Bjarki, Not Bjarki: On Floorboards, Love, and Irreconcilable Differences

by Matthew J. C. Clark

“You know, I actually think about that an awful lot, like, what is our purpose in life? Why am I here? I always think about some little kid being like, ‘What’d you do with your life?’ And me being like, ‘Well, I sold a bunch of floors.’” 



These are the words of Bjarki Thor Gunnarsson, the young man who manufactures the widest, purest, most metaphorical pine floorboards on the planet. 



As Matthew Clark—a carpenter by trade—begins researching a magazine-style essay about Bjarki and his American Dream Boards, he comes to discover that nothing is quite as it seems. Santa Claus arrives by helicopter. A wedding diamond disappears. A dead coyote jumps to its feet. And then, at a Thai restaurant in central Maine, Bjarki is transformed into an eggplant.  



In Bjarki, Not Bjarki, Clark wants nothing less than to understand everything, to make the world a better place, for you and him to love each other, and to be okay. He desires all of this sincerely, desperately even, and at the same time he proceeds with a light heart, playfully, with humor and awe. As Clark reports on the people and processes that transform the forest into your floor, he also ruminates on gift cards, crab rangoon, and Jean Claude Van Damme. He considers North American colonization, masculinity, the definition of disgusting, his own uncertain certainty. When the boards beneath our feet are so unstable, always expanding and cupping and contracting, how can we make sense of the world? What does it mean to know another person and to connect with them, especially in an increasingly polarized America?

 

162 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 24, 2024

Reviews

[Philip Kenner]

Bjarki, Not Bjarki accomplishes wormhole introspection while maintaining a consistent, self-conscious gaze outward. Clark has written some blisteringly genius paragraphs, and I appreciated how delicately he crafted some of his narrative spirals where he bounces around different topics. His use of parenthetical asides was always fun, illuminating, and (at times) mischievous. Some moments in the book also reveal a dark sense of humor, and that’s what keeps me going in any nonfiction book.

At times, I got lost in a sea of fact-listing and carpentry details. In this way, Bjarki, Not Bjarki felt like Moby Dick in both its best and its most challenging moments, by which I mean it gave an unflinching look at the emotional and material implications of the most minuscule details and connections while sometimes feeling like a monotonous catalogue of technical information.

I’m not giving it a rating because it feels too personal/experimental to give it any less than 5 stars, and yet I’ll admit to feeling bored for long stretches of time while reading. The book is refreshingly self-conscious of itself as a book, and therefore it feels impossible to rate it as a book when it itself is a book-shaped comment on being a book. Catch my drift? I think the book infected me with some of its emotional wooziness, and that tells me it was a success.

[M. Sarki · Rating 5 out of 5]

…I mean, I definitely don’t want to make Bjarki look like an asshole. I don’t think he is an asshole. He isn’t. But at the same time, I know how easy it is to make anyone look ridiculous. Everyone is ridiculous. Although, of course, I’m not saying that all assholes are necessarily ridiculous. All assholes are beautiful. That is, all assholes are beautiful except for me, for I am quite exceptional, unlike the rest of you beautiful world-betterers. I am the asshole within the asshole, the most superior, the best asshole. It’s dark in here and not funny. I suppose I had thought that my book—The Book—by making the world a better place, would allow me to escape from the asshole’s asshole and achieve goodness and worth…

Please read my entire review here: https://open.substack.com/pub/msarki/...

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ruminating yet propulsive, Bjarki, Not Bjarki feels both of the moment and timeless. Like a marble skittering across a knotty old pine floor (I had to), Clark meanders into to pre-colonial America, eggplants, January 6th, masculinity, and crab rangoon. The wood floors at the heart of it all, and the inimitable Bjarki, become the platform for the biggest questions: why, after all, are we here.

[Benjamin Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matthew Clark so deftly weaves his own story, a rich depiction of a Maine sawmill, and myriad facts about wood that it makes me wildly jealous of his skill as a writer. At turns funny, wistful, and poignant, the book looks at rural life with a rare combination of unflinching honesty and remarkable tenderness. You haven't read a book like this one, and likely won't read one again—so do yourself a favor and pick up a copy.

[Tasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Self aware, funny, moving, and beautifully written.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jot notes in time's margins.

Wink without committing an eyelid.

Willows weep. Pines murmur.

Pine smells like pine.