After the Sun

by Jonas Eika, Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg (Translator)

From a major new international voice, mesmerizing, inventive fiction that probes the tender places where human longings push through the cracks of a breaking world.

Under Canc�n's hard blue sky, a beach boy provides a canvas for tourists' desires, seeing deep into the world's underbelly. An enigmatic encounter in Copenhagen takes an IT consultant down a rabbit hole of speculation that proves more seductive than sex. The collapse of a love triangle in London leads to a dangerous, hypnotic addiction. In the Nevada desert, a grieving man tries to merge with an unearthly machine.

After the Sun opens portals to our newest realities, haunting the margins of a globalized world that's both saturated with yearning and brutally transactional. Infused with an irrepressible urgency, Eika's fiction seems to have conjured these far-flung characters and their encounters in a single breath. Juxtaposing startling beauty with grotesquery, balancing the hyperrealistic with the fantastical--"as though the worlds he describes are being viewed through an ultraviolet filter," in one Danish reviewer's words--he has invented new modes of storytelling for an era when the old ones no longer suffice.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Queer, Danish, Denmark, LGBT, Contemporary

208 pages, Hardcover

First published April 18, 2018

About the author

Jonas er en dansk forfatter. Han debuterede i 2015 med romanen Huset. Lageret. Marie på forlaget Lindhardt og Ringhof som han modtog Bodil og Jørgen Munch-Christensens debutantpris for. I 2019 modtog han bl.a. Blixenprisen for årets skønlitterære udgivelse samt Nordisk Råds litteraturpris for sin novellesamling Efter solen (forlaget Basilisk, 2018).

Reviews

[Henk · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting how this short story collection gets both International Booker Prize longlisting and Republic of Consciousness love, I definitely found it to be rather short of redeeming qualities, this being one of two books I gave 1 star in 2021.

Queer (but more weird than gay) is what most comes to mind as a moniker for this disjointed collection of short stories. Initially interesting, After The Sun soon turns near incomprehensible
He speaks to me and touches me like he’s trying to get closer and farther away from me at the same time.

After the Sun consists of several stories set in our modern times, ranging from Copenhagen to Cancun and Area 51. In tone it reminded me a bit of Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin, detached prose without much compassion for the topics of the narration. Many characters are queer or polyamorous or both. Relationships form the highlight of the book but for the rest I found not much to enjoy and I ended up rounding the 1.5 stars down. A major disappointment after the maybe equally weird, but definitely for me much more cohesive and just better working The Employees of Olga Ravn by the same publisher. In the end the author describes the feeling best:
I felt the kind of sadness that collapses in your belly when you realise the person you love and live with is lonely.

Alvin
A IT consultant who travels Europe to install systems at banks meets an unmoored heir who’s into derivatives trading after a freak accident involving the bank. There are glimpses of potential romance but the end is more unnerving and surreal than I’d expected.

Bad Mexican Dog
This is a wild story of a Cancun resort with magical boys who don’t just do sexual favors for their guests but the most wild gay group enchantment involving parasols to bring back someone to life that I have ever read. Deeply disturbing, with foot licking, dog play and extortion in less than 20 pages.

Rachel, Nevada
Move over Jeff VanderMeer, cause this story set in the vicinity of Area 51 and with an elderly man ensnared into an object feels very weird and visceral. Quite reminiscent to Olga Ravn her sentient rocks/aliens but with more blood and an alternative country singer involved.

Me, Rory and Aurora
A triangular relationship in a kind of neo-Victorian setting where scores of homeless people are being used to make computer chips while also being fed drugs. Very weird, maybe to capture the highs induced by the drugs that the narrator, and a pregnant women he lives with, takes, while the husband tries to fit as many homeless people as possible in their decrepit home.

Bad Mexican Dog - reprise
Some more scenes of boys tending to rich tourists in Cancun, engaging in anal sex with each other and turning into shrimps (or at least fucking with shrimp shells on dicks which is probably a metaphor on some kind of level which flew right over my head).
Missed opportunity to tie things together or to add some overarching meaning to the book.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Queer and provocative, this is a solid collection from Jonas Eika. Some of these stories are standouts. Mexican Dogs is a classic and Alvin, which appeared earlier in the New Yorker, is excellent as well. This seems to be a polarizing work, with some turned off by the sexual imagery, but I suspect the provocation is by design.

[Kai Spellmeier]

Sadly, what I love most about this book is that cover. The collected short stories, although gay and bizarre, didn’t touch me. The primary emotion was confusion. I have no idea what I just read.

Nach der Sonne von Jonas Eika ist im wahrsten Sinne ein einzigartiges Buch. Über eine Reihe von Kurzgeschichten hinweg erzählt es von menschlichen (und übermenschlichen) Beziehung und dem Wunsch nach Zugehörigkeit. Die Erzählungen haben etwas dystopisches was mich vage an Vandermeer erinnert. Auch einfach, weil alles so extrem bizarr ist. Und queer ist das ganze auch. Ich war von Anfang an ganz verzaubert von dem Cover aber leider hat sich das nicht so ganz auf den Inhalt übertragen. So faszinierend wie die Welten waren, die der Autor schuf, so abstrakt blieben sie auch. Jedes Mal wenn es Momente gab, in denen ich das Verlangen, die Einsamkeit oder andere Emotionen glaubte nachvollziehen zu können, nahmen die Erzählungen einen noch bizarreren Verlauf. Werd ich’s nochmal lesen? Eher nicht. Werd ich weiterhin das Cover anstarren? Absolut.

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[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize as well as the 2022 Republic of Consciousness Prize.

This is the English language translation (by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg) of a multi award winning Danish short-story collection written by Jonas Eika, a politically provocative wunderkind in Nordic literature. It was simultaneously published by Riverhead (part of the might Penguin Random House) in the US and by Lolli Editions (very much a small press) in the UK.

Lolli (who achieved an early success with the 2021 International Booker shortlisting of Olga Ravn’s “The Employees” aim to “publish contemporary fiction that challenges existing ideas and breathes new life into the novel form by [introducing] …. to English-language readers some of the most innovative writers that speak to our shared culture in new and compelling ways, from Europe and beyond” – and this book seems to fit their core aim perfectly.

The book is actually a collection of four comparatively lengthy short stories (well five in the index but one is split over two parts making it more of a novella). In outline these are:

Alvin: very much the highlight of the book and published as a short story in the prestigious New Yorker - a part surreal, part parody but very distinctive and powerful exploration of the amorality and gamification of commodity trading and the indestructibly of banks even after they have seemingly destroyed both themselves and wreaked havoc on society

Me, Rory and Aurora: the second best of the stories set in run-down London and featuring a previously homeless girl Casey who has added herself in a threesome relationship with Rory and Aurora who live in a run-down flat and survive on soup that Rory makes from stolen ingredients (and often serves to other homeless people he invites back) and on money Aurora makes from selling recreational drugs to recovering addicts at a rather bizarre church and rehab centre in Stratford – the book taking a rather ridiculous turn at the end.

Bad Mexican Dog: the two part story, each part of which has two strands – the story starts promisingly as a tale of beach boys serving wealthy tourists on a Cancun beach interleaved with tales of a blackmail scam that is played on some of the tourists; however it quickly veers off into (and largely remains in) rather naïve attempts at transgressive provocation with rather absurd scenes involving jellyfish, shells and parasol shafts.

Rachel, Nevada: a tale which I think started with the interesting idea to write a story set in the UFOlogists favourite Area 51 and to mix the idea of aliens with that of alienation from society but which I think ends up largely incomprehensible as I am not sure that the author really ever worked out where he was trying to end his story once he started it. In some cases I am not really sure the author knew how he intended to end individual paragraphs or sentences once he started them.

Much of this stylistic issue is I had is I think both a deliberate artistic choice and one which is very much integrated with the author’s wider purpose of addressing marginalisation directly, in an interview he said “Because of a strong, minimalist tradition here in Scandinavia, writing short stories comes with the expectation of a certain kind of moderation, which I wanted to go against. I wanted each story to contain many different genres, temperaments, digressions, and perspectives, and to sometimes push the periphery into the center, for example by suddenly focusing on a minor character or a side story. It was also about insisting—narratively and at the sentence level—of a potential for transformation in the midst of very bleak and oppressive circumstances”

Some of the writing reminded me a little of Murakami in the way in which the author aims to make the ostensibly bizarre, surreal or dream like parts of the story a real and valid to the protagonists as the more familiar elements. I think Murakami succeeds much better in bringing the reader into that sense of equality between apparent fantasy recognised reality and also avoids the need for deliberate but aimless transgressive writing – having said that Eika’s writing at its best is much better at examining and confronting real power dynamics and exclusion in society.

There is something which is at the same time both admirably provocative but also predictably familiar about Eika’s politics - seen in his acceptance speech for the prestigious Nordic Literature Prize in 2019 (see here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6kCj...) and I think also mirrored in much of his writing here (perhaps dare I say even in the green dyed hair he wore in several interviews about this book). His targets (banks and particularly financial traders, the excesses of capitalism and free market economies, rich tourists distorting other countries’s economists, western societies in general, anti-immigration politicians) are both necessary and yet rather easy. At times I was reminded of a Danish Owen Jones and at others of a more immigration/inequality focused Greta Thunberg (the extent to which you regard those as compliments or criticisms or somewhere between I will leave as an exercise for the reader).

I was also not sure at all how I felt about his right to appropriate the stories of others. For example ultimately his story set in London perpetuates many harmful stereotypes of impoverished and homeless people as well as those that aim to assist them – and I have my doubts if the author really knows any of the homeless in England or has spent time with them or with those who try to help them via drop in centres and shelters.

I am in two minds about the book – the author is clearly one to follow and whose transgressive provocation here will interest many readers, the UK publisher is an admirable one also, so for some readers spending the £12.99 to buy the book from the publisher will be a good investment.

I think for many though in the UK a much wiser course would be to read the New Yorker version of Alvin (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...) and for the next month buy a copy each week of The Big Issue – the engagement with the societal issues ,the representation of the voices of the homeless and dare I say the writing is generally of much better standard.

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Longlisted for the 2022 Republic of Consciousness Prize
Longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize

“Derivatives” no longer referred only to the future value of a sack of flour or a ton of rice, but to anything: the price indexes of raw materials, interest-rate differentials, exchange rates, credit scores of entire corporations and nations, obviously all in the future. And they were cross‑linked and interwoven and resold in large bundles, “future on future,” Alvin said, handing me a paper towel. “Forget about the forces of the free market, my friend. Commodity prices no longer refer to any value, past or present—they’re just ghosts from the future.”

After the Sun is Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg’s translation of Jonas Elka’s Danish original Efter Solen, a collection of 5 (or arguably 4) stories.

This is the latest novel from the exciting small independent press Lolli Editions, shortlisted for the International Booker in 2021 for The Employees. They specialise (although not exclusively) in translations from the Danish and their mission in their own words:

We publish contemporary fiction that challenges existing ideas and breathes new life into the novel form. Our aim is to introduce to English-language readers some of the most innovative writers that speak to our shared culture in new and compelling ways, from Europe and beyond.

The original collection won the highly prestigious Nordic Council Literature Prize in 2019. The judges’ citation referred to Elka as a:

young author whose collection of short stories has surprised and enthralled the jury with its global perspective, its sensual and imaginative language, and its ability to speak about contemporary political challenges without the reader feeling in any way directed to a certain place.

Eika writes about a recognizable reality, regardless of whether we’re in Copenhagen, Mexico, or Nevada, and whether we’re among financial speculators, homeless boys, or people who believe in aliens.

There is a real sense of poetic magic. Reality opens into other possibilities; other dimensions. There is something wonderful and hopeful in it that reminds us how literature can do more than just mirror what we already know.

That poetic magic extends not just to the settings of the stories but also the language, which, in Hellberg’s translation as, I believe, the original, is at times disconcertingly offbeat. As Elka explained to the New Yorker (https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-...

I always try to work a subtle strangeness, or even ineptitude, into my writing, even when it’s quite literary, and Sherilyn picked up on that.

The collection is bookended by two stories, or rather one split into two parts, “Bad Mexican Dog.” It is narrated by a 15 year old beachboy, one who claims to have worked in Morocco and France among other countries, but is now working at an establishment in Cancun, serving the wealthy tourists who come seeking the sun and then, as he observes to a colleague, doing their best to avoid it with parasols, sunshades etc.

I read this on a day of thunderstorms in Barbados where we carried-on on the beach as if the sun were still beating down, so this rather struck home:

There's a sweet, heavy, electric smell of thunder and sweat. There's a time, between when the rain appears in the clouds and when it hits their bodies, that the guests refuse to believe it. They're still lying there, in 24 rows of 20, with glossy tanned stomachs and sunglasses on because they've paid to lie in the sun. The drops fall and prick the sand dark, shattered by the plastic of the beach chairs, multi-plying, impossible to tell apart from the sea and the sky and the beach. The guests cling to the shafts of their parasols, but the white fabric is quickly soaked and dripping. 'Parasols look ridiculous without the sun,' Jia says, laughing. 'They're completely beside themselves.' The guests look in our direction for help, but when it's raining we're supposed to leave them to themselves.

But this is far from a conventional satire of modern tourism. The narrator is involved in an involved scam with two tourists (the story also includes a section from their perspective), essentially filming them humiliating him, that gives the stories their name, and the beach boys have their own elaborate ceremony that explains the title of the overall collection:

When we were done getting dressed, our shells on dicks ribbed and prickling in spines of jelly on the sandy ground, we went down to the beach carrying buckets of living water. Black sky and sand illuminated by the reddish glow of the beach chairs, which had absorbed the sun's rays in their grid-work. In the sand we dug a circular basin a little larger than a parasol and filled it up with living water: dim orange, viscous, full of milky eggs with veins. It was steaming in the cool air. Around the basin we planted four parasols upside down in the sand, twisting them down into the viscous layers. The shafts protruding a hand's length above the sand, we greased them with after-sun before we lowered ourselves to straddle them. We threw a beach chair into the basin and sang:

After the sun, after the sun / things are beside themselves / quiet, futile, set free / into the unknown life we're asking about / Why does the vulture always start with the eyes? / Which sides of you didn't we see / beach chair, after-sun, Para-sun / making the best of the things that are / after the sun, after the sun ...

Dawn is coming: a dim light-blue shimmer that merges with the earth's shadow, the dark sky. The earth is turning a new side to the sun, but slowly, reluctantly, doubting. It isn't morning.

Alvin is set in Copenhagen and the world of financial derivatives (see the opening quote). The narrator, Danish but living in Spain, returns to the city to install an operating system at a bank only to find it has literally collapsed - the building sinking into the ground. Bereft of accommodation (he was supposed to stay onsite) the narrator is taken home by the eponymous Alvin, an independent derivatives trader and market manipulator. The fascinating story later takes them to Romania.

Me, Rory and Aurora has the narrator as the third person in a relationship between a couple living in a run-down and near future, East-end of London, dealing a type of recreational drug that they sell to addicts in rehab, one that enhances their appreciation of the religious services that provide an alternative to their life.

Vowels, that’s what we called those pills, because they softened you up and made you receptive, starting with a round feeling and a light in your mouth, your throat, your belly and so on, until your whole body was a glowing processor just waiting for data, which is probably why the City Church was the perfect market; affiliated with the rehab centre, it was full of addicts who had turned to God, or we’re trying to.

Rachel, Nevada is set in the real-life small town of that name, the nearest inhabited place to the highly classified USAF base Area 51 and hence a favourite of UFOlogists.

The narrator and his wife found themselves drawn to the area after both their daughters died of cancer. But the narrator has discovered an object he calls the Sender, one that seems to send signals to the native wildlife, and he decides on a drastic cause of action to merge it into his own body:

Suddenly his windpipe popped out of the wet flesh, distended and fluted with cartilage.

Feeling his own breathing flow against his index finger through a thin wall — combined with the almost electric pain in his severed nerve endings — filled him with an animate nausea, an appetite he hadn't felt since he was young. Wind passed through the open wound, thick as water. He raised his head and looked at the Sender, just like Fay and the others in the audience were looking at Karen Ruthio — how was a voice like that coming out of a seventy-nine-year-old woman? The scream was still a mystery to him, that dark, metallic tone that sounded like dissonance in itself, as if it were out of tune with the world. He hadn't been able to scream that scream since that day almost three years ago when it suddenly quivered inside his throat. Not because it was outside the range of his vocal cords, but because it was located somewhere in the depth between two frequencies, a secret gap that broke with the mathematical principles they had always followed. One day, almost a year ago, after screaming at the Sender for 111 hours, he squeezed himself between the mammals and laid his forehead against it. Through its outer, fungal layers he felt a weak vibration, deep and metallic like the scream, and suddenly knew that he needed to have some of it inside him. That the scream could only be produced by the specific composition of the Sender, which was both malleable and very hard.

Overall a powerful and unsettling collection and one that serves Lolli Editions brief to challenge conventional story telling. One to watch for the 2022 International Booker.

[Hugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2022
Longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2022

My final book from the Republic of Consciousness Prize is perhaps the strangest, another short story collection that sits between several disparate genres. Eika is clearly a bold and inventive writer, but for me the collection didn't really gel, and I will be surprised if it makes the shortlist.

[Mohammed Al-Thani · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure what Jonas Eika was trying to do with this short story collection. While his themes of alienation are explored in new ways of storytelling (which I appreciated); I literally had no idea what I was reading most of the time. The collections were very inconsistent and his writing style felt disorienting and frustrating to read. In one sentence, you're here and in the other, you're somewhere else. And just when the story is getting towards the end, it seems like it has just begun. While I do love abstract themes explored in any art medium, Eikas topics seem to be lost in translation. Rather than letting me think about what just happened, it made me think about how long I will get through this slog. I simply read this short story collection as it was longlisted for the international Booker prize 2022. The only good thing about it really was its short length and originality in its storytelling. Other than that, I don't blame the GoodReads median rating...

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading Jonas Eika's short stories is akin to watching a David Lynch movie: Something is not quite right, yet you know that this is fresh and different. Plus if you just accept what's going on, things make sense and there is some logic. Within these four ( well one story is divided into two parts) stories there are warped surreal moments with startingly realistic ones.

Opener Alvin is about a person who goes on a business trip and bumps into the titular Alvin and they strike a relationship, but then it goes into erotically platonic (see what I mean it sounds strange but that actually happens) territories, which then evolves into a satire of the financial world.

Bad Mexican Dog part one and two is about a beach boy in Cancún .Then things go awry involving white/orange liquids squirting all over the place. There's much more but it would be useless to describe all of it, as I'd rather the reader experience, yes one experiences, this story. One thing, be careful about shells!

Rachel, Nevada is about scientists studying UFO activity on animals. Maybe it's about human race being alienated by aliens?

The final story is Me. Rory and Aurora which is a surreal look at relationships.

As strange as these pieces may be, there is something innovative and different going on. Sure there are grey areas but then themes to emerge - societal problems, our love for materialism , the idea that we humans can escape but our nature does not let us be free. The term liminal spaces is apt for this collection.

Honestly there's nothing like this. I understand it is a cliché but, I honestly cannot find anything to compare these stories with. They exist in their own universe and I'm glad they do. I can see After the Sun getting different reactions from readers but I think if one just accepts all the weirdness then understanding what's happening is better.

[Anna Carina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moderne Kunst von der ich nichts verstehe und die mich nicht anspricht.
So grotesk die erste Story bereits war, hat diese mich dann noch am ehesten abgeholt. Vielleicht auch noch Teil 1 von Mexican Dog.
Erkenne den großen Bogen der gespannt wird und welche Themen hier besprochen werden sollen. Dafür gibt’s auch die 3⭐️
Allein vom subjektiven Geschmäckle, würde ich der Sammlung ehr 1,5-2⭐️ geben wollen.
Hier fehlte mir eindeutig die humoristische Seite, um die heftigen Bilder und transzendentalen Ablösungen auszugleichen.

[Jolanta (knygupė) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5*
Pirmas skaitinys iš šių metų Tarptautinio Bookerio.

[Hans Peter Madsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Efter en genlæsning har jeg anmeldt Efter solen mere udførligt her: https://pristjek.org/2020/12/04/jonas...

Oprindelig anmeldelse nedenfor:

De seneste år har jeg været en forkælet læser: Ca. hvert halve år har jeg læst en bog, der ikke bare er et mesterværk, men er så helt usigeligt god, at jeg ikke kan forestille mig andet, end at den kommer til at være blandt mine bedste venner resten af livet. De seneste ca. 2 år har det drejet sig om: Azorno af Inger Christensen, 100 års ensomhed af Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Pedro Paramo af Juan Rulfo, Hinkeleg af Julio Cortázar og nu (tror/håber jeg) Efter solen af Jonas Eika.
Gennemgående for min smag, tror jeg, er sproget og overraskelserne. Jeg vil forsvinde ind i de enkelte sætninger, genlæse og genlæse de bedste afsnit, og så vil jeg uventet og originalt trækkes ind i nogle følelser, jeg ikke havde set komme. Alt det leverer novellerne i Efter solen, og de gør det oven i købet alle sammen: Ingen af de fem noveller (eller rettere 4, hvor den ene er todelt) er under niveau i forhold til de andre - også selvom de gør vidt forskellige ting. Den første, "Alvin", er en stærkt Kafka-inspireret fortælling med noget på hjerte: Vores hovedperson skal til København for at sælge software til en bank, men møder i stedet den sært dragende Alvin, der introducerer ham for derivathandel - en slags betting, hvor man spiller på hvor meget specifikke varer vil koste på et tidspunkt i fremtiden. Hvor aktier gavner noget i økonomien, fordi man trods alt støtter et firma med kapital, er derivater den rene, kapitalistiske ondskab. Den kafkaske samfundskritik, som det absurde i disse ufattelige økonomiske sammenhænge resulterer i, pakkes ind i ualmindeligt smukt sprog. F.eks. denne beskrivelse af at stå i en menneskemængde:

"Jeg kunne mærke kropsvarmen, ikke kun fra dem der stod tættest på mig, men som en ensartet sky som alle i publikum producerede og var indeholdt i."

Novellen "Rachel, Nevada" er helt anderledes. Her er der vist ikke nogen videre samfundskritik, men nærmere en interesse for den amerikanske mytologi - stepperne, uendeligheden og konspirationsteorierne. Novellen foregår i den lille by Rachel, som ligger tæt på Area 51 og derfor er beboet fortrinsvis af UFO-jægere. Til fælles med "Alvin", og gennemgående for hele samlingen, har den en interesse for det absurde eller groteske og for fremtiden. Og så har de altså også det til fælles, at ikke kun handlingen er absurd, men sproget også er absurd godt:

"Antonios knogler forvitrede, sådan føltes det, som havde han ligget brak i den her basiske ørken siden sidste istid. Han gik med langsomme, afkortede skridt, omhyggelig med at løfte fødderne for ikke at falde over en sten eller rodnettet efter en udtørret saltbusk. Han knæ knasede og sendte en kalket smerte op i hofterne."

Det 'gode' er både i de vilde ord (forvitrede, udtørret saltbusk, kalket smerte), metaforerne (som havde han ligget brak i den her basiske ørken siden sidste istid, kalket smerte) og de rytmiske elementer, som her bogstavrimene (siden sidste istid, knæ knasede og sendte en kalket). Jeg seriøst elsker den her bog, men på en måde så det er lidt svært at beskrive uden bare at citere det hele. Derfor vil jeg prøve at skrive lidt om en sjov ting, jeg bemærkede:
Jonas Eika benytter sig af en del anglicismer, men det er ikke så meget ordsprog o.l. som f.eks. (skurrende og irriterende) hos Dorthe Nors, men mere engelsk syntaks. Her et eksempel:

"Dér var bjergene sorte i deres egne skygger, himlen over dem stadig orange mellem grålilla skyer, og bagved begyndte endnu en steppe flankeret af bjergkæder løbende parallelt fra nord mod syd."

På dansk ville denne sætning ende med "bjergkæder, der løb parallelt fra nord mod syd." Man kan ikke på dansk bruge en lang tillægsform på den måde, som Eika gør her med "løbende" - det kan man til gengæld på engelsk, og der gør man især meget, når man skriver. Eika låner den engelske sætningsstruktur og fordansker den og udvider dermed dansk med milliarder af nye muligheder for at kombinere ord. Til at starte med var jeg lidt forvirret over dette valg - lige netop denne struktur med den engelske brug af lang tillægsform bliver brugt nogle gange i løbet af bogen - men det giver god mening, at sproget låner fra engelsk: Novellerne er (inspireret af) science fiction, en meget amerikansk genre, er skrevet ind i en postmoderne tradition, der også er en nærmest udelukkende amerikansk ting, og flere af dem foregår enten i London, USA eller det for den amerikanske selvforståelse så vigtige Mexico. Den ene novelle, der når omkring Danmark, er egentlig mere international end dansk, og mange af novellerne tager udgangspunkt i ting, der er helt centrale for amerikanske myter, som Area 51 og konspirationsteorier. Novellerne foregår i en absurd, nær fremtid, hvor verden måske er lidt mere global og engelsk dermed sandsynligvis lidt mere dominerende - derfor er det da klart, at sproget også har udviklet sig ind i denne verden og indarbejdet lidt mere engelsk. Det er ret godt fundet på og fungerer det meste af tiden. Dog blev jeg irriteret over et enkelt eksempel:

"Hun ville stå og læne sig op ad muren ved siden af indgangen, støde fra med skuldrene og komme folk i møde som de ankom."

"Hun ville" er her afledt af "She would" og er i betydningen "Hun plejede". Men denne sætning har altså allerede en anden betydning på dansk: egentlig står der, at hun havde lyst til at stå og læne sig op ad muren, selvom det ikke er det, der menes. At på den måde ikke kun berige det danske sprog med nye mulige sætninger, men også udskifte allerede etablerede betydninger, synes jeg alligevel er at gå for langt i sin bestræbelse på fremtidsautencitet.
Men denne ene sætning er så også den eneste anke, jeg har ved hele bogen. Derudover er det en samling vilde og vildt velskrevne noveller, der bliver ved med at overraske både med, hvor gode de er i stand til at være, og hvor følelsesladet knitrende sproget kan blive. Efter solen er utvivlsomt en ny favorit.

http://endnuenbogblog.blogspot.com/

[Steffi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am so glad I discovered this collection of five short stories ‘After the Sun’ (original Danish Efter Solen, 2019) by Danish author Jonas Eika who has won the 2019 Nordic Council Literature Prize for this book. It’s one of those books that stays with you. If I had to come up with a definition for literature of the 21st century, I think it would be this (btw, I can’t get this recent news photo out of my mind with the yellow-dystopian sky over a stadium in California filled with a cardboard audience, somehow the book made a very similar impression). The stories are also so 21st century in a way that they are global but not written from the perspective of a white dude traveling the world but told from diverse perspectives such as a beach boy in Mexico and a homeless guy in the UK, etc. – a bunch of people united in their experience of deep, deep alienation and the luckier ones who have shitty jobs, exploitation. In this sense, it’s an anti-capitalist book without the traditional left-wing intellectual lingo, lecturing or aesthetics. Like capitalism, it gets you on a much deeper level, on the level of self, identity and your dreams and aspirations. It’s also thoroughly queer without any identity politics posturing. It’s so unlike the bourgeois novel crap written by, for and about white middle class people that usually dominates the literary prizes (awarded by the same bourgeois literary elite). Maybe the novel as a form is over, no longer able to capture this current globalized dystopia we are calling ‘reality’. The book once again showed me what literature can do and why it forever will be my favorite art form <3

[Tiemen Hageman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ongelooflijk origineel, verhalen die me nog lange tijd bij zullen blijven. Ook heel fijn sensueel en op momenten zelfs behoorlijk seksueel, op interessante wijze. Heel veel mooie, scherpe zinnen. Het absurdisme gaat me soms wel wat ver, waardoor ik het narratief uit het oog verlies, en me niet altijd meer duidelijk is wat ik aan het lezen ben. Deed me bij vlagen denken aan Yorgos Lanthimos; The Lobster had bij wijze van spreken zo een verhaal van Jonas Eika kunnen zijn. Gewoon heel goed, maar kost wel moeite.

Tweede lezing (haha kijk mij nou): gewoon steengoed. Dit boek is de afgelopen maanden een eigen leven gaan leiden in mijn hoofd dus ik vond het spannend om het weer te gaan lezen maar het maakte het helemaal waar. Ik begrijp alle kritiek, maar toch: dit is gewoon wat ik wil, elk boek zó.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm becoming increasingly suspicious of books that have reams of quotes showering praise upon them in the first few pages as well as the blurb. This is the latest occasion when I've found such a book disappointing. It's particularly surprising in this instance as blurb-praise came from two authors whose fiction I've really enjoyed: Marlon James and Lidia Yuknavitch. After the Sun is a collection of interconnected short stories translated from Danish. It's not clear to me why it was shelved with science fiction in the library, as I'd say the weird elements are more fantastical or supernatural. Unfortunately, I don't think they were used very well. The first story intrigued me a little, although it seemed to meander pointlessly, because it literalised the destructiveness of financial capitalism. The other stories had a seed of something interesting, then veered in puzzling and underwhelming directions. There is body horror, but it isn't visceral enough to be memorable; there is queerness but it isn't explored in any impactful way; there are social issues but nothing notable is said about them. I found that the stories just didn't amount to much, which is a pity.

[Neil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I came to this book because of its inclusion on the 2022 Republic of Consciousness long list. As that is a prize for Small Presses, it’s appropriate to begin with a word about the publisher.

Lolli Editions is a London-based publisher. Their website says ”We publish contemporary fiction that challenges existing ideas and breathes new life into the novel form. Our aim is to introduce to English-language readers some of the most innovative writers that speak to our shared culture in new and compelling ways, from Europe and beyond.

This is my third book from Lolli Editions, having previously read New Passengers and The Dolls courtesy of my “The Republic of Consciousness Book of the Month” subscription. This one can’t breathe new life into the novel form because it isn’t a novel. That said, it does contain a lot of unconventional storytelling. As a general rule, I am a fan of unconventional storytelling. However, I have to confess that I couldn’t really make this one work for me.

This is a short story collection consisting of 4 stories with one of those stories split into two sections. For me, the highlight of the book is the opening story, Alvin, which tells the tale of a man arriving in a city to work at a bank only to discover that the bank has, literally in this case, collapsed. In the aftermath of that he meets another man and they together delve into the world of derivatives. It’s a sort of parody, I think, but it contains several surreal moments, including its ending.

After that excellent opening, I found the book went down hill and there wasn’t really another story I enjoyed. Perhaps “Me, Rory and Aurora” came closest to rescuing my experience of reading the book, but I think I have to just face up to the fact that it isn’t my kind of book. The stars in my rating are for Alvin.

[Matthew Ted · Rating 1 out of 5]

108th book of 2022.

Never a bad thing when the most fun I had with this book was on page 3 when the narrator of the first story takes the metro to Kongens Nytorv. And this was only fun because of the happy recognition of the metro stop. Last month when I was in Copenhagen, I took the metro every morning from Norreport to Kongens Nytorv. Sadly, my fun with this Danish novelist ended with the first story (which, on the whole, I thought was OK). The rest? Quite honestly, when I put the book down, I had no idea what I'd read. Two of the stories are both titled the same and deal with beach boys helping clients. As with the other stories though, there's a lot of surrealism and abstraction. There are paragraphs like,

In the pentagon around the hole, we plant five parasols upside down in the sand, twist them down into the viscous layers. The last three inches of the shafts sticking out of the sand we grease with after-sun before getting on our knees and letting our arseholes slide slowly down around them.

And,

Then it's night and he pushes me headfirst into the pool in front of the bench in the changing room. Seawater steams orange, comes up to the middle of my thighs. It's thick and living with the jellyfish blobs we've been filling it up with day after day; they've fused with each other and the salt: little, veined whitish eggs bulging in clusters. I'm on all fours in front of Manu, who's on his knees, feeding me the living water, shovelling it into my ass with his hand. The sun is inside me now because the sun sets in the ocean. Then he shows me a transparent, hollow shrimp shell he found on the beach, sticks his hand into his swim trunks and pulls out his long, thin dick. 'Do you want to?' he asks, nodding, and I nod too, and he twists the head off the shell and softens the rest in the living water. It fits snug around his dick except for the legs dangling from its base. I let myself float in the pool with my back arched and my ass in the air, let myself relax inside and feel him slide in: a ribbed and prickling sensation in the slime and cold. Through the hole in the wall, the sun makes a column of light in the water. He moves inside me, my spine turns to jelly. I can feel the eggs inside it: we're throbbing at the base of the spine, wandering slowly through the abdomen. Squirt of thick white juice, first Manu inside me and then me with eggs in the sun lands on the sandy ground. We make the best of what we've got.

And frankly I don't understand it at all.

[John Hatley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting collection of short stories about a wide variety of people--from beach boys in Mexico to traders in derivatives, and three people trying to become a family. In sometimes almost surrealistic ways, they all try to come to terms with the world they live in.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was one of the more forgettable reading experiences I've ever had; the fact that I didn't even think to log this on Goodreads as soon as I finished it says it all.

[Darryl Suite · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can’t give this five stars because I strongly disliked most of the story “Rachel, Nevada.” I can’t give this two or three stars because I can’t stop thinking about the other stories. I’m giving it four stars because the writing was phenomenal and I full-on loved two of the stories: “Alvin” and “Me, Rory, and Aurora.” To be honest, I found this collection fascinating even though it was frustrating and “nonsensical” a lot of the time. This writer intrigues me.

[Thomas Svane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Feberdrømme forklædt som noveller. Helt afsindigt godt skrevet - jeg forstod hvad der skete cirka halvfjerds procent af tiden, så det er akkurat som det skal være.

[iva° · Rating 3 out of 5]

uvrnuto i ne posve razumljivo.
jonas ima nešto za ispričati i čini to kako njemu paše. nekonvencionalan tekst, nešto kao sf, a opet nije; nešto kao drama, a opet nije; erotika? ne baš. ljubavna priča? nije ni to....
izvan zadanih i očekivanih okvira, bez ili s malo autocenzure, nije za konzervativce ni za one slabijih želuca.
*** za hrabrost i otvorenost.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was strange, provocative, sometimes incomprehensible and so fascinating!

[Arno Vlierberghe · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Na de zon, na de zon / is alles buiten zichzelf / stil, nutteloos, vrijgelaten / in het onbekende leven waar we naar vragen / Waarom begint de gier altijd bij de ogen? / Welke kanten van jullie hebben we niet gezien / ligstoelen, aftersun, Para-zon / maken er het beste van / na de zon, na de zon..."

Jonas Eika is een verrijking. Smerig en teder, speels als een geile hond, een papercut die je pas uren na het lezen voelt branden en ontsteken.

[Buchstabenträumerin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Im Grunde fehlen mir die Worte zu „Nach der Sonne“ von Jonas Eika, der 2019 für seinen Erzählband den renommierten Literaturpreis des Nordischen Rates erhielt. Er gilt als Shooting-Star in Dänemark und wird für sein queeres, sinnliches, bizarres und teils brutales Werk gefeiert. Ich war unendlich neugierig auf dieses Buch, nur um nun vor lauter Fragezeichen zu stehen. Mir wollte sich einfach nicht erschließen, worum es in Eikas Geschichten geht. Was ist die Aussage? Teils erschloss sich mir noch nicht einmal die Handlung vollständig. Zu verworren, unverständlich und verrückt ist sie. Dennoch möchte ich „Nach der Sonne“ nicht unbesprochen lassen, denn wer weiß, vielleicht ist es für den ein oder anderen von euch gerade wegen seiner bizarren Natur genau das Richtige.

In der ersten Erzählung „Alvin“ reist der Erzähler nach Kopenhagen, um die Implementierung eines Systems in einer Bank zu beaufsichtigen. Dummerweise ist die Bank in einem Loch in der Erde verschwunden, die Gründe dafür werden nicht genannt. Auch die Überraschung des Erzählers hält sich in Grenzen. Stattdessen geht er etwas Essen und lernt dabei Alvin kennen, einen nach Ekalyptus duftenden jungen Mann, der Handel mit Derivaten betreibt. „Du musst lernen, dir die Waren als etwas vorzustellen, was es schon vorher gibt. Wie wenn du dich auf etwas freust. Sobald die Vorstellung von einer Sache auf dem Markt ist, wirkt sie, und dann wird in der Zukunft, in der die Sache verkauft werden soll, eine Kanalisation angelegt, die in die Zeit zurückführt, zurück zu uns.“ Nächte- und tagelang handeln die beiden nun zusammen, zwischendurch herrscht eine sexuell aufgeladene Stimmung, dann beschreibt der Autor das Duscherlebnis mit einem offenbar sensationell angenehmen Shampoo namens „aroma therapy: stress relief“. Warum, fragte ich mich immer wieder. Was anfangs noch verständlich ist, wird zunehmend verworren und undurchsichtig. Bis die Hauptfigur am Ende von Alvin verlassen einen Eingang in die im Boden versunkene Bank findet, er durch Tunnel krabbelt und dabei in Ecken und Nischen gezwängt die Mitarbeiter arbeiten sieht, als sei nichts geschehen.

Bei der zweiten Geschichte „Bad Mexican Dog“ handelt es sich um die längste Erzählung, die in zwei Teile geteilt auch den Abschluss des Buches bildet. Darin arbeitet ein Junge als Beach Boy, er kümmert sich um die Gäste eines Clubs, cremt sie ein, bringt Getränke und wedelt den Sonnenanbetern Luft zu. Ein spannendes Szenario, das sich jedoch auch schnell in absurden Szenen verliert, beispielsweise wenn die Beach Boys in einem Bassin „voller kleiner, quallenähnlicher Kleckse“ baden, die „wie lebendes Wasser darin herumschwimmen“ und später einen erschlagenen Freund mit einem äußerst merkwürdigen Ritual wieder zum Leben erwecken. Sexuell aufgeladen ist die Erzählung außerdem, was insgesamt für mich eine vollkommene Reizüberflutung darstellte.

In „Rachel, Nevada“ geht es um ein Ehepaar, das den Tod der beiden Töchter verarbeitet. Sie zogen um, in einen kleinen Ort nahe dem Areal 51, um neu anzufangen. Doch während sich die Frau in Aktivitäten stürzt und die Gesellschaft anderer Menschen braucht, zieht sich Antonio in seiner Einsamkeit zurück. Auch hier ist das Ausgangsszenario sehr ansprechend, doch wieder wird die Erzählung derart skurril, dass mich der Autor verlor. Denn Antonio entdeckt einen metallisches Objekt, einen von Pilzen bewachsen Sender, um den sich Tiere scharen und der irgendetwas in ihm zum Klingen bringt. Er spürt eine Sehnsucht in sich aufkeimen, ein Teil dieses Senders zu werden und greift letzten Ende zum Skalpell.

In der letzten Erzählung geht es um ein junges Mädchen ohne eigenes Zuhause, das bei einem Paar Unterschlupf findet und mit ihnen eine Beziehung eingeht. Die Frau, Aurora, verdient Geld durch den Verkauf von Drogen, Rory ist Hausmann und kümmert sich um Obdachlose und Bedürftige. Diese Geschichte konnte mich im Gegensatz zu den anderen gleich zu Beginn schon nicht packen. Ich fand keinen Zugang, weder zu den Figuren noch zu der Handlung. Hier fühlte sich alles zu schrecklich „kaputt“ an, als das ich mich darin hätte hineindenken können und wollen.

Was nehme ich aus „Nach der Sonne“ von Jonas Eika mit? Es ist, als hätte jede Erzählung eine Metaebene, die jegliche Grenzen von Realität, üblichen Normen und Zeit sprengt. Das für sich genommen finde ich unglaublich spannend. Allerdings ist die Entfernung von dem, was realistisch und im gängigen Sinne „möglich“ ist in diesen Erzählungen und für meinen Geschmack so groß, dass ich abgehängt wurde. Die Worte ergaben in meinem Kopf keinen Sinn. Alles erschien mir wie ein großes Mysterium und der Zugang dazu war mir verwehrt. Einzig gegen Ende des zweiten Teils von „Bad Mexican Dog“ gibt es eine Stelle, einen Gedanken, der mich bewegt hat und den ich abschließend teilen möchte: „Alle Dinge sind lächerlich ohne die Sonne. Schattenlose Gegenstände unter freiem Himmel, durchleuchtet und verurteilt zu einem dunklen Leben auf dem Sand, in der Haut, unter dem Meer.“

„Nach der Sonne“ von Jonas Eika ist ein Erzählband, der fünf seltsame und bizarre Geschichten enthält, deren Sinn sich mir weitestgehend nicht erschloss. Der Autor bewegt sich abseits von jeglichen realistischen Ebenen, seine Geschichten verflüssigen sich, formen sich neu, werden zu etwas gänzlich Unterwartetem. An sich ein unglaublich spannendes Konzept, für das ich allerdings nicht die richtige Leserin war.

[Ernst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sehr kreativ, hat mich total fasziniert, der Autor war noch keine 30 und schreibt mit solcher Übersicht, Eindringlichkeit, Feingespuer und Präzision. Und was ich an vielen Debüts schätze kommt hier voll zur Geltung: man merkt dass sich der Autor um jeden einzelnen Satz bemüht und daran feilt, bis er genau passt.
Ich hoffe von Jonas Eika in Zukunft noch mehr lesen zu können.

[Mette Rønne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hvad giver man til denne dystopiske novellesamling, der er nomineret til Nordisk Råds litteraturpris i år? På kanten mellem realisme og sci-fi bevæger novellerne sig rundt i mystiske miljøer, man normalt ikke hører om i litteraturen - som fx. hos de mexikanske beach boys, der servicerer de vestlige turister om dagen, men som om natten laver okkulte, seksuelle ritualer med hinanden - og til sidst nærmest transformeres til at blive rejer??!? Eller det ældre ægtepar, der langt ude i ørkenen i Nevada forsøger at komme sig over deres døtres død ved hhv. at melde sig ind i den lokale ufo-forening og at gå ud i ørkenen, hvor man skærer sin hals op og sætter en slags fløjte ind i hullet for på den måde at smelte sammen med en "sender", der måske/måske ikke tilhører et objekt fra det ydre rum, og som nu er helt pelset af de dyr, der omringer den.

Måske har novellerne en dybde, jeg ikke forstår, men jeg fandt novellerne tunge og uigennemtrængelige. Simpelthen for "mystiske", for uden for nogen genre. Fantasy er ok, sci-fi er ok, men denne bog befinder sig et tredje sted, som jeg åbenbart ikke helt forstår....

[Torsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sehr interessanter Band mit Kurzgeschichten von bis zu 40 Seiten Länge. Die Themen sind die aktuell akuten Probleme unserer Zeit (Umweltzerstörung, Ausbeutung, Massentourismus etc.) und damit weitgefächert. Der Autor ist laut Kurzbiographie auch als politischer Aktivist tätig, was man dem Buch durch die Themen auch anmerkt. Dabei ist es aber so gut geschrieben, dass eine solche politische Agenda nie zu offensichtlich ist. Der Autor stellt eher fest und beschreibt die Umstände, die Beurteilung ergibt sich durch den Leser. Teilweise sehr surreal und fantastisch. Ein Einfluss von zB. William S. Burroughs ist erkennbar und wird im kurzen Nachwort des Autors auch bestätigt.

Ein feines Stück Literatur. Bitte mehr davon.

[ivana · Rating 4 out of 5]

he went where he went and he certainly reached there

*reread for a final essay

[Gregory Duke · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

My Booker International Prize 2022 journey begins!!!

As invigorating as it is annoying, After the Sun poses a unique dilemma of being technically fascinating and formalistically idiosyncratic while also being not particularly good. Eika's language is the star for me. How Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg translated this is beyond me. It has such a consistent heft of density to the point that I struggled to get through certain sentences, even though they read beautifully. I had to think about a moment of resurrection as enacted by putting parasols in boys' asses for quite a while to imagine how this function beyond the provocative. The stories as narratives collapsed for me except for the first ("Alvin"), because, when it comes to the other stories, I do not feel like I get any of it. I read the narratives, but they dissipate like wafted dreams. I think it's super fun that this was included on the Booker International longlist though. It's super unique and challenging and, as the judges must do, would probably benefit from rereading that I shan't partake in.

[Khai Jian (KJ) · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Derivatives” no longer referred only to the future value of a sack of flour or a ton of rice, but to anything: the price indexes of raw materials, interest-rate differentials, exchange rates, credit scores of entire corporations and nations, obviously all in the future. And they were cross‑linked and interwoven and resold in large bundles, “future on future,” Alvin said, handing me a paper towel. “Forget about the forces of the free market, my friend. Commodity prices no longer refer to any value, past or present—they’re just ghosts from the future.”

After the Sun (translated from Danish by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg) is a collection of 4 genre-defying stories, blending science fiction, surrealism, satire, dystopian, and absurdism. Unlike most of the short story collections out there, these 4 stories employed a very distinctive style, or rather, a very distinctive voice offered by Jonas Eika. They tackle some challenging themes such as capitalism, classism, atomization of society. They are strange, distorted, and at times, poetic and innovative. Due to its strangeness and distinctiveness, After the Sun attracted some polarized reviews but since I am one who feels excited when I encounter books with unique writing or ideas, I am impressed with this debut collection.

The first story "Alvin" follows the narrator who goes on a business trip and met Alvin, a derivatives trader. Both of them developed a rather platonic relationship and Alvin introduced the narrator to the world of the advanced capitalist economy. "Bad Mexican Dog" (a story that is split into 2) follows a 15-year-old beachboy who works in Cancun serving wealthy tourists. A romantic relationship bloomed between the beachboy and his colleague, Manuel. He was then involved in a scam devised by his boss whereby he intentionally allowed 2 tourists to humiliate him and thereafter, the tourists were blackmailed by the video which duly recorded such acts. The uniqueness of this story lies in the narrative structure whereby the story was told from the perspective of the beachboy as well as the 2 tourists. "Rachel, Nevada" is a heartbreaking one for me. The story follows the narrator and wife who moved to a small town called Rachel, Nevada after their daughter passed away due to cancer. His wife was obsessed with the presence of UFO, but when the narrator encountered a foreign object called 'the Sender', the narrator decided to merge himself with the Sender in order to cope with his grief and painful loss of his daughter. The last story, "Me, Rory and Aurora", examines an open relationship involving 3 people whereby they are supplying drugs, called Vowels, to addicts in rehab. All the characters in these stories showed how intimate Jonas Eika can be when he is fleshing out his characters. Jonas Eika's writing is truly one of a kind and I would love to see his take on a full blown novel! A solid 4/5 star from me, and a worthy longlistee for the 2022 International Booker Prize and Republic of Consciousness Prize!