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Jernjomfruen: noveller
Dette er forfatterens debutbok. En novellesamling som med sin dramatiske nerve får en til å tenke på Edgar Allan Poe. novellenes innhold spenner fra de rent fabulerende til det meget konkrete problemet om hvordan teknifiseringen av kloden ødelegger muligheten for menneskelig utfoldelse. Samtidig hører fortellingene sammen ved at de beveger seg i grenselandet mellom det vi opplever, og det vi tror vi opplever. Et tema som går igjen, er problematikken liv - død - hevn, hvordan hevn ikke er noen løsning. Man vinner ingenting ved det, så lenge ondskapen lever videre.
Novellene kan ses som symboler på dypt psykologiske problemer, eller de kan leses som spennende fortellinger, fulle av fortettet dramatikk.
Novellene kan ses som symboler på dypt psykologiske problemer, eller de kan leses som spennende fortellinger, fulle av fortettet dramatikk.
128 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1971
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December 26, 2019There's not much horror fiction in Norwegian, so I was curious to check out this obscure 1971 collection whose title translates as 'The Iron Maiden' and refers to a legendarily horrible torture device from the Middle Ages. Both this book and its author appear totally obscure today, and it was with some difficulty I tracked down a copy of the book.
The nine stories in the book are mostly on the margins of the horror or fantastic genres. A bit of mostly spoiler-free info on each story follows.
'Den hvite skarven' ('The White Cormorant') is probably the best in the book. A foolhardy young sailor on the Irish coast ignores the warnings of the village drunk and sets sail out past Sybil Point. Of course he hits a storm and is shipwrecked. Washed ashore on a rocky island, he meets a beautiful woman, who might also be a white cormorant.
In 'Istid' ('Ice Age'), a father and his young son (apparently on the father's one visitation with his son per month) are spending the day in a park, closely watched by silent, statue-like sentries. The reason why the father and son meet so infrequently and why they are so closely watched is eventually revealed.
'Franz Kroll, ingeniør' ('Franz Kroll, Engineer') is an enjoyable story, though it felt like something we've seen many times before, probably on Alfred Hitchcock Presents or similar old programs. Franz and his wife are unhappily married. Intending to kill her later that evening, he takes her out for their final date, a miserable and unhappy dinner at a restaurant they've eaten at many times before. But when it comes time to do away with her, things taken an unexpected turn.
'Ruinen' ('The Ruin') is another good one that nonetheless feels like something one's read before. An artist sketching the ruins of an old castle meets a beautiful woman, who may or may not be real.
'Lesesalen' ('Reading Room'), the shortest piece in the book, is an odd sketch about students toiling away at their books in a university library. I didn't get it.
'Demone' left so little impression on me that I only read it a week or so ago and now cannot recall it.
'Villhestene' tells of an elderly man who becomes obsessed with a flock of wild horses that suddenly appear near his home. We learn that his wife fell tragically to her death some years earlier, leaving him all alone. But one of the horses, a black one, has a flowing black mane and dark eyes that remind him strangely of her....
'Sasj' is narrated by an old man in a nursing home, and it's not clear whether he's a reliable narrator. A fellow nursing home resident has been murdered with a hammer, and the police are clueless. Sasj confesses to the crime, but no one believes him, since he's a senile old man. Or is he?
The title story, 'Jernjomfruen' ('The Iron Maiden'), tells of a man whose daughter was murdered by a Nazi officer using a medieval torture device, the iron maiden. Now the war is over, he's waited ten years for revenge, and at last he may finally have his chance.
A somewhat frustrating collection, since most of the stories had an interesting premise and they were very well written; in the end, though, most of them took a turn that was predictable or else felt like the sort of thing we'd seen on old TV horror shows or read in old stories before. 'The White Cormorant', included in Andre Bjerke's important collection of Norwegian ghost and horror stories, is the best of the lot.
The nine stories in the book are mostly on the margins of the horror or fantastic genres. A bit of mostly spoiler-free info on each story follows.
'Den hvite skarven' ('The White Cormorant') is probably the best in the book. A foolhardy young sailor on the Irish coast ignores the warnings of the village drunk and sets sail out past Sybil Point. Of course he hits a storm and is shipwrecked. Washed ashore on a rocky island, he meets a beautiful woman, who might also be a white cormorant.
In 'Istid' ('Ice Age'), a father and his young son (apparently on the father's one visitation with his son per month) are spending the day in a park, closely watched by silent, statue-like sentries. The reason why the father and son meet so infrequently and why they are so closely watched is eventually revealed.
'Franz Kroll, ingeniør' ('Franz Kroll, Engineer') is an enjoyable story, though it felt like something we've seen many times before, probably on Alfred Hitchcock Presents or similar old programs. Franz and his wife are unhappily married. Intending to kill her later that evening, he takes her out for their final date, a miserable and unhappy dinner at a restaurant they've eaten at many times before. But when it comes time to do away with her, things taken an unexpected turn.
'Ruinen' ('The Ruin') is another good one that nonetheless feels like something one's read before. An artist sketching the ruins of an old castle meets a beautiful woman, who may or may not be real.
'Lesesalen' ('Reading Room'), the shortest piece in the book, is an odd sketch about students toiling away at their books in a university library. I didn't get it.
'Demone' left so little impression on me that I only read it a week or so ago and now cannot recall it.
'Villhestene' tells of an elderly man who becomes obsessed with a flock of wild horses that suddenly appear near his home. We learn that his wife fell tragically to her death some years earlier, leaving him all alone. But one of the horses, a black one, has a flowing black mane and dark eyes that remind him strangely of her....
'Sasj' is narrated by an old man in a nursing home, and it's not clear whether he's a reliable narrator. A fellow nursing home resident has been murdered with a hammer, and the police are clueless. Sasj confesses to the crime, but no one believes him, since he's a senile old man. Or is he?
The title story, 'Jernjomfruen' ('The Iron Maiden'), tells of a man whose daughter was murdered by a Nazi officer using a medieval torture device, the iron maiden. Now the war is over, he's waited ten years for revenge, and at last he may finally have his chance.
A somewhat frustrating collection, since most of the stories had an interesting premise and they were very well written; in the end, though, most of them took a turn that was predictable or else felt like the sort of thing we'd seen on old TV horror shows or read in old stories before. 'The White Cormorant', included in Andre Bjerke's important collection of Norwegian ghost and horror stories, is the best of the lot.
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