3 essays

by Dag Solstad

79 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Dag Solstad was a Norwegian novelist, short-story writer and dramatist whose work has been translated into 20 languages. He wrote nearly 30 books and is the only author to have received the Norwegian Literary Critics' Award three times.
His awards include the Mads Wiel Nygaards Endowment in 1969, the Nordic Council's Literature Prize in 1989, for Roman 1987 and the Brage Prize in 2006 for Armand V. Solstad is among Norway's top-ranked authors of his generation. His early books were considered somewhat controversial, due to their political emphasis (leaning towards the Marxist–Leninist side of the political spectrum).

Reviews

[Jørn Inge Frostad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Som tittelen antyder, inneholder denne samlingen tre essays, alle fra siste del av nittitallet, hvorav to har vært opplest som foredrag, og det siste er en anmeldelse som i sin tid har stått på trykk i Klassekampen. Strengt tatt er det fire tekster i boken, men den fjerde er, originalt nok, en forkortet versjon av en av de tre andre tekstene som er trykket i samme bok. Denne inklusjonen forklares ved at teksten opprinnelig ble lest opp for et annet publikum enn den lange versjonen, og at den således impliserer et annet leserperspektiv.

Den første av tekstene, «Om romanen», var for meg den mest interessante. Solstads tanker om hvordan det «kulturbærende sjikt» som tidligere fantes i samfunnet i dag har forsvunnet (ettersom befolkningen jevnt over er høyere utdannet og har bedre tilgang på informasjon), mens media paradoksalt nok har endt opp med å anta en mer tabloid karakter, er tankevekkende. Denne typen kulturkritikk går igjen i alle de tre tekstene.

Solstad kan nok til tider virke litt «uppity» og snobbete i sine meninger, noe han også selv vedgår, men prosaen hans er preget av en balanse mellom humor og alvor som tydeliggjør poengene hans uten at det noen gang blir for tørt og akademisk. Selv om han nok ikke ville være enig i det selv, kan det godt hevdes at Solstad ofte er en durabelig humorist, dog en humorist med viktige tanker i bakhodet.

Alt i alt er dette en kort og grei samling som har en håndfull gode og tankevekkende poenger på lur for den som vil høre.

[Irwan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Three essays written by one of the prominent Norwegian authors. I am reading him as a research for a small article I was asked for by an online Indonesian "community for literature appreciations". It is a good thing for me to get an external stimulation to dig into the Norwegian literature which hasn't fascinated me too much, apart from my reading of Sophie's World a long time ago.

In the first essay, Dag Solstad (he always mentions a person with full names in his novels and other writings) talks about his novels, especially the one that made him famous (Shyness and Dignity) and another that came later "Professor Andersens natt". He points out a problem of being understood as a novelist, of whether he manages to deliver his thoughts to his readers. As typical Norwegians, he systematically did collect all reviews of the the latter novel and counts the occurences of themes or other points in those reviews and backed up his argumentation. It turns me off a little bit. I prefer writers who takes a distance with his audiences, who dont care too much about how his readers read him. Let alone telling them how it should be read. It is part of the "ritual" of readership: authors are free to write and readers are free to read and interpret. Why does it bother him so much that the readers read his novel this way or another?

The second essay doesn't go that far. It was about the problem of informing as in the enlightened, cultured people have to inform the larger (uncultured?) audience. Again he mentions about how Norwegian culture has been freed from cultural elitist as education has reached all people and what roles should intellectual like him play in this situation. I get the point that he is engaged and critical to his society and cares so much about it. But I feel a bit patronized about it.