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Over det kinesiske hav
Like før krigen får et ektepar reist sitt eget forpleiningshjem for «åndssvake» i den vesle bygda helt sør i Norge. Snart fylles rommene med pasienter; den religiøse grubleren Christian Jensen, den tause, alltid ruggende Matiassen, og Onkel Josef, som er blant de mest beleste i bygda. En søskenflokk på fem barn flytter inn i «galehuset» som det blir kalt. Josef kaller dem bare «tullingene fra Stavanger», men de blir likevel raskt en del av familien. Krigen tar slutt, men den usedvanlige familien skal få alt annet enn fred. For snart rammes de av en stor tragedie som kommer til å forfølge dem alle resten av livet.
Med en ny historie basert på virkelige hendelser og autentiske personer har Gaute Heivoll skrevet om mennesker som kanskje kunne kalles «åndssvake», men som gjennom sine liv og sine handlinger viser et hvert menneskes verdighet og iboende styrke.
Med en ny historie basert på virkelige hendelser og autentiske personer har Gaute Heivoll skrevet om mennesker som kanskje kunne kalles «åndssvake», men som gjennom sine liv og sine handlinger viser et hvert menneskes verdighet og iboende styrke.
247 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
15 people are currently reading
814 people want to read
About the author
Gaute Heivoll
37 books72 followersGaute Heivoll studied creative writing at Boe from 2001-2, and has studied law at the University of Oslo and psychology at the University of Bergen. He has also worked as a teacher. Heivoll has written poems, short stories and essays for newspapers and literary magazines and has been included in many anthologies. He has also conducted courses in creative writing in Norway and France and has worked as a literary critic in Norwegian newspapers. He made his literary debut in 2002 with the poetry collection Liten dansende gutt. His novels include Omars siste dager [Omar's Last Days] (2003) and Ungdomssangen [Song of Youth] (2005). His most recent book is the short-story collection Doktor Gordeau. Heivoll was the recipient of the 2003 Tiden-prisen Prize. In 2006 he was the Norwegian representative to the Literary Festival Project Scritture Giovanni and his short story "Dr. Gordeau" was translated into English, German and italian.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
June 10, 2025
There were days with sunshine and drifting clouds, there were evenings with rain from the southwest and misty mornings when the pine trees were barely visible. Not completely dark, but still not light enough to distinguish the closest trees from the rest of the forest. The ash tree motionless. Easter lilies in the garden, like small white bonfires scattered in an unknown shadowland. Suddenly it was autumn.
Same as when someone would serve me a plate topped with Brussels sprouts, I noticed my nose crinkling up when I cracked this novel, rather sceptical and unwilling to read it because I grudgingly recalled what a slog it was to toil my way through this author’s novel Before I Burn, which was on the program of my IRL reading group a couple of years ago. If this novel hadn’t been on the list of the group, I wouldn’t have touched any novel of the Norwegian author Gaute Heivoll again, regardless of Karl Ove Knausgård acclaiming Heivoll as ‘the finest literary voice of his generation’.
Because I wanted it to be over as quickly as possible, I burnt through the pages, however everything in this novel inspires the reader to take it in a slow pace, from the lengthy descriptions of the landscapes, the fields and the forests to the meticulously detailed depictions of the routines of daily life.
While cleaning out the house where he used to live with his parents, his sister and a group of eight mentally disabled patients – among them five siblings - in their foster care, the narrator looks back on the events from the first memories of his uncommon childhood in the place until the death of his parents. Creating for their residents a homely environment in lieu of an institutional one, they reminded me of the foster family care system for the mentally ill in the town of Geel, be it in a remote rural setting of stark beauty instead of in a small town community where many families instead of just one participate in the caregiving.
The narrative spans several decades, which implies that the narrator lives through the deaths and funerals of quite a few of the characters. The well and ill living together raises a few ethical issues (on sterilisation of the intellectually disabled), questioning the blurry lines between normality, neurodiversity and intellectual and mental disability. Yet the reader merely gets to see the functioning of the community from the perspective of the narrator, insights on how the residents experience their lives are mostly missing – not only because the narrator as a child doesn’t grasp the full picture of the events but also because of the debilitating tragedy that strikes the narrator’s own family and that will overshadow the relationships in the family, stretching the ability of each family member to cope with the loss while they continue to take on responsibility for their large foster family. How much room is there for others when one is shattered oneself?
Fortunately, even if there were quite a few moments in which the writing struck me as clunky and the storytelling as repetitive and flatly factual, this novel gradually grew into a more compelling read than Before I Burn. Its apotheosis in the last chapter gripped me as movingly serene – quite surprisingly, because church scenes rarely touch a chord with me and rather tend to irritate me, perhaps because having spent considerable time kneeling on church pews in the cold when I was a child.
I slept lightly. I glided like strange, deformed air bubbles under the ice, and awoke before sunrise. I lay very still under my duvet, as if a blanket of snow lay on my chest, and I heard bees buzzing peacefully outside the window. Everything blossomed, and the bees flew through the evenings as if they carried the weight of their dreams on their backs.
The novel is slightly wistful but not bleak. Giving space to moments of beauty and imagination and partly autobiographical, it is unsentimental but warm-hearted – evoking the better sides of human nature and inspiring hope, even for someone who if not cynical on societal indifference about this topics, at least is sometimes pessimistic on the sheer possibility of adequately helping the ones who mentally do not fit in to lead a life in human dignity.
Same as when someone would serve me a plate topped with Brussels sprouts, I noticed my nose crinkling up when I cracked this novel, rather sceptical and unwilling to read it because I grudgingly recalled what a slog it was to toil my way through this author’s novel Before I Burn, which was on the program of my IRL reading group a couple of years ago. If this novel hadn’t been on the list of the group, I wouldn’t have touched any novel of the Norwegian author Gaute Heivoll again, regardless of Karl Ove Knausgård acclaiming Heivoll as ‘the finest literary voice of his generation’.
Because I wanted it to be over as quickly as possible, I burnt through the pages, however everything in this novel inspires the reader to take it in a slow pace, from the lengthy descriptions of the landscapes, the fields and the forests to the meticulously detailed depictions of the routines of daily life.
While cleaning out the house where he used to live with his parents, his sister and a group of eight mentally disabled patients – among them five siblings - in their foster care, the narrator looks back on the events from the first memories of his uncommon childhood in the place until the death of his parents. Creating for their residents a homely environment in lieu of an institutional one, they reminded me of the foster family care system for the mentally ill in the town of Geel, be it in a remote rural setting of stark beauty instead of in a small town community where many families instead of just one participate in the caregiving.
The narrative spans several decades, which implies that the narrator lives through the deaths and funerals of quite a few of the characters. The well and ill living together raises a few ethical issues (on sterilisation of the intellectually disabled), questioning the blurry lines between normality, neurodiversity and intellectual and mental disability. Yet the reader merely gets to see the functioning of the community from the perspective of the narrator, insights on how the residents experience their lives are mostly missing – not only because the narrator as a child doesn’t grasp the full picture of the events but also because of the debilitating tragedy that strikes the narrator’s own family and that will overshadow the relationships in the family, stretching the ability of each family member to cope with the loss while they continue to take on responsibility for their large foster family. How much room is there for others when one is shattered oneself?
Fortunately, even if there were quite a few moments in which the writing struck me as clunky and the storytelling as repetitive and flatly factual, this novel gradually grew into a more compelling read than Before I Burn. Its apotheosis in the last chapter gripped me as movingly serene – quite surprisingly, because church scenes rarely touch a chord with me and rather tend to irritate me, perhaps because having spent considerable time kneeling on church pews in the cold when I was a child.
I slept lightly. I glided like strange, deformed air bubbles under the ice, and awoke before sunrise. I lay very still under my duvet, as if a blanket of snow lay on my chest, and I heard bees buzzing peacefully outside the window. Everything blossomed, and the bees flew through the evenings as if they carried the weight of their dreams on their backs.
The novel is slightly wistful but not bleak. Giving space to moments of beauty and imagination and partly autobiographical, it is unsentimental but warm-hearted – evoking the better sides of human nature and inspiring hope, even for someone who if not cynical on societal indifference about this topics, at least is sometimes pessimistic on the sheer possibility of adequately helping the ones who mentally do not fit in to lead a life in human dignity.
August 19, 2017
A deeply moving novel, one in which memories swim in and out of the narrator's consciousness in such a way that the reader feels content just to float on that slow current of time. The plot is simple, an unnamed man recalls a constellation of lives which might be called a family, except that his is a unique family: mother, father, sisters and seven mentally disabled wards (two adult men and five siblings ranging in age from toddler to teenager). His recollections are like dots on a pointillist tableau, the tiny travails and triumphs composing a life that, when viewed as a whole, shimmer with depth and poignancy. Add to this the soaring descriptions of Norwegian countryside - personally, I love the winter, but I'm sure anyone will long to see a glittering blanket of snow after reading this novel. Nadia Christiansen's nuanced translation breathes quiet beauty into the text, perfectly capturing a novel that will linger long after the last page.
December 29, 2017
Quietly moving story about a Norwegian family who takes in mentally disabled people and treats them with loving kindness.
January 18, 2018
Across the China Sea
Gaute Heivoll, Greywolf Press, 2017, $16.00, pb, 232 pp, 9781555977849
(Trans. Nadia Christensen)
“This is what the new world was like: Our own asylum, in the midst of a forest, in the midst of the parish, forty kilometers from the coast.”
Norway, 1945.
“Is this the end of the world?”
Stepping off the bus and standing at the edge of the road in the rural parish where she is about to begin a new life with her husband, her son (the story’s narrator), and the daughter she is carrying, Karin is dismayed by the silence.
Karin and her husband, nurses specially trained in caring for the “mentally disabled,” have built a many-roomed house in the south of Norway, where they will raise their family while caring for clients. The first three are adult men who have suffered physical or emotional trauma that has rendered them incapable of living on their own. Soon, the family is joined by five young siblings whose ability to function has been impaired through poverty, malnutrition, and social deprivation.
As a boy, the narrator initially sees the men as “crazy,” but as he comes to know them, he accepts them as individuals, just as he does the siblings: Ingrid, who howls; Nils, Erling, and Sverre, boys who speak but do not fully engage; and Lilly, who cares for her siblings as if she were their mother.
Told without sentimentalaity, this compelling tale is neither a tell-all nor a potboiler. It is the intimate account of a family’s life told with dignity, the chapters often ending on a note that invites the reader to linger for a moment rather than plunge ahead. The story may pick up in another time or place, but the skillfully crafted nonlinear narrative never confuses; and the thoughtful delivery of each character’s journey always calls the reader back. Recommended.
Rebecca Kightlinger
Originally published in Historical Novels Review, Issue 81, Aug, 2017.
Citation: Kightlinger, Rebecca. "Across the China Sea," Historical Novels Review 81 (Aug 2017), 40.
https://historicalnovelsociety.org/re...
Gaute Heivoll, Greywolf Press, 2017, $16.00, pb, 232 pp, 9781555977849
(Trans. Nadia Christensen)
“This is what the new world was like: Our own asylum, in the midst of a forest, in the midst of the parish, forty kilometers from the coast.”
Norway, 1945.
“Is this the end of the world?”
Stepping off the bus and standing at the edge of the road in the rural parish where she is about to begin a new life with her husband, her son (the story’s narrator), and the daughter she is carrying, Karin is dismayed by the silence.
Karin and her husband, nurses specially trained in caring for the “mentally disabled,” have built a many-roomed house in the south of Norway, where they will raise their family while caring for clients. The first three are adult men who have suffered physical or emotional trauma that has rendered them incapable of living on their own. Soon, the family is joined by five young siblings whose ability to function has been impaired through poverty, malnutrition, and social deprivation.
As a boy, the narrator initially sees the men as “crazy,” but as he comes to know them, he accepts them as individuals, just as he does the siblings: Ingrid, who howls; Nils, Erling, and Sverre, boys who speak but do not fully engage; and Lilly, who cares for her siblings as if she were their mother.
Told without sentimentalaity, this compelling tale is neither a tell-all nor a potboiler. It is the intimate account of a family’s life told with dignity, the chapters often ending on a note that invites the reader to linger for a moment rather than plunge ahead. The story may pick up in another time or place, but the skillfully crafted nonlinear narrative never confuses; and the thoughtful delivery of each character’s journey always calls the reader back. Recommended.
Rebecca Kightlinger
Originally published in Historical Novels Review, Issue 81, Aug, 2017.
Citation: Kightlinger, Rebecca. "Across the China Sea," Historical Novels Review 81 (Aug 2017), 40.
https://historicalnovelsociety.org/re...
June 22, 2017
Beautifully written and at times heartbreaking, an account of a man's life from childhood living in a house of twelve in WWII era Norway. The narrator relives the everyday experiences of sharing a home with his parents and sister, along with 5 children and 3 adults, each with varying degrees of mental illness. Each scene is carefully described in honest detail and made this an enjoyable read.
June 27, 2017
3.5 stars. I really loved the setting of this novel and the family it focused on. I wish there had been more narrative about the term "mentally disabled" and that the timeline had been a bit stronger. Still, a strong translation.
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October 25, 2020OVER DET KINESISKE HAV av Gaute Heivoll.
«Vi dro en dag med solskinn, for jeg husker skyggene våre som lå utover tunet og liksom rådslo om hvorvidt de våget å bli med oss.» Heivoll skriver så enkelt, nøkternt og likevel poetisk. Det ligger så mye under de hverdagslige skildringene. Her forteller han historien om ekteparet som bygger sitt eget pleiehjem for «åndssvake» fortalt gjennom jeg-personen som er sønnen. Som flere har sagt om boken; den er prega av en sterk humanitet, respekt for menneskenes egen verd. Denne boka berørte meg dypt.
January 8, 2018
Deeply absorbing story of the quiet, meaningful, lives of a family in Norway.
November 7, 2017
Wonderfully insightful portrait of an unconventional family in Southern Norway headed by a couple filled with unbounded compassion.
A must read in these times.
A must read in these times.
March 10, 2024
This stunningly atmospheric novel by prize-winning author Heivoll, set in a rural district of southern Norway, covers a period of roughly six decades, from the years of Nazi occupation to the 1990s. In 1994 the narrator, in his mid 60s, has returned to the family home following his mother’s death (his father died some years earlier) to shut the house for the last time and dispose of his parents’ belongings. In the 1940s, during the war, his parents had the house designed and constructed for a specific purpose: since both worked in a psychiatric hospital and were trained in the care of the mentally disabled, and concerned about the lack of such a facility in that part of the country, they built a house that would accommodate a small contingent of patients for whom they would provide long-term care in exchange for a regular government allowance to cover costs. So the house where the narrator grew up was a family home but also a small-scale asylum for patients whose infirmities ranged from mild to severe. Central to the narrator’s recollections of his childhood are five mentally challenged siblings, three boys and two girls, who come under his parents’ care. Heivoll’s novel is built around moments in time—sights, sounds, sensations—and major and minor life events that the narrator recalls, usually with fondness but occasionally with confusion, pain or regret. All the patients residing at the house, which include the narrator’s Uncle Josef, are regarded as family and treated as such. The narrator’s relationship with the five siblings—Lilly, Nils, Ingrid, Erling, Sverre—initially guarded, soon becomes a close and trusting bond, and develops into a crucial formative element of his life that extends beyond childhood. Heivoll the novelist draws each of his characters in precise and sympathetic detail and with striking empathy, emphasizing personal dignity and individual strengths and talents over bizarre tics or obsessive behaviours. At the close, Across the China Sea returns to the 1990s and we join the narrator as he says goodbye to people and things he has known for his entire life. The story is loosely structured and does not build to a conclusion or denouement as much as it draws us along while reminding us that time changes all things and, eventually, everything passes out of existence. Gaute Heivoll, author of Before I Burn, has written another moving and haunting novel about memory in which the past leaves an indelible imprint on the present.
June 12, 2019
Jeg har også jobbet i bolig hvor det bodde psykisk utviklingshemmede og vært støttekontakt. Det gjør det enklere å lese denne boken, lettere å forstå hvordan det var. Tror jeg. Men jeg skal ikke fremholde det som en fasit. Selv om det er mange år siden nå, kommer jeg på små hendelser og øyeblikk etterhvert som jeg leser boken og det er kanskje det den fremkaller i min egen hukommelse som gjør boken vakrest for meg. Men ikke bare. For dette er en vakker bok, en sår og øm og kjærlighetsfull bok. Tenk at det faktisk fantes slike mennesker, slike selvoppofrende og kjærlighetsfylte mennesker som ga verdi til det som i manges øyne ble sett på som noe uten verdi. Det er glimt av det i boken. Mennesker som stimler sammen for å glo og gutter som mobber og ler på bussen. Men stort sett er ikke menneskene i denne boken slik. Vi blir kjent med dem, glad i dem, og vil gjerne høre hele deres historie.
Hele min omtale finner du på bloggen min Betraktninger
Hele min omtale finner du på bloggen min Betraktninger
June 21, 2021
Et uhyre interessant tema og nydelig språk. Heivoll skriver følsomt om annerledeshet.
Et ektepar, en diakon og en sykepleier, åpner hjemmet sitt for at «åndssvake» kan få et trygt hjem, i Jesu Kristi ånd. Historie er fra det virkelige liv, om ekte mennesker.
Like før krigens slutt, blir 5 barn hentet fra sitt hjem og plassert hjemme hos familien. Heivoll forteller om den gang psykisk utviklingshemmede ble kalt «åndssvake» eller "gale" og ble sett på og behandlet på en ganske annen måte enn i hva de gjør i dag, med umyndiggjøring og tvangssterilisering som vanlige inngrepen i de enkeltes liv. Mens omgivelsene ser på dem nærmeste som dyr, omtaler denne familien dem som solskinnsbarn, og på mange måter blir de en del av familien.
Et ektepar, en diakon og en sykepleier, åpner hjemmet sitt for at «åndssvake» kan få et trygt hjem, i Jesu Kristi ånd. Historie er fra det virkelige liv, om ekte mennesker.
Like før krigens slutt, blir 5 barn hentet fra sitt hjem og plassert hjemme hos familien. Heivoll forteller om den gang psykisk utviklingshemmede ble kalt «åndssvake» eller "gale" og ble sett på og behandlet på en ganske annen måte enn i hva de gjør i dag, med umyndiggjøring og tvangssterilisering som vanlige inngrepen i de enkeltes liv. Mens omgivelsene ser på dem nærmeste som dyr, omtaler denne familien dem som solskinnsbarn, og på mange måter blir de en del av familien.
December 30, 2013
Fantastisk skrevet, men handler liksom om ingenting...
April 12, 2020
Leste denne som del av pensum i pedagogikk. Sterk bok om familiebånd, søskenkjærlighet og annerledeshet.
January 24, 2022
Såre, ekte skildringer
November 5, 2017
The title is obscure, but it is from the crate used as a cradle for he and his sisters, which was used to bring oranges to the Orient. The book is dark, like you might expect from the authors heritage, and the setting of the book. It is written by the son of a couple who built a house to be used to care for
those who have mental issues arising from accident or birth.
Amazon:
An atmospheric and affecting novel set in rural Norway, by the award-winning author of Before I Burn.
In the waning days of the German occupation of Norway, Karin and her husband move from Oslo to a tiny village in the south with their young son, the narrator. There they aim to live out their dream of caring for those who can’t look after themselves. They have spent months building a modest house with rooms for patients, and it’s soon filled with three adult men who are psychologically unstable―including Karin’s uncle Josef, who suffered a head injury in a carriage accident―and five siblings whose parents have been declared unfit, and who are the subjects of much conversation in the village. This small and idiosyncratic community persists for nearly three decades.
After his parents’ deaths, the son returns to clean out this unusual home. The objects of his childhood retain a talisman-like power over him, and key objects―including an orange crate where he and his sister slept as infants, Josef’s medal of honor, his mother’s beloved piano, and many others―unlock vivid memories. In recounting the ways that the siblings both are and are not a part of his family, he reveals his special relationship with Ingrid, who cannot speak, and his sister's accidental death, which occurred when they were playing together, and its quiet yet tragic effects on the extended family.
With warmth, gentle humor, and deep compassion, Gaute Heivoll portrays an unconventional family as it navigates an uncertain and often unkind world.
those who have mental issues arising from accident or birth.
Amazon:
An atmospheric and affecting novel set in rural Norway, by the award-winning author of Before I Burn.
In the waning days of the German occupation of Norway, Karin and her husband move from Oslo to a tiny village in the south with their young son, the narrator. There they aim to live out their dream of caring for those who can’t look after themselves. They have spent months building a modest house with rooms for patients, and it’s soon filled with three adult men who are psychologically unstable―including Karin’s uncle Josef, who suffered a head injury in a carriage accident―and five siblings whose parents have been declared unfit, and who are the subjects of much conversation in the village. This small and idiosyncratic community persists for nearly three decades.
After his parents’ deaths, the son returns to clean out this unusual home. The objects of his childhood retain a talisman-like power over him, and key objects―including an orange crate where he and his sister slept as infants, Josef’s medal of honor, his mother’s beloved piano, and many others―unlock vivid memories. In recounting the ways that the siblings both are and are not a part of his family, he reveals his special relationship with Ingrid, who cannot speak, and his sister's accidental death, which occurred when they were playing together, and its quiet yet tragic effects on the extended family.
With warmth, gentle humor, and deep compassion, Gaute Heivoll portrays an unconventional family as it navigates an uncertain and often unkind world.
January 14, 2018
Loved this very touching story of a Norwegian family--the mother and father trained in the 1930s as medical workers in institutions for the intellectually disabled. At the very start of World War II, they realize their dream of building a house on their inherited land in a rural area to accommodate several patients. Josef is the 50 year old uncle of Mama. Injured in a fall when young, he will be the highest functioning person in their care. The narrator, their own son, tells how he and his little sister Tone, were cradled as babies in an old orange crate that had come "across the China sea." But there is nothing exotic about their lives, just quiet strength and gentleness as two more traumatically injured adult men, and then five young handicapped siblings join the "family." Tragedy strikes when an accident mirroring Josef's kills little Tone. This book is touching in so many ways--that all the characters are real people and I came to love them and feel deep sympathy for them. That they are anchored and motivated by a traditional Norwegian Christian faith. Lacking abilities though they are, the siblings always begin meals in their own room by singing a hymn of grace. The narrator notes that they are "almost a family." But not quite. As he cleans out his parents' home after their deaths, he finds mementos of that time, and remembers. And the beautiful moment when they were truly a family with Mama as mother to all of them came the Christmas Eve after Tone died and his mother had been persuaded to sing at the church service. Very touching, very beautiful, with Nature and kind human goodness interwoven.
January 28, 2020
The basic plot concerns a couple in Nowhere, Norway who caretake eight mentally disabled people alongside their own children.
Other reviewers have dwelt on its story of family tragedy, treatment of the mentally ill, what constitutes a family, the constructs of memory, and its atmospheric portrayal of Norway.
But no review has commented on how skillfully the author depicts the silences between people, the Norse way of not speaking about moments of high emotion, or of the sense of luminosity and airiness of nature and its contributions to the Norse character--as of Nature were more of a speaker than Man.
Driving the theme home, the mentally handicapped characters all had communications issues. Only Ingrid, the wordless, howling Down’s Syndrome character, was able to communicate deeply with narrator with a felt sense of presence. ‘Normal’ characters who could talk refused to speak to each other, would choose not to convey the depth of their sorrow or pain. Instead, landscape, frozen snow, blue sky, forest...all of nature became metaphoric language for emotional states, vast complexes of meaning only perceptible in the silence.
As a 1st Generation American raised in a Norse household, so much of this felt eerily familiar. I saw so much of my own family in how Heivoll’s characters communicated--wordlessly, through a felt presence, or howling, but never speaking. This is a book that I will carry with me in memory, one of those rare books reflecting truths not previously understood.
Other reviewers have dwelt on its story of family tragedy, treatment of the mentally ill, what constitutes a family, the constructs of memory, and its atmospheric portrayal of Norway.
But no review has commented on how skillfully the author depicts the silences between people, the Norse way of not speaking about moments of high emotion, or of the sense of luminosity and airiness of nature and its contributions to the Norse character--as of Nature were more of a speaker than Man.
Driving the theme home, the mentally handicapped characters all had communications issues. Only Ingrid, the wordless, howling Down’s Syndrome character, was able to communicate deeply with narrator with a felt sense of presence. ‘Normal’ characters who could talk refused to speak to each other, would choose not to convey the depth of their sorrow or pain. Instead, landscape, frozen snow, blue sky, forest...all of nature became metaphoric language for emotional states, vast complexes of meaning only perceptible in the silence.
As a 1st Generation American raised in a Norse household, so much of this felt eerily familiar. I saw so much of my own family in how Heivoll’s characters communicated--wordlessly, through a felt presence, or howling, but never speaking. This is a book that I will carry with me in memory, one of those rare books reflecting truths not previously understood.
October 2, 2017
This is such a beautiful, spare, novel. Each of the mentally disabled people cared for by a couple in their home in a small Norwegian village is seen with acceptance and respect by the narrator, their son. They all become as family in the years they live together. A grave sense of what is lost, especially for the mother, haunts the book. The setting details are lovely. Excellent reader (Alex Block).
November 11, 2017
This is a very moving book about a man who is going through his family's things after his mother dies. We learn that the family cared for people who were mentally disabled. The love and care the family provided for those they care for was tremendous and at times at the expense of the family. However, they grew tight close bonds.
I just finished reading the book. I fell in love with this family :) A good read!
I received this book for free from Goodreads.
I just finished reading the book. I fell in love with this family :) A good read!
I received this book for free from Goodreads.
December 16, 2017
A lovely, peaceful little book that tells the story of a couple and their children who were caregivers in rural Norway. It is told in vignettes of memory interspersed with present day as the son of the family cleans out the house after his mother's deal. There is sadness and tragedy but the stories are told in a straightforward, non-emotional way. Even without emotion or sentimentality it is a powerful book.
October 16, 2017
*I won this book from a goodreads giveaway for an honest review*
I genuinely tried to get through this book but just couldn't. It wasn't that it was a horrible story but it really didn't have much of a storyline and the events really only lasted for a page or two before it moved on to the next thing. It didn't feel like anything was building and there wasn't really enough to hold my interest.
I genuinely tried to get through this book but just couldn't. It wasn't that it was a horrible story but it really didn't have much of a storyline and the events really only lasted for a page or two before it moved on to the next thing. It didn't feel like anything was building and there wasn't really enough to hold my interest.
November 2, 2017
The writing and translation of that writing of this book is lovely. The atmosphere is created with beautiful, rather haunting prose. Full of emotion, but very slow going. I’m full of admiration for the author, but just struggled to stay on track. Readers must give the book all their attention -it’s deserved. It’s not one I could pick up between classes and chores.
February 14, 2018
This poignant and beautiful story brings to life the story of one family made from three. The memories the narrator shares are moving and illustrate the differences between the way we live and understand life now and life in post war Norway. I'd have liked some expansion on the diagnoses of the siblings to give the story a slightly deeper narrative but overall it was an interesting read.
March 23, 2018
Melancholic and beautifully atmospheric story that reminded me in many ways of Out Stealing Horses,but without the epic quality. Gentle, quiet and sad, as I imagine Norway to be in the midst of winter, but also filled with love, kindness and empathy.
May 9, 2017
Fint skrevet men klarer ikke å finne nok motivasjon til å lese resten.
August 18, 2017
Nice story, boring narration style.
October 15, 2017
Haunting. This seemed almost like a memoir rather than a novel. The description of the scenery made me feel as though I were seeing it with my own eyes.
September 3, 2018
LOVED IT LOVED IT LOVED IT AMAZING LOVED IT
April 22, 2019
Nice and simple and slow-paced
Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews