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Arvid Jansen #2
Echoland
Twelve-year-old Arvid and his family are on holiday, staying with his grandparents in Denmark. Confused by the underlying tension between his mother and grandmother, Arvid is grappling with his own sense of self. He’s on the cusp of becoming a teenager, feeling awkward in his own skin.
As Arvid cycles around town, down to the beach with its view of the lighthouse, his new-found freedom fuels his desire to experience life.
Echoland is a subtle and truthful snapshot of growing up, with an emotional depth that lingers long after its final pages.
As Arvid cycles around town, down to the beach with its view of the lighthouse, his new-found freedom fuels his desire to experience life.
Echoland is a subtle and truthful snapshot of growing up, with an emotional depth that lingers long after its final pages.
136 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1989
17 people are currently reading
328 people want to read
About the author
Per Petterson
24 books833 followersPetterson knew from the age of 18 that he wanted to be a writer, but didn't embark on this career for many years - his debut book, the short story collection Aske i munnen, sand i skoa, (Ashes in the Mouth, Sand in the Shoes) was published 17 years later, when Petterson was 35. Previously he had worked for years in a factory as an unskilled labourer, as his parents had done before him, and had also trained as a librarian, and worked as a bookseller.
In 1990, the year following the publication of his first novel, Pettersen's family was struck by tragedy - his mother, father, brother and nephew were killed in a fire onboard a ferry.
His third novel Til Sibir (To Siberia) was nominated for The Nordic Council's Literature Prize, and his fourth novel I kjølvannet (In the Wake), which is a young man's story of losing his family in the Scandinavian Star ferry disaster in 1990, won the Brage Prize for 2000.
His breakthrough, however, was Ut og stjæle hester (Out Stealing Horses) which was awarded two top literary prizes in Norway - the The Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature and the Booksellers’ Best Book of the Year Award.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/perpet...
In 1990, the year following the publication of his first novel, Pettersen's family was struck by tragedy - his mother, father, brother and nephew were killed in a fire onboard a ferry.
His third novel Til Sibir (To Siberia) was nominated for The Nordic Council's Literature Prize, and his fourth novel I kjølvannet (In the Wake), which is a young man's story of losing his family in the Scandinavian Star ferry disaster in 1990, won the Brage Prize for 2000.
His breakthrough, however, was Ut og stjæle hester (Out Stealing Horses) which was awarded two top literary prizes in Norway - the The Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature and the Booksellers’ Best Book of the Year Award.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/perpet...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
August 24, 2020
No one could hurt him, no one could reach him, he could go wherever he wanted.
2.5 stars for this early coming-of-age novel - but 5 for the author's oeuvre and my review will focus as much on Echoland in the context of the wider work as it does on it as a standalone piece.
Per Petterson is one of my absolute favourite authors and this is his 8th book to be translated into English - all of which I have read. However it was his first novel and second book after the story collection Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes - to be written in the original Norwegian, and as with that book it is an early work as not as stylistically developed as his later masterpieces from To Siberia on, notably the IFFP and Impac winning Out Stealing Horses.
For my own benefit, as much as anything, his fiction is as follows, with the dates of English translations following:
1987 Aske i munnen, sand i skoa (short stories), translated as Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes (2011) by Don Bartlett
1989 Ekkoland, translated as Echoland (2016) by Don Bartlett
1992 Det er greit for meg translated as It's Fine By Me (2011) by Don Bartlett
1996 Til Sibir translated as To Siberia (1998) by Anne Born
2002 I kjølvannet translated as In the Wake (2002) by Anne Born
2003 Ut og stjæle heste translated as Out Stealing Horses (2005) by Anne Born
2008 Jeg forbanner tidens elv translated as I Curse the River of Time (2010) by Charlotte Barslund
2012 Jeg nekter translated as I Refuse (2014) by Don Bartlett
and since writing this review:
2018 Menn i min situasjon - as yet untranslated but rights sold to Graywolf/Harvill Secker
The 2004 non-fiction Månen over Porten (which could be rendered 'The Moon over the Gate'), is as yet untranslated into English, but contains Petterson’s observations about reading and writing novels, where he discusses his favourite authors such as Simone De Beauvoir (reading, aged 17, her Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter was a key moment for him), Ernest Hemingway, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Karen Blixen, Kjell Askildsen, Grace Paley, John Fante, Raymond Carver, Ola Bauer, Aksel Sandemose and Paul Bowles.
One recurring character in Petterson's work is 'Arvid Jansen':
An Arvid character features, albeit not always with an identical history, as a 6yo in Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes, turning 12 years old in this novel, aged c.13 in It’s Fine By Me (although the story is told from the perspective of Arvid's friend), aged 37 but looking back to his late teens in I Curse the River of Time and aged 43 in In The Wake. (He is absent from To Siberia, albeit this is based on Petterson's mother who has a similar background to Arvid's, Out Stealing Horses, and I Refuse).
Echoland was written in October 1989. Reading it in April 1990 his mother told him 'Well, I hope the next one won't be that childish,' which were the last words she spoke to him, as a week later she, and Petterson's father, brother and nephew all died in the Scandinavian Star ferry disaster, while travelling from Oslo to Frederikshavn in Jutland, Denmark, his mother's family hometown. In In The Wake, Arvid suffers a similar tragedy.
Echoland also opens and closes with a, less tragic, family ferry journey from Oslo, where Arvid's family live, to Jutland, where they visit his maternal grandparents each summer.
The title is taken from a poem Poul la Cour (a Danish wind turbine pioneer):
"Aa Ekkoland hvor Luften/ har gemte Spor, har Svar,/ rughvide Land, min Barndoms hvasse Sted/ svimmelt af Luft og Jord"
"Oh Echoland, where the air / has hidden traces, has answers, rye-white land, my childhood's happy abode / giddy with earth and air"
Arvid's mother's line is descended from Bruno, a Neopolitan engineer, who worked his way North across Europe, ending up in Denmark where he helped build, the Limfjordsbroen railway pontoon bridge from Alborg to Limfjordsbroen in the late 1860s, then marrying a local girl. And his legacy lives on in Arvid's look and temperament:
In each generation after him there was one Italian, and when Arvid thought about him he saw an open, tanned face with dark curls above it, and that’s how Arvid himself looked, and what he didn’t know about Bruno, he made up.
And he thought, you don’t have to be Norwegian, you can be something else, somewhere else other than Oslo. You can be an Italian in Denmark. You can leave your own skin and be whoever you like and no one can get near you.
This is largely a coming-of-age novel, but family tensions and secrets are hinted at in the tension between Arvid's mother and grandmother, some suggestions of an illegitimate pregnancy in his mother's youth (perhaps Arvid or his 14 yo sister Gry being the result) as well as the tragedy of the 'Italian' in the previous generation, his uncle Jasper, adored by Arvid's mother, but who died ('at the same age as Jesus', his mother points out) in a boating accident. There are certainly the hidden traces of the poem in the air - but few answers.
And for Arvid himself, he makes friends with Mogens, 18 months older, in a Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn type of relationship, but Mogens actually seems more interested in Gry, who is suddenly, this summer, turning into a young woman. (Her hair was a yellow flag, her shorts were green and her long legs brown with light-coloured down. She was his sister Gry and yet so unfamiliar, he didn’t know her.) Arvid himself has two awkward encounters with a young woman who he first spies on petting with her boyfriend, and who later returns on her own and flirts with him.
The same Mogens reappears in I Curse The River of Time - written 19 years later and with the characters 25 years older - when Arvid meets him, but initially fails to recognise him, on the ubiquitous ferry crossing from Oslo to Jutland, seeing him only as:
a man there I did not like. I did not like his face when he looked at me. It was as if he knew something about my person that I was not aware of, which for him was clear as day, as if I were standing there naked, with no control over what he saw, nor could I see in his eyes what he saw in mine.
Arvid also loses himself in a world inspired by the books he reads - Klit-Per, Pelle the Conqueror, Terje Vigen from Nordic literature and Huckleberry Finn and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea more widely. When he points out to Mogens the spot where Terje Vigen landed, he gets a blank look, and while his father has an extensive library, his actual reading is much less extensive:
But he and Arvid had looked over the bookcase and knew they couldn’t talk about what was there, the conversation would be over before it started, and he had to travel alone.
He did travel alone and he went wherever he wanted: he skied across Greenland, sailed on the GJOA through the North-west Passage, stood two years before the mast in the storms around Cape Horn, saw the English pounding away at the fortifications around Sevastopol with bullets whizzing round their heads and the young count who was not yet famous shouted: Get under cover, you young fool! He lay in the grass on the banks of the Mississippi and saw Huck Finn get on board the raft with the fish they were going to fry on the fire, and with Martin Eden he walked into the bourgeois houses of San Francisco afraid his broad shoulders would knock over all the porcelain over when he turned round, and he didn’t even know how to eat with a knife and fork like they did but decided he would learn everything that they knew and more. And he rowed with Terje Vigen from Norway to Denmark because his wife and children were starving and he made land right here, with aching hands and fingers that couldn’t be straightened after all those freezing hours grasping the oars. He must have been exhausted, and his back stiff as a board, but pleased too as he rowed back with what he came for. And then he strayed into the English blockade and everything was lost.
‘Who was he then?’
‘Who?’
‘Terje Vigen!’
‘Forget it’ Arvid said.
Overall, an early work and not as sophisticated as his later brilliant novels. Best read, as it has been translated, after the later works to add to the picture of Arvid Jansen's life and Per Petterson's development as a novelist.
2.5 stars for this early coming-of-age novel - but 5 for the author's oeuvre and my review will focus as much on Echoland in the context of the wider work as it does on it as a standalone piece.
Per Petterson is one of my absolute favourite authors and this is his 8th book to be translated into English - all of which I have read. However it was his first novel and second book after the story collection Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes - to be written in the original Norwegian, and as with that book it is an early work as not as stylistically developed as his later masterpieces from To Siberia on, notably the IFFP and Impac winning Out Stealing Horses.
For my own benefit, as much as anything, his fiction is as follows, with the dates of English translations following:
1987 Aske i munnen, sand i skoa (short stories), translated as Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes (2011) by Don Bartlett
1989 Ekkoland, translated as Echoland (2016) by Don Bartlett
1992 Det er greit for meg translated as It's Fine By Me (2011) by Don Bartlett
1996 Til Sibir translated as To Siberia (1998) by Anne Born
2002 I kjølvannet translated as In the Wake (2002) by Anne Born
2003 Ut og stjæle heste translated as Out Stealing Horses (2005) by Anne Born
2008 Jeg forbanner tidens elv translated as I Curse the River of Time (2010) by Charlotte Barslund
2012 Jeg nekter translated as I Refuse (2014) by Don Bartlett
and since writing this review:
2018 Menn i min situasjon - as yet untranslated but rights sold to Graywolf/Harvill Secker
The 2004 non-fiction Månen over Porten (which could be rendered 'The Moon over the Gate'), is as yet untranslated into English, but contains Petterson’s observations about reading and writing novels, where he discusses his favourite authors such as Simone De Beauvoir (reading, aged 17, her Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter was a key moment for him), Ernest Hemingway, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Karen Blixen, Kjell Askildsen, Grace Paley, John Fante, Raymond Carver, Ola Bauer, Aksel Sandemose and Paul Bowles.
One recurring character in Petterson's work is 'Arvid Jansen':
He's not my alter ego, he's my stunt man. Things happen to him that could have happened to me, but didn't. He has my mentality.(Source: https://amp.theguardian.com/culture/2...)
An Arvid character features, albeit not always with an identical history, as a 6yo in Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes, turning 12 years old in this novel, aged c.13 in It’s Fine By Me (although the story is told from the perspective of Arvid's friend), aged 37 but looking back to his late teens in I Curse the River of Time and aged 43 in In The Wake. (He is absent from To Siberia, albeit this is based on Petterson's mother who has a similar background to Arvid's, Out Stealing Horses, and I Refuse).
Echoland was written in October 1989. Reading it in April 1990 his mother told him 'Well, I hope the next one won't be that childish,' which were the last words she spoke to him, as a week later she, and Petterson's father, brother and nephew all died in the Scandinavian Star ferry disaster, while travelling from Oslo to Frederikshavn in Jutland, Denmark, his mother's family hometown. In In The Wake, Arvid suffers a similar tragedy.
Echoland also opens and closes with a, less tragic, family ferry journey from Oslo, where Arvid's family live, to Jutland, where they visit his maternal grandparents each summer.
The title is taken from a poem Poul la Cour (a Danish wind turbine pioneer):
"Aa Ekkoland hvor Luften/ har gemte Spor, har Svar,/ rughvide Land, min Barndoms hvasse Sted/ svimmelt af Luft og Jord"
"Oh Echoland, where the air / has hidden traces, has answers, rye-white land, my childhood's happy abode / giddy with earth and air"
Arvid's mother's line is descended from Bruno, a Neopolitan engineer, who worked his way North across Europe, ending up in Denmark where he helped build, the Limfjordsbroen railway pontoon bridge from Alborg to Limfjordsbroen in the late 1860s, then marrying a local girl. And his legacy lives on in Arvid's look and temperament:
In each generation after him there was one Italian, and when Arvid thought about him he saw an open, tanned face with dark curls above it, and that’s how Arvid himself looked, and what he didn’t know about Bruno, he made up.
And he thought, you don’t have to be Norwegian, you can be something else, somewhere else other than Oslo. You can be an Italian in Denmark. You can leave your own skin and be whoever you like and no one can get near you.
This is largely a coming-of-age novel, but family tensions and secrets are hinted at in the tension between Arvid's mother and grandmother, some suggestions of an illegitimate pregnancy in his mother's youth (perhaps Arvid or his 14 yo sister Gry being the result) as well as the tragedy of the 'Italian' in the previous generation, his uncle Jasper, adored by Arvid's mother, but who died ('at the same age as Jesus', his mother points out) in a boating accident. There are certainly the hidden traces of the poem in the air - but few answers.
And for Arvid himself, he makes friends with Mogens, 18 months older, in a Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn type of relationship, but Mogens actually seems more interested in Gry, who is suddenly, this summer, turning into a young woman. (Her hair was a yellow flag, her shorts were green and her long legs brown with light-coloured down. She was his sister Gry and yet so unfamiliar, he didn’t know her.) Arvid himself has two awkward encounters with a young woman who he first spies on petting with her boyfriend, and who later returns on her own and flirts with him.
The same Mogens reappears in I Curse The River of Time - written 19 years later and with the characters 25 years older - when Arvid meets him, but initially fails to recognise him, on the ubiquitous ferry crossing from Oslo to Jutland, seeing him only as:
a man there I did not like. I did not like his face when he looked at me. It was as if he knew something about my person that I was not aware of, which for him was clear as day, as if I were standing there naked, with no control over what he saw, nor could I see in his eyes what he saw in mine.
Arvid also loses himself in a world inspired by the books he reads - Klit-Per, Pelle the Conqueror, Terje Vigen from Nordic literature and Huckleberry Finn and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea more widely. When he points out to Mogens the spot where Terje Vigen landed, he gets a blank look, and while his father has an extensive library, his actual reading is much less extensive:
But he and Arvid had looked over the bookcase and knew they couldn’t talk about what was there, the conversation would be over before it started, and he had to travel alone.
He did travel alone and he went wherever he wanted: he skied across Greenland, sailed on the GJOA through the North-west Passage, stood two years before the mast in the storms around Cape Horn, saw the English pounding away at the fortifications around Sevastopol with bullets whizzing round their heads and the young count who was not yet famous shouted: Get under cover, you young fool! He lay in the grass on the banks of the Mississippi and saw Huck Finn get on board the raft with the fish they were going to fry on the fire, and with Martin Eden he walked into the bourgeois houses of San Francisco afraid his broad shoulders would knock over all the porcelain over when he turned round, and he didn’t even know how to eat with a knife and fork like they did but decided he would learn everything that they knew and more. And he rowed with Terje Vigen from Norway to Denmark because his wife and children were starving and he made land right here, with aching hands and fingers that couldn’t be straightened after all those freezing hours grasping the oars. He must have been exhausted, and his back stiff as a board, but pleased too as he rowed back with what he came for. And then he strayed into the English blockade and everything was lost.
‘Who was he then?’
‘Who?’
‘Terje Vigen!’
‘Forget it’ Arvid said.
Overall, an early work and not as sophisticated as his later brilliant novels. Best read, as it has been translated, after the later works to add to the picture of Arvid Jansen's life and Per Petterson's development as a novelist.
September 3, 2019
Echoland was a random borrow for me from the library, due to the short length and the fact this was originally written in Danish but now translated to English. Set in Denmark during the summer, a young boy called Arvid who is 12 and staying with family members, some of them having a rocky relationship with others and now that Arvid is getting older, he is feeling lost about who he is and why there are tensions amongst his loved ones. I liked the Scandinavian setting, as I have ancestral connections to that part of the world. The last few chapters sadly ruined my reading experience a little, the pacing was far too rushed and some moments didn't seem explained well. The ending itself was very rushed and not what I was expecting.
December 25, 2019
A twelve year old boy, on holiday with his folks at his grandparents in Jutland. He is still a child, but on the cusp of his teenage years. He enjoys playing with his slightly older neighbour as always, but this friend seems more interested in his fourteen year old sister than him.
Tensions and undercurrents amongst the adults are noticed but understanding is tantalisingly just out of reach.
Petersen captures well the end of innocence in this collection of short stories.
Laconic, sparse and moving
Tensions and undercurrents amongst the adults are noticed but understanding is tantalisingly just out of reach.
Petersen captures well the end of innocence in this collection of short stories.
Laconic, sparse and moving
April 24, 2017
It has been a while since I have read Per Pettersen, I have certainly missed him and have read all the previous translations. My only problem with several of his books are that they are too short, and Echoland is indeed that, but having said that it is up there with his very best. I was surprised to read it was written more than 30 years ago, and yet bears those similar trademarks and pillars of his more recent work (Out Stealing Horses, To Siberia, In The Wake).
It is the story of a 12 year old boy’s summer holiday on the Danish coast. He is a Norwegian of Italian descent and arrives with his family by yacht. It is easy to identify with, as many of us will have had similar holidays when we were 12 – and in that respect it is a coming of age story, a memorable and significant two weeks in a young boy’s life.
This is what Pettersen does so well. During the two weeks much of Arvid’s time is spent cycling around the coast and with a slightly older friend that he meets, Mogen. One time when they are at the almost deserted beach they see a young couple cavorting in what they think is privacy, this is a sexual awakening for young Arvid. He smokes for the first time. Death plays a role also, his uncle his recently died, and the death of his brother after living for just a few weeks plays heavily on his mind. His new friend is athletic and confident, Arvid is less so, with a shyness and perhaps degree of almost autism. As with Out Stealing Horses and his other work there are stand-out and memorable scenes for the reader as they are for the young person that have a powerful effect: meeting the bull in the field, fishing with Mogen, and meeting the girl on the beach for example.
Arvid reads as much as he can during his vacation. Pelle The Conqueror features highly – it also is a beautiful story, and another wonderful insight into Scandinavian history (either of the two movies I recommend as well as the book).
This novella is powerful stuff and shows how much an author can cram into 100 or so pages, though I think twice that would have made it even more so.
It is the story of a 12 year old boy’s summer holiday on the Danish coast. He is a Norwegian of Italian descent and arrives with his family by yacht. It is easy to identify with, as many of us will have had similar holidays when we were 12 – and in that respect it is a coming of age story, a memorable and significant two weeks in a young boy’s life.
This is what Pettersen does so well. During the two weeks much of Arvid’s time is spent cycling around the coast and with a slightly older friend that he meets, Mogen. One time when they are at the almost deserted beach they see a young couple cavorting in what they think is privacy, this is a sexual awakening for young Arvid. He smokes for the first time. Death plays a role also, his uncle his recently died, and the death of his brother after living for just a few weeks plays heavily on his mind. His new friend is athletic and confident, Arvid is less so, with a shyness and perhaps degree of almost autism. As with Out Stealing Horses and his other work there are stand-out and memorable scenes for the reader as they are for the young person that have a powerful effect: meeting the bull in the field, fishing with Mogen, and meeting the girl on the beach for example.
Arvid reads as much as he can during his vacation. Pelle The Conqueror features highly – it also is a beautiful story, and another wonderful insight into Scandinavian history (either of the two movies I recommend as well as the book).
This novella is powerful stuff and shows how much an author can cram into 100 or so pages, though I think twice that would have made it even more so.
August 6, 2025
The quiet realization that childhood is ending. I can smell the ocean.
Read
October 20, 2025I love reading about afternoons so stormy the streetlights come on; it must trigger something buried deeply in memory. This 120-page novella takes place entirely on the Danish mainland, and since Per Pettersen wrote it, there’s plenty of thrillingly gloomy weather. But also things a little less familiar to me, like sunrise at 3am, catching cod while fishing off the beach and weird family dynamics where the room is filled with explosive tension but nobody’s willing to address it.
Pettersen doesn’t waste a lot of time figuring out a cast. As far as I can tell, every book he’s published is about a kid or childish adult named Arvid, closely interacting with Mother. In this book, Father and an older sister feature as well, and there’s a grandfather who may be the source of the sinister backstory nobody wants to talk about. Both Grandmother/Grandfather and Mother/Father have lost a son, but nobody wants to talk about that, either.
As with the other books, there’s something wrong with twelve-year-old Arvid. Maybe he’s mildly autistic, or suffering PTSD. Although he’s Norwegian, Mother comes from Denmark and they’re revisiting Mother’s old town throughout the course of the story. He makes a friend, but at this age, there’s always the danger that friendships will be threatened by a blossoming interest in girls. And his older sister, his protector, may be distracted by crushes of her own. Arvid’s already fragile sense of self-worth gets thrashed pretty severely in this book.
Of course, nobody wants to talk about it.
Pettersen doesn’t waste a lot of time figuring out a cast. As far as I can tell, every book he’s published is about a kid or childish adult named Arvid, closely interacting with Mother. In this book, Father and an older sister feature as well, and there’s a grandfather who may be the source of the sinister backstory nobody wants to talk about. Both Grandmother/Grandfather and Mother/Father have lost a son, but nobody wants to talk about that, either.
As with the other books, there’s something wrong with twelve-year-old Arvid. Maybe he’s mildly autistic, or suffering PTSD. Although he’s Norwegian, Mother comes from Denmark and they’re revisiting Mother’s old town throughout the course of the story. He makes a friend, but at this age, there’s always the danger that friendships will be threatened by a blossoming interest in girls. And his older sister, his protector, may be distracted by crushes of her own. Arvid’s already fragile sense of self-worth gets thrashed pretty severely in this book.
Of course, nobody wants to talk about it.
November 5, 2022
I devoured this novella in a matter of hours. I love Per Petterson's writing. I fell hard for him when I first read I Curse the River to Time, and have enjoyed everything I've read from him since.
Echoland is Per's debut novel (and second book, following his story collection Ashes in my Mouth, Sand in My Shoes) but is newly translated into english and when I saw it at the bookstore, I knew I had to have it.
It follows Arvid as a 12 year old boy, vacationing with his family at his grandparents' house. He's curious and a bit rebellous and spends the time bicycling around the town with his friend Mogens, avoiding the odd tension between his mother and grandmother, and his mother and father. He fishes, swims, and smokes as he works through a range of new and confusing emotions.
Per handles language so poetically - we experience every moment, breathing the salty air, feeling the roughness of the sand on our skin, the pelting of the rain on our face, the vibrations of the bike's wheels against the road...
It's familiar and frustrating and fraut with tension and it's just so gosh darn gorgeous.
Echoland is Per's debut novel (and second book, following his story collection Ashes in my Mouth, Sand in My Shoes) but is newly translated into english and when I saw it at the bookstore, I knew I had to have it.
It follows Arvid as a 12 year old boy, vacationing with his family at his grandparents' house. He's curious and a bit rebellous and spends the time bicycling around the town with his friend Mogens, avoiding the odd tension between his mother and grandmother, and his mother and father. He fishes, swims, and smokes as he works through a range of new and confusing emotions.
Per handles language so poetically - we experience every moment, breathing the salty air, feeling the roughness of the sand on our skin, the pelting of the rain on our face, the vibrations of the bike's wheels against the road...
It's familiar and frustrating and fraut with tension and it's just so gosh darn gorgeous.
May 22, 2022
A beautiful, heartbreaking, and atmospheric novel, about Arvid, 12, coming of age, over a summer spent with his parents and older sister at his maternal grandparents' small home in Denmark.
March 30, 2021
I’m a huge fan of Per Petterson. This is his first novel, newly translated into English. As with many of his other books, at least my memory of his other books, the overriding sense is of a child finding his way in the world while the adults around him fall apart. Not a great deal happens across the novel. A boy goes on holiday with his parents, visiting his grandparents in a small coastal town, but like any childhood holiday it’s the little things that resonate. But it’s never too dramatic, and the sense of place is strong enough that it carries you along anyway.
I did find the ending slightly clumsy - or maybe I just misread it - but reading this novel made me want to go back to Petterson’s other books. The style creeps up on you and I’m keen to take it apart to find out how does it.
I did find the ending slightly clumsy - or maybe I just misread it - but reading this novel made me want to go back to Petterson’s other books. The style creeps up on you and I’m keen to take it apart to find out how does it.
December 24, 2020
Une découverte. J’ai acheté ce roman par hasard il y a un an. Un très bon écrivain pour une histoire plutôt triste sur la fin de l’innocence pour un jeune garçon norvégien d’origine italienne qui passe ses vacances en famille au Danemark. Une atmosphère typiquement scandinave comme je les aime avec cette famille parfois au bord du drame. Intense.
August 31, 2025
dansk sommerferieidyll med en lavmælt melankoli tilstede. en ung gutt som ikke forstår alt rundt seg, men erfarer at barndommen går mot slutten - og at det underkommuniserte presses fram
April 22, 2018
This short early piece by Petterson has only recently been made available to the Anglophone world. It reveals that the novelist's style and themes were already firmly established some three decades ago.
'Echoland' is rugged and poetic in the estimable Don Bartlett's translation. It's a coming-of-age piece about a twelve year-old boy and his experiences while holidaying with his grandparents in coastal Denmark. The relationships are all highly believable and touching. At its core is the changed dynamic between the protagonist and his friend when the friend begins to date the protagonist's sister. Surrounding this are his changing perceptions of the members of his family. The entire novella has the ring of truth about it and transports the older reader back to his own youth.
I read this novel while on holiday myself, and I suppose, you'd have to describe it as an ideal, none too taxing holiday read. And it lays the ground for weightier novels Petterson would come to write, later in his career.
'Echoland' is rugged and poetic in the estimable Don Bartlett's translation. It's a coming-of-age piece about a twelve year-old boy and his experiences while holidaying with his grandparents in coastal Denmark. The relationships are all highly believable and touching. At its core is the changed dynamic between the protagonist and his friend when the friend begins to date the protagonist's sister. Surrounding this are his changing perceptions of the members of his family. The entire novella has the ring of truth about it and transports the older reader back to his own youth.
I read this novel while on holiday myself, and I suppose, you'd have to describe it as an ideal, none too taxing holiday read. And it lays the ground for weightier novels Petterson would come to write, later in his career.
July 31, 2021
When I was reading this book I didn't understand what I am reading about. I had to literally check the back cover for the reviews. I have never been a 12-year-old boy, and couldn't grasp what's the point of this book. It was exactly as confusing as this time of someone's life is. I can see its genius now! It greatly aligns with observations of my 12-year-old family member's behaviour. I was looking for some kind of strong existential vibe because it's Petterson, but it was less clear to me, because I got confused with the 12-year-old perspective. Well done! Really cool idea.
July 4, 2018
As usual with Per Petterson not a lot really happens and you have to read between the lines quite a lot. This is his debut novel published originally in 1989 but only just recently published in English.
December 18, 2020
Gelezen in het Noors. We volgen opnieuw Arvid en zijn familie, deze keer tijdens een zomervakantie in Denemarken, wanneer Arvid als 12-jarige op de rand van de puberteit staat. Zoals altijd bij Petterson zit de kracht van het boek in de beschrijvingen van omgeving en persoonlijkheden en moet je veel tussen de regels kunnen lezen. Dat vind ik fijn, een boek mag tot nadenken stemmen. En er is veel om over na te denken want er zijn duidelijk spanningen in het Noors-Deense gezin, verwikkeld met gebeurtenissen uit het verleden. En het feit dat zijn grote zus aanpapt met zijn kameraad is ook een harde noot om te kraken. Een mooie verzameling momentopnames die het leven van een 12-jarige uit een arbeidersgezin weerspiegelen. Alle boeken uit de reeks tot nu toe zijn de moeite waard.
October 10, 2017
The coastal landscape comes alive in this set of linked stories about a 12-year-old boy who wakes up to the secrets and hypocrisy of his somber family. The images and feelings are vivid in a way I felt was true to childhood and early adolescence. I thought I knew where the story was going. I felt the ending was a cop-out.
July 9, 2017
Summer in Denmark is the setting. Beautiful sea, wide skies, beach, bikes, what's not to like?
If you are just twelve, a boy unsettled with his family, confused about changes with his feelings and body, it's maybe not so great.
Arvid and his mom, dad and sister go by boat to stay with his mom's parents for a holiday. This seems like an annual thing but there are underlying currents of tension between the adults, angers long buried, secrets and all this spills over making Arvid act out, and recklessly so.
Beautiful imagery, language, complicated characters.
Newly translated in 2016, but published in 1989, Echoland is still very much a theme that speaks to each of us.
Petterson is an engaging writer, so much so that while I was reading the book outside in our garden with the wind rustling the leaves of our maple tree, the images of the sea, gulls, boats, sand and brilliant sunshine so made me want to shut my eyes and enjoy the scene, maybe stretch out and take a short nap. Savour the moment.
I love this passage, page 20, 'Arvid and Mogens raced along the road by the beach. Arvid on his second-hand Swithun and Mogens on his standard black Danish boneshaker with the laughably small luggage rack. They stopped at the old kiosk and each bought a Giant Eskimo and pedalled on with one hand holding the ice cream and the other pointing to the sky, which was fine because the bikes themselves knew where they were going.'
As for Arvid's youthful angst, we all get it. The troubles in his family add a dangerous element to the mix, as we find out at the end.
A thoughtful read, one to skim back through and re-visit a couple of scenes and pages.
Poignant. Moving. A very, very good book.
If you are just twelve, a boy unsettled with his family, confused about changes with his feelings and body, it's maybe not so great.
Arvid and his mom, dad and sister go by boat to stay with his mom's parents for a holiday. This seems like an annual thing but there are underlying currents of tension between the adults, angers long buried, secrets and all this spills over making Arvid act out, and recklessly so.
Beautiful imagery, language, complicated characters.
Newly translated in 2016, but published in 1989, Echoland is still very much a theme that speaks to each of us.
Petterson is an engaging writer, so much so that while I was reading the book outside in our garden with the wind rustling the leaves of our maple tree, the images of the sea, gulls, boats, sand and brilliant sunshine so made me want to shut my eyes and enjoy the scene, maybe stretch out and take a short nap. Savour the moment.
I love this passage, page 20, 'Arvid and Mogens raced along the road by the beach. Arvid on his second-hand Swithun and Mogens on his standard black Danish boneshaker with the laughably small luggage rack. They stopped at the old kiosk and each bought a Giant Eskimo and pedalled on with one hand holding the ice cream and the other pointing to the sky, which was fine because the bikes themselves knew where they were going.'
As for Arvid's youthful angst, we all get it. The troubles in his family add a dangerous element to the mix, as we find out at the end.
A thoughtful read, one to skim back through and re-visit a couple of scenes and pages.
Poignant. Moving. A very, very good book.
July 5, 2020
One star I’m afraid and that’s only for the descriptions of Denmark’s coast.
June 11, 2025
'...a compelling mix of fable with the day-to-day account of a working-class boy, just about to turn 12, as he visits his maternal grandparents in Jutland. This is not surprising: the boy, Arvid, is steeped in old stories, especially Martin Andersen Nexø’s classic, Pelle the Conqueror (1906-10), whose hero is also the child of Danish migrants. Arvid’s inner life is built around a fantasy of his own heroic ancestor, a Neapolitan baker’s son who left his native city two generations earlier in order to build bridges and travel in the north. This dark-haired, dark-eyed Italian’s looks have been handed down through Arvid’s mother to Arvid, making him an exotic figure among his classmates and an adventurer-in-waiting in his own eyes. As the book opens, a new adventure has begun: having sailed across the sea to Denmark, Arvid is about to discover his true self, to declare his growing independence from his parents, and become someone who, as his frequent refrain states, can take care of himself...
'...For Arvid, everything around him – not just the people but the land and the sea, the animals, even the weather – becomes mysteriously and frighteningly more and more sexual. So much so that the reader shares the horror and fascination of the decisive encounter he has with a local woman on whom he had earlier spied while she was having sex with her boyfriend.
'...it is hard to think of a novel that so precisely and vividly conveys the pain and disorientation of puberty. As the book progresses, one’s apprehension becomes more and more acute, until it is close to unbearable. Even then, it is no preparation for what comes on the very last page, a dramatic turn of events that, even while it seems to have been inevitable all along, still hits the reader with all the force of a hammer blow.'
I couldn't resist quoting from the excellent review of this novel (see: : //www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/29...) because highlights themes and strengths I have found in this and other of Petterson's novels.
After reading this novel I made a totaally inadequate notation that it was lovely. It is but so much more.
'...For Arvid, everything around him – not just the people but the land and the sea, the animals, even the weather – becomes mysteriously and frighteningly more and more sexual. So much so that the reader shares the horror and fascination of the decisive encounter he has with a local woman on whom he had earlier spied while she was having sex with her boyfriend.
'...it is hard to think of a novel that so precisely and vividly conveys the pain and disorientation of puberty. As the book progresses, one’s apprehension becomes more and more acute, until it is close to unbearable. Even then, it is no preparation for what comes on the very last page, a dramatic turn of events that, even while it seems to have been inevitable all along, still hits the reader with all the force of a hammer blow.'
I couldn't resist quoting from the excellent review of this novel (see: : //www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/29...) because highlights themes and strengths I have found in this and other of Petterson's novels.
After reading this novel I made a totaally inadequate notation that it was lovely. It is but so much more.
December 26, 2016
I like Petterson's work a lot, and this, his first novel, has now been translated. It's a slight work in comparison to his later stuff, but it introduces many of the themes and landscapes that feature in that work. It's promising, and worth reading, but not the best introduction to his work.
September 1, 2018
This is the first novel by Per Petterson and has just come out in translation. Its not as good as his later books but is still an enjoyable read. It is a coming of age story of a young boy vacationing in Denmark.
September 5, 2022
The first half of this short novel felt like a conventional coming-of-age story. Avrid and his family are spending the summer in Denmark with his grandparents. His grandfather has a dairy and a carpenter's shop. His grandmother is very religious. Petterson paints an all-too-accurate look at being 12 - emotional rollercoasters, burgeoning adolescence, and a feeling of invincibility. Petterson was born in 1952, and it feels like much of Avrid's childhood is probably based on his own.
The theme that becomes more prevalent towards the second half of the book, and what makes it stand above similar stories, is the slow encroachment of history on youth. Avrid fantasizes about being Italian based on a long-ago ancestor and his inherited dark hair. But as he moves through the summer, he repeatedly finds himself adrift amongst adults who are carrying the weight of the past around with them. Petterson elegantly illustrates Avrid's growing understanding that the history that is passed down as family lore is usually romanticized, especially for the young. He is forced to question the veracity of these histories and finds the the adults themselves either won't share the truth or have been telling an altered version for so long they don't know the truth themselves. Yet, the repercussions are a very real force on all of their lives.
I'm glad I picked up this book on a whim from the library based on my positive remembrances of Out Stealing Horses. Petterson is a subtle and unique writer.
The theme that becomes more prevalent towards the second half of the book, and what makes it stand above similar stories, is the slow encroachment of history on youth. Avrid fantasizes about being Italian based on a long-ago ancestor and his inherited dark hair. But as he moves through the summer, he repeatedly finds himself adrift amongst adults who are carrying the weight of the past around with them. Petterson elegantly illustrates Avrid's growing understanding that the history that is passed down as family lore is usually romanticized, especially for the young. He is forced to question the veracity of these histories and finds the the adults themselves either won't share the truth or have been telling an altered version for so long they don't know the truth themselves. Yet, the repercussions are a very real force on all of their lives.
'When he died her life seemed so meaningless she had to console herself with the thought that it had been preordained and no one could have done anything. That's the way people think sometimes.'
'So it wasn't written in the stars then?' His hands were clammy and he kept wiping them up and down the thighs of his trousers. The denim felt stiff to his palms.
'Nothing is written in the stars, Avrid, except that we will die, not how and certainly not when, and what comes afterwards we can only guess.'
I'm glad I picked up this book on a whim from the library based on my positive remembrances of Out Stealing Horses. Petterson is a subtle and unique writer.
September 19, 2017
Echoland is Per Petterson’s first novel, published in 1989 in Norway, but not translated into English until now. It is the story of a twelve year old boy confronting adolescence and all the emotional and hormonal turbulence that goes with it, exacerbated by unexplained tensions within his family.
Petterson doesn’t write long books, but this one is shorter still at only 132 pages. Yet it has a powerful impact on the reader, partly because of what we recognise as Petterson’s trademark spare prose on display here in his first novel, but also because of the preoccupation with death and alienation. Arvid is on a beachside holiday with his family in Denmark, staying with his grandparents, but it is no idyll. There is friction of long standing between his mother and grandmother, and his father is drawn into it because he failed to offer the support that was needed when it was needed – and it’s too late now.
This author doesn’t make things explicit in his almost plotless books, but careful reading between the lines can bring some strands together. Arvid’s mother ‘went away’ without explanation as a young woman; and Arvid is noticeably not Norwegian in appearance. His Italian colouring provokes comment almost straight away when he meets and makes friends with Mogens, who turns out to be as much interested in Arvid’s older sister Gry as he is in Arvid. Perhaps the Italian genes are from the Neapolitan ancestor who in 1874 migrated to Norway, and perhaps they are not. What matters to Arvid is that they make him different, and different to his sister too, who has blonde hair and brown skin. Sometimes he embraces this difference, declaring to the stranger on the ferry that he’s Italian, and he sings the Italian song Come Prima about first love that is his mother’s constant refrain, but he doesn’t understand the words because he doesn’t know Italian. Sometimes he yearns to belong.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/09/19/e...
Petterson doesn’t write long books, but this one is shorter still at only 132 pages. Yet it has a powerful impact on the reader, partly because of what we recognise as Petterson’s trademark spare prose on display here in his first novel, but also because of the preoccupation with death and alienation. Arvid is on a beachside holiday with his family in Denmark, staying with his grandparents, but it is no idyll. There is friction of long standing between his mother and grandmother, and his father is drawn into it because he failed to offer the support that was needed when it was needed – and it’s too late now.
This author doesn’t make things explicit in his almost plotless books, but careful reading between the lines can bring some strands together. Arvid’s mother ‘went away’ without explanation as a young woman; and Arvid is noticeably not Norwegian in appearance. His Italian colouring provokes comment almost straight away when he meets and makes friends with Mogens, who turns out to be as much interested in Arvid’s older sister Gry as he is in Arvid. Perhaps the Italian genes are from the Neapolitan ancestor who in 1874 migrated to Norway, and perhaps they are not. What matters to Arvid is that they make him different, and different to his sister too, who has blonde hair and brown skin. Sometimes he embraces this difference, declaring to the stranger on the ferry that he’s Italian, and he sings the Italian song Come Prima about first love that is his mother’s constant refrain, but he doesn’t understand the words because he doesn’t know Italian. Sometimes he yearns to belong.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/09/19/e...
August 21, 2017
So I started this short read a few weeks ago, as some light reading when I needed a break from my summer reading, Conrad Black's history of Canada. I was speeding through it, and I had to remind myself to slow down and savour it. It's not that often one has the opportunity to read a book that takes place in the summer dunes of north Jutland. I really made an effort to take it in. It wasn't until the end that Petterson named Skagen and it's hard to get an exact date but my guess is the early '60s.
Petterson makes something of a big deal about the relationship between our main character, Arvid's mother, and her parents, but then he never fleshes it out. I'm not sure what was going on there. I understand Echoland was actually Petterson's first published book and that it's actually take 25+ years to be translated to English. I'm curious if as a more mature writer he would address that relationship differently now.
All in all, this was a beautiful novel about growing up in Scandinavia.
Petterson makes something of a big deal about the relationship between our main character, Arvid's mother, and her parents, but then he never fleshes it out. I'm not sure what was going on there. I understand Echoland was actually Petterson's first published book and that it's actually take 25+ years to be translated to English. I'm curious if as a more mature writer he would address that relationship differently now.
All in all, this was a beautiful novel about growing up in Scandinavia.
August 26, 2023
I was expecting more from this novel, which was a lot more "unarticulated" (as the blurb says) than I thought it was going to be.
It does capture that feeling of endless childhood summer and the pain & torment of transitioning from child to teenager, when you start to see the adults in your world and all the flaws and imperfections they come with. Patterson also channels the setting in a vivid yet simple way.
The biggest downfall is the lack of plot. Aimless, perhaps intentionally, nothing truly happens. Things happen around Arvid but don't transpire clearly, always beyond Arvid's reach, which is likely intentional and whilst it enhances the character development, I found it slightly isolating as a reader.
It does capture that feeling of endless childhood summer and the pain & torment of transitioning from child to teenager, when you start to see the adults in your world and all the flaws and imperfections they come with. Patterson also channels the setting in a vivid yet simple way.
The biggest downfall is the lack of plot. Aimless, perhaps intentionally, nothing truly happens. Things happen around Arvid but don't transpire clearly, always beyond Arvid's reach, which is likely intentional and whilst it enhances the character development, I found it slightly isolating as a reader.
October 28, 2017
I have to admit that I didn't enjoy this as much as other books I've read by Per Petterson. It seemed to be big on the feeling of nostalgia for family holidays in Denmark that I found hard to relate to, on a number of levels. However, there was still a sense of the spare, precise prose that drew me to Petterson's writing in his brilliant book 'Out Stealing Horses'. At the very least, it was useful to read, if only to experience Petterson's first book, and the earliest story featuring the character Arvid Jansen, who is a recurring character in Petterson's writing.
November 30, 2021
Fin, kort og præcis bog. Arvid er snart voksen. Eller. Han er 12 år. Og forstår nu, at der er noget at forstå, som han stadig ikke forstår. De voksne snart græder, snart raser. De har alt muligt på hinanden, og Arvid forstår det ikke. Da bedstefar fortæller, at han vogtede køer som barn, og varmede fødderne i kokasserne, vurderer Arvid, at det bare er noget bedstefar har læst i Pelle Erobreren. Han afslører den voksne. Men tager (vist) fejl. Arvid er stadig et barn. Ung og uskyldig. Og kan ikke gennemskue eller forstå. Snart er han på de skyldiges hold.
October 3, 2022
Sometimes you read a book by an author whose books seem well-regarded but you just can not get into them. This seems to be the case with me and Norwegian author's Per Petterson's works. This is his earliest book, but one only recently translated into English. The short book tells of a summer spent by twelve-year old Arvid and his family on the Danish coast with his Danish grandparents. The chapters are clearly written but did not too say very much. For me, I think I will give up on this author after being disappointed in too many of his books.
June 25, 2023
"Echoland" is a really intense book, a poignant and vivid representation of growing up amidst family-turmoil. Its plot could be summarised in just one line but what stands out are the 'moments' in the book. These moments dramatize subjects and experiences that disturb adolescents--freedom, sexuality, creative expression, death, inspiration and the like. The novel, of course, is meant for adults: meant for us to recognise what adolescence is and how it transforms us and persists within us even as we think we mature with the passage of time.
June 10, 2018
Similar to 'To Siberia' but much less of a novel - it almost feels like reading an early draft version. The descriptions of the Danish coast experienced over a lazy summer stand out for me. There isn't much of a story and none of the characters particularly jump out. It's an average read that can easily be completed in a day - I suppose it's a must read for Per Petterson fans. Take away the ridiculous chapter titles!
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