breakthrough, however, was Ut og stjæle hester (Out Stealing Horses) which was awarded two top literary prizes in Norway - the The Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature and the Booksellers’ Best Book of the Year Award.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/perpet...

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Teen angst in the working class of Oslo Norway is the main theme in this novel. The narrator, Auden Sletten, begins his story at age 13 when he transferred to a new school. The reader quickly learns that Auden is a closed teen with a pseudo-tough facade. He has reasons: a raging alcoholic father, poverty, siblings self-destructing. Petterson does a great job painting a bleak and cold Norway. I felt a chill while reading. I felt the bleakness of Auden’s struggles, as well as his few happy moments. It’s a short novel, written well.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you use Ernest Hemingway’s criteria – “all you have to do is write one true sentence”, Per Petterson is profoundly gifted. I’ve marveled at the authenticity of his other books, particularly Out Stealing Horses and To Siberia. This one is newly translated and actually precedes the others; it was written in 1992.

It’s a melancholy coming of age story and it helps to know that two years before he wrote it, Petterson’s parents and brother were killed in a Norwegian ferry tragedy. Likely, the author is channeling the sadness and alienation and he does it very well.

As in other Petterson books, the story runs forward and back in time. We meet the 13-year-old narrator Auden Stetten on his first day in a new school. Despite the headmaster’s urging, he refuses to remove his sunglasses, claiming he does not want to show his scars. In that one simple scene, the reader learns a lot about Auden: that he is self-protective and secretive and that he may carry scars that make it impossible for him to reveal himself to others. Put another way, he’s sort of a “shady character.”

Nothing all that much happens; this is not a book for fans of linear plots and action stories. Instead, it’s a deep look into the mind and heart of a boy growing up in Norway and as in previous books, the cold and sometimes unforgiving landscape is very much part of the story.

The writing style goes from sparse to lyrical and back again as the story runs through some familiar Petterson themes: the yearning and rejection of connection, the need to make it on one’s own terms, the tough emotional road to growing up. Behind it all is the terror of an abusive father and the true scars that abuse leaves behind. Combined with the wrenching home scenes are poignant ones: at one point, Auden runs away and is taken in by a gentle farmer named Leif where he experiences tenderness. As readers, we know Auden can’t stay there forever but it’s an unsettling contrast about what could have been…and what is.

For fans of Per Petterson, it’s worth mentioning that Arvid – who appears in later books – is cast here in a supporting role as Auden’s one true friend. For those who enjoy intricate portraits of characters who are evolving into maturity, this is a very worthwhile read.

[notgettingenough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do brutal climate and harsh environs inevitably lead to such stories? Auden is a survivor. The question is whether he will escape as well as survive. This is a grim story of abuse, alcoholism, dead-end jobs, petty town mentalities. But above it is a level of joy for the reader in the lovely prose, the simple, minimal way in which Petterson does his work. And surely the one will transcend the other by the end leading to something like a happy future. Auden’s a reader and in his heart he’s a writer. Could the author really leave the hopes of this young man and the reader dashed?

Maybe. I’m not going to give that away. Suffice to say I read this with my heart in my mouth, during the course of today. It’s short and very difficult to put down.

Petterson’s on two out of two with me.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 3 out of 5]

What was it like to be a teenager in Oslo in 1970? For Audun Sletten, it's not a particularly pleasant life. He's a sullen young man, prone to drunkenness and apathy, and already quite defeated for one so young. We learn some of what made him that way as he alternates between present and past tense, telling stories from his 13th year in 1965 and his 18th year in 1970.

I have very much enjoyed some of Per Petterson's other novels, but I had to force myself to finish this one. The prose is up to Petterson's usual standards and the translation is excellent, but IT'S FINE BY ME is essentially plotless. The 1970 Audun drinks a lot, gets in fights, wanders the city aimlessly, and plays at radical politics. He goes to school, then drops out to take a dead-end job where he can't seem to stay out of trouble. He grieves for a lost brother, and lives in fear of the return of his abusive, alcoholic father. Audun's stories from 1965 give us more insight into the family dynamics that made him the way he is. I enjoyed the stories from his younger self a little more because he hadn't yet given up on the world and himself. He was still participating and trying to enjoy life.

If you've read IN THE WAKE and I CURSE THE RIVER OF TIME, you'll enjoy seeing Arvid Jansen as a youngster in this book. He's Audun's only friend, and he was the one bright spot in the story for me. Arvid sees Audun for what he truly is. He tells him, "Do you know something, Audun. Nothing's fine by you. Absolutely nothing." And he's right. We can only hope Audun will overcome some of his anger and stop keeping the world at bay. Otherwise he's doomed to remain miserable and directionless.

Those with a low tolerance for foul language may want to steer clear of this novel. The cursing is not excessive, but it's realistically regular throughout the book.

[Кремена Михайлова · Rating 5 out of 5]

„Все ми е едно“ (или „Искам обич“)

„Поръчвам две леки бири. При алкохола има някои неща, които не бива никога да правиш. Никога не пий сам, никога не пий в неделя, никога не пий преди седем часа, освен ако не е събота; ако имаш махмурлук, иди на разходка в гората, никога не се лекувай с още пиене. Иначе си алкохолик, всеки го знае. А ако си алкохолик, нямаш никакъв контрол. А ако нямаш контрол си свършен. Тогава остатъкът от живота ти се превръща в лутане в долината на сенките. Ти си проблем, от който останалите само искат да се отърват. Заобикалят те отдалеч на улицата, крият се зад хладилника, когато купуваш бира в магазина. Продавачката гледа да те изпрати по-бързо. А накрая умираш и на никого не му пука.“

Отново момче; трудно семейство, пиещ/биещ баща, пасивна майка; приятелство, „тръпки“. Отново влечение към писането. Други младежки колебания – да уча или да работя; юмруци ли да раздавам или да си позволя да бъда чувствителен; да приема подкрепа от подходящи възрастни или да се сърдя цял живот на родителите си.

„Знаеш ли, Аудюн, на този свят има толкова много неща. Не всичко е тук и сега.“

На пръв поглед нищо ново, но и тази книга на Петершон ми хареса. Привидно нищо особено и като стил, но точно чрез въздействащата пестеливост можах ясно да видя героите. Като във всяка негова книга се мярка и социализмът – явно актуална тема през различни периоди в Норвегия (по различен начин от нашия соц). Разбира се и природа, щом е книга на Пер Петершон.

„ – Какви ги приказваш?
–Той е тук. Видях го преди около седмица, докато раздавах вестници.
– Кого?
– Този, за когото говорим. Татко.
Ама че дума! Но няма друга.“

Хареса ми доста – по-малко от „Хайде да крадем коне“, но повече от „Към Сибир.“ И на Кристенсен ми напомни леко, и на Кнаусгор (по бащите); изобщо — Скандинавия чудна, момчешка, в любимо време – 70-те (и още тогава „гей“ е било нещо съвсем приемано там… но не е за „това“ романът).

„– Какво мислиш за Стоунс? – пита ме.
– Стават – отвръщам. – Но Хендрикс е по-добър.
– Джими Хендрикс е негър, дявол да го вземе. Освен това умря.
– И това е вярно, но ако не бяха негрите, Стоунс щяха да свирят на туба, всеки го знае.“

„Бил съм там, лежал съм в леглото ѝ, пъхал съм ръка под блузата ѝ; а тя прокара длан по чатала ми и притиснала устни в шията ми, прошепна:
– Мисля, че те обичам, толкова си силен.
А аз се уплаших и избягах.“

Наистина уж не гениална ‘coming-of-age’ книга от 180 страници, но ми беше изключително добре с нея, въпреки че никак не е леко да гледаш дете/младеж с нерозов живот. Но все пак – младеж – дори това не е малко!:) И отново силен за мен финал – кино-финал или точно какъвто го искам.

„Той се вкаменява и си поема рязко дъх, и едва сега, за първи път, осъзнавам, че Арвид обича баща си.“

„Не обръщай внимание на онзи, той е философ.“

„Той пусна перчема ми и ме погали по бузата, и ръката му беше великанска, и суха, и груба като скалите, на които приличаше, а аз стоях неподвижно и накрая вече не можех да се сдържа и заплаках. Плачът дойде отникъде и отвсякъде, и се изля като порой, и той внимателно ме бутна обратно в кухнята“.

„Поспи. Сега е нощ. Спи колкото искаш. Тук никой не го е грижа.“

„Прочитам цялата страница и завършвам с онова изречение, гърлото ме стяга, гласът ми потрепва и всички се обръщат да ме зяпат. Минавам за най-якия в класа, супер намусен. Просто така се получава, не знам защо. Отвръщам на втренчените им погледи, намират ме за странен, все ми е едно, всички са просто мъгла, виждам единствено лицата на Арвид и Венке.“

„Сигне с големите гърди, с голямата усмивка, Сигне с меките ръце, изкачваше се по стълбите към втория етаж, където в онова последно лято лежах няколко нощи, изтощен от жълтата треска, и не можех да спя, децата им отдавна се бяха изнесли, цялата стая беше на мое разположение. Бялата фуста на фона на сивата светлина от процепа, бялата Сигне с милите думи, добрата Сигне.“

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nature and Literature

“It’s Fine by Me” is a coming of age story. Audun, the growing boy, has had a tough Norwegian upbringing. His dad is a violent alcoholic who mistreats him, his brother and sister and their mom. The book begins when Audun is thirteen in 1965 just as society is undergoing seismic shifts. Audun is lucky he has one true friend in Arvid. They talk about books and Audun borrows classics from Arvid’s father’s bookshelves. Arvid’s dad also becomes a little of a substitute role model for Audun. The story unfolds slowly with lots of literature references featuring Hemingway and Jack London. Audun is an odd mix of a heavy reader yet a ready scrapper when challenged by local lads. He has the scars and bruises to prove it.

The Norwegian landscape and farmland play a wonderful role in this book. Audun uses them as a restorative when life becomes too difficult. There are as many people who help him as there are those who hinder or attempt to hinder him. He goes his own way. He knows his own mind at a young age. Always determined to be a writer he makes the odd decision to leave school a few months before graduating. ‘School’ continues in rough manual labor and in books. He goes out in nature when things feel overwhelming. He looks rescues himself by rescuing loved ones.

Though this is my first Petterson so it’s hard to judge I don’t think this would be the best place to start. In places it feels disjointed though perhaps Petterson is inviting the reader to reach your own conclusions. Since the book is loosely autobiographical we know there’s a positive outcome but Audun has a singularly tough route to adulthood.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

OK, so I love this book and yet hold back a star. Tough love, call it. And logic, really, considering that Petterson's OUT STEALING HORSES took me by storm. This book came before that one. In fact, Graywolf Press will be publishing four from his backlist: two novels, one short-story collection, and one essay collection. So, yeah, I love this book, but realize it does not quite reach the peaks that HORSES did.

That said, I genuinely admire the autobiographical character here. Audun Sletter's hardscrabble life is covered from preschool to age 18. He lives at home with his mom, older sister, and doomed younger brother. His Dad, no stranger to the bottle, visits when he's in the mood to punch a few easy marks. A lone wolf, Audun has but one good friend whom he sees only seldom: Arvid Jansen. The two of them have this way about them, this subterranean understanding that Petterson captures through dialogue. It's no small feat.

In her note to the reader at the start, Graywolf publisher Fiona McCrae writes, "[It's Fine By Me] has a strong, suspenseful plot, memorable teenage characters, and a moody, Norwegian setting." Check and check on numbers two and three, but not so much on number one, unless "episodic" is a qualifier you'd use for strong and suspenseful plots. It's really more of an Impressionistic work, with points of Audun's life drawn in brief, deft strokes. Back up a bit and you get the picture.

Though there are no hard and fast rules when it comes to genders and reading (especially considering how much more flexible women are compared to men), I'd say this is more of a man's book. Add a layer to that if you're a man who once dreamed of being a writer (and I assume that includes many, many men who love to read).

Through his many heartbreaks, fist fights, and rolled cigarettes, Audun has one constant -- books. He's especially drawn to books about writing and writers. MARTIN EDEN, for instance, the lesser-known Jack London work that every wannabe writer reads as a teenager (if you're late for this bus, it still stops for the hungry). And A MOVEABLE FEAST, Hemingway's non-accent-on-fictional account of his writing days in Paris during the 20s ("Hunger is good discipline," and all that). Audun also puts you on to Norwegian authors you've never heard of (unless you've been listening carefully), like Helge Ingstad, author of The Apache Indians, a book in Audun's hand on the last page. Given all this book love, you'll be Audun's bud before you know it.

It's Fine By Me does not have the sweep and descriptive flourishes of Out Stealing Horses, but its spare, direct writing and character-rich details will take its prisoners. Audun is one for feigned indifference, and you'll think you are, too -- until you reach the last page. Really. Decent endings are so hard to write, even for the very best like Tolstoy (who sucked at endings). Petterson nails it here. A perfect convergence of plot (such as it is) and character (Audun's sphinx-like one).

Yep. By the end, you'll feel like you're bidding farewell to an old friend, a kid just like you once were, a kid who might've understood you like no one else had you been lucky enough to know him. That's the feeling that carries the day with this book. Maybe it'll carry you, too.

This review is from an ARC. Actual release date: Oct. 2, 2012.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful novel and Per Petterson is a wonderful writer, I am tempted to give the novel five stars and have added it to my books I can't live without. He is a writer who I love and admire but I am holding back my final accolade until I reread 'Echoland'.

This is a beautiful novel about a young man in a working class Norwegian family and community. The way Petterson deals with ordinary boys, those who are going to work in factories and on fishing boats, growing up and moving towards adult life that I admire so much. The boys are so wonderfully down to earth this is a time and place where being a young socialist and not wanting, to be mistaken as being posh, was the norm and it is wonderfully refreshing. I am so tired of current fiction which is dominated by acquisition and brand labels as markers of not simply success but what is important. That Petterson's young males are reading Jack London and immersed in the controversy of the Vietnam war is refreshing, not for the specifics, but because it is nice to be reminded when young people could be worried and committed about something else except getting a foot on the housing ladder. I mean no disrespect to young people today, I think it is sad that those of us who grew up back then with those freedoms have created such an awful world for our young.

But back to this novel, like most of my really favourite novels, I find there is nothing to say except reiterate my praise and start quoting favourite scenes, which would only diminish the pleasure of any future readers of the book. This is a fine novel, beautifully written with characters you can't but fall, if not in love with, then certainly become immersed in their lives. I love them, I love their world and this a writer I will be reading many more works by.

[Larissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review published on Three Percent, October 16, 2012: http://www.rochester.edu/College/tran...

***

On an early morning in Oslo in 1970, Arvid Jansen shimmies up his high school flagpole and replaces his nation’s flag with that of the Viet Cong. Confronted by the headmaster in front of his classmates, Arvid takes the opportunity to expound on the evils of the U.S. occupation of Vietnam and Norway’s complicit foreign policy, all the time being observed from a far corner by his good friend Audun Sletten. “I guess it’s all very important,” Audun shrugs, “but I am up to my neck in my own troubles, and it almost makes me want to throw up.”

Frequent readers of Per Petterson have by now come to know Arvid Jansen rather well. In typical Petterson fashion, Arvid’s life has been examined in alternating atemporal versions set forth in In the Wake and, most recently, in the masterful I Curse the River of Time. Arvid is often the vehicle through which the author explores and recasts episodes of his own past—“[h]e’s not my alter ego, he’s my stunt man,” Petterson stated in a 2009 interview with The Guardian. Vulnerable, self-absorbed, and made miserable by hindsight, Arvid is an incredibly sympathetic character. If for no other reason than this, then, English readers should be delighted to now have access to one of Petterson’s early novels (first published in Norway in 1992): It’s Fine By Me.

Arvid is a prominent character in the novel, but it isn’t his story. Rather, it’s that of his troubled friend Audun, a young man who, with his “real problems”—a violent and drunken father who is, luckily, often absent; a beloved but drug-addicted younger brother, killed in a car accident; a lonely single mother struggling to support her children; and numbing jobs with long hours and little respect—is the actual embodiment of the working class hero that Arvid has so frequently wished to be. But as seen through Audun’s eyes, there’s nothing in the least romantic about his situation in life.

“It’s fine by me,” (reminiscent of Elliot Gould’s own cynical chorus of “It’s okay with me,” in Robert Altman’s 1973 adaptation of The Long Goodbye) is Auden’s go-to retort, forced in its apathy when pretty much everything that he remarks on is anything but. In fact, Audun cares a great deal about what happens around him—cares about his sister who he thinks may be in an abusive relationship, cares about a neighbor whose brother is getting into drugs, cares about Arvid and his family, cares about doing well in school, and literature, and Jimi Hendrix, and woodsy hideouts where he felt safe as a child. But isolating himself and not caring—or at least giving the appearance of not caring—is far easier and exposes him less.

Although there actually is quite a lot in the way of plot happenings, It’s Fine By Me is a rather familiar, somewhat anticlimactic coming-of-age narrative where the ‘what’ matters far less than the ‘how.’ This is by no means Petterson’s strongest novel, nor should it really be expected to be—it was, after all, one of his first. But although the flashbacks and overlapping memories fold together less seamlessly than in other Petterson novels, although the emotional pitch is generally less subtle (lots of capital letter exclamations when people are angry), and the visual metaphors more overdetermined (a beautiful runaway horse, turning just before it knocks over young Audun and Arvid), the novel is still compelling, and sometimes even quite funny. (A scene in which Audun and Arvid have to figure out how to put gas in Arvid’s father’s car is particularly delightful.) Petterson’s characterizations are always both sharp and empathetic, his prose measured, poetic, and visual. One feels connected to Audun—truly concerned for him—and yet, due entirely to Petterson’s writerly sleights of hand, the reader can distinguish between what has become entirely compressed and unified in Auden’s mind: run-of-the-mill teenage angst and real, emotional (and physical) trauma.

Through it all, Petterson allows for a quiet hopefulness, the possibility a better future for Audun. There is resonance in the clichéd assurances of a sympathetic neighbor: “You’re not eighteen all your life,” he tells Audun. “That may not be much of a consolation, but take a hint from someone who’s outside looking in: you’ll get through this.”

[M. Sarki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically I was wrong about thinking this an inferior work by Per Petterson. It was simply not what I like to read, but it was very well-written and well worth my time. There is much to like about this book and anything I might have to say about it would ruin the experience for somebody else so inclined to read it. But whatever anyone decides to do is fine by me.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Hemingway has a successor, it wasn’t Mailer or Raymond Carver. Nor is it Tom McGuane, though there are points superficial and substantial to be considered for McGuane, but it is Per Petterson. The Norwegian novelist is spare, unsentimental, precise, vividly descriptive without being florid or sentimental, and blessed with the gift of voice so his dialogue is authentic, unique, and natural. Like Hemingway, Petterson imbues his characters with a stubborn heroism that lives in understatement.

The protagonist of this story is a teenage student. He and his family, minus their violent father, have moved to a new town. The boy, Audun, aspires to write. He lives in an interior world that he shares with a friend but no one else. With everyone else he shares his sense of disaffection, his being in but not of their world. He wears sunglasses when he enters the town’s school and makes up stories about why he needs to. The stories are obviously not true but in his desperate need to separate himself it doesn’t matter that they are untrue: go ahead call my bluff says the dark shimmer of his glasses. Audun wants out into the wider world of adventure he finds in the stories of Jack London. He delivers newspapers. He quits school and gets a factory job. The chip on his shoulder is worn for himself and selected others. There are verbal rows and physical conflicts. Audun can take his lumps, taught to do so by his father, whose shadow hangs like the long stripe of an evergreen on the edge of an open field.

Petterson succeeds in making Audun credible, intriguing, and a figure of admiration, as he makes the out-sized decisions of the prematurely adult. A randomly selected description: “I walked out into the sunshine with my dark glasses on. I couldn’t see Leif anywhere, but there was an old man in overalls standing in the yard. He was thin as a rake and tall, the overalls hung off his shoulders like a flabby tent, and he was holding his hands against the small of his back, gazing up in the air, so I too looked up, but there was nothing there, just air. Then he was aware of me, and he turned on his heel, and we stood up straight staring at each other, and he shook his head and stroked his chin and made a friendly gesture. I did the same, and when he smiled his face split in two, and he was off across the yard and behind the barn.”

Calling It’s Fine By Me a coming of age story is to unfairly pigeon-hole it. It’s that and more. It is a compelling story of longing, of finding one’s way, of the complex interior worlds of those who are lost to themselves and so to others but only just so. In a conversation with his friend early in the novel, Audun admits that his father is not dead, which his friend assumed because Audun never mentioned him. “So now I’ve said it. I shouldn’t have, because then I may have to tell him more. Arvid is my friend, and now he looks at me, and my mind goes dim, and all around me it’s getting dark, it’s late in the day and no longer possible to see between the trees. It’s all shadows. I turn my back, but that doesn’t make it better, a chill runs up my spine, and I can’t stand still. I start to move down the rock, jumping from boulder to boulder as fast as I can, and Arvid is behind me. ‘Hey, you, wait, for Christ’s sake.’ But I don’t.”

Petterson knows that people like Audun carry a worldly wise sensitivity and understanding that gets them into the narrow space between despair and hope, between peace and conflict, between caring and not caring, between, really, life and death. Brilliant.

[Bonnie Brody · Rating 4 out of 5]

The setting of this novel is working class Oslo, Norway and the story, in its broad description is a coming-of-age tale of two boys, Audun and Arvid, who meet on Audun's first day of school. Audun has a tough persona, one he may not even be totally aware of cultivating. On the very first day of school he refuses to take off his sun glasses, telling the principal that he has scars around his eyes.

The book opens in 1965 and is primarily about the years of 1965 through 1970, though not in sequential order. The boys like the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin. They have the names of their favorite rock stars engraved on their boots. Audun is a loner and befriending Arvid is a big change in his life.

Audun comes from a very violent and dysfunctional family. His younger brother drowned two years ago when the car he was driving drove into the water. Audun's mother has recently left their alcoholic father who has been cruel and violent to everyone in the family. She now has a friend who comes over on Sundays to listen to opera with her. Audun's sister is involved with an abusive boyfriend.

This is not a book where a lot happens externally. It is a series of thoughts, feelings and inner experiences. Both of the boys read a lot and are interested in the socialist movement of the time. Ironically, Audun wants to be a writer while he is also contemplating dropping out of school. He loves Hemingway, Tolstoy, Gorky and Jack London. As he argues to himself, not all of them finished school.

The writing is poetic and strong. Speaking tangentially about his father Audun says, "If you're an alcoholic you're out of control. If you have no control, you are finished. Then you spend the rest of your days walking through the valley of the shadow of death. You are the problem no one wants to solve."

The book has some great humor in it. I loved the part about Henrik, a student who is failing at French but has a teacher that is too hard of hearing to recognize that Henrik is babbling rather than speaking French.

There is quite a bit about the political situation in Vietnam and the civil rights movement in the U.S. As Audun says, "I am not an idiot, I know about the napalm in Vietnam, I know about Wounded Knee and the Ku Klux Klan; for as long as I have lived I have seen the race riots on TV. They shot Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. I have read Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice and felt the flames of his hatred. But there is something about these people. They are for real. They step out of the shadows and set out on journeys never to return."

Though non-linear, primarily devoid of action, and mostly inner-directed, this is a very interesting book. It appears to be partially auto-biographical with Arvid representing the author. I recommend this book to those who enjoy character-driven novels with frank and heavy prose. At times, there is a lightness to the writing and humor in the story, but by and large, this is a heavy novel, one that looks at the darker side of the human spirit.
Comment

[Cherise Wolas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Per Petterson has written a series of novels (which I've been reading in chronological order) about a boy named Arvid Jansen, starting with a small collection of stories called Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes. In It's Fine by Me, Arvid is a secondary character, a friend of the main character, Auden, whose childhood years have been blighted and traumatized by the violence of his alcoholic father, the early death of a younger brother, and when we meet him he's wearing old sunglasses he won't take off, creating a barrier and distance between himself and the world. It is the 1970s, in working-class Oslo, and Audun lives alone with his opera-loving mother. His sister has moved away with her car-mechanic boyfriend whom Audun calls James Dean and believes is violent. He has not seen his father in five years. Audun's existence is perpetually threatened by his memories, and his response is silence, anger, sometimes using his fists. What happens when a boy learns to avoid his past? Is he inspired to overcome? Audun has vague notions of becoming a writer, but he leaves school instead, in the year he would have graduated, and takes a job at a printing company. For Audun, the past is paralyzing when he wants only to get on with living. As per usual with Petterson's novels, the past is threaded elegantly through the present.

[Russell George · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you know that feeling when you really like a particular author, no matter what s/he writes? That there’s something about their style that makes reading them somehow more personal, more meaningful, than other writers? Well, it’s pretty rare, but that’s how I feel about Per Petterson. I think it’s the way he uses the present tense to create just the right about of tension, alongside the very ordinariness of his stories. This was about a troubled teenager from the home of a physically abusive father. The writing is deceptively simple, and for all I know it may lose something in translation from the Norwegian, but Petterson also skilfully moves back in time to fill in the gaps that the main narrative only hints at. More than this, Petterson does youthful alienation to perfection, his heroes so genuine and well-observed.

I’m not sure whether they’re original, or critically acclaimed – though any book translated into English must have done well – but I’ll go back to Petterson’s book one day. They have everything I want in a novel. Warm, compelling, well-paced. It's a very quiet genius.

[Marjanneke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ik vind het best is een boek dat door sommige lezers gewaardeerd zal worden om de eenvoud en ruimte om zelf na te denken over het verhaal achter het verhaal, maar dat voor andere lezers na het dichtslaan als onbevredigend kan aanvoelen. Het laat bij mij een gevoel achter dat het meer had kunnen zijn.

Lees mijn volledige review op: https://www.chicklit.nl/boekrecensies...

[Myriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Meester in het onbenoemde….
In Pettersons tweede (?) roman met de laconieke titel 'Ik vind het best', hanteert hij al met veel vakmanschap de bedrieglijk eenvoudige stijl die hem zo groot maakt. Geen grein sentiment en toch slaagt hij erin je diep te ontroeren of in enkele zinnen een zo raak beeld te schetsen dat het je adem beneemt. Citeren buiten de context heeft geen zin, dat het geheel meer is dan de som der onderdelen is een cliché dat nooit zo waar kan zijn als in een roman van Petterson. Zijn personages zijn zodanig van vlees en bloed, vertwijfeling en hoop, woede en mededogen gemaakt dat ze een diepe herkenning meebrengen - ook al is hun verhaal verre van het jouwe.
In 'Ik vind het best' worstelt de jonge Audun met zijn plaats in de wereld, een strijd die niet alleen moeilijk is voor iedere adolescent maar hem des te zwaarder valt omdat hij uit een gebroken gezin komt. Hij houdt zich recht aan vriendschap en literatuur…

'Audun speelt met brille de rol van outsider. Zijn droom is het om schrijver te worden (…). Auduns literaire helden zijn Jack London en Hemingway. Hij zou net zo willen schrijven en precies zo willen leven: rauw en poëtisch tegelijk, met een innige band met de natuur. Wat Audun ook overkomt, hij behoudt een emotieloze koelheid die hem intrigerend maakt. Geleidelijk komt, rond zijn zeventiende, de schrijver in hem naar voren. Zijn levenshouding ‘ik vind het best’ maakt hem onaanraakbaar, maar er is meer: hij vindt zijn toon en stem in een schrijfstijl die ogenschijnlijk koel is aan de oppervlakte maar daaronder een en al lyriek en emotie uitstraalt.' (NRC Handelsblad)

[Julie Mestdagh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gelezen in het Noors. Deel drie in de reeks rond Arvid, een jongen die opgroeit in Noorwegen. Deze keer heeft Arvid de leeftijd van 13-18 jaar, maar het boek wordt niet deze keer niet verteld vanuit Arvid's perspectief. In de plaats volgen we de Noorse Audun, een jongen uit een gebroken gezin. Het zijn moeilijke jaren voor de jongen; jaren van geweld door de vaak dronken vader, gevolgd door een plots vertrek van die laatste. Het gezin verhuist naar een nieuw dorp om er een nieuw leven op te bouwen, maar de littekens van Audun blijven. Op zijn nieuwe school leert hij een nieuwe vriend kennen, Arvid, die hij langzaam maar zeker in vertrouwen neemt. Hoewel ook die vriendschap niet altijd even sterk is. Zo is het Audun's grote droom om schrijver te worden. Net als zijn grote voorbeeld Hemingway loopt hij rond met een notaboekje om zinnen en ideeën in op te schrijven. Wanneer vriend Arvid dit als "roze proza" omschrijft spat Audun's pijn gewoon uit het boek. Uiteindelijk verlaat Audun vlak voor zijn afstuderen de school en gaat in de drukkerij werken, opnieuw een wereld waar het er vrij hard aan toe gaat en hij zijn mannetje moet staan. Telkens opnieuw wordt Audun duidelijk geconfronteerd met zijn pijnlijk verleden, dat hij toch gaandeweg probeert af te schudden. Het wordt er niet makkelijker op wanneer Audun's vader plots in zijn dorp opduikt….
Een mooi, aangrijpend verhaal, net zoals alle romans in deze reeks. Petterson kan schrijven.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s Fine by Me (1992) is an early novel – only just translated into English in 2011 – by the author of the superb Out Stealing Horses, which in 2007 won the IMPAC and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. (It was also shortlisted in 2008 for the Best Translated Book Award but this one is translated by Don Bartlett, not by Ann Born, who died in 2011).

When I first began reading It’s Fine by Me, its adolescent narrator immediately put me in mind of Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, but no, this pensive bildungsroman is more of a sobering meditation than a novel of existential teenage angst. Holden Caulfield rejects the world he lives in, rebelling from not much more than its ’phony’ values but Audun Sletton in Per Petterson’s novel has in his short life suffered real tragedy, the loss of his brother and the ongoing threat of an abusive father. While both novels explore teenage alienation, rebellion and identity, the disaffected youth in It’s Fine by Me has a genuinely melancholy past and present.

To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/03/11/it...

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett

This must be a back number as the copyright is 1992. No dedication or front quote, just straight into the opening:

I was thirteen years old and about to start the seventh class at Veitvet School. My mother said she would go with me on the first day - we were new to the area, and anyway she had no job - but I didn't want her to.

An early work that didn't work for me. The writing is good but the subject matter left me cold even though I could relate to being just a little younger at that time. Catcher in the Rye, Nordic style.

[Alyson Hagy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel, Petterson's second, is a careful and generous study of human character. It's easy to see it as a precursor to OUT STEALING HORSES and TO SIBERIA, but I enjoyed it in some ways precisely because it isn't those books. Petterson stays close to his protagonist, Auden, and there's no tinge of reflection or reminiscence. Instead, the scenes -- many of them brilliantly described -- accrue until we have a rich and fulfilling sense of adolescence in Norway in the 70s. A wonderful story constructed without melodrama or cliche. Great writing carries the day.

[John Hatley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great book by a great author. It's one of his earlier works and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Kesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

First book I ever bought for myself back in 2012/2013. Wasn't disappointed. Enjoyed this one. One of Pettersons earlier works.

[Gritcan Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

E cam depresivă cartea. (Dar e ok, nu-mi pasă 🤣)
Tată alcoolic, mama fără job, frate mort , probleme la școală
Dar și frumoasă în felul ei, dragostea de natură, prietenie, școală, primul job

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audun is unvarnished and raw. He hems and haws. He reads and intends to write. He navigates the unidyllic part of Norway. And he’s 18. Oh, to be Audun.

I bought this book in Bergen and started reading it on the plane after a month in Norway. It was the perfect way to top off the trip of a lifetime.

[Meg H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Idk man, this book was pretty boring to me and now I have to find a way to teach it to my seniors, which somehow makes it worse. Otherwise... it would be 3 stars. Bleak setting and a hopeless main character, which just isn't hitting for me right now (too real).

[Donald Schopflocher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This early work is a coming-of-age novel narrated in the first person by the furtive, introverted Audun. Petterson’s plot here is direct and there are fewer ambiguities than in later works, yet the descriptions are crisp and often lyrical. The themes are all familiar - family dysfunction, working class poverty, alcoholism and abuse, loss, friendship, responsibility and manhood - prominently among them, and so too are the settings - winter in Norway, the forest, and the dark - and the structures - scrambled time sequences, sudden transitions, endings with uncertain closure.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s Fine By Me is narrated by Audun Sletten and opens with him as a thirteen-year-old starting a new school in Veitvet, a working-class district of Oslo, where along with his mother and siblings they have fled from their rural home to an urban flat to escape their drunken, abusive father. Structurally, the book consists of two time periods: when Audun is thirteen and five years later when eighteen-year-old Audun leaves school to work as a labourer at a printing factory. In the interim, Audun’s father has disappeared, his younger brother has been killed in a car accident, and his older sister has left home and begun her own family, leaving Audun alone in the flat with his mother. When not in school Auden delivers newspapers and reads boy's own books by the likes of Jack London and Ernest Hemingway but refuses to talk about his former life. One morning whilst out delivering newspapers, Audun chances upon his father.

On the face of it this novel sounds like a standard coming-of-age tale: Audun escapes his alcoholic father and makes decisions that will catapult him in to the world of work. But it’s much more than that. Auden is a troubled, resilient teenager who uses apathy, indifference and machismo as self-preservation mechanisms. He helps his best friend Arvid get a modicum of revenge when Arvid's father is beaten by a gang of youths but when this gang catches up with him when alone he knows what to expect and takes his beating without any real malice. Throughout the story Auden uses phrases like "I didn't really care"; "I don't give a shit" and "It doesn't matter" as he refuses to bow to self-pity but this indifference doesn't remove only disguises his burgeoning grief.The unexpected return of Tormod Sletten, the abusive father, forces Auden's to look inward.

It’s Fine By Me is a slim novel, only 200 pages, but don't let this fool you. The writing is rich, its portrayal of the countryside and the Norwegian weather is vivid and evocative, as is the author's portrayal of manual labour. Despite being a bright student Auden leaves school early and takes a manual job at a print-works. Petterson shows great sympathy with the lot of the workers there; there’s a certain poetry in his depiction of tasks that these brash, selfless men who work in arduous, unskilled positions must undertake for our benefit. Overall I found this a quick and enjoyable read.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review copy from Graywolf Press

Read 9/19 - 9/22/12
4 Stars - Strongly Recommended; Audun's the Norwegian Holden Caulfield, y'all
Pgs: 199
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Release Date: Oct 2012

So there's this thing people are doing with books that feature young protagonists - they are automatically labeling them "Young Adult" (YA). You've see it too, haven't you? I'm not going crazy, right?

For reasons that I find hard to put into words (or, that I find hard to put into words that won't result in me getting pelted with rotten tomatoes), this mis-classification really bothers me. YA is not a character-based genre. It's a reader-based genre. It's meant to classify novels that are written for young adults. YA books contain story lines that are particularly appealing to young adults, and that are written in age-appropriate language.

I mention this because I noticed, while adding Per Petterson's upcoming release to my goodreads shelves, that some of the reviewers there have It's Fine By Me filed away as YA, which it most definitely is not. Sure, it's got an angsty, teenage protagonist who goes out of his way to not fit in and makes a general ruckus of things, and it's likely going to resonate with anyone past, present, and future who disliked school and felt like they never quite belonged there, but it's not written specifically for the younger audience.

Audun Sletten is the Norwegian Holden Caulfield. I feel like this needs to be said. He's got some of the same crassness, that 'devil may care' attitude that feels comfortably familiar. He's been toughened by a rough childhood and doesn't want to talk about it. He fancies himself a loner - the kid in the shades, rolling cigarettes on his own in the corner of the school yard - who doesn't want any trouble, though he'll be the first to start it if someone comes looking for it and then make sure you knew you had it coming.

To his surprise (and mine), he befriends a young Arvid - who we met as a grown man struggling to come to terms with his ailing, secretive mother in Petterson's 2010 release I Curse the River of Time. A fiercely loyal companion, Audun passes the time away with Arvid by discussing Ernest Hemingway and Jack London and making rounds around town. But we know something his friends, and teachers, and even his own mother, doesn't - Audun's keeping a secret and is having a hard time reconciling his emotional side with his cool, calm, and collected image.

Per Petterson, true to the style that I loved in River of Time, take his time telling Audun's story, allowing the events and story lines to flow freely, in and out of each other, revealing themselves when they are ready, bleeding the past and present together, seamlessly. For Audun, it's a coming of age story. For us, it's a reminder of how hard that period in our lives had been - trying to discover who we were meant to be; developing our outer persona while struggling to tame the whiny, uncertain inner one; figuring out what we wanted and how that fit into what life was demanding...

Another knock-out novel from an author who is quickly climbing the ladder to the top of my favorites list. Is it possible for Petterson to put out a bad novel? Let's hope not, for my sake!!

[Mark Mitten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every Per Petterson book I've read, I've liked. My favorite of his is "Out Stealing Horses", and there are only five novels in his repertoire so far. At least five which have been translated--his bio mentions a sixth, but I haven't seen it in English yet. His 1st person, contemplative style tells a story differently than many authors would. Like when you are under water, and can hear voices above the surface, but your thoughts are much louder than the exterior world. Soft, muted, but very personal. I really connect with it. Petterson is Norwegian, and his stories are set in the Scandinavian countryside & small towns, and he writes with an assumption of familiarity. Which means there will be occasional cultural or geographical references that will escape the American reader, but that's okay. I think it's a sign of intelligent writing, not TRYING to explain everything, or spoon feed every detail to the reader.

"It's Fine By Me" is set in late 1960s (and into 1970), based on the historical references to Jimi Hendrix and his death. It is the story of Audun Stetter, a Norwegian boy in his teens, growing up and wrestling with his baggage: the haunting, sporadic return of his abusive father, the death of his brother, his suspicion of his sister's new boyfriend. And life moves on for Audun. The novel bounces back and forth from his early teens, maybe 12 or 13, then up to age 18. From those critical formative experiences, abuse & escape...to those explorative ones, getting a job, fighting injustice. He drops out of school early to take a factory job, out of that distinctive Scandinavian national blue-collar pride/ethos rooted in a Marxist socialism: education is over-rated, working a factory job is noble. But ideals and reality are in conflict. Add to that the angst of youth, and you have a story most of us have lived in one form or another.

Good book. One of those I found myself reading slowly, because I didn't want it to end. On the downside, I don't like the subtle anti-religion theme in this story, if I had a critique. The main character, Audun, listens to a priest preside over two funerals. Each time, he views the priest in a negative anti-religion light. This element is a trend in art that I dislike, and sometimes seems contrived for the sake of anti-establishment trends, defiance in a word, that people seem to grasp at to make sense of inner angst. Other than that, another good book by Petterson. His style is fairly unique, and well-written, and consistent with his other works.

[Kristine Brancolini · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm starting to feel like a grade inflater; everything I have read lately gets 4 or 5 stars. But I think I'm just getting better at picking what to read. I have so many titles on my to-read list that I don't want to waste time on books I don't like. Anyway, I had never heard of Per Petterson or this book, It's Fine By Me. I saw it at the library and picked it up. I visited Norway last summer and I have been reading Scandinavian mystery writers, but had not seen many other books by Scandivanian authors, except for the classics by Knut Hamsun. I was looking for something more modern.

This latest book by Per Petterson is wonderful. A Norwegian coming-of-age story set in 1970, the narrative also flashes back to 1965, the summer that the protagonist Audun Sletten was 13. This was a pivotal year. His father left the family and he ran away from home for a short time. During this time he stayed with a farm family that provided well-needed security to Audun.

It's hard to explain why this book is so engaging. Audun and I are approximatley the same age and he reminded me of some of the boys with whom I grew up in Southern California. Working class boys longing to be artists and poets. Audun read many of the same books we were reading, Martin Eden and A Moveable Feast. Like Hemingway Audun has a notebook in which he attempts to write "one true sentence." He hasn't done it yet, but if Audun is a stand-in for Per, eventually he mastered it. Petterson's writing style reminds me of Jack London and Hemingway, but Audun is a modern hero. A working class boy with the soul of a poet and a violent and alcoholic father at home. Close to graduating from high school Audun drops out of school and starts working at a large industrial printing plant. The work is difficult and dangerous. It reminded me of the jobs my husband had as a college student -- working in mills and factories -- the kind of job that sent him scurrying back to college in the fall, thankful to have another future ahead of him. When the book ends, Audun's family seem to be on the mend and I felt hopeful that he might return to school. And find a career as a novelist.