Der endlose Sommer

by Madame Nielsen

Et knippe skjebner ført sammen på et landsted på Fyn er utgangspunktet for denne fortellingen som arresterer tiden, kjærligheten og sommerens gylne, stille øyeblikk. Her møter vi den vakre aristokratiske moren og hennes altoverskyggende kjærlighet, og ikke minst den spede, vare gutten som skal bli fortelleren av denne historien om ”Den endeløse sommeren” og de mange liv som skjebnen vevde sammen i sitt nett på ”den hvite gården”. Den endeløse sommeren er Madame Nielsen (f.1963) sin første bok på Pelikanen forlag.

Genres: Fiction, Denmark, Scandinavian Literature, LGBT, Contemporary, Romance, Queer

192 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2014

About the author

This is a pseudonym for Claus Beck-Nielsen.

Reviews

[Joseph Schreiber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This swirling, circular narrative is a filmic requiem for that time, out of time when all is possible. Love, sexuality, gender, art and lost dreams are at the centre of this tale of a group of people bound together through blood, love, friendship, and even coincidence in an "endless summer" that exists perhaps, only in the memory of the young boy looking back at it from his/her old age. That, for now, is all I can say about this unusual, captivating novel. A formal, critical review will emerge, in time, at The Quarterly Conversation. Update: that review is now online at http://quarterlyconversation.com/the-...

[Cherise Wolas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A sensuous elegiac reflection of time, love, hate, hedonism, gender, sexuality, art and death, structured around the lives of a Danish family (aristocratic mother, her teenage daughter, the jealous stepfather, the two young sons they have together) their friends and lovers, taking place in "the endless summer" but capturing the past, present, and the future of these mostly unnamed characters. The narrator is the teenage daughter's lover, a young slender boy who is perhaps a girl but does not know it yet, and indeed narrates as an old woman. This is a novel of tone, language, mood, movement, and texture. Long dreamy sentences, mostly unnamed characters, and incredibly compelling.

[Stephen P(who no longer can participate due to illness) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The reader, caught in the mist of elegant yet sparse writing as time, space, gender, swirls around; sometimes within paragraphs, sentences. Done so quietly that the reader is experiencing what is only described, extolled upon, mentioned, in other books. Asking a writer to place all these elements together and have the blend return something aesthetically blissful and profoundly meaningful, is asking too much. Yet, here it is accomplished. Therefore a read which everyone should be entitled to, and meet a new world on the written page.

[Michael Kent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kept waiting for it to feel brilliant but never quite got there... characters were at so distant a remove that I struggled to empathize with them... atmospheric and at times beautiful prose that floats too much, so we never feel grounded in a coherent story... but maybe that’s the point, that life is a dream, and this story is the narrator’s attempt “to retrieve what was, even the tiniest little thing that has been lost... call it forth and tell it so it... becomes real and in a way more real than anything else,” my favorite passage in the novel...

[Cristian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got carried away by a mysterious swirl, but more than often landed in a pretentious swamp. It oscillated. I wanted to hate it (couldn't do), then wanted to love it (couldn't either). Then I lost interest.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinerende og forførende roman. Nielsen er en stor stilist.

[Anna Catharina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wie ein Fluss mäandert das Buch dahin. Verzweigt sich und fließt wieder zusammen. Verirrt sich im Dickicht und findet zum Strom zurück. Die endlosen Schachtelsätze fand ich anfangs mühsam, aber wenn man mit seinem Boot sich im Sprachfluss treiben lässt, kommt man doch gut mit. Die Personen haben mich aber kolossal verwirrt. Kaum Namen, nur immer "der Junge" (von den Jungen gab es definitiv zu viele, die konnte ich nie auseinander halten), "das Mädchen" und "die Mutter" (die auch die Mutter genannt wurde, wo sie keine Mutter war) und in welchem Verhältnis nun wer zu wem stand, habe ich nie durchschaut.

[Bill Hsu · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's hard for me to turn down a book that starts:

The young boy, who is perhaps a girl, but does not yet know it. The young boy, who is perhaps a girl, but will never touch a man, never strip naked with a man and rub skin against his skin, never ever, no matter how titillatingly repellant the notion might be.

And there is some beautiful writing throughout. But the multipage paragraphs relate mostly mundane domestic details rather than skin rubbing or lack thereof. Sorry.

[Catalina Estrella · Rating 4 out of 5]

127 páginas de una narración increíble.
Eso es lo primero que tengo que decir. Antes de hablar de la historia en sí es necesario contextualizar el libro bajo una escritura particular que responde también en parte a la figura de su autora, artista y activista Madame Nielsen quien el 2001 mediante una performance enterró la identidad que mantuvo por cuatro décadas: Claus Beck-Nielsen nacido en Dinamarca el año 1963.

Desde las primeras líneas hay una voz narrativa que te lleva por una especie de flujo de la memoria. Las primeras páginas de El verano infinito no tienen prácticamente puntuación, hay una sumatoria enorme de ideas, de sucesos, de recuerdos a los que vamos a volver a asistir durante la novela.
Me impresionó mucho cómo el recurso del caos y la corriente de las conciencia acá funciona perfecto porque como lectores somos asistidos a lo largo del relato, vamos retomando hilos narrativos que finalmente entrelazan una historia que se completa desde distintos recuerdos.

La novela es de cierta manera ese retrato juvenil, un recuerdo de verano en la piel. El relato se sitúa en un hogar, una casa en el campo que terminará siendo el espacio que habitan diferentes personajes que dan forma a la narración. Allí se desarrollará la historia de un chico que conoce a una chica, cuya vida está marcada por la tensión que se vive en ese hogar entre su madre y su padrastro. La historia se construirá en base al momento en que ese vínculo se termina con la salida del cuadro familiar de esa figura masculina negativa y violenta encarnada en el padrastro de la chica. Esta ausencia abre las posibilidades para todos y lo cotidiano se transforma.

A lo largo del texto hay muchas marcas de un futuro que ya ocurrió, una sensación de destino duro e ineludible. Estamos asistiendo a una historia que aún no termina de contarse pero que la voz narrativa ya sitúa en un destino duro, lleno promesas de juventud suspendidas en el aire.

Eso es el verano infinito, ese momento que viene después del impulso juvenil, exactamente después de la descarga de energía, ese momento cubierto de una luz que enceguece, un brillo al que ningún otro momento se le compara. Justo era esa la sensación que tenía cuando me planteé esta idea, es posible hacer del verano un momento infinito, y qué tan positivo es buscar siempre ese estado sin pasar por todos los demás.

“(...) pero si no hay nada, ¿qué podría haber? un campo es un campo, el hechizo se rompe y comienza el viejo mundo, pero el viejo mundo no debe comenzar, nosotros nos quedamos en el «verano infinito», que, como el paraíso, es ese lugar que nunca ha existido y al que nunca se puede regresar, solo en el cuento, y todos los días son el primero (...)”


Partí esta lectura pensando en que el verano infinito era esa sensación de un calor estático, esa hora de la tarde donde no pasa nada, esa fracción de espacio donde la temperatura se mantiene alta y constante, el momento de pausa que en vacaciones parece eterno, y este libro era exactamente lo contrario, jamás hubo tregua, me mantuvo al borde del asiento y se sintió tan rápido que me faltó tiempo viviendo la lectura. No es lo que cuenta, sino cómo lo hace.
Al terminar El verano infinito me quedé con esa melancolía por el recuerdo de la juventud, ese momento qué pasa tan rápido y al que parece siempre queremos volver sin aceptar la dureza de su naturaleza fugaz.

[Lena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andra boken med tema SOMMAR.

Faschinerande.

"Det börjar med en kille, en ung kille som kanske är en tjej,
men ännu inte vet om det."
"...vi stannar kvar i 'den oändliga sommaren' som, liksom
paradiset, är platsen som aldrig har funnits och man aldrig
kan återvända till, bara i föreställningen, och varje dag är
den första, den sista och alltid densamma..."
"Av jord är du kommen, jord skall du åter bli, av ord skall du
återuppstå."

[Caroline]

Well written. Enjoying it but due at the library. Other hight priorities right now; I may get back to it.

[Beth Bonini · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is not the bite in the apple that makes the Fall. It is the idea of a life after this one-and-only now.

This rhapsodising, meandering flight-of-fancy of a book is loosely a romance. Not so much a romance between two people - although that is meant to be the nucleus of the story - but really a romance of the imagination. It’s about that one season when emotion and beauty align; a time so intense that an end to it seems inconceivable; and in some sense, it does endure as a forever golden memory (a sort of nostalgic touchstone which never loses its potency).

If you can enter into the mood of the book, it does have its moments of pleasure. But if insubstantial characters, no plot whatsoever, and a total lack of organising guideposts (no chapters, for one thing) bother you enormously, I would skip it.

This was a cover/title buy from Foyle’s in London. I was also seduced by the Danish author, as I had just returned from Copenhagen without managing to find a book (translated into English) which appealed to me.

[June · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poignant and atmospheric look at the moment in life when everything is possible. The book slip-slides like crazy through time, which I loved. The rather ‘distant’ voice of the narration sometimes grated but overall it developed a cadence that I found haunting.

[L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish this book had made us feel the "endless summer" more than just kept talking around and about it. It was a pod, but we weren't allowed into it.

[Rogue Male · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

„Der endlose Sommer“ fühlt sich an, wie wenn man an einem heissen Sommertag der auf dem Wasser flimmernden Sonne zuschaut. Wie wenn man im Schatten eines Baumes einschläft und träumt

[Io · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful, Woolfian novel narrated by an apparent Danish Transwoman in late life looking back on a moment of great freedom at the end of their teen years when staying with a friend who's conservative, abusive stepfather moves out leading to an 'Endless Summer.' I loved this book for the quality of it's prose and the rich detail of it's life stories, but honestly many of the reflections found therein could be quite brutal, particularly towards the once promising young people (her peers) who went through various traumas or developed mental illness that hampered their progress in life. For instance in the following quote:

"...The here and now, which for her was not one moment but a flow into the boundless world by which she was absorbed and inhabited and with which she formed and was a synthesis, just like she was also her wickedly messy bedroom and her presence in “the endless summer” at the farmhouse, as if that was it, and the future would never arrive, a feature most people who met her found charming and enviable and a feature “we could all really learn from,” whereupon they returned to the world and time and all the things that had to be accomplished, and got themselves educations and partners and children and first a supply job and later a permanent job, which after a few years they left in favor of a different and more challenging job and a different and more dynamic partner, something and someone to keep them in motion and carry them forward and perhaps many years later they might meet her again quite by chance on the street and see that she is still exactly the same, someone who time and then the future have passed by, so the luxuriance they had found seductive twenty years ago is now just blurry and shapeless, not luxuriant, but shamelessly (or helplessly) overweight, just like the life in the still dancing eyes, which makes them shudder and look at their cell phones and say how nice to see you and we’ll have to get together one of these days, I’ve really got to be going, bye for now! and turn their back on her and vanish around the corner with the frisson of shame and relief that remains when, for a brief moment, you have come face to face with self-delusion and become aware that it is the worst, far worse than your own treachery."

While there is a level of truth, there is also abundant harshness and talk of body sizes; and this judgemental undertone persists even when describing a young man who died of aids in the 80's as having 'given up' or being 'too lazy' to fight, as if it was really attitude that decided which very few survivors made it into the the mid-90's when treatment was available. Perhaps that feeling of limitless potential in youth really was a mirage, and not everyone was going to go on to lead functional, fulfilled lives, but not just because they were all lazy idiots.

[dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

my shelftalker at my bookstore is:
an unsettling daydream, like falling asleep on top of the sheets and waking up just after the sun has set to an empty blue world-- the endless summer is never and forever, the romantic and feverish crux of this almost-cautionary tale of an almost-family giving themselves up to pointlessness.

but i also wish i could convey the way this book is sensual all the way through but spooky at the same time, it does such incredible things with time that totally mirror the way our brains romanticise and rewrite experiences, theres hardly anything mythical about a family lazing about for a summer but nielsen makes us believe that there's something destined, archetypal, and life-changingly important about the particular brand of nothingness they fall into. what a dream

[Julia Alberino · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kept waiting for this book to live up to the hype in the letter that was sent to me from the publisher when I got my copy. Unfortunately, for me, it never did. I was bored. I've noted before that I did not read the book in Danish, but in the excellent translation by Gaye Kynoch. Goodreads finally let me switch to this edition for my list. On the plus side, some of the characters (the mother; the boy who might be a girl; Lars) are interesting and I kept reading to find to what would happen to them. In my opinion, the author tried to do too much in too few pages and it was sometimes hard to keep track of whose story was being told at which time. The book has been well-reviewed, so I guess it just wasn't my kind of novel.

[M.L.H · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Der endlose Sommer" ist die vielleicht beste Erzählung aus 2018, weil der Erzählstil, der aus Monstersätzen besteht, die sich rhythmisch über mehrere Seiten schlängeln, den Leser in einen rauschhaften Zustand versetzt und der keineswegs so außergewöhnlichen Story mitsamt ihren Figuren ein mythisches Licht einhaucht, wie man es selten erlebt.
Keine Frage; Madame Nielsens "endloser Sommer" besitzt die sprachliche Kraft und die Sogwirkung eines Patrick Süßkindes.

[Kalyani Raghunath · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh my god. Where do I start? Is it the lack of basic punctuation marks? Dialogues? Clarity in characters, yes, I understand this is a different style of writing. But there has to be a basic link to a storyline? So many repetitions of the same old title. I pushed myself to read up until half of the book. And I give up. Gave up.

[LisaMarie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Usually "ethereal quality " would have mostly good connotations for me, but this just felt gauzy and intangible. Couldn't get much sense of story.

[13 · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5
not for pea-brains :(

[Katie]

Dazzlingly atmospheric, The Endless Summer exists in an effusive haze that is neither here nor there, neither past nor present. Its characters are distant, yet fascinating, the plot simultaneously uninteresting and enticing. As the synopsis claims, the novel "gathers a sense of longing, a slight nostalgia for times that ache with possibility." A terribly nostalgic person, I felt captivated by the aesthetics of this story -- much more so than by the arguably unremarkable plot.

Nielsen's style is experimental in a way that I have rarely seen executed well. It creates an undeniable distance between the story and its readers and demands unwavering attention to detail in order to be understood. Truly, Nielsen does not provide any crutches: Characters do not have names, and their descriptions are so bland yet specific that missing one will leave the reader disoriented for the rest of the novel. Additionally, the story is only semi-linear, and tangents occur so frequently and unexpectedly that the reader must not get distracted for fear they might lose track of the plot. It has been a long time since a book made me wonder so intensely what it might have been had it been written by a different author. Not better, certainly, but so unimaginably different that the thought alone emphasises Nielsen's unique approach.

I cannot in good conscience say that I enjoyed this book, but I would argue that enjoyment was not the author's aim in the first place. Consequently, I'll forgo a rating.

[Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nielsen's prose is evocative and sensual, capturing the intensity of their passion and the intoxicating allure of youth. The novel explores the complexities of their relationship, including the power dynamics, the cultural differences, and the inevitable challenges that arise from their age gap.

A recurring motif in the novel is the passage of time and the inevitability of loss. Nielsen uses the metaphor of the endless summer to symbolize the fleeting nature of youth and the desire to hold onto moments of joy and fulfillment. The characters grapple with the realization that life is finite and that the beauty of youth is ephemeral. The Endless Summer also touches on themes of identity and sexuality. The novel explores the ways in which individuals find themselves and their place in the world. The young artist's journey of self-discovery is particularly poignant, as he navigates his sexuality and grapples with societal expectations.

Nielsen's writing is characterized by its lyrical beauty and evocative imagery. The novel's prose is rich and sensuous, drawing the reader into the world she has created. Her use of language is masterful, and she is able to convey complex emotions and ideas with great subtlety and nuance. Nielsen's prose is evocative and sensual, and the characters are richly drawn and unforgettable. The novel is a meditation on the fleeting nature of youth and the enduring power of human connection.

[Mike Wojciechowski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fever dream-ish. Shows a command of language that will stick with me for a while.

[Rick Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this, but it was so intangible and made of vapor that I had a hard time connecting.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tragic story of relationships and time passing by, with failed attempts at self-realisation perceived as discovery.

[Anne Stumpenberg Huszar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hørt som lydbog.

[Justus · Rating 4 out of 5]

With a title like this and an opening sentence that goes "The young boy, who is perhaps a girl, but does not yet know it" and you can be forgiven for thinking this is going to be a transgender teenage summer-love coming of age story.

It's not that.

It wasn't that long again that I railed about "literary" books that think extremely long sentences and paragraphs along with little or no dialogue are a key ingredient to Literature, so it is somewhat surprising how much I liked this, given that Madame Nielsen often does the same (though, not to quite the same extent as in Old Rendering Plant).

And the day passes, as the day always passes, the mother goes out to her horse (somewhat later than usual), the little brothers play, argue, fight, the four youngsters laze about

The setup: a single mother and her teenage daughter and two younger sons. A new boyfriend moves in with them. The neighbor boy/childhood friend is there constantly. Two hitchhikers (from Spain?) who end up staying there for weeks. A crowded house of, what is that?, eight people over the summer none of whom really do anything.

But the whole book is really just an excuse to get brief life stories of all the people -- these eight and several of those they come in contact with -- who meet during this "endless summer". What holds all of them together is the recurring theme of missed potential in one's life.

The boy who is maybe a girl ... but spends his whole life unsure. The husband who inherits a fortune and squanders by mismanaging the vast, country estate he buys. The mother who has a brief summer fling of incredible passion ... that ends in them separating for no real good reason. The nextdoor neighbor golden boy -- handsome, smart, charismatic -- who is so full of ennui that even he's dying of AIDS he doesn't really mind.

He can’t be bothered, he stays up by the house, all that exertion, first you have to get there, then get back.

What makes all this work for me is that each of these little life stories is small enough to be touching without wearing out its welcome. In another, different, book the author would have the cut the cast of characters in half but tripled the page count and worn us down with tedious details of these lives.

Then he’s never loved me? Yes, said the mother, of course he has, and that’s why he won’t see you. I don’t understand, said the girl. No, said the mother, people are like that. Then I don’t want to be like people! said the girl.

One flaw is the characters are always kept at a bit of a remove. It sometimes veers close to just being a bloodless biography of the characters -- you can see some reviews felt it went too far in that direction and they never connected with any of the characters. I didn't connect either but I'm not sure "connecting" was the goal. "Summer" movies & books are always about the limitless possibilities of summer, of youth, of the future. Madame Nielsen gives us a taste of that but also gives us a dozen stories of that potential never amounting to much. Usually nothing terrible mind you. An artist who never lives up to his youthful promise is hardly the end of the world. But the whole book evokes a bittersweet feeling of what might have been.

he yet again feels that inexpressible relief when something, the ultimate, the most sublime, has for a moment been possible, when all you have to do is reach out but you didn’t, and now it is definitively too late, and everything will again just be the same life, which never begins