Oslo, Norway

by John Holten

After his critically acclaimed debut novel The Readymades, John Holten returns with an intriguing story of love and loss that begins in the affluent and rapidly growing city of Oslo, Norway. It follows the story of William Day, an economic migrant who moves to the city to work as a mechanical engineer before chance thrusts him into the alluring world of Sybille and her artist friend Camille. As they do their best to reconcile growing differences in personality and culture, Camille’s growing influence over Sybille threatens the relationship, before her dangerous friends in the Oslo underworld finally undo William’s search for stability. This sets William – and the reader – in the direction of the novel’s horizon, which is set outside of historical time and space, taking in the history of oil exploration, Norse mythology, coronal mass ejections and post-apocalyptic landscapes.


Written with an emotional honesty, Holten places himself directly in the book as both narrator and first reader, highlighting the discrepancy between any map and the territory it represents. The second book of a project entitled Ragnarok, Oslo Norway is constructed in a unique style and set with a visually arresting layout: a self-styled literary atlas that is a pleasure to hold, it creates a new form for a reading experience in line with how we read online. The story is recounted over thirty nine chapters, each named after various streets and environs of the city of Oslo, followed by a legend that unlocks and provides information from the preceding narrative in a revealing interplay between what is real and what is fiction. Inviting a non-linear reading, Holten has galvanised a new type of literary experience that is open-ended, multi-layered, wholly contemporary.

189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

John Holten studied at University College Dublin and the Sorbonne-Paris IV before obtaining an MPhil from Trinity College Dublin. His novel The Readymades was published in 2011, and most recently he has written fictional or immersive texts for the artists Mahony, Darri Lorenzen, Jani Ruscica, Lorenzo Sandoval and The LGB Group. His work has been included at Center, Berlin, Malmö konsthall, The White Building London, David Zwirner Gallery New York (with Aengus Woods) and NGBK Berlin, amongst other places. In 2011 he received a Literature Bursary from the Irish Arts Council. His video commercials for his next novel Oslo, Norway have been exhibited in Plan B Gallery and Team Titanic, Berlin and an extract appeared in the first issue of the journal Gorse in spring

Reviews

[Toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

At about the halfway point I was asked exactly why I was enjoying this beautifully presented little book published to look like a hipster travel guide. My answer then stands true at the end too and the response from my interrogator wholly accurate. "That sure does sound like it ticks all of your obvious literary boxes."

It's a playful, self aware narrative bordering on blurring the same boundaries of creative non-fictiom as Binet, with an interesting structure, about a protagonist seemingly living at a disconnect with the world around him and an exploration of a failed love affair. It drifts off towards the end but Holten dragged me back in and saved the best for last with a discussion on love and fiction, storytelling and the storyteller.

The ideas born from the telling can get slowed down by words....objects could help fill the void...soiled underwear and rusting oil platforms, the agitated air between my face and computer screen, how, dear reader, I would like to throw a urinal at you.

[Julie Seager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last section kinda ruined it for me :/

[Carlota · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting. Like nothing I'd ever read before.

[Hil · Rating 5 out of 5]

A disintegrating relationship mapped over an unreliable map of Oslo. The act of writing and the gateway between characters and authors. I really enjoyed this!