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Syner og fristelser
Syner og fristelser følger benediktinermunken Othlo af St. Emmeram på to rejser: fra klosterets spisesal til dets sygefløj og fra Himlens rosenby til Helvedes smedjer og bordeller. I følgeskab med et lam og en kolerisk ånd ser han de frelstes fornøjelser og de dømtes pinsler, han hører om Himmelbyens Narrefest og ser tarmtapetet blævre over Vævertorvet i Helvede.
- GenresHistorical FictionDanish
171 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2015
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November 10, 2025Well I've read all three books in this trilogy, and I can't say I'm the better for it. Loved the occasional sentence, was not put off by the rampant scatology, but never grasped the larger point.
November 1, 2025
Pray for the souls that are blinded and led astray by the shine of temporal teachings. The fumes emanating from their thistle concoctions and herbal salves have gone to their heads. It has made them arrogant and proud like the sorcerers in the court of Pharaoh. They'll remain oblivious to the light that shone over you when your head was immersed in gruel. All their knowledge belongs to the half-perished world where you lie dying, and which itself is withering away, even as you are dying within it. In the true world, the one slowly being pulled down over your heads, their teachings will be worthless. The body and the soul will be one, requiring no other care than the Lord's radiance.
Sublunar (2025) is Johanne Sorgenfri Ottosen's translation of Harald Voetmann's Syner og fristelser (2015)
This is the third of what the UK publisher of the first two books, Lolli Editions, describes as an "erudite and grotesque trilogy about humankind's inhuman will to conquer nature", after Awake (2022) from the original Vågen (2011), and Sublunar (2023) from Alt under månen (2014) both from the same translator and published by Lolli Editions (UK) and New Directions (US), the latter the sole publisher of this third instalment with Lolli Editions in abeyance.
Awake was focused on Pliny the Elder (AD 23/24 – 79) and his nephew Pliny the Younger, Sublunar was centred around the Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), the last major figure of the pre-telescope era of astronomy, and Visions and Temptations is narrated by Otloh of St. Emmeram (c. 1010 – c. 1072) - a Benedictine monk, composer, writer and music theorist., known for two main literary works as a preface explains:
OTHLO OF SAINT EMMERAM (OTLOH, OTHLOH, OTLOCH, OTLON, etc.), born circa 1010 near Freising, died in the early 1070s in Regensburg. Became a Benedictine monk against the wishes of his wealthy family, primarily associated with St. Emmeram's Abbey in Regensburg, Bavaria. Dean and leader of the monastic school for a time.
His most important works are the Liber visionum (Book of Visions), which deals with epiphanies, dreams, and fever visions experienced by himself and others, and Cuiusdam monachi liber de tentationibus suis (A Monk's Book of Temptations), in which he tells of theological delusions and other imminent temptations. A third work containing biographical material, Confessio actuum meorum (Confession of My Deeds), is lost.
Voetmann explained the choice of the final subject of his trilogy in two interviews at the time Awake was published in English:
"With Awake I was interested in letting the proto-scientist Pliny speak of his hatred towards nature now, in a time of ecological disaster. Let him applaud us. With Sublunar I was interested in Tycho Brahe’s unwitting and unintentional destruction of the concept of eternity, and the way that exact modern science (chemistry, astronomy) germinated in a swamp of messed up hermetic mysticism. With Visions and Temptations I tried to write about Medieval Christianity in a world that is still so affected by all sorts of religious extremism. I think if you look at the three books together they might also be about the different systems of thought we construct: philosophical, religious, scientific, and our lives within these systems. We tend to build them and they always tend to crush the humanity out of us."
from an interview with Tristan Foster at Full Stop
"Othlo of St. Emmeram was completely trapped in the religious systems of his age. For him, the world was only an illusory veil, and he tried to catch glimpses of the true and eternal beyond it. He looked for signs of divine favour, or the opposite, in everything, and one moment felt sure of his salvation, the next of his sinfulness and eternal damnation. I said earlier that there is a movement towards the compassionate in the trilogy, and that is true. But it was also important for me that the trilogy did not only move forwards in time and thereby came to point at some sort of progress in thinking and science. Because that is only half the truth. We are still deep in the shit and our science has not saved us. So it does not end with enlightenment or modernity and pointing out a way forward. It ends with painful medieval religion, in a place that is more desperate than Pliny’s chamber. In Othlo’s religion, humankind has no dignity at all, and its only purpose is to sing the glory of its tyrant. So I had thought the book about Othlo would be the darkest of the three. And in some ways, it might be. But yearning and love arose in that darkness."
from an interview with Denise Rose Hansen, founder of Lolli Editions
The novel is narrated by Othlo (his preferred rendition) as he lies dying, in the care of fellow monks
OTHLO or OTLOH or OTHLOH, I like the faint exhalation mid-way, OTHLO, and for as long as I live I would prefer that this exhalation, H, is not exhaled at the name's end as the final letter.
And I would prefer not to start the pronunciation with a clear exhalation either, HOTLO, as though my name, by this initial sigh, was to convey how ancestral sin has huffed us all into existence.
But let them write OTLOH when I have passed on, and then in its written form the name itself will neatly tell the story of my fate. First a simple depiction of life in the womb, followed by a cross, a chair, a fat belly, and a final exhalation.
But is mainly in the form of a series of Dantean visions where he is led on a guided tour of heaven and (mostly) hell, taking in, inter alia, the Garden of Head Bearers, where the cephalophores are led by Dionysius (St. Denis of Paris); the island of Æsphydogyllus, where he makes a companion of a large sheep, which he names Archpresbyter Werinharius, and ignoring its offer to be a sacrifice instead slaughters the son of a sea-monster provoking its wrath and his guide's comment that mankind cannot empathise with the denizens of the sea so kills them with impunity; Antiherusalem (hell) with various torments such as a ditch, a pigsty, a brothel where heavenly creatures innocently fornicate with the condemned, and a tapesty made from the entrails of the condemned into which his own words are woven; Necubia, a form of purgatory for the not-so-bad and the not-so-good; and heaven, where the Blessed are given one day where rather than praying for the condemned they can instead make sport of those who rely on worldy wisdom, which is where this novel offers a challenge to the wisdom of Pliny and the science of Braye:
Once a year, the City of Heaven celebrates the Feast of Fools. On this day, all those who were haughty followers of temporal doctrines while on earth are summoned from the pits of pain and allowed to deliver lectures in the square. The citizens of Heaven cherish this day. They exchange their radiant white robes forcrimson garments, adorning their hair with wildflowers and juicy strawber-ries, and that in itself, my guide told me, is truly a sight to behold.
The proud scholars are told that their knowledge might earn them heavenly citizenship and deliverance from eternal suffer-ing, provided their lecture convinces the audience of the significance and validity of the worldly arts they dedicated their lives to. As a result, the scholars approach their heavenly lectures with utmost dedication. As they delve into the taste of urine or the mysteries of the gut, sporting their sullen, proud faces, a few jesters in the crowd cannot resist playing pranks on them …
[One] prankster pretends to be an earthly scholar too, redeemed by the Lord because of his lectures in the square. He asks highly detailed questions about the use of herbs named Sillygrass and Gold-Leaved Bumjoy in treating diseases such as Liverfart and Pottythirst, and all the finely dressed citizens are highly amused by the scholars' endeavors to explain, delivering their awkward words through quivering lips as they, in their pride, still cling to the hope that this might secure their redemption.
Although this is rather more exalted passage, fitting its setting, than most in the novel which delve, often literally, into copious amounts of assorted bodily fluids.
An impressive trilogy - and one that in a way may work better read as one work, than as three separate, rather slight and fragmentary ones - although each are completely stand alone and I'd recommend Sublunar as the strongest. 3.5 stars rounded to 4 for the overall work.
Sublunar (2025) is Johanne Sorgenfri Ottosen's translation of Harald Voetmann's Syner og fristelser (2015)
This is the third of what the UK publisher of the first two books, Lolli Editions, describes as an "erudite and grotesque trilogy about humankind's inhuman will to conquer nature", after Awake (2022) from the original Vågen (2011), and Sublunar (2023) from Alt under månen (2014) both from the same translator and published by Lolli Editions (UK) and New Directions (US), the latter the sole publisher of this third instalment with Lolli Editions in abeyance.
Awake was focused on Pliny the Elder (AD 23/24 – 79) and his nephew Pliny the Younger, Sublunar was centred around the Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), the last major figure of the pre-telescope era of astronomy, and Visions and Temptations is narrated by Otloh of St. Emmeram (c. 1010 – c. 1072) - a Benedictine monk, composer, writer and music theorist., known for two main literary works as a preface explains:
OTHLO OF SAINT EMMERAM (OTLOH, OTHLOH, OTLOCH, OTLON, etc.), born circa 1010 near Freising, died in the early 1070s in Regensburg. Became a Benedictine monk against the wishes of his wealthy family, primarily associated with St. Emmeram's Abbey in Regensburg, Bavaria. Dean and leader of the monastic school for a time.
His most important works are the Liber visionum (Book of Visions), which deals with epiphanies, dreams, and fever visions experienced by himself and others, and Cuiusdam monachi liber de tentationibus suis (A Monk's Book of Temptations), in which he tells of theological delusions and other imminent temptations. A third work containing biographical material, Confessio actuum meorum (Confession of My Deeds), is lost.
Voetmann explained the choice of the final subject of his trilogy in two interviews at the time Awake was published in English:
"With Awake I was interested in letting the proto-scientist Pliny speak of his hatred towards nature now, in a time of ecological disaster. Let him applaud us. With Sublunar I was interested in Tycho Brahe’s unwitting and unintentional destruction of the concept of eternity, and the way that exact modern science (chemistry, astronomy) germinated in a swamp of messed up hermetic mysticism. With Visions and Temptations I tried to write about Medieval Christianity in a world that is still so affected by all sorts of religious extremism. I think if you look at the three books together they might also be about the different systems of thought we construct: philosophical, religious, scientific, and our lives within these systems. We tend to build them and they always tend to crush the humanity out of us."
from an interview with Tristan Foster at Full Stop
"Othlo of St. Emmeram was completely trapped in the religious systems of his age. For him, the world was only an illusory veil, and he tried to catch glimpses of the true and eternal beyond it. He looked for signs of divine favour, or the opposite, in everything, and one moment felt sure of his salvation, the next of his sinfulness and eternal damnation. I said earlier that there is a movement towards the compassionate in the trilogy, and that is true. But it was also important for me that the trilogy did not only move forwards in time and thereby came to point at some sort of progress in thinking and science. Because that is only half the truth. We are still deep in the shit and our science has not saved us. So it does not end with enlightenment or modernity and pointing out a way forward. It ends with painful medieval religion, in a place that is more desperate than Pliny’s chamber. In Othlo’s religion, humankind has no dignity at all, and its only purpose is to sing the glory of its tyrant. So I had thought the book about Othlo would be the darkest of the three. And in some ways, it might be. But yearning and love arose in that darkness."
from an interview with Denise Rose Hansen, founder of Lolli Editions
The novel is narrated by Othlo (his preferred rendition) as he lies dying, in the care of fellow monks
OTHLO or OTLOH or OTHLOH, I like the faint exhalation mid-way, OTHLO, and for as long as I live I would prefer that this exhalation, H, is not exhaled at the name's end as the final letter.
And I would prefer not to start the pronunciation with a clear exhalation either, HOTLO, as though my name, by this initial sigh, was to convey how ancestral sin has huffed us all into existence.
But let them write OTLOH when I have passed on, and then in its written form the name itself will neatly tell the story of my fate. First a simple depiction of life in the womb, followed by a cross, a chair, a fat belly, and a final exhalation.
But is mainly in the form of a series of Dantean visions where he is led on a guided tour of heaven and (mostly) hell, taking in, inter alia, the Garden of Head Bearers, where the cephalophores are led by Dionysius (St. Denis of Paris); the island of Æsphydogyllus, where he makes a companion of a large sheep, which he names Archpresbyter Werinharius, and ignoring its offer to be a sacrifice instead slaughters the son of a sea-monster provoking its wrath and his guide's comment that mankind cannot empathise with the denizens of the sea so kills them with impunity; Antiherusalem (hell) with various torments such as a ditch, a pigsty, a brothel where heavenly creatures innocently fornicate with the condemned, and a tapesty made from the entrails of the condemned into which his own words are woven; Necubia, a form of purgatory for the not-so-bad and the not-so-good; and heaven, where the Blessed are given one day where rather than praying for the condemned they can instead make sport of those who rely on worldy wisdom, which is where this novel offers a challenge to the wisdom of Pliny and the science of Braye:
Once a year, the City of Heaven celebrates the Feast of Fools. On this day, all those who were haughty followers of temporal doctrines while on earth are summoned from the pits of pain and allowed to deliver lectures in the square. The citizens of Heaven cherish this day. They exchange their radiant white robes forcrimson garments, adorning their hair with wildflowers and juicy strawber-ries, and that in itself, my guide told me, is truly a sight to behold.
The proud scholars are told that their knowledge might earn them heavenly citizenship and deliverance from eternal suffer-ing, provided their lecture convinces the audience of the significance and validity of the worldly arts they dedicated their lives to. As a result, the scholars approach their heavenly lectures with utmost dedication. As they delve into the taste of urine or the mysteries of the gut, sporting their sullen, proud faces, a few jesters in the crowd cannot resist playing pranks on them …
[One] prankster pretends to be an earthly scholar too, redeemed by the Lord because of his lectures in the square. He asks highly detailed questions about the use of herbs named Sillygrass and Gold-Leaved Bumjoy in treating diseases such as Liverfart and Pottythirst, and all the finely dressed citizens are highly amused by the scholars' endeavors to explain, delivering their awkward words through quivering lips as they, in their pride, still cling to the hope that this might secure their redemption.
Although this is rather more exalted passage, fitting its setting, than most in the novel which delve, often literally, into copious amounts of assorted bodily fluids.
An impressive trilogy - and one that in a way may work better read as one work, than as three separate, rather slight and fragmentary ones - although each are completely stand alone and I'd recommend Sublunar as the strongest. 3.5 stars rounded to 4 for the overall work.
August 29, 2025
The third of Voetmann’s trilogy, after “Awake” and “Sublunar,” and possibly the best. This time, Voetmann takes us to the deathbed of Othlo, an 11-century mystic, and narrates his decidedly unquiet demise. The titular “visions and temptations” are Othlo’s hallucinatory tour of heaven and hell. He doesn’t understand the rules of the former and the latter shakes his faith to the core: “[I]n that very moment, I decided never to let my hand write another word, not even if my abbot or my [heavenly] guide commanded me to, lest these words be woven with the guts of unbaptized children in Hell.” That, by the way, is a literal description of a particularly cruel torture—“The Tapestry of Entrails.”
Which reminds me: Here’s your warning. As with the rest of Voetmann’s books, the sheer volume of human effluvia will repel sensitive readers. But the cruelty of “the Lord’s slave drivers” doling out ever more inventive punishments in Hell will try even the hardest constitutions.
A final note. I obviously have no Danish to compare, but Johanna Sorgenfri Ottosen’s translations of this trilogy have been superb. She masterfully conveys a distinct literary voice even while inhabiting the first person monologue of three very different characters plucked from different places and times. Not an easy task for a translator!
Which reminds me: Here’s your warning. As with the rest of Voetmann’s books, the sheer volume of human effluvia will repel sensitive readers. But the cruelty of “the Lord’s slave drivers” doling out ever more inventive punishments in Hell will try even the hardest constitutions.
A final note. I obviously have no Danish to compare, but Johanna Sorgenfri Ottosen’s translations of this trilogy have been superb. She masterfully conveys a distinct literary voice even while inhabiting the first person monologue of three very different characters plucked from different places and times. Not an easy task for a translator!
December 20, 2025
gets something important, i think, theologically correct, which is that the virgil-esque person who is designated to guide you through heaven and hell is probably really sick of the job and is tired of your stupid tourist bullshit
April 3, 2025
This was a good read if you like the translations in the dialogue. It reminds me of other translations of differing people who tell of hell and of heaven. In this case it seemed to be almost all of hell and not heaven. Brother Othlo seemed to be are narrator through out the entire story and he seemed to be in Hell in the picture he was on the lamb. The pig was only in the Jewish peoples area, we don't know if this is Hell to them in this case but it probably is.
July 12, 2025
This one was so much better than the first two by Voetmann.
The religious aspect made it easier to understand, considering I’m an ex-Catholic. Also, this is me realizing just how much semen is incorporated in Voetmann’s works. Do with that what you will.
Thank you New Directions publishing for the ARC.
The religious aspect made it easier to understand, considering I’m an ex-Catholic. Also, this is me realizing just how much semen is incorporated in Voetmann’s works. Do with that what you will.
Thank you New Directions publishing for the ARC.
November 29, 2025
“We only have words for impermanence and falsehoods.”
A historical fever dream following the mystic visions of Othlo of Saint Emmeram as he flits in and out of consciousness on his maybe-death bed. A spiteful and lustful monk, trying to make sense of his life as it drains out of him from the raw clay of learning and experience he has lived: the flagellating teachings of his faith, the raw earthly natures of man (his sins and excretions.)
Life is always as base at it is holy. There is no true understanding of divinity without understanding the banal in it. The fury of the spiritual guide, the Feast of Fools, the shitting and pissing, male and female, hell and heaven, sinner and saint.
Recently read Michael Cisco’s Black Brane which was a fun comparison point for this. A broken body on a metaphysical journey staring down nonexistence and the secret, bewildering mystery of everything, but depicting a postmodern and scientific unknowing versus this medieval, Catholic mystic unknowing.
“Only through the earthly silence, the heavenly praise can be heard, and louder than the heavenly praise is the heavenly silence.”
A historical fever dream following the mystic visions of Othlo of Saint Emmeram as he flits in and out of consciousness on his maybe-death bed. A spiteful and lustful monk, trying to make sense of his life as it drains out of him from the raw clay of learning and experience he has lived: the flagellating teachings of his faith, the raw earthly natures of man (his sins and excretions.)
Life is always as base at it is holy. There is no true understanding of divinity without understanding the banal in it. The fury of the spiritual guide, the Feast of Fools, the shitting and pissing, male and female, hell and heaven, sinner and saint.
Recently read Michael Cisco’s Black Brane which was a fun comparison point for this. A broken body on a metaphysical journey staring down nonexistence and the secret, bewildering mystery of everything, but depicting a postmodern and scientific unknowing versus this medieval, Catholic mystic unknowing.
“Only through the earthly silence, the heavenly praise can be heard, and louder than the heavenly praise is the heavenly silence.”
September 11, 2025
Hm. Not my taste, literally. A bit vulgar with quite a bit mentions of urine and semen and the word stench. I wanted to read that because I love The Swallowed Man and Lapvona and that seemed a bit in that vein when I read title and blurb, but I would not recommend it for fans of them. I liked some specific sentences and thoughts regarding religion but most of it was a Dante's The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Purgatorio - Paradiso-esque journey through sins and/or hell. A lot of farting and shitting mentioned, too.
tw/cw: sins, blasphemy, urine, blood, illness/sickness, chronic pain, adultery, sex, sexual acts, mentions of the deadly sins (gluttony, lust), farting/shitting, bloodletting, antisemitism
tw/cw: sins, blasphemy, urine, blood, illness/sickness, chronic pain, adultery, sex, sexual acts, mentions of the deadly sins (gluttony, lust), farting/shitting, bloodletting, antisemitism
January 5, 2026
I could wax on and on about VaT and this triptych, but Voetmann would probably find that preening a violation of the whole ethic on display.
The fact is this is going to be cannonical. In a series of novels that asks, philosophically, 'what if one actually considers that Sisyphus is actually not having a good time at all?', you will scarcely find more moving or true portrayals of human existence.
Written like one of Pounds Cantos or an Eliot epic with the kaleidoscope removed, every word is vital. You will laugh, you will cry, you will live. What else is there?
The fact is this is going to be cannonical. In a series of novels that asks, philosophically, 'what if one actually considers that Sisyphus is actually not having a good time at all?', you will scarcely find more moving or true portrayals of human existence.
Written like one of Pounds Cantos or an Eliot epic with the kaleidoscope removed, every word is vital. You will laugh, you will cry, you will live. What else is there?
March 10, 2018
Jeg tror ikke jeg helt har forstået hvorfor den er skrevet. Jeg læste den færdig fordi jeg forventede en forklaring eller forståelse, men den kom aldrig. Den var i lange passager ret ulækker.
November 12, 2025
superficially reminiscent of Catling's superb Hollow, albeit much more lurid and unfocused
August 16, 2016
Var lektier og føltes som lektier.
Ikke min kop te, trods humor og tarmtapet & røvhuller med sommerfuglevinger.
Ikke min kop te, trods humor og tarmtapet & røvhuller med sommerfuglevinger.
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