Et norsk hus

by Vigdis Hjorth

A House in Norway tells the story of Alma, a divorced textile artist who makes a living from weaving standards for trade unions and marching bands. She lives alone in an old villa, and rents out an apartment in her house to supplement her income. She is overjoyed to be given a more creative assignment, to design a tapestry for an exhibition to celebrate the centenary of women’s suffrage in Norway, but soon finds that it is a much more daunting task than she had anticipated. Meanwhile, a Polish family moves into her apartment, and their activities become a challenge to her unconscious assumptions and her self-image as a good feminist and an open-minded liberal. Is it possible to reconcile the desire to be tolerant and altruistic with the imperative need for creative and personal space?

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Scandinavian Literature, Womens, Domestic Fiction

191 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2014

About the author

Vigdis Hjorth (born 1959) is a Norwegian novelist. She grew up in Oslo, and has studied philosophy, literature and political science.

In 1983, she published her first novel, the children's book "Pelle-Ragnar i den gule gården" for which she received Norsk kulturråd's debut award. Her first book for an adult audience was "Drama med Hilde" (1987). "Om bare" from 2001 is considered her most important novel, and a roman à clef.

Hjorth has three children and lives in Asker.

Reviews

[Katia N · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never heard of this author before and picked up this book on a whim in my library. I believe “Norwegian house” is the only her novel translated into English. I hope they will translate more as I liked this book and author’s honesty and skill. I also thought the translation was very good.

This little novel touches upon a very interesting, sensitive topic of how well do we know ourselves, especially when it concerns our attitude towards otherness. Alma, the main character is a neurotic , but thoughtful and talented norwegian textile artist. She considers herself as a liberal, open-minded woman ready to do good, advocating cosmopolitan values and open society. But her self -image is subject to a severe test when she rents out the annex of her house to a Polish family. During 6 years of her experience she finds out that the concrete situation is very different from the abstract views. Her attitudes and beliefs are getting tested against the clash of cultures and daily misunderstandings. The book is making us witnessing her “journey of self-discovery”, not always pleasant; her self-doubts, rages and feeling guilty, her hopeless desire to reconcile her views with her daily situation.

“She had to agree with her daughter that there where ghetto-like neighbourhoods in Oslo where foreigners or people of foreign origin or whatever the current phrase was, lived and spoke their own language instead of learning Norwegian, who didn’t take part in social activities and didn’t learn Norwegian value. But the moment she thought about “Norwegian values” she immediately wanted to correct herself because she was one of those people who often mocked and scorned typical “Norwegian values” and now she was arguing that they did matter after all. She lost herself in a tangle of hopeless contradictions… “

At the same time, Alma is performing the art commission for the centenary of suffrage in Norway. This as well leads to a doubt how reliably we could imagine the past, feelings and motivations of the people of the past. Could we really know what happened?

All of this is taking place on the usual backdrop of Nordic charm: snow, woods, fire and slightly excessive alcohol consumption.

I would not try to moralise here and try to imagine what I would do, or even to which camp I would belong in this situation. But I found this topic extremely important and fascinating. Unfortunately, it has even partly explained the choices of some people in recent political events like Brexit, for example.

[Adam McPhee · Rating 3 out of 5]

1. It always struck me as strange how stereotypes about Polish people in North America are pretty benign, just hard to pronounce names and maybe a lovable oaf tag, whereas in Europe Poles get it pretty rough. Goes to show the inherent irrationality of ethnic stereotypes, I guess.

2. I've been complaining for a while now that despite economic hardship all around, we haven't yet produced a Jean Rhys/Patrick Hamilton boarding house novel for the airbnb/apartment polycule (ugh) generation. A House in Norway isn't it, but it still has a lot to offer in that direction: the forced, unwanted intimacy between tenant and landlord, and a close examination of it that somehow leads to something more universal, about how rich countries exploit poor ones and how despite our good intentions and our voting patterns, we're all coopted to look the other way.

3. I think Chairman Mao had the right idea about landlords.

[Marcus Hobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a book that will be to everyone’s taste, but certainly a curious book. I constantly felt that there was going to be a revelatory moment, when the deeper meaning of events would be come clear. I do think that there are multiple levels on which to read and interpret the messages here.
Alma is a creative artist. She stitches and embroiders banners and flags. For bigger commissions she creates long tapestries – one for a newly built school and then a vast commission to celebrate the centenary of women’s suffrage in Norway. These are huge creative endeavours for which she is always seeking inspiration.
Alma owns an old wooden house with an apartment attached which she is able to rent out. This supplements her very variable income. Because the apartment is small and old, the tenants she attracts are not the best; sometimes they cannot pay, sometimes they vanish and the place is left uninhabited. Alma struggles finding new tenants and asking them for deposits. She is not a natural landlord or capitalist!
New tenants arrive. A Polish couple, the young woman pregnant. They will remain in her apartment for the next six years, and their little daughter will grow up there. But they present Alma with countless problems. Rent payments, their shared laundry, mice, snow on the drive, and the share of the hot water and heating bills. The Poles antagonise Alma, and she constantly has a gripe with them, or their view of her forces her to reflect on her own poor behaviour, her odd work hours, her failure to clean the windows for years, or the blocked gutters.
The same problems and gripes stretch to her own grown up children when they come to stay at holiday times:
“The Pole was in charge and she didn’t own the house and tended to treat it quite irresponsibly. As did the children, her daughter also behaved irresponsibly and turned the thermostat controlling the bathroom heating to maximum, although it increased the risk of the pipes being damaged, she washed three garments at a time, and ran the dishwasher when it was only half full, and always turned on every light above the cooker and when the bulbs blew, Alma had to go to a specialist shop to find new ones and pay good money to replace them, and they were really fiddly to replace. She would leave the lights on in the laundry room when she left, so that sometimes it would be on for days at a time. And if the fluorescent tube were to go, Alma probably wouldn’t be able to get a new one, given how old it was…”
There is a constant tension between Alma’s creativity, her tenants, and her own personality which shuns and dislikes company, preferring solitary activities. She is divorced and lives alone, but her grown up children visit and stay, forcing her to think how she should behave as an adult or a parent. She has a boyfriend, but I think that most people would have given up on her, due to her odd or antisocial behaviour and her dislike of social events. At one point her boyfriend asks her to join others for a weekend in a mountain cabin, her idea of hell:
“But he misinterpreted her expression of concentration. He thought it sprung from a sincere wish to understand in order to change. That she didn’t argue back as usual but listened intently, he viewed as encouragement and so he held forth at length. Other people liked being with other people, he said. Other people are interested in other people. Other people are curious about other people. At this point Alma wanted to interject that she was interested in other people, but not in the trivial aspects of their lives, which tended to form the main topic of conversation at dinner parties, but she refrained. He enquired earnestly about Alma’s distrust of other people, had it always been as bad as it was now or had it grown worse over the years. And Alma thought that she would embroider a tapestry of couples at a dinner party just as unbearable and claustrophobic as she experienced them. Create a picture of the cabin trip so that he would understand how difficult it was for her to breath alongside strangers in such a setting. Create a picture so that he would realise that Alma couldn’t be with other people like he believed she should, that his template didn’t suit everyone, that exceptions could divide as well as unite. But she hesitated. Perhaps she was the exception, and she couldn’t make a rule based on her own feelings.”
As Alma becomes more and more embroiled with her Polish tenants, she is even forced to ask her boyfriend for help. There are letters and eviction notices and unpaid rent.
This observation she makes when he travels to Italy to be able to work in solitude, is very telling:
“She had gone abroad to observe her home country from a distance, but what she saw most clearly in Italy was her own house in danger. It was always thus. When she explored a topic, she ended up exploring herself. In order to understand what she was facing, she first had to realise something about herself. This was most unpleasant because what she learned about herself was usually embarrassing and unflattering…”
Her home, her tenants and her creative outputs all force her to confront herself, and there in lies to driver for the book. Very enjoyable and different.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Theirs was a practical and financial relationship, like a doctor to a patient, and if doctors started empathising with patients and feeling sorry for them, they couldn’t possibly do their job.

A House in Norway (2017) is translated by Charlotte Barslund from the Norwegian original Et norsk hus (2014) by Vigdis Hjorth, the fifth of the author's works in translation I've read although the first that was published in English (see below).

The novel is narrated from the perspective of Alma, a textile artist. It opens:

When Alma got divorced at the age of thirty-two, she moved into a run-down, timber-built house near where the father of her children continued to live. They had shared custody, alternating weeks, so she was delighted to find a property just a few hundred metres from his, with only a tree-covered hill separating them, and pleased that her inheritance allowed her to buy it. Without that money, she would never have managed to stay in this relatively affluent neighbourhood. The house had formerly belonged to a man who had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital where he died. It had stood empty for two years and it showed, the large plot was overgrown. For reasons unknown to her, the house was now owned by a bank in Sor-Trondelag that was keen to get rid of it, and it was therefore very reasonably priced. She was never given any further details; all she got was a file full of papers, all of which turned out to be useless. As far as she could see, the house had been very much a DIY project; the water pipes supplying the bathroom had been laid along the external walls where they froze every winter so Alma had to thaw them with a hairdryer. And while many of the windows couldn't be closed, others refused to open, so there was a considerable amount of work to be done. The previous owner had left behind a few items of furniture, including an old safe which appeared to contain something; she could feel it every time she tried to shift it. On the rare occasions when she had a party, she and her guests would try to open it, invariably without success.

I'll treat it as my pension plan, Alma decided as she recalled the day she let herself into the house after going to the council office to sign the deed of conveyance, how proud she had felt that she now owned it. She had never owned property before and she had walked through the rooms, touching the walls. The house came with a small, adjacent annexe that she could rent out and thus provide herself with a legal, monthly and tax-free income, which would come in handy as her earnings as a textile artist were uncertain and irregular.

Initially Alma rents the property to single students or newly qualified workers, who typically stay for a year and with who she has little contact, but one day she rents it to a Polish couple, the woman pregnant, who end up renting for many years, their little girl growing up in the annexe.

The novel, this scene setting aside, begins around 7 years later, in 2008, with the global financial crisis a backdrop, when the male of the couple disappears - it turns out he has been imprisoned back in Poland for domestic abuse - and she has to re-contract with his wife, now a single mother, whose rent is supported by the Norwegian social services.

As time goes on relations between Alma and her demanding and at times troublesome tenant deteriorate, not helped by a language barrier. It's refreshing to read a book written from the perspective of a landlord having to deal with ambiguous tenancy agreements, missed rental payments, overuse of electricity and heating due to inclusive rents, legislation that is designed to overly protect tenants even if they don't pay rent, the inevitable maintanance that comes with a property (and the question of who is responsible), and, given the adjacency of the two properties, disturbance to her own family life.

She said nothing, but at times she wished she could afford not to rent out the apartment, so that she could have complete control over the whole house and choose what kind of things should be left out in full view and what cars should be parked in the drive, and so that her children could stay in the apartment when they visited rather than invade her space, but she was nowhere near being able to afford that. And she told herself that these were just superficial things. Then again surfaces matter to a textile artist.

Meanwhile Alma works on a lucrative commission for a tapestry to commemerate the centenary of women's suffrage in 1913 and the Constitutional bicentenary in 1815, painstaking work given the nature of her art:

'1913’, she wrote in her sketchbook. The year women got the right to vote, the centenary of the birth of Camilla Collett, the year Edvard Munch turned fifty, the year Sigmund Freud published Taboo and Totem, the year Ninja B's mother hanged herself at an institution for the insane in Fredrikstad.
[...]
She remembered [...] how she had envied painters, especially the Expressionists, who could change a picture with one brushstroke. One strong, decisive sweep of the arm and hey presto! A line like that in one of Alma‘s works took a thousand hours.

The novel is very effective at portraying the conflicts that trouble Alma - in theory politically idealistic but, she realises, increases passive as she ages; finding it hard to disguise her prejudice against "the Pole" (as she thinks of her tenant) enjoying the genorisity of the Norwegian state (the moment she thought about “Norwegian values” she immediately wanted to correct herself because she was one of those people who often mocked and scorned typical “Norwegian values”); and while by instinct sympathetic to her tenant's plight, equally needing to protect her own mental and financial well being.

And as the novel enters its final sections, the relationship with her tenant breaks down further, each convinced the other owes them money (a deposit which was never actually paid by the husband the root of the issue) - Alma grows increasingly irate while her boyfriend suggests she just concede the point - this passage rather rang bells for me:

Alma threw it aside. So she wanted money. Not pay the January rent, live in the apartment for half of February without paying, and then for Alma to pay her, pay them? This was blackmail. Weren't they going to leave until Alma paid them? She lunged at the keyboard and wrote like a fury, she was incandescent with rage, but realised after a while that she mustn't vent her fury without a filter, so she called her boyfriend and explained, and he calmed her down and she understood that she had to be professional. The most important thing, her boyfriend said, is that you get rid of her. Had it been him, he said, he would have paid the measly 3,500 kroner, which Alma could easily afford, to make the problem go away, to get the Pole out of the house. But Alma couldn't. She wouldn't hear of it. She owed them nothing, on the contrary! Paying them would be giving in to their terrorist demands, surrendering, it would be cowardly and scaredy-cat to reward bad behaviour.

Impressive - fascinating in its detail of the landlord-tenant relationship, and with a welcome perspective, and also a well-written character study. I look forward to more of Hjorth's extensive output being translated.

Bibliography in English - all translations by Charlotte Barslund

A House in Norway (2017) translated from Et norsk hus (2014) - my review

Will and Testament (2019) translated Arv og miljø (2016) - my review

Long Live the Post Horn! (2020) translated from Leve posthornet! (2012) - my review

Is Mother Dead (2022) translated from Er mor død (2020) - my review

If Only (2024) translated from Om bare (2001) - my review

[Robert Wechsler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Off paper, this is an amazing book, at least for me. It features my favorite POV: third-person limited to the protagonist, with most dialogue narrated. It involves a role and relationship rarely found in fiction: landlord/tenant (the protagonist is a landlord with one tenant). And it involves the protagonist’s relationship with property, albeit a small amount, just enough to form an obsession.

There’s also a lot that’s happily missing here: there are occasional boyfriends, but nothing about their relationships with the protagonist. Nothing about love. There are children, but they are little more than bothersome creatures who invade the property on holidays. There are scarcely parents and, in fact, not much history (at least the protagonist's). Few flashbacks. Yay! And the writing is good, sometimes beautiful.

And yet the experience of the novel did not win me over. All the above kept me reading, but I was not often absorbed, intellectually or emotionally. I can’t explain this. I could talk about this novel for hours if I could find someone who read it, but it’s not a novel I can imagine reading again.

[Anders Demitz-Helin · Rating 2 out of 5]

The same engaging way to write, but a story that can't keep me interested.

[Cherise Wolas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alma is an artist who makes intricate and intellectual tapestry hangings. In one called Latent Fire, a commission from a college she attended, she focuses on the youth, how everyone has a latent fire to do good and make good changes in the world, but often don't. That failure to actually do good is represented by a huge wave that will swamp her embroidered characters. Other commissions include one to celebrate the centenary of women's suffrage in Norway, and she finds herself immersed in the story of a young woman who was sent to a mental institution in the late 1800s and kept from her child. She also makes banners and related art for workers' unions and national holidays that provide cash in between her commissions. Alma is divorced, has grown children she sees mostly only on the holidays, keeps her own hours, takes long working trips to sunny places alone, has a boyfriend she sees intermittently, and loves the house she owns in rural Norway. The house has an attached apartment which she rents out to supplement her income. There are always issues with the renters, deposits not given, rent not paid, and then she rents to a Polish couple with an infant daughter. Alma sees herself as a good feminist and an open-minded liberal, but the Polish couple, their behavior and Alma's interactions with them over a period of 6 years, test Alma's assumptions and self-image. How does one give assistance and yet retain one's own traditional way of life? How does one reconcile the desire to be tolerant and altruistic with the imperative need for creative and personal space? The novel is intensely personal, fascinating and gripping.

[Marte Pedersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Marianne Barron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nok en gang skriver Hjorth ei bok om en norsk, bemerkelsesverdig kvinne. Denne gang en enslig huseier som leier ut huset sitt til en polsk familie og alt hva dette innebærer for den kreative tekstilkunstneren Alma. Jeg ble ikke like bergtatt av dette portrettet som jeg er blitt av flere av Hjorth's andre kvinner, likevel elsker jeg språket og kunstnersjelen og nok et dypdykk inn i rotfestet til det norske folk. Et Norsk Hus står så absolutt til en firer!

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Det norske hus" er et politisk slagord, et metaforisk udtryk, der blev brugt i af norske Thorbjørn Jaglands regering i 1996 om målene for regeringens politik frem mod årtusindskiftet. De fire søjler som skulle bære huset, dvs. Norge, var: nærings- og arbejdslivspolitik, velfærdspolitik, kultur-, forsknings- og uddannelsespolitik samt udenrigs- og sikkerhedspolitik.

I Et norsk hus spiller Vigdis Hjorth på dette udtryk i en roman om den norsk kvinde Alma, der bor i en stor træhytte, lidt udenfor Oslo, og pga. de ikke-faste indtægter hun får fra arbejdet som tekstilkunstner, ser hun sig nødsaget til at leje en del af huset ud for at kunne få det til at løbe rundt økonomisk. Allerhelst vil hun have så lidt som muligt med sine lejeboere at gøre, og det eneste, hun kræver, er at få huslejen til tiden, men da hun får et ungt polsk par som lejere, som på flere forskellige måder forstyrrer hendes hverdag og gør hende både irriteret og vred, bliver det ikke muligt for hende ikke at foretage sig noget, ikke muligt at se passivt til, mens de polske lejere ”invaderer” hendes hus.

Kultursammenstødet mellem det norske og det polske er kilde til mange interessante betragtninger og refleksioner om forholdet mellem ejer og lejer, det hjemlige og det fremmede, os og dem. Men store dele af bogen kedede jeg mig desværre også (endog nok så bravt), og Almas personlige kvaler med at udføre forskellige tekstile bestillingsarbejder kunne ikke have sagt mig mindre. Vigdis Hjorths mundtlige, og til tider vel repetitive, sprog passer som fod i hose for denne roman, og nogle af de bedste dele af bogen er Almas indre monologer, hvor hendes kulminerede vrede mod polakkerne når sit klimaks og står at læse side op og side ned. Det bliver for langt at citere her i sin helhed, fra punktum til punktum, men de passager alene er grund nok til at læse bogen.

"At de gikk over grensene hennes, at de trengte seg på, at de innvaderte huset og dermed hennes indre, for hennes indre var sterkt knyttet til huset og var skjørt og hjemmesnekret som huset og sårbart for vær og vind og snø og sno og sto så vidtoppreist og Almas hardt ervervede struktur som var nå i ferd med å gå i oppløsning, den lille smule orden som hadde rådet i hennes indre og ytre verden i ferdig med å smuldre, for det var den polske som bodde ved siden av Alma og ikke Alma som bodde ved siden av den polske!"

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

curious little book! but extremely absorbing, in some ways relatable (i ponder the goings-on of my apartment neighbors frequently, and i don't own the place. and sometimes, the principle of the matter is more important to me than the reality, like alma).

i really enjoyed hjorth's meandering, thoughtful style. and europe and europeans are so strange to me. the concept of national or ethnic values + pride + identity is entirely foreign to this mutt-WASP.

[Nils Jepson · Rating 5 out of 5]

last line is truly an all-timer. perfect book and perfect ending. inevitable socio-politically, i think, but still surprising formally.

may Alma never know peace, resolution, or rest. what a crazy bitch!

[Kristoffer Eikemo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ikke min kopp te, men med en god ettersmak. Vet ikke om jeg likte den eller ikke. Jeg tror det. Vet ikke.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75⭐️

[Maud Douglas]

3,5

[Ana Ramos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adorei a escrita, o tema, a forma como o livro está construído. Tão intenso e tão desafiador na forma como coloca as questões da interculturalidade, dos preconceitos, da vida em sociedade.

[Marte KA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Så nevrotisk og irriterende hun kan være. Ikke rart jeg kjenner meg igjen.

[Lucinda · Rating 4 out of 5]

An extended slice of life novel, which was an uncomfortable but also a gripping read. I understand some readers found the opposite and wanted more of a resolution or climax to the narrative, but for me this was the strength of the book and I was satisfied with the narrative thread as well as the ending. This is a very Scandinavian book, preoccupied with anxiety surrounding privilege. The mundanity and pettiness of the interactions and arguments between Alma, the Norwegian landlord and Slawomira, her Polish tenant are so realistic and relatable. If Hjorth’s aim was to make her readers take a good look at their own opinions and prejudices, this was a deft method of doing so.

It may just be personal preference with style but I wasn’t always sure that the translation was the best, however. There were some sentences I had to reread several times to understand. This may have been due to the stream of consciousness style of Alma’s thoughts but I think it could have been made a little clearer. Overall a very thought provoking, enjoyable, if slightly stress-inducing story!

[Barbara Kaminska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Synopses of "A House in Norway" usually say something like: "A liberal Norwegian woman's beliefs are challenged when Polish tenants move into her spare apartment." But the story's protagonist should perhaps be better described as a freelance textile artist with a major drinking problem, negligent of her house, ignoring commitments and money problems (e.g., doesn't work on a commissioned piece for months, goes on trips and rents a studio in the hope of inspiration despite not being able to pay utility bill); she is frustrated with her Polish tenants for cranking up the radiators and using too much water while her own children do the same thing and even worse. Alma can be extremely irritating, especially to readers for whom this kind of carefree and ultimately infantile lifestyle is unimaginable due to their life circumstances. But it is exactly in the characterization of Alma's day-to-day petulance, enabled by her welfare-state cushy situation, and inability to deal with her life, her children, her boyfriend, and her tenants that the strength of this book lies. The conflict of cultures and socioeconomic statuses doesn't play out on an abstract level of legislation and history (with which Alma engages in one of her pieces) but in everyday interactions among ordinary people. The author found a balance between a stereotypical vision of Poles and parts of those stereotypes that are, in fact, true. NB, Hjorth seems to have some idea that Polish names are long, complicated, and full of consonants, but the last name of the Polish woman is an implausible combination of letters, which reveals that while avoiding cliches, she hasn't quite done her research. It's not a great book, and at times I had to take a break from it because of how unlikeable Alma is, but it's interesting and left me curious about other novels by Hjorth.

[Taran Halvorsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Og Alma tenkte hun skulle brodere en parmiddag så umulig og klaustrofobisk som hun opplevde dem. (...) Lage et bilde så han forsto at sånn han mente menneskene skulle være sammen, kunne ikke Alma være sammen med andre, at formene hans ikke passet for alle, at formene kunne gjøre vold framfor å virke samlende." (s.80)

Dette er den første romanen jeg har lest av Vigdis Hjorth, har tidligere bare lest "Jørgen + Anne = sant" og husker den som en av mine favoritter som barn, og jeg hadde ganske høye forventninger til denne boka. Og den skuffet absolutt ikke!

Hjorth skriver utrolig bra, og på underkant av 200 sider tar hun opp utrolig mange viktige temaer på en veldig enkel og fin måte, som får deg til å stoppe opp og tenke.
Handlingen er enkel og troverdig. Jeg både hatet og elsket hovedpersonen, Alma.

Alt i alt er dette en veldig god bok som det er verdt å sette av noen dager på å lese. Og jeg personlig kommer til å fortsette å lese Vigdis Hjorth, for jeg ble virkelig helt betatt av språket hennes!

[Rebecka · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second half of this book made me SO ANGRY.
It also kept me awake on a plane though (!), so I can’t rate the book poorly. Alma’s acceptance of everything her lazy children and meek but demanding lodger did almost made me hate the book. As did her laziness and horrible work ethic. (Ugh, artists!) But then I realized it is actually quite well written (if repetitive), and very TRUE, very Norwegian, very representative. And Alma does eventually get enough and explodes, and that was very satisfying.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounded down. It’s well written and clever and I read it really quickly and would recommend to other people, it’s vibe is very me (it’s kind of a book where nothing really happens which I love, and it explores the human psyche) and yet I just didn’t quite gel with it enough for a higher rating.

[Audrey Webster · Rating 3 out of 5]

Showing an intolerance for those who are different from ourselves and how we view ourselves. Ends with inner reflections and regret.

[Marydale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the writing style, like Hemingway without all the fishing and machismo. Nothing really happens in this book, just a woman and her thoughts as time passes. And it's just wonderful.

[Helen Bookwoods · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alma is a middle-aged textile artist living by herself near the sea in a picturesque part of Norway. To help with her finances, she rents out an annex to her house. She lets the annex to a young Polish woman, her boyfriend and young child. To begin with she prides herself on being broad-minded, happy to rent the place out to low-wage people with perhaps a tenuous legal status, but she can’t quite live up to this. She needs the rent but she doesn’t really want to share her space with strangers – the fact that the Polish woman can’t speak Norwegian, doesn’t help, especially when the woman is the victim of domestic violence and the boyfriend breadwinner moves out. Alma comes to a new rental agreement with the woman with the social services involved. Alma gets slightly annoyed when officialdom takes the side of “the Pole”, as she calls her, although it’s Alma’s house.

Vigdis Hjorth is very good at doing low-level conflict. In her later novel Will and Testament, it is between siblings over the wills of their parents. Alma is not a bad person, in fact she’s funny and a serious creative, but certain things such as the Polish woman running radiators at full bore, while Alma herself is parsimonious and pays the electricity bills, drives her mad. Alongside the growing tension between the two women, Alma’s muses over her tapestries such as one for her old school and one for the Constitutional committee for a Norwegian anniversary. I found the description of the creative process and how ideas are worked up into creative pieces to be totally absorbing, no mean feat.

Alma is aware of her privileged position vis-à-vis her Polish tenant who works as a cleaner and is a single mother (Alma is divorced and has grown-up children) yet there is an almost insurmountable barrier between them. Alma muses on what the Pole must think of her – half-drunk, sleep-deprived when working on her commissions, a haphazard housekeeper while the Pole keeps the annex neat as a pin, although overstuffed with doodads, to Alma’s distain.

Things come to a head when the Pole’s husband returns from prison and, after ignoring Alma or putting up with her, Slawomira (as we find out the Pole is called) begins to fight back. Alma has based her Constitutional tapestry on a nineteenth century story she’d read about a woman trapped in an unhappy marriage who runs away and is caught and sent to an asylum where she commits suicide. Again, Hjorth does a great job of showing us Alma’s thought processes here and how she converts them to a visual work. As Alma becomes frantic about making her deadline and what the Poles might do next, the themes of the book coalesce. I loved Alma. I related to her angst, her self-reliance, her will to be generous and her justifications for not being, her nice line in self-mockery. She’s messy and fallible. Hjorth’s enjoyable deadpan narration keeps what is a fairly slight story, in plot terms, bubbling along.

[Cecilia · Rating 5 out of 5]

For the full review and a short analysis of the gender gap and some initiatives or projects that are working to improve the situation of the women in Norway visit:
https://fictionbywomenmap.wordpress.c...

It was such an unexpected joy reading A House in Norway. I didn’t know much about the book; nor about Vigdis Hjorth. But I’m so glad I found it. It reminded me of some of my favorite authors; Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Ann Patchett… It is a slow but beautiful short-novel about the ordinary everyday life and thoughts of a woman.
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The story revolves around Alma, a divorced textile artist who owns a house in the suburbs in Norway. The house has a small semi-detached apartment which she rents to supplement her income. Her usual tenants are people that stay for short periods of time. Until the arrival of a young Polish couple, Alan and his pregnant wife Slawomira. Alma realizes that the couple plans to settle for a long time in her property, and as with her previous tenants, she does not get involved in their lives. As time goes by, the relationship with the Polish couple starts to deteriorate.
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With this simple plot, Hjorth makes a terrific character study. Alma considers herself a feminist and an open-minded woman. However, in her relationship with her tenants, we can see how these self-beliefs are challenged.
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Our long-term goal is to read one book written by a female author from every country of the world. Follow our progress!
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[Thomas Løge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Et norsk hus er min andre Hjort etter Arv og miljø. Språket som jeg likte så godt i min første Hjort, kommer også til syne i denne romanen. Et språk som til tider virker veldig muntlig, hvilket drar deg med inn i handlingen og gjør det vanskelig å legge vekk boka.

Jeg likte veldig godt historien om tekstilkunstneren Alma som lever et liv hvor A4-rutiner er fraværende. Hun bor i et stort, gammelt trehus som hun tar godt vare på når hun ikke jobber med et kunstverk, men som hun ikke egner å vie tid til når hun har tatt på seg et freelance-oppdragg. Dager blir for å blunde øyet, og netter blir brukt for iherdig føring av nåla i tekstilet. For å få ting til å gå rundt økonomisk, har hun en utleieleilighet som folk har flyttet inn og ut av, ikke betalt depositum for og hvor de plutselig blir borte. En dag flytter en polsk familie inn. Her oppstår det et møte - eller et kræsj? - mellom to forskjellige kulturer og ikke minst et møte mellom Alma og sine egne fordommer.

En god bok som fikk meg til å le, uffe meg, undre meg og se for meg dette norske huset; en representant for Alma og det norske. Selv har jeg oppholdt meg mye i andre land og har mange utenlandske venner, og det er mange typisk norske karakteristikker som er å kjenne igjen i Almas tanke- og handlingsmønster; på både godt og vondt.

3+ (en veldig god bok, men den fikk meg ikke til å tenke så mye nytt jeg ikke hadde tenkt fra før av, og den har derfor heller ikke dukket så mye opp i tankene mine i ettertid)

Favorittsitater fra boka:

"At de gikk over grensene hennes, at de trengte seg på, at de innvaderte huset og dermed hennes indre, for hennes indre var sterkt knyttet til huset og var skjørt og hjemmesnekret som huset og sårbart for vær og vind og snø og sno og sto så vidtoppreist og Almas hardt ervervede struktur som var nå i ferd med å gå i oppløsning, den lille smule orden som hadde rådet i hennes indre og ytre verden i ferdig med å smuldre, for det var den polske som bodde ved siden av Alma og ikke Alma som bodde ved siden av den polske" [Alma]

"Dårlig snakkes i norsk, men jeg er et menneske som deg. På den samme stjernen." [den polske]

"Hun hadde lengtet mot det ekstraordinære, men ikke skjønt at det var hennes syn på det vanlige som var hindringen" [Alma]

[Danna]

The Atlantic:
"I read Hjorth’s short, incisive novel about Alma, a divorced Norwegian textile artist who lives alone in a semi-isolated house, during my first solo stay in Norway, where my mother is from. Alma is naturally solitary, and others’ needs fray her nerves. She rents out a small apartment attached to her property but loathes how she and her Polish-immigrant tenants are locked in a pact of mutual dependence: They need her for housing; she needs them for money. The book is a survey, and an indictment, of Scandinavian society: Alma struggles with the distance between her pluralistic, liberal, environmentally conscious ideals and her actual xenophobia in a country grown rich from oil extraction. Still, she’s never demonized, even when it becomes hard to sympathize with her. A House in Norway recalls a canon of Norwegian writing—Hamsun, Solstad, Knausgaard—about alienated, disconnected men trying to reconcile their daily life with their creative and base desires, and uses a female artist to add a new dimension. The book helped me, when I was 20, understand Norway as a distinct place, not a romantic fantasy, and it made me think of my Norwegian passport as an obligation as well as an opportunity. If I’d read it before then, I might have started improving my cultural and language skills earlier. But I am trying, and hopefully the next time I pick up the novel, it won’t be in Charlotte Barslund’s translation. — Emma Sarappo"

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

The novel, A House in Norway by Vigdis Hjorth is the story of “a divorced textile artist” named Alma according to the back of the book. The novel was translated by Charlotte Barslund from the Norwegian language into the English language. Alma “lives alone in an old villa and rents out an apartment in her house to supplement her income” according to the back of the book. Alma believes she supports worker rights and feminism. Alma believes that she is less nationalist than other Norwegians (Hjorth & Barslund 30). Alma even had to contact the local government to see if they had a refugee family that wanted her to host. Alma’s application was turned down, she was secretly relieved (Hjorth & Barslund 15-16). Sometime after that, a Polish family shows up wanting to rent the apartment (Hjorth & Barslund 16). The Polish family includes a man and his pregnant wife. The couple’s daughter is born shortly after they move in. Alma is relieved when the family first moves in that the couple is from Poland instead of from somewhere else (Hjorth & Barslund 16). As the family life of a Polish family gets more complex, Alma is shown to have more complex views of immigrants than her ideals would have believed. I believe that Vigdis Hjorth and Charlotte Barslund’s novel, A House in Norway, wants to explore the complex view of Norwegians when it comes to immigration.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I liked this even more than Will and Testament, even though this book is much different in plot and tone. Hjorth is quickly becoming a new favorite—here’s hoping more of her titles are translated into English.

A House in Norway is about how we treat other people, and the ways in which we believe others should behave and confirm to a general way of life. It’s about being “othered”, unconscious bias, the perils of white feminism and capitalism, tenant rights, tapestry making, Norwegian history and the future of Europe all rolled up into a cool 175 pages.

Hjorth’s characters are always a bit of a mess, and redemption is not always guaranteed, but something about her writing draws me in. Despite this story being distinctly Norwegian, it has real universal appeal as we continue to vocalize and confront racism, bias, and privilege in 2020. Among my favorites of the year so far 4.5/5